Hey? Where have you been? HOGS 11 Years Online Today!

What. Close. I think this thing's live that something stupid came on the screen there. Are we live? Hey, where have you been? Yeah, you. You don't call, you don't text, you don't write. It's Hog's 11th 11 years online. Today it's birthday. No loving texts or phone calls or emails, no birthday cake, no presents, nothing. Are you serious? No, we're just teasing. It's been crazy. Today is 11 years online. Went live March 1, 2012. And quite honestly, earlier this month I was in Florida and then I got back and we decided to start our 11 years online celebration the middle of February, going through today. And we realize now in hindsight, that's back ass words. Okay, Normally we start March 1st and go through my birthday on the 15th. This year we thought, hey, let's do something different. And Heather's gonna occasionally monitor comments. So if I see something flash up, I'll have Heather put up or let me know what the comment is. So make a comment down below if you like, while we're live or after the fact. But anyway, so that was 10 days in Florida and it came back, started editing like crazy. We decided to launch our lone year online celebration. But then I got hooked up with our local dpe, Randy Sharkey. A lot of you have seen Randy in our top 10 pet peeves videos that we did. Well, somebody reached out to Randy from hai. They saw those videos and they asked him to present this shared hai. And so Randy said, hey, I'd like to put a new spin on those. And ultimately he rewrote them, went a little more in depth, and we went out in the Augusta 109 a week ago and shot them. So I've been working hard like crazy to get Randy's presentation ready. And we'll show you. It's over here on the screen right now. Playing. We just viewed it. Sorry for the crappy tripod. So that's how they're trying to log into the IACRA and getting logged out. And then here's Randy the examiner going, no, are you kidding? Because that's one of the big problems, people getting logged out, not remembering their name and password. So we're trying to be smooth with our crappy cheapy $50 tripod. I got a nice expensive one, but we can't find the actual plate for the top of it. So anyway, we're just sitting here and Heather goes, why don't you just turn the camera on, go live. So that's what's been going on. 32 minute presentation. Now ready? And Randy just asked, hey, would you just do me a favor and don't put it out to the world. Don't show anybody until after I've got to present it at Expo. And I said, of course, Randy, I have no problem with that, I get it. And there's the stupid furnace that always frustrates me, but it should be fine with this microphone. So anyway, we got that all done. It worked like a madman trying to get that all edited up. Edited up. So we really didn't talk much in the last couple weeks about the 11 year cell and didn't do a whole lot. We put out some emails, but it's just been kind of crazy around here with Florida and editing all the R44 stuff, working on this presentation for Randy. So we'll put out an email before Randy's presentation. Do you remember what day Randy's presenting? Tuesday. So Tuesday, the first day of 10:30 in the morning. Okay, so that would be the 6, I think it's 6, 7 and 8. Is the expo Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So Tuesday Randy's going to present this 10:30 in the morning. I don't know the actual room number, but we'll put that out in the email.

I think It's Wednesday the 8th, isn't it?

It might be the 8th. We're going to put out an email what day Randy's presentation is. So if you're going to be at Expo, come join us for Randy's presentation when we air this 32 minute video in the room because they say the attendance hasn't been that great at these events. We know a pilot was there last year and presented something and he had six people in the room. And Randy's like, well I hope we have more than six people. And I said, you know what, I'm going to do my best to get some HOGS members to show up for your presentation because that make me feel really good. If Randy has like five people that show up from just coming in from the event and if we have 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 Hogs members, followers, fans show up for Randy's presentation and if you could wear your HOGS gear, that of course would be even better. So I just thought that would be cool. I know a lot of people have enjoyed the top 10 tips from Randy and again he's renamed them rotor tips and changed them a little bit slightly just over the things that he's seeing as an examiner. The problems that people have shown up for checkride. And the fun part of it is we used Chris Hauser, who many of you know Chris from our. He's longtime student of mine. I did his private through commercial. He's been in lots of videos with me in the cabaret. He's up here in the Hogs Wall of Fame as a Hogs instructor and Chris is now flying ems. Randy brought Chris in as the, the actor student for these videos. So we have some clips throughout this 32 minute video of what a student might do, like showing up late because he was out too late the night before, having trouble logging into acra. The different things that we see people do because we preach this all the time, that usually a checkride does not start or if it starts it ends over something stupid like you can't get started because you don't have your IACRA login password and info or you forgot a document or you have the wrong written test. Had a guy, we sent a guy once, two hour flight to go take a check ride and turns out he had another instructor sign him off. I don't take blame for this one. He had taken the written test for airplane instrument, not helicopter instrument. He shows up and the examiner goes, well, great score on your instrument. Written test packed him up and he had to fly back home. All that wasted time and aircraft time, the examiner's not happy. He's got to come home, take another FAA written test and go back. So anyway, so we use Hauser for some examples and they're pretty funny. We go to the extreme because Hauser is actually a really well rounded pilot. He's very organized and he's done a great job, you know, with his flying career. So it's a joke in the video. When you see the video, it's. I don't know, it's a joke, right? It's just showing. Even though it's a joke, it's the things that people do. Like you'll. Any of it anyway, anybody that sees the presentation, you'll appreciate some of the goofs. Like examiner says, you know, what's this red light in the annunciator panel? And he's like, oh, red, that means bad. I'm probably telling my passengers we're going down, you know, and the examiner's eyeball goes up, eyebrow goes up. So anyway, it'll be pretty funny. So you're thinking Wednesday. I think Wednesday is right again. We're going to email everybody the dates and times. One, we'd love for you to show up and help us support Randy and support hogs in the classroom for that. And then the other big thing that's happening. I've mentioned before in the past, Enstrom Helicopter got taken over by one of my past students and you know, they went into bankruptcy last year. This gentleman is a super successful entrepreneur and he purchased Enstrom Helicopter and they've hired. I don't know how much I'm supposed to say, but they've hired a lot of people new, including engineer type people. And at the expo they're going to reveal what they have coming out. And I haven't got an answer on that yet what I could talk about. So I'm not going to mention anything because I don't want to get anybody upset because I wasn't supposed to mention this or that is happening. So that we believe is happening on the opposite day of Randy's presentation and instrument. Of course invite us there and we're going to try to go live during that. When they do their press conference, the new owner is going to talk about all the changes, everything that's happened at Instrom. What's new. I do know that they have a brand new booth this year. Their booth in the past was always pretty, you know, humble and what we hear, their whole presentation, it's not just a booth. It's a lot of really cool stuff coming out with the new Engstrom aircraft that a lot of people are going to be impressed with because those aircraft have been around forever and they're lovely helicopters. But the owners before weren't putting much money into it, so of course there wasn't. There was a lot of things Enstrom wanted to do, but maybe the funds weren't there. Obviously if you're on your verge of bankruptcy, you're probably behind on developing new products and updating things. So they're gonna announce at Expo all the new changes and from what I hear it's some pretty exciting stuff. So we're also gonna be for that there for that. But we also want to invite you, our members, HOGS members followers. We last we went was 2020 to Heli Expo and we told everybody that we would be at the instrument booth on the first day. Like this time just made an announcement and we didn't really expect to have what turned out as a little Hogs mob in front of the instrument booth. And it was fun because we just told people where we would be. And as soon as we get to the instrument booth, here comes people walking up with Hogs T shirts on or Hogs hoodies, which you can get@hogshoodies.com by the way. No, they're not on our website and yes, we need to put that link on the website. But we've been having people going, hey, we. Where can I get a Hogs T shirt or hoodie? They're@hogshoodies.com. so anyway, so we get there last year, we go to the instrument booth, say hi, and then pretty soon we have a little mob right out in the aisle, way right in front of their booth. And Jackie at Instrum Helicopter, who always makes sure that we get passes into the show and always invites us down, stop by and see him. I remember her. I could see her in the background over at the booth, just grinning and kind of shaking her head that we had this little ensemble of Hogs members and followers. And anyway, so that was really fun. So we'd like to do that again this year. First time was not planned. This one. We'd like to kind of plan it. And we'll put out an email to the list I'm waiting for. I contacted Jackie with Instrument, said what day, like might be kind of light, like what time of the day or which day would it be nice for us to invite our Hogs members to come by? So she's going to get back to me on what time would be lighter so that they can kind of hopefully give our attention to us and show us the new improved models. They're going to have two there, I believe, from what I understand, with all the new updates and all the new things that are new for instrument. So I don't think I'm getting myself in trouble because I. I'm just telling you there's some new cool additions. So that's what we want to do. We'd love for you guys to come to Randy's event Wednesday the 8th at 10:30.

And of course, if they see us walking around, no matter what day it is, stop and stop us and say hi.

Exactly. We'll be walking around the show, we'll put out some emails, we'll post on social media, kind of where we're going to be and we're happy to run into you wherever on the show floor, wherever. But just we'd like some people to show up at the shows, different times. Randy's event, if you'd like to show up when Instrument does their. Oh, I forget the terminology. I already said it once in the video. The owner, the new owner is going to speak to basically the media. Every media outlet that's at expo will be at the instrument booth at a certain date and time just to, you know, meet the new owner, hear about all the press conference to Talk about all the changes. So you're welcome to come to that. But again, we'll have hopefully another time where maybe a small group of us can get together and just check out the new instrument helicopters. So that would be the big things that we got going on. Again, those are the first two days of the show, and as it gets closer, we'll email it out. So 11 years online. Let's take a little look over here at the Hogs hall of Fame. It's wintertime, so we've had to revamp a little bit. The Hogswell looks a little funny because the. The furnace is over there on the one side, and it was kind of blocking the heating system. So we kind of got the wall jacked around at the moment because of being winter, but it's warming up and getting nicer. So here. Very soon we'll be able to get back over and we added that panel. So we kind of like need to revamp the whole. The whole wall and get it looking good. We have been continually still adding new pictures. The last ones you put up did we do in a video. Did we announce who we put up last? Yeah, we have two more that we. Okay, so maybe you want to grab them now. Okay, so we'll have two more going up on the Hogs Wall of Fame, but the last three or four we put up, we did in one of our recent videos. So that you all got. Unless what?

Unless we did put them up.

I thought we made a. I thought we made that a rule, that we always put it in a video when we put somebody up on the wall.

Well, I mean, we might have.

I walked by and looked, and I think we did those. We'll check. We'll double check one of the last couple videos or so, make sure that we got everybody up there. And pretty soon today would have been a good day to do this. I want to go over and mention everybody that's on the wall. Again. I did that, like, I think last year or two years ago, and people really enjoyed that when we took the camera over and showed every single person on the wall. What's the number we're at now? Do you know that's on the wall? 270 something. So we'll. We'll do that once we. We'll do a video on that once we get the wall back put in shape. Because every once while we go over, kind of make sure that there's still a hall hanging on there. Good. Sometimes we make some adjustments. So what else should we tell them before we go yeah, it's 11 years online today. Last year seemed more exciting because it was 10 years and most businesses, if you make it 10 years, that's kind of a turning point, right? If you've been able to be doing something a business for 10 years and still be alive 10 years later, number one is the feat. And if you're operating 10 years later and you're not completely in debt and in the hole, that's even better, right? Because entrepreneurship and businesses are hard. You know, business is not easy. They don't happen overnight and they take a lot of headache and heartache and a lot of work. And we've been excited. Last year it was cool because it was 10 years and we had a big lead up for a month or two getting ready for March 1st and we had this big production made and then the day of we had technical issues and it kind of fell apart. And it like took the window of myself this year thinking about trying to get ready for a big presentation today on the Hog's 11 year birthday. And I just couldn't do it after what I went through last year with having a great big production, that half of it fell apart. Technically when we were going through it and we were messing with those, I use choice words for those undesirable aircraft I had in the hangar at this point in time, let's put it that way, we were distracted with that. So going to have some exciting news hopefully here pretty soon on a new aircraft venture. But that's all I'm going to say about that because I'll blow it if I mention anymore. So, yeah, put a comment down below if you missed this video. I guess we're still celebrating. We're still going to celebrate. I don't know how long we're going to do that though, because we put an end to that. We're going to change it up. Probably won't go as big as it has been, but we'll still keep some Specials going@heloptergrow.com Hate to say, lock it into this video and then we decide 20 minutes from now we're done, that let's not do that. We're going to keep some specials going. We're going to create something else different than what we did so that the people that bought. Well, wait a minute, it ends tonight. The big sale ends tonight. Okay, so let's do this. You can stay 50% off yearly memberships. I call them, let's call them 12 months memberships. 50% of what it would cost you versus a monthly plan on private commercial CFI and instrument yearly options. 12 month options, we don't normally offer those. We have allowed a private 12 month option in the past, recent past. But the others we brought back for this sale, you can't normally buy those as a 12 month option and then, so those are 50% off and then ProPilot is 50% off and you can use the code hogs50. So just go to helicopterground.com and you can use those codes through midnight tonight. Those expire at midnight. So I don't want to, to be fair, I don't want to extend the same sale. I don't want to be that guy that, oh, 50% off until midnight and then the next day you get that email. We, oh, we've extended the sale due to high demand. I don't want to be that guy. So we started early though. We started early. The sale's going to be there till midnight and, and then after we get done here I'm going to, we'll figure up what we're going to do for now till my birthday and for where we're celebrating Heli Expo. But it won't be as good as what we've had the last two weeks because it's just not fair for those that jumped in, scrounged their money and, and bought before midnight tonight. So just go to helicopterground.com either way, whatever special is going on, those will be there. What else should we talk about before we go? You had some notes written over there, everything. I guess I should give a big thank you to everybody that has stuck with us for 11 years because you know, business is hard and I no longer whine about my past and all the hardships and headaches and I used to harp heavy on that. I think after the 10 year point that was why it was so exciting at 10 years was because I made it that long and finally felt like I was starting to heal over those wounds of the past. And then, you know, there's still some things that happened last year that were, you know, were a little satisfying but feel like I finally now kind of got over a lot of it. And we are only here because you guys girls have supported us over the years. Whether you've made a YouTube comment, a like or even a hell of dislike because you know that's activity too. So you can put a dislike on the video, we don't care. Talk to us on Facebook or Instagram, TikTok, whatever. You know, the people that have bought memberships, taken a test flight, downloaded a freebie book, bought our Books got our memberships returned as members stick around through boring ass lives. That went on and on and on and on. Kind of like this one's going on and on. So I guess I should end it with just, we gotta thank everybody for sticking with us all these years. We want to get you up there on the Hogs wall of fame. You know, we talk about this all the time. It started out as an idea in that old office. Crappy, crappy old office. Oh yeah, let's look at the picture over here. There's that 109. So we went in the Agusta 109. I had never flown before. And I have to say Randy let me fly it the whole hour we were out. I have to say that thing was pretty freaking cool. And we shot four cameras with this new. We call it Rotor Tips, the new video. We'll release them after the Expo is done because again, Randy said, hey, just kind of keep it. Don't let the public see it until after I present it. So after the fact we'll put the video out as a whole. And actually I was just. I hadn't even told Heather this yet. What I want to do is while we're there, Randy asked me to get up and just speak for a minute or two. Just about helping him get this prepared and shooting and editing it. So what we want to do is there's four of us going down there. So we're going to shoot. Not let anybody really even cares about this, but I want to shoot the introduction that Randy does and he has me come up and speak for a minute and then we'll just roll the video and then we'll shoot. He's going to take questions after the video is rolled. After the video is done. His audience is both student pilots and instructors. So he's going to take questions after the video plays. So I want to capture all that on video. So once we get home we can create one full length feature film. No, one full length video where you can see the introduction with us at Expo. I'll roll the video and then you can see the discussions after. When students and instructors are given the opportunity to say, hey, ask questions direct to a DP about checkrides and checkride tips. So that's another reason I wanted four of us down there so that we can capture the audio and video with a couple different cameras and then put it together in one big presentation. And of course, once it's all done, we'll edit these up and put them in the appropriate places of hogs. You Know, like the CFI section of hogs that's going to want a certain one or two or three or four of these videos right at the beginning that maybe talk to instructors and the same thing in private or commercial. We'll put the different videos from the different subjects discussions inside hogs in the appropriate places as needed. So that'll be done after we get back. So Big Cell 11 years online ends tonight at midnight. We'll figure out what's going to happen after midnight, what will be available. So rather than sending you a bunch of different links, it'll change between midnight and tomorrow. Just go to helicopterground.com, we'll put a link down below and we'll put the number down there for Heather for text or phone calls. If you're trying to figure out last minute you're wanting an upgrade or you're brand new to us and haven't signed up yet, remember the monthly options are a 24 hour test flight. 24 hour test flight means you sign up with your credit card, but you have a full 24 hours to sign up and check out the site. You know, we have a lot of people that say, somebody told me way back, quit mentioning your compass, your competitors. But there's one particular competitor we keep hearing questions about. Well, how do you compare about so and so? It's like, you know what, take the 24 hour test flight and go in and go look and then go buy the competitor because you're going to be dissatisfied. Then you're going to come back and buy ours, the 24 hour test flight design. So you can go in and look at either private pilot monthly, commercial pilot monthly, instrument pilot monthly, or certified flight instructor monthly. You log in and you can watch as much of it and consume as much of it as you want in that 24 hour period. And we've tested this, it's a full 24 hours. It bills you like hour 24 hour 25, hour 26. You have a full 24 hours to go in, look at the training and go, you know what, I like this. This is for me. I'm going to go month to month. You can cancel anytime, come back anytime, and there's a 30 day money back, no hassle guarantee. Even if you take the test flight, decide you want it. Day 29, you go, Ah, you know what wasn't what I thought I'd like a refund. Boom. We refund your money and we part as friends. And then we'll see you later when you come back after you fail. Check right because your oral wasn't good enough. Because that's happened many times. So those are on the month lease, the 12 month options. And the pro option does not have a 24 hour test flight. However, they have the 30 day money back hassle guarantee. And I've said this a million times, but the point is that's been in place since day one, March 1, 2012. And so many times people go, oh man, I wouldn't do 30 days. I'd just do two weeks. Or I'd do seven days. And I'm like, nope, 30 day money back, no hassle. And people that have come to work for me over the years, like, oh man, well, this person called and it's day 27 or it's day 14. And oh man, do you really want to refund them? I'm like, just refund them. You know, I've had people go, well, should we ask them something? Nope, don't ask them nothing. Either you like the training and it's right for you or it's not any issue or refund request. Heather knows, just do it. There is no questions asked. We don't hound you, well, what can we do to keep you? And we don't do the, you know, you see the one where you unsubscribe, hey, you want to stay today for 50% off? That's cheesy. I don't do that. Either training works for you or it don't. But remember, 30 day money back guarantee is 30 day money back guarantee. Because we get this all the time. It's been 92 days. Oh man, I never even really got to log in. I know it's been 90 days, but. And they give you a sob story. And every time I go, no, you got a 24 hour test flight on the monthlies or you have 30 day money back on any course. 30 days is enough time to log into your computer, sit down and decide if some training is right for you. 30 days is enough. Not day 31, not day 35, not day 38. It's 30 days. All right, so. Oh yeah, here's what we could. Let's say what we could do. Let's make up this part. Right now we have 89 study guides in. We don't have them here, the manufacturer ships them direct, but we have 89 in stock. So right now we're giving those away with ProPilot. That's 50% off the ProPilot. We're sending you the $97 study guide, which is becoming quite popular by the way. The more people that use it. The more examiners that see it, the more professionals to see it goes. This freaking book is awesome and we have people loving it. So we'll come up with I don't want to talk too soon and then screw it and then screw us. When we figure out what we're going to do, we'll make. We'll make one offer that has continues to have the study guide that will be sent to you along with membership. So we'll figure that out. All right. Party words. Where have you been? Where are you? Where have you been? Things are getting pretty quiet on the ol home front. I know it's February and February is always our slowest month, but we've got some really good content out there that you get a couple yahoos commenting on weirdo comments that aren't even relative. It's like, where's our people? Where's all our peeps? Joel, Die. Are you dead? Hope you're well, but it's like you don't call, you don't write, you don't email. What's up? I think they're all dead. I hope not too. All right, helicopterground. Com. And then, as always, I haven't done this. Well, let's see. I think I have to hit there. Hit there and peace out.