Passive Income Opportunity for Helicopter Instructors with HOGS

Waiting on a head bob. Oh, there goes your thumbs up. So that thumbs up means that we are live. We're going to give away a no go button. Haven't given one of those in a way in a while. We're going to give away a copy of Private Pilot 101 helicopter training blueprint. And we're giving away a 2X. We're going to give away Live to Fly another Day hoodie. And that's the only one I got. So sorry, I don't have xl. I don't have large, I don't have small. This is the last of that series. We may order some again in the future. However, these haven't really. I don't think we've ever sold these. Or maybe we do, I can't remember. But this is all we got left in stock, so we're going to give that away shortly. So what are we doing? We're giving away stuff every day between now and New Year's Day. Celebrating Christmas. And you can do a discount. 40% off any hugs membership now through before nothing. New Year's Eve ends. New Year's eve at midnight. 40% off any membership. Okay, so hopefully you can hear us. Anybody talking in the chat?

Nope.

Nope. Somebody talk in chat. So we know you can hear us because occasionally we have a little audio problem. Type a question in chat for the first giveaway. A simple question about flight or ground training question that I can answer and we will give you signed copy. I'll sign it for you, whatever you want me to put in there. Heather will ship it off to you. So. And while we're waiting, you can get a free copy of this down below. The link is privateblueprint.com so you can go below, sign up for it and immediately download the PDF. There's an also an option there to buy the paper, paperback copy if you like. So you can get that below. Lindsay question yet?

Not yet.

Nothing.

We have people in chat, but no questions.

All right, somebody ask a flight or ground training question. I know you can do it. While we're waiting, we have ask hogs.com is a clone. It's my clone. There's a link down below. You can go on there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Yes, we have customer support here. Yes, you can talk to a human, but the human's back there in a corner on a computer you can't see right now. Our human, human customer support. You can text or call 574-767-1797. However, sometimes she sleeps, so you can get a question answered 24 hours a day@askcogs.com and also want to mention HOGS pays Me Calm. This is passive income. You want to earn some money, particularly if you're a flight instructor. Anybody can use the Hogs affiliate link. You go to hogspayme.com that link is down below. You'll sign up for it. It'll give you access to a dashboard. Inside that you'll see your link and a link to share with others. So when they sign up, you receive 50% off our online memberships. Private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot, certified flight instructor and or private or professional pilot. That's 2,800 bucks. If you share your link with one of your students and they buy Propilot, it's lifetime membership for all courses. You will get $1400 shipped to your PayPal account after the 30 days. So if you're out there teaching, you're driving a POS. You ain't got no money, right? There's a good way to put some money in your pocket as you move on through your career. Next, any questions?

We do. LP was the first one in chat again. However, he won the book yesterday. So I'll move on to the next person who asked the question.

Okay.

But LP does want to know if you recommend AGI or igi.

I think either one of those would be fine. Somebody told me something years ago and I can't tell you this is for absolute truth, but it makes sense. If you get like an AGI or an igi, if you violated some FAA regulation while you're flying, if they wanted to penalize you, they could take away the IGI or AGI. Which kind of makes sense, right? It's a way that they could take something away from you without actually taking your license. So there's the first good reason to get one or the other. I don't know. That's your pick. Advanced ground instructor or instrument ground instructor. I would think if you're just picking between the two, why not go for AGI? Because then you're advanced ground instructor and you could teach ground over multiple subjects just instead of instrument subjects. So I guess if you were trying to pick one or the other that that would be one reason. I would say go for the AGI just because it makes you more, more well rounded in the, in the world of teaching would look good on a resume because it's going to be a harder test because it's going to be a broader, you know, scale of information. But that would be my first guess or first thing to say on a. Which is better, AGI or igi. Anything else?

Yep. So our winner of the free signed copy is Ali T. And they want to know the best way to prepare for a checkride.

Oh, great question. Best way to prepare for checkride. So you are the winner. And did you have your mic on so they can hear you?

I do. Okay, son.

All right, so winner, email heather.helopter.com. heather or Lindsay's probably got that in chat. Best way to study for a check ride. Sign up for helicopter online ground school. That's it. No, there's more than that. We help you. That's what we are. We're helicopter on ground school. We help with all the ratings. We help you get through the ground subjects, everything. Flying tips, talk about the maneuvers. We have quizzes, and we have FAA written test practice in each one of those courses as well. That helps you prepare for the FAA written test. But online, 14 years, that's what we help people do. That's where the HOGS button comes into play. They'll live to fly another day. Remember that in a minute. Right? Here's your key. How do I get ready for a checkride? Answer this for me. When you're at the point where you're asking the question, would you have thought of this? Are you flying? And has anybody introduced this to you? Seems like this is a common theme that keeps coming up every day in chat. But that's the reason it keeps coming up, because there's a lot of people. Applicants not using it, don't even have it. If you don't have one, there's the first thing that's going wrong for you. You need your own copy of this and the instructor that you're working with, I don't care what rating it is. Your instructor should be doing this and going through this, because when you sit down with the examiner, they're pulling their questions for the test from the airman certification standards. Okay? Our examiner, he has his own. His own binder, and it says plan of action on the front. And he explains during the test to the applicant. And while I'm sitting there, before they get started, he said, you know, I have a plan of action. My plan of action I have pulled from the airman certification standards. And he adds to that his plan of action. He adds the areas that you were deficient on your written test, he looks at those prior to your checkride because that information's embedded in the faa, and he's going to pose specific questions that pertain to those areas where you missed A question on the written test, there's no secret to it. You go through the book step by step and some people say, well, the answers aren't there. Well, no, that's not the point. The answers aren't here. The subjects are here. So as you work through here example, let's just start reading them. The applicant demonstrates understanding of certification requirements, most recent flight or recent flight experience, and record keeping. So that means they're going to say, what do you have to have on you when you go fly? What do you. What do you got to do to keep your license current? What's the aircraft have to do to be current? What do you got to do for a flight review? What things do you have to put in your logbook? Okay, so it's telling you the area that the examiner is going to cover. So if you go, hmm, I'm good on certification requirements, but I'm not sure on recent flight experience, then you go to whichever other resource you're using, whether it's HOGS or the FAR AIM manual or whatever references you have, you go seek out that. That topic, read about it, learn about it, and then go back to the pts or, I'm sorry, acs. So that right there is the number one way to get ready for a check ride. Acs. If you're not using it, you should be going through it. And number two, you should sign up for a HOGS membership and let us walk you through. Oh, it brings me back to the HOGS Wall of Fame. Back here. I wanted to make a video real quick before we went live. I wanted to show you and I ran out of time. Back behind me is what we call the HOGS Wall of Fame. You can see it a little bit in the camera back there. On the wall is private commercial, instrument and certified flight instructor. All those pictures that you see revolving back there, they're all HOGS members that have passed a little example, a private pilot test. And they've sent in a quick, short description like, hey, I couldn't have done it without hogs. You know, it helped me with the aerodynamics or it helped me, you know, know, because I'm a visual learner. The videos helped whatever. However we helped you. They send in a picture, excited about their check ride, and then we send them the HOGS no go button. So you get to go up on the HOGS Wall of Fame and we'll highlight you up there. And we send you the no go button after passing the check ride. And we've been doing this now going on 14 years. It's not 14 years yet. It will be March 1, 2025 will be 14 years. Remember this because it's going to come up here in just a second. Is that this? Yeah. Let's go to the question then. Right. I just said it. So for the giveaway, for. Because we're doing the 2X hoodie now, right?

Yeah.

How many years has hogs been online? This is for the 2 XL hoodie. Sorry if. If it's a little big for you, wear it around the house or throw it in the dryer and shrink it up or give it to a friend. You got a winner already?

No, I was going to say, I don't know. I really like oversized hoodies.

So some people like them oversized. I mean, it's new, it's nice. These are like $100 value. They're nice hoodies. This is brand new. Just happens to be the last one of the last shipment that we got. So we decided to use that for a giveaway. We haven't been buying on all transparencies. Transparencies, transparency. Operating two helicopters, an R22 and an R44. So because of that reason and it's slow time of the year, we haven't had the extra cash to be buying a whole bunch of giveaways. So we're giving away what we got. All right. Have another question yet?

I do have a winner.

You have a winner. Who's the winner?

Herman Clark. He said 13 years going on 14.

Nice. 13. See, was paying attention and listened to 13 years going on 14. You are the winner of the XL hoodie. The next question we'll do in a few minutes after some more questions, if we have any, will be for the hogs. No go button. Any other questions pop up.

Lindsey, going back up onto chat. Nick. Good. Do you recommend going as a CFI and a time builder? If he decides to fly as a career, he decides to fly career.

Do I think using CFI to build time is the way to go? Yes, absolutely. We answered this question actually within the last couple days. But that's fine. We'll ask, we'll answer it again. Here's the way it works in the industry. The low time jobs that are advertised and posted out there are usually for a certified flight instructor. Some flight schools will hire you with minimum flight time. You maybe have 150 hours. If you're going to be in like say an instrument or a Cadbury. In Robinson's, you have to have 200 hours before you can get the SFAR endorsement. But most jobs for CFI are low time entry level positions. The other positions that are available for different things, whether there's a. Obviously a wide range of jobs out there. But one of the main jobs that you can get with low time would be commercial or would be like tours. But a lot of places won't hire you until you have maybe 250 hours, or they might say 400 hours or they might say 500 hours. So if you get your commercial and you go out and try to get your first job, that job is going to be hard to find. I'm not saying it won't happen and I'm not saying you won't get it. But in general, with super low hours as a new cfi, the only thing open is cfi. But you can at least get those jobs and start building your time as a brand new commercial pilot. Without an instructor rating with say 150 or 200 hours, you might get a job possibly, but they're gonna be less prevalent. That's just the way the industry works. It's not my decision. It's not the way it is. Yeah, it's backwards. You'd think instructors would be people that have been flying a long time, but that's not the case. Entry level jobs for helicopter pilots, the most abundant job is cfi. That's the way I'll put it. The other jobs are gonna be harder to get. Okay, anything else?

Yep. Next question from Herman Clark. He is interested in seeing if he would like to learn how to fly helicopters and would like to know how he could go about it.

Number one, go schedule an introductory flight and just go give it a try. I've never heard of anybody going and taking an intro and then going, oh, that sucked. I hate it. Most people are just enamored after they go for their intro flight. So that would be if you're thinking about doing it and you're interested, why not do an intro flight? Look around. Because flight schools sometimes have what they call an introductory flight where they give you a discount on either flight time or ground time or both. Just that they can get you in there, get you up in the air and get you the experience to see what it's all about. So you can a lot of times find a deal for an introductory flight. Go try it, and then you're on our YouTube channel. There's over 1200 free videos here on YouTube and we've got podcasts, we've got blog posts, we got tons of free info out there that you consume like crazy. And then you could go grab this, that we're giving away and that's with a free PDF down below. This answers. Well, for example, in the beginning of the book we do the top 10 most frequently asked questions. So we put this book together last year during the wintertime and we picked the top things that come in on a continual basis like is learning how to fly a helicopter difficult? How long will it take to become a helicopter pilot? How much will it cost to be a private pilot? What's the best approach in selecting a flight school? So we have our top 10 most frequently asked questions. That's top 10 facts. Then we have need to know. We have getting started with flight training, flight training tips, dual training, preparing for solo and much more in the book. So again it's free as a PDF that link down below. That's two places that book free PDF our free content. Subscribe to the channel and we would ask all of you do us a favor and subscribe. We've been on YouTube for 14 years. We're pushing towards that 50,000 subscriber mark and I know it doesn't really mean much, it's just kind of a personal thing that I always kind of thought that'd be pretty cool to say. Yeah, I have 50,000 subscribers on YouTube. I'm around 40. We're pushing 47, I think 48. Like to see it get to 50,000 just because it sounds cool. No other reason than it sounds cool. You don't get the YouTube button till a hundred thousand. So don't know if we'll make that one or not. But anything else.

Dean Paul, for a helicopter add on, what are your thoughts of training and going towards the commercial or stick with a private and then move on to.

Commercial for add ons.

Yeah.

Isn't it interesting that this keeps coming up like every day?

Yeah.

And that's okay because a lot of people ask this question. So here's the deal on commercial whether you go to private or you go to add on. I've been doing checkrides for 24 years and we do a lot of commercial add ons. We do a lot of them. We've done a lot of them just in the past year, this year specifically, we've done a ton of commercial add ons and a lot of people call up and they say hey, I want to do my commercial add on. I'm like okay, cool. You can obviously do that. However did you read the reg and you realize that there's 35 hours of PAC that you have to have before you can take the test and they're like, oh, really? And I'm like, yeah. So you either got to go fly solo for 35 hours to build that 35 hours of PAC time. Once you have your private before, you can test for the commercial. If you do the private add on Instead, it's only 10 hours of solo. 10 hours of pic. So it makes sense to do the private first and 20 hours of dual training. 10 hours of solo. You can take the check ride if you're proficient. Most people take more like 40 or more, but you could take the check ride. Then when you go fly as pic, whether you're flying by yourself or you're taking friends and family to go fly and have lunch somewhere or go sightseeing, you're building PIC time towards the commercial. What people say once they realize this, they're like, oh man, I don't really want to fly around 35 hours by myself. So I'm just going to go ahead and get the private add on first. So again, it's your choice. There's no reason you can't do the go straight to the commercial add on. There's no reason you can't. Just remember there's that 35 hours of pic and everybody that I've ever done these for always go, you know what, let me just do the private first. Then the other thing to think about is you almost lost my train of thought. God. Where I lost my train of thought completely. What the hell was I talking about?

You're talking about 35 hours pic.

Yeah, the 35 hours pic. So you got to look at that as the biggest thing. And again, sure, it's too doing the private first and commercial later is another check ride. I get it. That's more expense. You could do all the training as you're instead of training for private, you could do. Well, here's what you could do. And I've seen this done. Our examiner said you can actually do it. You could cover all of the commercial requirements, right? You could go to flight school and say, okay, I'm going to do the private add on, but I want the requirements to cover the commercial so that they could be used again for the commercials, if this makes sense. So you could make sure your cross countries are long enough to cover the commercial checkride. Later you could make sure all your requirements would cover what a commercial would need. Do the private build the pic, then freshen up a little bit with someone before the CFI checkride and then take or I'm sorry, commercial. Then take the commercial checkride. That sounds confusing as hell, but hopefully that makes sense to you. So it's your choice on how you want to do it. You can definitely go straight to commercial. And the other thing is, remember this, the big difference between private and commercial. At the private level, the examiners will say, we expect terminology to be a little iffy at times. As long as a person understands the concept, we can get them through the practical test. Now, at the commercial level, we're going to cover all that same material we did at private. However, we need it smooth. We need it snap, snap, snap. Example, you know, what are the three things combined to get you into selling the power at the private? If you can kind of muddle your way through it and still get them correct with a little bit of struggling, okay. But at the commercial level, they're going to want to hear rate of descent, 300ft per minute or greater using 20 to 100% of power. Airspeed less than ETL. Nice, smooth, concise. So that's the big difference between private and commercial. The private checkride is going to be a little bit easier, so take that and use it as needed. And that's my advice on that one. What's next?

This next one's coming up from Carlo, and he wants to know what are your top tips, mistakes to avoid when you get back to flying after a long break between lessons? Lessons.

Ooh, that's a fresh one, man. Let me think for a minute. Caught me off guard here. But that's good. That's a good question. I would say a couple things that come to mind. It's not like you're gonna lose, what, everything that you learned. That's not the case. However, when you got back into flying after not flying for a long time, I would first say probably review the PoH on the aircraft that you're getting ready to go fly. Make sure that the numbers are fresh in your head on your limitations, vnes, your airspeed limitations. Emergencies, of course. So doing something to freshen up that knowledge before you go jump in. And also jumping in with an instructor, of course, if you haven't flown. Let's see, in the, in the, in the acs, now, there's something where they mention currency versus proficiency, meaning you could be current, but are you proficient? So let's say we use your example. Did he say example? They say. Or he just said a long time.

Just. He did say. He did ask. He did explain. Like, such as after holiday. After. Like a Christmas holiday.

Okay. Are you and are you in the training environment? I guess this would depend on whether you're Training or not, Let me break this down into two forms. Let's go with student training first. Many times a break in your training will help you advance when you go back to training again. And I've seen it many, many times where somebody wants to fly every day, and all the time they want to fly, fly, fly. You find those plateaus and you don't make as much progress when you're flying heavy duty all the time. And some of the people that I've seen make the most progress is after they've taken a break. I had one guy who, he's like, I want to fly every day, Monday through Friday. And I'm like, we can do that, but you're going to run into some stumbling blocks. He's like, I don't care. I want to fly every day. He had the money, he was wealthy. And I worked with him every day, Monday through Friday. And we did this for weeks on end. And he found a point where he just. It was like he just wasn't really making any progress. And I suggested a break and he didn't like it. He didn't like that idea at all. But then he had to leave for like 10 days because he had something he had to do in business, and he was frustrated, like, I, I can't go 10 days without flying. This is going to hold me up too much. And I'm like, man, I think you might be surprised if you just take the break, go do what you got to do for 10 days and come back. So he did that. And when he came back, he had the best flight that he had in months. So taking that 10 days off, letting things kind of sink in, taking a little break, coming back to training, he actually did better. So if we're talking the training environment and we're talking short term, it can actually be a benefit. If we're talking an environment where, say, you're a rated pilot, you know, just stay on top of your knowledge is something that you should be doing all the time. And if you haven't flown, like, for example, a lot of students or a lot of flight schools, if you haven't flown in, say, 30 days, they make you go out with the instructor for at least an hour, which I think is prudent. If you're not flying regularly, you got to take special care. You know, there's times where maybe I go a couple months without flying. Like, for example, well, we had the R44 Overspeed last winter. The helicopter was gone for three months. We didn't have a backup helicopter. So the first time I had an opportunity to fly, once the helicopter came back, I'm like, okay, I haven't flown for a couple months here, so, you know, take my time walking out there today. Make sure I do good pre flight, make sure I think through what I'm doing, and just take that extra special care that, hey, I'm not super. I'm current, but how proficient am I? Right? Anytime you take one of those breaks, you just want to use basically some extra care as you ease back into it. All right, I think I'll do the last giveaway and then we can answer. Finish up with any other questions there might be.

I have quite a few questions.

Oh, quite a few, yeah. Oh, so you want to do a couple more first?

Yeah.

All right. So do a couple more.

Okay, so this next one is from Oscar, and he's had a. Oh, sorry, Oscar.

It's from Oscar.

I thought you did something. I caught movement from the camera. I've heard one DP I'm sorry. I've heard one DPE say that the attitude indicator requirement, per the new ACS requirement rules that check rates have to be for fully operational. And others say as long as it's just in the aircraft. What's correct? Does he mean altitude indicator?

He said attitude indicator.

Yeah.

Oscar, good question. Well, first off, both the R22 and R44 that we operate, neither one of them have an attitude indicator, so it's obviously not required equipment for day VFR in a helicopter, and it doesn't fall under camouflt. So it's not required equipment. If there was an attitude indicator that was in there and malfunctioning, it would have to at least be marked inoperative. Placarded inoperative, and would have to be unhooked. Would be my answer to that. Again, an attitude indicator. If that's what the true question is. It's not. Attitude indicator is not a piece of required equipment for DAVFR in a helicopter. It's not under camifoot, and it's not under the Robinson specific regulation.

Okay, so we have Jay from helicopter training videos, and he had a little input, saying that our f. SDO Said it had to be equipped per instrument equipment for commercial check.

Sure. Yes. Okay. That I would agree with. Yes. If. If that was. If somebody was taking an instrument checkride. Oh, you'd absolutely have to have that attitude indicator working. Absolutely. That I agree with 100%. Yeah. Good. Thanks, Jay. Hey, glad you made it today. He mentioned yesterday he hadn't been able to make it yeah, we're doing our. Well, but we're not doing instrument check rides. We're doing private commercial cfi. We're not doing instrument rides. Did Jay say. He said instrument rides. Right.

It had to be equipped per instrument equipment for commercial checkride.

Interesting.

Which leads into this question from lp. He tacked on to the original question from Oscar asking, what if a helicopter does not have the indicator?

Great freaking question. Because we're doing check rides in the R22, R44. We're doing them private commercial and CFI, and we do not have an attitude indicator. So we are. We are currently doing that. So I guess that would depend on a particular DPE or fisdo certain area. But I mean, our examiner's been given check rights for 35 years, and we do not have an attitude indicator. I wish they did. I wish we had them. And I don't know why anybody would ever order a helicopter without one. I think it's silly to not have one. But I don't own them. I'm just using them. And we're doing private commercial and CFI checkrides without an actual attitude indicator. You do have to have the five hours previous the checkride. Maybe that's our savior. You know, we. There's five hours that you have to do for the basic instrument training in a helicopter before taking the commercial. So our applicants have that, but we don't have one. So I would say for instrument check ride, definitely would have to be working, but that's about as far as I can take that one.

Okay, I'm gonna get back up to this one question. This is coming from Reicher735, and he just wants to know from a pro, how safe are Robinson helicopter pilots? Or, I'm sorry, Robinson helicopters, in your opinion?

Great question. This comes up all the time and I talk about it frequently. We have a video that I just did within the last few weeks called, you know, Rabbits and Helicopters. Love them or hate them, Right? And here's. I'm going to give you my observation, right? Because somebody said, oh, that's not a good title. Love them or hate them. It's just the fact of this or that. And it was just a title to get people talking, right? Because what I see, in my opinion, either people love the Robinson and they just absolutely love them, or you make a post about a Robinson and then people will jump in and they're like 100% the other side. They're just like, oh, damn, Robinson. You know, and so it's like there really seems like they're on both ends of the spectrum, right? People love them, that fly them and have a lot of time in them. And usually the people that are bashing them don't. They don't usually have a lot of time in them. And I only say that because our examiner made a statement about 10 or 15 years ago I thought made a lot of sense. He said, the people that talk super negative of a Robinson most of the time will have 10 hours or less, or they've never even flown one. They just either they haven't been in it and they're going off what they heard, or they got just a little bit of time in it and immediately decided they hated it. Like with me, when I first climbed in them, I hated the cyclic. I thought it sucked. However, my instructor says, hey, it's still a helicopter. Inputs are still the same. Don't worry about it. And then over time, I learned to like the Robinson. So with my experience, I went to the Robinson safety course early in my career. After I got my private. This would have been like 99 or something. It was the late 90s. I went to the Robinson factory, and the Robinson factory is very open and honest. And they say, look, in the beginning, 1 in 10 helicopters that left the factory, I think was the number one in ten that leave the factory didn't make it to their location. Right. Their destination. That sounds pretty scary, and that sounds pretty bad. Right? So they say in the beginning, in the very beginning, here's what was wrong with the aircraft. Here's where we went wrong as a helicopter manufacturer. And then they also talk about, you know, like, we now have the SFAR in place, right. To really hone in certain things that a person needs to be aware of before they start flying a helicopter, like low G. Well, it pertains to any helicopter out there, but just in Robinson, they're more susceptible to a low G event if you go forward, but with the proper training, they can be safe. So Robinson will show you where they were in the beginning and where they are today. And I can't remember the numbers to tell you, but we're talking a scale from not very safe in the beginning to the safety being increased, you know, by hundreds of times over the years. Right? Because they took what they learned, they fixed the problems with the aircraft, continue to do those types of maneuvers, and then the SBAR 73 training that we all. We all say is a pain in the ass, we do. Right. However, with that being said, that SFAR 73 training is good training, and it's good for anything that you fly. So if you start in the Robinson and you go through the SFAR training, it's actually holding you to a higher standard, in my opinion. It's all the things that you need to know anyway, as a private or getting into helicopters, there's a certain amount of things you need to know. Right. With the SBAR 73, they're just honing it in harder. Low RPM, low G, all these bad things that can happen virtually in any helicopter. You just get them, they're honed in more, they're brought to the forefront. So SFR73, although we all like to complain about being a pain in the ass, it's actually a good thing. And I'm sure that it has saved lives. And I can tell you Robinson, hands down, has the best training on the planet. I've flown instruments, I've flown Switzer, I've flown cabaretes, I've flown Robinson's, all the trainers. Robinson has the best training, the best factory school. From what I can tell. I haven't even been offered any other factory schools. But the factory school, their flight syllable training that they put out, what I've seen over the years, Robinson, hands down, has the best training. So do I think they're safe? That was the question. Yeah, I think so. I'm operating in R22 and I'm operating an R44. With that being said, do I stick to what we all learn as a private pilot? Yes. Doing what these helicopters are built for, flying them the way they're intended to, being flown and doing the maintenance on them. This is another one that. Sure. When you take Robinson, the most popular civil training helicopter in the world, more helicopters in a Robinson than anything. Of course you're going to have more accidents just in terms of the amount of numbers telling you they've increased over the years, the safety margin. So maintenance is sometimes a maintenance problem, could be the reason something happened. And maybe you didn't hear that that's the reason or you didn't investigate. Maintenance can be cheated on. Any helicopter. It doesn't matter where it's a Robinson. It doesn't matter whether it's an instrument, how scrupulous or how you know the people that are doing the maintenance, the flight school owners, you've got people that spend the money and have immaculate helicopters well taken care of, where the maintenance is 100%. But you got a lot of shady operators out there too, that because they're not making a lot of money. Flight schools in general, it's hard to make money for Flight school, it's just the way it is. So a flight school, buy a couple helicopters, or at least a couple helicopters, they start taking money in on account, helicopter breaks. So a little bit of that money that was supposed to go here has to go to there. Then pretty soon you're falling behind on payments. And I've been there, done that. I did that with the instrument I owned 15 years ago, super, super hard. So a lot of times, because schools aren't generating the kind of money that they need to. To properly do the pay the bills and keep on top of the maintenance, sometime maintenance starts to slide a little bit. So, you know, we. I often bring up the interview with Tim Tucker from Robinson Helicopter. Many people know who Tim is if you've been around Robinson for years. And we asked him at Heli Expo, we said, hey, which helicopters should somebody fly when they start their raining? Which helicopter is best or start their training? And he's standing right in front of Robinson as we're doing the video. And he said, kenny, I don't think it makes a difference which helicopter you fly. He said, I think the Robinson, the Instrom, the Cadbury, the Schweitzer, all great helicopters, if they're maintained, the proper maintenance is done, and you have a reputable flight school with reputable instructors who are doing the job right. I think hands down is more important than the make and model of the aircraft. So I think my opinion, yeah, they're safe. I fly them. I take my daughter and my friends and family up in them, and if I didn't think they were safe, I wouldn't fly them. And on the other spectrum of that, I don't go out and do macho cowboy, stupid. I don't go out and do things that the helicopter wasn't designed to do. I like to go out there and follow the rules, fly very conservative, fly slow, smooth and methodical. And I think if you do the proper maintenance on a Robinson and you fly it the way it's intended to be flown, and you get the proper training from a qualified Robinson instructor, I think that you will. Chances are you're going to be just fine.

Nice.

So there's my little spill on the Robinson, but that's just how I see it. That's my take on it and get in the comments and fight it out, you know, and then later they'll be, oh, those. You know, it's just. It's fun to watch. And I think my examiner's right, like. And so I just kind of sit back and laugh. I don't get all offended when somebody makes some really snarled, snide, shitty remark. You know, I just, I blow it off. Hey, thanks for commenting. Right. Like they have their opinion. I have my opinion. That's my opinion.

Managed to answer quite a few questions in chat over the art.

You know, Robin, I'm sure what's a great topic. I mean, it's. It. You can't deny it's the most popular training civil helicopter in the world. I mean, you can't deny it. Right. And again, when you're in them and you're around them and you're flying them, and if you maintain them properly and you give them the love and the maintenance that they deserve, probably not going to have a problem.

Well, we'll move on. I have a couple more questions and then we'll move on to our giveaway.

Okay.

Okay, so this next one is coming from G. Bluesman, and he wants you to explain the elastometric bearings.

Elastomeric bearings metric. It might be elastomeric dampeners. I'm familiar with elastomeric dampeners because that I can tell you in the helicopter accident that I was in in 2005. It had elastomeric dampeners in the rotor system, meaning you had a big piece of rubber up there that allowed the root of the attached. The root of the blade that let the blades move fore and aft. Prior to that, they had a little hydraulic cylinder that was there for 40, 50 years. Well, they decided to upgrade to elastomeric. I was flying one of the first helicopters in the world with elastomeric dampeners. The helicopter went into ground residence on a nice smooth set down, completely destroyed. The helicopter threw us out of the aircraft, and it was a total. Aircraft was demolished, totaled, boom to nothing but elastomeric bearing. I'm feeling like I'm dumb because I don't know what an elastomeric bearing is. A bearing is normally a hard, you know, round bearing with ball bearings in it and an inner piece that moves.

Could they mean the elastomeric bearing in the R22 R44 tail rotor teeter hinge?

I'll have to research that. I don't have an answer for you. Askhogs.com well, Jeep Leusman just entered the.

Chat after Jay saying that that was correct. So whether he means what you were talking about was correct or what Jay was referring to.

Okay.

In the tail rotor.

Okay.

Robinson. Tail rotors.

Well, there's an. Obviously an area I need to study up on, so I could answer that question properly next time.

Okay. And then this one is going to go all the way back up to. This is again from Jay. This is a tack on question from earlier for the. I gotta find it. I hate when chat jumps.

So while she's looking that up, I'm going to type in askhogs.com. you know what? It's the most ways. Do I have my computer here? Ask Dogs askhogs.com. how much you want to bet?

Oh, I found it.

Found the question.

Yeah. How do they do unusual attitude and the new hood task in the commercial checkride?

Read it to me again.

How do they do unusual attitude and the new hood task in the commercial checkride?

New hood task. Not sure specifically hood task. Well, they could. One thing they could do, of course is use the good old Foggles. You could use. Well, actually let me rephrase that. When I did my CFI reinstatement, the examiner had me lean back, close my eyes, get the helicopter in a weird position and then open their eyes. That's what he's used on all the check rides that we've done in the recent past was just get somebody and have them close their eyes, put the aircraft in an awkward position and then open their eyes. But as far as hood, I never used a hood. The only thing I've used is Foggles. And the only other thing we have used now is we do have the Icarus device over here. The owner was good enough to bring us one and let us demonstrate it and we have a couple videos on that. The Icarus device is super for doing practice, inadvertent IMC and you know, focusing on the controls. But as far as hood, I haven't used an actual hood. Okay, what else you got?

The giveaway.

All right, so we designed and I'm going to make you force you through listening to this. We're going to give away hogs. No go button. This is a Mini. We're giving away the Minis. For years we were giving away this big one. Live to fly another day. HelicopterGround.com and the reason that we designed this, and I'm going to tell you the story real quick because this is hopefully important and it helps save people's lives. When I was flying ems, I flew with a Vietnam era pilot and I enjoyed flying opposite this guy because he had some of the best or best tips on anything I could ask him if I had a question about something. He always had some tidbit that would always help me. And at the EMS base he had the easy Button. And what he would do when he would get a phone call for a flight, he would get the location, you know, get where we're going, and he would go check the weather. And when he would check the weather, if the weather was not good enough and he was going to make a no go call on the flight, he would just say, you know, due to weather, I'm going to turn, I'm going to turn down this flight. Hangs up the phone and he would go, that was easy. He did the easy button. And that affected me because I thought, how cool is that, right? When you're making these weather decisions go and no go, it can be very difficult sometimes. Whether it's your own, whether you're pushing yourself, you're being pushed by the guy you're working for, you're being pushed by the news station, you're being pushed by the photographer in ems, you could be getting pushed by the cure or the hospital. So a lot of times, you know, you're making the right decision to say no, but then you hang up the phone and you second guess yourself and you sit there and go, oh man, you know, I did what I thought was right, but now they're disappointed because we're not going. And by him hitting that button, that was easy. It just kind of made you go, wow, right? Just a neat little kind of like relief and almost treat, I would call it, for making that decision. So I took his idea, basically stole his idea. Like everything that I do in HOGS that's worked out and been good over the years, I've taken from somebody else. Right. All the good stuff is all stolen. I've learned from others. Luckily, I've flown with some incredible people in the industry and I've learned a lot. So I just take this stuff that I've learned and turn it into my own thing. So we created the Hogs no go button. So the idea is when you are making your weather decision, we have members who have sent us in videos, their computers on the table, and they're looking at a weather situation and they decide they're not going to go, They hit the button. So it's just kind of a fun little thing to just, boom, hit it and treat yourself. For saying, yes, I want to go, I feel the need to go. But the looking at that weather, I know I probably shouldn't. What's the right decision? Hit the no go. So we, we built it, we had no go put on the side and of course put the, the. The logo or not the logo.

The.

What do you Call it slogan. The slogan. So that's what we're going to do for the giveaway right now. What is the slogan? Super easy type. First person to type in the slogan. Use proper pronunciation and spelling, please. Punctuation and spelling, please, is the winner of the no Go. And we'll have to ship this off to you. So that's the idea. Between the Go no go button and we send these out to you after you pass your checkride, send us a picture of after your checkride either with the helicopter or holding your certificate there with the examiner or whatever, and just mention a sentence or two of how hogs helped you get through that rating. And then we send you the no Go button. Do you have a winner?

I do. Paul was the first to answer with Live to Fly Another Day.

That's it. So in the Live to Fly Another Day, where did that come from? That came from our audience. We polled people when we first designed this. We're like, hey, we're building this new button. We're building this no go. What are your ideas? You know, we of course came up with some of our own and then we polled our audience, our members, our ground school members, and just said, what are your ideas for a slogan to go along with this button that we're making? And so we took one that came in from a member and I wish I could remember who actually came up with the idea Live to Fly Another Day. But that's where it comes from was we just pulled our members and said, what would you think would be the best slogan to go along with this button? And that's why now it's part of the HOGS as part of our logo. It's part of our everything that we do. Live to Fly Another day. Right? Because we want to bring attention to the fact that people lose their lives flying into bad weather. I just watched a thing on Kobe the other day and I know that everybody knows what happened to Kobe, but I thought I knew what happened, but I recently watched something on the Internet just because I thought, you know, I knew. I know some of the behind the scenes stuff. I know what the weather was that day and I know that somebody I know personally was turning down a rescue flight the same time that they were taking off. So I knew it involved bad weather, but I never really watched the details and I didn't want to comment because everybody and their brother made videos immediately. And I thought, I never liked talking too soon about an accident. But the fact that people lose their lives taken off when they shouldn't and it's always happened and it's going to probably continue to happen. But we want to do our best to make the awareness of the whole go no go decision can be very hard to make. And this is something that we just, you know, it's my little scar on the helicopter training world. And we know of we've had some members who got two or three of them because they like, hey, I got my first no go, but I took it to the flight school. Everybody loved it. So I left it at the flight school. Now that I passed my reading, can I have another? And I'm like, absolutely. So in turn, we've sent them to some flight schools. When somebody said, would you send us one? And I'm like, as long as you're going to display at the flight school. Yeah. And I've heard about people having fun, you know, sitting around the hangar, hitting the button or the training facility and the fact that it's even sitting there. And that brings up the discussion of the go no go decision and the problems around that no go, go no go. It can be a very difficult decision to make. And it doesn't get easier with years. You would think as you get older and you fly more and get more experiences, you'd think it would become easier to make this other decisions, but not always so much. Right. Because you could become overconfident. Well, I've flown in two and a half miles before or I've flown in a mile and a half before. I can tell you that. Me personally, I've gotten more conservative with age and with time and the things that I've seen and scared myself. Right. And I know they were talking about some of the visibilities when Kobe was out there or pilot, Coby's pilot was out there. Visibility down around a mile and a mile and a half in places. And I'll tell you what, a mile of visibility sucks. A mile and a half sucks. Two and a half miles even sucks. I made my, in the end was flying EMS. Our minimum was 802. So if it was 802, 800 ceiling, 2 miles visibility, we could go above that. I made my own personal minimum. Even in ems, I made it three miles and a thousand feet. And even though hospital always wants to go, the crew always wants to go, and they can be a little bit pushy at times. They were all fine with my decision of my minimum. If I don't have three miles and I don't have a thousand feet, I'm not going. And I think that's fun. When I'll have somebody here who's maybe going through a private and I'll go start talking about weather minimum with them right before they go for their truck ride. Because we want you to create your own weather minimum. That's pretty conservative. And I've had just in this past summer, like I had a kid go like, oh, I don't know, like, I don't know, 801. And I'm like, are you serious? Well, yeah, like, am I legal in class G? I go, I'm not talking about legal. I'm talking about a good weather minimum. I go, if you think you could go out there and fly at 800 in a mile, we need to sit here and discuss this for a little bit. Because that is, that's not, that's not a good personal minimum for a private pilot. A new private pilot. Hell, I don't think it's a good minimum for anybody. Right when that visibility, if it's reporting a mile, it might be a half mile, it might be a quarter mile. That's another problem. And that's another reason that I like three miles and a thousand. Maybe you're taking off here and the reporting is 802. And maybe where you're going, the reporting is three miles and a thousand. But you got 40 miles distance between point A and point B and halfway there it's a quarter of a mile and 500ft. It's that low hanging crud that can be out there many times. So that's why we want you to be conservative. You know, I think for a new private pilot ought to be up there like, you know, 3,000ft and five miles. I think you should have a really conservative weather minimum, especially as a brand new pilot. All right, my voice is warning down. I better start wrapping up about all I can take. Anything else, Any questions before we go?

Nope, just a bunch of people saying Merry Christmas.

All right, Merry Christmas to you guys and girls. Santa 40. 40% off any membership between now and New Year's day. Go below for the different membership levels. I think Lindsay has links down there. You can go right to the sales page for private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot, certified flight Instructor, Pro Pilot. Santa 40 for 40% off. And remember, hogs pays me down there. The affiliate link. If you would like to earn commissions and do us a favor and subscribe to the channel so you can click the bell. Subscribe and click the bell so you'll be notified of the videos that come out each day. For more giveaways, we're going to give away another hoodie of we're going to give away one of these hoodies. We're going to give away a nice, the nice dress jacket that we got, like $130 jacket. We're going to give one of those away and we're going to give away some more memberships as well. So subscribe, click the bell. We'll see you in the next video. Peace out.

Peace.

You feel the pressure to fly, but know the right decision is to stay on the ground. Hit the hogs, no go and live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com.