#97 Helicopter Flight Training | THROWING IN THE TOWEL | Not meant to fly

Day 97 here. I'm going to call this down and dirty. Day 97 Coffee with Kenny. This is a good topic. It's about throwing in the towel. It's about giving up on helicopter training. And I'm just going to read you this from a ground school member. I want you to hear his story. So I'm going to read it pretty much word for word. He titled it Throwing in the Towel. Good afternoon, Kenny. I wanted to reach out and share my story and hope this can motivate other students. I'm still in training and I'm having some struggles with getting signed off for my cross country solo. My helicopter control is precise and my maneuvers are great as well. That's awesome. But I was recently in a closed door meeting with my chief pilot and the owner of the school. I've been flying with the same instructor for quite some time now and have recently started flying with another instructor which is normally good, but I'm having issues with keeping my airspeed and altitude precise. My in route navigation is struggling a little as well. But I've only had one cross country flight to the desired destination, so I'm unfamiliar with the airport and route. I do feel that my progress is doing much better. But during my meeting today, I was basically told that flying helicopters may not be for me, but I refuse to quit as I have overcome so many other obstacles. The school is being supportive and offering other alternatives like seeing an aviation psychologist to help out the way I am processing my situational awareness. Can you shed some light in the subject? And I hope this inspires other student pilots that are having similar struggles to not quit and always keep pushing towards your goals. I am also interested in possibly phone conversation to see about continuing my training. Okay, this is a serious question and I wanted to just, you know, get right to it, start talking about it. Over the years we've heard people say, oh well, maybe that guy's just not, you know, fit for flying helicopters or whatever. We've heard this many times over the years. I personally have never told any individual, maybe helicopters just isn't for you. Of course we've had people that struggled, but we know everybody has a struggle, everybody has a story. We've all had our struggles. If I listen to other people, I'd have never become a police officer, I'd never become a helicopter pilot, I'd never had a towing service. I've never done all the things that I've accomplished in my life. I was always told why I couldn't do it and especially what I'm doing right now talking to you with helicopter, airline, ground school. Not many people stayed with me in the beginning. I mean, maybe you know, a family member, one I could think of when everybody else is like, dude, just quit and go get a real flying job. Anyway, I've told you all my motivational stories. Let's get back to this gentleman. So if his maneuvers are good, alright, if you're being safe. The first problem I do see is airspeed and altitude. But he says precise at the private, you know, it has to be within a tolerance. Keeping your airspeed is big though. You got to keep your airspeed at all times. You always got to have your minimum in case you have an engine failure. But as far as like the cross country navigation, doesn't sound like they've done a lot of that. So maybe there just needs to be some more, you know, some more training in the cross country area. I want to know if any of you have ever been told this or what do you think about when someone is told this? I'm a dreamer and all these videos I've been doing all these years. I'm always motivational, right? And I'm always talking about going for your dreams, going for your goals. I just don't know so far, you know, again, I'm just reading an email so I do want to make a second part of this video. I do want to talk to this ground school member and try to get some more of the background. My first questions to him in the emails, I said how many hours do you currently have? That's the first thing I want to know. And how many times a week are you flying? You know, I want to know those two things first before we go much further in the conversation. I mean if he's low time man, I'm immediately going to say give it some more time. If he's not flying very frequently, I'm going to say get in there and fly more frequently. Going to be my first two things that I'm going to say again with just reading an email and not knowing any more. You know, we have helped so many people over the years that came to us with whatever the struggle is. You know, we had one guy that worked on reading for years and he had a, had a bad stutter problem and what a wonderful guy and what a smart individual and flew really well and we got him all finished up but he needed someone willing to be patient with him and work through his issues and we did that and the examiner worked with him too. And he's a good pilot, safe Pilot, smart individual. Should his stutter problem stop him from being a helicopter pilot? No. You know, could it be that one? Any individual really should never be a helicopter pilot. I suppose there's some extreme cases, but I think many times if somebody's being told this man. And I don't understand something here, I don't really understand seeing an aviation psychologist quite at this point. Now, again, I don't know. I'm not there, but just reading the entire email, the issues don't sound quite that horrible as of yet. And I don't know if aviation psychologist at this point is the way to go either. You know, if he's only flown with one or two people, maybe he needs to fly with a third person. Maybe this is the learning plateau. I'm big on the learning plateau. We've learned over the years almost every single person hits a learning plateau. Sometimes it's really hard for a person to break through that. You know, you progress and progress and progress and then you hit that learning plateau. And for a lot of people, you just got to work through it. And whether it's an issue on the ground school or it's an issue in the helicopter, sometimes that learning plateau can be really, really hard to get through. And it can take flying with a different instructor. It can take changing flight schools. There's so many options and variables here that can affect the outcome. Right. So again, I'd love to hear your comments down below, especially about if you've struggled and you worked through something. God, we've got many videos in the past of, you know, hogs member that struggled with alcohol and drug problems and went to rehab and did everything he had to do, required by the FAA and changed his whole entire life. You want to talk about a struggle there? That's a big one. And he talked live with us in the studio. And this is a video that we have. I'll put the link down below. Well, we just recently showed it in one of the Coffee with Kenny videos. So I want to say we will do a part two to this. I want to get your feedback. I want to talk to this gentleman, this hogs member, and see if I can't get a little more detail and we can go into it a little further. I don't want to blame the flight school. I don't want to blame the instructors. I don't want to blame him. Again, I'm just evaluating an email, but I thought this is a great topic for a video. Today in day 97 coffee with Kenny. I'm really looking forward to day 100. I don't know why, Just because it sounds cool, right? Day 100. So we're not done yet. We're going to keep going. Have you ever been told this? Do you think it's fair to tell someone this? 20 years, I've never told anyone this. I've never said, you might want to reevaluate this. The only one person, and I may have told a story about this gentleman where he scared me to death on a solo. I didn't tell him that he could never do it, but he had a lot of hours and he hadn't soloed. And I mean, it might have been like 60 hours or something. I did have the talk one day with him about the money he was spending and he got kind of snarly with me and he said, it's none of your business. I'll spend as much money as I want to. And I went, okay, fair enough. You know, he was determined and he wanted to get through it. When he said, hey, the financial worry is my burden, it's not yours. I'm like, okay. I just wanted to make sure that he was clear on the money he was spending and we weren't where we needed to be and he continued on and he did struggle and I turned him over to another high time instructor because this was early in my career. And he scared me so bad. I went to the owner and I said, I'll never be able to solo this guy. I'll fly with him. But it scared me so bad that I just told her she was a man and woman that owned the company. And I told her, I said she was running the office. I said, I don't think I can ever solo the guy. I just don't think I could ever do it. I didn't tell him to give up. They did send him out with an older instructor who took him out for a couple flights. And that instructor was pretty hard on him. And again, it was a high time instructor and I don't believe this gentleman ever came back. And I'm assuming that he just chose to, you know, know, give it up and never finish it. And maybe he did finish later on. This has been, you know, quite a few years ago. But I will end this video with, I don't think he should give up. Not at this point. Sounds a little bit early to be given up. And I wouldn't think I'd be running off to an aviation psychologist just yet. I would love to talk to him and really see kind of what's going on. Maybe he has Having a learning plateau. Maybe he needs to fly more. The, the scenarios are endless. I just would say this stage where you're talking, I would not give up. Hell no, I would not give up. I would keep after it. I would look for alternatives, I'd study harder, I'd fly more. And I, and I know this gentleman, from talking to him in the past, I know he's a business owner and I know he's told me he's done well for himself. So especially when you have the means, why not stay after it? I know two pilots over the years that were well to do businessmen that got their ratings, they own their own helicopters and their confidence isn't real big and they don't want to be alone in an aircraft. But who cares? They can afford it. They'll always get an instructor or another rated pilot to go with them. They like to fly to places and go to lunch. They're both older gentlemen and they just don't want to fly alone. So you know, in that scenario, if you love flying and your confidence isn't there, if you've got a competent person to go with you, especially you know, a competent instructor, who cares, why not still enjoy your love of flying? For this gentleman, maybe just getting the private rating as long as he can be safe, maybe he's not cut out for a career in it, but there's a difference between going out, doing a career, being safe and being able to go out and fly as a private pilot and have fun and enjoy yourself and still be safe. So again, please give us some feedback on this like and subscribe the channel. Leave your comments down below and we'll give it a couple weeks and I'll do part two on this after I get a chance to talk to this hogs member, kind of see how the story unfolds and we'll keep you informed in it. So thanks again. Day 97 Like Subscribe Comment down below. Let me know what you think about this topic and we will see you tomorrow in day 98. Awesome. I like it.