Kenny Keller and Randy Sharkey, a Designated Pilot Examiner and Enstrom dealer, talk about how they got into helicopters at Goshen Air Center in the late 1990s, starting with a used 1977 280C. Randy will share his top 10 checkride pet peeves in upcoming episodes.
Oh, we already recorded this thing off. I was like, that's right. Kenneth Keller, creator, Helicopter Line Ground school, author of Amazon bestseller top 10 checkride tips. You know Chris Hauser, Sweet Aviation over here in the corner. You'll be seeing more of him over the next week or two. And this is Randy Sharkey. And we want to do an intro video for you on what we're going to be doing over the next 12 to 13 days. We're going to end up doing examiner DPE top 10 pet peeves.
Yes, we are. Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
So Randy came up with these a couple weeks or a month or so ago when we were up here doing videos here with Chris here at Sweet. And he said, hey, how about, you know, having me do some videos on what's the things I see that are problems with checkrides? And I said, that's perfect, Randy, because Taz and I did this book, I think 2018, a couple years old. Right. So Randy came up with his own top 10 things that he sees as an examiner. So when we go fly together, we're all gonna go out in the 130 and Chris gonna go with us. We're gonna fly around and talk about the top 10 pet peeves. So it'll be fun to see how many of them match. You can get free PDF down below or we'll ship it to you for just shipping and handling. Randy, just to start this short series of videos. Sure. I want to talk to you about. If you're brand new to our videos, this won't mean a lot to you, but for those of you been watching us for a while, you've heard all my stories and a lot of them started here at over 20 years ago in the late 90s.
Yes.
And 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 or Goshen with an Angstrom. And I jumped around and got experience in all three, but ended up working here. Ended up working for you when you guys were in Instrum Service Center.
Yes.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about the Enstrom Service Center? Just because it fits into the Enstrom 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 Instrom 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 the time I met you guys were you guys were working on the commercials, if I remember the commercial add ons when 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 and 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 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 and 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, that we got together, late 90s. And look what we're doing today. Yeah, I enjoy it.
And so it's just. I wanted to give that little brief insight. The next video, Randy's gonna go more into his background and what a DPE did, what a DP is. What is the Designated Pilot Examiner.
Yes.
We just want to give you that INS to get started. A bunch more cool stuff over the next week is going to come out. Make sure you like and subscribe so you can come back tomorrow where Randy is going to give you his background in aviation, what led into him becoming a DPE and what a DPE is. So go below for the top 10 checkride tips, free PDF down below. We'll also ship it to you for just shipping handling anywhere in the world. Seven bucks. That's it for now. Like, subscribe and we'll see you in the next video. Peace out. There's one. Hey, that's good.
That's good stuff. That's good stuff.
So that's a blast.
I can see why you enjoy this.
I love it. We're gonna move. He can make my sloppy flying look real good in me.
Yeah.
So let's see. Where are you gonna stand? I don't know. I can be in or I can for a little bit. You gotta come over and say hey to the camera. It's Hogg's daily flight brief. So do you want to flip that.
Around so we can see it or not?
Yeah, sure. Flip it around. I think we should.
We could be kind of. I think it's kind of cool to see ourselves.
