"Why aren't Helicopter Helmets recomended for Private and Commercial Pilot?

We may be getting an upgrade. This arm 22nd may be getting upgraded to an instrument trainer. Well, no more owners looking at another one today, so we'll keep you informed on that. We may be doing instrument rating soon here with the final approach course. And we wanted to mention some more Hogs Wall of Fame members today. This has been a kind of a fun theme this week. We've been going through and mentioning our members that we've actually or met or know some of the stories behind. Todd Berry, member from way back. He's done several ratings I believe. I think he's at least in his commercial. But he sent us in a video for one of these. So send us in a video. We haven't had it. Somebody sent us a video in a long time. Send us a picture, we send you the hogswall or a no go button. Send us a video and we'll send you a no go button. So he did a video for us, was fun and also some pictures. And then Robert Gardner, he was quick fun mention because he came up to do his CFI and I did a couple zooms with him and somehow we had an opening. I don't remember how it worked out, but he was like, well how soon should I start up there? And I'm like, get in the car and start driving. And he's like, seriously? I'm like, yeah, we can get you done in like four days, five days or whatever the case was. We just happened to have a spot and he literally got in his vehicle down the southwest. Always forget Arizona or New Mexico and headed up here and we finished him up. Havens Perry. We met him down at Sevier county choppers. Met him the day that we were picking up the R44 I believe at Sevier county. And then another one, Nick. This is pictures pretty old, but we met Nick way back. He's a hogsnot from way back and now he is actually a cfi and I haven't seen him in a while. I don't know what he's doing now. But met him down Sevier county choppers. So that's kind of fun. So we'll head back over here. Remember to send in your pictures or send us a video. We'll send you the no go button and we're going to answer your questions here and give away a book shortly and we're going to give away a hoodie shortly as well. And give away a book shortly and we're going to give away a. You got it switched. All right. We're gonna give away the hoodie after we give away Private Pilot 101. So, any questions popping up in there yet?

Just one. This is from Ronan Gaming. Why aren't the use of helmets highly recommended for private and commercial use, not including military?

You said why are they not recommended? Oh, I don't know anybody that doesn't recommend them. I mean, I think it's in the. He's asked about the civilian world, right?

Sounds like it, yeah.

In the civilian world, it's your choice. Most people, I think probably, and I'm guessing I think most people just pick headsets because when you take lessons, usually headsets are provided. Some students will buy their own helmet. We've talked about helmets a lot in the past, even in the past 12 days or 14 days videos really a. I think the benefits of a helmet are obvious. Like it's protecting your head, it's giving your face protection, your eyes protection, if something comes through the windshield, you know, a visor in the day, time to help with sunlight. There's a lot of benefits to helmets. Downside of a helmet is the expense. I wore helmets in EMS for five years and I understand why they required them, but they paid for them. In the civilian world, I choose to wear headsets. That's just what I choose to do. Of course, anybody could. Anybody could make a mistake and end up in an accident, right? Nobody's above ever being in an accident, but we do our best to avoid accidents. And when I fly, I want to be able to just put the headset on, enjoy myself, feel free. Summertime, we love having doors off. And yes, I fly in shorts and I fly in T shirts. And there's people that tell me, oh, you shouldn't do that. You should have a flight suit on. You should have a helmet. Yes, I understand the benefits, I understand the safety, but I also want to enjoy the summer. And even this time of the year, you know, it's cold out, we're going to fly with doors on, but I just prefer to dress the way I want to dress and wear headsets. So I don't know of anybody saying don't use them, honestly.

Next question is from Bill. Is helicopter simulation training a must? Also, do you believe that a simulator player can fly a real helicopter?

Good questions. The first one, is it mandatory? No. I mean, you can start, for example, the R22 that we have here. You can start flying the R22. You could do all the training you wanted to do for the aircraft, in the aircraft, and then get your license and move on. So there isn't any simulator time required for, let's just say a private pilot now in the US and then what was the second part of the question?

Can do you believe that a simulator player can fly a real helicopter?

I think so. I mean, I don't recommend it. I wouldn't recommend it in any shape or form, but somebody could they learn the. You could learn the basics, but it wouldn't be safe in my opinion. Right, you could learn it on a simulator. Well, you know what it depends on. Let's. Let me rephrase that question. If you're at home and learning on a little Microsoft flight simulator with a little joystick you twist for, for tail rotor pedals, I would say do not get a real helicopter and try to fly it because that would be super difficult. Now, on the flip side of that, we know there's some pretty sophisticated simulators, simulators out there, right, where you've got a pair, you've got pedals and you've got a cyclic and you've got a collective and they've got simulators. Now we've got this great big huge screen in front of you. So could you ultimately learn in one of those more advanced simulators and get in the real thing and actually fly it with an instructor on board? Yeah, I think you could. I think it's definitely possible. Wouldn't recommend it, but I, I think so, yeah. It could be done and within reason, like you wanted to use it a more advanced one to learn a lot of the basics. And then you went to a flight school, said, hey, I want to take lessons in the aircraft. I've been doing some simulator stuff, so I got a little bit experience at it, but I haven't done the real thing. Right. And then you go with an experienced instructor, do all the proper training that you need to do before you ever solo and move on. So. Yeah, good. What you got next? I know she's typing at the same time.

I am sorry. Our first question, Ronan Gaming. He has already received a Private Pilot 101. So I'm just letting him know that he asked for the top 10 checkride tips.

So we can send him that. Absolutely, absolutely. We can substitute.

Absolutely.

And any of you, that's what we have a, we have a pretty decent supply of both this one and top 10 checkride tips right now. So if you have, if you have this one and you're the winner, we're happy to send you top 10 checkride tips instead of this one. So I should mention it while she's typing, getting ready for the Next question. This is PD Private Pilot 101 Helicopter Trading Blueprint. The link is down below to get a free PDF. So you sign up with your email and you'll immediately be able to download the free PDF. You'll also have an opportunity to purchase the paperback if you would like. So that link is down below along with a link for askhogs.com if you're new to us, we have a clone 14 years my digital contents piped into it. You can ask it questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Here's a tip on the clone though. It's got a lot of content in it, but we've had some people asking specific questions like with a, you know, can I fly into this specific airport? Can I do this right? Like we haven't fed the clone actual supplement charts. So asking it things like how many miles from this airport to that airport is not going to have that information. We haven't loaded it with that kind of information. We've loaded it with all my videos, podcasts, you know, blogs, paid content, free content. It's all in there. But you know, we don't teach, you know, that that whole sectional chart part of aviation isn't loaded into the clone. So it has its limits on what you can ask. But you can ask anything helicopter, flight and ground related related directly to learning.

Ready for more questions? Okay, well, we have actually quite a lot of people in chat today. We have Jay, we have Dave Faulkner and Dave Faulkner.

Wow, Dave Faulkner. We thought he fell off the planet.

Really?

I haven't heard from Dave in forever.

I thought you heard from him earlier this, this month.

I haven't heard from Dave since we were on the. Since I was on the boat, I think one night.

Oops.

So that's been at least a couple months. No, we're glad to know you're out there still kicking and you're in chat. Dave.

Yes, and Hunter and Bunch, a bunch of questions already. So I'm going to jump it back up to Brian, who asked that? Sorry, I think it's hard for me to read today. My eyes hurt. So your favorite topic is the Robinson, being that the R22 has low rotor inertia. What are your thoughts as safety compared to the Switzerland?

That's a pretty phenomenal question. I think that pretty much all the helicopter trainings out there. Helicopter training? All the training helicopters out there to an extent, if they're maintained properly and you fly them the way they're intended to be flown, I think they're safe. I mean, a Robinson safe. A Switzer safe. An instrument safe, A Cadbury safe. What is unsafe is unsafe practices. Number one, not having the proper training in any of them is dangerous Maintenance not getting done properly. Maintenance held off because of the owner doesn't have the cash to fix it. Earlier I was on Facebook and I noticed that Dirty Dozen maintenance, Dirty Dozen. And I thought we should do something on that topic. And we could do that for another day. But there's 12 things that related to maintenance that causes people problems. Right. One of them was distractions distracting a pilot while they're doing a pre flight. Right. Very, very dangerous. When somebody's doing a pre flight, you should leave them alone in ems. One thing that I liked, we had one dedicated, dedicated Mechanic to the EC135 and he had a cool sign made up that he put right to the entrance to the hangar. If you open the door and go to the hangar, here's this sign. Mechanic performing maintenance please do not disturb. Right. Meaning if you had to go to the hangar for something else, that's fine. But don't go bother the mechanic. He's got his tools out. He's in there digging and doing things. And that is a big distraction that could be for pilot or, or mechanic. So across the board, I think they're all safe and doing things by the book. Sticking to what we learned as private pilots from day one. Because that's another problem. I see people rushing in the cockpit, that's a problem. People pushing weather, that's a problem. There's a lot more reasons out there why, why people are getting wrecked over just versus, oh, a specific make of, make of helicopter. You know, I defend the Robinson all the time, but I had instruments for a long time. I always talked highly of instruments. Still do. We flew the Cadbury for a while. I talked highly of that. I flew Switzer's back in the beginning. Some from my ratings, some I did some teaching in the, in the Schweitzer. I like the Schweitzer fully articulated safe system. A fully articulated is always going to have probably its benefits over a semi rigid like an R22. But you have to go into it knowing that, hey, I can never do a large forge. Abrupt input that gets in people, gets people in trouble. Too far aft input. If you got light and you yanked it back, you could, sure, you can chop the tail cone off. But they've addressed these problems with Robinson with the 40 or 50 years they've been in business and the Robinson safety schools and the, and the improvements in safety over the years and the SBAR 73, although it is a pain in the ass, it also has helped create a much better safety environment with the Rabinson because of that holding you to a higher standard, holding instructors to a higher standard, holding you a higher standard on what you have to know. It's the same stuff, but making you know it even better. So in reality, R22 pilots create great pilots because you're learning to fly a difficult little machine. And in turn you can then go learn and fly in anything else because if you can master that, you can. Any other helicopter you're going to get in is going to be even easier. So across the board, to answer your questions, I think, I think they're all safe. It's more about proper maintenance and proper training than it is to make a model helicopter, hands down.

Our next question is from cleared as filed. And they want to know, as a pilot, do you have a preference flying from the left or right seat?

That is a great question. And it's really simple. I don't think I really have a preference. You know, it's interesting how you know, instruments, you pic from the right, Robinson you pic or from the instruments your pic from the left, Robinson's your PR pic from the right. Schweitzer can be either side depending on models you fly. And at first it seems like a big deal when you learn the opposite seat, but then once you get used to, just becomes kind of a no brainer. So now when I climb in, I don't really care. Doesn't really bother me. Right or left. The only thing I can think of that would make me choose one over the other. Am I thinking right? Actually, you know what? I don't. I, I just can't think of any, I can't think of any real good reason why one or the other. I'll tell you a stupid story that I did something I did that was really dumb and how did I ever do it? I don't know. I was in my early CFI career. We're doing flying the R22. I'm in the left seat all the time. But we did a pipeline patrol once a week and I went out to do the pipeline patrol. I jumped in the left seat, started it up, took off with the fly this pipeline patrol. And I'm like, oh, I'm in the left seat, pic's from the right. So I landed out in the field in the middle of nowhere, shut everything down, got out, moved over to the pic side just because I just jump in left hand, right hand and Being used to being the CFI on the left hand side. I just. I went walking out, no brain in my head, and I just climbed in the left seat, started it up and took off. You know, pic from the right, not the left. So I don't have any really big one way or the other. Lindsay ran over to turn the furnace down. So what else did we not mention? Oh, yeah. Hey, we only got a little bit of time left. New Year's Day is the or our cell. Our current sale ends midnight New Year's Eve. So 40 off code Santa 40. If you go down below, you can go to any of the memberships. Private pilot, instrument pilot, commercial pilot, certified flight instructor. Click on the specific link to go to it. Enter Santa 40 and get 40% off between now and midnight New Year's Eve before New Year's Day. All right, next one.

Okay, so this is from Red Devil Fly. And they want to know how long does it take to get scheduled with an FAA flight examiner versus dpe. And which one would you suggest?

Oh, this was asking specifically dpe. Well, as I mentioned in the beginning, we showed the Hogs wall of fame. We had Robert, I'm zooming with him. And we had. I think we might have had somebody. We had a check ride scheduled for somebody and somebody canceled or something. So I had something like a week away. And Robert's like, well, how soon do you want me to get there? I'm like, get in your car and start driving. And he's like, what, Are you serious? I go, yeah, seriously, go pack up right now. Get in your car and start driving. Because I got. I can get you done in like next week, on Friday or whatever the case was just so happened. I knew we had a spot there. Our examiner that we use. It's a text message. I just grabbed my phone and I tried to give him plenty of time. Right. I like to book them out with him at least two or three weeks in advance. However, have I went beep, beep, beep. Hey, anyway, you got room for a. You know, this is Thursday. And I could say, got any room for a checkride? Private file check right next week on Friday. And he'll. If he's got time, he'll get us right in. Now. He's different than what we hear is going on around the country. And that's if you're familiar with our final approach course or not. We have people coming from the outskirts of the US from. They're all the way around the other side coming here because the availability of our DPE I've been working for 24 years. And the reason for that is we hear, oh, our DPE is booked out for three months or we can't get on this DPE schedule for six months. So this is what we're hearing. We hear that there is a short of a shortage of examiners. So people are having a hard time in certain parts of the country getting hooked up with an examiner. So in general, finding examiner can be a problem depending on where in the country you're trying to get one. And he's an essential part of our success here and what we do. And I can, in all transparency, this is exactly why the R44 is getting ready to come back home. We moved it to Vegas for the winter and we, oh, we're going to do final approach courses in Vegas, you know, and we get it there. And he's an EMS pilot, so the schedule was a little bit iffy on trying to like he, well, I can't tell you now because I don't know my schedule for next month. And it was a little hard. And then the guy breaks his arm and it's like, well, we realized how important our DP DPE is. The same guy been using for 24 years. I try to take what's an FAC and move it to Vegas. And immediately we realized, wow, this isn't like doing it at home. And the aircraft was left outside and it's like a quarter of a mile to get to the damn helicopter. It's just like all the elements that makes a final approach course work here is, well, we talk about it all the time. Right? There's the helicopter. Right over there's the couch is where we do the ground. Right here in this drawer. There's the maintenance log books, here's the oil, here's the paper towels. You know, we do everything right here. Examiner, text message away. Hey, what do you do on the 22nd of February? I got a CFI hat on and I got initial commercial. Can you do those those days or what do you got closest? Well, I can't do that day, but I can do it the following Friday. How's that? Right? And we go to fly, do our pre flight inside. You open up the door, push the helicopter out, we call the fuel guys, they're here in about three minutes. They dispatch like fire and ems. There's no tower here. We're class G. So every single thing that we do here with our flight training, specifically our final approach course, it's just the nature of what we've put Together, everything's right here. You're not chasing the log books. You're not waiting months for an examiner. You're not sitting there waiting for an hour for fuel. You don't have to travel from this room to do your ground. But then you got to go over here to do this and then you got to go out there to pre flight. Everything is right here, along with our one on one that we do. We don't do flight school. 8am, 10am, 12 to 4. People coming and going all day and chaos and people everywhere. Nope, we don't do that. We do full day training. We meet you in the morning. We do training all day. Flight, ground, Flight, ground. We go home at the end of the day. It's exclusive, one on one. So I went off on a tangent there, but it's answering the question.

My next question comes from Garland Peabody and they have a roadway 162F and would like to do flight training in it. Is that possible?

Did you say rotorway?

Roadway?

Roadway. What is a roadway? Don't know what a roadway is.

Okay, let me do a quick.

Is a roadway a helicopter? I don't know. And I think when we do a question. We haven't made up a question for today. So while we're waiting for Lindsay to.

Maybe he means rotorway.

Rotorway. That's what I figured. You have to reach out and find out. I know there's a few rotorway experienced instructors out there. I have zero time in a rotor way, so I definitely can't help you. And nobody here that flies here with me, it's just mainly me and Hauser. I don't know, Hauser might have a little rotorway time, but to be quite honest, we've just kind of. I. I'm gonna be transparent, right? I built my business on being transparent. I had a guy that used to work for me that bought a rotorway and. And I went up and he just got a couple hours with it from the guy that he bought instruction in it. And I. So I'm already leary thinking, yeah, some guy built this in his backyard. This guy just bought it. Only got a couple hours of training from a guy who's not a cfi. I'm getting, I'm climbing in. And I read this aircraft does not confirm to FAA standards D D and I got in and he started it up and I just felt uneasy. And I remember early in my career the FAA talking about the rotor way and the tail rotor had like a rubber band operating it and had lots of tail rotor failures. I just couldn't do it. And I'm like, shut it down. I'm getting out. He's like, what's wrong? I go, I just don't feel good about getting an aircraft that says, does not contain or does not conform to FA standards. And that doesn't mean you can't have a great rotorway. And you could do the maintenance yourself and you could have the best maintenance ever. But because of what I've heard and then that same dude that's had like two or three rotorway accidents now where the total the things have been totaled, right? Like one of them was just a few months ago. So just half an hour away, there's been like three or four rotorway accidents from a pilot that I used to fly with and trained a long time ago. So I'm just being honest. I always thought they were cool looking, they're neat looking little aircraft and I hope you have great luck with it. But we just, I just steer clear of anything experimental. I just don't do it. I just, I've been able to make a living when FAA certified aircraft maintained by mechanics. And that's another thing I have, I have a maintenance background. You know, I ran heavy duty towing service for years. I've rebuild engines, I've changed hydraulic hoses, I've done all that kind of stuff. But that's on a vehicle on four wheels on the ground, or 18 wheels on the ground, whatever the case is from the maintenance and the things. I don't want to do maintenance, I don't want to be a backyard mechanic. I don't want to do any of the maintenance at all. I want, I want a guy working on the aircraft that I fly. I want that to be that guy's profession. Right? Like I've always wanted to fly things where I knew who the mechanic was, I knew their background and I know that's what they get paid to do. I get paid to teach people to fly them and get them ready for their test and go be safe and prudent in the helicopter. Mechanics get paid to do that stuff. So I personally like keeping it separate. I don't want anything to do with maintenance. I want certified mechanic doing everything for me.

Fair enough. Next question is from Dreadnova. Can experience experienced military pilot get their private pilot license faster than a regular citizen?

Well, yeah, you can, you can convert military time over to a civilian license. So I'm not, I'm not prior military, so I can't tell you exactly what it entails. But I do know guys, I've flown with and mainly when I was flying ems. I know pilots that came out of the military and were able to take their. I'm assuming they take in their records of what they flew and what they did in the military and they can go into the fisdo, the Flight Standards District Office, and whatever the process may be, they can convert their military time over to a civilian license. So hopefully that kind of answers your question as far as military training and how they go about all that. I can't really comment since I'm not. I'm not former military and have no basis to make any statements on how that training goes. But you can convert. I know that.

Sim Racing, pal. They say that they have 103 hours total with 14 hours in R44 and the remaining in R22. They have no issues with their pedals in the Robinson r22, but they struggle with the R44 pedals. They're too heavy. Any suggestions?

Here's a what may seem like a silly answer, but what are you wearing on your feet? And I say this not only for R22, I say it for any helicopter or R44. I know when I started, I can remember one of my instructors, I was struggling one day and I had. I was a law enforcement officer at the time, so I liked wearing the boots that I wore when I was on duties because they were, you know, Gore Tex and super comfortable. And the dude's like, hey man, you got that big bulky boot on and you're struggling with those pedals. Come back with a more of a comfortable shoe. And I did, and it eliminated those problems I was having. And as an instructor many times over the years when somebody's told me they were struggling with pedals, I've said, try a different pair of shoes. And nine times out of 10, over all this 24 years, somebody's come back and said, that did it. That did the trick, right? Shoes can have. I've also wore some, like, hiking boots at times, and in the instrument, there was a way that, like, a fin on the edge of the thing would get stuck in my hiking boot. So what you're wearing on your feet can actually make a big difference. Other than that, I can remember at a point in the R44 where I felt like the R44 was more square whirly than the R22, which doesn't really make sense with the R44 being bigger and heavier and what should be a more stable aircraft. And I don't know if that was just something that was going on with me. Weird, mentally, it was when I had low time in the R44, because now that I've been flying them for a while again, I haven't really noticed that same problem, but I did for a little While in the R44 remember seeming like it was just like getting really squirrely and I was over getting really wild on the pedals and just thinking, why? What's going on with this thing? You know, what's weird about this? So that's about the best I can tell you on that. Try some different shoes and keep working through it, right? Just go out there and practice something I've done. When I feel a little, maybe a little bit like I need to sharpen my skills or I'm struggling a bit with the pedals or something, I'll go out here in a big empty area and I'll do what we call hovering square pattern. And people love this. And I was going to grab my helicopter, but I keep moving it. I was doing ground over there earlier. You just set up square in the field or on a ramp or anywhere. Set it down, pick it up, move over here, set it down, pick it up, turn, come over here, set down, pick it up, go all the way around the square and then turn around and go back the other way and go real slow all the way around, back their direction. So think about it. You're getting a win on any given day. You're getting it from four different directions. Going one way, same thing, returning. And again, each time you pick up and move, throw in a turn, right? And do all that both ways. That has helped me tremendously. Anytime I felt like my skills were a little behind or I was struggling a little bit too much with the pedals, I've said, you know what, I'm gonna go down there for half an hour and I'm just gonna take my time and really think through the pedals. And the other thing I can think of, if you're moving the pedals too much or you're struggling, you're probably thinking about them too much and you're probably even looking down at them too much. You know, I remember one instructor when I was struggling with pedals going, just push it. Just push the damn pedal, would you? Right. Like, get over this. Whatever problem you're having is just look outside. You want the nose to go that way, push the pedal. And as simple as that sounds, that's got me through pedal issues as well in the past. So hopefully that helps.

Our next question is from running gaming. What's your best Tip for flighting VFR into an ad. I don't even advertent IMC condition. Inadvertent.

What is my. Read the question again.

What's your best tip for flighting VFR into an advertent IMC condition?

Okay, it's 100 at all costs. Never ever do it. He's asking how to go into it.

Sounds like it.

That's the way it reads. I would never inadvertently fly into the clouds. Right. You know, the only time you should ever fly into the clouds is if you are via instrument rated in an instrument rated aircraft, your current instruments, you're qualified, you're comfortable and collegially go do it. You know, avoiding inadvertent IMC or inadvertent. Yeah, inadvertent ifc. Going into the clouds when you're not prepared for is a problem. It kills people. It kills average everyday pilots. It kills, kills professional pilots. Kills EMS pilots. I was in that environment for five years flying EMS and the five years that I was in it, we had the worst year in EMS helicopter crashes in history. And that was around 2008, sometime around there. And I believe the numbers have down, went down hopefully since and hopefully it's never been as bad as it was that year. But at that time flying in advertent in the clouds was killing multitudes of EMS pilots and crews. They have like the top 10 most dangerous jobs that year. We were above it. It was, it wasn't even on the scale, it was above the scale and people didn't know about it, people didn't talk about it, but that's a fact. So learning to number one, make good no go decisions, right? You never ever want to advertently go into the clouds unless again you are prepared, qualified and legal to do it. Now can it happen accidentally? It can happen accidentally. I've done it. I made a bad weather decision one night I was in Cleveland, I wanted to come back to Indiana. Boss would let me fly an airplane home. I'm a VFR pilot in a VFR airplane and the clouds were a little low. But I'm a helicopter guy so I'm like, well I'm comfortable flying a little lower. First mistake. I should have never gotten the airplane. And on my trip home I got into a low layer of clouds and somehow I was able to keep the aircraft under control, get back out of the clouds. And when I landed at an airport, I was in an Airport like 40 miles away from where I thought I was landing. Like I was so disappointed, disoriented after it happened and got myself in a mess. Luckily I lived through it. And it, that one event is the one that made me go, okay, this is nothing to play with you. I'll tell you another something stupid I did that day. I wanted to get home and I even called flight service and they were like, well, you know, here's the weather along your route. And he said, vfr not recommended. If you ever get that from flight service, if they say those words, I would say, thank you very much. I'd hang up the phone and call it off. I had a airline pilot who was a CFI helicopter as well, worked at the same place. He's like, he was looking at the weather that I was looking at flying and he's like, dude, don't do it. Just stay here the weekend. It's not worth it. And I'm the idiot that made the choice because I had get homitis. So being prepared for it, you know, if you're not flying in really good conditions, the only way you should even be attempting to fly where you might run into a weather problem is if you are fully 100 prepared, you've flown instruments, you're qualified, and then if you go in inadvertent, you have to claim an emergency and ask for help. You have to. I. I haven't talked a lot about Kobe in the past few years just because so many people made videos on it right off the bat. And I know another pilot that was there that day that said he should have never, his pilot should have never taken off. But I recently watched a really well put together documentary and it sounds like the pilot was qualified. He had a good reputation, was the chief pilot, I believe, of the company, had a high position. He had the opportunity to claim for emergency and call for help and he didn't, as far as we know. And it kills a lot of people. And you think, well, just call, you know, why wouldn't a person just call for help? Pilots don't want to screw that. They don't want to admit they made a mistake or they're worried about getting fired when they get home. The only thing you can do if you go inadvertent is get on your instruments. Hopefully you have the instruments you need to keep the thing level. Hopefully you've had enough training that you can survive it. And you got a squawk, an emergency, call for help and say, I want to inadvertent imc. I'm in the clouds, I need help. I need to get somewhere and I need, you know, I need help. And they Will talk you through it. And another important note on that, this is why on the commercial rating helicopter you have to have five hours minimum instrument time in a helicopter. And I know for a fact where that comes from, right. Direct from our examiner, he said that 5 hours can be done by a CFI. Doesn't even have to be a double eye. You need the basic minimum training on what to do if you go inadvertent. And so what we do is we practice with the person. We'll say okay let's say you went inadvertent imc, you know, flip on the foggles or use the fancy Icarus device. Like we have a, have one of those units over here and then give the student or the pilot that you're training, you give them vectors to certain altitudes, turn directions and you kind of like play like you're the tower and you're going to help this person talking through them through communications on which way to turn, what altitude to go to and help you get diverted to an airport and get you down and out of the clouds. That's what that five hours is for. And we know that, that five hours is the bare minimum. Like is it enough that it could keep you from killing yourself? Maybe, maybe in some instances, no, that five hours isn't going to be enough. So this is a big topic. It's why we created the Hogs no go button. And we've been talking about this basically last few days we've been hitting it pretty hard cuz we've been giving them away live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com and that's the point. You decide the weather zippy. You're not sure you can do it. Vfr, hit the button, make the choice, I'm not going and forget about it. Move on with your day. And that's, I won't go into the whole story how we made the button cuz I tell it all the time. But that's where we initiated the no go button. And that's why we send them out to our members after they pass their checkride. Send us in a picture for the Hogs wall of fame. We send you a no go button. And I know for a fact that they talk about them at flight schools. We had one guy, I think he got his private and then he got his commercial and he said hey you gave me a no go for the private, can I get another no go for the commercial? And he said I asked because I left it at the flight school and the kids there having fun hitting the button and we've been discussing the no go decision and I'm like, that's perfect. Right? That's the idea. It's a conversation piece and it's also something, something to give yourself a little pat on the back or a little break after you've made the decision to just stay on the ground. So making good pilot decisions, understanding weather, having good conservative weather minimums so that you don't ever fly into the clouds unprepared because it, it'll kill you.

Next question goes back to Garland, who previously asked about the rotorway. Can you receive flight training in an. Sorry. In an experimental aircraft or does it have to be normal category?

Well, you know what, what a great question. Yeah. You couldn't get, you couldn't get instruction in a rotor way from a qualified rotorway pilot. I don't know why you couldn't ask me again, did I miss something there? There's no reason you couldn't get someone to train you who's qualified in the rotorway itself. I don't know why you couldn't. That was the question, right? Yeah. You can have, you can have somebody train you. Absolutely. I know and I can't tell you who they are, but I know there's a couple of them that are like factory stuff certified and they travel around the country and go help people that have purchased rotorways, help them get their training. I can't tell you who they are. I don't know the names, but I know that that's kind of a thing. You could, I guess Rotorway still a company. Right. If there's any way you can get a hold of the company, surely they would have the names of the people that can come out and provide you training. But I know that that's something that is out there. Factory trained rotorway instructors that will come to your location and train with you. That is a thing for sure.

Next question is from John. As a fixed wing pilot with over 300 hours and is looking to switch over to rotor. How steep is the learning curve?

I don't think it's bad at all. In all the years I've been doing training, probably, probably 50% of people that we help get ratings are add on pilots. Very, very, very common that somebody goes from the fixed wing over to helicopters. I have a CFI applicant right now I'm working. Who's a CFI in airplane coming to do a cfi. Add on helicopters very common in the learning curve. I don't think is bad at all. The. Here's the key. You're rated pilot and fixed wing. When you go do your add on, just be prepared that even though it's an add on, it doesn't mean he's not going to ask you the typical helicopter or typical checkride questions like go back and refresh your knowledge that you went through for your private airplane. Because they're still going to, even on Adam, they're going to go, what documents to have do you have to have on you to go fly? What do you got to do to have the aircraft current? What inspections do you have? They're going to ask you about notams and tasks. They're still going to refresh that knowledge and test your VFR flying knowledge. But then to do the add on you're going to need helicopter emergencies, of course, helicopter aerodynamics and anything helicopter related. But learning curve. I don't think it's bad. I mean, yes, it takes effort and you'll have to do some studying and you'll need a helicopter flying handbook and, and you'll need to learn the POH for that aircraft. But I wouldn't say it's, I don't know what to compare it to, but we've been been doing it for years, right? People doing add ons, it's, it's very common. The only problem I see is people, here's the real truth. The only problem I've seen is somebody's like, oh, well, I'm already a pilot. Oh, I just had a flight review. So I'm good when I'm trying to refresh that VFR knowledge and then when they give me that attitude, I'll warn them and go, look, I realize you're a pilot, great. I realize you recently had a flyer view. That's great. That, does that mean you've refreshed your knowledge and do you have all that Basic Private Pilot 101 knowledge that you need? And then a lot of times in that first 10 minutes, I'll whip out a sectional chart and I'll start asking them airspace questions. And then they start scratching their head, they'll go, oh, I'm not ready, am I? And I'm like, no, you need to go back and review your VFR flying skills. Review, review cross country review, reading a chart, review weather services. Don't let, don't fall in the trap of oh, it's just an add on. All you got to do is no aerodynamics and emergencies. That's all. Now you got to refresh all that knowledge.

Our next question is from Howard and he wants to know what is the hourly rate for the R44 hourly rate.

For R44 is actually right now 650 an hour. But I'm seriously, seriously, seriously thinking about raising it for 2024. Our numbers are in. We did the math. That aircraft cost me $803 and 17 cents an hour to operate in 2024. So if I charge 650 an hour, that means I'm losing money for every hour that it flies. So it's right now at 650. I think I should move it up to 750 or higher. I just was told that a lot of the reputable companies right now are up at 8 or 900 an hour on an R44. Like we just heard we've been charging 350 an hour on the R22. And the one dude texted me and he said, oh, well, like independent helicopters is up to 450 an hour. And Jerry Trimble was up to like 475 an hour on an R22. So I'm like, wow, I'm a little low on the R22 as well. So as of today, R44,650 an hour as of January 1, I don't know, it ain't going to go down, I can tell you that much. It will not go any cheaper than 650.

Next question is Tom Gander and he wants to know what are your thoughts on fly by wire for helicopters?

Can't really say. I have a lot of input on that. I mean, everything that I have flown pretty much or the things that I do fly now, basically, Robinson is all, you know, obviously the standard oil controls for most things fly by wire. I don't know. That technology has been around for a long time. Right. And it's in plenty of commercial aircraft and airliners. And so I, I would I be opposed to flying something that was a fly by wire system? I don't think so. If it's time tested and proven and shown to be safe, then. But that's all I can really say about that. That's not just not an area that I've really dug into or really, really dealt with much, but I think it's like anything if, if the aircraft's built a certain way and it's maintained properly and gets the proper maintenance, it could be just as safe as anything else out there. Leave my guess.

Next question is from Red Devil Fly and they want to know if you do CFI autos to the ground or hover.

Oh, we do them to the ground. And what we can do now is we can give, we can do the full downs right here. And then we give the applicants that we send to the examiner or whether he comes here, they go there. Either way, we do the full downs here and then we give you a sign up stating that we've done the full down training with you. Then during the checkride, you don't have to do the full down. He could still ask you to do it, but he hasn't because we've already given you that training. And over the years that's been a topic that's changed. A few times we had to do full downs. Then for a while the FAA said you don't have to do full downs anymore. And then they came back and said, okay, this is over a period of years. Right. Then they come back and say, yes, you gotta do the full downs. However, if you want, we're gonna give you this opportunity to do the full downs with your instructor and not have to do it during the checkride. And that's probably the best case scenario where the FAA did something smart was because the insurance company is going to insure me to go out and do that with you. Once I'm not in there and the examiner's in there with you, you're responsible for that aircraft. But kind of, sort of, kind of. He is too. Right. Because he's the. Has the higher amount of ratings. So there's that liability of if they're out there doing full downs and somebody cracks up the helicopter, who's responsible? Who's paying for that? If I do it in the controlled environment where I'm doing them in the aircraft and I'm paying that policy, I'm doing that. That's one thing. Right. I'm insured to do that. So relieving that from the CFI trucker, I think is. Is fair for most all of us. So yes, full downs. Love it. Absolutely. I remember being terrified of them in the beginning. Now if you want to do them, yeah, no biggie. And we'll do them. We do more than just the standard. We'll go out and do advanced stuff with you. We'll do 360s or zero airspeed or multiple speeds and altitudes. We'll do more than just the average straight in and 180. We like to do break it up and do some real world kind of stuff as well.

Our next question is from Hunter and he wants to know if you think they should add more than 5 hours to the commercial rating. Such as like add 10 to 15 hours for a simulated instrument for during the commercial.

I would have to Say I'd understand if they did. I mean, I don't want to be the guy that says, oh, they should do it and then everybody yell at me because, oh, you're just going to make us spend more money. But I mean the more training you would get, the safer you would be. Right. Again, as I already stated, those guys are a lot smarter at it. Me than me. Right. And they know what happens in the industry and they have accident data and all kinds of things to investigate. I believe in the five hour minimum. I think it's wise. Should they up it? I mean probably. I mean five is not much, but it is just enough. But the thing about it is you get those five hours. How long is that current for you where you had that, that training to fly and go to your instruments and keep yourself, you know, get yourself out of trouble. But what about 10 years down the road if you never fly instruments and then ten years later you go flying into the clouds. You're probably going to remember that how to go to your instruments and try to keep the wings level, but you're not going to be proficient. Right. You could remember it maybe and try to do it. But it's a great question. And I'm not, I'm not. I'm not about making things harder for people to get ratings and make it more expensive. But probably wouldn't hurt to throw another five on there and make it like 10 minimum. I could, I would understand it if they did. I mean you're spending the money anyway. You got to have 150 hours for the commercial. So would it be so bad if they upped it to 10 or 15? Not really. You're just paying for more instructor time. So I would support that.

Okay, our next question comes from. I have to scroll a little bit. Craig, what do you think is the best way to go about either applying for grants for student loans or flight school financing to help journey of the journey of the career.

If anybody has any help with this, jump in the chat and let us know the stories for on on my ends always been there's not a lot out there. Right. Like when I went through my ratings back in the late 19/ Whatever and early 2000s, I used pilot Finance. I think it was@pilpot finance.com. they were a new company back then. I used them for my instrument rating. I'm not going to say that was a great interest rate. I don't remember. I think it was actually kind of expensive. But there was not many places that you could get any money from. And I know There are a few grants and things out there, but they don't seem very prevalent. I don't know of any specific grants of any kind that I can tell you to go look for. I know once in a while you'll see one pop up somewhere, but they're not very prevalent. And then if a flight school has an affiliation for any kind of financing, I guess you would just need to look at it and see what kind of, you know, what are the terms? What are they going to charge you for interest? What if, you know, you stop in the middle of flight training and you can't move on because you had a medical? There'd be a lot of questions I would want to ask if I was going to do it. But I have heard of flight schools that have, like, teamed up with a credit institution to help you get flight financing, which is probably, if you like their terms, is probably a good thing. Because banks in general, if you walk into the bank, go, hey, I want to borrow 80 grand to become a professional helicopter pilot, they're going to go, what? They're just not something a normal bank does. So people have reported and said that banks in general just don't really like to loan money for somebody to go out and get a rating. So. So that's the really best I can answer on that is, you know, I would jump on Google, do some research, ask around, ask other, you know, people or pilots that, you know, find out from flight schools what they offer. And you really gotta research that. And I know it's a big topic because helicopters are expensive. It's just the way it is. Training's expensive. Everything about it is super expensive. And there's so many people that want to do it and just don't have the funds at any given time. I struggled like everybody else. I sold off stuff. I used credit cards. My dad gave me a little bit of money. You know, I just scrimped and borrowed and basically ruined my credit over it. Had to rebuilt my credit over the years after getting the ratings. It's tough. It's hard. So you just got to get out there and research and find what you can. Just not a lot out there. So again, if anybody watching has any good ideas or know of some, put them in chat so we can share them with everybody else. All right, what do you got?

I have a bonus. Fun question from Tom, and then we can roll into our giveaway.

Okay.

Tom wants to know if you have one last hour to fly. You can fly Lama 315, a Bell 47G, or an R44, what would you choose? I know the answer. I think this one's a pretty easy one.

Hands down. R44, no doubt about it. It's really become my favorite aircraft. I don't want to say favorite right. Like if I could of what you, the ones that you just offered to me, that's what I would pick. I've just really been enjoying the R44 that we have. And I say that because in this instance, I, I was able to pick the aircraft that I wanted. I didn't just get somebody go, hey, you want to use this aircraft? Or hey, use my aircraft or I got recertifier. Did my flight review in the R44 and got freshened up in one down in Florida at Straight Up Aviation. And then I had a lead on somebody I knew. There's a friend of mine said, hey, if you ever want an R44, we can work a nice lease for you. We'll take care of you. Let us know. And so when I was ready, I reached out. So I got to hand pick an aircraft that was right for me. So it was yellow and black, the colors I needed fresh out of overhaul. I mean, the overall was done. They had four hours testing on it down at Sevier County Choppers. So when I got the aircraft hand picked by me on my terms, absolutely fresh. And we've had it now for a year and a half and I just absolutely love it. The instruments I flew were great. I love the one that I owned. But the versatility of the R44 with the four seats and the speed and a little less heavy on the maintenance, I believe, than what the instrument was anyway, hands down, I pick R44 for sure.

Okay, what's our giveaway question today?

All right, let's just. We're going to do something random here. So this is our private pilot, the study guide. After we're done, we'll make have Lindsay throw the link down below. And we do still need to. We start working on the verbiage to change verbiage in here from. We created this from the PTS to acs, but not that much has changed. So that's the one update that it needs right now. So I'm just going to try to find one that's not super hard to answer in comments, but won't be. Some of these answers are kind of long. Ooh, we'll make this one pretty easy for. I won't say easy, but not that hard. Not that hard to answer. Somebody could even Google request quick and try to find the answer. If they had to. And remember. And just happened again the other day. Somebody argued about who won and our chat clearly showed who won, but their chat showed something different. So bear with us. Lindsay's going to claim the. Lindsay is going to claim the winner. Let me write it down for her so she knows what it is. So I'm saying out loud, it's three terms and I'm going to give you the. I'm going to give you the letters here in just a second. So I'm not asking what this is. I just want to know the terms. Boom, boom, boom. Can you read that? Don't say it. You can read it, right?

I don't know what this word is. I can't read your spelling, your handwriting here, look. Spelling and grammar matters, but not when it's Kenny, right?

Oh, my gosh. Is it written out in here? There it is.

Okay. I thought that's the word, but that is not how you spelled it.

So. Very appropriate on a checkride for an examiner to say what is a M E? L. I just want the terms. What's the. What is M? What is E? What is L? What is an M E? L. That is for the 2X and it's 2X hoodie, by the way. This is zip up like the one I'm wearing. This is all we got. We don't have any large, we don't have any small. This is the last of the shipment that we ordered is 1,2x and it looks just like this. So it's a nice zip up. Got the hogs logo on the front and the back. That's who will get or that's the price.

So Ronald Gilson.

There you go. So she probably typed in email heatherhelicopterground.com with your shipping address and she will ship you the jacket. So remember, this is it today and tomorrow for the 40% off sale. We are going to come back live tomorrow. I don't know what time yet because I don't know if we're going to come at 5 or we're going to do a little bit early so we can all get out of here a little bit early because maybe I will get some drinks at rest. That invites me tonight for big plans tomorrow night. You don't look like you believe it's going to happen.

It might.

It could happen. So we'll be back tomorrow and I'd like to even do something different tomorrow, but I don't know, I gotta dream of something kind of cool. And we're kind of dreaming up maybe new Year's day, doing something fun in the afternoon. But anyway, I guess that's it. Any other questions popping in?

I'm kind of. I'm struggling to understand this question. It just kind of came in right now, so I'll just read it out loud. Maybe you can understand it a bit. The ATPs in the States, the theory involved, as here in Ireland, we have to do 14 exams. Minimum pass mark is 75%. What is the theory explained or what is the theory involved with atps in the state? I believe is what he's asking.

I. For the best of my knowledge, ATP in the States is like a glorified instrument checkride. Not many of that people being people that I know do ATP, not that many people that I know have ATP in helicopters. I've never actually helped anybody do an ATP. I think it's mainly just instrument stuff. It's a. It's a lot of instrument stuff on the checkride. But as far as the training, I can't tell you. I do not have the ATP. Haven't helped anybody with an ATP. So I don't know. I wish I could give you a better answer than that, but that's all I got. And you know what? You know what I want to do when I'm writing? What am I doing? How obsessive compulsive is this? Here's what I'm doing when I'm. When I'm writing, when we're talking and waiting.

I thought you were writing down the questions or like writing down little notes. You can.

I start out with one square box and then I make the crosses through it each way. And then I draw another box and then I keep doing that. And I'll do that over and over and over again. And I do that almost anytime. I'm talking on the phone rarely. But when I do talk on the phone, I'm always sitting there the whole time and I'm drawing squares and I'm drawing lines in the middle of it. The whole time I'm talking on the phone. How obsessive compulsive really is that. I want to know. And you know what we should talk about tomorrow? Here's what I want to talk about. The New Jersey Drones. I want to know what you people think is going on. I watch this stuff. I'm getting a little tired of it. However, I am a fan of the show Ancient Aliens. Been watching it forever, 20 seasons. I've watched every bit of it. I'm into anything related to UFOs and UAPs. However, it right now it's in like a sense of overwhelm. And we know there's a lot of fake stuff out there and there's a lot of copycats and there's a lot of drones and airplanes and helicopters. But there's also some weird stuff that, you know, just makes you wonder. And yes, I think the government's lying to us. And yes, I think they know what they are. But I want to know and I want to know tomorrow. That's what we'll start that out tomorrow. Let's talk about it. I want to know what you people are thinking. Nobody's mentioned it, not once in an email, in a text, in chat. Nobody has brought it up. But why not? This is a good topic considering we fly aircraft, we study navigation lights, we talk about what aircraft has priority over another. So why wouldn't we, in the course of being pilots, where we go up and fly and we see things. Why were we not discussing this? I want to see something cool. And I'll be honest, I have nothing to report that, oh my God, I saw this great, you know, thing last night. I didn't all summer. I'm out in my boat at night going, man, I want to see something wild and crazy in the sky and I still ain't seen nothing. So I got nothing.

Fair enough. I could join in on this conspiracy train with you. You know, we've talked about about it this whole past month of it occurring and shortly before that, what we talked about and thinking about what happened to you over the summer. We'll talk about. Yeah, we'll talk about that tomorrow.

We'll dig those pictures up.

Yeah. What's a good way for our members to get onto our email sign up list so they don't miss tomorrow's live?

Sign up for this. That way you're in our email system and it's simple, it's right below or any of them. If you don't have top 10 checkride tips, sign up for that. I think private pilot study guides down there you can sign up for email Chapter 1 PDF for free. Just sign up for any of those and you will be added to our list and you'll get notified. So yeah, tomorrow let's talk about, well, not just New Jersey, weird shit in the sky going on all over the world apparently. I'd like to hear some people's thoughts on it. I really, really would because either way it's pretty fascinating. Kind of scary, but kind of cool at the same time. It is getting overwhelming actually at this point. Like, because you know how much garbage you're seeing. And you know there's stuff that people make up, stuff with AI, you know that's happening. Another trend I've heard about is everybody's regurgitating the stuff that they've had they had on their phone from six months or two years ago or five years ago. And everybody's uploading that's been out there for a long time. So I'd like to know, all right, you ready to click off?

I am so ready to click click.

Off, come back tomorrow.

I would like to say just real quick, I had a couple people in chat say that they have gotten the book download but they did not get put on our email list. Could it. What could be those reasons?

Well it would be if they're a member and they clicked unsubscribe described when they signed up. But well we need to test the system and sign up and see if they're working properly. Yeah because if any of those books all have email sequences that come with them. So you should be getting emails and if you clicked unsubscribe from anything we've ever sent, maybe you've subscribed before and you've unsubscribed.

So maybe email out address was placed in wrong. Simple.

You know, something along that lines. Nobody's reported. That's the first report I've had somebody say hey I signed up for the first up free something and I'm not getting the emails. Was it just one person said that?

She also mentioned that they are subscribed to our channel. But that's a simple notification on YouTube that you can click on to be notified anytime we put out a new.

Video video or YouTube you got to subscribe and click the notification bell to get notified. So I would just well since you're watching do us a favor, sign up for something down below one of the free PDFs and then come back tomorrow. Let us know if you got the email in the afternoon because we will send out an email tomorrow afternoon about an hour or two before we go live and then let us know if you get if you get that email and then we'll know if it's working. If that was a one off thing or if there's still an issue. We can dig in and try to figure that out.

Yeah our I'll update our description under the live to ensure that you know we have links for the free first chapter PDF of private pilot study guide hogs top 10 all the links that you could need to get signed up.

My voice has had about it so I know it's time to end when I starting to struggle to talk yes.

Peace out, peace out.

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.