Our next guest had a super unique introduction into the helicopter world. You guys ever seen Whale Wars? Yeah he was that dude flying the MD500 off the back of the Sea Shepherd's vessel assisting in whale conservation efforts from the North Atlantic, Galapagos, Gulf of California, all the way down to Antarctica. After his stint with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, he worked his way up from flight instructing in Robinsons to flying utility and firefighting in Hueys, 212s, and now is flying the infamous intermeshig K-MAX!
He's here to chat about his experience with the Sea Shepherds , what its like to fly the K-MAX, utility pilot life, and we dive into the role helicopters play in environmental conservation.
Stick around at the end of the episode, where we share a short ground lesson answering Susan from Instagrams question, "What do you do if you find something wrong on preflight? And are all items no fly items?" Let's talk 91.213!
Our next guest had a super unique introduction into the helicopter world. You guys ever seen Whale Wars? Yeah he was that dude flying the MD500 off the back of the Sea Shepherd's vessel assisting in whale conservation efforts from the North Atlantic, Galapagos, Gulf of California, all the way down to Antarctica. After his stint with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, he worked his way up from flight instructing in Robinsons to flying utility and firefighting in Hueys, 212s, and now is flying the infamous intermeshig K-MAX!
He's here to chat about his experience with the Sea Shepherds , what its like to fly the K-MAX, utility pilot life, and we dive into the role helicopters play in environmental conservation.
Stick around at the end of the episode, where we share a short ground lesson answering Susan from Instagrams question, "What do you do if you find something wrong on preflight? And are all items no fly items?" Let's talk 91.213!
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast what a baby nerds. Welcome to season two episode two of the forever on the fly podcast, your bi weekly dose of aviation inspiration, education and entertainment. I'm Jose, and I'm Diane and we're here to get you guys on aviation. Yeah, so as our 20 Oh yeah, girl, tell me about it. Here's aircraft. What a beautiful, beautiful plane. Yeah, it's like a sports car. I basically felt like I was in a flying car. That's kind of what it was like, oh, yeah, yeah, it was nice. It smelled like brand new leather. And they're just like, really pretty interior. G 1000. That's like meant for Cirrus. That perspective plus thing is so user friendly. It was so nice to have a key pad, like dial in my Flightplan keypad keypad dude, I didn't even have to twist anything. Hardly. Wow. Yeah. Like a peasant. Fell real special. Just like oh my god, I can just type this in. Yeah, one of those pine trees hanging from like your rearview mirror. And you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah, like the carwash stuff. Yeah, it's the scent new plane. Yeah, man. It's my friend's plane. Gorgeous. Went down a French Valley got with a CSIP that's a serious flight instructor. You know, some people don't think that serious pilots are real pilots because we have a parachute. It goes down. I wish I had appreciated my airplanes. I'm not hating on it. I know people who are like hating on Sirius pilots just because we have impaired pictures jealous. Yeah, they're just peanut butter jelly Peanut Butter jealous that I got a parachute. And they don't say this cuz it ain't right. I think helicopters should be equipped with a parachute. So stuff goes down. You can like blast off the blades and a parachute comes up through the top. And it'll just, you know, I'd hate to be the test pilot for that. I would just like, I don't know, I'd put it on helicopters auto pilot. And then I'd have a parachute as the pilot. And I would like put it in hover mode. And then I would just dive out skydive out of it and be like y'all can try that shit on your own up there. Yeah, just kind of frictions. Let it go up. Yeah. Oh, man. It was a very nostalgic being back at French Valley. Yeah, that's where Jose and I used to solo all of our students when we were flight instructors out of Long Beach. terrifying place on the weekend. It is yeah, all the weekend warriors come out to play. And the students get let out of their cages and they're off to the races. I had a student I can't tell you how many times on the cross country flight training. Were right before I was getting ready to sign them off. Instead of turning west towards like LA. He would continue east or southeast toward San Diego. And I'm like, why are we going this way? We always had to go back to French Valley and start all over. And I'm like, please just turn right. Yeah. So we used to follow our students with another student to route train them on where they're gonna go. And also just to make sure that the student pilot in front is going to make it there. Okay, English was a second language for our students. So just making sure they messed up on any radio calls that got confused, we could hop on there, and then we just have to redo the training and if we had to do that, but yeah, even being like a serious I was trying to run people over, because there's so much faster than everybody else. And yeah, on the downwind would be like full flaps, basically, just with a student pilot in front of us. I think my 150 Probably could take you guys Yeah. I mean, so I got everybody extends, or downwind super far does like crazy patterns. And I'll tell you what it was like nuttiest thing I've ever seen in my life. We were on the downwind and there were three other planes. Also in the there was one on final. And then there was two other ones on downwind also. But one of them turned so close to the runway, I thought he was going to hit the ground final. He was like right over the runway, like flew right over the dude basically was in an upwind for the opposite runway. And we're like, what is that doing? And then this other pilot who is in the downwind in front of us, he was kind of like, off to the you know, he was like, right in front of us. We had to kind of offset to the right. And yeah, do did like a just a straight up 180 Turn from base to final just like we're super sharp. And then the guy in front of us, you know, he followed suit and we just extended a downwind super far. You know, we're like five mile final. And by the time we got to the runway this Gyrocopter decided to pop up out of nowhere and get on the runway. But we didn't see him. We didn't hear him. So he gets on the runway. And you know, we're about to land and then all of a sudden we see blades starting to rotate. We're like, dude, this guy's on the runway. He hasn't even started his engine yet. Oh, my God. So we're like going around you Yeah, we went around like three times because people were just on the runway not getting offered. You know this. This joker, you know hasn't even started his engine yet. We couldn't see him he blended in. And yeah, anyways, it was a total shit show down there but yeah, I do wish they had a tower down there sometime. It would have been a smart idea or at least somebody to I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know you just got to be careful so do you ever fly down the French Valley everybody on a weekend just be careful weekday like all the students and most like all the instructors into Blair there all week, you know, like soft. Yeah, by like those weekend warriors. They pop up and they just screw everything up and on a swivel head on as well. Yeah, exactly. That's what that's the term we use to make sure you're looking for aircraft left, right up, down all around 10 degree increments. We Rahzel around you know, anyways, alright guys, let's get let's get going here on the episode. All right, our next guest he's had a very interesting helicopter career. You guys ever seen Whale Wars? Yeah, he was that dude. Why the Indy 500 off the back of the Sea Shepherd's vessel, assisting in whale conservation efforts from the North Atlantic Galapagos Gulf of California all the way down to Antarctica. To crazy this bad Andre has worked his way up from Robeez to flying utility and firefighting and QE two twelves. And now it's flying the infamous k max. He's here to chat about his experience with the Sea Shepherd's what it's like to fly the k max utility pilot life and the role of helicopters play and conservation. And at the end of the episode, we're gonna do a short ground lesson. I got a question through Instagram from Susan and Susan, this is for you. What do you do when you find something on your pre flight check? Are all the things that you find no fly issues. Wonderful question, Susan. And we are going to answer that again at the end of the episode. All right, we're gonna bring out our next guest. Chad Halston. When we were in Antarctica, we were primarily trying to search for illegal fishing or illegal whaling vessels. Hi, I'm Chad Austin, and I'm forever on the fly there's, there's my bear. There you are. My name is Jose, by the way. I'm gonna go. Hey, I'm Chad. It's me. Nice to meet you too. Dude. Chad is joining us all the way from Utah. Yeah, I'm in Moab Utah. Oh, cool. You're still in Moab. Nice. I was just there. Not too long ago when I messaged you a couple of weeks ago. It's beautiful there. It really is. Yeah, I mean, he's like, one other time. It was very short and sweet. And now I get get to fly around and kind of explore a bit more and I'm really not gonna fly a lot today. I did not. Oh, I flew point three. Whoo. All right now you're flying the k max. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're here on fire. So Blimey, k max. Man. That's badass. We have a mutual friend. His name is Flavio. If you're out there, Fulvio. He, he definitely man. That's his dream helicopter amigo. That's all he ever wants to fly all the time. So if you ever use Yeah, k max. Yeah. Anytime I watch videos of those things starting up, it's like, I don't know, I know the blades aren't gonna hit. But there's like, just seeing it. Slowly spinning up. The blades always look like they're gonna make contact. It's nerve racking. How do you get checked out in k max? Like, because it's only single? Yeah, single seat. So most people go to command School, which is in Connecticut, that's where the factory is. And that's where they're built. And they start you out in the Husky, which is a, like a 1950s old Catholic Air Force training as a two seater. And it's, it's, you know, it's got the same international rotor system. So you learn the behavior of the intermeshing rotor, kind of the way that it behaves. And then after four hours, they just put you in a k max, and it's feels every bit like your first solo. I'll say that as the Huskies like it's rough. And so when you get in the K MAX, it's such a pleasure. Were you scared? Were you nervous? When you went solo in your first time on the game? Actually, I mean, sure, you know, you just you just hope you don't roll the thing or like, you know, yeah, mess something up. Or it's always it's anytime you get in, checked out a new aircraft and you have to solely you're like, what did I forget? You know, I guess you know, yeah, good. lights are out. Let's go. I hear that. So I always found it really fascinating that they use a helicopter with wooden blades to fight fire. Right. Yeah. I know. To the blades, we got to protect the forest. That's why we got to keep those forests around. Yeah, there you go. Gotta keep making k max blades. Save the forest build. Awesome. Well, let's start from the beginning. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? How did you get into aviation? And yeah, let's hear it. Sure. So I'm from a small town outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Lancaster. Hello. Yeah. It's called Westchester about halfway between Philadelphia and Lancaster. All right, yeah, after, you know, after high school, I went to school in New York City, and I loved aviation. But I think that I just thought that, you know, growing up in Pennsylvania, the only helicopters I saw were the EMS helicopters or military. And, and both of those just didn't really intrigued me. And as far as the airplane side of things, it was kind of same thing was military or the airlines. And so you know, as it goes life, just point you in a certain direction, you kind of just follow it. So as I mentioned, I went to school in New York. And after school, I kind of had this this desire to like travel, maybe volunteer kind of have a little bit of adventure after spending four years kind of studying something and you know, being in the whole schooling system. So I ended up joining a conservation organization, and flew down to Australia, and got on board a ship as a deckhand. And I had some kind of, you know, handy skills with welding and carpentry and whatnot, and ended up working as a deckhand and thought I was going to go on, maybe stay there for five months. And ended up sticking around for five years. And throughout kind of my experience on this ship, I started as a deckhand. And I worked in the engine room and kind of worked in all areas of the ship. And about halfway through, we had a helicopter on board, we started with a huge 300. And then we had a Mt. 500. And I kind of started looking back at that helicopter thinking like, how cool would that be? And one of our pilots kind of saw something in me and the way that I operated the boats and kind of, you know, had this conversation with me talked about what, you know, why don't I go and learn how to fly. And in the moment, I thought that maybe it was a little bit too late. I think I was like, 23 at the time, but I thought I already went to school for something, you know, maybe, maybe it's a little bit too late and, and he kind of told me his story. And I realized that there was still plenty of opportunity to be had. And so throughout the next few years of working on the ship, I take like a month off and I rushed back to the states and get a rating come back and get to fly with him and fly off the ship. And you know, get some Durban time, which was pretty surreal. And so I did that for kind of a few years. That's kind of what kicked me off into flying. So that the organization you worked for where the sea shepherds, right, yeah. Oceanic conservation group. Yeah, so they were you ever on Whale Wars? Sure. You get that question all the time. Yep. Yeah, there's a few seasons where you'll see me and a slightly longer hair. You know, the the Hillary sailor. Yeah, you're not messing around. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, Well, I ain't gonna lie to you. I never watched oil wars, but I always saw the promos on the Discovery Channel. You know, and it's, it's, um, it's reality TV. And so it's like a little dramatize at this time. You just like kind of can't help but watch some. Yeah, it's good. Like in hotels, like you watched Deadliest Catch. Right? You know, yeah, I, truckers. Have you seen or did you work with that one cap? The one Captain everyone was his name? Yeah. Was he? Hey, yeah. How was he in person? You know, he also he's within kind of the conservation movement. He was a pioneer, and still is. And he's got years of experience and stories. He's one of the smartest guys that I've ever met. I mean, you would you would never challenge him to Trivial Pursuit or at all. So yeah, it was it's one of those things. It was always cool being around him and, you know, playing poker hearing stories. Yeah, yeah. No, it's always unfortunate when people get portrayed a certain way on reality TV and I'm like, I wonder what that guy's actually like and, and like, you know, real live to sit down and chat with him. I just remembered. I mean, South Park just laid on that one episode about him thinking that he got shot. What did you think of that episode? I'm just curious. As someone who was you got to, you know, you got to appreciate it. I will say South Park did an amazing job, but just roasting them. super gross. I've seen that episode of South Park, but I never seen the row wars. And that was pretty fun. That was the only episode of South Park I think I've ever seen. You miss now? I know. When you were on the show, were you flying for them at that point? Or were you still working as a boats in? So I started? I think, as I mentioned, the first two years I was driving the boats and kind of working on deck. Right. Yeah. And then the last two years that I was on there. And they did, I think they did document one of the seasons where I started to transition into the helicopter. You know, whenever you have the opportunity to fly, you're always trying to sell yourself on on why, you know, you should get into that seat. And so on board, we only had one pilot, and there was days that we would fly, you know, maybe eight hours a day, it's tiring, the sun never goes down in Antarctica. And so, you know, it was kind of good that I had this experience years on board. I had a helicopter pilots rating, so I could kind of share some of that workload. And most of the pilots that we that worked for us were very kind of encouraging and supportive of that. So it was a great opportunity for me to get in get some time. Oh, that's great. How often would you fly? It depends on you know, with the organization, we had different campaign. So when we were in Antarctica, we were primarily trying to search for illegal fishing or illegal whaling vessels. And so we would fly pretty often because, you know, the Southern Ocean is massive. And this is one of the reasons that there's no other tool like a helicopter. Diana's, you know, a ship's radar maybe sees 15 miles, you know, 16 miles. So if we were searching for vessels, it was only you can see to the horizon. So once we got the helicopter up, we would do search patterns of, you know, big triangles of 80 miles, 80 miles, 80 miles. So if we were searching for vessels, or we felt that we were nuber, you know, we may fly, you know, for six, eight hours a day. Cumulative over a season, probably not that much, maybe 100 hours a season, so for the summer, I'd call a season. So not a great deal. But when you were doing the mission with the helicopters, how would you use your helicopter in deterring? Like illegal fishing? What do you guys do like low passes? Or what what exactly what do you how would you use a helicopter? So the reason that we use the helicopter with a conservation organization, there's a few main reasons one is searching for vessels. As you mentioned, radar has a very short range even 15 Miles is pretty short. So we'd use it as a search tool. We'd use it as a documenting tool and then you know sometimes to get a closer look at type of activity was going on if it was illegal if they were documented vessels Yeah, it just it allows you to see a lot closer than Yeah, ship up up alongside it might be a little bit more reckless Gotcha. Yeah different mindset surveillance Jose, we're talking surveillance we're not talking attack out there with Indy 500 If you're like doing passes and stuff now you're throwing the stink bombs on the on the illegal bad, my bad I had a different idea in my mind. No, and that's and that's something that with the aviation side of things, it is still FAA regulated. You know, it's it's a North America registered aircraft. And as you guys know, like the the FAA rules like you kind of can't mess around. So when it came to the helicopter, it was like, pure professional business. We never we really never used the helicopter as an antagonizing you weren't hot dogs. Not to mention on this Pine Hill Right. Now, my other question is now this one might be a little silly, but with a moving target on the vessel and you're going as you said, you were you know, searching outside the radius outside the radar capabilities of the vessel that you will land at? Would there be like a, I would imagine it's just a GPS signal to get back to it. Or what do you be using? Yeah, we would use, we would use GPS, obviously, we would have a number of radios on board, but there was times that we would want to kind of radio silence. And so we would use satphones. And we would use either we'd Lincoln into the aircraft's audio, and we'd make a direct sat call to get a lat long. And we'd always measured like the trajectory of the ship. So if the ship was heading south, we'd kind of measure out like, where are you going to be in one hour, and then we would fly a course so that we could get back to that point within an hour. And, and you know, most of the time, it was always there. Most of the time. You know, weather comes in, or sand or squall lines and you can't see what's right on the other side. And you got to just push through it so yeah, that was Yeah, I was curious about the weather down there in Antarctica. Did it get was it so cold that you didn't have to worry about icing or was it just cold enough that you really had to worry about it? Um, it's it's probably just cold enough because the season we would go down would be the Antarctic summer so Antarctica is for sure cold but on an average day in the summer the weather's actually pretty good you know it's pretty dry pretty clear skies there's there's really not much precipitation. So now again, to go back to kind of the purpose of searching if the weather the visibility was so poor that we couldn't see 1530 Miles there's really no point in flying. So anytime the weather was bad, flying was out of the question anyways, so you never really put yourself in any bad scenarios where you're you're on meteorologists on the ship making those calls or did he actually have a meteor? Yeah, yep. It's a lot of just look out the window. You know, you can get some you know, some weather charts but for the most part, it's it's look out the window and dog. Actually squat. That's crazy. Look at the finger put it up in the air. A little old Kentucky windage on the way back to the ship. Remember when? When I was an instructor out here and I asked my student Hey, man, did you check the weather? And he looked at me and he looks outside the window. He goes I think it's good. I was like, get to the computer you full? Yeah, it was it was pretty funny. No, that is not how we check the weather. But yeah, if you have no other choice, no other options. Yeah. I definitely. I think most SoCal pilots are kind of guilty of that. When you when you say well, I drove into work. I saw it. I saw my pirate looks clear. Looks pretty good. Yeah, man. So when you are when you're flying down there and Arctic waters, did you ever get to go and land on short, and hang out with the scientists down there? We did. Yeah, a few times. We were in an area where there was a bass. I think there's like 15 or 17 bases down there. But we would run into a few. The French, Australian and the American a few times just we were anchored just offshore off on a shelf and somebody calls us on the radio and, and basically says that what do you what do you guys do and you want to come shore for coffee tomorrow, which I was like, blown away. Looking at this research hat that's on the shore that was built in 1912 by Douglas Mawson? Dang, then, you know, we're gonna go ashore. So there was a little bit of playing involved. And yeah, that we would take the helicopter up on icebergs occasionally. Yeah, iceberg straight ahead. Did you ever have bear paws on your helicopter when you land on on that one? We didn't know I don't I mean, I think that for we probably should have just intended to land on solid ground or back on the ship. Yeah. Yeah, like all the way down and just slide back up. As you're having your coffee and your mt 500 just sliding away I kind of have this extra long, really good. Kind of a lot of surface area. So how many hours did you have when you first started working there because you just kept going back and forth and getting your ratings and I I got my private and 43 hours. And so my 44th hour was an MD 500 Get the hell out of here. Wow, did you find that challenging, you know, going straight into the aircraft? I mean, you know, we just talked about ship landings for a second. Oh, yeah, that, that a 200 foot patrol ship, it was built for the Scottrade fisheries, and then we bought it and we kind of modified it and put this helicopter deck on the back. And so you know, landing on a small vessel that's pitching and rolling in the sea. And the pad is so close, we had a retractable hanger, which blocks the horizon. And so what you know, you're learning to keep the attitude of the aircraft nice and stable while ignoring the movement of the ship and the item, you know, this platform that you're trying to land on, while timing the swell. So it definitely took a while. And you know, for the first handful of hours is complete and I'm you got it. You got the landing, and you just watch, you know, so it's it was kind of a steep learning curve. But at the same time, anybody that's flown over water, that's about the least challenging type of flying there is in the years following, you know, the pink line on the GPS. So that was kind of balanced between this like very simple of it with my 45 hours. I was amazing at following up. Thank you to taking off and landing on the ship. It was like a huge learning curve. Yeah, I bet. Have you ever landed on it? You know, you've never landed on a ship. Now. Yeah, me neither landed on decks, like river decks. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. And I landed on glaciers. Oh, yeah, that's true. You did a stint in Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an iceberg. Yeah, it's a big iceberg. You know, I feel it's pretty big iceberg. Landing on a ship at 45 hours. That's pretty intense. Man. That's impressive that you made it happen. You made it. We're actually jealous. So you got to find me. 545 hours. I still haven't been eaten butter. Jealous. I haven't been able to find him, either. And, yeah, that looks like a fun, fun little thing that looks like a 22 but like on Super steroids. Yeah, totally. Yeah, we're about they're almost like as short as 22 They're short little helicopters. Oh, yeah. They can hug up against that. But it looks so nimble. You know? Like they're just like, Have you ever seen that movie? What was the movie called? Are the guys in a dress now? He picks up the Mt. 500 inside the hangar. Any? Yeah, a dangerous game. So if you have it's on YouTube, look up a dangerous game. And this guy picks up the helicopter inside the hangar it's an MT 500 Any ever taxis out and he plays soccer with the skid with kids that are like hanging out around the hangar I think they're in Mexico or something. And then Arizona the entire the entire the entire film. The entire film was just MD 500 stunts. And it was like this big chase of like bad guys. And yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, it is pretty cool. Not seen this, man. I know when I first saw it was like how every aviation movie that I've ever watched. I think he had started in that movie. Because it shows all the gauges and it's like maybe he has a couple seconds in the transient. You know? I'm just sitting there like, one 1002 And that okay, he's good. He's good. Oh, yeah, yeah. So today, you know, I've been I've been on this documentary binge and supposed to be meeting this big producer soon, like next week. So I've been trying to watch all of his all of his movies before I meet him. So I have stuff to talk about with him. And I was like scrolling through his documentaries this morning. And I saw this one called alive. And have you ever seen it about the rugby team that goes down? Yeah, the film. I guess it is a documentary. Yeah, technically a dog. It's kind of hard to say. Of course. They're not gonna have any footage up there in the in the Andes. They had to remake it. Yeah, the film the rugby team. The rugby Yeah. But yeah, it's super super classic. Yes. So her first time watching it. It was my first time watching it. I didn't know what it was. And I was like, Oh, this guy's he's interested in aviation so that that's good. And I'm like, oh airplane. So then I clicked on it and started watching it. Of course in the first 10 minutes, his planes going down. And I am like, clenching my teeth. Like oh my god. This is just on the topic of watching aviation movies. But yeah, it was like I went I didn't know what to expect. I didn't really like look at what it was about. I just sort of played it as oh my gosh, that was a that was an intense intense movie. Yeah that whole Yeah, that might be a tough one to bridge generally aviation into. Hey, kids go watch this movie life. You got the highest Oh, no. Oh, shit. It's not too soon joke about this right now. That was a horrible thing. That was bad. Okay, well, let's continue with your store. I continually almost kill Jose sound good. Yeah. Solid. Yeah, I don't have to get the cheese clear lately lately. Lately, this chick has been coming out with some gems. Is that how you built all of your flight time? Or what was your next step in your aviation career? Because you obviously continued on on this path. And yeah, see shepherds at some point. So the whole ship experience was really beneficial, you know, for all five years. But, you know, the downside was is that we just really didn't fly that much. Nor was I really challenged that much. You know, as I mentioned, the most exciting part was like getting on and off the shit. And then it was a little bit kind of mundane. And so I really wanted to just expand my career. And one of the pilots that we had on board, I remember him, you know, show me pictures of cubies and two twelves and fighting fire. And he's kind of showing me the adventures of utility pilot, and it just seemed so attractive. So I left the ship with the intentions of kind of building just building more flight time because, you know, when I left, I only had a couple 100 hours, which, as we know, is really not much to go anywhere with. And, you know, from the start, he really encouraged me to go the flight instructor route. Just said, Hey, if you want time, if you want to, you know, get time fast and be an instructor do a year of instructing and you'll probably have 1000 hours and you can pick and choose what you want to do. So I went back to California did my CFI did my double ly and ended up getting hired at the school that I trained at was the name of the game know that I had Sega know the name of the school. The flight school you went to Yeah, the company in Southern California has heli stream. And this kind of ironic because the original pilot on Sea Shepherd worked for heli stream. So that was kind of how I knew of Heli stream. And so I started instructing there and meanwhile, you know, I was trying to shove my foot into the utility in long line world so I was trying to go on whatever flights I could building more turbine time getting a different aircraft. Yeah, so like most people's story did instructing for a couple years transitioned up to some turbans got into some powerline patrol, you know, flew the A star flew the 500 H 145. And then got into the Hueys, the belt 205 and the belt 212 Nice and those kind of from the start, I can I can remember sitting on the ship looking at pictures of belt two twelves fighting fire. And that just seemed like the coolest thing. So the amazing thing about working for heli stream was that they did everything they did flight training, ID photo video tours, power line fire pretty much everything except EMS and booze. So there was a lot of diversity and I got tons of experience there and they really just helped me fast track my career right to where I you know, I really wanted to get to so nice with a good old Rod. Rod Anderson, Mr. Anderson rod Anderson. Yeah, as he has. She has is he as tough as everyone says he is. checkride hard, but he he's really one of the just one of the nicest guys and it's such a pleasure to fly with. So He's he's a he's an amazing guy. Yeah, I heard he's just super knowledgeable and his check rides are really hard. But yeah, but yeah, I've only heard good things but just that he's pretty dead on check rides and such. He's one of the most humble guys but slowly as you get to know him, you realize his place in aviation and the history with Robinson aircraft and helping right as far as and setting a world record for the hover record and a bell 47. And, yeah, I mean, it's, he's got he's got a lot of experience and a lot of stories. Wait, what was that world record? I've never heard of it. Like what? So if you look it up, it took place in Anaheim stadium, in a in an old bell 47, an old wheeled version model, and they did a hover for 50 hours, and I won't say how many minutes but and they took places and they taped eggs to the bottoms of the wheels to prove Hey, this thing has never touched the ground. And they stayed there and Anaheim stadium and they hovered for 50 hours to set the new Guinness Book of World Records 50 And it was they were just high ceiling while they were hovering, hot fueling they think they had a stack of like pallets and they would use that to climb in and out of the aircraft while one person was hovering and then they'd kind of watch out controls move over to the other side. Now take their break a bit Disneyland was pissed there for two days. Oh my that that's how I never heard that happening. That's really cool. I mean, that's crazy. But that's cool. How many pilots did they use all together? It wasn't just two guys switching back and forth. Or I think there was three pilots you know, if you if you ever go into heli stream, there's pictures on the wall. There's you know, there's the Guinness Book of World Records certificate that's on the wall. And now that aircraft that Bill 47 is in the Smithsonian, yet. Washington DC. Ah, how cool Nettie claim to fame. Yeah. I get tired of hovering. I'm five hours over a fire. Let alone 50 Yeah, this Yeah. Oh, man. All these people wanting to set world records. Jen, this guy. I got started thinking my own. I know now I want to set a world record. I'm gonna be drunk. housekeys record the one with the football drop. You know, like 500 feet, you know, on the helicopter. He throws a football. You guys gonna beat it? Yeah. And that's gonna be your claim to fame. I'm gonna do 550 Oh. Tom Brady. I'm gonna call him up right now. So I used to work on a yacht right after the Coast Guard. And it was it was the owner of the New Orleans Saints. private yacht. Mr. Benson. I didn't know anything about football. It's i This is a little off topic. I just it just reminded me that Tom Brady. I was like, oh, yeah, that dude. But I mean, obviously Tom Brady doesn't play for New Orleans. But that dude, um, so yeah, there is a one time I know again. I know nothing about football. Someone was like, Oh, you're from Atlanta. Are you a Falcons fan? Like I'm not a big fan of basketball. They're like Never mind. Oh gosh. What's his name? The quarterback. Drew Brees Drew Brees. So Drew Brees, calls up the boat to talk to Mr. Benson. And this was back when the whole NFL lockdown thing was happening when they wanted all the owners to open their books and they were all refusing 2011 Yep, that was back then. Yes, it was 2000 limit. So I pick up the phone and he's like, Hi, this is Drew Brees going to talk to Mr. Benson. I'm like, Sure no problem. You know, like, can you please hold and one of the girls on my boat like Who was that? I'm like, I don't know. Some guy named breezy. She was like Drew Brees is on the phone. I was like, yeah, why? Who is that? She was like, Girl you need to do some research. So I had no idea. Yeah, I looked him up on the Oh, yeah, this dude's a pretty big deal. Yeah, some guy named breezy. Oh, man. All right, back to back to aviation. So now you work for you left heli stream and then what was your next move after heli stream I position to get into the k max. It's a company Rotax that's based in Anchorage, Alaska. And that was kind of the motivation was getting into a new aircraft. I think most people look at the K MAX and would love to fly it. I mean, you know, the, the transition from maybe most people is like, you get up into like a, a dual pilot aircraft like a Blackhawk or a 61 or something like that. That came axis has this appeal of being able to lift a lot. It's a very unique aircraft, and it's just one seat. And with that, it's just kind of a change of pace into going to do new stuff, learn a new aircraft fly in new areas. All right, changing it up, I like it. And what's your schedule, like with Rotax, I work at 12, when we're on fire, or a 1414, if we're doing a power line, or other lifting, logging or other types of jobs, kind of talking about the K MAX, it is kind of it is kind of a weird helicopter, it does some different things. And a lot of k max pilots will kind of tell you that they've had some scary moments. So maybe I've got that lined up down the road. We're not, we're not gonna we're not gonna put that out there. But I am curious how it auto rotates. The next auto rotates kind of like a dream, it descends it like 900 feet per minute, 800 feet per minute. The one weird thing is that in normal flight or power on, you're flying at 100 to 104. And when it auto rotates, depending on the density altitude, it goes down to like, between 75 and 80. So you watch that needle go, go down really low. And you're, you know, you do sit there, I hope it stops moving, I hope it stops moving. And then it stabilizes at 82 or 80, depending on on what you're at. If it's really cold, that rotor really wants to droop. But it's slow. It just cruises you got all the time to think. Wow, that's nice. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Do you know the actual measurement of clearance and between those blades? Like when they're starting up in between? Yeah. Like when they're crossing over? Yeah, so the so the intermeshing, they're always 90 degrees off. And the blades pass probably. So a blade will pass over a hub. And it's probably maybe it's only like a foot and a half. But because of the way you know, in forward flight, the flapping the blades want to actually go further apart. Okay, so there is a way to make some touch. But you got to really, like be rough on the components, you got to really try. And you have what's called a blade to hub strike, where a blade will kind of bump off of the other hub. And obviously, it's a really bad thing. It's really rare. As I mentioned, you got to really like try to make it happen. Yeah, man. Crazy. Yeah. Wouldn't want that. Blade strike on the hub? No, thanks. That so next time you're planning k max, just lowest. Just yeah, good, easy, man. Take it easy. Do you still do any conservation work in your off time, it's kind of tough. One of the reasons that I haven't wanted to switch companies was to be able to have more time off. When you work for a company that's 10 minutes away, usually you get called in. So I was just working a lot more than I felt that I needed to. So right now kind of that's my hopes is that working a schedule with more off time, then I can kind of do some more volunteer work or more conservation work. Some people say that you can't be a conservationist and be a pilot at the same time with how we burn fuel and how it can be detrimental to polluting the environment. And what would you say to that kind of thought process as a conservationist, I think on you know, your initial impression of helicopters is that they're not very environmentally friendly, or whatever, you know, they burn jet fuel, yada, yada, yada, they burn a lot of jet fuel sometimes. But the things that we do with helicopters, there's no other tool. And sometimes we have to use helicopters to kind of help whether we're protecting the environment, using them for conservation at some point may be electric helicopters, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. So if we have to use helicopters to protect the forest or if we have to use helicopters to protect the ocean. We just don't have a better tool. So I think it's it's kind of a tough thing when when we start to talk about environmentalism and protecting the environment or preserving wealth We have left, we obviously have certain needs that need to be met. We all we need fuel, whether it's petroleum based, we need paper products that we need wood, we're building houses. So how do we get those resources, for example, logging, if you bring up logging to any environmentalist, they usually we'll cringe because this idea of clear cut, you know, forestry comes into mind. And that really is, it's really unattractive, we're cutting, you know, you're wiping out a whole hillside, you're destroying habitat, and you're also depleting, you know, the future generations for those trees to be able to kind of drop seeds and continue the next generation of trees. But with things like helicopter logging, that's the most gentle way that we can extract timber or wood products. And by doing just small selective logging. So that's pretty much the reason that the k max was built, you know, the, the k max was built as this work truck. And it was kind of designed with things like logging in mind. So if we can do this selective logging, where we don't need to cut a road into a mountain, and we can just drop along line in, pluck a group of doubt, and leave nothing behind. But you know, maybe a stump and you know, not much left. And that's really the best thing that we can do. Environmentalism, in a way gives aviation a job, a lot of these protections that are put in place is almost like job security. If we think about powerline patrol, you got two choices, we need power, nobody's going to argue it. Okay. So do you want the local forest to just have roads cut through it, big roads just cut up through our national forest and our national parks, or you can use telecom actors, to place people in there without roads to build these structures to build power lines. And again, you don't leave anything behind. So as long as we have those environmental protections in place, it almost is giving aviation job security, patrolling them, maintaining them, building them, the other aspect of it is even using it in the forestry service or in like the gameboard enjoy your tagging conserving animals or going to the hatcheries and replenishing the fishes and stuff like that, you know, like, there's a lot of different jobs that helicopters do that a lot of people don't understand the that they do, or the tools that they use for EMS is like even though it's not conservation, but like, even in the EMS road, when you're rescuing somebody stuck in the mountains, a helicopter is the only way out. So it's the fastest and most effective tool like and alive, they got rescued by to Huey, full circle. Besides that, you did mention a couple of other things like tourism, like how is tourism affecting conservation. And one of the points that you've made to me before was that it's giving people visibility of these national parks and beautiful areas that it makes people feel more connected to those places and want to help preserve them and conserve them. So that was also a really good point that you've made. I would say, you get more bang for your buck. With helicopters and conservation than you do damaging the environment. I think it probably outweighs the good. Good outweighs the bad. Don't have bang for your buck was the right. phrase to use there. But yeah, yeah, definitely. Somebody's got to pay and everything, you know, everything costs something real. So you know, if we think about some of the things that and I'll just say from personal experience, or from the companies that I've worked for, if there weren't environmental protections in place, or if there wasn't wildlife sensitive areas, we wouldn't have flown a helicopter there. They would just be a road already in place. And they would have graded it, brought some bulldozers in and just built the structures you know, with with forestry, or firefighting. You know, for years I did initial attack or heli attack where our job is, you know, I have a crew of eight firefighters on board. And that helicopter is the fastest way to get to that fire while it's still tiny. And if you can catch that firewall, it's, you know, just an acre and you've got a good chance of stopping it and Southern California we're no strangers to fire. Once it gets beyond a certain size, you know, 125 10 helicopters. It's just not going to do anything. It's a tool that I don't want to say I would love to see get replaced because I'd be out of a job. But that's just my confidence and knowing that a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft like a helicopter, it's got jobs for years. Yeah, I definitely we, you know, I don't know if you listen to our podcast with Stacey shared, but yeah, she we really got into detail about where she believes Evie toll is going and I think she thinks it's closer, closer than we think. Even just going to heli Expo and seeing all the different designs that people are coming up with their prototypes, and I think it's right around the corner. I don't think it's that far away. It's definitely going to be within our lifetime. I don't know about what actually was intended. 20 years 10 Yeah, I would say 20 a good solid 20 years from now a lot of things like logging and, and FBI will have giant jetpack suits. That's right now, I think that we'll see it a little bit sooner. Ironically, again, there's no tool like a helicopter, I worked. I did some work lifting a electric VTOL aircraft and repositioning it, lifting it with a long line under a Huey and repositioning it to a place where it could expand it's for flight testing the company Joby aviation, and they've made a fully electric vertical takeoff and landing six propeller aircraft that when I saw it, I've done two lifts for it. And I did it I think four years ago and the first time I thought, This is nuts, this isn't this isn't happening. And then I just did another one last year. And I was blown away. I mean to if you look it up this videos of it, it's so quiet, it can fly for an hour and a half it cruises fast. And it's here and it's fully autonomous. It's it's unmanned, what was the company's views of it Joby j ob y JOV y au pair that ladies and gentlemen Joby. They're here to stay go public bye. And they've received so much funding from companies like Toyota, and so it's coming. You know, I think we're a long way away from electric airliners. Yeah, but, but we're getting there. Yeah, if one day they've got an aircraft that can fly 700 gallon Bambi Bucket on fire? I'll fly it. Sounds great. Do you have a family? I got a fiance and a baby girl that's coming in October. Yes, congratulations. That's so exciting. Various. So that's also kind of, you know, the beauties of the schedule. Yes, I'm away for 12 days. But that also means that I'm at home 12 days. And so people usually kind of asking like, well, isn't it tough? You know, but to me. That's like, that's 12 Mornings, afternoons, evenings that I'll get to spend with my family versus if I worked. Monday through Friday, nine to five, you know, LA traffic get home late. Like I have more quality time to spend with them. Yeah, that's good to hear. Because you hear so many times with utility, maybe in your earlier years in utility when you had to be away maybe longer and didn't have that 12 and 12 schedule and maybe a 12 and two during fire season, which is a really common schedule that go to they call it aids, aviation induced divorce syndrome. Yeah. Like it's a real thing. You know, and you're away from home. It's hard to maintain a family life, but it sounds like I mean, I would agree with you, I 12. And 12 is a nice, nice, nice schedule. Yeah, that's a really nice schedule. It's like long enough, you can go and do some cool stuff and or be at home with your family and long enough that you get to miss them at the same time. That's a long day. Is that a travel day back? Or is it the 13th today? Is that a travel? Yeah, yeah, I've been I've been very lucky that my schedules are my contracts have been relatively close to home. So that 12 day, I'm home that night have eaten in and I'm usually close enough that, you know, my fiance would just come up and hang out for a few days and then go back. So I've definitely had it pretty precocious. So yeah, man. Well, yeah, it is tough. You know, in the industry, it's, I think that everybody has a period where they need to cut their teeth and sacrifice and work a ridiculous schedule for probably not much money, but that's kind of unfortunately that's kind of the name of the game. So if you have a partner who's supportive, keep them close, and let them know how much you appreciate that support. Because, you know, it's it's not everybody's down for that. Yeah, true story. Yeah. So, you know, I go back to when I started before I learned to fly. And I had these mentors or I had these older guys that were kind of pushing me in the direction of aviation helicopters, and the things that they gave me. You know, whether it's flying tips or just support. It's, it's really priceless. And so the one thing I love about aviation is that there's always, you know, at some point along your career, somebody helped you out, maybe somebody took your, you know, ride along, or somebody put a word in for you to get a job, told you to come out and fly their plane or their helicopter with you. And that's something I'm always trying to pay forward. You know, a lot of times, I'll have an empty seat next to me. And so I always try and grab somebody, you know, that could really benefit from that experience, even just sitting and watching what other people do, you know, we learn through people with more experiences. So you know, being a mentor, I feel like I'm, you know, I haven't been flying that long. And I'm not that old to maybe be a mentor, but I'm always trying to pass that forward and help people however, I can. Yeah, for sure. I always felt like I never understood when you get pilots, and there's a few out there that have their egos really high. You know, like, looked down on like, Guys, it's lower time or try not to help and they're just dicks. No. And it's just like, why? You know, like, I never used to. We all were there at some point. You know, we all were a fresh CFI with 200 hours. And we were a fresh, you know, commercial pilot with 1000 hours, and we're just, you know, kind of cut our teeth in the game. Yeah, we're just wide eyed. Like looking around, like, trying to imagine ourselves in their shoes. And yeah, you get some grumps, I hope to never come off like that. I hope to never have an ego with it. And yeah, I'll sit and chat about helicopters and tell you what, what I did and what I think that you should do. And, you know, along those lines, it's never too late to that's one of my favorite things with aviation is that people get into flying, when sometimes when they're 15. And that's so cool. Sometimes when they're 40 Yeah, it might be cooler. I get a lot of people on my Instagram asking me if it's too late to get into aviation. I'm like, It's not to wait. But if you want a 20 year career in airlines, maybe a little too late, but it's definitely not too late to start flying. Well. Great. That's wonderful. And Chad's phone number for all you people. If you guys want to get into utility and play games, he's here to help everyone know, totally paying it forward. We've all been there. And yeah, that's super important. And, you know, sometimes not gonna lie. You just don't really feel like talking to people, or you've had a really long flying day, and it's just not your day. And maybe you do feel a little grumpy and someone approaches you at the wrong time. Just tell them. Hey, man, it's been a really long day. I'd really love to help you out. But let me give you my contact information. I'd love to chat about this another time, you know. And that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much, Chad for taking the time out of your day to talk to us and share your story. Thanks my bad for not watching World War. It is your bad. It's a pretty dope show. Hey, thanks, guys. This was really fun by brighter. ground school is in session. Alright, AV nerds. Welcome to your groundschool at the end of the episode, thanks for sticking around. We're going to answer Susan's question. What do you do when you find something wrong on your preflight check? And are all of those things you find no fly issues? Well, first of all, great question. If you have something broken on pre flight, what in the heck do you do next? Well, we're going to turn to 91.2 13 of the federal regulations to answer and the first part of the regulations discusses minimum equipment list. And E ELLs, and very basically an MDL is an agreement between the FAA and the operator for equipment that may be inoperative on the aircraft as long as they abide by certain instructions and maintenance procedures listed. However, you're not going to find these on training aircraft. So let's just skip ahead a little 91 213 says a person may take off an aircraft with inoperative instruments and equipment provided a couple things. There's a lot of legal jargon in these regulations. So we're gonna make it real simple. So one, it can't be part of the type certification for that. aircraft meaning the approval design for that aircraft and all the components including things like propellers, your engine, your control stations, you obviously don't want any of those things inoperative before you fly them to if any of the equipment that you find on your pre flight is indicated as required on the aircraft equipment list or kinds of Operation equipment list for the kind of flight operation being conducted. Number three, if any of those pieces of equipment are required by 91 205 or any other rule of this part for this specific kind of flight operation being conducted, okay. Basically 91 205 is the part of the far that lists all of the equipment that is required for day VFR, night VFR and instrument. So if any of the pieces of equipment that you find are on that list, you may not take off. And number four, last but not least, is Fitz required by an airworthiness directive and a D are legally enforceable rules required by the FAA in accordance with 14 CFR Part 39 to correct an unsafe condition in a product. Basically, the FAA came out with required maintenance items for specific make and models of aircraft, and you can find those listed on the FAA website. Alright, so, in summation, if it is part of a type certification, if it's required by the kinds of Operation equipment list, if it's listed in 91 205, or required to be operational by an airworthiness directive, you may not take off. Now, if you absolutely need to fly the aircraft to a place where maintenance can be performed, you can request a special flight permit. I know you're all special out there, but you still need to get permission from your local Fisto your flight standards district office. So what are you do if you find something on the aircraft that's inoperative? That's not any of those things? Can you just take the aircraft off and go on your merry way? Well, actually, there's still a couple of things that you need to do before you can take off. One thing that you could do is remove that piece of equipment or instrument, in which case you would need a new weight and balance for that aircraft, or you can deactivate and placard in operative. Now, how do you deactivate something? Well, before you start pulling circuit breakers and deactivating things yourself, just consult with your maintenance guys, and make sure that it doesn't require further maintenance for you to deactivate it. And if they give you the go ahead, go ahead and just pull the circuit breaker for that piece of equipment and you're going to want to give yourself a friendly reminder that that piece of equipment is broken so you don't accidentally use it in flight by throwing on an inoperative sticker on that piece of equipment. Well I'm out of breath you guys and that is the end of the lesson. Thank you so much for sticking around. And if you're still here, don't forget to like and subscribe. And you know, hit us up on Instagram. We'd love to hear from you have a beautiful, beautiful day.