Leigh Coates: @Helipilotleigh

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:02):
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast
What's up AV nerds of allflavors. Welcome to the forever
on the fly podcast, your biweekly dose of aviation
inspiration, education, andentertainment. My name is Diane

(00:24):
mi nombre. And we're here to getyou guys left on aviation and we
might need to go to the grocerystore to get some nerds because
I'm kind of craving them now.
Yeah, yeah, some Pop Rocks.
Pop Rock, Pop Rocks are my jamwhen I was a kid. So how do you
think that our live podcast wentlast week?

(00:45):
I think our live podcast wentreally well.
A lot, a lot of learning thingsthat that happened. So if you
guys missed the live show lastweek, unfortunately, I wasn't
feeling well. So just forsafety. I had Jose stay at home.
And unfortunately, that meantthat we could not record it on
our microphones to post on thepodcast. But you can still check

(01:06):
it out on Instagram at foreveron the fly under our Instagram
channel. And you guys can checkout the interview of us
answering everybody's questionsthat they had. So yeah, that was
super fun though. It's reallynerve wracking going live. You
know, it was nerve wracking.
Yeah.
I felt very out of my elementout of sorts. Yeah, I didn't

(01:30):
know what to say. But luckilyyou went first and it kind of
set the tone. I was like okay,now I kind of know what it's all
about. You know, they're gonnaask them questions you're gonna
fill in it. Jose waslike really ready for his close
up because he put the cameralike right up on his face.
Yes, I did. Really good. Dianewas always up on my business

(01:53):
telling me oh, a proper oh mygod and not enough lighting. I
might put what do you want forme? I got my phone on.
I mean, I wanted you to justprop it up and have good
lighting. Is that too much toadd? It was
a desk. I have a desk in myapartment. I got my bed
and I'm going to take you toIKEA later. Forget the grocery

(02:13):
store. I'm going to get to yourdesk. You know, I have a bed
with the mirror.
Yeah, sure. Sure, sure. Allright. Well, guys this week. Our
guest joins us from Alaska withher story. She's flown
everything from Robbie's he was500 for 12 Eight stars to most
recently the belt50550555 I'm gonna call it
balanceon maybe to start a new campaign

(02:43):
for their 505 Get flavor flavor.
That's so fucking pop.
Yeah. Well, I guess it's here toshare her unique journey from
traveling the world as a prosnowboarder to how she developed
in the aviation world beginningin Hawaii to starting her own
utility helicopter company basedin Valdez Alaska.

(03:04):
So in this episode, we're gonnadive into flying in Alaska, her
epic cross country journey inthe new 505 She's gonna cross
all around Meribel to theBahamas to the Midwest up the
Rockies and finally up toAlaska. Dang, what a journey
that is. inspiring peoplebringing joy along the way and
oh my god, she's also a BravoAlpha. And you ask what is the

(03:26):
Bravo Alpha? Bad? You said itsenorita blasting off gravity
and a jetski getting ready tothrow on her racing gear
on her gravity. You guys mightknow her as li Yogi pilot on
Instagram Han standing her wayaround Alaska spreading her

(03:49):
inspiration around the worldthrough her social media. And
while we're on the topic of epiccross countries and ferrying
helicopters to new lands, well,we thought it might be kind of
fun for at the end of theepisode, we are going to do a
short ground lesson on all ofthe required documents that
aircraft has to have and whatyou as the pilot need to have
before you can pick up thataircraft and fly it. Lee coats

(04:15):
I will five and we're going tofly around spreading joy and
happiness throughout the landand landing in all kinds of
different places. And Hi, I'mLee coats and I'm forever on the
fly Hi got it work. Ready? Hi.

(04:42):
Thank you. Hi. You lookbeautiful as well.
Thank you. I just you know,I literally just got home from a
six hour flight. So I'm probablydon't smell pretty.
I actually I just saw One ofyour stories and you were in a
race with Southwest orsomething? Uh, yeah. It was

(05:04):
pretty funny.
We flew down to Phoenix andyeah, I mean, it looks like
you're gonna beat them there fora second. I was. I was hopeful.
I was hopeful you're beatingspirit, that's for sure.
Oh, no. Did you hear abouteverything that's happening with
spirit I just got brought up tospeed.
So, um, well, Spirit Airlineshad a canceled about 70% of

(05:25):
their flights the past fourdays, because of a front moving
through, but they don't haveenough when they when they have
to deviate to different airportsto kind of accommodate the
scheduled routes that they have.
Sometimes they have to moveother aircraft to other bases.
But those other bases because itCOVID Don't have the same type
of maintenance and the same typeof personnel that they need to
carry on those scheduledoperations that are now

(05:47):
unscheduled. So they don't havethe pilots the pilots or duty
now they don't have themaintenance, they don't have the
schedulers. And it was just ashit. Well, pardon my French
shit show, you know, andcanceled 70% of their ops. And
yeah, there's just like asnowball that just keeps rolling
down.
And that the company that youworked for,

(06:07):
I don't know. But my friends, myfriends work there. They kind of
gave me the heads up.
And now No, and I'd always heardspirit was actually a really
good place to work. I mean, Idon't like flying with them. But
I guess the pilots got treatedreally well and they get paid
really well. Not bad. Not bad.
But anyways, let's get to you,Madame. Thank you for joining
us. You have probably one of thecoolest, most impressive resumes

(06:31):
slash just life stories youstarted off as a pro
snowboarder. Can you tell us alittle bit about that? So what's
your story? Where are you from?
Oh, geez, where am I from?
That's like the hardest questionever. Actually. Yeah. I was born
in Mexico. No way. Yeah, it was.

(06:53):
Yeah. My parents were.
I was born in in Sanada, intothe military hospital, only
because my parents were livingin a commune about 60 miles from
there. Yeah. So when my mom gavebirth, they rushed me off to the
hospital. And that's where I wasborn. But they were basically
living off grid and travelingaround in Central and South
America. Well, not SouthAmerica, but Central and Central

(07:15):
America. Yeah. and Mexico. Andthat's where I was born. And
then my little brother was bornin the lease. And then we ended
up moving to the States when Iwas maybe four. So I don't
remember that much of being downthere except for running around
in bare feet and no walls andbathrooms. And yeah, easy. I

(07:36):
guess when I answered thatquestion, I would say Southern
California is probably home.
Because that's where my momlives. My stepdad. That's where
I went to high school. That'swhere I started flying. I
started flying when I was 15. Ilived in Yeah, I also lived in
Santa Fe, New Mexico for manyyears. And I live in Lake Tahoe
for many years. I lived inHawaii for years. And now Alaska

(07:56):
is home.
So you grew up in a very nomadiclifestyle. So being a pilot was,
you know, you're probably usedto all that moving around and
no, probably getting bored inone place. I understand that.
Yeah, and I have no problemreinventing every time I've if I

(08:19):
go to a new place, just learningthat place and meeting new
people and figuring out newschedules for myself and, and
even now, I still spend aboutsix months away from Alaska in
the winter months, and just getinto my routine there. And so
yeah, I I feel home is whereverI am at the at the moment.
What made you pick Val DS? Isthat where you live currently?

(08:39):
That's where I am. Yeah. Sofunny. So I was actually working
for a company in at a Merrillfield out of Anchorage. And we
were doing all kinds of work allover the state. So I was out in
Donlin Creek in western Alaska.
I was just basically living inman camps all over the place and
doing really fun flying, workingin mineral projects. And then I

(09:00):
came to Valdez. I did a two weekjob here. And it was just it was
so civilized. I mean, it's atown of 2500 people. Yeah, but
for me, I was like, I'm out of aman camp, and I actually have a
bathroom that I can use insteadof an outhouse. This is so
civilized. Ah. Toilet. Amazing.

(09:26):
So, luxury.
When I was done with that twoweek job, I went back to my boss
and said, Hey, if you've gotother jobs and valleys like I'm
your girl, I would love to workthere. And it was beautiful. So
the next year, he sent me twovalleys with a helicopter and
said start a remote operationthere. I want to have a presence
there. And and so that's yournew home base. And I was like,
perfect.

(09:48):
Where you flying? 44 there. Isthat where you were flying it?
That was a 44 Yeah, yeah, acompany called Jayhawk air.
Yeah. And the owner Tim, justgreat, great guy. He was a real
big man. For me and starting myown business, eventually after
that, and he's passed away sincebut he's a great legend in my
life. Sorry to hear that. Yeah.
But so I ended up meeting two ofmy partners here in valleys. So

(10:12):
I met Douglas, who is ourmaintenance guy and Mike, who's
now become my man, but he's alsoour paperwork liaison. Okay, now
we're getting somewhere.
I don't know, how are thePickens up there and
tell you there's less women moremen?

(10:34):
There's definitely a lot of menup here, that's for sure.
Really, but Well, odds are good.
And what do they say they saythe goods are odd and odds are
good. before so it was a totalfluke that I ended up here and
it was and started a businesshere just so
you can think toilets for youending up with

(10:59):
I think that full all the waythrough. That's true.
Great, um, I think we skippedahead a lot in your story, I
kind of want to backtrack. Andjust here from the beginning of
your aviation journey to whereyou are now, and, and even a
little bit about your past beinga pro snowboarder and how you

(11:20):
got into aviation. And let's gofrom there.
Well, so the aviation startedfirst, my mom met my stepdad. He
had a pirate, private pilot'slicense, and he took me up and I
was just like, wow, and lookingdown on the world and seeing all
the little cars and the littlepeople I was like, this is the
coolest thing ever. It's totalfreedom. And so that was a real

(11:41):
big changing point in my life.
And I was just, I mean, I was15. So I didn't know what I was
going to do with my life. Untilthat day, I was like, I'm going
to be a pilot. And so I, Istarted flying lessons. I think
I was 16, maybe even 15. Still,I ended up getting my license at
age 19. I had just turned 19 Iwas so bummed I really wanted it
on my still be able to say 18bucks. Yeah. And that was that I

(12:03):
paid for it myself. I actuallyasked my grandfather to help me
he was the only person in ourfamily that had any money at all
that I could ask. And he justsaid, You know what, you're
gonna feel better about it ifyou do it on your own. And I was
like, so crushed at that moment.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks, grandpa.

(12:26):
Did you if you do find that tobe true, do you think that
paying for it out of your ownpocket made you respect it more
or appreciate it more after youachieved it?
Very much. So I mean, I thinkthat goes for anything. And, and
as hard as, as it is to hear atthat moment of like, oh, gosh,
I'm gonna have to climb thisgigantic kill all by myself.

(12:48):
Once you do that, it's such ahuge accomplishment. But then I
knew I could do anything I everwanted in life. So that was,
that was a really big moment forme. But I didn't continue on
that path. Because I ended upgetting my private license. I
started on my instrument rating.
And then I went snowboardingwith some friends. And I was
like, Whoa, what is this and allof a sudden, my focus went from
aviation to snowboarding. And Iliterally went every single day.

(13:10):
I think I was two weeks inbefore I got a job as an
instructor.
Wow. You never you neversnowboard before. That was your
first time snowboarding and youbecame an instructor.
Say that I was a goodinstructor. I remember
specifically thinking please letme be able to stand up and not

(13:32):
fall over when I get off thechairlift. Are you
going to Big Bear? Were youstill in Southern California at
that time.
At that point, I had moved toSanta Fe. So I was I was going
to Santa Fe ski basin, which isa really cool Hill. Nice. And we
had a really big snow year. AndI was just lucky because I was
buying tickets every day, lifttickets, and they're expensive.
So I had some friends that wereinstructors and they said just

(13:53):
come get a job. Even if youdon't teach very much. You'll
get your pass. And so I probablyonly taught 10 lessons. That's
awesome. That is the bug. Andthat actually took me on a 10
year tangent. So I ended up inBreckenridge, Colorado for a
couple seasons. I went to NewZealand when it stopped snowing
in the northern hemisphere. Iwas like I'm going south. And

(14:15):
all of this with my own money. Iwas I was always resourceful. I
was always frugal. I was alwaysfiguring out how to make things
work without without a bigbudget. I waited tables, I saved
my money. I bought and soldthings. I always had like enough
money in the bank that if mybrother needed to borrow some
money that I could lend him somemoney with a little bit of

(14:35):
income on that. So I was alwayslike looking for ways I was kind
of are always entrepreneurialagain. Yeah, man. You're
a hustler girl. Yeah, respect,no mad respect. Cool, and that's
scary. A lot of people wouldn'tdo that. Yeah.
Yeah, he had a 66 Mustang and Ihad a 67 Mustang and he needed

(14:59):
to buy this trailer If for somereason I don't remember what it
was, but I was like, well, youneed 300 bucks. Here you go.
I'll give you 600 for your car,and I think I sold it for 1500
right away. Oh, yes. Yeah, Ithink you still might be mad at
me about.
I like the 67 better than the66. But that's my opinion. Hey,
Ilike you the 67 was my favorite.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totallytotally. Yeah, sure

(15:29):
mechanic. Diane, I know you'vedone a lot of Yeah,
yeah, I haven't. I didn't workon cars. I just worked on boats
when I was in the Coast Guard.
The Yeah, mostly just like bigdiesel boat engines. Cutter
engine mad respect for you.
Right? Well, actually, most ofthe time I worked on like the

(15:49):
sewage pumps,like in the cargo bins in like
Boston's dry yards, you know,looking like Tiny Tim, and
they're coming out like, can Ihave? No,
it's pretty badass. I waslistening to your story on one
of your lives. Both of you guys.
Just mad respect. Oh,thank you. Yeah, we were so

(16:10):
nervous about that live. I knowit was my first time first time
going live. And with thesethings, we can go back and edit
and be like, Oh, no, we soundedlike an idiot there. With live
there's no going back. There'sno editing.
In my mind. It was like You eversee Wolf of Wall Street?

(16:31):
Senorita. Yeah, I don't thinkso. Oh, you have right. Yeah,
with Leonardo DiCaprio. He takesa bunch of clay leads. And he
thinks he drove really, reallywell. But then like they show
like the surveillance orsomething the next day and it
shows it's crashing into everycar. He's going to park in my
mind. After we did it. I'm like,Nah, man, I crushed then I go

(16:55):
back and I'm like, yeah. Oh, no.
No, it was it waspretty cool. Yeah, not not too
bad. Well,from what I saw, I think both
crushed it. It was alive. I sawit afterwards.
Yeah. Cool. I appreciate that.
We went live because you werestuck on a boat. Thank Thank
you.

(17:16):
Thank you for that.
Thank you for pushing us to do alive interview. Otherwise, we
wouldn't have done it. But yeah,so I mean, it was a good excuse.
I mean, I think you had a prettygood excuse for not being able
to show up to the interview andactually I ended up having some
troubles with my airplane andgot stuck in French Valley
anyways, so it went all worked.
It all worked out. It all workedout.

(17:39):
Well good. And I'm glad we'refinally here now but yeah, stuck
on the boat was kind ofterrifying, right? wasn't very
fun.
Really?
Yeah. What happened? Yeah, whathappened? What was the full
story andso we went fishing and we
weren't expecting the weather tocome up the forecast wasn't that
bad. And we were in we're in abay that was kind of protected
but we couldn't find a goodanchorage in there. And then all
of a sudden the winds picked upa swell picked up and we ended

(18:01):
up sitting we ended up doing twodays of like the staying on
watch watching the hurt theanchor, and the guys weren't
even fishing anymore. So rough.
That's when you know it's reallyrough. Yeah, and then yeah, and
we couldn't get a good anchoragewe kept slipping off of the
anchor and so after that we gotback out into the we watched one

(18:22):
small boat leave and we askedhim over the radio to give us a
report I was like Can you giveus a pilot report? They don't
fishermen are a whole differentbreed. Yeah, I'm sure he never
He never let us know the pilotreport but he came back he came
back in and we're like okay,we're not going to try that. We
tried it one more time and wejust got out in the seas were so
rough so we turned around cameback we didn't have radio enough

(18:43):
to get weather and we didn'thave cell phone service. Why
was there no way to call theCoast Guard if you guys got in
some deep trouble or we werein real trouble then we could
for sure maybe get a postcardand we could relay and we
actually listened to somebodyelse relaying where they had
lost their engine and so it wasthey ended up okay because card
didn't have to go for them theiranchor held but that's kind of

(19:05):
last resort in the boating worldlike you do not call the Coast
Guard as I'm sure you know,Diane you probably get a rash
and crap for calling the CoastGuard. I mean,
yeah, what I mean was stationedup in Cape Disappointment and
that was like some pretty roughwater up there. Right the mouth
of the Columbia River. I don'tknow if you've ever heard of the

(19:26):
Columbia River bar, but it is amassively treacherous river bar.
But pretty much anytime someonewent out with a sailboat we
would just put on our suits belike alright, let's give it like
30 they're gonna be calling ushere shortly. I would say about
probably 70% of people who buyboats don't actually know what

(19:47):
they're doing and don't know howto read the charts and go out
and stuff that they shouldn'tbe. Yeah, yeah, got always got
that call. Well, that's, that'sinsane. I'm so glad Okay,
I know that's pretty. I mean,that's pretty sad that nobody
would help you like thatfisherman guy who just was like
later losers, but then he comesback. He's like, all right.

(20:13):
Tied up for the night. Crappyout there. But in all reality, I
mean, we had everything weneeded. We had food, we had all
we had shelter. It's a niceboat. So it was totally fine. It
was just an extra, an extra dayout there that we weren't
expecting. And thenthen they sent you the bill that
see will cost youthe weather actually got really

(20:37):
nice. And it was forecast to beterrible. So we finally got a
little bit of cell phoneservice. And I called my sister
in law and like, Hey, how's theweather look, and she's like,
don't go it's terrible. TheCaesar at eight feet high on
this side of the island, andthey're seven feet high on that
feet on that side, and don't goand it's and we're like, well,
we're gonna keep going. Anyway,we kept going and it just smooth
out and it was perfect. AndAngel started singing. And I was

(20:58):
like, You know what, we shouldspend one more day out here. Why
not? So we found a really nicecode that we could get a good
anchorage and I just didn't, Iwanted to shake it off and not
be like scared to go on anotherbig fishing trips.
Were you guys on? What kind ofboat were you guys in?
It is a 45 foot. It's almostlike a houseboat. But you can

(21:18):
fish off of it as well. Igotcha. Mike has had it for as
long as I've known him probably20 years before that, too. Yeah.
Oh, that's a cool old houseboat. Super comfy and Cruzi.
It's all like wood on theinside. It's a unified if you've
ever heard of that. Okay. Yeah.
Well, where did we leave off inyour story we love on your

(21:40):
aviation story.
Where we left off withsnowboarding. Oh, yes. We were
in snowboard.
Never got to the snow. Yes.
Sorry. Yeah. Snowboarding yourinstructor for 10 days or 10.
InstructorYeah. 10 lessons, 10. Lessons
and lessons. You got it in twoweeks. That's right.
Okay. That's where we left off.
So snowboarding was anaccidental career. I just love

(22:01):
to do it. I did it every day Itraveled the country or I've
traveled the world really on myown dime. And then all of a
sudden I showed up in SquawValley, Lake Tahoe, and
everybody that's like, slowlywould if you've ever heard that,
and everyone's like, Who are yousponsored by like, What do you
mean sponsored? And I just Ididn't understand at that point.
This is in the mid early, earlyto mid 90s. And I didn't

(22:22):
understand that that wassomething that people could
actually make a living at. Andnext thing you know, they're
like, Oh, you're not sponsored?
Well, here you go. Here's aboard. Here's bindings. Here's
clothes, here's glasses,goggles, and and then I started
getting on a salary. And then Istarted racing boardercross and
was entering the procompetitions and doing well
ended up about fifth. I wasfifth in the world when I had a
car accident. Oh my god. Yeah.

(22:45):
Fifth World.
What is that? what's what? I'mnot familiar with that term,
which border crossing supportis six snowboarders start out in
the gate. And when that gateopens, you first went across the
finish line wins. And you havewhat do you do? Banks, berms,
you have jumps. And a lot oftimes, I was always the risk
taker. So if there was a jump,where I could either take the

(23:08):
big jump, or I could suck it upand try to just play a
conservative and maybe hold thelead. I would take the big jump.
I either one or I fell.
Yeah. That's badass. I wouldwatch you. So fun. That's
incredible. And you did that for10 years?

(23:30):
I did. You said you wereactually after. Go ahead finish
what you're gonna say senioryear.
Oh, well, when I first becameaware of you, Diane is because
you met Bob Carlson, who ownsArbor snowboards. And Arbor
snowboards was one of my firstboard sponsors. And I actually
was their very first pro rider,which was cool because they

(23:51):
hired a pro rider, female prorider, which was kind of rare at
that at that time.
And completely spacing. Wheredid I meet Bob?
It was some party and he guyssent me a selfie or Oh, the
party in LA Yeah.
Oh, wow. How random I remember.
Wow. Ba andso he had a 20 year reunion and

(24:12):
I showed up in my own helicopterand camped out and so cool. Like
five days. Yeah, that's prettynice. I haven't seen him since
that party, but that's supercool.
Yeah, I'm really proud of him. Imean, he I was going to New
Zealand for the for the winter.
And he and his partner at thetime, Chris. They had this board
that was Hawaiian koa wood topsheet and they said, Hey, will

(24:34):
you take this with you to NewZealand and see how it rides? I
was like, Absolutely, I will. Sothat was kind of my first
introduction with those guys.
And then I came back and I waslike, you guys, you need team
riders. You need this. I gavethem a whole proposal and, and
they were like, okay, yep. And Iended up becoming their team
manager. And just was, was sotight with them from the very

(24:56):
beginning. And it's really coolto see what they've grown into.
Yeah, That's pretty cool. Wow,man, small
Arbor skateboards. It's thearbor collective now. So they're
skateboards, there's shoes,there's bindings, there's
boards. So I guess Long StoryShort was snowboarding. It was
my passion. I absolutely lovedit. And then I had a car
accident where I could no longerrace at the level that I was. So

(25:19):
I moved to Hawaii, becausethat's what people do. And they
want to when they can'tsnowboard anymore, right, yeah.
So I had a friend in Hawaii andhas showed up at her place and,
and I was just literally therefor to skip one winter season.
And this guy that I met at aparty, he's like, this is like,
Yeah, I'm a helicopter pilot.
And he's all cool about it. AndI was like, What do you mean?
He's like, Well, I'm a studenthelicopter pilot, because once I

(25:41):
told him that I had flownairplanes, he was like, he kind
of came clean. Okay. And then hetold me,
he was like, Yeah, I've likelook after. And then he started
telling you all about and hestarted asking them about
airspace, and he's like, she'slike full disclosure I'm five

(26:06):
hours in that's pretty funny.
That is.
Becoming my student. A littlebright shot him down.
He ended up being your student.
Yeah.
Well, he was. I mean, everybodygoes through school at their own
pace, right, of course, eightyears. And some people like me,
I'm like, 13 months, I did allfive ratings in 13 months. I

(26:28):
wasn't wasting time. And I wasin my, I think I was 30 or 31 By
that point, so take it seriousand just like I need to get my
career going.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So mass track.
I'm so stuck on like the homiegoing like yeah, you know, so
girl. A helicopter pilot. gonnahear like, oh, yeah, where you
flying? He's like, you know, thepattern. I'm in Kona, you know,

(26:50):
flying Kona. Next thing? Yeah,you're like, you're like, me
too. And he's like, Oh, shit. Ithought I had it in the bag.
Yeah. Okay, so after mana Lola.
Yep. So I went to Monaco. I didall five ratings in the 13
months. And then I was the luckyone of the eight of us that all

(27:12):
finished our CF double i rightaround the same time that got
job the job offer. So I actuallygot to stay and fly as a flight
instructor there. But I wasready for whatever I sold all my
stuff. I was ready. I was goingto wherever I could get the job.
It's just what you have to dowhen you're climbing that
ladder. And then after that job,let's see I did the 1000 hours

(27:32):
and I was sending out resumeseverybody. And I almost went to
the Gulf of Mexico to go fly forpH I think and at the very last
minute I got a call from temscoin Juneau. Well actually they're
in Ketchikan but they've gotbases in Juneau and Skagway and
that's what I really wanted. Iwanted to fly Alaska. And they

(27:53):
offered me the job. I came upthere, flew three months, got my
a star time, got the experience,and then came back and got my my
dream job in Hawaii flying toursover the volcano and I was like
yes, I did the full loop. I'mdone. I'm just going to be like
surfing in the afternoon flyingtours in the morning. And that's
my life. And I was perfectlyhappy for like six months I've

(28:19):
said the same joke over the samemacadamia nut farm and I might
have said it twice and thenlaughed twice. So wait, hold
on, what is your macadamia nut?
Job intrigue? Well, nobodylikes a premature nut. Because
the nuts have to be I don't evenremember what the gym yes

(28:40):
I'm taking no look, I'm thequeen of dead jokes. So
a macadamia nut it has to falloff of the tree before it's
actually right. So you you don'twant big wind and so they
actually put wind breaking treesso that they won't fall off
prematurely because you knownobody likes a premature nut

(29:04):
back ondoing tours over the Hoover Dam
I was like you know what is thewhat did the fish say when you
hit it on the wall? them I'dlook around and see who would
laugh and like if they didn'tlaugh I'm like fine forget show
like I'm not gonna I'm not gonnagive you the cool toy

(29:27):
that's probably a little moreappropriate than mine. No, I
just I like yours better likeyou're very well
anyway, I was flying a huge 500I was like making good money. I
paid off my student loan I hadborrowed actually 30 grand to go
through to finish school I paidmost of it out of pocket while
waiting tables at the FourSeasons actually. And and so I

(29:47):
had bought a condo like I wasset. And then I was like okay,
wait, I just set up this lifeand I'm super bored and I need
to go fly some real missions andI'm losing my skills. I was
landing at an airport every day.
single time. So a friend of minewas working up in Alaska for an
AR 44 operator. And she got me ajob and I came up and, and
that's when I feel like Ilearned how to fly. I think I

(30:09):
was at about 2500 hours at thatpoint, and still didn't really
understand how to do confinedarea landings and how to really
pick out a spot where I'm goingto put the tail right between
those two bushes there. And I'mgoing to I'm not just looking
for big, open space to land andI'm looking for a little knoll
something I can hang the tailoff of just all the different
types of thinking that you do.

(30:31):
When you're doing off airportstuff.
Yeah, man, Ilearned how to longline.
Did you do that all in judo,when you were with Tesco? Or did
youNo, not at all. temsco was my
training wheels. i That was agreat job, just for stepping
into the world of starting tounderstand weather, but I wasn't
making real decisions there.

(30:51):
That was following somebodyaround who knew what they were
doing. Yeah, yeah. Which wasgreat for me at that point. The
way that temsco does is theyjust they don't hire you. They
say, yep, you can come on up.
And then if you pass thetraining, you're hired. Yeah. So
you don't even knowthat. I used to fly for
Northstar? Yeah, um, but yeah,no, I could see that the temsco

(31:12):
is very rigid, you know, good atwhat they do. But they're very
rigid at what they do as well,with like, their policies and
stuff,which for me was perfect. Coming
out of being a flight instructorand only understanding that
rectangular box that I had flownin, said to come to temsco and
have felt like having trainingwheels because I didn't have to
make all those decisions. Ididn't have to get thrown into

(31:33):
like being a real Pac and reallyunderstanding all the decision
making that happens. Yeah.
Because flying in that kind ofweather and picking out landing
spots that was all brand new tome.
Yeah, there was, um, one doesone thing that I liked about,
don't get me wrong, I hadfriends that work at temsco. And
they loved it. You know, theguys have been there for three,

(31:53):
four or five years. And theygone through a couple of seasons
with them. But one of the thingsI liked about Northstar is that
the freedom that they gave us onbeing able to go do what you
want to do, and land just aslong as you made the time that
you needed to make. It was kindof like your free little birdie.
Like, you know, go do go do yourthing. So and the weather,
though you're right, it waspretty challenging when I was

(32:15):
down there, coming fromCalifornia.
Yeah, and when you're new to it,and you don't understand that,
just having that local knowledgeand time and experience is a big
and having the weather cams, youknow, not having like a TAF and
you're looking at the online ata picture where it's like super
cloudy and says, This is what atree looks like at two miles.

(32:35):
Here's a river at five. And ifyou can see the mountain peak,
that's 10. And then I look atthe live cam. And I look at the
picture. And I'm like, wow, itlooks like we're not going
today, folks.
I flew for them. And I flew fortemsco in 2006. And that was an
kind of an era where there werethere were lots of pilots, and
they could pick and choose whothey hired. And so for me, I was

(32:58):
like, I am so grateful for anyopportunity that I can get any
job, I don't care where it is,I'm going to that job because I
want to progress my career andlearn this stuff. And, and so
halfway through the season,well, they actually send you a
packet and they say, Hey, you'regonna make $1,500 a month,
you're going to live in a pilothouse with 12 other people
you're, you're going to have oneday off, you're going to work 14

(33:20):
hours a day, that's not flying,that's just your duty day. But I
mean you I knew exactly what toexpect and so I get up there and
then halfway through the summerall the guys around are just
like pissed off that they'reonly making $1,500 a month and
that they're living in thispilot house with other people
and they only have one day off.
I'm like but that's what yousigned up for Norstar get makes
more and coastal makes more butyou didn't get hired by them you

(33:42):
got hired by these guys, theseguys gave you the opportunity be
grateful for it go through whatwhat you said you're going to do
and do that with gratitude andthen go to the next step from
there. So I I've always beenjust super grateful for any
opportunity that I get and I forsure that the the hard work that
goes into it and the pay yourdues thing I I kind of like that

(34:05):
I kind of like that we have topay our dues to get somewhere
that I hate people who likefudge the logbooks, you know
people that lie about their timeand stuff like that. I know if
you and I'm just kind of likeforget you dude. Oh, come back
around. Yeah,even met a wingsuit or on a went
on a date with with like fromBumble or something like years
ago and we were on a hike and hewas bragging about how he fudges

(34:28):
logbooks to show that he had the200 jumps so that he could get
into the wingsuit and now he's awingsuiting instructor. And I'm
sitting there like yep, thisdates over Mike I'm not
interested anymore.
He's like you want to Lessonlike that's
not cool, man. That's not coolat all. Yeah, pay your dues like

(34:50):
it's okay.
It's okay to do and to sharethat you had done like, yeah,
I don't get I don't get it. Idon't get it. I don't like you
paid your dues. I have a lot ofrespect. For the journey that
you're on, and the journey thatyou are taking, tip the hat.
But after temsco, then I went toHawaii flew couple 1500 hours in
the 500. And then came back toAlaska and got into the 44.

(35:13):
Yeah, took a step back andaircraft. But I learned how to
really fly. And just absolutelyloved it. I did that for a
couple years. And then I gotinto the 500, again, doing the
same sort of work. But again,now I'm all living out in man
camps and using outhouses andusing a satellite phone every
once in a while to check in withmy family. Yeah. And so that's

(35:36):
when I ended up. Well, actually,I flew fell for 12 for for a
very short stint, and then Iflew, then I'd started doing
drill moves. Got into doing theprecise, long line. And there's
not a lot of women in Alaskathat are doing that. So it was a
rare breed. Yeah.
Did you find it difficult? Justthe sheer fact that you are a

(35:59):
female working in these mancamps with you know, did you
find it hard to get people torespect you? Or Did anyone give
you a hard time? While you're upthere? Did you experience like
sexism?
Not really, because I wasn'tlooking for it. And I didn't
even notice every once in awhile there would be some little

(36:19):
thing like well, okay, there wasone time where I picked up a
guy, I flew him maybe an hour towhere we were going to be based
for the next two week job. Andhe gets out of the helicopter.
He's like, I never flown with awoman before, runs off and grabs
a bottle of Jack Daniels orsomething. Yeah. By the end of
the project, he was he was very,he had a lot of respect for what

(36:43):
I was doing. And the type ofwork that I'm doing. I'm handing
I'm I'm setting 1000 poundpieces on top of another piece
on a tower and someone's puttinga bolt in there with their
fingers. So there's a lot ofrisk of trust that goes on not
only them trusting me, but metrusting them. So there's a lot
of communication and it takes alittle bit of time. And then

(37:05):
once you're once you're dialedin with your crew, and you each
respect each other, it's theirs.
Yeah, then you're the DreamTeam. I always like to say I fly
like a girl. Smooth, gentle andin control. Nice. I like it and
and a lot of the guys that Iwork with are like wow, we've
never had someone set the loadsdown so nicely, like a lot of
times it'll come down hard.

(37:25):
Yeah, like set it into theirhand cuz I fly like a girl.
I happened to be a couple oftimes flying in the canyon,
they'd like we do up and downsare basically like an elevator
service. You know, pickingpeople up and taking them to the
top and it would happen all thetime guys would get in there.
Usually older gentlemen, thatwould be like, Oh, I don't know

(37:47):
how I feel about a lady pilot.
You know, thing, like sayingthings like that. I'm like,
well, you're more than welcometo jump out, sir. You can live
down here if you'd like, or thenext female pilot can come pick
you up. Yeah, I don't know,stupid stuff like that.
You have I've seen it happen toyou. I remember like came in and
didn't want females flying forthem.

(38:09):
And yeah, there were there was acouple times, some passengers
roofie just flat out refusedrefused to fly with me because I
was a female. Or, you know,you'd get the once in a while
you'd actually, you know, setthe helicopter down really
nicely at the bottom of thecanyon. And they'd all go. Wow,
that was actually really smoothand like, what did you expect is

(38:30):
gonna happen? Anyways,I never I never experienced
anything like that, of course.
But there is a construction Expohappening in Vegas. And this guy
kept like, you know, pulling mychain. He's asking like this,
your real job is like, How comeyou don't get a man's job like
construction? Or like, you knowwhat I mean? Something like
that. And I remember we're onour way back. Finally I had

(38:53):
enough and I'm like, Yo, man,listen, dude, I could drop you
off right here in the middle ofthe desert. And you could walk
back like real man. His wifesort of looked at him and I
could just tell he wanted topunch me in the face because his
face got so red. I'm like, don'ttell my boss. I want to pull the

(39:16):
memory cards out of like thevideo recorders and say I never
brought himYeah, that's a great way to
handle it. And I mean, I thinkit's it's gonna be prevalent in
our society for a while longer,but it's changing. And one of
the funniest things thathappened actually was with a
woman. I I was flying it to herand a star onto a glacier. So I

(39:38):
flew a whole group of people upto the glacier and I get out and
I'm showing them around and, andthe ladies and I said something
about flying and she's like, Oh,are you a pilot too? And I was
like, Well, how do you think yougot here? Oh, my God on the
glacier. She looks over at thegentleman was in the front seat

(39:59):
the passenger that I that hadwas on the tour. And she's like,
well, he's the pilot, right? AndI was like, Oh, okay. So on the
way back down, I put her in thefront seat. I was like you fly
us home? Oh, yeah, that,of course, there's no dual
controls or anything, right?

(40:20):
Yeah, say like, you know, youget with passengers. And you did
the whole safety briefing. Andwe're wearing epaulets. So it's,
you know, obviously, you're apilot. And we'd even take
pictures with them in front ofthe helicopter and show them how
to use a seatbelt to the wholesafety briefing, introduce
myself as the pilot, even putthem into the helicopter and

(40:40):
then hop in the front seat. Andthey'd be like, Wait, you're not
our pilot? Are you? Like, whatdid you think we were doing this
entire time, but I'm like, I waslike the model taking pictures
with you like, I'm flattered.
But it's not the career choice.
I decided, sir. And there was acouple of times it was like, No,
you know what your real pilotwill be out here in just a few
minutes. And then I would juststart at the helicopter and

(41:03):
you put your hat on a differenthat.
Yeah, let me switch my hat here.
Hi, my name's Bob, I'm gonna beyour pilot today. Even just
yesterday, we you know, my, I'mbuilding some time in this
serious with a friend of minewho's getting his commercial,
and I'm also a CFI, andairplanes. So I was, you know,

(41:23):
just kind of helping helphelping him get his add on, and
building time at the same time,all that stuff. And we, we went
to this airport, there's a bigfire tanker, they invited us in
to come, you know, check out theinside and the guy that I've
been flying with, they juststarted talking to him. And they
were only looking at him whenthey were talking about aircraft

(41:43):
stuff. And then I would ask aquestion, you know, something
technical, something about theaircraft? And they wouldn't look
at me, they would answer to him.
Okay, well, how many gallons?
Can you guys hold in the tank?
And then they would just look athim and be like, well, the tank
and actually, yeah,no, are you gonna like address
me at any point of thisconversation? It was the

(42:06):
strangest thing. And even youknow, we went up to the cockpit,
he's talking about this up andthe same thing. I was asking all
these questions, and he wasdirecting all of the answers to
the guide and flying with. Andlike we leave there. I was like,
did you notice that he nevereven looked at me that entire
time. I was asking questions.
And this cop was kind of givingus a ride around the airport

(42:28):
because we weren't allowed towalk, walk around on the ramp.
You know, we've been talkingabout helicopters the whole
time. And we pull it to thishelicopter area of the ramp, and
he shouts outside. Hey, can canthis guy come check out your
help. He's a helicopter pilot,not even addressing me sitting
next to him at all. Me too. It'sjust like the strangest It was

(42:51):
so weird, like wasn't even downwas not even being acknowledged.
What's that? What town are in?
Santa Rosa? In Californiain California? Yeah. And I don't
know. It was it was reallystrange. But anyways, I digress.
Yeah, well, Ican totally relate to that.
Because when you first ask, likehave I had issues being a woman
in this industry doing this typeof work that I'm doing? I really

(43:11):
haven't I've had, once I once Iget into the safety spiel, and
we're, we understand who's who'sin control of making those
decisions, then it all changes,and then they have the respect
and it's all fine. But now, nowthat I fly around with a guy who
is my man, and in our ownpersonal helicopter, and I am

(43:32):
the instructor role, and he isthe student roll. Every I get
the same thing all the time,people will completely talk to
him, they don't talk to me, theywill ask him the questions. So
same exact situation that you'redealing with. I deal with that
all the time now.
Right? They just assume the guyis the pilot and you're just the

(43:54):
girlfriend or wife just taggingalong on the trip. And they're
the ones that they'readdressing. So you're the eye
candy, it's take that role. Imean, can we be both like
totallytell us about after so you got
your you went up into Alaska,you started getting to real fly
and like you were saying and youyou grew as a pilot.

(44:18):
So I grew as a pilot. Yep. And Ireally got to explore the state
and I my precision longlininggot better and better and
actually, I shouldn't say betterand better because it got less
worse and or less terrible andless longlining is really hard,
but I I mean, it's somethingthat I consider one of my

(44:38):
specialties at this point. So Ireally enjoy I enjoyed the the
challenge of it. But then Iended up in valleys and just
kind of where life took me. Iended up me and my two partners
we started our own business withone our 40 for 2010 We had one
our 44 I think we did part 91LOA At just 25 nautical mile

(45:02):
tours for that first year, andthen we got to one, we got a
single pilot 135 for 2012. Iflew all the missions, I had
worked other places in thestate. So I knew a lot of the
clients and I ended up buildingall kinds of all the cellphone
towers on the mountaintopsaround here and Coast Guard
stations and just did a lot oftelecommunications work with

(45:24):
that one are 44Well, you did all the long line
precision on the 44with the 44. Yeah. How much work
we do in Alaska with the 44Yeah, I'm sure the big crews
that are used to it they they'reon a budget and they've figured
out they can do everything into500 600 pound loads, we we move
everything in big super sacksand break things down into

(45:45):
smaller loads and get a lot ofwork done that way.
There's a company called Polluxup there, right. Pollux that
does a lot of the long linestuff in a 44 as well.
They do. Yep, there's politics.
There's Quicksilver there'sAlpine and vs. Helicopters was
was my company. So verticalsolutions vs. Helicopters
started with one helicopter hadno intention of turning it into

(46:07):
a big business. It was basicallyso that we could make some money
for our personal machine. I waslike, well, let's see if we can
break even anyway on theinsurance and, and other
payments that go into it as faras putting a nest together for
overhaul. But the end of thatyear, I was like, wow, we
actually have a lot of workaround here. We need another

(46:27):
helicopter. And so the end ofthat we took we bought a
helicopter, we never went intodebt. We just did it bootstrap
style. So each year, we grew aswas necessary. And as what we
had the funds for, we ended upbuying for our three or four our
40 fours one our 66 and one astar and, and put in a fuel
system were the only people onthe valleys airport that have

(46:51):
fuel for sale, big hangar, biginfrastructure, office retail
space. And then And then lastyear, we found a buyer for it.
And we handed over the keys andand brushed off her hands and
walked away. And that was kindof the plan from the beginning
was just to work to have fun andto be able to fly. And so

(47:13):
um, peanut butter jealous. Iknow now you have a bug getting
stuck in the bay and you'reliving in Costa Rica. I'm just
kidding.
And have a 505 and a five now,right? Yes. So basically, self
retired and then and then me andmy man went in on a on a candy
cane helicopter. So it's a brandnew bell 505 and it is painted

(47:36):
like a candy cane. We picked itup in Mirabel April 7, and we
flew all the way down the eastcoast. We flew out to the
Bahamas out to Turks and CaicosDominican Republic. Yep. And
turned around. We do havefloats. We have emergency pop
out floats on it. So we wereoverwater and the

(48:00):
fuel like did you have like aSTC for like the tanks at all?
No, itcould do no, you can pretty well
hop the longest leg only becausewe're battling a headwind, which
is pretty typical to have aheadwind there was from the
Bahamas to Turks and Caicos. Andwe actually did land on a
deserted island and put in acouple jugs of fuel, just on the

(48:20):
safe side.
But then, on the way you thoughtit was alone, you thought you're
alone. And then you see like thecast of Naked and Afraid out
there. You totally take off.

(48:41):
It's really funny, because whenwe did pick up all of a sudden
look down, I saw a wrecked boator there was an old boat wreck.
So we there could have beensomebody
like sprinkled some candy canesdown to them.
It was called Gilligan's Island.
Just missed it. Yeah,this helicopter has been a lot
of fun. And for us, our wholereason to fly it is for fun and

(49:04):
to be able to meet people and tobring joy to people's day and
take people for flights and andwe started sharing it on social
media. And next thing you know,we had a lot of people following
along with what we were doingand sending me little messages
like hey, I've got a floatingdock that you should come land
on or hey, my, my cousin, herhusband as a disabled veteran.

(49:27):
It'd be really cool if you couldstop and take them for flight.
And yeah, and we did him and acouple others and it was just
really, really an honor to beable to take people and give
them joy in a machine thatwasn't joyful for them in the
past. Yeah. Yeah, and take theirkids and I have another

(49:47):
girlfriend who I've never met inperson who I I hosted a year of
handstands on Instagram. And soI actually had people doing
handstands with me from all overthe world for a full year. Every
single day, and one of them isthis cute, sweet, short little
thing. I think she's maybe fourfoot five and she really wanted
to be in the Air Force and shecouldn't because of her height.

(50:08):
So I made a point to stop whereher home airport was and, and
put her in the front seat. Shehad to have her feet flat on the
floor, but she she flew it andshe had a great touch and then
then we got out of thehelicopter did handstands
together. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Imean, this was all during COVID.
So Canada was closed, we had topick up the helicopter in Canada

(50:32):
had to have paperwork to getacross the border. And then we
had to fly straight back to theUS. So straight line for us from
Mirabelle Canada to valleys.
Alaska, would have been rightthrough Canada. And since we
couldn't do that, we're like,why don't we take the long way?
Let's take the real long way.
plotted it out of where wewanted to go. I was like, Wow,
this actually looks like a candycane on foreflight. Does it call

(50:54):
this the candy cane to her? Socool. Yeah, no. A unicorn.
I have to really look at the mapthat you sent me and or the
chart that you sent me and see,because I didn't notice that. It
looks like a candy cane. Upsidedown. Yeah. And then realize now

(51:15):
into the Caribbean, then then itturned into the unicorn flight
move. Yeah. But yeah, I mean,just we left ourselves open. We
didn't have a set schedule. Wesaid, we've got two or three
months to just play. We wouldmeet people while we're fueling
up and they'd say, hey, come fora flight and my my breezy. This
one guy was really cool. He'slike, you've got to come see my

(51:37):
breezy if you're an aviationlover and you're traveling
around come on and check thisout. And next thing you know,
he's got me with goggles on andtaken off in this like, open
open air thing with a wing onit. Coolest flights I've ever
done is a scarf and a leatherhelmet with the cigar. Ever been

(51:57):
to Mexico?
Must be nice. Must be nice. Iwould love to do something like
that.
He's in Texas to and he's tryingto get 7002 I can't remember
what 7001 passengers. And so ifyou ever go through Texas, you
got to check him out. DaveDave and what town? What

(52:18):
Airport?
This down,Dave? Oh, it'll take me a little
bit to find. No worries. Noworries. We're good. It's he's
definitely not an InstagramerNo. He is in kultur field.
Bryan, Texas. Dave with thebreezy.

(52:41):
Alright, with the breezy. I likethat. I do that on my phone all
the time. Jessica at Chili's.
Do you guys are you on telegram?
No, what's that? No. Oh, it's anapp like WhatsApp. Oh, and
anytime somebody joins, it saysin their in your contacts. It'll

(53:02):
be like Dave from the baroutside smoking join telegram.
Great, I'm so glad.
Hey, and just so you know, yourinsurance company is watching
what you put on social mediaalso. And me as a private
helicopter owner, I didn't eventhink about that. I think about

(53:22):
well, maybe I don't want to putthat because I'll get some sort
of judgment from the, from thehelicopter community aviation
community. So but I neverthought well, my insurance is
watching that too. But our ourBrochard basically said, yeah,
there's a few people that havelost their insurance because
they dropped someone into a boatfrom a helicopter or they did
whatever. And yeah, and theysaid, You guys are all over the

(53:45):
internet. He said, You lookgood. He's like, we're we're
always a two pilot crew almostalways. So it's usually Mike and
I flying together. And, and wewere both professional pilots.
We both have. I mean, I've got7000 hours of flying, and he's
got about 1000 of helicoptertime, probably another 3000 of

(54:05):
airplane. So that's impressive.
So we both have a lot ofexperience and and we keep each
other in check. And we always ifwe question something like Oh,
do you think we should check theweather? Or do you think we
should file a flight plan or doyou think we should if we ask
should then the answer is yes.
Oil Yeah, shouldwe should we land on this island

(54:26):
and get some more fuel?
Probably, I don't see anotherisland.
We're gonna have a passengers inthe back and you're gonna see
like, they're gonna see thisperson up front, but he's really
a mannequin and a sweater. Andthey're gonna be like, Wow, your
co pilots really? Like yeah,that's how he rolls.

(54:46):
He just, you know how much of atalker not much of a talker.
He'sjust my navigator. He just sort
of looks like he looks with hiseyeballs and where he wants to
go andyou hit turbulence on the head
like falls off.
I'm sorry guys for insurancepurposes and

(55:14):
they instantly get like afterthis podcast comes out they're
like okay, Mr. Hernandezseriously considered blowup
dolls in the passenger seat forthe right, boy,
sometimes I like put my like bigfloppy hat from the beach just
like on the head. This is Sally.
Got to do what you got to do. Noway. She doesn't watch either

(55:38):
option.
I have a friend that had anengine failure in LA in between
I think it was like the five andthe 10 where they were intersex.
He had an engine failure in asmall airplane and he landed it
into oncoming traffic and nobodygot hurt years ago but yeah,

(56:00):
oncoming trafficoncoming traffic. He chose to go
that way because people couldsee my instinct with with the
the traffic I'm with.
I'm with you, then. But thensomeone's driving and all of a
sudden they've got a big dealcoming down at True.
I feel like I get I get bothpoints of

(56:20):
what do you choose right now?
Pop quiz, hotshot. What are yougonna do?
I think my natural instinctwould go with the flow of
traffic just because it's anatural instinct, because that's
the direction everybody is goingto have more protection.
Someone's gonna hate you.
They're gonna hit the tail.
Boom. They're gonna hit theengine first. You know?
So we're gonna put the person inthe car in danger.

(56:40):
Got Bridgestone? Got someBridgestone?
Doggy Dog world.
Up the guy in the car run intothe engine? No, okay, I get it.
You're not going like straighthead on to a vehicle. I mean,
that's gonna double the amountof impact than if somebody hit

(57:02):
you from behind. Sure. Yeah. Ilearned this from the concept of
dissymmetry of lift yourrelative saying so actually, I
was supposed to be coming up toNorth Star last year last summer
and then COVID hit. I quit myjob, and everything. And I had

(57:24):
my bags packed. I was puttingall my stuff in storage.
Literally the day I put my stuffin storage. They close the
Canadian borders. And I calledup there. I'm like, Are you guys
still gonna have a season? Andthey're like, yeah, come on.
Come on. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, no,they told me like, come on up.
We're still gonna do training asyou know, as planned. I was
like, I think you guysunderstand what's brought to

(57:45):
happen. Like they just closedthe Canadian borders. I don't
know how cruise ships because,you know, the cruise ships, I
guess have to go to Canadabefore they can come if they're
foreign flagged. Before they cancome back to the US. It was
like, Uh, yeah, I mean, if theports are closed, and the cruise
ships can't come and that's allthe passengers. So yeah, I just

(58:06):
called me Chief Pilot prettyimmediately and begged for my
job back.
I swooped in on her job.
He got hired. As soon as I left,I got let go for
Norstar No, I was on Northstar.
And then I went and did therotor transition program for the
airlines. And I was at theairlines for a while and then
COVID hit, took the boot fromthe airlines and went to work

(58:26):
where she was working. And shewas going to go up to North
Star. And we're going to do likea little switcheroo. And then
and then she couldn't resist me.
She decided to come backand I boomerang a boomerang
back. But now I've beenconsidering going back up there.
Going back up there on nextsummer, maybe?

(58:51):
I don't know. It's fun flying.
It is it's so easy toexperience. Yeah, it really is.
And your skill set. I mean, thethings you learn the the comfort
level that you get, like for mein the beginning of the season,
I can land in something thisbig, but by the end of the
season, I can land in somethingthis big, very comfortably just
because you get to know you getthe practice. There's lots of

(59:11):
jobs up here. Yeah, yeah, therewill definitely be jobs
available available for you ifyou want to.
Where do you go in thewintertime? You said you well,
so the last couple of winters wewent to Scottsdale Arizona, we
actually traveled we take our 66and we just traveled south and

(59:32):
then found the warmest placethat we could find. Yeah, it's a
nice place. This past winter, wewent to Hawaii, and then and
then came back, took delivery ofthe 505 and then did our candy
cane tour. So I spent actuallythree months of that flying this
winter. I think we're gonna domaybe the Big Dipper tour. I'm

(59:54):
trying to see what it's gonnalook like. Yeah, but I
definitely want to putCalifornia into the mix. because
that's where my my mom is, and alot of my friends are in
California, so I definitely wantto come down there and if I do,
then we'll get you in the hotseat in the candy cane 505 Yeah.
I know and by you guys where Ilive, we'll have some great

(01:00:15):
Mexican food. Yeah. laughsmargaritas. Deidre.
Do I drink? Ido. Okay, so yeah, we'll have
some margaritas.
I drink a lot more now that I'mretired. I'm trying to cool it.
When, when I was running mybusiness, I was also basically

(01:00:39):
on call on speed dial with theour local fire department. So I
wouldn't drink all summer long,because it's light all summer
long in Alaska, and I'll flybasically anytime that it's
light. And so they would call mypersonal cell and say, All
right, when can you startflying? I'm like, Well, okay,
let me look. Yep, I can start at5am. And, and it was really

(01:00:59):
rewarding to be able to do thatfor them and to be able to serve
my community that way. Becauseit's a really small town. We
don't actually have an EMS inour town at
all. Oh, really? Nobody'squalified EMS ones. Where's the
closest?
You guys contract that out?
Don't you locally though, likewith like, helicopter companies
are.

(01:01:20):
So we are the only helicoptercompany here. I should say. My
company that we started is theonly company here so it's no
longer mine. Got it. VShelicopters is the only one
here. And and so there is noEMS, anywhere close. The state
troopers. They've got ahelicopter that's about maybe
three hours away. But we're alsoin a challenging bowl where if

(01:01:42):
there's bad weather, and youcan't get through any of the
passes, you just can't get here.
I feel like you guys are a lotlike yak attack. Yeah, we're
like that in that area. Right?
Like we're just always soft inareas, you know, where it's
very remote. Yep, it's maritimeclimate. It's wet. It's foggy.
When it's when it's sunny. It'susually windy. So I actually

(01:02:02):
prefer the rainy days. Ishouldn't say rainy. But we get
a lot of overcast days like highovercast with wispy fog layers.
And it's just smooth, calm air.
And we have coastline. So youcan always follow the coastline.
Almost always, if as long as theclouds aren't touching. But it's
it's just a magical place tofly. Yeah. And we have the whole
place to ourselves. That'samazing. That is yes, you can.

(01:02:25):
So for the last, the last 10years of running this business,
it's been like full on and I'mon call always. And I running it
I'm doing day to day operations.
I'm if one of the pilots can'tfly, I'm gonna fly that mission
or if it's a really technicalmission, I'm always the one
flying in the crappy weather andflying the technical missions.

(01:02:47):
So are you going to be there inJune? Are you going to be sorry,
up there in September? Yes. Yep.
I'll swing. I'm going to be I'mgoing to go to Alaska in the
beginning of September. I'mgoing to go see some friends in
Juneau. That'd be awesome. If Icould go check your guys's place
out. Come on up. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. All right. How far isit from Toronto? Oh, from Juneau

(01:03:08):
it's about 800 mileswe're gonna take a seaplane
there you're gonna take aseaplane in from judo. Yeah,
from junior to you. Oh, okay.
Good luck. Already instrumentrated. We're gonna pop here and
turn it into a boat. Altimeterseaplane with the deluxe floats.

(01:03:37):
Sounds.
Yeah, everything's just so muchbigger up in Alaska. 2000.
Everyone's like, Oh, I'm comingto Alaska. And then I show him
where I am. They're like, Oh,yeah, we're gonna be eight hours
away from you.
Yeah, we're not coming.
I got I got time. I have aboutlike, 10 days. So cool.
Well, I love I love havingvisitors. And especially because

(01:03:58):
I haven't been able to say yesto any better visitors in the
last 10 years of finally I'mlike, Ah, yeah, live in life.
And yeah, having guests and I'mgetting to meet my local
community. That's a wholedifferent ballgame.
When I was when I got my firstjob. I didn't fly a helicopter
for about a year and a half. Andthen I got the job out in LA.
And I was like the last commandsto, you know. And I remember

(01:04:21):
like, I was scared at times whenI was flying up in Alaska
because of the weather. Youknow, and there was like times
where I was like, Whoa, thingschange like so rapidly. Within
about 15 minutes. You're like,well, that screwed. But then I
remember like, when I got thejob here in LA, and I was flying
for the news. It's very dynamicwith like the how the car chases

(01:04:42):
happen out here. You got likeseven different aircraft, all
within about a half mile of eachother and you're all following
the same guy. So it's veryfluid. I remember when the fire
scenes fire seasons came around.
And it was my first time puttingoxygen in the helicopter because
we had to get above the TFR forthis fire. And the fire was
about 12,000 feet So you're upat 14,000 feet, and I could see
southwest on SoCal. Like comingin on the Disney arrival for

(01:05:04):
John Wayne. And I'm like, Oh mygod. So Kyle approaches like,
hey, there's a helicopter out toyou. 11 o'clock, you know, two
miles. I could only imagine theSouthwest pilot. What the hell
is that guy doing? And why is hestaying still? And I can only
imagine seeing everybody on thefreeway looking like ants. And I
was just like, why am I up here?

(01:05:26):
This Hi. feels so awkward doesand helicopters just scary being
up that high? It doesn't feelnatural.
I've never been that high. Iwent to 12,000 and are 22 ones.
And a 22 more ballsy.
ballsy hires, I've been in a 22is maybe 1000 feet. But that was

(01:05:49):
still kind of like, what did youdo that for?
It was a photographer thatwanted to get like as high as he
possibly could. And I said,Well, this is the ceiling of the
aircraft. And, and actually, hehad talked to one of my best
friends who was running theschool at the time. And so she
knew that I was afraid ofheights. So she's like, I'm
gonna make lead do this flight.
So I put my door on because inHawaii, we usually flew with the

(01:06:12):
doors off like I am not going upthere without a door. Yeah. And
and I just I kind of likechallenges like that when
there's something that's out ofmy comfort zone. I like to step
into that. And that's how I growand like, if I'm afraid of
something, if I just face it, Iwon't be afraid anymore. Yeah,
if it all goes if it goes well,right, and it went up there and
I was making radio calls andthen the island, five islands

(01:06:33):
away over in Hawaii is listeningto me. They're like, what are
you doing up there? Yeah,just auto down.
You'd might as well make acoffee. It's gonna take you 10
minutes true.
I went up to 13,000 for Skypefor dropping off some skydivers
and an A star. But then it butit was February and so cold and

(01:06:54):
I totally forgot gloves. So myhands were freezing. So once we
got up there, I was like, Getout. Get out. I'm not gonna be
able to feel my hands like fiveminutes. Yeah, they jumped out
and I got down as fast as Icould. It was like, literally my
head was like it was like alittle not gonna be able to feel
it after and then it right.
Yeah, I felt like an idiot onceI got up there. I was like, Oh,

(01:07:16):
man. And the doors are off ofcourse because the skydive. But
yeah, so crazy. So one veryimportant question. I have to
ask you. Are you are you jetwoman over LA?
Are you? Are you the mysteriousjet pack person? You're not

(01:07:40):
really involved as I?
Am I the man in the jet pack?
Yeah.
Why do they think it's a man? Itcould totally write a female
they have no idea I have alreadyinterviewed not one but two
female jet pack pilots so far.
Yeah, they're just assuming it'sa man. Maybe because they know a
woman would never be that. Way.

(01:08:03):
I don't know. What do we callhim a legend we call him I call
him a legend now because like afull disclosure, I was working
the news that day that afternoonthat had happened. And you know,
you get a phone call from mybrother, my reporter and like,
hey, you know, we got a shootingor whatever, like the regular
stuff, right? And I'm like,Alright, be out in a minute. You

(01:08:24):
know, start making my way overthere. And then he calls me up
and he's like, Hey, man, there'ssomebody in a jet pack over le x
at 3000 in a couple airplanesjust saw him. I was like, why?
You saw me? You thought I was inNASCAR. I was running I started
turning everything on. I'm like,pulling MCP and I'm like, we'll
get there in two minutes. Andthen we got there and I didn't

(01:08:46):
see anything and I was verydisappointed. Um,
I think that I guess a schoolgot maybe one of the instructors
was able to video something.
Have you guys seen that?
Yeah, I think I did I on on yourstory. I thought okay, I think
you had done you did aninterview with with somebody.
Yeah, watch.
So it's happened three times nowthat they've had the sighting.

(01:09:08):
And do you guys know that thereis an A star arrival into LA X
called the Iron Man to?
Oh, yeah, no, I knew that fromyou. Okay,
I didn't I started reading thatlike really? So someone
someone's either like messingaround and doing some sort of
crazy stuff because of that, orI don't think that the pilots

(01:09:28):
would ever make that joke. It'sway too serious. Yeah. But yeah,
I don't know what's going on.
But every time it happens, theseveral news stations will call
me because because I'm usuallyavailable to do an interview
about it and and I have flownthe jet pack and the jet suit. I
flew the the gravity jet packoff together in the UK and they
invited me on to their raceteam. So I was telling you that

(01:09:51):
I was doing boardercross before.
They want to do jet crossbasically. So it would be Six
jet suit, fliers taking off of adock and then flying around a
course over water. And the firstone back to the dock unscathed
and hasn't fallen into the waterwould win. And our first race

(01:10:14):
was Bermuda. March 24 of 2020.
And we I was all set to go. Iwas I had an orange suit. That's
what my color was my color. ButI had orange helmet and suits
and all ready to go and racethis jet jet race around the
Bermuda and COVID hit and it gotcanceled literally a week
before.

(01:10:34):
So yeah, man, that sucks. Man.
COVID Yeah.
Badass jetpack racing.
So you could go What, like 30miles an hour or 30 3040 miles
an hour? Well,so Richard Browning himself, the
guy that invented it. I think hehas broken his own record

(01:10:55):
multiple times. I think he'sdone maybe up to 90 miles an
hour. Oh, wow. He's gone up onthat really fast. Yeah. And he's
real. He's got so many differentideas. He's tried out different,
like elevators on his legs andthings to help him to get into
kind of a more vertical positionto go fast. But, but really,
it's more about beingmaneuverable and just being able

(01:11:17):
to fly up and land on a boatpick up off the boat land on
another boat, just beingmaneuverable. And he's gotten
really, really good at it. Andwith COVID He's been really
working on r&d And they actuallyjust flew their first prototype
of an electric model. Wow,electric jet, you can't call it
a jetpack.

(01:11:39):
But it would be like over viacVitol pack via pack.
That's there's so many excitingthings happening on that realm.
And then there's there is jetpack aviation, and they're
actually based out of vana VanNuys, that's where their
addresses but he's David Mayman.
He's in Australia. But they justdemonstrated their their speeder

(01:12:04):
Have you heard of their speeder?
It's basically like you like alaying down motorcycle. But it
is totally autonomous. So nowthey'll be able to send it
without a pilot into maybe enemyterritory and then have wounded
soldiers get in and then bringit back. Wow. That's super dope.
Yeah,it's all its autonomous. And he

(01:12:25):
just flew his first prototype onthe tether, but safely and it
hovered no problems. So there'sbig games happening and out of a
job andit's so cool. So I'm trying to
get to Australia. I want to gowork over there with Gen. Z,
like, what's what's happeningnext, you know, I mean, it's uh,

(01:12:45):
yeah, it was so cool.
interviewing her and hearingabout her journey with with
with IVIG or I jet pack? Yeah, Imade that mistake. It's not I
fly jet packets. I jetbecause because I jetpack was
taken. Yeah, the reason? Are youguys gonna go head to head on

(01:13:06):
the racing? You'd be like,I would love her. I think she
amazing. I think she's just apassionate human being. Yeah,
she knows that. She learned at ayoung age that everything's
possible. And she's she'sproving that she is an amazing
woman. She so she has also flownthe jet pack and the jet suit.
And and I'm just really excitedto see what she comes up with

(01:13:30):
her. I have I jet pack? Yeah.
Say Say it again.
I get back.
But yeah, she wants to flyacross Australia and I would
love to fly with her. I think wewould make a great team. She's,
she's a really bright lady.
Yeah, she's super cool.
How could Yeah, it was gonnatake a long time to do

(01:13:52):
I told her to buy more blades,you know? And like, race down
the highway cut like your timein half. I did all the math.
Basically, physicists nowYeah. Quantum quantum mechanics.
So do you do you think that allof the yoga that you do because

(01:14:12):
I don't know for all of ourlisteners out there who have
ever heard of is it coats?
Coats? Yeah. Leah. Leah cones.
Yeah. Lee coats. Lee Yeah. Oh,I've been calling you Leah. I'm
so sorry. worriedly coats andyour yoga, Instagram. You have a
couple of them. So you go on.

(01:14:34):
On Instagram. I share my yogapractice and I do a lot of
challenges and try to get peopleinterested in trying new things,
trying new poses, learning howto handstand learning how to
forearms and that's all on myLee pile. I can't even remember
my Instagram.
I was waiting for you to see itbecause I was like, I don't
remember the order of the yogipilot.

(01:14:57):
It's Lee Yogi pilots. So That'sbeen my main Instagram for
years. But I started just aspecific helicopter page, which
is heli pilot Lee, because thetwo audiences can be quite
different. A lot of people areinterested in both, but not
everybody is. So I have myhelicopter page and my yoga
page. Doyou think that all of the yoga
that you've done has helped youwith the physical aspect of

(01:15:20):
flying the jet suit?
Yes, it's definitely physicallydemanding. And I think the
handstands really helped becausethere's a lot of shoulder
strength involved. It'sbasically you're wearing a
tripod, you have a, you havethrust on either arm, you have
two engines on either arm andone on your back. And they all
have equal thrust. So when youstart, you start with your arms

(01:15:42):
out, you get the Jets going, andthen you aim towards the ground
and you'll start going forward.
So you're I basically amhunching over a little bit using
keeping my arm straight. Andthen from there, just moving my
shoulders in the direction thatI want to fly. And so it's
pretty intuitive with but itdefinitely takes some strength.
And I think, between handstandsbetween racing boardercross on a

(01:16:03):
snowboard, flying helicopters. Ithink everything I did in my
life just led up to that beingmy jam.
Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I'm sureyou've picked it up really
quickly.
I did. It was surprising. Andthen I got to go to the UK. And
actually, I'm the only woman inthe world still, who has flown

(01:16:25):
it off tether. Wow.
Where did you go? That'samazing.
Such a small like, nice, youknow, like, you're like the only
person in the world you andlike, a general don't you're the
only two jet pilots. I know. Nojet pack pilot. Jet soon as I
learned the difference. It'spretty badass.

(01:16:49):
And see, I thought thateverybody wants to do that. And
so when I started to understandthat there was, I would say,
Okay, you have the opportunityto do this, it's going to cost
you this amount of money. Andit's going to take this amount
of time and, and it's going tobe in this place. Oh, well, I've
got this to do. I don't think Ican quite afford it, the better
that's like, for me, as soon assomeone says, Hey, there's this

(01:17:10):
opportunity. I'm like, okay,okay. And for me, actually, it
was I don't know how much it'sgonna cost. I don't know where
it's gonna be. I don't know,when it's gonna be and I was
like, Sign me up. I'm in. Yeah,like, as you figure those things
out, you just tell me and I amin Yeah. And I was like, I just
made it made it happen to gothere and be there and do the
training. And, and I firsttrained in the jet pack, which

(01:17:33):
is a little bit less intuitiveand more, I think helicopter
skills helped more because youactually have a yaw control. You
have a throttle and a yaw. Andin any way, being able to have
our helicopter, I think what Iwas able to pick that up quicker
than the average bear. Yeah. SoI did, I trained with them

(01:17:54):
twice. And then I trained withwith the jet suit, jet pack tech
suit. And my very first time ontether with them, I was hovering
and Richard browning thefounder, he basically said, Yep,
the next time you fly, you'reprobably gonna be able to go off
tether. And I was like, okay,that's my goal in life is to fly
it off to other Yeah. And, and Idid. And literally, I was

(01:18:17):
actually added an airshow inArizona with our 66. And I had
landed at the Air Show, andsomeone came over, hey, can you
do a candy drop for us? Or ourpilots? Stuck? They they
couldn't do it. And all of asudden, now we don't have
anybody to drop this candy. Iwas like, yeah, absolutely.
Well, then we're going to theair show. And I have to wait a
few hours to do the candy drop.
And I get a whatsapp fromRichard browning. And he says,

(01:18:39):
Hey, Lee, I need you in the UKon Friday. And this was like,
Tuesday, I was like, okay, andjumped in the helicopter, did
the candy drop, and then wentand got all my stuff together
and jumped on a plane. Wow. Solike, you say jump, I say how
high thing that I'm passionateabout, like, that's what I want
to do. AndI'm gonna do it. Like, I don't
understand, like the guy youhear about the guy with Jeff

(01:19:01):
Bezos, the one that should havewent to space but said he had a
prior engagement. Yeah, likethis guy won a raffle like 20
million to go to space with Jeffbasses. And, um, he had to back
out because he had a prior, likea prior engagement. And I'm
like, what, what priorengagement dentist, like you had
to go to the dentist whathappened? You know, like, maybe
he justthe media that we're hearing

(01:19:23):
and, and one of my thoughts onthat was, so it ended up being a
young kid that went instead. Andmaybe that guy wanted the young
kids ago because that young kidcan change the world. He's gonna
grow up and he's gonna havehe's, he now has the overview
effect. So he has seen the Earthfrom above and looking down. And
it's a really profoundexperience that maybe 80% of

(01:19:44):
everyone who's ever been tospace has experienced, where
they all of a sudden understandthe fragility of our world and
the end they are have a drivingforce that is so now connected,
that they have to do everythingthat they can and to nurture and
to save our world. And so thatyoung kid now is going to come
back and he's got so many yearsleft to live and maybe he's

(01:20:06):
gonna He's gonna change theworld in some way. That's That's
because he's had thatexperience. So, yeah, we've
talked tothink about it that way. Like,
what a loser?
Or maybe he just got scared.
Maybe he got scared. Itwas like, Maybe I don't know.
Maybe the guy like ended uphaving a kid or like a baby or

(01:20:29):
something. And he was like, it'sjust too risky.
One week, babe, I'm going intospace.
Never know. But can we all agreethat that rocket
looks like I did not know when Isend you that video. It was

(01:20:52):
gonna be like the thingeverybody talks about, you know,
like when Oh, really? Ofcourse, everybody was gonna talk
about Jeff Bezos made a rocketlook
like a penis giant penis. Hesaid it. Well, I said as soon as
I saw it, I was like, oh, man,it looks like Austin power
spaceship. Back in the day justlooked like a penis. And like, I

(01:21:12):
sent it to her. And next thingyou know, everybody's sending
the same video. And I'm like,Well, I'm least not the only
one.
Yeah, not. Definitely not.
Definitely not. Yeah. So no, Ididn't hear about the guy that
backed out. I didn't realizethat. So what we talked about in
a recent podcast with ChadHalstead, I don't know if you
saw we talked a lot aboutenvironmentalism because he was

(01:21:33):
he was in the sea shepherds. Andhe's a conservationist, and he
flew the MD 500, off the back ofthe CSET, Sea Shepherd vessel
and supportive, you know, WhaleWars, illegal whaling and
fishing in Antarctica in a lotof different places. He had a
really interesting perspective,because, you know, he's a

(01:21:54):
helicopter pilot, and a lot ofthe times you hear people say,
in helicopters, oh, you're like,you know, you're killing the
environment, because you'rereleasing all the, you know, you
know, gases into the, into theozone, ozone. Yeah, that's the
word I was thinking of sorry.
But, you know, he made a fairpoint that like, when you give

(01:22:15):
people these profoundexperiences, like flying them in
the Grand Canyon, or doing evenjust tours, what you're actually
doing is making a mark on thosepeople, where they feel more of
a connection with the planet,and more of a sense that they
want to protect it, kind of kindof in the same way, sense that
you what you were just sayingabout, you know, the kid who got

(01:22:37):
to see the world from thistotally different perspective
and realizing the fragility ofit and getting a newfound sense
of wanting to nurture andprotect it. And I think it's the
same same thing when you givepeople a tour, and you show them
a different perspective from theair, and just makes people feel
more connected to the planet.
I love that makes me feel betterabout burning God. There you go.

(01:23:02):
Yeah, you're sharing it with theworld. I mean, even just like on
Instagram, and people will feelinspired by it. And, you know, I
know I feel inspired every timeI see your videos flying around
in Alaska. I'm like, man, like,okay, maybe I do really want to
go up there. It looks like sucha magical place to fly. Even
like I just saw those glaciers.
Calvin is having Calvin's it'scalving, but it had an L oh god,

(01:23:23):
calving. I saw an IMAX film onetime of glaciers. And it was
like the craziest experience inIMAX because they have like the
sound, surround sound and theIMAX of the glaciers calving.
And it was the most intense,crazy experience, but it was so
cool seeing that on yourInstagram. I was like, I can't
even imagine seeing this live.

(01:23:47):
seeing it in person is reallyprofound. And I have had people
crying we just stand on theshoreline and we watch it and
just crying from the sheermagnitude of like feeling so
small on this earth and thisplanet and and yeah, maybe that
has maybe it's almost like theoverview effect. When you see
that in person were like, wow,the Earth is changing. The world

(01:24:09):
is so dynamic. We need toprotect it. And any little part
I can do to share that withpeople. I absolutely will.
Amazing. You're gonnacome visit to both of you guys.
Oh my god. I know. I just saw itin Stacy's arm down in Juneau.
We went out and like luckily, Imean, luckily, like I just saw
it, like break off, you know,from one of the glaciers and I

(01:24:30):
was just like, I felt this big,you know, just like gigantic I
felt it sounded like thunder.
You know, like, God just struckdown this piece of ice. I was
like, Well,I've had arguments with people
out, like standing there andlistening and it literally
sounds like a thunderstorm. Ilive really close to the fastest
receding glacier in the state.

(01:24:52):
It's called columbia glacier.
It's about 26 statute miles frommy house. I only know that
because I couldn't I couldn'tfly part 90 One sewers out there
as a party on the far there'snortheast corner.
And it's receded almost sevenmiles since I started flying

(01:25:13):
over it. And that was only 10years ago. So it's receding
really, really fast. But itliterally it'll calve maybe
every five minutes. And you canbe standing there and someone's
like, no, it's thatthunderstorm. And it's like a
blue sky day. There's not acloud in the sky. There's no
thunder. That is the case. Doyou guys are standing
out in Alaska? Do you getthunderstorms,

(01:25:36):
please do Interior often. Butwhere I live now on the coast?
Very, very rare. Maybe twice ayear tops. Yeah, maybe even just
once a year? Yeah.
Yeah. When I was injured. Ithink that my idea told me I
think the last one was like fouror five years ago when I was
there. Oh, wow. Yeah. And helives there full time. So it

(01:25:56):
rarely happens. At least in thearea I was living in.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Same judo andvalleys are very similar as far
as weather patterns. Yeah.
Great.
wet, wet. Yeah, lots of snowrainy we get
an average of 33 feet of snow ayear. That's it doesn't melt so
every neighborhood has a bigempty lot and they you have to

(01:26:19):
push all the snow into that biglot.
Yeah, I have zero experienceliving in that kind of a snowy
environment. I don't know if Iwould like it. I don't know if I
would like the snow. I meanmaybe like summertime for sure.
But I don't know because I hadbeen back and forth wanting to
like move to Colorado. And I'mlike I just don't know if I

(01:26:39):
would be able to handle thewinters I've just never lived in
that kind of environment.
I think you just get old likenot saying new scenery but I
think it just get old likescraping the windows warming up
the car for like 30 minutes or15 minutes you know and having
to shovel your driveway. All thelittle things lifestyle. It's a
lifestyle I'm more of a Mohitokick it in a hammock kind of guy

(01:27:04):
some kind of spoiled we have aheated driveway and we parked in
the garagedriveway driveway it's a game
changerright there thing good right
toilets and heating drivewaysfull circle

(01:27:28):
awesome. I want to share onelast thing you had asked where
I'm going to go this winter. Ohyeah. And so this winter we are
going to go on tour again withour candy cane 505 And we're
gonna fly around spreading joyand happiness throughout the
land and landing in all kinds ofdifferent places and if we get
invited to people's homes wewill go land in their backyards
will give people candy caneswill give people rides. I will

(01:27:51):
leave treasures here and there Ihad so much fun doing that on
this last trip and and share itall on social media. So if you
want me to stop in, show me yourLLC and I'll be there now a
strange lady is asking me if Iwant candy and she just landed a

(01:28:14):
helicopter in our yard. Freecandy
take candy from weird ladies ofhelicopters treasures are you
talking here? Well, treasureReese's Reese's Pieces.
I left a treasure in Keene, NewHampshire at a place called Life

(01:28:38):
is sweet candy store. And so ifyou go in there and there's a
little treasure on the wall, youhave to take a selfie with the
treasure and they will give youa free cupcake. There's also a
place called Sterlinghelicopters and that's in
Pennsylvania. And the owner willgive you an actual tour of all
they have like two Trumphelicopters in there. They have

(01:28:59):
all kinds of really cool,interesting helicopters more
than I've ever seen anywhereelse. They'll give you a full
tour and a little goodie bagthat I left that has like some
schwag a mug, a calendar.
Somebody picked that up today sonobody can have that one. Oh,
yeah, that's so good. Good idea.
We're in Pennsylvania isn'tthat is? I don't know. Oh, in
fact, I'll tell you our candycame to her our totals I had to

(01:29:26):
total it up. It was only 110flight hours and that was from
Montreal to Dominican Republicand then along the south and
then back up to Alaska. It wasonly 110 hours. But we did 140
stops. And let's see burn 3300gallons of jet A

(01:29:47):
to talk about thatduring the glaciers, caching,
just kidding.
Sometimes I was too busy. toland and visit somebody, but I
would do a flyover and andthey'd video and I'd video and
then we'd share videos. And itwas just so touching to see like

(01:30:08):
how I could bring joy tosomeone's day. Yeah, we did that
we did six of those. And I took,let's see 48 passengers 13 of
them up in the front seat gavethem all flight lessons. So
like, I have all these numbersof what we did. And I just went,
I want to do more. So I justwant to keep going. And I want
to meet more people. AndI want to have your own TV show.

(01:30:31):
So you should my own TV show.
Yeah, but I don't even likebeing in front of the camera.
No, I don't know. Yeah, I don'teven a zoom call like this. I'm
like, girl.
I think you're right.
Yeah. Oh, thank you so much forsharing your story and talking
and joking around with us.
Because I know we're we've takenup more of your time than

(01:30:53):
expected. But it's been sowonderful talking to you and
actually getting to know Ican talk to
you guys for hours, honestly,you're gonna have a heck of an
edit. Because wethink, oh my god, I'm gonna be
sitting at that computer for solong. But it's gonna be good,
because then I get to relive itand hear all the funny stories
again, by senioryear. It was a wonderful day.

(01:31:15):
You too,Jose, great to meet you and
Diane, hopefully, hopefully getto see you guys up in Alaska one
of these days or in LA? Yeah,for
sure. No, it'll happen for sure.
What an inspiring life story.
She she's probably one of themost go getter type of people
that I've ever talked to. Youknow, she wanted something. She

(01:31:38):
had a goal. She had manydifferent goals that she set out
to accomplish. And she did whatshe had to do to make her dreams
happen. And she wasn't afraid togo get a waitressing job while
she was, you know, working onthose things. Or, you know, she
stayed humble through the entireprocess and look what she where
she's at right now already selfretired, and owns her own

(01:32:01):
helicopter and lives betweenAlaska and going on these epic
cross country trips with herblue face hashtag life goals. So
I feel super inspired by herstory. Now you guys know what
time it is. All right, she wenton a really long cross country.
So I think it would be reallyhelpful just to touch on some

(01:32:24):
things that you guys might needto look for if you are going to
be picking up an aircraft toferry across the country or to
the next city over even and it'sa aircraft that you've never
flown before. So this is just aquick reminder of the things
that we should be checking for.
We're going to split it up intotwo categories. We've got
documents and maintenance. Solet's take a look at the minimum

(01:32:48):
documents and maintenance youshould be checking for in an
aircraft in their logbooksbefore you decide to go so first
thing we're going to talk aboutour aircraft documents which if
you are a pilot already, youshould already know the acronym
arrow A R O W, one theairworthiness certificate
registration, the operator'shandbook and the weight and

(01:33:09):
balance for the aircraft. Soremember that your airworthiness
certificate does not have anexpiration date unless any major
alterations have been completed,which you can find in the
maintenance logbooks, bothengine and airframe. However,
your registration does have anexpiration date, it should be
renewed every three years. Somake sure that you're checking

(01:33:29):
that that specific registrationis current and up to date, the
weight and balance remember,that's not the weight and
balance for you and the aircraftthat is the weight and balance
that has been officially madefor the aircraft itself. And
that's going to be found in thepilot operating handbook in the
aircraft, or the rotorcraftflying manual, which is in some

(01:33:50):
helicopters as well. So you alsowant to make sure that that
aircraft complies with all ofthe required equipment in
91 205. So this, if this is anaircraft that you've never flown
before, again, it's never bad, abad thing to make sure that it
has all the required legalequipment.
Alright guys, we're gonna goover the pilot documents. Number

(01:34:12):
one federal aviation regulationsix 0.3 requires you to have
your basic three, governmentissued identification whether it
be like your driver's license,your REAL ID, your passport,
your air medical certificate andyour pilot's license. If
crossing the border into anothercountry like Canada, the

(01:34:35):
Bahamas, Mexico, he must haveyour FCC Federal Communications
Commission, which is yourcommercial radio operating
license. All right. Whatabout aircraft maintenance? You
guys might be wondering whetheror not that aircraft would need
a 100 hour inspection. Well, itwould if you are going to be
carrying any passengers for hirethat are other than the crew or

(01:34:58):
if you're going to be providingany flight instruction for hire
and that aircraft then it wouldrequire the 100 hour inspection.
You also need that annualcompleted any airworthiness
directives or check for servicebulletins, even though those
technically are not legallyrequired, but they are smart to
have them completed. Your ELTmake sure that that has been

(01:35:21):
tested in the last 12 calendarmonths. And talking about the
batteries of the ELT reallyquick if they are the
rechargeable kind, and they'vebeen used for one cumulative
hour, they must be replaced. Andif they're the replaceable kind,
they need to be replaced. Forevery half of the battery life
if half of the battery life hasbeen used, they need to be

(01:35:41):
replaced. Transponder should bechecked every 24 calendar
months, and the Peto staticsystem should be checked every
24 calendar months. So look forthose stickers in the airframe.
logbook for that aircraft. Andit's not such a bad idea if you
have a GPS to make sure thatthat database is current. And
what about pilot maintenance,make sure that you're keeping up

(01:36:04):
with your stuffs that biannualflight review that's required
every two years. If you'recarrying passengers on this
flight, make sure you have yourrecency requirements completed.
So that's within the last 90days, three takeoffs and three
landings in that make and modelof aircraft. And if you're going
to be flying at night time, makesure you get your nighttime
requirements of three takeoffsand landings to a full stop. And

(01:36:27):
that make and model of aircraft,at least one hour after sunset
to one hour before sunset inthat bracket of time. And make
sure you're doing your I'm safechecklist illness, medication,
stress, alcohol, fatigue, itcould be a big one on a long
cross country. So make sure thatyou're maintaining your rest and
getting good sleep, and makesure that you are eating and

(01:36:49):
you're emotionally sound forthat flight. And of course,
complete that proper flightplanning procedures before you
take off your weather briefing,all of that good stuff. Alright
guys. So those are the thingsthat we need to make sure are
taken care of both aircraft andpilot documents and aircraft and
pilot maintenance. Just a coupleof reminders. The dare to dream

(01:37:10):
event is coming up August 22. Ifyou and your family are in the
LA area, make sure you go onlineto forever on the fly.com and
make your reservation as we aregoing to be limiting the amount
of people in attendance. Andsomething that we're doing
that's pretty fun, we're goingto be giving away a DJI mini
two, which is one of thosereally cool little Mavic drones.

(01:37:32):
Pretty awesome. It's about it'sover a $500 value. And all you
need to do to enter is be over18 years old, live in the
continental United States anddonate $10 and you'll get a
raffle ticket for every $10 thatyou donate. And that has to be
done through the raffle websitewhich you can find through our

(01:37:54):
website, www dot forever on thefly.com. And then go to fotf
youth go to the dare to dreamevent page, scroll down and
you'll see the raffle on there.
And there's a button that sayscount me and that's the link
that you have to go to in orderto enter into the raffle. The

raffle will close at 2 (01:38:14):
30pm on the dare to dream event day. And
we will be announcing the winnerat 3pm So if you don't live here
and you're not going to be atthe event, we will ship your
prize to you. And don't forgetour forever on the fly youth is
now on Instagram at fot F youthf o t t f us forever on the fly

(01:38:40):
us. So go ahead and go toInstagram and follow along on
our journey to inspire the nextgeneration of aviators. Don't
forget guys to subscribe to thepodcast send over a review on
Apple podcasts. We always loveto hear from you and hear what
you think and how we're doingout here on the podcast. Have a
beautiful day Fly safe and we'llcatch you next time on The

(01:39:02):
forever on the fly podcast. Byelater.

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