Member Robinson R-22 Check Ride Preparation

Welcome to HOGS behind the scenes week day number one. Let's head into the airport. So I'll give you a little tour. And today we're gonna do something kind of little bit different. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. For years I worked alone, so it was too hard to ever film, really film anything. So I'm gonna just grab a lot of bits and pieces this week just to show you behind the scenes kind of what happens, what goes on and what we do. So let's head inside. That's what happens on Monday morning. Really?

Yeah. Feel free to use this. Whatever you say. Okay. Throw your stuff up here. Let me see your pilot certificate tools.

Okay. Kenny.

Bruce. How you doing?

Good.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. I'm here early.

Nice shirt. Where'd you get that like that? You like that?

Well, I'm trying to, you know, I'm renewing my CFI online and I just did the topic of looking professional, acting professional, you know. So, you know, I thought maybe I'd show up, support the hogs, you know, because I am representing you, obviously.

Well, that's awesome. And you're awesome.

So I try. Yeah. Medical too.

Well, we're gonna look into it. Gary talked to the FAA in a couple month process to get approved.

Well, you know what I noticed too is, which irritates me, I'm doing it through aopa, you know, and it's like helicopters are the stepchildren. There is nothing. They haven't mentioned the word helicopter at all. And I'm halfway through it.

Right.

We're gonna see what we can do about that.

Good morning, boss.

Smile, you're on Candid Camera. So what we're doing this week, I hadn't told you this yet, we're doing behind the scenes all week. I kinda did an intro thing with Glory over the weekend. You know, we shot a little bit of the R22 stuff this weekend, but this is day one.

Well, I get here and I fire up this beast of a computer and I check YouTube comments and site comments and emails, check text messages and voicemails, and just basically serve our customer base for at least the first hour of my day.

That's awesome.

We love it. I got a couple testimonials this morning. I'll post you a copy of them. Also put them in our testimonial blog that we have going. Nice place to keep track of them all.

Awesome.

And the guys from Australia talking about how helicopter ground helped him get his rating.

Nice. We get a lot of People from Australia.

I asked him if he could send us a video of basically the same thing in video form for us. And I'll send him a free T shirt.

Awesome.

I'll just read this to you. It's pretty good to come in Monday morning and see stuff like this. I wouldn't have passed some of my exams without it, he says.

Nice.

I just love it when we get feedback like that.

Got a couple of them.

Oh, reference the instrument. I've got it all lined up with the owner and I'll be going over there probably Thursday, unless Wednesday weather clears up. I've been watching the taps.

Awesome. How many people do you have lined up already for the instrument to fly? Right?

Just two.

Just two currently.

It would be nice to see them live with us on live Tuesday nose charts.

And then maybe another Tuesday we do the actual doing all the math and plotting and all that stuff.

Yes, because if we. If we actually go through like a check ride flight plan that they're going to have to complete, figuring, you know, magnetic variation, deviation and wind correction, angles, checkpoints along the route for dead reckoning. We probably should just make that Tuesday on its own. And that video just help pilots for a long time in the future if we leave it up.

Cool. Anything else? Anything else big we need to mention?

No, I think that's.

It covers it for about now, doesn't it?

I'm sure I'll have questions once I get to the end of my emails here this morning. Cool, Let's.

We need to fix this and make this together.

Okay.

And then we'll have this as.

Yeah, I can. I got an old light out, but I don't know if it works. All right, well, maybe. All right, so that's a quick update with Gary on what's happening there. Chris is in there with her Hogsmember, getting acclimated, going through the log books and stuff. I'm gonna try not to stick the camera too much in his face until he gets warmed up to us just a little bit. But I know what I need to mention next. Taz Christman, the computer fired up here and. Oh yeah, I know what I need to mention. Taz Chrisman. So I want to give you a little background on how we handle Hogg's member training when they come here. We've already got an idea what he needs. He sent us the requirements. He wants to do as much as he can in a week and try to have a check ride by the end of the week. Now, this is Monday, so we know there's Always weather issues, could be maintenance issues. There's lots of things that can come into play. But when we do bring somebody in to finish them up, we make sure that they know to go through the videos, go through ground school as many times they can be as prepared before they get here. Then all three of us work with them when they get here. For example, with this young man, Gary will be doing ground with him. Chris will be doing most all the flying with him. He'll be doing some ground. He's over there right now going over the logbook, checking everything. Because that's one of the biggest problems when people show up is, you know, what's in their logbook, have they had the proper endorsements. So Chris is going all. Going over all that stuff with him. Chris works part time. He's a full time police officer, so he works afternoon shifts. So he'll start early with this young man and then I'll jump in and help kind of both areas. I'll do a little ground with him after Chris leaves and I can jump in the aircraft and fly with him as well. So he'll have three of us getting, you know, input from three different people every day, pretty much eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, and we'll, you know, evaluate him over the next day or two and see if we can have the checkride pulled off by the end of the week. That's gonna be part of the fun part of the. A fun part of the story behind the scenes. Just showing you how we bring in a HOGS member and try to help them get finished up and get a rating. We do it often. We have a lot of people that travel here that have had problems elsewhere. That's not totally uncommon in this industry. There's a lot of great flight instruction out there. Okay. And there are a lot of great flight schools out there. But we also know there are some places that aren't so good and there are some instructors that don't do such a good job either. And just get out there and get somebody's log book racked up with ours and don't do the ground with them and really work with them like they need. We're going to keep you informed on that through the week and see how that goes.

Hopefully we'll get the flying end. Hi, Kenny Keller.

I'm going to take a forklift and put it under one of the skids. And while you're in there with him, I'll lift lower. You know, it'd be a simulator, basically.

Yeah, simulator, yeah. Inside the hangar. We'll just put the foggles on. So, yeah, not as much flying as what I thought, but that's good. If the weather will cooperate, maybe we'll get it done.

So give us a rundown. How's he look on hours and requirements and what he needs.

Logbook looks good. He needs five hours of instrument time and he needs a two hour dual VFR night cross country. Everything else he meets. And he's been signed off to act as PIC in an aircraft that he's not rated for. And he's been signed off for the SFAR 73 awareness training. And now we're gonna go down the aircraft, do a pre flight, make sure he knows how to do that, and then we'll pull out the PoH and he says he would like more training and weight and balance. So we'll probably do that.

The so technically seven hours of flying is all he is required to get his requirements done and then whatever he needs to be checkride proficient.

Correct? Yeah.

So it's doable. So flying wise it's doable. Weather permitting.

I'm assuming if, if he flies like Roland and Austin, that we're probably not going to have any issues with the maneuvers.

Right.

I think our biggest issue right now is going be to be Indiana weathered in January.

Right.

Which we, we all know that going into it.

I'll have to contact the examiner and see if he can get on. I haven't talked to the examiner yet because of. I wanted to go through and see if it was even doable to get there first.

All right, cool. Can we follow you guys around while you're pre flighting? Sure.

Yeah. We're gonna go down the aircraft, he's gonna pull out the checklist. I want to make sure he's comfortable with doing pre flight on the aircraft and then we'll go from there, probably ask some questions.

All right.

So I wanted to grab the checklist. It's imperative when you go for your check ride that you have the checklist. Even though you probably Pre flight it 100 times. Yeah, you'll probably look over half.

Flashlight out here.

Flying a whole lot. Yeah, it's pretty nice aircraft.

Got those guys rolling in the office. Things are looking good already on a Monday. And I want to elaborate on Taz Christman. Taz is from Indiana. He now lives in Vegas. So Taz is from a little town not far from where we're at in Plymouth. He's been flying 20 years. I believe he is in the Air Force. He's an airplane instructor, a helicopter flight instructor. I did a video on Taz a few months ago about his nomination or us nominating him for Flight Instructor of the Year. I'll put that link in the description box below if you want to go and take a look at that. So we're really proud of Taz. He's won his region for Flight Instructor of the Year, and now still going for Flight Instructor of the Year on a national basis. He performs in our instrument videos. He's been with us on live training Tuesday two to three times now. And I'm sure you're gonna see more of Taz in the future, so check that. That link down below if you want to see the video we did about his. No, It's a nice little place to train. Class G Airport.

Pretty random.

That's pretty random.

Follow me to work type video.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some people might want to see it.

Yeah. What does Kenny Keller do? How does he put.

I want to show you Gary's office. He's got it decorated up real nice. This is our old green screen room. Turn it in a nice room.

Serial number.

I gave the logbooks to the.

That's what irritated me with them, was I had a guy from the FAA call. Then I had a guy from the NTSB call, then I had a different guy from the NTSB call me. Add something or not say something, and you guys say, well, you told this guy that you know, but you. What'd you do, forget to tell me that you know, why don't you guys figure out who's doing what, and then I will provide what you want. I said, I'm tired of telling my story three and four times. And then you're going to send me paperwork so I can tell it again.

Especially since the FAA is sitting here talking to me, and he's like, now, how many hours do you have total? How many hours do you have last 90 days, 60 days, blah, blah. Okay, how many hours in this aircraft? And every time I went to open my logbook with the calculator, he's like, no, just estimate.

Earlier this morning. Well, you know, he's a different entity, and I need to. I'm like, can't you email him? You know, all right, estimate. We're gonna go try to go fly.

So have fun.

We'll see what happen.

It's sam.

And this is the airport.

Bum built. Hi, Kenny Keller.

First impression, first hour together.

I'll tell you what, ground knowledge is pretty solid. We were talking.

He used helicopter online ground school for that.

Correct.

I think flying is gonna be pretty good. It Was tough today because we went out there and it's 18 gusting to 25.

Yeah, pretty tough for a first time new airport, new instructor, never been here before. New people.

He, he seems he's got a grasp on things. And I'll tell you what, we turned south right into the wind and we were had like 60 indicated and it didn't even look like we were moving so nice. It's pretty good. But he needs some hood time. So we just got out, we did a little bit of hovering, just see where I could see if I could kind of get a feeling on things with him. And then he's like, well, let's just get out of here and we'll get some hood time. So that's what we did.

So I venture to say pretty, pretty close to where Austin and Rollin were at. Yeah, skill wise, knowledge wise. Showed up pretty well prepared where, you know, we just got to put the finishing touches on.

I asked him, I said, what's your class G visibility in cloud clearance? And he went, oh, below 1200 AG. Oh, it's this above 10,000 assistance. I'm like, nice. All I needed to know was, you know, just a simple mile, half mile and clear clouds on day. But he gave me the whole scoop. I think Gary's gonna be pretty easy to just go over the stuff and make sure, but I think it's going.

To be pretty easy. So you think you'd call the examiner today?

I will probably call the examiner on my way home and just see, see.

If he's even available Friday, if at the everything weather.

Yeah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we got to get those requirements in and I think we can do it. You may have to be old. Kenny Keller may have to get in the aircraft and help out a little bit maybe.

I like, I like the finishing touches.

Personally, I don't like to fly the day before for the checkride. I don't know how you are. I don't like. And if we happen to go out, we'll see. I'll look at weather. Maybe I can do something with work or maybe I can get over here tomorrow after work. If you want to do a late night Tuesday, we can come in later on Wednesday or something.

Awesome. Perfect. And then bam, the day is done. It's one, it's 2:27am I got to show you this. This is really more for chief pilot Gary Cleveland that made the statement today. Well, you're never here. Gary's here eight hours a day, five days a week. I choose to work like Monday through Thursday, 12 hours a day. So there you go. But, hey, I'm not complaining. There was more I wanted to do with this video, but that's an entire day, so I gotta end day one. So we get back here tomorrow for live training, Tuesday, get ready to go Ohio, see Jed, make sure Gary's ready to go to Ohio and get the instrument and everything else we got going on with our Hogsmember here, and make sure Chris is going to be here. So that's the end of day one. That's actually day two at 2:28am, but we're still calling it day one. So see you later today in day two.