#26 Flight School Scams and Why I don't Want Your Block Discount Money

Most flight schools are owned by hard working people that want to do well for you, provide you a service, pay their bills and make a little money at the end of the day. I'm Kenny Keller, Helicopter Island Ground school. I want to talk about this subject today. I've been getting this question quite a bit. Flight scams, flight schools, parents, people losing their money. I first want to reiterate how I opened the video. I do want to hear your feedback down below what you've experienced, what you think is acceptable, not acceptable, what's been done. The average flight school are normally owned by good hard working people that are trying to provide you a service. They want to see you get your rating, they want to help you, they want to fly, they want to have some fun and they want to own a school. Okay? So with that being said, are there scams out there? I'm sure there probably are, but with any product or service in the world, are there scams? I don't think scams are really, I don't think they're real prevalent in the helicopter industry. Okay. Not saying there isn't one. I think my opinion, what happens a lot of the time when somebody loses their money at a flight school, the owners didn't intend on stealing your money. Usually a helicopter flight school is struggling to pay the bills. They've got high insurance, they've got high payments, they've got maintenance, they've got employees, they have hangar fees, they got fuel. Man, it is hard to operate a helicopter flight school, okay? They're expensive and it's especially for a small operator. And I'm going to give you an example of myself here just shortly of how it took me a while to pay back some people who put money on account. So most generally flight schools aren't out to rip you off. Okay? They're honest, good, hard working people that want you to get your rating. Are there some scrupulous characters out there? Of course. Again, like any product or service, there's always going to be scams. There's always going to be people they're trying to steal from you. That's our world we live in, okay? It's not just helicopter industry that could be anywhere. What I want you to think about is I'm going to give you myself an example and I, you know, there have been a long time that I really wouldn't want to talk about this, but I can talk about it now because I've worked so hard paying everybody back that I owed money to. After running a flight school, I was a small one man one operation. And here's what happens. Using me for an example. Someone wants to put some money on account and you go, hey, oh yeah, well, I got. I need to make some helicopter payments. They give you some money, you go make your payments and then whatever, something falls through, they can't continue the training, they have a problem with their medical whatever, and you're like, oh man, I just made helicopter payments with that money. And most schools are operating and you can give them your money safely. But what about the small operators or larger operators that are going up there? They're trying hard, they're working hard, they're trying to pay the bills. And when somebody offers them block time, oh, that looks good, you know, hey, I can make some helicopter payments. They could take your money, totally intended on providing you the service. And then something falls through, something happens. Or let's say you put a big chunk of money on account. What if their business account gets hacked and the money that you just paid them goes off to somebody who just stole from them? You know, that's a possibility. So flight schools most generally aren't trying to rip you off. They're not running scams on you. A lot of times businesses go out, okay? And small helicopter companies, I've watched it for 20 years, it's very common that they go out of business, okay? Most guys are working hard, they're trying. They have a dream. They want to run a flight school. They're not out trying to steal from you. They're just trying to pay the bills in hopes that someday it's going to be a profitable business for them. And at the same time, they can fly, have fun. You know, say they've owned an aircraft. Most people intentions are good, which takes me to block time. People ask me about block time, Kenny, should I buy block time? I've done it and I won't do it anymore. Okay, as now we do flight training. We are primarily helicopter online ground school with a link down below for helicopterground.com Our main business is online. We teach people knowledge. We do fly with our members. We fly because we want to. We fly because it's a service. We fly because we want to be current and go have fun. We don't make our living off a helicopter anymore. Sad to say. It's very hard to make a living flying a helicopter. Another story for another day. So with block time now, I don't want your block time money. You know, I'm not going to give you a discount. I'm not going to offer you block time. Our rules now are you fly at the end of the day, you pay, works good for everybody, right? Because you don't have to worry about money on account. Your payment comes through, we make sure that the bank, whether it's a check or goes through credit card processing, boom, there's the money. Make sure it all clears, everything's good, everybody's happy. You wait and say, bill a person at the end of the week, a person can be good for it. But then that check gets held up, waiting for that check to clear from somebody out of state. Meanwhile, there's an owner of the aircraft wanting paid or there's some other thing going on. So for me personally, I don't like block time. And I don't, I don't do it anymore. I've done it. And when I was going under, operating a helicopter company, honestly trying to provide a service, I wanted my own, fulfill my dream of owning a helicopter and making a business go. I had one guy who flies for me now. Nothing against him, but when times were tough, you know, another flight school guy said, oh, well, hey, you know, desperate times, desperate measures, sell your buddy, you know, some discount time. I sold NSTROM helicopter time so cheap that every time this student was out, I was losing money. It was taking money out of my pocket because I needed to generate some money real fast, make some helicopter payments. And I'm like, hey, dude, can you, you want to buy another two grand worth of light time? I'll sell it to you at this much, like cheap. That's a short term fix, that's a band aid. I go make my helicopter payment, that's $2,000. Then as he continues to fly, what happens when the helicopter breaks? So on, so forth. So I, I hurt myself selling block time. So years later, I don't want block time, I don't want your money. Block time. At the end of the day, pay me, you go home, I go home, everybody's happy, payment clears, come back, you fly again the next day. So when people ask me, well, should I buy block time? Well, look at the company. There's plenty of companies out there who, you know, I'm thinking of one guy in general who's been in business 30 years, you know, guru in the industry. I know you're never going to get cheated by that particular individual, the one that's on my mind. What about mom and pop? Flight school at point A again, legitimately, can be working their butts off trying to make their company go. And you put money on account and something bad happens beyond their control. And then Boom, you lost your money. So I'm not saying don't buy block time. I'm not saying that. Don't get me wrong and don't argue with me on this. There are reputable companies out there that you can give your money to and buy block time. And yes, you can save money for my intents and purposes, just to make it easy. I don't do it. I don't want your block time. I want you to pay as you go so I can. That money comes through, then I pay the aircraft owners, we pay fuel, we, you know, take care of our expenses. At the end of the day, we all have homes to, you know, pay for and our livelihoods to look for. So I don't want to be screwed out of my money any worse than anybody else does. And flight school owner can be legitimately trying to help you and in turn screwing themselves in the end, something bad happening. So that's kind of down and dirty, but that's the way I feel about it. I want to hear your comments down below one more time. There are plenty of reputable flight schools out there. Okay? I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with block time. Do your research, be careful. You know, how reputable is the company? You know, there's Silver State people talk about all the time. I remember reading the article years ago, so many people got hurt by that and they were a big, huge company and they took lots of money on an account and then one day they just closed up. I still get emails today. People go, man, I got hurt in Silver State. People who are many years later coming back and rebuilding and still chasing their dream and going after their ratings because they lost a bunch of money with still Silver State many, many, many years ago. So again, be careful, do your research. Block time is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But be smart about your money. Personally, I say in this big scheme of things, you're going to be spending a bunch of money anyway. You have your flight training account budget hopefully set up. My opinion, pay as you go. You go in, you fly that way, the owner's happy, you're happy, money goes through. You know, anything can change at any time. So I'm going to end it right there. Yeah, thought the camera stopped for a second. Let me know. Below your experience with block time, what do you think? Should a person buy block time? This isn't a forum to badmouth flight schools. And you know, I don't want to hear any of that kind of stuff. I just want to know what you think about block time. Flight schools, flight scams. Do you think they're really that prevalent? I don't think there are that many scams out there. I'm sure there's some. Hey, subscribe to the channel and click the bell so you can be notified of new videos. Kenny Keller Helicopter, Airline Ground School I'll put the link down below so you can go check out our memberships. We have private commercial, CFI and instrument. We have monthly options, we have yearly options and then we have the big package Private pilot or professional pilot where you can get all of them for unlimited time and just keep them. And I'm also going to put two links down below for two of our Amazon best selling books, Helicopter checkride and top 10 checkride tips. That second one wrote that co authored with Taz Christman 2018 flight instructor of the Year. We have signed copies still at the office. So while supplies last we bought the book for you. You just pay shipping and handling to get it to you. We'll put those links down below so give us a thumbs up if you're going to give us a dislike. Have the guts. Go down below and tell us why you didn't like the video. Alright, thanks for tuning in and we shall see in the next video.