Become A HELICOPTER PILOT: Overcome Your Obstacles

Foreign. So you think you have some big obstacles in your path that are going to keep you from becoming a helicopter pilot. May or may not really be the case. We're going to show you four people going up on the Hogs Wall of Fame and give you a short video testimonial. Not a testimonial, a short video from Gabriel himself. So we've got Gabriel Hernandez, now certified flight instrument instructor, going up on the Hogs Wall of Fame. We have Greg going up, private pilot, sends a picture with him and his Jet Ranger. Very cool. We got Axel Merc going up today as well on the helicopter on the Hogs Wall of Fame private pilot add on. And then we have Stanley Mowry, interacted a lot with us over the years. Hogs member. And he has a picture with his commercial pilot. All four of those going up on the Hogs Wall of Fame. So I want to roll a short video. Gabriel visited us clear back four or five years ago when he was working through the ratings. He's been a member of HOGG since prior to 2015. He's a longtime member now certified flight instrument instructor. And he's up here on the page or on the Hog's Wall several other times. So he had some obstacles to overcome to become a certified flight instructor. So he's doing awesome. And it's taken him a matter of, let's say six, seven years minimum. But he's there and we are super proud of Gabriel and I'm going to roll that video for you. First I want to mention our 24 hour test flight. This is the Hogg's Wall of Fame. These are our members. Private commercial certified flight instructor, instrument pilot. And after they passed their checkrides, they sent us a picture for the Hogs Wall of Fame that we've filled up. And now we're going to another panel. And when they pass their checkride helicopterground.com we send them the Hogs no go weather decision button. So I'm gonna go ahead and roll that video now.

You know, in 2006 I got a DUI and I, you know, I used to be more concerned about partying than, you know, I always would watch NASA TV and I was obsessed with av, but I didn't take the time to fly well. When I started down that path, I realized that it would be an uphill climb to get my medical. And so two psych evals, neuropsych eval, drug and alcohol rehab and two and a half years of drug tests and getting breathalyzed every month, I finally Got my medical on the second week of March of this year. In the meantime, while I was waiting for that, I started my fixed wing add on and I soloed both on the same day.

Very nice.

On second week of March.

Very, very nice.

I finished my helicopter. I got my rating on April 15, and then I just finished my fixing out on rating this past week.

Nice. So I commend you for having the guts to get on camera and talk about that because I have another.

Yeah, I found your site the same way a lot of other people do. The first school I attended didn't even talk about ground school. They didn't even mention ground school. It wasn't even an option. The owner just wanted to fly, fly, fly. And I used yours as definitely an immersion tool. It was every day, most of the day, for a long time. And especially the word for word emergency procedures. I watched that section in great repetition and I can still hear the words. I mean, if you're just reading through the PoH. But as simple as it was nice.

To sum that up, there's an individual who had plenty of reasons to just give up the dream and say, oh, you know, it's not worth. It's not worth the headache, the hassle. This young man had to go through a lot. But he paid his dues, got past the struggles. And I know what he went through was a heck of a lot of work. And when he came to that live event with us that we did three or four years ago, I took him out in the Enstrom. That's what you just saw at the end of that clip. I took him out in the Enstrom and went for a flight together, and that was totally fun. So Gabriel is living proof that if you want to become a helicopter pilot, you can do it. You can have plenty of obstacles in front of you, whether it's time, money, family commitments, whatever the case is, and the big one's age. You know, we've been having so many people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, getting ratings when they were told by somebody else that they were too old. That's a big crock of horseshit as far as I'm concerned. If you're able to move around and climb in other aircraft and do some studying, you can do it. And lost my train of thought. So this hogs wall of fame. Every single person up here has a story. Everybody has had some kind of a struggle. They've had to get past some kind of an issue. And that's what's been a lot of the fun is learning the story. Behind a lot of these members, guys and girls that have pursued their ratings and they write in, you know, email into us or they call us on the phone or give Heather a text. And they're just so excited when they finish up because everybody's got a, you know, some kind of a hurdle. And this wall represents all of those hurdles. Heather and I were just looking at an old video from our old hangar when we first started the HOGS Wall of Fame. And we were laughing in this, you know, old paneling, ugly wall. Anyway, it's turned into this. So I want to elaborate a little more on the 24 hour test flight, if you're even interested at all. In one of our memberships, we have what we call the 24 hour test flight. What that means is when you sign up, you have 24 hours access on either the private pilot monthly membership or the advanced courses. The advanced courses includes private commercial instruments, cfi, all in one course. So depending on what rating your additional rating you're going after advanced ratings. They're all now, right now, in one membership, which might change in the future. So we have two monthly options right now, Private pilot or advanced pilot. When you sign up, you're not billed for 24 hours. And we've checked to make sure that this is the way it works. You will not be billed. You can go in, look at the entire course, whichever one you're signing up for, for 24 hours. So then you decide, hey, this is right for me right now. It's something I want to do. You just continue using the course and you go month to month, anytime during that 30 days, you can cancel and then take, take a break, and then you can always come back. And we have so many members now that since we went to the monthly options, they'll come in, work on a private, leave for a little bit, come back and work on commercial, come back and work on instrument. We have people that have left probably I'm at as many as five times, I would say now over the years where they've come back and worked on additional ratings or during their private training, they ran out of money or, you know, a health issue got in the way or family life got in the way, they come back. So the beauty of the monthly membership is you can keep it as long as you can. Like you can cancel anytime and then you can come back anytime and you can do that yourself in settings to unsubscribe. It's super simple. And if you have any trouble at all, you can contact us and we'll do it for you, Heather behind the camera right now. She is your HOGS member concierge. You can always text or call Heather at 574-767-1797 and you can also email heatherhelicopterground.com as well. And then of course we have a support email supportelicopterground.com so it's so super simple to jump in, take a look at the training, decide if it's right for you or not. You can cancel anytime, come back anytime, and then on top of that there's a 30 day ironclad money back in hustle guarantee. So you can come in, use the training for as long as you need it, you can cancel. And during that 30 days, anytime during that 30 days billing cycle, if you still aren't or if you're not 100% confident that it was worth their monthly fee, you ask for a refund and we part as friends. That's it. We don't hound you, we don't hassle you, we just simply unsubscribe or we simply refund your money and we move on. And then you're always welcome to come back. It's proven almost 10 years online. March 1, 2022 will be 10 years. So we'll have a big celebration coming up on that. So helicopterground.com all our memberships are available there. Have a question, text or email Heather at heather heather helicopterground.com and we'll see you in the next video. She's. It's, it's. It.