York Galland-@iflyheli

If you don't know who @iflyheli is on Instagram, you better get on the app and look him up ASAP. I always say the one thing I love most about aviation is its ability to bring good people together. York Galland is just one of those people you meet along the way in the industry that shines his love for helicopters through and through, and has a passion for sharing the experience of helicopter flight with others. He joins us today to share his experience with personally owning and operating an R44,  R66, Bell 505, and EC130T2. We get into a pros and cons discussion of owning each of these helicopters, and why he chose to recently upgrade from a Bell 505 to an EC130T2. On this episode we also delve into what happens when your original flight plan and weather brief goes down the tube, and you have to recognize your own hazardous attitudes to put the ego aside in order to deviate from your original plan to land the helicopter safely. 

Stick around to the end of the episode for a quick ground lesson on how to obtain a proper weather brief, identifying possible hazardous attitudes and their antidotes, what you should be looking for on a high and low reconnaissance while choosing an off airport landing site in the event of a forced landing. 

Transcript

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You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast What's up aviation nerd nation Welcome to episode number seven of the forever on the fly podcast, your bi weekly dose of aviation inspiration, education and entertainment. I'm your hostess with the most is Diane dollar. And I'm Jose and we're here to get you guys hooked on aviation. We've been really feeling the love from you all out there. Thank you so much for your support your reviews, subscriptions and downloads. It really keeps us rockin over here. Oh man the other day, I blew out my back at the gym man trying to get them gains. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks. When you have to go out there and fly and look for traffic. I kind of look like a robot. You know, like turning my head to the left looking for traffic to the right. That's like the worst when you can't turn your neck. Have you ever experienced that? No, I haven't. Oh, lucky man. You must not be hitting goals. No, probably not. Well, why don't you go ahead and introduce her next. Without further ado, our next guest has personally owned and operated the art 66 to Bell 505 and recently upgraded to the EC 130 T two. He has firsthand experience on these products, as well as he could tell us the pros and cons to each of them. You guys might know him first and foremost as at I fly heli on Instagram. I always say that one of the things I love most about aviation is its ability to bring good people together. And your guy is just one of those people you need along the way in the industry that just shines his love for helicopters through and through the nicest guy you'll ever meet. And he gets so excited to share his love for aviation with everyone he encounters. Just love the guy. Oh, yeah, super cool dude. He's here to chat about his recent switch to the EC 132. The benefits of flying helicopters over airplanes. Don't worry, we won't throw too much shade on you airplane cat. What happens when your original flight plan and weather briefing goes down to tube. And that's episode we really want to drive in the importance of recognizing that hazardous attitude that tells you that you can continue to fly when the weather starts going to crap and trying to stick to that original plan. Putting away that ego to make the decision to deviate from your original plan to land the helicopter safely and stick around at the end for a short lesson on choosing a suitable off airport landing site. Let's do it. Your Galland with the golden hour. And it was just like this perfect storm we like all felt at the exact same time. Hi, I'm your gallon, and I'm forever on the fly. coming on the show, I really see you taking the time to do this with us because I'm excited. Yeah. So your your work and I met he's super popular on Instagram. Everybody knows I fly heli. And so I had been following you for for quite a while before we actually met. And I was in Sedona with a couple of my girlfriends camping for my friend's birthday, you saw that I was in Sedona through one of my Instagram Stories. Right? And you messaged me you're like, Hey, I'm in Sedona. I was at a family reunion looking for a break for a break. And so I'm like, Well, what's what's a couple of girls got to do to get her right around here. Just show up to the airport at sunset. Okay. And yeah, so you ended up taking me and my friends up some of my girlfriends who had never been in a helicopter before and just gave them this super magical experience flying over Sedona at sunset even to this day. I mean, I I've been on you know, hundreds 1000s of flights. And I mean, that was such a magical that was such a magical flight. You made my friend cry. Oh, yeah. But you know what's interesting about that I that one experience effect I haven't took a picture of her crying. Yeah, yes. That if someone says hey, why? What do you love about flying? Why do you do it? I've got like a top 10 Maybe lots of reasons, you know, to explore just the the feeling of flight is amazing. The views incredible. The people you meet is top three for sure. But not only the people that you meet, but you're sharing this experience. I mean, Sedona I'd never been there before. I mean, I'd only been there maybe half a day when I saw you there and it was just a magical. It looks a little bit like Zions, just a just a magical Geography and Environment there. And then we had a new helicopter. It smelled good. had the Bose headsets. I'm sure I had something. I would call it magical. My son would call it majestical music going through it with the golden hour. And it was just like this perfect storm. And I could just we like all felt at the exact same time. I kind of just glanced back when to see you. I think you had two or three friends back there. But I wanted to see if they're having a good experience and your one friend. I don't even remember her name, but her name Jade. Jade. Yeah, she was she was like a combination of like bawling. And she was also smiling. Like, like ear to ear at the same time. And yeah, that was that was a great flight. And that is that is like the number one reason for flying a helicopter. I don't have the same experience in an airplane. And you don't get that you painted a good picture, brother. I felt like I was there. Yeah. We need to get the girl Jade crying. Guys long black hair. Yeah, I'm looking at you Jose, she was prettier than you for sure. Yeah. I think you pretty now appreciate it. Yeah. So you're out there on Instagram, sharing your adventures with everybody. You're a GoPro creator, which is awesome. I'm sure they get to send you all the newest, latest and greatest equipment to shoot on. And I know any anytime I meet somebody, and you come up somehow, I'm like, oh, yeah, I know, York, we've flown a couple of times, they always go like, what the heck does that guy even do? That the number one, it's a mystery. It's a mystery knows like, well, I could ask you to tell everybody. Maybe you want to be shrouded in that mystery for a little bit longer? I'm not sure. Well, I'll tell I'll respond this way. I do. I do make some money flying, but not near enough to justify it. My main source of income is outside businesses, mostly real estate. Let's save that for another podcast on what I do. But it's kind of interesting. Because I feel like on my Instagram, I'm fairly transparent with who I am. As far as I mean, I put my family on it, my homes in it. My friends are on it. My religions on it. But I really don't talk a whole lot about my other businesses. And so it's just kind of weird that I've been able to keep that a little bit, you know, bailed or not in the forefront. But meanwhile, I mean, that couldn't compete with some of the views. I take with a GoPro in a helicopter. So you know, what does that guy do? He flies all day long. You are literally always lying, which, you know, is the I guess Pinnacle or dream of any pilot Healthcare's like oh, yeah, someday, of course, I'd love to own my own helicopter and just be able to go heli camping and take all my friends and family out for pleasure runs. But I will say this on that one note, I used to love the idea or the thought that if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. I think I've kind of changed my feelings about that. Sometimes when you have to feed your family based on this thing that you love. You I think it taints the experience sometimes might even caused a little bit of resentment towards this thing that you love if it's not beating your family. And so I I was kind of different. I worked really hard when I was younger flute very little, didn't get into ownership until you know, really into my 40s. And, and now I do what I love, and I don't have to feed my family by doing it. So that's just a thought. Yeah. You can be a hard business making money in aviation. It can be Hey, can I feel like I'm one of those guys? Yeah, I mean that that's something that always comes up is have a backup plan. Because flying is what a it's a privilege not a right and it can be taken away from you. If you don't have a backup plan another way to make income and you lose your medical or anything substantial like that, then where are you? Yeah, that's kind of what I'm facing right now going into my 30s I'm 30 Wonderful, but I'm in my 30s already, but now in my adulthood. It's kind of one of the things isn't that 30th year or top one Do you feel like officially you're an adult? It was hard for me? Yeah. And no, I was actually excited for my 30s I think you know my 20s I got to do a lot of cool stuff. But I mean, my 30s this is where I'm starting to see the fruits of all of my labor from my 20s and getting to this. So now I'm actually really enjoying so far. Yeah. So far, so good to good decade and join up. Yeah, but that's ultimately I think that's true. I mean, I've been guilty of saying, you know, if you do a love you never have to work day in your life. And, yeah, some days it feels like that. Yeah, I get to do the coolest job in the world. And I don't really feel like I'm working because I get to fly my friends or, or whatever. Doing a cool mission. But yeah, I think when I was building my flight time and flying all day, every day, it's it's work. It is definitely work. There is no doubt about that part. 120 degrees in the Grand Canyon. Serving champagne, and oh, boy, no, no bueno. Man. And especially when you're talking to the French love you, Esther. You know, you tell them that the best wine come from California? Mind blown. Picture. See, I can imagine yours heads explode. Yeah. could imagine. So you recently made the switch from the bell 505 up to an AC 130. Now, is that a T two? Or is it a before? It's a T two? It's 2014. T two. And I think whatever has been changed since 2014. Is being upgraded right now in a shopping Canada. But that's the T two. So I did make the change in the summer. What prompted the I mean, I would say upgrade for sure. Yeah, well, let me ask you that by backing up just a little bit. So I have I have personally owned and flew the heck out of an R 44. And r 66. A 505. And now an h1 32. And so that's kind of my experience, I put a number of hours on a 125 or an A star, done a little bit of jet Ranger. But for the most part, those four helicopters have been my experience. That's kind of what I have to compare things to. So it was kind of a, I thought it was a nice incremental graduation, you know, own something for three or four years and then kind of move up to something a little bit bigger, a little more powerful, a better performance. So that was kind of the path that I chose. when I really started playing a lot. Maybe 15 years ago, I do pick swing as well. Do not enjoy it. I do it when I need to have done the whole corporate thing. business jets that grind. There's Yeah, I don't want to have to I love flying helicopters. But to your point, why did I switch from a 505 to a T two? I think the bigger question that most people might have is why did I switch from a five to a T two, and maybe not a 125 or even even even an a star like a b two or something. And I think it all comes back to like my personal missions are. And I think it's important when you're looking at, you know, a helicopter to really identify what your goal is with it and what your mission with it is. Maybe something that everyone can relate to is buying a car. I mean, it's it's it's a mistake to buy a car for 5% of why you'll be using it. For example, you know, I'm going to get a world drive car because I might be going up to Mammoth. You know, once a year, you want to buy a car that meets 90% of your needs. You don't want to buy a car that meets 5% your needs and sacrifices the other 90% Right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you. I mean, you should buy a car that fills your needs. Exactly. And I think a lot of times, you know, first buyers make a mistake there. Well, I would say the same thing is true with the helicopter. I don't do firefighting. I don't do longlining I don't do law enforcement. I don't do forestry. If I did, I would have an A star 100% I mean they are the top performer. They are super powerful, right? Yeah. And you can attach anything to an A star. Try a defy you try to Find the utility arm for 505. Yeah, that's not just now you can get a couple things you can attach to an R 66, or an R 44. But you can't attach anything to an A star. So I will say he, he's too kind to beat me up too much about it. But one of my mentors and just an amazing pilot, thanks, Chris Smith. He's flown there quite a bit in LA. But he, it just rubs him wrong every time I buy something besides a star. Yeah. I was always kind of curious why? Well, I remembered when I asked you, you know, the the fuel economy that you got from the 505 versus in a star, the price point on it and everything, those arguments are gone with the T two T twos are more expensive. So like, my main mission is why might do a little bit of work. Most of it is for doing a collaboration or just for personal flight. And for me like the number one important thing is the ride and the view period are 66 or 66. has an amazing do. The bell 505 has an amazing view. And the T two has the very best view and an A star has a marginal view upfront it for the pilot. It's almost like an airplane. It has a terrible future sit in the back. Yeah, I mean, I've gotten sat back like no, I don't like it, I'm getting sick, you can't get like bend your head down to see out the windows, right? And so that alone was a deal killer for me. And so if my main mission is exploring or sightseeing, and doing it with family or friends, the 505 actually was a great aircraft for that and the T two is even a better aircraft for that because you can get more friends. Yeah, T two, then you can have 505 You know, I will say in answering your question. Also, people really want me to compare a like a, you know, the bell product to the Airbus product. I've owned Robinson Bell, and bus and they have all actually been really good aircraft. For me. There's been things I've loved about every one of the aircraft. You know, if you talk about that, you know, we talked about cars. There's, you know, there was one car that fit every need. It probably be a minivan except it's missing a soul. So you can't own a minivan. I would say the r 66. does a pretty good job of being the one machine that does it all. Okay. I mean, look, you can put both fuel five people and land pretty high. In that thing, it will fly for over three hours non stop, the two front seats have great views to the back of the throat, or okay. I hate the turbine lag in that thing. But it's a minivan to me. It's kind of lacking that soul. The 505 is is just the next step up. It has that flat platform it is modernized it's pretty cool to have all your engine instruments integrated into that Garmin 1000 The abuse really are incredible, not 505 testified by the tears and grants of your friends who are sitting in the back seats. And it's you know, where were our six six might burn 20 gallons an hour of jet fuel, really 30 on the 505. And really, I might burn 48 on the TTL you never just go on full throttle on that thing. So there is that difference. But the 505 was a pretty good attempt at creating one machine. That will do it all. Honestly did. Okay. did pretty good. There's a couple things I'll just say that they really got to step up on. Are those doors and doors are horrible. They're super flimsy, or flimsy. And you can't open them in flight. Obviously. They're not easy to take off at least in a Robinson you can pop them off more often. Yeah, for sure. Did you? Did you like the aesthetic of the 505? Because the one thing I hear from so many people, which I personally thought it's a decent looking helicopter, but I know a lot of people are like, Oh, the 505 is just ugly. Wow. Well, I'm guilty of that. I will say I'm saying God bless everybody. Bill. But yeah, I just think it's her and just looking. Well you know in part there's reason for that because you know when anything's made by committee, which kind of was I think they really consulted with injured a lot of engineers and pilots and people in the industry on hey, how do we create something for everyone? And we end up with is, you know, something that was designed by committee. And so it's rarely beautiful. I will say, though that I think my red bell 505 with the tall and longer skids. I thought that looked good. Yeah. I thought it was like pretty damn good. Yeah. And then you throw a couple really good photographers like Aaron Brimhall or Mike begins at it, and they can make it look really good, too. Yeah. Yeah, now that's over to the A star, Atari but to the tee to it is everything that the bell is but more refined, more powerful. More seats, bigger views. To pay for it. Yeah, bigger engine, you know, I was gonna say you, like took the words right out of my mouth, amigo. Um, as far as like the mission of, I just think that you're right for what you're trying to do. And for the amount of horsepower that T two pulls out, it's almost double what the 505 puts out. So just in that aspect alone, I think it's worth it. And then the theater seating that you get in the EC 130 or the H 130. I think I, I personally think you made a good choice. Yeah, thank you. The only thing people also say when you're if you're talking about buying a T two versus an A star is just the resale. You know how if you're ever planning on turning around and getting rid of it someday then because the 125 A 25 is so versatile in the industry, and everybody uses it across the board. It's just a lot easier to resell it later on down the road versus NEC 130 Which is pretty much only used by tour companies, which we all know what's happened with that industry. lately. Yeah. tour companies and private owners and private owners. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yep. Agreed. But you just got your beautiful new paint job your role orange. Is that Is there a search? Oh, actually, no, my Bible five digit color orange like a reddish orange. Sunrise orange, or what did it say on the color swatch? I forget. But I will say on the T two. I told Euro tech Canada who they are amazing. That's a little plug for them. They can so great to work with. I said I want Ferrari red, and I really don't want it to be orange. But what we ended up going with is something that's a little bit better. It's Ashley red. There is a quick story behind that. Kodiak which I apply has a nice detail stripe, Patel and Mark Brown who's Kodiaks head his chief, their chief pilot, he kinda I think designs whatever the demonstrator is going to be. And I bought a demo aircraft from him. His his wife, who's an amazing pilot, as well. She Her name is Ashley. And he tells me that he chose Ashley red, which is an actual color paying homage to his wife so I thought it was appropriate. And so I ended up going with that color and it does look absolutely amazing. It's stunning. Yeah, I saw on your Instagram story. Oh my gosh, it's yeah, that's pretty I can't wait to come out there and fly with you. Because you know, I invite myself to go fight with York all the time. I'm like so by the way a couple months from now I can make a trip are you gonna do it just got to work squeaky wheel. Just got to keep bugging people until they say yes, it's kind of been you know, my my grind. Just poking at people on Instagram. Hey, hey, what's up? Can I go fly with you? Can I go fly with you? Eventually they say yes. You know, there's there's a phrase for what you are. Diane gets pleasantly persistent. Oh, I love that goes a long way to it's an important skill. Yeah, I mean, it's tough to toe the line between being pleasantly persistent and annoying and annoying. I try not to veer off and I'm on the opposite end of that. Yeah. Annoying. Things Done. No, no, I'm talking for Diane when she talks to me your real friends. Oh, question. Does your new T to have crash proof fuel tanks? Well, I guess what do all the teachers they do? All the teachers have the crash ball. The teachers have them? Yep, that's right. They have the bladders, the bladders with a detachable fuel hose nozzle, what do you call it? Were you not gonna fly with me if it didn't have it? No. I was just backing away. That is an expensive upgrade to the before though that's 100 grand or something, I don't know, I'd have to do that. I just know that it's people have done it. It's not cheap or easy. As you know, I'm a fixed wing, as well as rotor. And I think I already bagged on fixed wing enough, say that it is boring and it kind of is. But the one thing that I have loved about it just the peace of mind about flying a helicopter is its ability to ultimately land anywhere do is to fly a helicopter like you fly a plane, I fly between Salt Lake City, and John Wayne all the time. And you know, the spots where you can land and take a bathroom break or take a picnic or, or leaving the afternoon and you know, it's a four hour flight four and a half hour flight or camp halfway there. But more importantly, like flying up to fly up to Canada all the time. No matter what kind of weather planning you do, man, there's always problems. But helicopter, I don't stress about it. Because I always keep enough gear on for you know, for myself or passengers to stay the night somewhere. You know, in a forest, we'll put on a forest because there's lots of trees somewhere, even in a parking lot if you needed to. But the peace of mind that being able to sit down and safely into whether it's something that's a big deal. And I will say there's been no dozens of times where I've done that. And sometimes I've even kind of planned on click Map to sit down somewhere. Yeah, I just know looking at the weather. But there was one time I was actually headed down to do a in southern Utah to do a photo shoot. And truly, I checked the weather. It was looking good. And by the time I got down to Southern Utah, there's never rain. But I found myself 30 minutes away from becoming dark sun had gone down. And the storm cloud just moved in around me. And I started looking roused by myself because the job was the next morning. And I'm thinking there's no really safe way to go through this right now. And I'm also you know, in an area where there there wasn't like a road even. And so like, you know what, I'm in unrestricted BLM. There is a pinnacle right below me. I say pinnacle. I'm talking like 50 feet across and you know, 1000 foot drop all the way around. Oh my god. That's my spot. Pinnacle. Right. And so I sat down on that I sat down there and I secured the helicopter. And it raged the storm for four or five hours, may have a tent. I didn't set it up because would have been a mess. It probably would have blown off or blown me off a cliff. But I just kind of hunkered down in my helicopter. I think I had a season or something on my iPad. And it just raged and rained so hard. And then I have a picture on my Instagram. It's my my favorite picture about 2am The clouds broke and I got out my camera. And I took this picture, you can't see that I'm on a pinnacle. It just looks like I'm in space floating. But just the Milky Way was right there, surrounded by these clouds. And I was like yeah, this is why I fly a helicopter. You know I thought of when you were talking about landing in a parking lot. I could only imagine I'm at Walmart or something and I see a helicopter on the parking lot with the tent. Painted Ashley is that she read? She read? I know that guy. So what about your experience flying in the LA basin and the constantly changing weather that we have out here the marine layers that come in it can be unpredictable sometimes I think there's probably been four or five times over about the 10 years I was flying there where I said no you know I'm gonna go sit down in Burbank or Van Nuys or whatever Camry Oh, and and my passengers on an Uber send it back down to Orange County. And that is that's a pretty cool option. And it's like ah, can you make it back to camera? Oh, even it's even you know the candles. powerlines going over that four or five. They're like, you're thinking okay, I gotta sit down in a parking lot. You know which one would I pick? And I think we all have this kind of fear of landing in a Walmart. The police show up, firemen show up, the news shows up and they start asking questions like, okay, so why did you land here? Well, cuz I got weathered out. Did you check the weather before you left? I did it look like it was doable. Like, what does that mean? So you said going through these. For me, it's always like what happens when the reporters show up? Yeah, yeah. But you know what, I think two things, it doesn't matter. If you're alive, you can deal with any of those questions of like, I guess I didn't have enough fuel. Or maybe I didn't look at the weather closely enough. But man to sit in the industry, I really feel like the industry would protect and defend a pilot who decided to land and live even if it were in a Walmart parking lot, don't you? Oh. And it's as long as like, you know, you're not causing any hazard to people on the ground. If you can find it, your face. Obviously, weather changes so drastically, sometimes, especially in the LA basin? Where what do you got marine layer, the marine layer, move in super quickly, before you even realize it? You know, when you're flying at night, you don't see it coming in? Yeah, like one minute, it's completely VFR next minute, it's may not be 200 foot vertical visibility over Santa Monica. And like, you can't get off the pad at UCLA but and that's not necessarily always forecasted, either. Those things moving in. So well, I can tell you that the at least once a year, if I purposely choose to make the decision to land and not make it to my destination. I always try to like at least put it on my story. Kind of as, Hey, guys. It's okay if the best laid plans and the best flight planning and weather briefs and fuel plans didn't work out, like you expected. Didn't work out for me today. I'm here, I'm in the desert. And I'm going to spend the night here. And what passes in the morning, I'm going to continue. I tried when I have those experiences to you know, kind of make it public. That's not a mistake. It's a success. Now, that's a good decision making right there. And that's promoting getting rid of your ego. That's in the back of your head saying, you know, oh, if I land here, what are people going to say that I didn't do a good flight plan or a good weather brief or like that macho addict, but not listening to those hot not succumbing to those hazardous attitudes and just putting the ego away and just putting the thing down and waiting it out? I mean, it would happen all the time at pappy on like when we were doing our Grand Canyon tours. Monsoon season was crazy. Yeah, you'd get force coming in out of nowhere. And we'd have four helicopters landing in the parking lot down at by the Colorado River because there's lightning all around. And you know, everyone's and you're not that far from Boulder City, right there by the river. But someone sees some lightning strike really close by everyone's just putting it down and the company will back you when 100% of the way. There's no shame. No shame, it's better that everyone's not dead. Going back to your like what you're saying about like, sometimes you might have the best plan and it doesn't quite work out when I was flying in the regionals. I can't tell you how many times we had deviations because of a thunderstorm cells that were you know, a lot bigger than they were forecasted to be right or certain things come up and next thing you know, we have two alternates, and we're just trying to navigate the storm system. So it totally makes sense. Sometimes you the wall. The best plan is adaptability. Agreed. Yep. 100% I'll put that was really wise. You're not surprised I joke around a lot. Yeah. looked at me. I was like, what? Where did that come from? Mr. gritties. Oh, man. Oh, thank you so much for sharing your work. I really appreciate again, you coming on here and taking the time to talk with us and sharing your experiences. I know that you know, somewhere out there. There's a pilot who really needed to hear that today. So well good. Well, hey, it's always nice to talk with you. Hang with you Jose. Nice to meet you. You all will all free go flying together. That'd be awesome brother. Yeah, awesome. Cool sooner, the better. The sooner the better is right. Your I cannot wait to come out there and check out your new AC 130 Looks beautiful Euro tech Canada looks like they did an amazing job. Can't wait. And you know, we're gonna hold you to that. Alright, if you're still with us, thank you so much for sticking around for the last little bit here. Jose was unable to stick around, unfortunately for this little ground school session, but that's all right, I got you guys don't worry. So let's talk about a couple of things from this episode. Now, if you're already a pilot, you're already a trained pilot, this is always a good review to just get everyone thinking about these again. And if you're a brand new pilot, and autopilot, and all this will be all new information for you. So that's exciting. Alright, so during this episode, we talked a little bit about making the decision to deviate from an original flight plan to land the helicopter safely if the weather went to crap, or you didn't perform a proper weather brief. Well, first of all, just want to drive in, make sure you guys out there are covering your buds, man, just get a proper weather brief one that is actually recorded. So we want to make sure that we're doing this. So that is logged, just in case you did under pavlina. Land in that Walmart parking lot. And you have to explain yourself, you want to be able to prove to the FAA, that you in fact, did your due diligence, and you got a proper Weather Briefing. So there's a couple of ways that you can do this right. One of my absolute favorites is calling the number one 800 WX brief, where your friendly neighborhood Flight Service briefer will give you a thorough weather brief and know tam rundown for your flight. And this has always been my preferred method to supplement a textual weather brief. They decipher briefs all day every day. You know, like their weather people, this is what they do, they're going to be able to really offer you some great insight to help with your go or no go decision. You can also supplement that with one 800 WX brief.com, where you can create an account and get your weather brief on there. And if you have an account, it's going to record it, that's gonna back you up. And you can also if you have for flight, you've got an iPad, you can get your weather brief on there, that also records it as well. And the FAA also suggest that you use aviation weather.gov. But unfortunately, aviation weather.gov does not actually record that you got a weather briefing from them. So you're gonna have to supplement aviation weather.gov with one of the things I just mentioned above. So just to review, aviation, weather.gov is not an approved source. So one 800 WX brief, or call the phone number one 800 WX brief, you can also get a flight briefing on for flight. Alright, let's just say you were a good little pilot and you got yourself a weather briefing and you go fly, expecting the weather to be good and VFR. And all of a sudden, it's not anymore, which happens. And sometimes we're near an airport and we can deviate from our plan, we can go to an airport safely. Sometimes we find ourselves like York landing on top of a pinnacle in the middle of Utah, where maybe there's not any really good places to land and you kind of have to do what you got to work with what you got so, so just a quick rundown of the hazardous attitudes that pilots may face for people out there who are unfamiliar, they are anti authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho, and resignation. And I would say if any pilot out there claims that they have never succumbed to one of these hazards, attitudes, they are absolutely lying. We're all vulnerable to them. But the important part is being able to recognize when we're experiencing them, and the antidote that we can have in the back of our head in order to fight it and make good decisions out there. And I would say that if you're flying along and you're experiencing the weather changing for the worse, and you're trying to decide whether or not you're going to put the helicopter down in the middle of nowhere or continue your flight or deviate, we might be subject to machoism. I can do it. The antidote to that is taking chances is foolish. And I would say that nobody can really argue with that. But you know, our ego gets in the way sometimes. But if you start noticing that little spidey sense in the back of your neck that's telling you that you should put it down and you start telling yourself No, I can do it. Maybe you should start thinking to yourself, you know what, taking chances is foolish. I'm going to put the helicopter down just to be on the safe side. And I would say another hazardous attitude and the situation that we might fall victim to is invulnerability. It won't happen to me. Well, no it could happen to you definitely could happen to you. It could happen to any of us doesn't matter how experienced we are. We are all vulnerable to going inadvertent IMC and bad things happen. happening. So if you start noticing that you're telling yourself that you know what, it's never happened to me, it won't happen to me. Just think to yourself, no, it could happen to me, I need to err on the side of caution and put the helicopter down. Now you made the executive decision to put the helicopter down, and you're looking for an off airport landing site, let's say you're in the middle of nowhere and you are unable to deviate to an airport could be a pinnacle could be a confined area. Or if you're lucky, you got some wide open spaces, options. We love good options. But let's just say no matter where you're landing, you still have to do a proper high and low reconnaissance of the area to make sure it's a proper and suitable place for you to put the helicopter down. So in flight school, we learned all of these different acronyms. And they're supposed to be helping us organize things in our brain. And sometimes they just made absolutely no sense like flot, wheat, or Ssssss. Swat. So for me, I use the SWAT method through flight school, Jose used flot wheat, but we're just gonna go through the SWAT method. It's quick, it's easy. So we're going to be establishing a high reconnaissance at 500 feet 60 knots. And we're going to do an orbit around the landing zone. So the six SS stands for size, shape, surface, we want to check out the surface of the area sometimes on the high reconnaissance is kind of hard to tell what the surface is like. So these things, we're also going to double check on our lower connaissance. We want to see if it's loose dirt, hardpack, dirt, snow, these are the things that we're going to be looking for slope, we want to see if there it's a slope that might be too much for the helicopter to handle. If it's beyond its limitations. surroundings, we're checking for power lines and obstacles and terrain and cows. where I learned how to fly there were so many cows in our practice area, we always had to watch out for those guys, Sun is the last s and one that I think gets overlooked a lot. Definitely, when you're coming into Lana spot know where the sun is, you don't want that sun in your face, it can be completely blinding, and you can't see anything. And W stands for wind, you are checking the direction and the speed of the wind, we're figuring that in our orbit, there's lots of different ways to figure out where the wind is coming from your ground speed versus your indicated as you're orbiting. You can find flags or blowing trees or smoke or ripples on water. Depending on where you're at a is your abort plan, we want to figure out if you have to go around or you're on your approach, and you're doing your low reconnaissance and you deem that the place is no longer suitable to land. Where are you going to fly off to, you're gonna pull in your power going to go around, and hopefully you have a path out that is free of obstacles. So now that you've determined that you're going to land there, you get on your final approach, and you're kind of running through the checklist. In an abbreviated version on final, you're getting a closer look, you're seeing the slope, you're seeing the surface a little bit more clear now that you're coming down a lot lower. And you can determine if you're going to go around or if you're going to continue the approach and put your skids down. T is your touchdown point where you're gonna put your skids. So this is a very textbook method, very textbook method. In reality, you're going to gain experience. And you're going to find out that these acronyms are actually missing a couple of crucial things like your path in your path out doing a power check. Those things are really important as well. Turbulence. If you're flying in a mountainous region you want to know and determine where the mountain waves are going to be coming from. You're worried about updrafts and downdrafts, there's all these different things that you're also thinking about. But all of those things also come with experience and doing these things practically. So this is just a really quick guideline of things that we're looking for when we're doing our high and low reconnaissance. And hey, if anybody out there has a better method, or a way of doing things that you think would be really helpful, go ahead and share that with us. Send us an email forever on the fly@gmail.com. You guys, this was so fun going back and reviewing this stuff. I hope if you're already a pilot, and you listen to this, and you stuck around to the end, I hope you got a good review, just like I did. It's all the basic stuff that you learned the beginning but kind of becomes automatic as you go through your career. So always really good to review and go back to your basics. Just a nice little reminder. And if you're not a pilot, hopefully you found this interesting enough to stick around to the end of the episode with me. And thank you so much for sticking it out and listening in. I hope you guys have a beautiful rest of your day and fly safe out there. Bye Wow