Kenny Keller and Gabriel Larvis discuss why the R44 helicopter dominates their training and commercial operations. They explain how Robinson helicopters became central to their business models and share their philosophy of building companies on passion rather than corporate sponsorships.
Actually like the R44 to me, when you look at it, pound for pound for the money, if you want to do training and you want to do commercial work and you want to do tours and you want to do rides or whatever, R44 is hands down the answer.
Absolutely.
It's hands down the answer.
Absolutely. I'm Gabriel Larvis. I'm the CEO, director and CFI at Roto School. And this is the one and only Kenny Keller, founder and creator of Helicopter Online Ground School, or as the public.
Like to call it, haw, affectionately named by the members. We didn't come up with that. The members desert Colin.
Hogs. I've always called them hogs, but this is what happened. Either way, we're here in Indiana today and we very much decided that we're going to bring to you this podcast called Two Blades.
No filter. And I'm not paid by Robinson. I'm not paid by anybody for anything. I have no paid endorsement, zero, which we've talked about. I got my business here through hard work and effort, not riding on anybody's coattail, not buying, you know, I did it myself with nobody. So I'm proud of that. That I'm not. Oh, you're endorsed by this person, you're endorsed by that. I am endorsed by no one.
And that's admirable, you know, and that's. We go back to the Robinsons, you know, beyond being loyal to a brand, because of the brand itself, except it really has allowed people like, like you, people like, like me to be successful in our businesses. We do have conceptual differences between what we do.
Sure.
I focus more on initial training done in Florida. You finish up people, you polish them here, as you did with me in three or four days.
And actually like the R44 to me, when you look at it pound for pound for the money, if you want to do training and you want to do commercial work and you want to do tours and you want to do rides or whatever, R44 is hands down the answer.
Absolutely.
It's hands down the answer.
Absolutely.
It's you can, you're going to do rides at the fair.
It's as versatile as it gets.
It is. And I'll argue the point with anybody, like for the money. And we're talking turbine aircraft. If you're in the gas powered, what's available on the market as a gas powered helicopter, you cannot beat the R44. If you're going to do multiple jobs.
You see it in the sales. For the longest time, the R44 was the best selling helicopter in the world. And I mean not only the fastest selling helicopter in the world, but really more if I'm not mistaken, more than 7,000 units of the R44 have been produced at this point in time now that they broke down the R44 to the three different models that they market. So Raven 1, Raven 2 and the Cadet. Now the 66 has taken the place for the most successful helicopter in the industry, which is getting into a turbine topic here, right. Which we'll talk about, I'm sure. But it really, I mean for us this has been a game changer. For us it's a little while back, more than 30 years ago when we took the decision, okay, we're going to go solely Robinsons and since we've only operated Robinsons at our company and for you a couple of years back. But the change has been instrumental. Instrumental when you feel the pressure to fly but know the right decision is to stay on the ground, hit the hogs, no go and live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com.
