Kenny Keller breaks down helicopter private pilot licensing. The FAA minimum is 40 hours, but he recommends 55-65 hours realistically. Keller took 88 hours and failed his first checkride before passing.
40 hours.
About 55–65 hours.
88 hours.
Brian Rutledge (Operations Manager).
Code SUMMER33 for 33% off (sale ends the last day of summer / through midnight on the 22nd of September).
Zero hours to private pilot. How long does it take? I'm gonna get to that here in just a minute. I am Kenny Culler, creator of Helicopter Online Ground School. We've got a free maneuver guide put together by our operations manager, Brian Rutledge. The PDF is down below. You just have to give up your email and you have. You can obtain the free PDF copy of our helicopter maneuver guide we put together. Brian Rutledge is our operations manager. 30 year aviator, CFI in airplanes and helicopters. He ran one of the largest aviation units in California for a lot of years before he went to work for us. So that's down below zero hours to private pilot. How long does it take? If you could jump on the Internet, start researching, you'll see people say numbers like 55 is the average, 65 is the average. You'll see some different numbers out there. And I think on average 55 to 65 is actually pretty reasonable for the private pilot. The FAA requires 40 hours. Has there ever been anybody that did it in 40 hours? Sure, there has been. Have there been people that's taken 100 hours or more? Absolutely. It took me 88 hours to get my private. And I mentioned this in a previous video because I went to start going to flight schools and I would just fly, fly, fly. And they're always like, well, we should do some ground at some point. Yeah. But then what we do, we just, we would just fly and fly. So my flying quickly got way ahead of my ground school. And at one point I had an instructor who's like, well, what'd you score when you're written? And I'm like, what written? And he's like, you don't have your written done? I'm like, no. And he goes, dude, you're flying to a private pilot standard. You could pass the checkride the flight portion, but you don't even have your written done yet. And I'm like, nope. He's like, oh my God. Well, let's sit down. He started asking me some questions, like, what kind of clouds are outside? And I'm like, I don't know, big white, puffy ones. And he's like, oh my God, do we have a lot of work to do? So in turn, it took me 88 hours. And that's a lot of hours. I jumped around between different helicopters and different flight schools, which got me good experience. But because I was just flying and not doing ground, I wound up behind and of course ended up failing my first check ride. Long story there. That's how I ended up being where I'm at today doing ground school. Never intended to be the ground school guy, but that failure may have been the best thing that ever happened to me because it forced me to hit the books and study really, really hard. When I went back to retest, I smoked it. And then my career went on from there. So how long does it take? Good average 55, 65. Could be more, could be less. Depends on the frequency of flying, how well you retain knowledge. So many things, weather, maintenance, size of the school, availability of aircraft. So many factors play into how long it's going to take for you. Hopefully that helps. Remember, free Maneuver Guide Down Below. It's free PDF put together by Operations Manager Brian Rutledge. And we have a summer sale ends the last day of summer. 33% off any membership. Now through midnight on the 22nd of September. Go down below and use the code SUMMER33. 33% off any membership. It's a good deal. This time of the year they things are slow for us. We know they pick back up into the fall because people are busy in the summer and then the fall they start picking back up their flight training again. So we thought we'd pass some savings on to you, get things rolling back here at Hogs with a nice discount for anyone that comes across this video. And if you have a question, we have a member concierge named Heather. She's been with us for four and a half years. She can answer your questions about signing up and you can text or call her at 574-767-1797. So reach out to Heather or go down below. Check out those links, go down below, download your free PDF and we'll see you in the next video. Peace out.
