Kenny Keller spent four years getting his helicopter ratings, failed his first check ride, survived a crash that fractured his spine, and lost money buying an aircraft. Two decades in, he still loves flying but warns it's not a path to riches. He recommends getting a private license first to see if it's worth it.
Hey, it's Kenny with helicopter online ground school. And I've been thinking about this question all day and I want to hear your opinion down below or I want you to share your story down below. But we get a lot of questions, as you could imagine, all the time from people all over, from all ages, from young to older. And they ask Kenny, you know, and they tell me their specific situation and say, is it worth it all the struggle to become helicopter pilot. So I do want to hear your comments down below, but I'm going to be flat out honest first. It might scare you, maybe not. I struggled for four years to get my ratings, like anybody, the money was tough. Failed my first check ride. That was horrible. Went home with my toe between my legs. Didn't go back from six months, but which is a part of my story, why I built helicopter online ground school and why I went on to do the things that I do today. So struggle to get the rating. Four years, a lot of money. Beg, borrow, still sell stuff, ruin my credit over the years, built my credit back up, but for five years. Well, let me start with my first job. I had to wait a month or two until I got that first job, right? Then once I got that first job, a month into it, September 11th happened, okay, so then everything across the country shuts down. So I work for four years, wait to get my spot, get a job, then when I get one, I lose it, basically. I don't lose the job, just there was nothing going on, there was nobody flying. So I search all over the country, find a flight school in Ohio, go to work there. Okay, so I'm a road dog for about five years, meet a lot of people, got a lot of cool experiences, but I was away from home, away from my family a lot of the time. So after about that five years, then I get back, get a job offer near home, get to the 2000 hour mark so I can go get that EMS job. And I'm applying. And I was looking at going to a new station I'm instructing and I'm going to turbine aircraft. Aircraft blows apart when we set it down the ground. Nice landing, but went into ground resonance. Two of us ejected, one person stayed in the back seat. I got thrown like 20ft. L1 fracture or L1 vertebrae, had a back fracture. My back, okay. I was applying for an EMS job. They said, hey, you just had an accident. We need you to take some, you know, time and kind of get back in the seat again for a while. So get over that hurdle, then buy an Aircraft after I become an EMS pilot, do that for five years. But in between there, I decide to buy an aircraft after I've rebuilt my credit from all the screwing up of the past with going through all the helicopter training and working for peanuts as a new cfi. Then I buy a helicopter after I rebuild my credit, get in a good place, what do I do? I buy an aircraft which ends up ruining me financially. And then I started helicopter laying ground school seven years ago. So with all that and all those struggles and all those bad things, I can also tell you when I climb in a helicopter today, I'm still amazed at the machine and I still love to fly. Okay, so 20 years later, I'm making a decent living at it. I mean, you can't go after this dream if you're thinking you're going to get rich because that's not going to happen. But I just wanted to put this video out there for those that ask this question a lot. Do you think it's worth it? Well, I did it, you know, and is it right for you? It's not certainly going to be the easiest thing you've ever done, but if it's in your heart, at minimum get the private, you know, get the opportunity to go fly, try it. At least get the private license. Maybe going all the way to CFI and being the road dog isn't, you know, really the thing for you. So I just wanted to put it out there in that form to say, sure, it's a struggle, but what in life isn't, you know, nothing good is easy, Nothing good is free. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. So if it's in your heart, it's in your soul, something you want to do, you definitely at least got to go give it a try. So we do want to hear your feedback down below. Put those comments, tell us your side of the story, how you feel about it so others can get in a conversation. And this would be a great video that we can share with people when they ask that question. So and down below you can check out helicopter online ground school helicopterground.com also put links down there to Amazon number one best selling books. And yeah, so do us a favor, subscribe the channel too so you can be notified of new videos and trading update updates. So thanks for stopping by, give us a like and a share comment below, subscribe and we shall see in the next video.
