#292 "any particular helicopter that’s in a higher demand for pilots?"

Hey. Day 292, coffee with Kenny. This is a great question. I'm Kenny Keller, creator of Helicopter on Ground School. Got a question today from a young man named Porter. Very simple question, and it's a great question. And I get where he's going with this. He said, hey, Kenny, I'm currently training on the R22 and was wondering if you know of any particular helicopter that's in a higher demand for pilots over others. This is a great question for someone getting in the industry. And I would first answer by saying whether you love them or you hate them, I think this is a fact right now, as of the making of this video, Robinson helicopter is the most popular civil aircraft in the world. Okay? So even though there's a lot of people that hate them and don't anything to do with them, when you go research in flight schools, a large portion of flight schools are going to be flying in R22. Okay? So for Porter, I'm sure his question is, you know, for looking for his opportunities once he becomes a CFI and gets out there and starts to work, kind of. Here's the catch. This is the thing you really gotta think about. The R22 and R44 have the special Sfar rules where you have to have so much time in them in order to teach in them later on. So you would need to research this a little bit. So on one hand, you're going to be most marketable if you train in the R22. With that being said, there is good reason to get time. Any others, such as the G2 or the Schweitzer or the N. Strom or maybe some of the others. For most of the other helicopters, you only have to have five hours in order to be authorized to teach in those other aircraft. Now you always have the insurance that's going to come into play, and that's always a pain in the butt. And we have several videos during the Coffee with Kenny series about getting insured. But in this question, I think what a young person or older person, doesn't matter how old you are, if you're getting into go the CFI route and you're going to want to be able to build time. Personally, I would continue getting training in the R22 for this individual since he's already flying it then during that path from now until 200 hours that you have to have in order to teach in the Robinson. Whoa. We got some crazy camera work going on there. Getting some time in these other aircraft is also going to help make you more Marketable. And I'm going to use myself for an example. I did the majority of my ratings in the R22, but I did travel around and I got Enstrom time and I got Schweitzer time and I got bell 47 time. So later on, once I got there in the CFI world, I started teaching the R22. But then my next job that came up I got because I had like 10 hours of instrument time. Wasn't a lot, but it was more than most. And I got a specific job. That was the job that really helped me move my career along the way because I had that instrument time under my belt. And then later they switched, bought a Schweitzer, sold the instrument. I had Schweitzer time under my belt from early in my training. So it was an easy transition to get insured to teach in the Schweitzer. And that flight school again opened the doors for me. And it's the school I talked about where I ended up getting to fly the Jet Ranger. And that got me my turbine time. So to answer this young man's question, I think the most abundant helicopter you're going to find as a training helicopter is the R22. And we had an interesting conversation just the other day when I went to fly the G2 with Chris Hauser. He even said, as a flight school who's operating two G2s, they have a customer, they're working with a student who's training in the G2. And when he talked to them about becoming a CFI, Chris had to have the talk with him and say, well, of course we want you to be here as a student, but we need to come up with a little bit of a plan here to make you marketable. Because there's only say 35 or 40 G2s in the US as the making of this video. And that came from Chris, who is a factory authorized instructor. As the G2 gains more popularity, then that's going to open up more doors. But you have to think about, as someone getting into the industry, where in the world do you want to fly? Are you looking to fly to flight school close to home, who has a particular aircraft, or are you willing to be a road dog and go anywhere? So I think a person needs to kind of look at where do you want to fly and what do you want to do to be the most marketable R22. But also tell you another thing there that makes you on the flip side. Seven or eight years ago, when I started ground school for a little while Lived in North Carolina. And I thought about going to work at one of these tour companies that flew R44s. And I did have R44 time. And the guy was willing to hire me. And he said, it's cool that you have a lot of instrument time because that makes you different. He goes, everybody that comes here to work, they all they have is Robinson time. He goes, that makes you a little marketable because you've got something different than what the average person has. So you could take this in many forms and fashions, but that's my take on that. So I think for this particular young man, he's already training in the R22. I would continue to train in the R22, but before CFI, I would get some more time in your belt and some other aircraft. And I understand it takes more time and more money to transition to another aircraft. And it'll be some more traveling and getting familiar with an unfamiliar aircraft. But what that can do for you later in your career, I think is big. That's just my opinion. It worked for me. And to put all your eggs in one basket, isn't there necessarily the best course of action? So I appreciate this question. I put it out there because I just had sent out an email today about, you know, what kind of questions can I have to you to 5,000 people that follow us that aren't members yet. And we have a whole list of five questions in the email I put out today about the most frequently asked questions. But I'm also promoting the Halloween sale. So we have a Halloween sale, expires Halloween night. Get in on it now. I'm going to put the links down below. We have 33% off our yearly private commercial, CFI or instrument packages. Our big professional pilot package that includes all those courses and it's unlimited. So you can go down below to check those links out. Comment on today's video. Let me hear your thoughts. I know there'll be some good comments because there's some Robinson haters out there, right? But regardless of whether you like them or dislike them, until somebody catches up to them, this is the number one civil aircraft in the world and it's being used at more flight schools than any. And sure, over time that could change, but it's going to take, it's going to take any other one a little time to try to catch up to a corporation that's grown that large. So comment down below. Subscribe click the bell so you'll be notified of our daily video and we will see you tomorrow. In day 293 peace out. It.