EP 8 Which Helicopter Should I Fly?

All right, welcome to Hawk's daily flight brief. We're here on the ground with Chris Hauser going to fly the cavalry and today, episode number eight, ep eight, I like to call them. What type of helicopter should I fly? Great question. That comes up all the time.

Uh huh.

Oh, Chris, let's throw a little tidbit here for the key in between. In the middle of the video here. What's the key to a successful pickup? Just short and brief.

Take your time, do not rush it.

Exactly. Two step process.

Two step process, yes. Take your time. I found that guys, they get a little nervous when you start to get light on the skids because you start to get a little bit of movement, which you should be a little bit, you know, because you don't want to get into a dynamic rollover situation. But they seem to rush it at the very end. They start to get light and next thing you know they yank up on that collective and get up off the ground and then everything's good up to that point. And then from there it just, you know, if you rush it then it's just. Now you're behind the aircraft already.

Absolutely. All right, I'm gonna let Chris finish his checks and we'll get back to the video.

So we're gonna show you who's going up on the wall. Glenn Jansen, number one. Glenn Jansen, number two. It was commercial and instrument on one that I had missed. We have a different checkride, but there's Steven Hetzis, Patrick Robertson, David Craig, private pilot. Scott Hess, private pilot. Joel Smith.

This is a new one.

I know this was just in the last week. And then another new one. Jordan Rag, private pilot. And today talk to the examiner. He's got them ready and he calls them the his DPE pet peeves.

Okay.

And he listed out 10 things that he sees as an examiner that are a problem for check rides. So those are coming up. We're gonna go flying in the H130 helicopter and we're gonna go check out this awesome helicopter while we shoot these videos. Tune in daily on our Helicopter all in Ground School YouTube channel. You'll find it easy. Or better yet, just go to hogsdailybrief.com you can catch up on past episodes. That's where you can go for the future episodes. HogsDailyBrief.com alright, let's do her.

Okay, so this is a great topic. People ask all the time, what helicopter should I fly? Or what about this one? What about that one? I've done this video in the Past several times. So I want a fresh perspective from Chris today. And we've decided this morning, as we did last week, we just discussed titles. We didn't sit around and talk about what we, you know, discuss. Hey, let's say this, let's say that because that's, to me, that's the fun part of it, is just throwing a title out there and see what we, what we come up with. So let us. What do you think, Chris? When somebody asks you the question, what helicopter should I fly?

I think it all. Excuse me. I think it kind of varies on location, I guess. You know, what's a flight school that's close to you that what they offer? You know, in northern Indiana, there really isn't many options. So the G2 is really, I mean, sweet aviation is about what you got. You go down to Indianapolis, then you've got some Robinsons in the Indy area. Now, we all know that Robinsons are the, I mean, they're world, world known. They're probably the number one trainer aircraft in the industry right now. Absolutely. You know, I fly to G2 because that's what my school offers. And I'll tell people straight up, you know, if you want to, if you want to instruct, let's say for that.

First job, this is a good point.

And you want to build that time, you know, Learning in a G2 may not be the right move for you because, you know, because of the S bars for the Robinsons, you're gonna have to get time in a Robinson and you're gonna have to get signed off with the S bars and the awareness training and, you know, so it. I guess I'm trying to maybe hemp hauling around, but I don't know if there is a. What helicopter? What. What is the correct one. But I can tell you that when you go somewhere and get that first job and they say, well, what aircraft did you train in? And you say a G2, they may look at you and be like, okay. And that's not. And it's nothing against the G2. It's just still relatively new in the US and I say that because it's only been here for three, four, five, six years. I mean, as of like last year, I think There was only 30 of them in the U.S. and Sweet Aviation owns two of them. And Precision, Precision helicopters, they own like five of them. So, I mean, right. There is a third of the. Almost a third of the G2s in the US so anyway, what aircraft should I fly? I guess it kind of depends on you Know what's closest to you, what can you afford to fly. If you want to do it long term and you want to, and you're going to start off flying as an instructor for somebody, you may want to look into the Robinsons and may have to travel to get that training because, you know, most schools, that's what they're teaching.

Exactly right. In several of the points you brought up, we're going to cover in some upcoming videos from the titles we picked, where this is a broad topic and the insurance, the jobs, it all plays in the big picture. And what I want to say is what I like. You know, there's pros and cons to every helicopter and I've taught about all of them at all training helicopters. What I like is we were surprised at Heli Expo a year, two years ago. We were going around talking to Schweitzer, Enstrom, Cavori, talking to all these different manufacturers and it was fun. And I asked Tim Tucker from Robinson if he'd like to, you know, state why someone should fly Robinson. He goes, I'm not sure if I like that question, but let's talk tomorrow. And I met him the next day and he said, you know what? I decided I do like your question. And we were all kind of blown away, but I loved his answer.

So Tim, just go ahead and whatever you got to say that you want to relay about Robinson.

Okay, well, you know, Kenny asked me about this, you know, what helicopter people should learn to fly in that type of thing. And I really have to use my own experience to answer that question because I don't think it really matters at all which helicopter you choose. And I go back to my, my training. I learned to fly in the army back in the Vietnam time. And during that time The army had two training helicopters. They had a small little Hughes 269, 300 now and they had the Army OH23, which is a Heller 12. So you have one helicopter which is small, light, nimble, low inertia rotor, articulated system. The other helicopter is a big, slow, two bladed, semi rigid system. Two totally different helicopters. And the way the army decided which one you flew was the short guys flew in the TH55 and the tall guys, I think 6ft was the cutoff. The tall guys flew in the OH23. So I was in the TH55. But what they did is afterwards they compared, they took a five year period and looked at all the students as they progressed through their phase of training in the Army. At that time there was about, I think there was about eight phases of training. So obviously the first phase is the solo phase. So they looked at do guys solo earlier in the TH55 or in the OH23, and at each phase, and they found no difference at all. So they looked at after initial flight training and moving into bigger helicopters, was there any real difference in the guys who learned in the little helicopter versus the guys that learned in the big one? And they found nothing. So I think that experience tells me that it really doesn't matter what type helicopter as long as it's typically used for training. You know, under a Robinson, a 300, an Enstrom, a G2, I think anyone would work just fine. Most important thing is the school and maybe the school and the instructor. So I think a school, certainly a school that's a 141 school, is good. I think schools with multiple helicopters, you know, if you go to a little school and they only have one helicopter, when that helicopter breaks, all the flight training stops. So I think the school is important and also the instructor is obviously important. People should understand that in this world of instructing, a lot of the instructors are there for no other reason than to build time to move on to something else. And so consequently, you do have a certain percentage of instructors out there that, I mean, they're there because they have to be there, not because they want to be there. And it's a difficult thing for a student to sort out. But, you know, one on one with the instructor, I think you can get a sense of what side of that street the instructor's on. So I think the school and the instructor, by far and away more important than the type helicopter. I really don't think the type helicopter matters at all.

That's great.

That's great.

That's what kind of pilot that person would be. It was about the knowledge, it was about the training. So we were all kind of blown away by that. We thought that was really cool. Because you would think he was just gonna plug Robinson and he didn't. And he said, I think a person should pick what's right for them. A Cavalry, a Robinson, an Enstrom, whatever. And like Chris said, it depends on where you live, what's available to you, and when you go to get a job later, you know, we can dissect this and it'll turn into too long of a video because we're going to cover insurance and ownership and rental. We're going to do those in some other upcoming videos. So just to answer that question, like, we start our day, our video day. Number one, do your research. We're going to give you opinions. We're going to tell you what we think. It may work for you, it may not work for you, but you want to do what's right for you and picking the helicopter, you know, and yeah, I agree.

I think, you know, it's a. I've, I've, you know, last I count, you know, I think I've got 20 different makes and models that I've got experience in. Guess what? They all fly like a helicopter.

They all fly like a helicopter.

Each one's got its different little quirks to it, but they all fly like helicopter once you learn it. And, you know, and I'm, and I think back on my route, the reason why I started an instrument was because it was, it was available to me. That's, you know, but I think back on it now and I'm so glad that I did because, you know, the instruments, I think a little bit harder to fly because of no governor and that kind of stuff. And then moving into a governor, it was so much easier.

Yep.

But so, yeah, I think just to kind of recap, I think it all depends on where you are. If you can't travel what's closest to you, if you want that first job as an instructor, more than likely they're probably going to be flying Robinson. So maybe you may have to travel, but you may want to do a route, you know.

Absolutely.

And a lot of tour companies, you know, they're flying 44s, you know, so, you know, you go and you get 100 hours in a G2. Don't get me wrong, I love the G2. It's a great aircraft. Come fly with us. You know.

Sweet. Aviation.com.

Yes. But, you know, getting 100 hours into G2 and then you want to go out to South Carolina and Myrtle beach and fly R44s for tour to get that first job that may not work for you.

Exactly, Exactly Right. So much to think about. Do the research. Every helicopter has a pro and a con. I like them all. I don't really bash any of them.

Correct. I agree.

And the more it is nice to get experience at different aircraft because you just, you never know down the road how that's going to help you later. So a lot to think about. So on that topic of flying and what helicopter, we have a maneuver guide, free maneuver guide. We'll put the link down below. Like Chris said, a helicopter is a helicopter. Buttons and switches are different places, but the elements of flying a helicopter doesn't really change much. So There's a free PDF down below based on the Helicopter Flying Handbook. The way the maneuvers are stated. We have a free download down below. So thanks for tuning in to episode eight and we'll see you tomorrow. Let's let them know what's coming up for the next one. The next one shall be Should I Buy my Own Helicopter? Now this is gonna be a good one because we both have experience on this one. So like, subscribe, comment, let us know what you think about helicopter that a person should fly and we'll see you tomorrow.

Awesome.

That's.

It.