"Back to my roots with Enstrom Helicopters"

All right, some nice eye candy in this video, not only the MDs behind me, but you're gonna see a Cadbury and an EC Real quick. I'm gonna show you a video back from Hug's flight brief because we just thought about something. You know what? I want to get back to my roots. And with everything that's transpired lately, we came up with that final approach course. Didn't really work out with the aircraft we tried to do it with. But you know what, why don't we apply that for private owners of an instrument that you've owned one and you don't have your rating done yet. I like to come pick you up, bring you up here and finish. And I want to give you a little bit of the background of the examiner I talked about during the final approach course. I'm going to roll this video so you understand one my relationship with this examiner and also how I got my start in nstrom. So we're going to go ahead and roll that now.

I was like, that's right over 20.

Years ago in the late 90s y.

When Randy and I were talking the other day, he goes, you know, we got quite a history and we do. And it's a fun part of the story. Like when people say, why did you fly instruments? One of the reasons was because I live a half an hour away.

And when I first started flying, I.

Had Indianapolis with a Schweitzer, Chicago with the Robinson Berghoin with an Enstrom. And I jumped around and got experience in all three, but ended up working here. Ended up working for you when you guys were an Enstrom service center?

Yes.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about the instrument Service Center Center. Just because it fits into the NSTROM story.

It does. I mean, we love the Nstrom. So I started the FBO Goshen Air center back in 1992 and my business partner Zane Gillett and I About the late 90s, we had this interest in getting a helicopter to take helicopter lessons. And Zane and I had both been corporate pilots in the past and we had flown professionally. So in the late 90s we were looking around for helicopters. And I think right around 2000 we ended up buying a 2.80C. So instrument built variations of the different piston model, but it was a 280C. It was, I think 1977. That was a big deal for us. And we ended up getting our commercial add on rating together.

That's about time I met you guys. Were you guys were working on the commercials, if I remember the commercial add ons. I was working on my private.

Yes. So our instructor worked for Nipsco at that time. And prior to that he was with the Indiana State Police. Randy Yablonski, great guy. Randy's a great guy. And he'd drive over here from Porter county and give lessons to five of us. So Zane and myself and I think there were three other guys that wanted to get their helicopter add on rating. So we eventually got our rating and again we did the commercial add on and Zane and I ended up doing different fairs and festivals in the two adc. In the meantime, Instrom was looking for dealers. So we became one of the nine Instrum dealers in the United States. So we were buying and selling used and new instruments. And it was just about that time that you and I got together and we hired you as our full time at our very first full time helicopter instructor.

And the point I want to add to this, I remember I told this story more than once when we started that you guys went like, well, here's a couple phone numbers. There's an office and there's a phone. There's a helicopter.

Here you go.

That's how it started. We knew nothing. It was literally just.

And I had been flying somewhere else and you. I was actually in Cleveland. And you called one day and said, hey, we want to know if you want to go to work for us.

We bought a helicopter.

And I said, yeah.

Then you called real quick after that and said, hey, we bought an aircraft. So I left that job, came back so I could work here a lot closer to home. And then we started with one aircraft and then it turned into. It's a different entity now, but years later there's all these helicopters and it's grown into. We're all involved somehow with this. It's all starting here at Goshen and Chris is involved in it. And anyway, yeah, it's amazing.

I mean, we're looking back at what, 1998. Yeah, we got together late 90s and look what we're doing today. Yeah, I enjoy it.

And so it just. I wanted to give that little brief insight the next video Randy's gonna go more into.

All right, so that's, that's where my start came from back in the late 90s with Enstrom. Turns out I have more Enstrom time than I do on anything basically on the planet. Right. So why wouldn't that be my favorite aircraft? And today Heather and I were coming up with things where we want to go and what's next. And we just got Talking about it, and we're like, you know what? Why not kind of apply the final approach course to the NSTREAM helicopter for a private owner? Not saying I couldn't do it in Robinson, I could, but. But I'm really looking forward to get back into instruments again. And, you know, there's that story about how I heard when I was first coming into this, where they say, you know, this guy started out instructing, and then he went and did tours, and then he did the airlines, and comes back around later to go back to instructing again. And that's kind of what I've done. I've had my chance at doing all sorts of things, and now with hogs, I'm back to instructing, and I still enjoy it. You know, I was tired of it back then, but now it's fun for me because it fits perfectly with hogs. So flying the Enstrom is my. Let's call it my expertise, my forte. That's what I'm the most comfortable in. And you find that over time, whatever you aircraft you spend the most time in, you just feel the most comfortable in that. And so Randy that you saw in the video, he is one of the two examiners that are local. The other one I've used for 20 years as well, you know, Enstrom is back with a new owner that's one of my past students. So it just got us thinking today, and we're like, you know what? Let's go back and revisit some of this NSTROM content and talk about why I love them so much. It's just at this point, for me, it's like the perfect aircraft to teach in again, because I'm so comfortable in it. You know, before we had the FAC was a Monday through Thursday, you know, prep, because we've done six zooms with you before you got here. We made sure all your requirements were filled. We can tailor this a little bit differently. It doesn't have to be that. Oh, my God, Monday through Thursday, because before we made you get the requirements done, maybe we can work out something where we just tailor it to your needs. And again, I'm open to some other aircraft, too, but I'd dearly love to get back to flying an instrument again. So we thought we'd put this out there. To those of you that are out there, that I know you are, you own the aircraft, you can't keep an instructor in the seat with you, and you can also have trouble lining up an examiner and trying to make it all work out. We can do that for you and that Randy that you saw in the previous video, that's who you'll be taking your truck ride with. He's 20 minutes away by car, 10 minutes by flight and we can always con him into coming here too. So people across the country are having trouble getting their checkrides done and private owners have the same problem. And I mentioned Jamie a lot with the orange R44. Four years of aircraft ownership, brand new helicopter, he owned 200 hours, eight different instructors and we went, picked him up, brought him up here and finished him up in nine days. We'd like to do that again. So look for some more instrument content coming out here in the near future because we want to just want to revisit some of that content. It's good stuff. Oh, and we are hogs. We're helicopter line ground school. I forgot Heather's watching me behind the camera. Contact Heather. If you're interested in our online ground school memberships, we have private. You can just do standalone private or we have advanced membership, meaning private, commercial, cfi, instrument. We just bundled them all together as monthly memberships. There's an August discount right now on those monthlies. Has a 24 hour test flight. You can go in and check out the training for the first 24 hours and then we have some other advanced options as well. @helopterground.com we'll put that link down below. I'm also going to put Heather's number down there because she can hook you up, help you get signed up. And Heather has discount codes so you can email her heatherhelicopterground.com or you can text her or call her at 574-767-1797. I'll put that number down below so you can reach out to her and she'll hook you up with a discount. So that's it for now. See you in the next video. Peace out.