Episode 340: Struggles & Sacrifices of Becoming A Helicopter Pilot

That's how important it was. I found a way to do it. You know, I used tax return money, savings, you know, I took whatever I needed to pay for it. And that's, that's the passion you got to have if you, if you want to do it.

You.

Yeah, it's, it's like you said, it's not easy and it's not cheap, you know, but it's not one of those things where a guy is going to go out and say, you know what, I need a job. I think I'll become a helicopter pilot and then figure out that's what they're going to do because that's not going to work because they're going to see how much money it costs.

Yep.

And then they're not gonna do it. It's the guys that have money or the guys that are really passionate about it that are gonna do it. Live to fly another day.

Helicopterground.com so back in the late 90s, I started training here just south of downtown Chicago, flying R22. And I had maybe 20, 30 hours. And the instructor says, hey, let's go for a night flight. And we can either go around the. Or I could take you downtown Chicago outside of Watson. So of course, you know, 199 Whiskey Sierra, Gary tower Runway. He made it clear that, you know, benefits of going around, around the patterns, probably the best for my money. But he goes, but if you want to go downtown, I'm like, by all means, let's go downtown. So we take off. It's just about right at sunset. The lights of the tail lights on cars are popping up and real clear and your street lights. We turned towards Chicago. As we head towards downtown, it was getting dark, the lights in Chicago were lighting up. And that was the moment in time that I said, I am gonna do this for a living. I don't know how I'm gonna pay for it. I don't know if I'm smart enough. I don't know that I can do it. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna figure it out and I'm gonna sell what I gotta sell, do what I gotta do, and I'm gonna find the money somehow. And I never. And I just went from there. Before that I was unsure of myself. But in that moment of going downtown Chicago, that was it for me. I knew I was gonna do this for a living. So then we picked back up, we just stopped at Lansing and had lunch back at the. It used to be Shannon's years ago when I did my private and commercial checkrides. After the checkride we would go with the examiner and the instructor over to this little restaurant right there on the field and let's just say we enjoyed our adult beverages and it became the thing back then after checkride you had to go to Shannon's and you went with the examiner and again your instructor. I said that already, but it just became a thing, right? That's just what you did. And it was so much fun. Today we landed there. First time I've been back there and I figured it's got to be over 20 years since I've been there. So it was fun going back to the airport. We went up and had lunch, but sad to say, nice little airport Lansing, but man, I don't know what happened, but it's dead. There's nothing going on there. The restaurant's there, they got a couple of old FBOs but there's nobody in them. A couple fuel trucks sitting around, but nobody manning them. They have self serve and I'm not really not trying to bash Lansing, it's just I remember when I was training there it was a thriving airport with lots of aircraft and it was a wonderful place to train. And I'm sad to see an airport, a class G airport now just kind of drying up and nothing going on. Don't know why that is another little fun little note. I used to fly pipeline patrol up here after I got my cfi, I worked at Lansing for a little bit. At the time it was called Sun Arrow Helicopters and once a week we did pipeline in and around Chicago. So back in, in those times I got pretty good at navigating around up here. And just because it's been so long since I've been here, I want Chris to come along and just kind of refresh my memory and see the sights. And I guess, you know, we were talking. I'm gonna ask Chris to jump in here. I told the story I just told you this morning. I told it in the hangar before we left and told these guys why this was important to me to come to Chicago and that I trained up here and I wanted to go to Lansing and I wanted to have lunch there where we used to hang out. And I just talked about how, you know, this downtown flight that night, how it changed my whole outlook. And you know, Chris jumped in and said, you know, that's it, that's the passion, right? Like you got to make that decision that you're gonna do this. And you know, here hogs we talk to people all the time. About becoming pilots and learning to fly. And everybody runs into struggles and we hear a lot of them. Right. We get it, we understand. But we're here to tell you, just look at what we're doing. I mean, this is worth it. It's freaking amazing. It's freaking cool. Yeah. Four of us up here flying around Chicago. Yeah. Was it easy? I mean, did it happen overnight?

No.

Was there struggles along the way? Yeah. Helicopters haven't necessarily been great to me. You know, you might be from the outside looking in, somebody might think that it is, but you don't see the hard work behind the scenes for a lifetime or half a lifetime or 20 or 25 years. Somebody puts into something. And now I'm getting the benefit of the years of hard work. So I want Chris to jump in and, you know, you can kind of just hit what you said this morning about. Because you've been doing a lot of training for years as well, to see if I. More than 10 years, right?

Yeah.

Probably long time you've been training and you've run into the same thing. And remember what you told us this morning?

So. Yeah, let me make a radio call real quick.

Okay.

Chicago area traffic, helicopter 181 Mike Bravo is along the lakeshore northbound south of the city, Chicago. So, yeah, so we were talking about this morning, you know, and talking about expense and all that. And it's kind of like what you said. It's you, you found your passion right away and you found you were going to do whatever it took to get here. And that's how I was. I. I wanted to fly helicopters. Been wanting to do it since I was a. And I was gonna do whatever it.

Took to do it.

And when I was full time instructing for a little bit, you know, I would introduce guys, I'd take them up for their intro flights and, you know, and they would say, oh, I want to do this, I want to do this. And then when I really broke it down for them as far as what the numbers were going to be, you could just kind of see that it kind of took their breath away because they didn't understand. They didn't get that it was going to be that expensive. But I'd always end it. I'd always tell them, if you really want to do it, you'll find a.

Way to do it. Yep.

And that's how I left it. And then I would always tell them, you know, my story was that before I started flying, I had a motorcycle, I had an enclosed trailer, I had four four wheelers I had. My truck was paid off, whatever. Right. Well, when I first started flying, my wife at the time said, well, if you want to start flying, you got to sell the motorcycle. Well, okay, that's how important it was to me. So I sold the motorcycle that paid for my airplane lessons. Then after that I transitioned to helicopters. Well, slowly but surely, one of the four wheelers disappeared for some money. Then the second four wheeler disappeared. Eventually the enclosed trailer disappeared. The truck that was paid off, I borrowed against that for my lessons, you know, so that's how important it was. I found a way to do it. You know, I used tax return money, savings, you know, I took whatever I needed to pay for it. And that's, that's the passion you got to have if you, if you want.

To do it, you.

Yeah, it's like you said, it's not easy and it's not cheap, you know, but it's not one of those things where a guy's going to go out and say, you know what, I need a job. I think I'll become a helicopter pilot. And then figure out that's what they're going to do because that's not going to work because they're going to see how much money it costs.

Yep.

And then they're not going to do it. It's the guys that have money or the guys that are really passionate about it that are going to do it.

And yes, as we're flying over beautiful Chicago in that water, we can get the full PDF for free. Right here is Private Pilot 101, a helicopter training blueprint. You can get this free as a PDF. You could get the paperback, you can get the Kindle and you can get the audiobook. Now the privateblueprint.com that's it, right, Lindsay?

Yep.

The easiest way is privateblueprint.com you can get either the full book in PDF for free, download immediately and you can get the paperback version there and it'll take you to. Take you to Amazon. And then we got another one where I'll sign them for you and we'll send from the hogs hanger, but I don't remember what that. We'll put the link down below the video.

Yeah, we will.

Or you can email Heather. You can email Heather too. We will sell you one and I'll sign it for you and imprint whatever you want. Like, hi, Dave, you're the greatest R44 pilot of all time. Kenny color 2024, whatever. So helicopterground.com for all our courses. Privateblueprint.com thanks for tuning in. Put your comments down below about flying in and out of Chicago. Thank Chris Hauser for being our captain today and giving us the latest greatest tips and tricks for the Heliport vertiport in Chicago, Illinois. So helicopterground.com Peace out. Goodbye. See you in the next video 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.