What is the "Final Approach Course"?

We get asked often, what is the final approach course? And so I want to give you a super short story and we're going to tell you what's all involved in it and where the name came from, because it's actually kind of cool. This originated with a Hogs member named Jamie Clear back in like 2017. He had an R44. He had 200 hours, he had eight instructors over a period of time and still didn't have a private pilot license. He'd been through all the HOGS courses or for the private, all the videos. He finally calls us in disgust. Can I just come up there and finish my rating, please? So we send a pilot down to get him and his helicopter, bring him in nine days, we finish him up, send him back home. All Jamie needed was the finishing touches, somebody to help him just put it all together and forget all the frustrations he had from eight different instructors and all kinds of hiccups and trying to find an examiner. So once we were completed, Jamie's like, man, you should be doing this for people. This is an absolute wonderful service. So that's where the idea originated from. And then we started this last summer and a local examiner came up with the name. I started telling him about what we were going to do, bring people in that just needed the finishing touches to get a checkride so they can move on with their lives. And he said, you know what, you should sell a VIP package and call it the final approach course. He goes, think about somebody who's, they've already been all the way around the pattern and they're getting ready to turn on to final. It's like them getting their checkride done. They've done all the prep work. Now it's just to come in on that final approach and finish that checkride. And I loved it when that examiner gave us that idea. So we named it the Final Approach course. So we have two versions. We have the basic, which is you come up, take care of your own transportation, your own hotel, and then we have a VIP package where we take care of everything for you. But to get to the meat of what we do, we base these on a five day course like a Monday through Friday. And of course we can adjust if we have to, but we try to do this Monday through Friday. People have all their requirements done, they have their written done. All these things are done prior to arrival. And we also jump on a zoom call with you, however many we need, one or two or three, and I evaluate your knowledge, see where you're at. We go through the list of things you're going to need when you get here. So that as soon as you arrive and you walk in the door, we start flying and doing ground and doing paperwork. We base that on a full day because here's what I found, goes on a lot of the time in the industry. You go to a school and Maybe they have 8 o' clock spot and 10 o' clock and at noon and a 2 and you're trying to jam people through there all day long. You can't, in my opinion, you can't give a good lesson in two hours. Not with coming in pre flight discussions, looking at logbooks, talking about what you're going to do for the day, pre flighting, getting fuel, climbing in the helicopter, start up, go fly an hour, come back, sign logbooks, debrief the flight that easily turns into three hours. So what we do is we've broken this down so we have a morning flight and an afternoon flight. So when you come in the door, there's no rush. We talk about what we're going to do, we go do it, we come back, do the paperwork, debrief what was done, talk about what we're going to do next, take a break, have lunch, which is included, we take care of you while you're here and then we go out in the afternoon, do the second flight that very quickly turns into a full day. That is something that's turned out to be super beneficial for us and for the members that have come in because last year we tried it with three flights a day and with three flights a day, that turns into more of a 10 hour day. Everybody's completely exhausted by the time you leave and you come back in the next day going, oh my God, you know, I'm still so tired from yesterday. So we've narrowed this down to two flights a day and this has proven to make the best progress. You can go back to the hotel, study, take a break, take a nap, do whatever, and come back in the next day refreshed and start again on the basic package. You'll be responsible for paying the examiner. If you go for our VAP package, we handle that for you and take care of that for you, including a second test in the event something happened. We've got you covered there too. Private hangar. Many of you have seen our hangar. We have a beautiful facility here. And while you're here, you have access to the hangar 24 hours a day. We give you a key. So if you want to come in at night and study, maybe the hotel's noisy. We've had that one time where a guy, it was late and they had a wedding party there in the hotel making a bunch of noise. He came back and studied at the airport because it's nice and quiet. It's our private, own private hangar, so you'll have access if you want to come in and study in the evening, you want to come in and practice, startup, shut down, whatever the case is. So that's really nice. It's all one on one instruction with me. You're not going to get bounced around between three different instructors. You're coming in to do it the Kenny Keller way. My method of what I've been using for going on 23 years now. So the hotel with the basic package, you get the hotel yourself, just pay for it, that's on you. We the VIP package, we take care of the hotel. And the hotel is five minutes away. And everybody always wants to know about accommodations. It's just around the block, around the other side of the airport. It's five minutes to get here. Everyone except for one gentleman, everybody else has stayed at that same hotel and they've all been very happy with it. It's only like two years old. It's a fair fair filled in by Marriott. So it's a nice hotel. So again, you can pay that yourself or we can do that for you with the VIP package. And with the VIP package we have a courtesy car for you. So while you're here, you will not need a rental car. With the VIP package, we'll pick you up at either Fort Wayne International or South Bend International Airport. Either one of them is about an hour drive for us. So you fly in, we pick you up, we bring you back to town, give you the courtesy car, take you over the hotel, get you checked in, make sure you're comfortable, and the next day we start training. So sitting right behind the camera here we have Robinson R44.110 hours on it since its complete overhaul. New interior, runs good, starts good hot or cold, flies nice. Literally no problems come through the 100 hour inspection. No big deal, a couple little adjustments here and there. So with this wonderful aircraft that we have available to us, we finish up your rating and send you back home. And of course everybody says, what's the cost? Depending on what you need? Because we do, we can tailor this package to exactly what you're going to need. But in general, we base them on a 10 hour package. So you've got four days of flying, fifth day of checkride. So you've got two, four, six, eight hours of prep work and then two hours to take the checkride. If you don't need that much time, we can of course make an adjustment. So reach out to us and we'll make a specific package for you. So so if you're interested in the final approach course, reach out to Heather. She's sitting over here on the sidelines. 574-767-1797. We can talk about your needs and again, we can fit it specifically to whatever you need to get you finished up. So for a recap, here, we're going to show you the eight people that have been here this summer for the final approach course. Todd Ketterman came up for his commercial pilot and has actually been back for certified flight instructor. Cameron Schultz came from Florida, as did Todd for his private. And then Robert Gardner came from New Mexico for certified flight instructor. And then we had Richard come from the east coast for certified flight instructor add on. And John Kiev all the way from Houston, Texas for his CFI add on. Steven Carlson traveled from Florida to get his private finished up. And Jay Powell came from Oregon to do his certified flight instructor add on. And I think that's it. So we can get you up on the Hogs Wall of Fame as well after we help you finish up your final approach course so you can text or call Heather again, we'll throw that number up again. 574-767-1797. We'll see you next. Video Peace out. Live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com.