LTT: Top Ten Check Ride Tips

It's. I'm telling you what, it gives me goosebumps. Freaking goosebumps. Oh my God. First concert since before COVID I took Gloria to see Kiss. Thank God, you know, 18 year old kid got to see Kiss before they're done. And last night, I'll tell you what, it's inspiration and the sound, the music. I like Korn. I would never say I was the big huge corn fan, but I like corn music. And I knew out of every there was two songs that I didn't know. Everything else I knew and when they went live, oh my God, when that curtain dropped, oh my God, it was absolutely amazing. Hey, let me know if anybody can hear me because this says I'm live shows. I'm live. Last comment I see is Thomas. So somebody type in there. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? I see some people typing in there. I see two concurrent views users. It's got to be more. I updated the software just so you know too. We had a problem March 1, so I spent some good Brian audio is perfect. Great. Can see me too. Good. Nice. I just spent the money on this program I've been using for five or six years. I did an update and I was hesitant to go to a new program or use the same one. Awesome. So I did an update on it and I was worried. I tried to go live a little bit. Go and says error. I'm like, what the hell? So I reached everything down, restarted it. Good. So we're back. So the email I sent out this morning, I did that after I was on my copy number two, you know, back in the coffee with Kenny days. That's by copy 2. I have the inspiration for the video by copy 3. I'm going live shooting copy with Kenny. And today I'm just sitting back after that concert last night. I just couldn't help but write the email I wrote this morning. If you're new to us, you don't know who we are. I'm Kenny with helicopter on ground school. Been online 10 years. We're in our two week celebration right now. And last night I took a night off to go see corn with my daughter. And it was absolutely. The live show was unbelievable. Unbelievable. So it made me go back and think about when I first started with helicopters. And 25 years ago my sister wanted me to go to Indianapolis 500 and I didn't want to go because, you know, partying on Saturday nights was more important to me. And I know it sounds bad, but this is the truth. And she goes every year and everybody backed out on her that, that year. And she wanted me to go and she nagged and nagged. Well, I had to, you know, like I couldn't go out and party normally Saturday night like I normally would. Right. And I was going to take away from myself Sunday, sleeping in after hanging out all night and seeing a live band somewhere. So we go and I'm, you know, I'm kind of a, I don't know, I'm being a pain in the ass on the way down. And I'm listening to the radio. It's a couple hour trip down to Indy and as I'm, we're driving down there, I'm listening to the radio and she's listening to all the stuff and I'm starting to kind of go, well, you know, maybe this will be all right. And we get there at the time I'm in the towing service. I have law enforcement experience, fire department experience, and I started a heavy duty towing service on my days off. Yeah. So anyway, I'm living life, doing the thing. But I had this helicopter dream that I hadn't really, you know, got started on yet. I didn't have a, I didn't have a plan to make it happen. I didn't think I was smart enough, didn't think I could afford it. You know, I went through counseling after the death of my mom from Lou Gehrig's disease in my early 20s because of my problems with depression, losing my mom and at such a young age. And so I got inspired to do a lot of things through self help videos and going to counseling, and it helped me a lot. So anyway, we get to the Indy 500 that day and I'm still being kind of a pain in the ass, but, you know, they had rained that morning. So there's tow trucks going around the track, drying the track. And I'm like, okay, you know, and I'm eyeballing these new wreckers going up and down because I was into that kind of thing, Right. I had a towing business at the time, and helicopters are hovering above and they're flying people in and out. And that gets me kind of excited. And I'd never been to the Indy 500. So then the cars come out, start warming up the track, and they're going around and around. Now I'm starting to get excited. And I think we were in turn three and when that, you know, the go flag comes out and those cars come by at full speed. It was the first time in my life that I Realized what the term breathtaking meant. I literally couldn't frickin breathe. I was so blown away at the sound and the speed and the helicopters. It was unbelievable. So I enjoy the race. I'm watching the helicopters. And as my email this morning, every prior event to that, always thought alcohol had to be involved, right? Well, that day I didn't drink a drop. And then pretty soon, as I'm enjoying the day, I'm like, you know, thinking, wow, this is pretty awesome. And I'm watching people getting up every 20 minutes to go get another beer, and then they're getting up and going to the bathroom, and I'm thinking, you're missing the beauty of this race. Wasting your day drinking and running the bathroom all the time. And I come home that day going, you know what? You know, I haven't drank at a major. I still drink. I'm not preaching saying, don't drink, people. That's not what I'm saying. I still enjoy a beer. I still like to go out and watch live bands and have a good time locally. But like a big event like yesterday, no, I take three people with me, no drinking. But this day inspired me, right? So anyway. Oh, there's that damn heater. I'm gonna go turn that thing down. I'm gonna come right back. This thing annoys the hell out of me. So anyway, I came back inspired. Like, I want something more out of my life, right? And shortly thereafter, I took an intro lesson to helicopters. And I just got started and never looked back. And, you know, once I got started flying and realized how much time and effort it takes and how you got to get up and feel good in the morning and feel rested, I kind of had to, like, distance myself from the crew of people I'd been hanging out with, right? Because what we were doing, going out and boozing it up, just wasn't in the plan anymore. I couldn't hang around, live that lifestyle anymore. And so the Indianapolis 500 changed my life in more ways than one. Made me realize I wanted to go for something different. And so last night at corn, here's the guy coming through, right? First, the guy sitting next to me, you know, he's already drinking before he even gets in the place. And then his buddy's coming through and, oh, he's, you know, two beers and he's struggling through there. And you're going, oh, God, right? And he's like, hey, sorry, I drink a lot, so I'll be going through here a lot to go get beer. And I thought, yeah, I Used to do that 25 years ago. And the entertainment is a whole lot more fun. Like I said, I'm not preaching saying don't drink, but it just freaking inspired me. And that set this whole thing in motion. And 25 years later, we're here with Hogs. That day, Indianapolis 500 changed my life. And last night, 25 years later, just being at that Corn concert and watching the stage presence, I mean, you had the, you know, you got the lead man out there, and he made the show, right, because he was talking to the people. And sometimes you see a band and they don't talk much. And a person, a band can talk too much. But he talked to you just enough and had the crowd eating out of his hand. And when, you know, people are screaming, they're going crazy. He's talking to him. He, like stops in the middle of a song and then he says he gets them going and goes, okay, shut the fuck up. And the whole crowd of people just nothing. And then goes back to the song. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I'm still inspired today. I just can't even believe how freaking cool that was. So go home, get a good night's sleep, get up this morning, drink coffee. And I'm like, you know what? Live Training Tuesday. Let's do it. It's been brought up in a conversation the last 24 hours with the Hogs team with bringing a new CFI on board. Hey, Nick. There he is in chat. I'm impressed. This is the. I'm gonna call him young man because he's younger than me, getting ready to travel here, 1800 miles from Arizona, I believe, to be the new Hog cfi. So he's here in chat. Good call, my friend. Good. Very good call. Because you already said you gotta impress me when you get here, man. So anyway, what's my train of thought? Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. And we were kicking around the, you know, the live training idea, and yesterday came up with Daniel and Nick, and they're like, hey, can we do this? And Nick's got a whole bunch of ideas. I'm like, hey, we've done this before. We know how to do it. We called it Live Training Tuesday. Well, I'm drinking coffee this morning. It's 20, 22, it's Tuesday. It's 9 o' clock in the morning. I got plenty of time to get ready for a thing at two. So let's do it. Let's bring back Live training Tuesday at 2. And when we did it before, I had multiple camera angles and we brought guests in like Hauser Whoever multiple mics and built presentations. Well, it turned. We're all week getting ready, getting ready and then kind of cleaning up after our live events, Right? And it just took so much time. And then we moved to this hangar three years ago and you know, life changing Tuesday fell to the wayside. So yesterday the new CFI is like, well, hey, you know, I'm going to do this and do that and should I do this and how long should it be? And I'm like, hey, hang on, you know what, let's not make it too complicated. Let's do the same thing called Live Training Tuesday. We come back at 2 and we talk to the members. Today's open to the public. We're going to do these every Tuesday, but we're probably going to limit these, make them unlisted. They'll probably be in our site for members. But I thought I didn't invite the public today. So you can see what we're doing. And if you want to be involved in Live Training Tuesday every week, get questions answered, cover topics that need to be covered. That's what we're going to do. Live training Tuesday at 2. I'm kicking them off the first couple. We'll get Nick, the new CFI in doing a few of them. Brian Rutledge, let him jump in now and then do some and we'll, and we'll see how it goes. But we're going to go live every Tuesday at 2 to take care of you, our members and work one on one and ask your questions and do all kinds of stuff. So I am live, but I see Brian and Nick and Heather all in chat. So they're going to take care of questions for me because I'm on a roll. So let's do some training. I'm super inspired and I want to share. So I thought, you know what, let's go back to top 10 checkride tips because that's ultimately what everybody's worried about anyway, right? So most of you already have a copy of this. You can go below, you can get a paperback copy. Heather will ship it to you in the U.S. sorry, we're not shipping out of the U.S. anymore. Heather will ship it to you and there's a free PDF down below. But the important point is Dan, Taz Chrisman, you can see him right there with me. He's down at Heli Expo representing Hogs this week. Okay. And the reason I didn't go to Heli Expo is because I had already planned this with my daughter in December. We bought the tickets for Corn. And then heli exco came, came up. And then I'm like, well, I could try to go to like the last day of the show. And my daughter's like, dad, well then just sell the tickets then, you know. And then I got what she said, right? The corn was the important event. I didn't want to be going to the show. And like, oh, hell, I got to get home and get the bag. I got to get on the plane tomorrow, try to make it to Dallas and then try to get some sleep and get there on the last day of the show. I went, you know what? Screw it. It's about my daughter. It's more about family time than heli expo. I can go next year. Dan, Taz Chrisman is there. He is at the show in Dallas. So if you want to reach out to Hoggs, look for Dan the show floor, find him on social media. He's down there. Sent me a picture already. He's with Gabriel Hernandez, one of our success stories and talking about alcohol. Gabriel Hernandez was live with us on a live training Tuesday. And he told us about his problems with alcohol in the past and his arrests and all the he had to go through to become a helicopter pilot. He had to overcome a lot of obstacles and now he's out, He's a double eye, he's working in the world and he's down there today. And I had a picture of Taz and Gabriel together. You know, that's the. That's hogs. You know what? That's hogs. So Dan and I put this together, top 10 checkride tips. So we'll go over this, we'll see if you got any questions, but let's just go through them. Start three weeks in advance. Okay. And start three weeks in advance. I'm talking for the checkride day. You could actually do this three months in advance. The problem is people wait until the night before. Oh, hell, I don't have a sectional. Oh, I need a new far aim or whatever the case may be. There's a long, long list of why people screw up a checkride. And it isn't the hard stuff that screws up checkrides people. It is the easy stuff. You didn't sign the right form. We had a guy one time, wasn't me, different instructor, he was doing an instrument helicopter. He took instrument airplane written. Nobody caught it. He didn't catch it. The instructor didn't catch it. They fly an hour away and the examiner goes, where's the instrument written? Oh, well, my written is right there. He's like, this is an instrument for helicopter. This is an instrument for airplane. Checkride wasted, day wasted. Everybody's time wasted. Everybody's frustrated. Is that how you want your checkride to go? No. Start three weeks in advance going through the pts that will become the acs. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Start getting this stuff ahead of time. For 21 years now, I've seen it the night before, people are calling me. I had a kid who was going for a CFI checkride. I trained him, signed him off, but I was flying EMS the day he wanted to go take his checkride. I'm like, okay, cool. I'm at my EMS job. He calls me night four. Dude, I don't have a sectional. And I'm like, how can you not have a sectional? I don't have one. Well, anyway, he cancels his check ride because he doesn't have a sectional. And the examiner called me, dude, your CFI applicant canceled because he didn't have a section. We could have got one at the airport. And I'm like, Don't be like that. Start three weeks in advance going through the PTS and finding every single thing you need for that day. Go through the paperwork, sign, make sure 8710, know your password. Oh, my God, the list is endless. There's so many little tiny things will screw up a checkride, it's unbelievable. I'll keep going here because, you know, I talk too much. Prepare with the practical test standards. Soon to be the acs. Doesn't matter. Taz has said, don't worry about the acs. It ain't no different than the way hogs already teaches. You don't got to do nothing different. Don't worry about it. Okay. And in the book I wrote about, I believe this was for. Well, I'll tell a story anyway. I got story I want. I'm up in Michigan doing flight testing for the FAA on the Garmin GPS for instrument turbine helicopters a while back. And one of the guys in the room was like, hey, oh, what is it you do? And so I told him, you know, I got this little thing called helicopter under ground school, and this was five, six years ago. And I said, you know, I teach people online. You know, the subject areas I need to know. And he's like, well, how do you do that? How is it set up? And I said, well, I base it on the pts. And he's like, oh, my God, how much. How I love to hear that. He proceeds to tell me how he's a 40 year examiner. And the problem with people showing up for checkrides that have never looked at the pts, he's just one story, right? My examiner I've used for 21 years now, the one that we now have locally available with the other examiner for our checkrides. If you come here to apply with us. Hint, hint. Subliminal message. Flight training packages with Hogs 2022 in the H269 helicopter and Robinson R44. Okay, back to story. So anyway, this, you know, when I met that examiner as a brand new cfi, he's like, I'm like, hey, what, what, what do you got for me as a new cfi? What, what's my, what's the trick? You know, what's the tips? He's like, ever heard of pts? I'm like, yeah, make sure your students use it. You use it. Make sure you go through the pts, make sure your doc, your students have everything they need before the day of the test. Because guess what? They show up and they don't have everything that we need. And then that's not, it's not a good day. And that was it. That's all he gave me. Okay, so coming from examiners, if you're not opening up the stinking pts, then you're screwing yourself. And we hear all the time, oh, my instructor never showed it to me. Well, shame on the instructor that's not working through the pts with you because that's what needs to happen. Point taken. I mean, is the point taken. I should say go through the requirements and pilot logbook in detail. I love this. You know, when I was flying ems, we had a check airman guy who was like, you know what, you know what you need to know about being a helicopter pilot in the EMS industry? He said, read the book. Everything you need to know, you learn to kindergarten. And when he first said it, I didn't really understand. But I get it now, thinking about that over the years. It's like when we go through your log books, if you book a final approach course with us in the six zooms, I'm going to go through with you the first day of your six zooms. I'm going to say before we go live today on Zoom, have your logbook out, have a far aim out in front of you and over zoom, we're going to go, okay, I'm going to have the far aim open and we're going to go through the requirements because you're coming here for a final approach course to finish your rating in five Days. You make damn sure we're going to be on that first day going through the requirements. Because requirements is what screws people up. I have an example from an examiner who did some training with an applicant. I go over the log books and guess what? The two hour flight for cross country was 1.8. And so I'm like, the dude I'm flying with, I'm like, hey, this requirement isn't right. Here's what. I was flying with an examiner. He signed me off for it. I'm like, well, that examiner probably should open up the far aim and see that that flight needed to be 2.0, not 1.8. We had to go out and fly a 2.0. And he was pissed. Well, because the guy that flew with him didn't make sure he had the right requirement. So when I say, like the kindergartners, that's what I do. When you're here with me doing a rating, it's like, okay, open up your book. Kindergartner. Okay. Must have 40 hours in the helicopter. Do you have 40 hours in the helicopter? Must have 10 hours of solo. Do you have 10 hours of the solo? Okay, long cross country landing at three points, one leg. So many miles. All right, where is it? What is it? Where'd you go? And then pull out the ruler. All right, how many miles is that leg? How many miles is that leg? How many miles is that leg? How many miles is that total? You gotta go through that like your kindergartner. Every single requirement, you gotta go through this stuff and make sure it's right. And that's the beauty of hogs. That's the beauty of the final approach course. That's the Beauty of the 30 days to private pilot. We're gonna do this stuff with you on zoom before you ever land in Indiana. This stuff's not gonna happen where you show up and you don't and you're not ready. You're gonna walk through the door ready to climb on the helicopter and fly. Because we've already done your log books, we've already went through everything and we know where you're at and we're going to cover the ground. School Chapter four. Taz. Taz is down having fun in heli expo and I'm here making videos. That's all right. Maintenance logbooks. Mel kinds of equipment list. These screw Everybody up. Mel Mmel equipment list. If you ain't 100% on this, you better find out what they are before you go to your checkride. I'm not going through it all right now because I'm telling you, people screw these up and knowing the maintenance logbooks and I just clicked at the chapter here real quick before I went live and there a conversation written in this book is about how examiners, everybody likes to tab their log books, right? So I want you to think about this one. And there's nothing wrong with tabbing your far aim. There's nothing wrong with tabbing your log books. But here's the trick. Here's what examiners are talking about and I got this straight from the horse. Here's what examiners are talking about amongst themselves. Everybody likes to tab their stuff and they know you've tabbed the hundred hour, they know you've tabbed the last annual. They'll sometimes ask you something that's probably not the last. They're going to ask you something that actually requires you to look through that logbook and find it for yourself. So although tabbing is good, everybody tabs because you want your book to look used and worn and have the nice little tabs. But you better know what's inside the book. You better know how to go find stuff because they're going to stump you if you're bullshitting your way through. They're going to see it and they're going to know it. Just saying. Chapter five. Let's go to the next one. What do we got? Chapter 5. Cement your knowledge through repetition. This is how we learn over and over and over again. Where's my original notebook? I keep laying it out so I can find it when I want it. Anyway, I failed my checkride, my private and that's why I built my notebook and that's why I studied that thing over and over and over and over and over and I wrote stuff down. Because you, you learn through watching the video, listening to a video, reading a book, writing things down in your notes. The more times you go over it, the more you're going to learn it. And you can sit there at home and be testing yourself and think you're good, but when the examiners across the table, all that knowledge you had, it just goes out the window because all of a sudden you're across the table from the guy and you're going, I'm drawing a blank, I'm drawing a blank. We learn through repetition. We go over it and we go over it and we go over it and you need to go over it again. Jamie in the orange R44 who inspired the Final Approach course, said, I went through every HOGS video at least twice. If not three times. And that's why he showed up in Indiana. And his knowledge was, bam, done on the first day because he watched it over and over and over. No matter how well you think you know it, keep going over it. We learn through repetition. Chapter six, what we got next. Be an hour early. This is in the 10 top. Top 10 checkride tips from an examiner who. I rolled that video one day this past week, and we'll roll it again soon because we want to replay our March 1st event because we had technical issues that day. Now that I got my system fixed, I want to run again and give you the content that we did that day. Want to talk about some cool maneuver stuff that you may not be taught by your CFI? And then we rolled the 10 tips and the examiner, this is one of them. So two different examiners, and then me. Be an hour early. Be an hour and a half early. There's nothing worse than showing up late. Nothing. You want to beat the examiner there. You want to have time to get a drink. You want to have time to go to the bathroom. You want to have time to, you know, get a snack. You want to have time to maybe look up one more thing, Whatever it is, be at that checkride early and be prepared. Spend the time. Be early, man. I'm telling you, it's a very easy thing to do. And all these wonderful checkrides we've had over the years. Howser hates it. I tell the story all the time. Hauser smoked his private pilot checkride. Smooth as silk. His commercial check. Right. I'll be honest. This is clear back when I own the helicopter prior to launching hogs that's taken me down and run it, ruining, ruining me financially. I have the pressure of operating this helicopter business. Hauser's thinking about buying into the instrument and joining me as a partner to help save me as I'm going down the tubes. And we even went to the bank together and talked to the banker. And then that morning, Hauser was late, and he wasn't getting along at home, you know, and he had a horrible check ride. Why? Because we ended up late. And the examiner wasn't happy. I wasn't happy, Chris wasn't happy. And his check ride sucked. And at one point, he was stumbling on basic vfr. Back to my point, people, of the simple stuff. We're sitting there and he's like, Chris was flying airplanes and helicopters at the same time. And you can get confused on the regs in the daytime, nighttime, and the airplane helicopter. Da, da, da. He gets Confused on a spot or specific reg in there. And he's struggling. And the examiner says, okay, let's back up. What's basic vfr? He's looking for three miles and a thousand feet, right? And Chris is going, airplane, helicopter, daytime, nighttime, you know, he's going. And he's back and forth and he's thinking. And the examiner's looking at me like. And I'm back in the corner going, And I'm going, chris, it's three miles and a thousand feet. That's it. In the turmoil, Chris couldn't come up with 3,000 or three miles on a thousand feet, okay? The examiner goes, I'm going to go get a cup of coffee. I'll be back. I know what that is. The examiner won't let me sit in anymore. Okay? Back then, I could still sit in. Examiner walks out. I know it's my cue. I get up, he walks out, and I go, chris, it's three miles and a thousand feet. He's going, yeah, but. Yeah, but I'm like, stop it. It's three miles and a thousand feet, Chris. I'm just frustrated. So I go out in the hallway, and the examiner goes, what is up with your boy? And I'm like, dude, you know, he had a smoke in private. He's. Things ain't going well at home. We were late. He's like, your boy better pull it together, because this ain't looking good. And Chris ended up pulling it out of his butt and passing. But that's the difference between being prepared and being on time and showing up late. If that ain't enough of a good enough story to tell you, I don't know what it is. And while I'm looking, I see the chat going like crazy, but I know Heather's here, Nick's in there, Brian's here. So hopefully they're taking care of your questions, lay out all your documents nice and neat. And Taz actually took this picture, and we added this to the book. So I preach it. Taz supplied the picture. And it's the laptop, the 8710, the. The ID, the licenses, pens, pencils, E6B helicopter flying handbook. It's beautiful. It's all nice and neat. You know what? Some people go, oh, who cares? What's it matter? You want to be early that day? You want to present yourself well, you want to have everything laid out in a nice and neat fashion, because every checkride starts out the same way. Hey, let's go take a look at your paperwork first. It's 8710. It's your ID, you know, written test. How'd that do? Okay, you got your cross country planning. If it's all laid out nice and neat, you're early, you're there, you're ready to go, and you start showing the examiner stuff, you're on your way. You are on your way. If you were late, not good. If you don't have a document, not good. You don't have a sectional, not good. You don't have an E6B, not good. Okay, get there early, have everything ready, have it all laid out nice and neat, take a big deep breath. When the guy walks in the door, you are ready to go. And I'm telling you people, these are very easy hints. And this is what screws up checkrides. 21 years of doing this, I've seen it happen over and over again. Now, here's a good one. This might be contradictory. Chapter 8 Know that the checkride is hype. I say that because it's like going to the law enforcement academy. I'm going to compare it to that. And I'm making up all this stuff on the fly. Not making it up. I'm just telling stories that come to mind. When I went to the, I went to the Police Academy in 1990, and at that time, Indiana was number four in the nation for law enforcement academies. And everybody, you know, oh, dude, three more weeks going to the academy. Oh, they're gonna kick your ass. And everybody hypes it up, hypes it up, hypes it up. And you know what? It was tough and it was difficult, and it was the most difficult things I ever did in my life. However, it wasn't as bad as what everybody made it out to be. I got there, I kept my nose clean, you know, stayed out of sight, out of mind, didn't cause trouble, made sure my gig line was straight, no threads on the uniform, went back to the hotel, or went back to the academy room at night, you know, studied. When the other guys were out at the strip bar, I was back studying. You know, the checkride is the same thing. If you show up prepared and you've studied and you've applied yourself and you look good and you feel good and you've completed everything and you go in with confidence, the checkride is going to go well. If you're lacking any of those areas, sure, there can be a problem. And then even with all the proper planning, anybody can screw up a maneuver and have a bad day. But Taz agreed with me on this. One, know that the checkride is hype. It's way more worse when people are talking to you about it. And it's way more worse than your head. It's way worse than what it really turns out to be unless you get a nightmare for an examiner. We had that one time. Oh, my God. That went back on the examiner. Anyway, I'm not going to go down that story. Examiners in general do really fair jobs. From what I've seen in the years, I think examiners are 99% fair or 90%, 95%. Once in a while you might get a bad examiner, but doesn't happen very often. Checkride is hype. The checkride is hype. It's a big deal, but don't make it like so much of a big deal that you can't pass it. Oh, I love this one answer. Like you're in court. This is easy for people that have been in law enforcement or if you've been to court and an attorney has prepped you in law enforcement, we learned when you're in court, you don't say anything more than yes or no. And if they ask you a question, you answer with the briefest, shortest answer possible. I've been in the courtroom as a law enforcement officer. And the attorneys will eat you alive, and they will eat you alive, and they'll dissect everything that comes out of your mouth. I brought that with me from law enforcement and I used it in helicopter training. And Dr. Nick, one of my closest friends of all time, still to this day, one of my first helicopter students, the guy that owned the nstrom that used to be here, that graciously let me use it every year before he sold it. Dr. Nick is the guy that we did 100 hours of ground school, probably because Nick just his. He's a. He works super hard. He's a doctor. When he gets a couple days off, he wanted to come to the airport. That was his relaxation. And he wanted me to hand feed him everything. So that was, you know, and which was fine, right? That's what he wanted. That was his relaxation, to come to the airport, fly to ground, fly to ground, fly to ground, fly to ground, fly. Nick is the best example of this ever being used. Here was Nick in his private pilot checkride. Examiner would say something like, well, what are the three types of rotor system? Here's what Nick would do. He'd go, There's semi rigid, Rigid. And. What was the third one? I can't think right now. What is it? Semi rigid, rigid, fully articulated, Anyway, he didn't do that. He just went, and fully articulated. And the examiner would go, okay, good. Nick's entire oral checkride. That's exactly how it went. Didn't you know? I'll test somebody. Like, we'll do a zoom. And I'll go, hey, what's the three types of rare systems? Oh, it's semi rigid, rigid and fully articulated. And the semi rigid does this and the rigid does that and. Don't do that. People burn themselves on checkrides. And no matter how many times I tell you that I get in the checkride and I watch it happen, I watch a person dig themselves into a great big hole and down they go. And what examiner is going to do to you is the same thing I'm going to do to you in zoom. If you start going down that route, I'm going to go, okay, so semi rigid. Tell me about. What's that term for that weird rotor system? What's it do? What's that term? And I'm going to take you in a direction you don't want to go, and the examiner is going to do the same thing. Mm. Chapter 10. I failed my first helicopter checkride. Why? Because I was so freaked out. I was so stinking nervous. I didn't have the confidence in myself. My instructor, I was his first student. He was fresh out of school. I don't blame him. We're still good friends to this day. I was in his wedding even, you know, I failed because of my confidence. I failed because I was freaked out. I failed because I couldn't control my emotions. I'm already there, and I'm. I'm in the checkride day, and I couldn't sleep the night before. I stayed at my instructor's house. They were all young guys that were pilots and doing other things, and they ran this great big house, and I slept on the couch. Couldn't sleep. I don't think I slept a wink. Checkride gets going and I'm struggling. And prior to the checkride, every time we talked about aircraft log books, my instructor would say, oh, well, let me see if the maintenance guys are over there. No, no, they're locked up. We can't get them. We'll check another day. Okay, that happens several times. Day of the checkride, who forgot? Who didn't think about it. Guess we didn't use the pts. I never saw the aircraft log books. So I took my CheckRide with an FAA examiner, and we knew going in that one and two don't pass. So I knew that too. Right. The pressure's on because an FAA guy, I'm not paying him. And I was like everybody else, I was broke, scrounging every penny for every flight hour. So I chose to take it with the faa. So I'm already nervous and freaked out. The beginning of the test. And he says, okay, well, let's see, let's just go ahead. This is the beginning of the test. Let's go ahead and take a look at the aircraft log books. And I panic and I'm like, well, they're over in the maintenance area. Why aren't they in here? Well, I don't know. He grabs the instructor, they go get the aircraft log books. He brings in and sets it down, and he show me the last 100 hour inspection. Kenny Keller opens up the aircraft log books. I ain't never seen them. And I'm flipping page to page to page trying to find the hundred hour inspection. And what do you think the guy from the FAA is doing? Writing on the desk, huffing and puffing. So finally I go, okay, I gotta be honest, I've never seen these books before. And he's like, you've never opened those aircraft logbooks. I said, I've never seen them before, ever. He's like, find the last hundred hour. Can you imagine how that felt? Could you imagine how that felt? I'll ask you one more time, can you imagine how that felt? I'd never seen the aircraft log books. So guess what? How do you think the checkride went from there? I'm nervous, I'm frustrated, I don't have the confidence. I didn't sleep, and now the guy's huffing and puffing and it sucks. It sucks. He goes, well, go ahead and find it. So I scrounge around, I find it, and then he starts asking me questions, you know, And I just, at a certain point, he's like, let's take a break, let's stop the test. Okay, let's go outside for a minute. Okay. So we went outside. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was summertime. We go outside and we talked a little bit. The guy was giving me a chance. He was giving me a chance to calm the hell down. He was giving me a chance. He wanted me to pass. And we go back and sit down. He goes, okay, we had a little break. He goes, you've been struggling this morning. So do you feel better? I'm like, yeah, sure, yeah, right. Like I really feel any better. He was giving me the opportunity to calm down. And then we dig into aerodynamics, and he's saying, okay, you're out here in a hover and the engine quits which ways the nose going to go, you know, And I struggle with my answer. It takes me too long. And then, you know, we're talking about selling with power. And my answer's coming out, but I'm puking it out and it isn't coming smooth. And I didn't state exactly how he wanted to hear it. And at a certain point, he goes, okay, I'm going to have to stop the test. You're clearly struggling. And I'm like, yeah, I know. And he's like, you know, you know, I'm the FAA examiner down here, and I'm also, you know, I work for the faa, and if. If you're down here in this area and you get involved in a helicopter accident, I'm going to be the guy that's going to come out, investigate, you know, And I'm like. He said, so I don't want to come to your helicopter accident. And if you can't answer short and sweet and to the point, my question's across the table. How are you going to be able to think through that in the aircraft, in an emergency when you're nervous? And he said, when I asked you, when I asked you about selling with power, what are the three things combined together? I want to hear 30, 20, 10, rated ascent, 300ft per minute or greater using 20 to 100% of power. Airspeed less than 10. At that time, it was less than 10. Now we say less than ETL, but back then it was still 30, 20, 10. He goes, I need that to be sharp, concise, and to the point. And if I ask you which way the nose is going to go when the throttle gets rolled off or the engine quits, you need to answer which way the nose is going to go. So I failed. And, you know, I didn't go. And this is true story. I didn't go back for six months. And I was still a cop at the time. And I'm driving around, I'm training a new officer, actually. And he was one of my friends, and he knew what I was doing. He's like, hey, did you ever get back to that helicopter thing since you fell? It had been six months. I'm like, no. And he's like, man, you need to go back and finish that. You got a lot of time and energy and all that. I'm like, I know. And he inspired me that night, driving around. We were working nights, and I was training. We were getting ready to Turn him a loose on the road. And he goes, man, you ought to get back to that. So I went and bought my notebook and I don't see it, but it looks a lot like this big black cover, big spiral bound. This is the private subliminal message Private pilot study guide put together by Brian Rutledge. Link down below. It looks a lot like this. My notebook looks like this. This is a lot nicer. If I go grab mine, it's falling apart. But that's inspired me to take the notebook. I went down to the drugstore, I literally bought it and. And it still has the like CVS sticker, Walgreens sticker on the corner. And I went home and I opened up and I took all these notes I had and I just started writing down retreating blade stall, you know, all the maneuvers, everything that I had that I could think of that I had trouble remembering. Humidity. I had a hell of a time understanding humidity and saturation and dry air and, and moist air and anything that I even remotely had trouble with, I wrote in my notebook. And I organized it all in a cool fashion so that it would just be for me. That notebook was never intended for anybody but me. Submit a message. Private pilot study guide down below.400 test questions. So anyway, that was created in my notebook and I studied my ass off. And when I went back, it was with a different examiner. And actually it was Jerry Ventrella, who I love talking about. I didn't go back to the FAA guy. I went to Jerry Ventrella, who was a designated pilot examiner. And you know, Jerry's been given checkrides since Vietnam. Right? He was a Vietnam era pilot at that time. He'd given 3,3500 checkrides or something. And Jerry's known for his half day orals. And I think we're probably two hours in and he stops and he goes, let's take a break for a second. And he goes, you came in here today with a pink slip. And I said, yep. He goes, what happened? And I said, well, I took my checkride down to Indianapolis and you know, it didn't go well. And I fumbled around and you know, blah, blah, blah. And he said, well, I don't know what happened then, but you know, we're halfway through and you're batting 100%. And he's like, why is, what's the change? And I said, because I didn't know my stuff then. Like I know my stuff now. And he said, well, that's apparent. And we continued on with the checkride. Aced the oral, and then screwed up on the flight, almost failed again. Another story for another day after the fact, we go over to the local pub and you know, he's like, by the end of the evening, he's like, hey, buddy. Putting his arm over. I about failed you on that cross country. If you wouldn't have got that fixed, I would have failed you. But he's like, but I saw you screw up and I saw you make a mistake, and now I know that you can think through a problem. So moral story, he said when we were done, he goes, kenny, here's what I'm gonna do. As examiners, we're a small world. And we all talked amongst each other, and I didn't know that at the time, but of course I know years later that's the case, right? And he said, I'm gonna reach out to this guy with the faa, this other examiner, and I'm gonna let him know that even though he didn't go back to see him, that you came in to see me today, and I'm gonna let him know how well you did, just so he knows. And I'm like, thank you. You know what? I appreciate that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And that made me feel like a million bucks, right? And then when I showed up at my first job where I got hired full time on a salary, and I show up in a city that nobody knows me, and they didn't even really like me because I was an outsider and I had Robinson time, and none of them flew Robinsons, and they all hated Robinson. So I was the outsider. I had Robinson time under my belt. I had the Robinson factory safety course under my belt. They other soldiers did not like me. They didn't like me one bit. And the old timer who I was replacing, another Vietnam era pilot, took me out to fly with me for a day because I was going to replace him. And he said, you know what, Kenny? Someone has trained you well. And he said, whatever you do, don't change a thing about what you do. And I'm going to say what he said his turn was, every redneck around here is going to tell you how you're doing it wrong, but let me tell you, you're doing it right. And don't ever change. And don't ever change what you do. And I have never changed since. So I've learned from some super people in the industry. I've learned from guys that are freaking legends. And that's all I've done is taken what I've learned and you know Kind of used it for my own purposes. So there you go, there's my story. I'm sticking to it. Proof that you can do it, anybody can do it. You got to put your mind to it. And it takes a lot of time and effort and studying. You know, we've been piping out flight training packages. I sent out an email today or the other day. We've got a discovery one day, a three day, a five day final approach course in a 30 day, 30 days private pilot course. I just did a zoom with a young man right before we went live today. I had 25 minutes left. I had to get ready for what we're going to do right now. He said, drew, he goes, I've only been at this for a few weeks, but he goes, I've looked everywhere and it seems like Hoggs is like the place. And I'm like, you know what, thank you, I appreciate that. And he goes, by the way, you know, he goes, make sure Heather knows that I appreciated the other day when she got back to me immediately. And I said, well, we try. And I go. And I'm on Heather's ass if she's, if she drags a day talking to somebody because I don't want it to drag out a day. And he says, well, she gets kudos for that. And I zoomed with another young man a couple days ago and he wanted to talk about Brian. He's like, hey, make sure you tell Brian I said thanks for all he does. And man, you know, and he had a bunch of nice words for Brian and I relayed that to him. And that's the Hogs experience. You know, I started 10 years ago by myself and now we have everybody, we have this big freaking team that keeps growing and it's all about you and it's here for you and it's taking care of you, it's taking care of the customers. When I was in that first job, where I was at, it's launched my career. In that five years I was at that company, I got my turbine time, I got instrument time, I got Schweitzer 300 times. That job launched my career. But you know, for those of you like moving across the country or going somewhere and taking a chance on your career, I got in a car and I drove four and a half hours away. I load up my car and I didn't know anybody in the city, the big city I was going to. I'm from small town Indiana. I didn't know a soul in that town. And I loaded up, I Had a Corvette at the time. I loaded up my Corvette Jam full of my stuff, and I drove and showed up at 8am on Monday. And they were like, wow, you come from Indiana this morning? And I'm like, yeah. They're like, wow. And I showed up and they're like, where are you staying tonight? I'm like, I don't know. I didn't even know where I was going to stay, but I took the job and I drove there. And luckily, before the end of the day, the old timer I was flying with says, hey, I know somebody that can. You can rent their basement for 25 bucks a night. I'm like, I'm in. So I started renting a basement for 25 a night, showed up for work every day, and pretty soon, my boy Jeff Kaza, who's one of my superstars. Private commercial CFI now Columbus pd. I ended up renting a room from Jeff, one of my students. And I could bore you with that story. Another great story, another superstar. And that's where it all started. And I don't. What am I telling you? I don't know. That launched my career, but I had to get in the car and drive four and a half hours, and I didn't know a soul. I didn't even know where I was going to sleep that night. I had no idea. And I didn't have any money. I don't know how I did it. I don't know how I freaking did it. I don't know how I did it. So that's my story. Reach out to us if you need anything, Heather. We're going to start building some of this stuff through Heather. I said the other day, hey, with all these packages, everything we got going on, I love talking to everybody, and I've talked to a lot of you, but I'm going to have Heather kind of start building some of this, and she can send you to Brian or to me. And so just reach out to Heather. 574-767-1797. Just because I've gotten a little overwhelmed here in the recent couple weeks trying to take care of everybody and then do all the. Everything else that I got to do around here, which I'm not complaining. I'm just saying that's why we have a staff. And 10 years later, here we are. So. And we're in the final stages. I guess I'll announce this. I think it's a done deal. Any minute. Any minute, they're gonna walk through the door with the papers tonight. They're going to the aviation board meeting to sign off as this, as the new hogs hanger. It's been a stressful couple weeks Trying to make that happen. And the way the airport works, It's a land lease, but we've entered a purchase agreement. The hangar this when the paperwork's done. I'm the owner of the hogs hanger, Been leasing for three years, and a couple weeks ago, they got an offer. And in the middle of everything, my heart sunk, and I'm like, oh, my God. This is my home. This is my everything. If I can't get this loan and compete to get this place purchased, I'm screwed. I got to move hogs now. Where would I go? What would I do? They said, oh, there's some other, you know, places here, but they may not have a bathroom. They may not have heat. I'm like, oh, my God. I don't want to go back in time. So the good news is I've jumped through the hoops. I've worked with the bank. I've worked with the airport. I was down to see the airport manager a little bit ago. They're going to the aviation board tonight, get them to sign off on the new lease for hogs taking over the ground and got the loan all set up. I probably shouldn't say because I'll jinx it now, But I think we're good to go. So, hogs, this has been our home for three years now. Instead of just leasing, we're owning. So we'll be here for you. Okay? I need a drink. I hope heather and everybody took care. Took care of you all. We were live. We are live. But this is the start of live training Tuesday. And I think, you know, I wanted to kind of show Nick, hey, this is all you got to do on a weekly basis. We don't have to have fancy lights and productions and multiple cameras and all, because you know what? Really, what people usually need, we usually can straighten you out. And brian, if you're still here. Brian couldn't testify to this. Somebody will get on zoom with us, and they'll be like, oh, my God. And they're so worried, and they're all tore up over something. And then usually it just takes a little five or ten minutes of going, well, hey, you know what? You should try this, and maybe you should do that. And then people immediately go, oh, wow. You know, we take that mountain. It was a mountain. And then it turns into a molehill. After we talk to you a little bit and help you figure out what it is your struggle is, you know, we do it all the time. So just to prove we're alive. Nick says, my wife says only four and a half hours. That would be nice. Yeah. Hey. Yeah. I only had four and a half hours. You got 18. Yeah, I understand. You got a bigger little commitment than I did. I just wanted to share in my pain of not pain that launched my career, but I didn't know that at the time. So I'm going to get me something to refresh and figure out what's next. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. See you next Tuesday at 2 for live training at 2 in 2022. Peace.