Road Dog "to bridge the gap from 200 to that 1000 hour mark" and more...

Congratulations. Brand new private pilot Wesley Rhodes. There he is with the examiner. And real quick he had to say past my private pilot check right on Friday, plenty of setbacks, weather maintenance and COVID 19 hogs kept me current throughout. Thanks for the help. Instrument commercial next. I'm on the left, examiner on the right. Awesome. Congratulation. Congratulations Wesley. That is awesome. That's what we love to hear. We've been trying to keep people motivated through this pandemic. Proof that you can keep going after it and get your checkride done. And I want to mention he just, I just deactivated his membership. While he builds up some of his commercial time. He's going to come back for instrument. We tell people that all the time. You can stay as long as you like, you can cancel anytime, you can come back anytime. The beauty of Helicopter Ground School I am Kenny Keller, creator of Helicopter Ground School and I want to share with you today two questions that just came in today, but they're both related basically about getting your career, becoming a helicopter pilot. So I'm going to just give you the gist. I'm not going to read to you word for word because I know that's boring. So the, the bottom line, this first one gentleman's 35 years old, got out of the military, got a lot of different experiences and decided to become a helicopter pilot. And the basis of the question is just a short part. I'll read. I'm having a hard time getting an answer on what I'm supposed to do after school to bridge the gap from 200 to that 1,000 hour mark. Everybody's worried about this, right? I've heard you mention being a road dog in a few video, in a few of your videos are those positions where you fly a week or weekend and will return home or is it jumping from one season job to another? I guess I'd like some clarification on that term so I know what to look for. We've covered this in a lot of videos over the years. Basically what most people do to get their time is become a certified flight instructor. That is the most general way that people do it. And you research and find a job wherever it is you think you want to fly in the world. What aircraft do you have experience in? There are so many variables on what is right for any one individual and we're going to talk more about that. So when he says road dog, that means you go, you get a job wherever. I mean maybe you can travel, maybe you can't, maybe you because of family or work. You can't travel, then you're going to be very limited to finding somewhere close to you that you can hopefully get hired at and drive to. Which not to say you can't, but for most people, because helicopter schools aren't that prevalent, usually you're going to have to travel somewhere. So when I say road dog means you're probably going to have to be away from home. When I did it, one of my jobs, I drove 2 1/2 hours one way and I'd go Monday through Friday, they gave me weekends off and I would drive two and a half hours back home. So that's one way I did it. And that's when I was a new cfi. And how did I get that job? I got that job by contacting everyone, emailing, making as many contacts and selling myself. These jobs, if you're lucky, one will fall in your lap. But normally you got to get out there, you got to sell yourself, you got to do the legwork and you got to find those jobs. You got to sell yourself, you got to show your initiative, show that you're going to be good. And you do that by studying as hard as you can through your ratings, be as knowledgeable as you can and just put yourself out there and be better than most because it's not that hard to do if you really apply yourself. He next asks, how valuable is Heli Expo for a new pilot? I can answer this really quickly. I think if you're a new pilot and you're working on your ratings and money's tight, I probably wouldn't spend the money if, if cash is available to you and it's not a big deal, it's fun to go and it's cool. You can a lot of helicopters to look at. But Heli Expo is geared towards businesses, you know, selling aircraft. There's a little bit of training stuff there, but it's really not geared for a brand new private pilot. So again, I think that's any one individual's choice. If you can afford it and you have the cash to go, go for it. If it's not really in your budget, I'd save that money and go to Heli Expo later after you got your ratings done, maybe have your job. But again, it depends on any one individual. If you want to go, great. If money's tight, I would probably wait and go a different year. And back to what I already said. If you were a new pilot right out of school, would you be calling and where would you be looking for opportunities? What I did, I Emailed every single flight school I could find in a three state area. That's what I did. And my first job I got at the flight school, I did my ratings. But then a month later 9, 11 happened and that school basically was doing nothing. So I had to get online even though it was 20 years ago. But I just found flight schools and I, you know, sent out an email, told them who I was, what I was about. At that time I was 36 years old or 35 years old, 34 years old and just sold myself and I got a job when almost nobody in the country was doing anything. I got the job because of my forward attitude and being confident and just going right to them and say, look, I'm interested in getting my career going. Here's my experience, here's what I can do for you. And that's how I got hired. So beat in the bushes man. Make as many contacts. And like I said, I didn't necessarily want to move across the country. So I emailed every single flight school I could find between three different states, actually four, probably four states, my home state and the three surrounding closest states. The one farthest to the south, I didn't, didn't email anybody there. So that answers the first question. The other question I received just after that one, kind of along this lines, but this gentleman just finished his written, getting ready to do his private. And he was flying somewhere out west and for whatever reason he came to Indiana, not here to fly me somewhere, another flight school in Indiana. He came here to fly and the owner of the flight school where he was flying, you know, got kind of snarly with him about why'd you go somewhere else and you shouldn't do that. And so it's pretty lengthy email but basically he said he was pretty disappointed in that flight school because they didn't like the fact that he went to fly somewhere else and get some time elsewhere. And the owner got, you know, basically said, well you know, we would have hired you but now we're not gonna hire because you didn't do all your flying here. And anyway, he was pretty upset about it and he's like, you know, what do you think? And I said, you know what? I've openly in 10 years in the videos on YouTube and inside helicopter only ground school, I make it very clear what my opinion. I think the more places you fly, the more different experiences you can get with different instructors, different flight schools in different parts of the country. I think makes you a well rounded pilot. It gives you more opportunity there not to Say there's nothing, there isn't anything wrong with staying with just one flight school. That's great. If that works out for you and you do all your ratings at one school, that's okay. But what I told him in the email, I jumped around during my private and I know it cost me more money and in turn it, it took me 88 hours to get my private because I kind of jumped around. But then it helped me later in my career because when I went to get a job, oh, you got instrument time. Oh, you got Sweitzer time. Oh, you got Robinson time. I had time in those aircraft. And when you get out there to work in the working world, you need at least five hours usually. Well, you're required to have five hours in any aircraft you're gonn teach in. So there was an example with like the instrument I started out teaching in Robinson's, then I got an opportunity to fly in the instrument. I only had like 10 hours, but they're like, well, hey, you got the five. We'll put you in, freshen you up with one of our guys and give you a job. So in essence, what I told him in the email response, I didn't bash the flight school. Not going to do that, not going to mention any names because it doesn't matter. What I told him was, any one of you out there, you have your own path and you have what is going to be right for you. So always look at your own situation. Where are you wanting to go with your career? How are your finances? So one school sticking with one school is great. Nothing wrong with that. But if you go fly with another school and then the first school gives you a hard time, probably not really good business. I know when I jumped around, my instructor said, hey, sure, you know, when I told my instructor I want to go fly another school, I was flying the Switzer and I wanted to go try the Robinson. He's like, yeah, go give it a try. You should go experience the Robinson. And I had that experience at a couple places and they didn't get all snarly with me. They're like, hey, yeah, if you want to go try that helicopter, sure. That's what I was told early on. Hey, getting different experiences, different aircraft, different instructors, different locations, you learn something new everywhere you go. So not only is there different methods of teaching, there's different aircraft flying in different places. The country teaches you different things about terrain and weather. So I think that's going to sum it up on those two questions. I think any one individual you go for your dream, you got to look at what's right for you. And flight schools sometimes are on the up and up and they really want the best for you and they'll do anything to help you, whether you fly partially with them and partially somewhere else. Other flight schools maybe not so much. But that's, you know, that's just the way some people are. Right? I also told him pilots in general are job jumpers, right? They're always looking for that next thing. So it's not that uncommon really for a student any more than a someone going for a career. And that rain keeps picking up, so I better run it up cuz I don't know how loud that's getting. So do us a favor, subscribe to the channel, click the bell when you do. It's been quiet the last week because I've been home this week. My daughter had her birthday and then got her wisdom teeth out. So it's been quiet this week. Been taking care of her and making sure she gets her medication, try to keep her eating with what we could. So that's why we've been quiet the last week here on YouTube and haven't done much. So subscribe the channel, click the button bell, and we'll see you in the next video.