Scott Gendron: Helis to Heavys

Whaaaats up AV Nerds! I can't believe we are already on SEASON 2 EPISODE 5! Mind bloowwn away with so many amazing guests, and our next one is no exception. 

Are you a helicopter pilot? Are you thinking about making the switch to the airlines? Well this episode is for you! We're here to chat with Scott Gendron; USCG rescue swimmer veteran, former helicopter pilot, previous Skywest Captain,  and current 747 new hire at Kalitta Air. Have you ever wondered what your path could look like to transition into the airlines from a helicopter career? We're here to get you the scoop on what it was like for Scott, and how long it took him to go from helos to heavys. Later in the episode Diane and Scott reminisce on some crazy stories from the good old Coast Guard days. 

Stick around until the end of the episode for a summary of the Restricted ATP requirements that you will need if you are planning to change up your career. 

**Episode Rated PG13 for some adult language**

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:02):
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast
What's up AV nerds and Welcometo season two episode five of
the forever on the fly podcast,your bi weekly dose of aviation
inspiration, education andentertainment. My name is Jose,
and my name is Dan. And we'rehere to get you guys hooked on

(00:26):
aviation aviation. Does thatwork? Yeah, sounds
good. Doo doo doo doo doo. Theevent is coming up awesome date
this coming Sunday. I'm gonna beso happy when I don't have to
plan anything anymore. Oh, ithas been six months in the

(00:48):
making, and I just am ready forthe execution. No, I'm ready for
it to happen. It'sgonna go, it's gonna go, it's
gonna go off really? Well, I youknow, I also have a gut feeling
Guess how many people signed up?
We're almost at 500 Count500 500 People now multiply that
by two. And that's how manypeople are actually going to

(01:09):
show up. 1000 we're gonna runout of heat. We're gonna run out
of food.
We're gonna run out ofeverything. That's what we were
kind of capping it at was 500people. That was our goal, and
we hit it. So that's reallyexciting. Just a quick reminder,
you guys, actually I don't knowif we ever actually announced it
on the podcast. We are givingaway a DJI mini to drone in a

(01:35):
raffle. Whoa.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
I mean, I'm kind of upset that Idon't get to enter and do the
raffle because I kind of wantone.
Well, I entered myself. surname.
Right on right on. Well, a $10.
Donation. Fabulous. Fabulous.
Yeah. Oh, is that your alias?
Yeah, that's cool. All right.

(01:59):
Good. When I do this, like, howdo I do you want the drone? The
drone is dope.
Yeah, I've never actually triedto fly one before. Never even
attempted, but they'll be cool.
So this is just a little bit ofan incentive. Hopefully, people
actually enter into it otherway. Otherwise, we just spent

(02:22):
$500 on a job that was gonnagive the person is a raffle. But
it's $10 per entry. And to enterinto the contest, you need to be
18 years or older, you need tobe living within the US. And you
have to enter by August 22. This

coming Sunday, by 2 (02:43):
30pm.
Pacific Standard Time, you canfind the link to do the donation
on our website on the dare todream event page. don't donate
through our website, donatethrough the link on the event
page. And that's an onlineraffle program for nonprofits
that will, you know, picksomeone at random during the
designated time we tell. So,again, if you guys want to enter

(03:07):
into the raffle, go online towww dot forever in the phi.com
backslash aviation dash day. Andyou'll see I even think I put it
on the front page. So you caneven just go to the forever on
the fly.com. And it'll be rightthere on the front desk things.
Yeah, just click on the link,click on the link and I'll
direct you straight to it. Okay,I think I beat

(03:28):
that. Yeah, yeah, I think yougot the point across?
I think I did. I don't know. Ithink it's probably tell people
again. Donate. We'd like tocontinue to do these events all
over the US eventually, you'recontinuing to do the work that
we're doing with inspiring thenext generation of aviators to
join the ranks of pilots aroundthe world because we're retiring

(03:50):
and dying right now,man, they're all going to the
Space Forcetheir application out for that
because I'm kind of curious.
We'll get to the episode. Areyou a helicopter pilot? Are you
thinking about making the switchto the airlines? Well, this
episode is for you. We're hereto chat with Scott Gendron US
Coast Guard rescue swimmerveteran, former helicopter

(04:13):
pilot, previous SkyWest captainin current 747 new hire at
Kalita air Ever wonder what yourpath could look like to
transitions the airlines from ahelicopter career? Well, we're
here to get you the scoop onwhat was like for Scott, and how
long it took him to go fromhilos to heavies.
And if he has any regrets, andstick

(04:33):
around until the end of theepisode, we're gonna go over
exactly what our requirementsyou would need and all the boxes
you need to check off if youwere transitioning into the
airlines from a helicoptercareer. Scott Gendron
for crosswind jet is some of themost exciting flying that I've
ever done. I am Scott genderedand I'm forever on the fly I got

(05:07):
to start this sprouts of glorydid you look I tried to grow a
mustache and I was in theairlines bro and I look like a
catfish on me. I like the onlygirl like Yeah, I kind of make
it in the boys club man butcouldn't make it couldn't make
Jose can't quitegotta give it a couple months
you knowI gave him 14 years every every

(05:28):
birthday a straight up everybirthday since I was 14 knows
like mustache Yeah, but I'mnot cool enough to just go
straight for the mustache. Ihave to do the beard for like a
week. And then I get rid ofthat. No.

(05:49):
Yeah, it's right there, bro.
Man. You got a look at that.
Look at that. Look at thatmustache, bro. Looking good. Oh,
this is a week. Yeah,it's a week.
Yeah, I just got mine bleached.
So thank you so much for joiningus. I haven't seen you in

(06:11):
forever. This is so great.
I know. Yeah. This is such acool thing you guys have done.
This is awesome.
I don't think I seem like threemonths, maybe two months. Three
months. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks forthe sweater. Thanks for sending
me back my sweater.
Yeah, well, I had a I had alayover in LA and his places

(06:32):
like couple miles from ourhotel. So
Oh, yeah. Beach. Worked out.
Yeah, it was. It was awesome.
Right. He ran from his hotel tomy place. Of course he did. You
know, like the homie like thatwas like, was that like 1012
miles? Something like that?
Yes. Well, yeah, there's 10miles, right. On the beach,

(06:55):
it's, that's even harder,you know? Well, you know, you're
stuck in an airplane for youknow, it's sometimes it's super
nice to get outside, especiallydown there and, you know, go for
a run or whatever. After. Yeah,because we spent so much time
just sitting. Yeah, you know,staring in there playing
console, you know. So, yeah,it's nice to get out,

(07:17):
telling people why they're here.
And telling people why theirairplanes are delayed. Sir. Why
is my plane delayed?
No, that's another that'sanother time I'm running.
That's just like, when we wereat pappy on, and we would, you
know, fly standby and we get towear the uniform to the airport,

(07:39):
and everyone would just assumethat you're an airline captain.
And my point would be delayedand you're sitting on the ground
about to bite into a sandwichand everyone's approaching you
like, do you know when thisflight is gonna leave? I'm like,
do I look like someone? Let meenjoy my sandwich. Let me enjoy
my you know, no, but thatpandect My my Wolfgang Puck

(08:03):
sandwich $30 for?
I can't tell you about yourairplane. But that double orange
chicken is delicious. SoI didn't realize when we were at
pappy on, we didn't wear ties.
So when we you know, I only nonrevved ones at pantheon. But I
was like, I must look like atotal idiot walking around the

(08:24):
airport.
With no dye onYeah. Give me a weird looks. Or
wearingyour wings. Like you know how
like they had like those pappyon wings with the P as a PA
Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Irealized nobody ever wears wings
in the airport. Or a hat forthat matter. Really? The thing?
Except if you're Delta, I neverworried that they were the

(08:44):
double gold pockets.
Oh, yeah, man. They sleep intheir hats over there
what's your favorite airplaneair airport food? What do you
what's your go to?
Oh, I you like I probably findmyself and like the Keto better
Chipotle line a lot. Nice. Yeah.
So brother, well, let's start.

(09:09):
Let's get let's get going. Soalready we've been going yeah.
Like we know we're just gonnajack in here is the best part.
The best part? was all I hadprepped. Perfect. What else is
there?
I still feel like it still feltlike a meatball sub on my face.

(09:31):
Oh, yeah. I just savagely atethis sandwich a minute ago.
There's a deli in myneighborhood. And it says like
best sandwiches in the world.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, well,let's check this out. Turns out
I better try it. It's prettyfreakin good.
It was good. It was good. I didnot have the meatball sandwich,
but it did look good. Yeah, Iwore it

(09:54):
proudly. Yeah, for sure. Thingsalways turned into a mess. So it
did Yeah,I was like, by the way, I'm not
gonna wait my face until thevery end. So you're just gonna
have to deal damn withwhat? Man and I'm looking at it.
I'm like, Whoa, you got got somestuff right here.

(10:14):
And I like to have my mostserious conversations with me
ball over my face. Just like wehave to talk about something
very serious right now. Sosaving napkins.
Exactly saving the tree is allabout conservation over here.
Well, cool. Welcome to theforever on the podcast. This is
what we do.
Well, yeah, happy to be here.

(10:36):
It was so it was so cool. Thevideo that you sent of you guys
listening to the podcasts in thecockpit. Were like, Oh my God.
Yeah. That was that was prettycool. It was yeah, it was like
much. That wastotally I forget which one we
were listening to. But yeah,we're enjoying it. Yeah, I got
my app. Oh, I got him hooked onit, too. So you got another

(10:58):
man got another hooked on? Yeah,I came up with that tag on a on
a hike. I was like, what shouldit be? Like? I'm like, hooked
hooked hooked on Ed hook. Yeah,got it. Yeah. No, it was like I
was on a hike. It was up in likePasadena area. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

(11:19):
I thought it was a team afterwrite it down like
Yeah, totally. Right. I'm likefreaking out my phone. Don't
forget. Totally. Well, cool.
Let's, let's talk about you.
Let's talk about your career. Soright now, you are in training
day one, right?
Yeah, day one was today. I juststarted a new job. So it's, I'm

(11:43):
kind of in between. I just leftsky West a couple weeks ago. And
yeah, today was my first day atKota. So I'm gonna be moving
over from the passenger side offlying cargo.
Do you know what type ofaircraft? Is it gonna be?
Seven 747-747-4074 100. Yeah.
Yeah. Jay? Yeah, I was on theCRJ. I flew the 200 709 100 at

(12:07):
Sky West, but would fly allthree variants to those. And
then yeah, we're here. It's the,it'll just be the 747. So it's,
I'm excited. Yeah, we juststarted today. And it's
exciting. What, uh,what do you do? It's awesome.
Because I get a lot of friendsasked me about, like the
transition, you know, and you'relike, one of the few guys that I

(12:28):
know personally, that has gonecompletely from rotorcraft all
the way up through a heavyyou're actually the only one I
know, that helicopter. Yeah,that's done that you're gonna
answer a lot of questions. I'msure. A lot of my friends are
gonna want to know, like, theroute you took and how you took
it? And what were the pros andcons of it?
Well, I mean, I'm super happy toget this information out there,

(12:50):
just so people can see that itis possible to do that. I mean,
when I went over to Sky west,from helicopters, I mean, I
tried to do as much research asI could, but you know, I didn't
know any airline pilots. And youknow, just trying to kind of
break into that industry andfigure out how that all works,
what that lifestyle is like, andeverything like that. And I went
to Sky West, because I had heardkind of, you know, I was

(13:11):
researched a bunch of regionalcompanies and tried to figure
out like, where you can go andmaybe spend a career at a
regional cuz I was like, I don'tknow, to helicopter guys ever
get to move on from theregionals? Are we kind of stuck
there? Because, you know, we'vegot all this helicopter time,
so. And that's not the case atall. FYI. I mean, I thought
that, but I thought that mightbe a possibility. That's not the

(13:34):
case at all, at all. I mean,here at class eclipta. We've
got, I think it's eight or 10guys that are in training on the
7.7 and two of us are helicopterguys, so Wow. I mean, yeah. So I
mean, and tons of guys, that skyWest that I flew with were, you
know, helicopter guys as well.
Yeah. So let's get anatomy on,you know,

(13:55):
Yeah. Cuz I always thought thatmaybe like a stigma or being
like a rotor guy going into thefixed wing world. You know,
like, yeah,I was, I was a little bit
nervous about that. But, I mean,not in my experience. I haven't
seen that at all. A lot ofpeople are happy to talk about
it, like, oh, you know, what'sflying helicopters, like, and
it's like, well, you know, it'sa lot cooler than how you built
your first 1000 hours. Yeah, Imean, well, you talk to some of

(14:18):
these guys that did. I mean, I'msuper happy that I started off
in helicopters, it was so muchfun. And you talked about, you
know, when people are buildingtheir, you know, their flying
resume and doing their low timeflying, like what I got to do in
a helicopter, you know, justinstructing around Central
Oregon and, you know, landing onmountains, you know, going to
win in all these cool places to,you know, go fishing or

(14:40):
whatever. It just sounds so muchbetter than, you know, building
1500 hours, you know, do anaerial survey, you know, back
and forth or, you know, evenplay instruction in airplanes. I
mean, to me, I'm happy I did itthat way. Yeah, it was someone
hearing so The other story isI'm like, oh, man, that sounds

(15:00):
boring. Yeah,don't miss it a lot.
No, I don't. I thought it's sofunny when I left. Pappy on. And
like, walked away from thathelicopter and I was the last
time I flew a helicopter. I waslike, man, is this a huge
mistake? Or like I worked sohard to get here?

(15:23):
That's ballsy, dude. Cuz he leftlike three months into it. Like
you're the class right now orfive months? I can't remember.
Yeah, I did like five or sixmonths, right? I did a season. I
think you're like right there.
October, I think is when youbounce.
Yep. Yeah, they asked me to staytill October. So and then, yeah,
I went to Sky West and doubleonce after that, I think ended

(15:45):
November is when I started atSouthwest. So yeah, so when I
left I was I was I was prettynervous. But no, I thought and I
was a little afraid that I waslike, my hanging up flying.
Like, you know, helicopters, orsomething you fly. You know, it
takes a lot of work to fly ahelicopter. I mean, you know,
people think we just get it's abig mystery. What happens in the

(16:07):
flight deck of an airline. Youknow, people just think it's
like, oh, it's all automated. Wejust turned on the autopilot.
That's it. You know? Yeah, weuse the autopilot a lot, but
doing the approaches down tominimums and 40 now crosswind
jet is some of the most excitingflying that I've ever done. It's
a different type of flying it'stotally different what we do but

(16:28):
it's still super exciting.
Nice no regrets. Yeah, no,no, I'm happy I did it I don't I
don't look back on it. It'ssomething like that. I wish I
had stuck with them and ended upbut yeah, yeah, what is hard man
find like when I was flyingassistant and I went from
assessment to find the Embraerit was such a steep learning
curve flying the Embraer withonly having like 250 hours of

(16:50):
fixed wing time. So when I wentstraight into the Embraer
there's a lot of things that Ididn't know that I felt a little
bit behind the curve when itcame to some of my friends that
were in my class that wereairplane pilots the whole way
through little things like oh,you want to keep it like on a
standard return or whatever thecase is shooting ILS, you know,
I never had Chevron's, you know,on a flight director. So that
was something you had to learn.

(17:12):
It's a lot more complex wheneverything I felt like when
everything was running smooth.
And you did have the autopilotwas fine. But I thought airplane
pilots never got enough credit.
When things go bad yourbandwidth expand, it gets it
gets bad quit. You know, whenthings like there's a lot of
there's a lot of stuff to do.
That's why they have like,that's why they don't expect you
to memorize all the tech likemanuals and the checklist. It's
like, there's a lot of stuffgoing on.

(17:34):
Yeah, that was some checklist.
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Goinginto airplanes. I'm like, wait,
I don't have to memorize everysingle little item on these, you
know, and these things, and,yeah, and helicopters. You just
had to know what to do every forevery scenario. But I mean,
they're much more complex in theairlines, you know, so many more
systems and so many differentthings that could go wrong. But
crew management, that's notsomething that we're really that

(17:57):
well versed in, in helicopters,because usually we're single
pilot. Yeah, yeah. When Iinterviewed for SkyWest, and we
did that. We did that scenariobased scenario. Yeah, you've got
like, and I was the leastexperienced airplane pilot and
the group that I wasinterviewing with, so they put
me in the captain's seat, ofcourse. And they put the least
they're the most experienced guyand like the jump seat, and it

(18:18):
was all like diverting forweather scenarios, kind of like
okay, well, there's reportingthis here, this here, your
destination, this over here, andthere's a thunderstorm cell
right here. What are you gonnado? Broke, you know, broken air,
and then they would come in? Andthey'd be like, Sir, everyone is
getting really sick in the back,we're running out of, you know,

(18:39):
or Ma'am, we're running out ofbags, whatever. And it's just
like, what are you going to do?
Kind of a thing, and then theywould kept like, beeping in with
like, the flight attendantsbringing problems to the flight
deck. Yeah. And I forgot that Ihad the guy in the jump seat. I
forget the type of all theresources. And so that was
actually kind of a challengingexercise. And I think they knew

(18:59):
that being putting the leastexperienced person in the
captain's chair, like, let'sjust see how you do with this
and what your thought processis, I totally forgot about the
guy in the jump seat. So youknow, it was just working with
the other guy. I'm like, Okay,you set up the flight plan over
here, we're gonna, I'm gonna getthe weather over there. And
we'll divert to this airport.
And they're like, Oh, well, I'mtrying to deal with the flight
attendant the same time. And atthe end of the exercise, they're

(19:20):
like, Well, don't forget, yougot this experience captain in
the back, you know, right behindyou and tell him to deal with
the passengers and the flightattendant. It's like, Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. I think you have to doeverything yourself. But it's
cool. It was a cool exercise. Soyeah, I had a more respect. I
was like, oh, yeah, this is, youknow, a lot of stuff going on in
here. And that was just in aclassroom. And then

(19:43):
having like, what you Scott,like being a captain, that's a
lot of responsibility, man, youknow, I mean, you could even
talk you know, in thesummertime, the wintertime, it's
just a lot of thing going on.
Yeah, they both I mean, all theseasons kind of present their
own their own challenges forsure. And I mean, that's
scenario Diane, I mean, no oneever is that scenario is, is no

(20:03):
one ever gets through thatscenario without you know, you
never get the airplane on theground you do a perfect job.
It's like well, now you're inthe middle of the tornado. So
we have an unruly passenger,just get the duct tape.
But I mean starting off, I mean,I think when you like when I

(20:24):
went to Sky West, I was like,holy cow. I mean, I was with
these. I mean, there were some,you know, the other. I think we
had, I think there were 50people in the class. And I was
like, I mean, I day one I waslike, what I, I think probably
everything went over my head. Imean, I looked over at the guy
next to me and I was like,what's an RCC code? You know,

(20:47):
which is a code basically sayshow slippery the runway is. And
he like looked at me like, howdo you not know that? Yeah. Oh,
no way. Yeah. Crap. You're like,just kidding. Just kidding.
See, isn't your googling on yourphone under the table? RCC?

(21:09):
Yeah, it's sky West, they werelike do not have your phones out
mouths like, oh, man, um, thiswhole lesson is going to go over
my head loss. I know when RCCcode is, but you just have to
ask questions and your firstyear is you just got to ask
questions and be humble. It's atotally new thing that I mean,
you know how to, you know,you're, it's just a totally new

(21:30):
division applying. I guess, whenI had first officers that were
coming from helicopters, I thinksometimes the biggest problem
that I would see is like theydidn't want to, they weren't
ready to, you know, they've got1000s of hours in a helicopter.
You know, they weren't soexcited to take critiques and
stuff. So but I mean, when Iwhen I think, you know, when I
started at SkyWest, all of mylegs that were that I flew in my

(21:54):
brief, I was like, Look, if yousee something that you think I
can be doing better, orwhatever, I mean, please tell
me, because I'm coming here withlike, I had, like, planned
around 250 hours in an airplane,I think, I mean, the absolute
minimums that I could come with.
So I was like, I mean, it was agreat guy was was a great
opportunity for me to learn, youknow, really how to, you know,

(22:15):
be an airline pilot in the CRJis a great airplane for anyone
coming from helicopters. To theairlines. I mean, that's not a
very automated airplane. I mean,yeah, of course, it's got an
auto pilot and stuff. But Imean, there's a lot of, I guess,
kind of extra work. It's not,it's not very, very automated.
So you're, you kind of have toreally learn the systems as

(22:36):
you're going through it. Andeverybody in their first year,
every first officer in theirfirst year. I mean, it is in the
learning phase. So I mean,that's, I mean, everybody is,
you know, it's a two two personflight deck. So, I mean, you're
used to if you've got a firstofficer, that's only been, you
know, flying, you know, jet fora couple months, and then you're

(22:59):
gonna they're gonna miss things.
And that's, that's just the wayit is. That's
a encounter that'll quite a bit.
Yeah, yeah, as a captain. Yeah,when you get in UFO, I'm sure
you're already assuming that.
Alright, I got to be a littlebit more on my toes. But certain
things are just don'tyou? I looked at it as it was a
opportunity to teach and Ineeded that for sure. You know,

(23:23):
I don't know what I looked like,when I first came online at Sky
West. I mean, I was probably,you know, it's probably
horrible. But I think if youjust, you know, you know, ask
for critiques and take those toheart and, you know, try and
improve, you know, with to whatI've described before, is like,
with two pilots up there, youknow, you want to make one

(23:45):
perfect pilot, right? That's thewhole purpose of having two
people up there, you know,because you got all these, you
know, a lot of people arecounting on you to, to make sure
that, that everything's runsafely up there. So, I mean,
when one person you're alwaysbacking each other up, and, you
know, captains, you know, firstofficers will will say, hey,
look, this is, you know, you'returning on the wrong taxiway or,

(24:07):
or, you know, whatever, it's,it's always mean, you're two
people are confirming, you know,different. Yeah, like
Yeah, checks and balance. Yeah,yeah, totally.
I can't remember though. Scott.
Did you? Do Did you do a rotortransition program? Or did you
do with the VA to get your stuffyou're ready when

(24:31):
I was instructing inhelicopters. I still had some GI
Bill money left. So I startedtaking some airplane classes.
And so kind of when I didn'thave a student for a blog, go
fly the airplane or take anairplane lesson. So when I left
when I went to Pantheon I hadclose to the minimums you needed

(24:53):
for to go to the regionals. Oh,God, I had been. Yeah, I needed
to get my Multi enginecommercial great. But, you know,
I never got a multi engineprivate. So it's like, or a
single engine commercial. So I'mlike this weird. You know what?
I had a check ride. He's like,you're kind of like the duckbill

(25:14):
platypus of pilots, aren't you?
Cuz I don't have like, I don'thave a commercial. single
engine. You know, license? Yeah.
Did you? I think you just wentstraight to commercial. Yeah,
for multi.

(25:36):
I guess. I mean, you're acomposite. Let me go. Because
I think it's kind of cool. Yeah,I skipped over that. I skipped
that.
Yeah. It's funny because it'slike so have my times in assess
then other halfs in the embryo?
And it's like, I didn't It's notthat much time. So you're like,
how the hell did you get halfyour time in an embryo in like,
250 hours in assessment? I'mlike, I guess that's the way the

(25:58):
cookie crumbles.
Did you get did you get to? Youget to choose right, if you're
gonna fly the embryo or the CRJ?
Yeah. I'm not sure exactly howit works now. But they did ask
me in my interview, like whichone I wanted to fly. And gosh,

(26:19):
at that time, I couldn't eventell the difference between the
two. I was like talking to abuddy of mine. About which
airplane I should fly. And he'slike, I you know, I was looking
at two pictures. I was like,What's the difference? They both
look the exact same. He's like,dude, the engines are on the
wing on one and on the tail. Onthe other. I was like, oh.

(26:45):
A little picture in my in myportfolio that I brought into
the interview, like one had likethe engines up high and like,
equal CRJ. useful.
So do you know Do you know whyyou chose the CRJ? Over?

(27:07):
The, let's see, I think backthen it was just your the
seniority moved faster, yourschedule would be better or
faster. So I think that's kindof why I chose that. I think I
got a little bit of an earlierclass date, too. But, and I
think also, I had heard evenback then that it's a more of

(27:27):
like a pilot's airplane likethat's the airplane you really
fly. It's not as muchautomation, which is definitely
true. And even I think thatmight have been part of the
reason to, because I knew that Ilike wanted to learn how to fly
an airplane, I didn't want to goand you know, work a computer
system. So and for you know thatI'm really happy I did it that
way. The CRJ is a great airplaneto fly. It's I mean, it doesn't

(27:48):
have all the bells and whistles,it's a lot more work. But you're
gonna learn how to fly a jet. Soif that's what you want to do,
the CRJ is a great airplane forit.
And also the domicile choiceschange, right? Because they only
have certain ones at certaindomiciles Where did you end up?
I left my last domicile wasDenver, but I moved domiciles a

(28:11):
lot because I commuted to workwhat they call commuting. So I
never lived in a domicile. Youknow, I lived in Central Oregon.
So I spent time and I mean, whenI was at Sky West, the junior
base for most of the time wasDetroit. So I spent a fair
amount of time in Detroit andthen I went to Chicago. And I
went to Denver as an fo and SanFrancisco and then when I

(28:33):
upgraded I went back to Detroit.
And then I went to Fresno for alittle while and then finished
up in Denver. Wow, you did yeah.
And now I'm back in Detroit manit's like this airline airline

(28:54):
they're their headquarters arein Detroit. So we do our
training and stuff here butafter that your home base so
they fly it where you can livewherever you want in the country
and they fly and work so whichis awesome. That was a huge
selling point for me.
That's your schedule gonna belike with colletta
it's two weeks on two weeks off.
So you they basically fly youfrom home to wherever the

(29:15):
airplane is. And then you canyou I mean you go fly all around
the world for two weeks and thenat the end of that you come
home. So you have two weeks offand this will be your first
international job. Well, I flewto Canada Yeah, definitely. 100
miles north of the border.

(29:51):
How long did it take you toupgrade? And SkyWest
less than two years? Because Iknew I would Coming up on my
second requirement, and I waslike, I don't want to go do
that, I'm just gonna might aswell just upgrade so. And I was
kind of I, you know, I went backand forth, I was like, do I want
to upgrade right away? Or do Iwant to stay Amphoe for a while,

(30:14):
you know, because if you want toultimately move beyond the
regionals, you need to, youknow, the command time. So, and
ultimately, that's what Idecided to do is I was like,
Alright, I'm gonna bite thebullet, my schedule is gonna
suck, which it did. And thenCOVID hit, and that made it suck
even more. So it was like that,that made it, you know, pretty
rough. But yeah, I got the, youknow, I got the time that I

(30:36):
needed. And I was, you know, andthen I got picked up by quota.
With pretty quickly. So nice. Imean, I was fortunate for that,
as well. So I mean, even allthrough COVID and stuff, um, you
know, is brutal as that was on,you know, the passenger carrying
airlines, I was happy to be atleast building the
me. I see. I think I had to getspotty because I here to get a

(30:58):
good company. And the pays well,yeah.
Yeah, I'm super excited to behere. So after, you know, one
full day. But yeah, it'sexciting. I mean, things are on
another level here. So I mean,like, they gave us a list of,
you know, hotels and stufftoday. And they're like, all

(31:18):
over the world. Like, fromplanes, you know, all over the
place.
From the time you startedhelicopters to the point you're
at right now, how long did thattake your training zero to hero
first day flying a helicopter towhere you're at with colletta?
How many yearsstarted flying? I was student in
2015 2000 to 2015, likeSeptember 2015. was when I got

(31:41):
out of the Coast Guard. And Istarted in like my first student
flights. So six years? Yeah,like six years, six years?
Dang, yes. Six years, and you'rein the 747? Yeah, that's rated.
Dude. That's killer. madrespect. Rather, you
know, I've always beenresearching or even before I got

(32:03):
out of the Coast Guard. Youknow, trying to kind of figure
out what I needed to do. Andluckily, I got to know some good
people that helped me out. No,that's the reason I got here is,
you know, so about who you know.
People help. Yeah, peoplehelping each other out. And I
knew, like I said, I knewnobody. I knew absolutely nobody
come into sky West. And, youknow, I, you know, when I was

(32:24):
new there, I was talking tocaptains, and they're like, oh,
yeah, you know, I was like,Where do you get these
recommendations? Because youneed recommendations to get
anywhere. Like, where do you getthese recommendations? And
they're like, Oh, you'll get toknow people. And, you know,
they'll, they'll move on. And,you know, just keep in touch
with them. I'm like, Okay. Iremember

(32:50):
this has been Taylor. Taylor.
Yeah. Yeah, Taylor helped meout.
When I was still a Patreon heshowed me like, you know, an
arrival and he was like quizzingme on it. And I was like,
failing. I was like, Oh, this ishorrible.
I had this airplane pilot, orthis corporate pilot that we

(33:12):
picked up the other day, afriend of the guy been flying
with and he was like, quizzingme on IFR stuff. I'm like, Bro,
why are you doing this to meright now? Yeah, he got me on
this one. Because he he wassaying, you know, if the, the
airport that you intended to goto is below the minimums that
you needed to not have to filean alternate, and then they want

(33:33):
to return back to the airportthat they came from. But that's
also below the minimums forchoosing an alternate. Can you
file that as are like, somethinglike that? And he got me on it,
because he said that justbecause you file an airport as
an alternate doesn't mean thatyou have to go to that airport.
Right? So he's like, he's like,you just have to pick an airport

(33:56):
that definitely is above theminimums. And then if you can
make it back to your airport, ifyou can, like get down to the
minimums on the actual approach,then you can go to whatever
airport you want. Right long asyou had the fuel like, oh, boy,
because that's true. You don'thave to go to the alternate that
you filed. I don't know. Yeah, Iwas like No shit. Right on.

(34:20):
Yeah. Anyway, yeah, that's oneof the things when we're when
we're flying in the air,whatever, you know, a
thunderstorm comes over Denver,and you know, Denver basically
closes or whatever it's likethat's one of the first things
we're looking at is alright,let's look at the list of
airports we want to go to youknow, this you know, you might
have you know, Colorado Springslisted as an alternative of
course, that's where everyonewants to go. So it's gonna take

(34:41):
you 40 minutes to get in therebecause of traffic. So it's like
alright, well, guess we're alltaking. We're all going to Pier
Kansas.
I swear to God, the Rockies aremore rocky

(35:01):
Have you ever had any experiencelike unruly passengers that
you've had to deal with inflight?
Um, we've had I mean, I thinkCOVID brings out the best in
everybody, right? I mean, we'vehad some of the, you know, some
of the compliance issues withthe mass policies and stuff, and
it's not, you know, the issuethat I had was a couple guys

(35:24):
getting, you know, aggressivewith the flight attendant. You
know, it's not just like, youknow, if you're not gonna wear
your mask, it's like, alright,well, we'll talk to you on the
ground. But then when you startbullying the flight attendant
around, that really pisses meoff, so, and that was in a busy
phase of play, when I got thecall from her like, that she's
done her aspect there. So thatwas
what happened. You know, thatwas that was. Let's see, she she

(35:45):
called up, she was a super sweetflight attendant, which I mean,
oh, God, a lot of them are kindof crazy, but she was super
sweet. And, you know, she saidshe was having an issue back
there. So I made anannouncement. You know, it was
your captain lovable. Andanyway, these these people were,

(36:05):
I forget exactly. They were theywere harassing her taking
pictures of her and, you know,like, poking or stuff like that.
So I was like, that's totally,totally not acceptable. And
we're going we're on you know,our rival so it's like, things
are just kind of starting to getbusy for me now. I have to know
I'm worried about the safety ofmy flight and then the bet
there. We ended up taking theirtravel privileges away, you

(36:28):
know, when we when we got on theground. Ultimately, you know, we
had security and everything atthe gate. Because, I mean, I
know there's all this stuff, youknow, all these issues going on,
but an airplane is not the placeprove your point. So it's
certainly not not the place tobe like a bully. So and that was
that was our issue was you know,people being aggressive towards
a crew member way man, you know,that that doesn't fly. So well

(36:54):
handle, Captain Yeah, welldone. Yeah. You know,
did you ever practice yourcaptain's voice before you get
onto a flight This is yourcaptain Gendron speaking. Ladies
and gentlemen, we'reabout to go Morriston beaches,
turbulence.

(37:23):
When you're the first officer,you make, like, you know,
whoever is not flying, makes theannouncements for like the
seatbelt sign or whatever. Soyou like do a little bit of
that. And then you go to yourupgrade training and they're
like, look, you know, it's notrequired, but would really
appreciate it if you if youmake, you know, welcome aboard
announcement. Now you don't, youdon't have to. But you know,

(37:43):
Delta really wants you to orUnited really wants you to or,
you know, whoever we're flyingfor. You know that basically, if
you don't do it, they're gonnastop contracting, they're flying
with us. So you lose your job.
So we're telling you, have youbut you have to. Yeah. And then
eventually you just get used toyour spiel, you know, introduce
yourself andkind of want to hear your spiel.

(38:08):
It's been a it's been a whilesince I've given it you know,
good morning, ladies andgentlemen. My name is Scott.
I'll be your captain. Gosh, youknow you know, I will say I
never gave weather, you know,unless it's gonna be bumpy, but
like, man, people can look upweather on their phone. So I
wasn't. I wasn't the weatherguy. I kept it pretty brief. You

(38:30):
know, I didn't like Bose afterlike seven o'clock. No
announcements, you know, I waslike people are asleep. Yeah.
That's the worst when you'relike, it's like 10 o'clock on a
flight and Gavin's like, Hello,ladies. Captain. I hope you're
enjoying the flight.
He woke me up. Off All right, isa green cane and you can't see

(38:51):
it. But it's out there. It'sthere. Now sit back and relax.
We ever attempted to makeairplane jokes from the movie?
Oh, Roger, Roger.
Oh, yeah. Those ones What's yourdaughter gave me? My daughter

(39:12):
gave me a great airplane joke.
She was like what do you callseagulls flying over the bay?
Bagels.
Damn.
I did we're taking off over thebay in San Francisco. So I said
something I was like, Well, youknow, we'll try to avoid any
bagels on our way out a bagel ofcourse being a seagull that's

(39:33):
flying over the bedif I was a captain oh my gosh,
it's so cheesy. Amazing. i On aserious on a serious note. Like
if there is another if there's ahelicopter pilot wanting to do

(39:55):
what you do. Would you go intolike the rotor transition
program? Um sure when it doescome back, is that something
that you would recommend? Andyeah, what would be something
that needs me to focus on whenthey're building? Like they're
like, fixed wing time? Is thereanything that you noticed? That
was like a deficiency inhelicopter pilots? Going in as
efos?

(40:16):
I think, no, I would definitelyrecommend the rotor transition
programs. I mean, I have flownwith a lot of guys that have
done them. And it's like, Ithink you're obligated, I think
it's sky West was like, I mean,don't quote me on this, but I
think it was like two years. Imean, two years, if you're want
to make a career out of, youknow, flying for the airlines
two years is nothing, I mean,you're just going to be hitting

(40:37):
your 1000 hours, probably with,you know, maybe a little bit
before that time, and thenupgrading and stuff. So, two
years goes by pretty quick. Asfar as, you know, deficiencies
and stuff like that, you know, Iwould just say, in every flight,
try and, you know, check as manyboxes as you can, you know, get
the cross country time, get thenight time, if you can't, you
know, that'll just help you outin the long run. But flying a

(41:00):
172 is totally different thanflying a jet. So I mean, I
couldn't I remember, like, Icould not land a 172 it was like
clam, you know, onto the runway.
And, you know, I had a buddy atSky West said, like, don't worry
about it, but jet flares.
Totally different. So, you know,even, you know, I remember even

(41:21):
doing maneuvers for my privatein the 172. I was like, I'm not,
you know, I didn't feel supergood about them. But you know,
you go and you fly the jet istotally different. So, yeah,
you're going to learn that as afirst officer on the job, people
are going to give you critiques.
I heard this guy was had areally good training program.

(41:42):
Theydo. Yeah, they have a really
good training program. And thatwas another reason I, I chose
that was they had a reputationfor being, uh, you know, you
know, have a good trainingprogram. And even in my
interview here at Cleta, they'relike, Well, we have really good
success with people coming fromSkyWest. And their training
program. So yeah, that was Imean, that was a, I was really
happy to be there for that. Youknow, so. But yeah, I mean,

(42:04):
yeah, the rotor transitionprogram is great. It's a great
opportunity for people if youdon't, you know, I mean, I was
fortunate I had the GI Bill. ButI mean, it's expensive.
So it's expensive. It's almostlike 50 grand, you know, to
close, close to 50 grand to getall your additional readings
anywhere between 30 and 50 MB,depending if you do a lot of

(42:26):
your cross country in Mexico.
I don't even know how much theGI Bill to and it's just sort of
like you don't really payattention. At least I never
really paid attention to howmuch money was being spent. They
kind of just rolled with it.
Yeah. Yeah, I know. I'm notsaying it to brag or anything

(42:47):
like that money.
Is yours, though. You know? Youdid?
Yeah. Knows. Good. Oh, SemperParatus. Gendron.
Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lotcheaper to if you're going from
like Mexico to Texas, like 50feet over the ocean.

(43:07):
Sometimes they pay youuntil you leave some cargo.
Landing with nothing in theback. Is like so how last 100
hours. They were alone.
When did I tell you about thatmade a lot of money when I think

(43:32):
I told you about that when I wasat Transnet. And they it was
like my first day with everybodyintroducing themselves, right?
They're on like our auditorium.
And we all had our name tapeson. And they're like, one by
one. We're all like standing upintroducing ourselves to upper
management. And they get to mytable and they get to me and
they stand up and they're like,so Mr. Hernandez, like, tell us
about your flying background.

(43:55):
And I'm like, I'm gonna wing it.
You know, like, here we go.
We're gonna send out the joke.
And I was like, I was like,Well, you know, I did a lot of
my flying usually low level atnight, working for a
pharmaceutical company inMexico. I swear to God, like, I
swear, my joke was split. 5050down the middle. There was a lot
of cool cats in there. Theystarted laughing but I could

(44:18):
also tell that I didn't make alot of friends with upper
management. This joker guybut yeah,
sounds like I don't know. Butafter that, man, everything
everybody like it was cool. Imean, like, I don't regret it.

(44:41):
It was no that wasa solid move. Solid move. That
was a solid move ended.
Yeah. Bagels. Yeah.
I would say bagelsis pretty hardcore, dude. Yeah,
that was pretty.
It's a pretty good joke. I'mactually
one of my last flights. My mydaughters came with me and they
made the announcement. So mydaughter's like, welcome aboard
to Denver. fasten your seatbelts, whatever, you know, no

(45:02):
one's listening to you anyway.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, I thought that andapparently they do that one I'll
do off here, okay?
Are listens, listeners, they'regonna be like, oh, you can't do

(45:26):
that? No. Job.
Sorry. Stick around for seasonthree, you know, we'll go with
the unedited version. That'spretty good. That's funny. Yeah.
For the training that you do atcolletta how long? How long? Is

(45:47):
it training? Or how long are yougonna be there in Detroit?
It's about five to six weeks. Sowe go six days a week, and it's
all business. You know? It's,it's a ton to do.
What was it? Like? Like, yourfirst day there?
I mean, the first days, youknow, a bunch of car stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, kinda HR stuff, howto, you know, some, you know,

(46:12):
get your new your iPad and youruniforms, got your, you know,
new ID badges and stuff likethat, but no, it's not that bad.
I mean, they're still nice toyou. by the, by the lunch and
stuff, but, but yeah, once like,when, you know, after I think

(46:33):
like, tomorrow, we'll go and andthen it's, you know, you get on
with your Sim partner, and youstart calling through all the
system is of the airplane. And,I mean, just the systems alone,
you know, takes like, weeks.
Yeah. To get through that, thenyou go into the, you know, you
kind of build up on things yougo into, they call it like the
matrix, which is kind of like asimulator that it doesn't quite
move, but it still has like, thecomputers and stuff in there.

(46:54):
And then eventually, you'll gointo the SIM, you know, the full
motion sim, and, you know, doyour engine failures and all
that. And yeah, you know, takeyour check ride at the end of
like, six weeks. So, there, it'sa pretty brutal process. I mean,
it's the same at any airline, itwas the same at Sky West, same
here, same, you know, anywhere,you're going to go and spend a
lot of time in a hotel roomstudying for, you know, anywhere

(47:16):
from, you know, a month and ahalf to three months doing this.
So let's, with the pass rate forthe company, for the most part
on like, first time goes, Do youknow? Oh,
I'm not sure. I mean, most ofthe time, I mean, people that
get here, I mean, I mean, peopledo fail. I mean, you don't want
to fail on these events. And allthat. I'm not sure. I don't

(47:41):
know. But I mean, yeah, ithappens. Yeah. You don't want
that to happen. I know. So,yeah, that's a trick, right?
Yeah. And that goes on. It goeson your pre as a failing
checker. Yeah.
Shoot. Oh, yeah. That's a bigYeah, you don't want to check
121 Island. I mean, like, I, I,you can fail stuff in your, like
an, you know, private or CFI youknow, everyone fails. CFI tons

(48:04):
of people fail. CFI Yeah. Butover over those. Yeah. You don't
want to 121 failure.
Yeah. Yeah, talk about pressure.
But but you just ifyou, you know, you kind of, you
know that everyone here and itwas the same with Sky West. You
know, everyone's there to helpyou. I mean, the train, it's
very thorough, and, you know,they, especially right now,

(48:25):
like, they need pilots.
Everybody needs pilots. Time.
So, you know, they're no one'sout to get you. But you have to
do the work. And you have toknow the airplanes. I mean,
yeah. You don't want to I mean,they're there. You know, people
back there are you know, I mean,in my case, cargo, of course,
but, I mean, you're operating,you know, you might have people

(48:47):
back there.
How extensive is the hazmatsection of the training for
cargo that way?
Yeah. Actually, I was actuallydoing that one and they give you
some of this training a couplelike a couple days before you
start class so I was goingthrough like, like hazmat Oh,

(49:07):
that your hazmat that's probablynot your battles. I'll like do
that one before I get there. SoI like quick diagur like open it
up. You knowhow you find out that your will
carrythe radioactive material has to
be kept at least 50 feet awayfrom the dry ice. You're like,

(49:29):
ohyeah, I never really understood
some of the ones just like herpart. 135 year old, not your
will not carry operator. Andthey're like how many
centimeters from the edge of thesticker? Does the label need to
have the A and the trianglehazardous sign you're like, why

(49:49):
do I need to know that? Like,Well, I'm not making the
stickers for these things. Butyeah, and I know there were some
like really detailed stuff inthe hazmat So I always thought
it was like the worst section onthe 135 joining I hated it. But
oh yeah, I would imagineI just remember strike anywhere
matches was one of the answersthat you cannot.

(50:10):
You cannot bring on board. Andyou do it enough you do enough
of those trainings that you justlike the answers from?
I'm pretty sure strike anywherematch. Yeah.
Batteries on wheelchairs.
Yeah, batteries. Yeah, batteriesare a big one. Yeah, yeah,

(50:32):
there's a I mean, and that'spart of like, just learning the
new company procedures forwherever you're going. You know,
will they carry hazardousmaterial or not? Or, you know,
what the policies are on that?
Yeah. So, but, yeah, I mean, youknow, cargo airplanes carry a
lot of stuff that don't go onpassenger airplanes for, you
know, for those reasons. So,true, true. Well, if anybody out

(50:54):
there doesn't know. But ScottGendron was actually a rescue
swimmer. For the Coast Guard.
Yeah, we didn't even talkabout that. Yeah, man. You know,
he taught Kevin Costner. What'sup on the garden?

(51:15):
Gosh, I was a lifetime ago.
Still, it's so cool. So yeah, Imean, I was the surface swimmer
for my cutter. But you know, Idid my little two week crash
course on how to save peoplehave jetties and stuff. It was
pretty cool. Yeah. So what wasthat? Like? I mean, you i one
story always stuck with me thatyou told me about one time that

(51:39):
you were on a rescue. And you'rein the middle of ocean at
nighttime, and then the whalebreached right next to you?
Oh, yeah. That's yeah. coast ofOregon. Yeah. Yeah, we would do
these things. And I think thatwas like a just just a training,
but like, we'll do these. Wecall them vectors or the air,

(52:00):
the helicopter would, you know,drop you off. And in the ocean,
you'd be a couple miles off theshore, and then the helicopter
would fly away. And you would,you know, vector them back in on
the radio because they can't seeyou. You're just a little
thought there. And you wouldsay, you know, on the cheer, you
know, eight o'clock, two miles,or, you know, whatever. Yeah.
Anyway, so then fly off forlike, five or 10 minutes, and

(52:21):
you just kind of be floatingthere at night, sometimes during
the day, but. And yeah, I heardthis sound behind me. And I was
always worried about sea lions.
Like I heard about howaggressive sea lions were. And I
heard like, I heard like, youknow, you know, whatever, behind
me. And I was like, Oh, shit.
Yeah, I'm about to get attackedby sea lion. I don't know why I

(52:43):
wasn't concerned about sharks,which I probably should have
been. You know, probably been alittle while since I'd seen
shark Shark Week. So that wasn'ton my mind. But yeah, then I
turned around, and I saw, youknow, another whale breach.
Right there.
So cool. Terrifying. But cool.
Yeah, that would be scary asYeah, they're just checking me

(53:05):
out.
So how come? How come you didn'twant to go into the Coast Guard
to become a pilot, like fly thehelicopter fly? Jayhawks.
I thought about it. And it wasI, you know, ultimately, I was
when I was weighing the options.
I was like, okay, I can get, Ican get out and use the GI Bill

(53:26):
and be, you know, guaranteed togo to an aviation program. And
you know, go fly helicopters, orwhatever I want to do with the
GI Bill, or I can, you know, goto OCS, and apply for flight
school after I get through OCS.
And like, maybe I'll get it. Ormaybe I'll

(53:47):
end up a junior officer on a bigcutter somewhere. Big cutter.
Yeah. And go out for like, sixmonths at a time. So I was like,
Yeah, I think I'm, I think I'mgonna get out. And yeah, and I
talked to I talked to one pilot,you know, when I was trying to
kind of figure out what I shoulddo. And he's like, man, it's
just, it's just a matter of howbad you want it. And, you know,

(54:09):
I beat out to rescue swimmersfor this spot. And I was like,
Oh, well, that doesn't soundgood for me at all.
Sounds like So you're saying youbeat out people exactly like me.
And they didn't get it. So I waslike yeah. Oh, man. So I'm

(54:33):
happy. I did. I mean, it's thethings of God when I got out. I
mean, everyone was saying likethis, you know, me being a
rescue swimmer in the CoastGuard is a great job. And, you
know, your schedules, you know,pretty good. I mean, as far as
like military jobs, like, that'spretty awesome. And people were

(54:54):
like, man, you're crazy. Whatare you doing? My wife was like
eight months pregnant. And I waslike, I don't know what it's
Quit looking back on. It allworked out. But boy that was
like,that's tough. Yeah, I bet me
Yeah, I remember I wanted to seewhat the airman program was all
all about when when I was in Iwas up in Cape de and yeah, so I
went over to air stay Astoriaand they let me try it out for

(55:17):
like a week. They're like, yeah,we'll put you through like a
mock you know, Airmen trainingprogram and they just kicked my
butt. Like to the point I waslike, Oh my God, this it'd be
six months of this. What? Yeah,that was that was tough.
Literally, you know, if you'reeven one minute late, they're
like, Okay, I push up for everysecond you were late. And then

(55:38):
they put you on the treadmill atthe all the various different
levels and then you taking thegymnasium and run run exercises
for an hour and then like, rightbefore your legs are about to
fall off. They're like, Okay,let's go for a six mile run. I'm
like, what you guys are insane.
Kill me. Oh, like maybe thisisn't for me. I don't know. But

(55:59):
yeah, I compromised with thejust being the cutter surface
swimmer when I got to Miami,which was still pretty cool, you
know? And I said, I always feltlike bait, you know, because
they put the I'm on a hook. I'mon the tether, and they throw
out like a big orange, you know,fender out into the water be

(56:20):
like, you know, fetch and, youknow, swim out there and if the
Coxon of the cutter wasn'tgreat, you know, put you in the
wrong spot and then the linewould be being pulled with the
current in the wrong directionand you're fighting against that
China's swim out to you know,the, the fender you're supposed
to be rescuing and then you grabit totally out of, you know,
just exhausted from fightingagainst the current because the

(56:41):
Coxon sucks. And then and thenthey're just like reeling you
back in, right? They're justlike pulling on the line, just
bringing it back to the boat.
I'm like, I really feel likethey're trolling for sharks
right now. And I'm the brightorange bait at the end of the
line. And I'm just waiting forsharks like dinner.
They're like we got the job.

(57:08):
But I remember we had it we hadto do a night swim. And earlier
that day, we were doing Jettyrescues, and they put the dummy
on the rocks and they like okay,you just gotta let the water
lift you up and put you on thejetty. And then you grab the
dummy and then you wait for thewater to kind of come through
and you swim it out the otherside. It's like okay, cool. I
got this, but I was on a shorty.
A short suit. It's a shorty.

(57:30):
It's like a short wetsuit.
Because it's, you know, it'swarm in Miami. Yeah. And so I
got on the jetty and I grabbedthe dummy. And then the
instructor just goes, hold on.
And I was like, huh, and I lookback and this big go fast as for
giant outboard engines, likecigarette boat drives by and
casts a huge wake. And it hitsme on the jetty. And I got just

(57:52):
tumbled head over heels on topof the rocks. And I got up and I
had barnacles sticking out of myelbows and my knees and I was
bleeding everywhere else cricketsucked. And yeah, but then we
had to do the night swim thatnight. And I'm like, great. So
you guys are gonna put me out inthe middle of the ocean. I've
got all these open wounds. Justcome on. Come on anything. They

(58:14):
say? Yeah, they took us out inauxilary boat and they dropped
us off different locations andleft us alone out there. And we
had to find each other, like getinto the rescue, you know,
circle or whatever. And yeah,just remember Bobby. And as soon
as the boat kind of drives away,it just goes completely silent.
And you're just bobbing outthere by yourself and Okay. It's

(58:35):
cool. It's cool. I'm cool.
There's nothing here at all. Ohmy god, what is that? And then
you just start sweating as fastas you can like, yeah, that was
hated it. Yeah, being an openopen water at nighttime. You
just you can't imagine like whatis below you and what's about to
come up and eat your legs.
That's what I feel like you knowwhen I get seaweed on my leg? Oh

(58:57):
my oh my god jelly. Oh, no. It'scool. Nothing to see here.
But I never actually got to likerescue anybody. Just drill.
What about you, dude have anyhairy situations?
Let's see. One of my favoriteswas we there was I think I heard
later that these kids actuallystole this duck blind with we

(59:19):
got called out in the middle ofthe night. And this was in the
great lakes. Lake Huron orsomething, I think but it's
winter. And it's the lakes likepartially frozen. So it's super
cold outside and these kids areadrift on this duck blind.
That's and you know, this iceflow and we got got out there

(59:42):
and it was, you know, superearly in the morning. No boats
could get in there because ofthe size. So they lured me down.
I swam you know, you're likepushing away these icebergs and
stuff and to get to, you know,these kids on the on the duck
blind. Get up there and yeah,they're there. Okay. They're
just cold and stuff. But there'sduck blind has a roof on it, and

(01:00:04):
there's no way to hoist to thehelicopter from the duck blind,
that I could see, you know, it'slike, All right, well, we're
gonna have to, you know, getthem in the water for a second,
put them in the basket. So Iwhen I, you know, I called for
the basket, I swam out, grabbedthe basket, dragged it back
through the ice, which was Imean, it was like, that was a
lot of work. Yeah, got it toright next to the duck blind,

(01:00:28):
and it is like, right there, allthey have to do is like, jump
off the duck blind into thisinto the basket. And, you know,
then they're gonna be up in theair. And, you know, a couple
seconds, you know, as soon asthey start hoisting, so I call
I, you know, point to one of thekids, I'm like, you, you know,
it's loud. You can thehelicopters there and
everything. You know, I'm like,coming here, and, you know, it

(01:00:51):
comes over, it's kind of scootsover this duck plans, like
sinking the things probablystraight out of the garbage can.
And you like, sticks his footin? And you're like, oh, no,
he's like, you're never like,grabbed his leg, and I just,

(01:01:15):
like, pull him down. And he's inthe water. He's in the basket,
you know, then, you know, I gavehim the signal to hoist. And so
they hoist up and you know, thenthen he's out of there. So I'm
like, Alright, sweet. You know,I swim right back to the duck
blind. His friend, you know, theother kid is like, in the
corner, just like staring at me.
Like, no way.

(01:01:38):
No. Friends, like, I'm cool.
I'll just stay. So whathappened? Same thing with it,
but basically, just, you know,grandma's like, come on. He like
kind of inches, like, you know,a little bit forward is the same

(01:01:59):
thing, you know, grab a toe andyank them into the basket. And
yeah, that was one of my I mean,that was two kids. And that was
that was, dude, howcool was that water for it to be
like icebergs? Oh,it's freezing. Yeah, you hit I
mean, in the Great Lakes whenyou were doing stuff out there
in the winter. I mean, you wereyour dry suit would be ice
before you got back when youwere being hoisted out of the

(01:02:23):
water. I mean, you'd leave thewater and you know, you you
could start bending your elbowsand ice crystals would fall off
your, your suit because you justfroze like immediately. But I
mean, we you were we wereprepared. I mean, you'd wear a
ton of clothing under there.
Yeah. Man walking out to thehelicopter.
I would imagine you're prettyheavy. Right? Like with all the

(01:02:43):
gear with all the extra layers?
Yeah,our I forget how much. I mean,
our harness was like 40 pounds.
I mean, you had a bunch of like,Pyro in there radio, a radio and
yeah. Yeah, the dry suit. Yeah,I mean, it kind of all
neutralized. I mean, it was justhard to swim. And if you're
wearing that much gear, it madeit hard to like maneuver around.

(01:03:03):
And then you'd be it'd bedressed for the cold. But then
when you're working trying toget through like an ice flow or
something, then you get superhot. And then you're like, Oh,
God. Sowhen I was up in Cape D, we
would have to do these escortsof the big cargo ships coming
into Astoria, because some ofthe times they would have really
dangerous chemicals on boardthat, you know, we had to make
sure nobody was going to, youknow, drop a bomb off the bridge

(01:03:24):
or I don't know do somethingcrazy. But sometimes they would
last hours and hours and hours.
And there's no bathroom on a 47foot motor lifeboat and you
know, the guys had it prettyeasy, cuz like we had dry suits
and everything too. So UnderArmour fleece bunny suit the dry
suit. On top of that, you gotyour life jacket and your Pio

(01:03:44):
jacket on top of that, gloves,your boots, like, you know, got
all the gear on. And for a guythat PNN all you got to do is
like unzip, you know, the zipperon the front, and you could kind
of like finagle his way to likepee out of it off to the side of
the boat. But for a girl you hadto like take off the whole
ensemble, right? So you'rebasically just like naked on the

(01:04:04):
boat. And they want you to putyour harness, clip it into the
boat and like stick your buttover the side of the boat to go
pee. But then the water wouldcome up and like gets you right
in the butt. You were like notdone at the go anymore. Like
this huge cargo ship like rightnext to you. Like you just
imagine the guys on board belike what is she? They're

(01:04:26):
blowing the horn. They'reblowing the cargo horn to
reposition to the other side ofthe cargo ship or like so that I
was on the other side. Nobodycould see me but
you see all the you see thewhole crew on top of like the
top top deck of the cargo withtheir binoculars.
You got to do what you got to dosometimes, but it was called see

(01:04:50):
for three months. Yeah,literally like all the water
they would like go inside thedry suit. You're like well that
just defeated the entire purposeof this day
and why is This 800 foot vesselrepositioned to the other side
I don't I don't even know.
existed back then. Yeah, we hada pilot at pappy. I don't know

(01:05:13):
if you remember her? Oh yeahshout out.
Shout out to the girl. You knowwe love you. I'm not gonna say
any names those hilarious guys.
Yeah thosewait to go pee in the canyon. I
mean should wait should be likeoh this is a real bathroom at

(01:05:37):
the at the hangar on the skipperyeah right back out to the
canyon so she could use her shoeI always remember a guy. When
she did use it. I remember a guyseeing just her legs on the
other side of the helicopter inthis dream, you know? Like, how
did I see him like this?

(01:06:02):
She was just on the other sideof the helicopter.
I just like I just remember hisfacial expression like what? Oh
my god. Yeah, gang gangster.
That's pretty gangster gangster.
Yeah. I've told this story somany times, I'm sorry to hear
this again, Jose, but myinstrument check ride for

(01:06:24):
airplanes, my instrument add on.
I do the ground and everything.
And then the DPE was like cool.
You know, he did really well onthe ground. So it's time to go
fly. And he pulls out one ofthose like medical urinal things
like the little, little, I don'tknow, containers that you pee

(01:06:44):
into. And he was like, if I haveto use this during your flight
Do you mind?
And I'm sitting there like, oh,ah,
what do I do here? Because wouldyou be an extra 100? checker?
The checkride if I say no, is hegonna like mess with me and fail

(01:07:05):
me or something? And I was justlike, Well, sir, do you have a
medical condition where youwouldn't be able to hold it for
an hour and a half forcheckride? Or you could just let
me know that you have to go asat the first sign of of trouble
and I'll pull you right backinto the FBO. You can hop out
and or back to the school youcan hop out and use the
restroom. And he was like, Okay,I was like, Yeah, but if it's

(01:07:28):
like a medical emergency, likeyour bladder is gonna explode
out of your body. Yeah, yeah,sure, like, go for it. But I
would prefer I would prefer thefact. I just paid you $800 In
cash rich checkride. And it's a172 it's a very small cockpit. I
really don't want you whippingout. You're dangling in front of

(01:07:49):
me during a checkride and I'mpretty sure that's illegal
anyways. Yeah, like Sir, I'drather you not expose yourself
to me during my checkride and ohmy god.
He looks at me. He's likemedical emergency time. Wink.
I probably I don't know. Iprobably would have reported it.
If he actually whipped out histhing in the middle of my
checkride took us about Yeah,that's not that's not It's not

(01:08:11):
okay. Yeah, so that was reallycrazy.
I don't even know where to seguefrom that.
So P stores. Yeah, he's gonnalook at my record like who did
her chakra?
Who was this guy? Yeah,it was pretty some guy named
Samsonite. See Swansea?

(01:08:38):
Yeah, pretty crazy. Well, we'rekind of coming to the end here.
Are there any closing thoughts,anything that you'd like to
share?
I think this is a great resourcefor people. I mean, one of the
things that got me excitedabout, you know, coming on and
stuff was just to let peopleknow that, you know, for guys
that are in the helicopterindustry and decide that this is
something they want to do. Youknow, it's totally possible. So

(01:09:01):
that's, you know, that's the bigtakeaway,
I hope know, for sure. But now,I really appreciate you. And
there's alot and there's a lot of X
helicopter guys, you know, inthe airlines, so a lot of people
ready to help you out. So youmight not know all of them when
you make the jump and stuff. Butyeah,
I think the helicopter industryis also just suffering a little

(01:09:23):
bit because all the helicopterpilots are going to the airline.
Because it's such a such a thingnow.
Yeah, I mean, there's someserious bonuses out there for
guy is, you know, so, I mean, Ithink I mean, I what I yeah,
when I left, I remember one timeI left. I was leaving pappy on
to go home and I like saw theairplane recruiters outside of

(01:09:44):
the airplane hangar. I was like,Oh, man.
You know what I just found outATP, the flight school. Um, as
far as like getting like typeratings, you know, I think just
got approved for the VA For theGI Bill. So now you can use your
post 911 GI bill for typeratings. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I

(01:10:09):
just got an email about it. So Ithought I thought that was
pretty cool. Yeah. So I'm gonnaget my Gulfstream 650 type
rating. And oh, yeah, no, I'mjust kidding.
That's a pretty big corporateairplane. Yeah. I don't know,
like corporate jets very well.
But yeah, yeah, no, yeah. Someof those are like, some of those

(01:10:30):
type ratings are like, I mean,40
grand, 40 grand. I looked intoit. You know, what's ridiculous,
is that a Blackhawk type ratingis equivalent to a Gulfstream
550 type rating? Like, yeah, asfar as price goes, yeah.
That's a big, everythinghelicopter is just so

(01:10:51):
expensive. And it's like, it'salmost to the point where like,
why would I get a Blackhawktype? Right, and I just get the
Gulfstream 550. Yeah, yeah,I guess it just depends on what
you want to do. Somestay at the Four Seasons. Yeah.
Okay.
Four Seasons in Hawaii.
Quality left kind of guy. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. corporate jets isthe way to go. That's right.

(01:11:13):
That's right. Yeah.
So if you want togo helicopters, like a guy who
tents my Italian suede boots,the finer things in life. I
can't tell you how manycompliments I get on my boot.
Tommy. Boots are dope. suedeboots. Yeah.

(01:11:35):
Yeah.
I'll pull them out for you. Guybottom. Cool. She doesn't I
guess she don't care about myboots. But I get a lot of other
coverages.
I didn't know I didn't. I didn'trealize I was oblivious.
But anyway, let me go. Yeah,good luck
on your training. Thank you somuch for taking the time. I know
you have so much stuff to studyand things to work on this week.

(01:11:56):
So I really, really appreciateyou coming on and sharing your
journey. And it's going to helpso many people who are choosing
to or thinking about going thatgoing that route and getting a
little bit of insight fromsomeone who's done it in six
years. Total. Yeah, man. So youmust have worked your ass off.
You must have flown your ass offto get to where you are in such

(01:12:16):
a short period of time. So bravoto you and congrats on your
success and your career. And itwas really good to see you.
Yeah, it's good to see you guystoo. Thanks for yeah, thanks for
theinvite. Now for sure. I'm gonna
go out there. You know yourhomeboy blue?
Yeah. Next time in LA Heck,yeah. I'm gonna be in LA a fair

(01:12:37):
amount, Ithink. Awesome. All right, man.
Good talk.
Pick me up so I don't have torun 10 miles. Wow.
Right. Yeah, that was like a badbone.
I was working you know. Alright,guys. Alright. See you later.
Later, homie. Goodbye. Hey, goodluck, guys.

(01:12:57):
Scotty Boy, that was super dopetalking to him. It's been a
while.
It's been since pantheon. Yeah,no, I see him. Um, well, I guess
the last time I saw him was acouple months ago. Yeah. Yeah,
it came in on a layover. Andhe's like, Hey, you want to go
get some beers? I was like, hellyeah.
I didn't make the cut.
I don't know where you're at.
You know, you're, you're alwaysout and about.

(01:13:20):
Yeah, forever on the fly, youknow, on the fly, baby, you
can't keep it down.
You can't can't put baby on thecorner. Okay, well, we talked a
lot about Scott's transitioninto the airlines. And we had a
couple of takeaways from ourconversation that we'll just
kind of sum up here at the end.
So we're super proud of Scottand the journey that he has

(01:13:43):
taken in his success. So youknow, bravo to Scott, we're
super proud of you. Love you,man. Okay, so ways to fund your
airplane flight training. Sothere's the obvious ones, save
up, pay as you go. Take out aloan, if you absolutely need to,
we all know you're gonna bemaking that big airline bucks
eventually. Eventually, it'llget some pay it off. Rotary

(01:14:06):
transition programs are our TPS.
They stopped them during COVID.
But it seems as though they'regoing to make a comeback. So do
your research into what airlinesare going to be offering these
programs. And if you're aveteran, you can get the GI bill
to pay for your fixed wingcommercial and instrument add
ons, and then maybe pocket someof that bonus cash that the

(01:14:28):
airlines are going to give you.
All right. So let's go into theour requirements that you need.
If you are going to go fromhelicopters to the airlines to a
part 121 airline. We did some ofthe legwork for you so that you
guys don't have to in order tofly for the airlines, you need

(01:14:50):
an ATP license. Now in order toget an ATP license, you need
1500 hours of flight time.
However the FAA does recognizeCertain experience in work and
education should maybe exemptyou from that 1500 hours. And
there's a couple of categoriesof exemptions here listed, and
that's called a restricted ATPlicense. And that's what a lot

(01:15:13):
of helicopter pilots use inorder to transition into the
airlines. So it falls under acouple of categories. One, if
you're a military pilot, youonly actually need 750 hours of
total time, and 200 hours ofcross country time. If you are a
graduate from an approved fouryear University with a
bachelor's degree and anaviation major, you only need

(01:15:33):
1000 hours of total flight time.
Also, if you're a graduate froman approved two year college
with an associate's degree andan aviation major, you only need
1250 hours of total flight timeand 200 hours of cross country
time. So in summation, if youdon't have any of those degrees,
and you're not a military pilot,you're still required to get

(01:15:56):
that 1500 total and 200 hours ofcross country time, no
exemptions. Now Jose is going todive a little bit deeper into
the nitty gritty boxes that needto be checked off things that
you need to keep track of whileyou're going through your flight
training.
So a lot of the helicopterpilots that go into the fixed
wing version, a lot of littlehidden, I would say our

(01:16:19):
requirements that you neededlike check off the box 250 P IC,
ours fixed wing, there is nosubstitution for that the 250 P
IC is for you to get yourcommercial multi engine license,
you cannot get your ATP. First,you need to be able to get your
multi engine commercial beforeyou could get your ATP license.

(01:16:40):
The second is your 50 hours ofmulti Engine Land. Now 25 hours
can be substituted in a sim. Butthat's about as much as it can
be substituted for 200 hoursacross country. But 100 hours a
PAC cross country in a fixedswing. That's no substitution as
well you cannot substitute let'ssay 200 hours across country in

(01:17:03):
a helicopter 100 of it has to bein fixed wing aircraft 100 hours
at night total 25 hours of nightfixed wing pie see that also
cannot be substituted. Now 75hours of instrument would be
your last box, which 25 hourscan come from simulator as well.
And that pretty much knocks outall the little like boxes that

(01:17:26):
you need to get your ATP. And Ihope that helped.
Oh, that's a lot of numbers. Andsomething that I did as someone
who is utilizing the GI Bill toget my add on ratings. Because
usually schools have you do yourinstrument add on before your
commercial add on. None of thattime for during instrument is

(01:17:49):
counted as pilot in commandtime. So something that I did to
build my P IC fixed wing fasterwas I just paid out of pocket
for my private. And that wayonce I've already licensed all
that instrument time. And allthe time that is spent doing
your commercial add on as wellis all considered PAC fixed wing

(01:18:09):
time. So that kind of helped meout a little bit, just build my
PAC 10 faster.
And I was one of the pilots thatactually took the rotor
transition program when it wasfirst out. And I have zero
regrets from that. I mean, I gotfree training. Of course I was
going to do my two years butsadly the company went out of
business. But it was definitelyworth it. But one thing to

(01:18:33):
always keep in mind, when you dothe rotor transition program,
you got to really treat it likea job. I would not recommend you
go and fly now VFR every daydoing your cross countries VFR
because that's not going to helpyou when you get to training at
the airlines. You need to beable to do your holding
procedures for procedures Mr.
proach is tracking vo Rs.

(01:18:56):
Identifying vor is essentiallyeverything you need to build a
solid ground base for yourinstrument training. Because
that's gonna take you a lotfurther when you actually get
into the airline becauseeverybody else is already going
to be ahead of the game.
Yeah, and that's good advice.
All right. That's all the timewe have for today. You guys,
thank you so much for tuning inand giving us your support. We

(01:19:17):
appreciate every single one ofyou. Don't forget to subscribe
to the podcast. Leave us areview on Apple podcasts that
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We always love to hear from youhave a beautiful day.
Bye