No. 2 Interview HOGS Member talking about overcoming personal struggles

We'll just give you. How about if I buy you McDonald's later? Well, come on over here, Gabriel. Did you. I never asked him if he was. He wasn't sure about getting a camera. Yeah, too late. Here he is. So Gabriel's been a member for a couple years, right?

Probably three and a half.

Three and a half years. So you started way back on the old website. On the old website. Well, share. I don't know how much you want to share about your struggle. You know, are you comfortable sharing a little bit about what you went through, what your trouble, what your main holdup was, getting through your rating? And I only asked because we all have struggles, whether it's money, time, medical. It's so common that people run into some kind of a dumb problem, that durag's out getting their rating. Yours was a medical problem.

Yep. First off, it's a little surreal to meet you. I've probably listened to you more than I have my wife in the past three and a half years.

Well, that's all right. That's cool. I'm used to getting that reaction, and it's flattering, and I like it, and it's cool. Lance, yesterday, his wife was telling us about selling with power and telling us about dynamic rollover. And I'm going, holy cow. I go, you've heard. You've been at home listening to him going through the videos, and she's going, yep. And we're sitting here giggling and laughing about how his wife is talking about helicopter aerodynamics.

Yeah. So basically, you know, in 2006, I got a DUI, and I, you know, I used to be more concerned about partying than, you know, I always would watch NASA tv and I was obsessed with aviation, but I didn't take the time to fly. Well, when I started down that path, I realized that it would be an uphill climb to get my medical. And so two psych evals, neuropsych eval, drug and alcohol rehab, and two and a half years of drug tests and, you know, getting breathalyzed every month. I finally got my medical on the second week of March of this year. And in the meantime, while I was waiting for that, I started my fixed wing add on, and I soloed both on the same day.

Very nice.

On second week of March.

Very, very nice.

I finished my helicopter. I got my rating on April 15, and then I just finished my fixing out on rating this past week.

Nice. So I commend you for having the guts to get on camera and talk about that, because I have another friend and member that went through the same thing. And when I first started flying was in 1997. And honestly, I'll be transparent. You know, I had to. I had to steer away from my friends, most of them, the people that I hung out with, because I couldn't live that life anymore. I mean, literally, the people I spent the most time with, what did we do? We all drank. So I'm just. I'm being transparent. And pretty quickly, you start learning to fly and start realizing, wow, I can't, you know, I can't go take a helicopter lesson and be even remotely hungover. I have to be rested. I have to feel good. And so I had to separate myself from people that I hung out with all the time because I was like, you know what? I want to do this. And I got to knock off the drinking, and I got to focus on what I need to do. And I need to be, you know, get to bed at night and get up and feel good. And I even had a routine. I had to, if I didn't leave on time, stop and get my orange juice and my milk and my donut, and if I didn't have everything right on the way to the lesson, the lesson would be crappy. But on a day I showed up feeling good and stopped and had time, everything would go good. So that's awesome for you to share your story and have the guts to be on camera telling people that, but that shows that when you put your mind to it and you decide you got something you want to do, you can overcome the things that have held you back in the past. So that's a freaking awesome story. And I commend you for having the guts to get up here and say that. That's amazing. I mean, on a long road, yeah, it's absolutely amazing. I don't know what to say. I mean, I've had plenty of struggles in my life. That's part of what a lot of this is about and the ground school is about and why. I guess I feel like I'm fairly successful with it because I've always been. I try to be pretty transparent, and I share all the different things that I've struggled with. We're human beings. We all have problems. We get down. We have family death, or we have depress over this or a long list of reasons why we can sit around and feel sorry for ourselves and find reasons to not go do what we want to do. And then there's those of us who overcome those things and just say, you know what? I'm Just going to charge forward and do what I want to do and make things happen. So thank you again. That's awesome.

Yeah. I found your site the same way a lot of other people do. The first school I attended didn't even talk about ground school. They didn't even mention ground school. It wasn't even an option. The owner just wanted to fly, fly, fly. And I used yours as definitely an immersion tool. You know, it was every day, most of the day, for a long time. And especially the word for word emergency procedures. I watch that section in great repetition.

Nice.

And it just, I can still hear the words, you know what I mean? If you just reading through the PoH, you know, as simple as it was.

Nice. I know. I hear that a lot too. Like even Brian Rutledge, who's our operations manager, flies out in California, works for sheriff's department big. You know, I look up to Brian because he flies for a sheriff's department. He's chief pilot, he's lead instructor now, and I helped him with the cfi. And I can remember him going, kenny, you know, your words were in my head when I'm answering the examiner. You know, I'm hearing your voice and your words come out of my mouth. So that's cool when I hear that because I'm just amazed at what I've been able to do and amazed at people like you that took a chance on me to spend the money to buy this training from this hillbilly in Indiana, crazy talking weirdo, and then take it and use it. And to have the success that we've had is just amazing.

So I'm also looking forward to an instrument course as well. It's going to be my first question.

We're committed now that we're standing here talking about it and now having excuses with Steve and Gary coming on full time and Dan willing to help, I have no excuse not to get this up and built soon because it's just the natural. And we got private commercial CFI people need that instrument rating because if you can put it in between the private and commercial, it makes so much sense. I did my instrument after I'm out working as a cfi and then I wanted to get an EMS job. Okay, so I got to go get an instrument rating. Well, I kind of wasted my money, you know, if I would have been smart, I'd have done the private, worked on the instrument. So you're logging pic time, getting your dual, get your instrument rating and then finish up your commercial and you're good to go. So it is very smart to do it in between. So I've always felt a little guilty that I haven't been able to help people get that in between private to commercial. So that's good. Well, you'll, you'll have it and we'll have it up hopefully as soon as we can. Any questions?

Are you still working with the guys in California that have been helping out on videos?

They've moved on. Dave is now flying, I think he's flying in Alaska and he wants to do some more videos. And Brian recently told me that Dave was back on a break and he's like, hey, we're gonna get some videos, some new videos up for you. And then I don't think it didn't transpire, but we're hoping and waiting because people really like Dave Redmond. I mean, I've seen the comments and it's nice bringing other instructors in because, you know, every instructor explains things differently. And you know, people like the stuff that Holly's done. People like the stuff that Dave Redmond did. And then the other two guys were great too. The other Dave and then Austin, I think, was it Austin Boa you know, at that time, 18 year old kid, double I, you know, I was amazed at his stuff too. When Brian sent me those R22 videos, you know, he sent me the raw file that they shot out there. I sent him the. I sent him basically an iPad or an iPhone mount. And this is good for the online business thing. People don't even know this. We have a section inside our ground school that they shot for us in California. I said, Brian, all you need is a good iPhone. What do you got? And at that time he had an iPhone 6. I said, I'm going to send you a microphone. I sent him a 20 foot long cord and I sent him a mount for an iPhone. And he had a tripod. So he took his iPhone, put it on a tripod. They took that 20 foot cord, ran it across the floor, up their leg and up their shirt, had the screen on the wall and those videos were all shot with an iPhone. And so Brian did all that filming. Then he sent me the videos in Google Drive. I would download them here. And then I sat back and I did all the editing. So I edit all those R22 videos. It took me a little bit, but I'm going through it and I'm watching them and editing them. And then once I had them done, I sat back and watched all of them and I was going, holy, these kids are good. I mean, all three of them just super detailed. And Brian text me because we rarely talk on the phones. We're always busy, but we text a lot. He's like, hey, Kenny, what do you think of those videos? And I said, brian, if I was going for an R22 checkride tomorrow, I would watch every single one of those R22 videos. And I would go to the checkride knowing that that examiner is not gonna stump me. And he's like, are you kidding? And I'm like, no, I'm not kidding. He goes, they're that good. And I go, brian, these are amazing. And these kids are just, you know, I wish I could be that super detailed, but I'm not. I'm more of a bottom line kind of guy, which is why some of the things I do, I'm good at. But when it comes to being super detailed, I'm not that. I'm just not that good. And those guys were just amazing. So love to have them back, especially Dave. I mean, all three of them. But I'm not sure what the other two are doing. But that, unfortunately, here's the transparency with this is kind of sad, is that flight school went out of business. So all three of those guys were working for the same flight school. I was plugging their company to help them out for them helping me out. And then the R22, they had, I think, had some issue timed out or something, and so the owner didn't have an aircraft for him. And I think they all just went. Got other jobs. And I think this company went out of business, so. Which is unfortunate, but. So they were all together at the same flight school. So whether we'll have it, you know, hopefully we'll see some more videos from those guys. But we're happy for what they did do. And of course, hey, if you guys wanted, he might do some instrument. Are you gonna go for cfi?

Yes.

Well, there you go.

Yeah.

Maybe you should come back and do some videos with us.

That'd be great.

And you could do that. You could come back. I mean, now that we're doing more of this flight training, I mean, it's getting crazy around here. I mean, without even trying. It's just people are emailing and I'm going, when I'm just shooting them off to Gary. Next thing he knows, he's going, hey, this guy from Lafayette gonna be here tomorrow. I'm like, really? Yeah, I'm gonna help him finish up his private in a Hiller. Because Gary can fly a hiller Rotorway Enstrom R44. Now and maybe some other aircraft. And he just keeps telling me, oh, yeah, I'm flying with so. And so I got a guy coming from Texas to finish up his commercial. I'm like, where are you getting these people, Gary? And he goes, oh, you. You've sent me the email. And I just called him up, and it was something that I just. Before I really couldn't take the time to have some. I mean, I've done it. I've had people I've worked with in the past six months and year, year. But that's the whole, like, two weeks out of my time. And then I can't do a lot with ground school because I'm busy flying every day. And I'm not complaining. I love to fly, but there's gotta be a balance for me on how much I can fly. I'd love to just fly all day long, but anyway, I'm rattling.

What about ground school? T shirts or hoodies? You gonna come out with that?

We are. They've been asking, what are you doing over there, Gloria? Why are you going? Yeah, the ones that get. We're gonna get some ordered. I thought there were tank tops and stuff. Did we. Oh, I don't have any tank tops yet. My mom has. Oh, those. Those were from my old defunct business that. Yeah, we can talk about it. Okay. It's in the marketing, you know, it's in the videos I've been rolling. I owned a helicopter for four years, and it ruined me. It ruined my credit. It took everything I had. And ground schools helped me pull myself out of that debt of owning an aircraft. And I got goosebumps telling the story because on what, Courtney, I were talking about this morning, you know, we're getting set to go live today, and she's asking me questions about, oh, you own this. That helicopter? This pretty red one? I'm like, yeah. It's like, oh, my gosh. So that's so cool. And I go, yeah, well, okay, not so cool. And so I'm whining, going, well, but it took this and took that, and it destroyed me, and da, da, da. And she goes, yeah, but if that wouldn't have happened to you, would you have what you have now today? And I go, no, you're right. You're right, Courtney. I'm sitting here whining and complaining about this helicopter that ruined me. But in turn, I took the debt. You know, helicopter goes away, and I got a quarter million dollars of debt, and I got nothing. It's like, what sense does that make? So it was a Do or die. Make helicopter ground school. Go or go work at the McDonald's drive thru, you know, do something else. I had no choice. I couldn't. This is sad to say I couldn't. I was never gonna repay that debt from going getting a helicopter job. Because they don't pay helicopter pilots. Unfortunately, that's the industry. I mean, I worked all those years to get an EMS job. And then you started me at $46,000 a year. Okay, I had to have 2,000 hours. I had to bust my butt. I had to spend. Spend all that money. And you're gonna pay me $46,000 a year to be an EMS pilot. Why? The company just keeps getting richer and richer and richer anyway. That's why you don't work for the Man. That's why I don't work for the Man. Can't do it. Too outspoken, too crazy. I have to. I have to make it on my own. That's why I work hard. Because I have to. I have no choice. Oh, you're asking me good questions and bringing up good stuff to talk about. What else you got?

I'm envisioning you doing autos into this Runway. I haven't been in this area at all. But you know those older videos you're doing autos in?

Yep.

I wish we could go fly today. I didn't bring anything with me. I didn't plan on being able to.

Stop by, but if I can figure out a way. When do you gotta leave?

I'm driving back to New York.

But maybe if I can, if I promise you a helicopter flight, you'll hang around a little bit we can go do. I just shot two new videos. I did two autos the other day by myself. I did a straight in a 180 because I was out filming some stuff for this launch. I'm like, you know what, While I'm out, the camera's rolling. Let's do straight in and then let's do a 180. And I filmed those. But if I could con Steven to getting online for about a half an hour and yuk, talking and keeping things going, his eyeballs are rolling. Half an hour? You just said 23 minutes. Oh my God. I feel like I've been here all day. Maybe if we can have the helicopter ready to go fueling it, or we can just run out, jump in, we go do at least 15 minutes. We do. There you go. You guys can get on here and talk about online businesses and publishing books. I'm not saying no. I'm just saying a half an hour could be extreme. You know what? We're gonna go do an auto. We have the one video that we want to roll so everybody can have a break, have a breather. That's 30 minutes. You and I will go do a couple autos. What do you say for you coming here, being out here, and getting in front of this camera and telling your story, and I got it. And I got to get Dan a flight, too, somehow. How much longer? You're gonna be around till Friday. I promise to get you a flight in, too. And in walks the Texan. Lance here walks, in walks the Texan.

Thank you, Ken.

Thank you. And I really, honestly appreciate you about having tears to get up here and share your story like that and be honest with people. That's amazing.

Absolutely.

And grateful to be here. And you should be very proud of what you've been able to do. That gives me goosebumps. I mean, nice job, man.

Thank you.

Nice job going after it and sticking with it and getting there and getting through the issues you had to get through to get it done.

Thank you.

It's awesome. Appreciate it very much. So it's been. Yeah, yeah. See? So you get to see it right here. Front row seats, my man. Absolutely.