บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ When the Dream Job Doesn’t Pay for the Dream Life

it right now. But come mid-2030s, it's gonna be back to a pretty slow roll. So I think that all these things are are very important to consider now and we'll we'll dive into them, but I wanted to preface it with that so that y y you could appreciate when I chime in. on pieces of your story to to fill in maybe what might be a blank of what I wish somebody would have told me. And then I kind of want to see what your perspective is or what your perspective was when you started flying. What were your expectations versus what you wish you would have known had had you have been you now then. So Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: but how did you how did you get into flying? And you're flying commercially now, right? Okay. Kristina Kennedy: I am. Yeah. I'm doing mostly tours and charter flights out of Vegas and so I have about two thousand hours now and my story coming into it isn't very exciting. Like I don't have a story from childhood where I've always wanted to do it. I was nineteen, driving home one day and the idea just fell into my head that I wanted to fly helicopters and I'd never been in one. No family in aviation. It was just the most random thought that just hit me and it was the first time that I was excited about a career. And at that time I was just taking GE classes, going to community college, didn't know what I was majoring in. So yeah, it was the first time I was excited about something and I immediately went to a local flight school in Northern California. And the guy the guy just slid over a piece of paper to me with a bunch of numbers on it. And it totaled to about a hundred thousand dollars. And I'm like, I'm nineteen, I don't have a hundred grand to give you guys. So I was pretty devastated at that moment because I don't come from a rich family. I grew up in poverty and, you know, I just didn't have that financial backing from my family. So I had to figure it out on my own. Ian: What year what year was that? What year was that? Kristina Kennedy: That was about twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, yeah. Yeah, so Ian: twenty fifteen. what did you know at that point in time? What did you know about so h you were driving, how did the thought come to mind? And then before you showed up at the flight school, did you do any tell me about the research you did on what the what the career outcome was gonna look like? Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. I have zero clue where the idea came from. I didn't see one in the sky. Again, no family in aviation, never been in a helicopter. I think that there was this road that I always passed going to and from where I was going to college and when I was visiting my family at home. And they had a a fire station up on the hill near Chico, California. And so I I I think I started looking at the helicopter up there. And every time I was driving by, I just started looking at it more and more and kind of rubber necking. And that's probably where it came from. And eventually one day I ended up going up there and just drove up there and was like, is your guys' pilot here? I just wanna talk to him and ask him a few questions. And so he was kind, showed me in the helicopter. I felt bad because he ended up getting stung by a bee. And I was like, I'm so sorry. I'm just gonna I'm gonna go now. But the initial idea of driving, honestly, I don't know. That's my best guess. I can't remember. And then as far as research goes, I didn't really look into it much. I'm somebody who when I get an idea that I'm excited about, I just go full bore into it. So the next day I went to the local flight school and found out what I did as far as cost goes. And then I remember researching how much helicopter pilots make. And the answer that kicked back to me off of Google was six figures, you know, a hundred thousand plus. And I'm like, sweet, you know, that's that's a great salary. And come to find out that's really not the case. You're not making that much money until you're several years into your career. I have looked recently, Chat GPT does a better job at the numbers that it produces and more realistic numbers for what you can expect. But yeah, I was quite shocked to find out that it's just not the case. Ian: Yeah, it it was kind of a bubble burster for me too. Like I I had been in the industry for well, you b you're at it now, like what, eleven years flying since you started training. Kristina Kennedy: So Not quite. So I joined the military and served in the army for four years, not as a pilot though. So my path was quite long to get there. I used the GI Bill to pay for it. So four years in the military and then I did I did the college program, part one forty one schooling. So I really started flying probably twenty twenty, so right when COVID was popping off, which was interesting to add to the mix. So yeah, flying for six years now. Ian: Okay. So you so you went to the flight school, they a hundred grand, you said, I'm gonna go to the military. Kristina Kennedy: Mm. Ian: and you what'd you do in the military? Kristina Kennedy: I was an aviation operations specialist for one sixtieth, which is kind of the cool guy, special ops unit in in that branch. So it's kind of a fancy way of saying I had an office job, mostly doing flight ops and working as I was the battalion schools in C O I C and then the company in C O I C for the drone detachment. Again, just a fancy way of saying I I push paper. kept track of pilots' flight hours, weather nodems, dispatched them, and then worked with getting our soldiers into schools like CR and Airborne School and then did more company operations, running meetings, making sure training was running smoothly, that sort of thing. Ian: So you're kind of like compliance and logistics, basically. Okay, cool. That's Kristina Kennedy: Mm. Yeah, absolutely. Ian: that's really that's a really interesting take on the business side of things because it takes all of that for a pilots sometimes are egotistical, like, nobody could be running this company if it weren't

for me, but you also wouldn't have a aircraft to fly if it wasn't for the company running all the logistics, you know. So it kind of goes hand Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: in hand. But that's a really good perspective to have. I wanna touch on that more, not in this podcast, but at a later date. We'll talk we'll talk more about Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, boy. Ian: how I think that that could be a a very big feather in your cap or ace up your sleeve, in terms of Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Did you do the sixty one or what school did you go to? Did you Ian: I this that's a really interesting story. have you ever heard of Silver State Helicopters? Kristina Kennedy: No. Ian: So Silver State Helicopters was basically the helicopter version of what ATP flight school is today. they've long since closed down. I think they closed in 2007, they went out of business. they had like 55 locations nationwide. They were they were huge, every Every school had like seminars where a thousand people from the community would come to try and become helicopter pilots and they advertised this big pilot shortage, which was kind of true back then. and and you know, they took on some capital investment and long story short, they they started going cookie cutter, which is never a good thing because then they, you know, you start training just to pass check rides rather than train for the full, full complete syllabus and but when I s when I started joining them, I mean they were they were awesome. I mean, there was I thought I was gonna retire with that company. I I thought that was the end of it for me. Like they had they had mosquito operations down in Turks and Caicos, they did firefighting with Hueys, they did all this like stuff nationwide supporting the communities, but the feeder was of that was was the flight instructor route. So they had like any flight school had 10 to 20 R twenty twos and Another 10 44s and there was 25, 30 flight instructors around. And I worked as the administrative person for the Long Beach location down in Southern California. and that's kind of how that's kind of how I got my start. But it was a hundred grand. and but they promised a fifty-five thousand dollars a year to start salary minimum guarantee. And like I'm like, okay, so it'll take me two years to pay it off. Like that was my dumb boy math back then, you know? So It yeah. Anyway, long story short, I ended up paying like a twenty-six percent interest loan because the relationship between the college and the flight school deteriorated. So they were they were operating under like the guise of part one hundred one, but it was still part sixty-one. but when that when that college it was Utah Utah Valley University or Utah Valley State University, and like it didn't work out, so we were all part sixty-one and self-funding it and and it was It was tough. Like like times were tough. My minimum Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: student loan payments were like four thousand dollars a month. and yeah, I mean and Kristina Kennedy: Ouch. Yeah. Ian: I and I and then when the school shut down I was making I was making nineteen thousand dollars a year gross. So I wasn't even covering I I wasn't even making half of what was needed to to make the minimum payment. So life got life got pretty tough for about a decade. let's just say living in living in the car is is It's part of my story, you know. So we'll I won't Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: I won't bore you with all that. But but yeah, like like if I had Kristina Kennedy: No, I think that's fascinating. I did I did van life for a year when I first started, so Ian: you did? Kristina Kennedy: I lived full time in a vehicle too. Ian: Nice. Nice. It's probably better than the Monte Carlo that I had. yeah. With Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: all with all my end tables in the back seat. And it's pretty funny. Kristina Kennedy: Ha ha Ian: but yeah, it was it it was it was a tough it was a tough time, you know, and and I think like if I I w what I wish I would have done is I wish I would have went, okay, what is six figures in terms of your bi weekly paycheck? I wish I had done that math, you know, because like All the way until about twenty sixteen, I never made more. My my base salary was like eighty-five grand at the top, at the top of the whole of of my my time there. And that's like after you put your four one K and you pay your medical, you know, your medical and dental and you get like the supplemental income insurance and all the stuff that whittles away at your paycheck that's kind of necessary, you're looking at like sixteen hundred dollars every two weeks. You know, and I'm not saying that that's not enough, but that wasn't enough for me and what my aspirations were. You know, I I lived in a camper all the way up through that entire time, basically. Like upgraded from the car to then a fifth wheel, which was still better than having an apartment. I mean, the apartment was I had to move like I've relocated 62 times for this business, for the helicopter side. Sixty-two relocations. And I I Kristina Kennedy: Sixty two? my gosh. Ian: just made fun because I like I counted all the R V parks that I moved to when I was flying. And I'm trying to break into utility and doing all this stuff, you know. So, but yeah, like But the flight instructor the flight instructor time for me was the bet like it was the absolute best. There was nothing better than being an Kristina Kennedy: You loved it. Ian: than being an instructor. Like, if I could just do Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: that, I mean I would just do that, frankly. Like you know, but Kristina Kennedy: You're the opposite of me. I never wanted to teach or instruct and I struggled during that portion for sure. Ian: So what so like why other than the money, what was what didn't you like about it? Kristina Kennedy: I think my biggest challenge was that I really suffered with imposter syndrome. I just felt like I didn't know enough. I felt like you know, who am I

to teach somebody when I only have a couple hundred hours of experience? You know, I think that the industry, especially in the United States, is just backwards. Like why are we asking people who just got licensed to operate in my opinion at the highest level? It's crazy to me. And I don't think that it's like that from what I've heard in Canada or countries, but for some reason that's the pipeline for us here. And so even now, you know, with a about a couple thousand hours of experience, I still feel that. I still feel like I would rather be the student than the teacher. And that's just me. Ian: I a thousand percent, in fact, I feel like you stole my line because that's what I always tell people why like why are you still instructing now? Cause I still teach. I st I still teach helicopters right now. I do it at kind of look more like a factory level for private owners. But my when I was back then, I was teaching commercial students to do maneuvers and operation simulations. To which I had the out yet to ever experience myself. I'm like, well, I think this is how they dispatch in Medevac, and let's pretend it's in the middle of the night. And here's a call. How are you gonna do your flight planning and how you're gonna launch quickly? And I'm doing all this stuff, but I'd never saved a person with a helicopter yet. And it it it wasn't imposter syndrome. It it I was an imposter, as is every other flight instructor out there who hasn't yet gone to do it. And I'm glad that I felt that way because I'm kind of a solutions type person. So I'm like, okay, well, the only real solution is to do stuff, is to go out and do everything that I'm teaching firsthand. And so my my bucket list, I call it my Flucket list. It's like your flight bucket list. Kristina Kennedy: Love that. Ian: so that's when my that's when my Flucket list was born. and I went and Kristina Kennedy: Okay. Ian: and I'm like, okay, I gotta do every s I've gotta take it an aircraft and make money with it in every way possible. that is that is out there. And so I went and I did it. I did every single thing. and that was my Kristina Kennedy: Wow. Ian: mission. And from tours in Hawaii to contracts in Afghanistan to doing utility and working with the VIPs and faring aircraft all over the place. And I mean like every single thing was was accomplished. Except for I didn't fly oil and gas. That was the only thing I didn't technically do. But I flew by the rigs in the Gulf and out in Trinidad. I flew right by and I'm like that's the landing platform? That's where they land? Okay, that I've good enough for me. I've I was in the environment and I I passed it and Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Close enough. Ian: I and I landed on small dolly platforms before. So was like, okay, I'm what am I really gonna gain out of Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: burning another two years doing doing that? You know, so but I went and did everything for a year or two. all was it was with it Kristina Kennedy: Which was your favorite? Sorry, I didn't mean to Ian: w no, it's good. It cause I'm gonna tie that in. I'll answer that. but it was with the intention of bringing everything back to the training table. So wherever I went, I went there with the learning mindset to how can I how can I absorb as much as I can from this operation so that I can then whittle it into the syllabus for aboritional training and and then and and then operators who fly in all these different environments, you know, p pilots who own aircraft. and that's been kind of my niche for the better part of maybe 15 years is working with the dot-com billionaires, some of the famous people and the guys. they want to buy helicopters and they're not really influencers. they're more like they're just dot com billionaires and they wanna they wanna, you know, like automotive dealers and different stuff like that that I work with. a lot of a lot of like doctor office owners and different lawyers of things and some some like luggage company owners and like there's just all different types of like C- level people who own aircraft. because like anybody can own a plane. The Who's Who own helicopters, you know. So But Kristina Kennedy: Exactly. Ian: and you only really have two choices. You can either go to the factory or you can hire a third party instructor to come to you. and I think there's only like three or four companies out there that will that will do that, me being one of them. so it's kind of a very, very niche side of the market, side of the industry. But my favorite. I I hate to just jump to something because it depends on the season. It's kind of like asking what what's your favorite music type? You know, well, if I'm driving through the mountains of Malibu, I like a specific type of music. If I am if I'm if I'm at a wedding, I like a different type of music because there's dance, you know, or whatever. Like, or or like the what's your favorite color? Well, on my sofa, I don't like my favorite color is blue, but I'd rather have a brown couch. I don't know, like. It's kind of it's kind of like that. But the season of my life when I was honing in my dexterity, I really because I I was in Afghanistan, I turned 30 in Afghanistan. and I was flying, I was landing anywhere between 20 and 50 landings a day. I was in the aircraft for a minimum of seven, seven or eight Hobbes hours, and my longest day was like 13.7 hours on the collective on the Hobbes time. Kristina Kennedy: Wow. Ian: in one day. And and that was seven days a week. Never had a break unless it was like a dust or brownout or some kind of a weather event going through. sometimes we got lucky and get a couple days down. And but yeah, tactical flying and getting shot at, that that was awesome. You know, I Kristina Kennedy: Understand, yeah. How'd you even get that contract and why were you flying? Ian: I was brokering, I brokered an aircraft. well, I ferried an aircraft that was brokered by one of my one of my colleagues. And he he called me and

he says, Hey, that aircraft you delivered, they're starting up, they're taking that aircraft and they're sending it to Afghanistan. You want to go out there? And I'm like, nah, I'm kind of I'm good. I'm doing finally, I'm finally like getting getting my life together here. And he's like, Well, what are you making? And I said, I'm making like, you know, 70 grand on this, on this. I was working with a VIP. so I was on salary with him and then I still have my flight school. So I'm like, I'm making seventy grand there. I'm making like another twenty-five with my flight school net profit after all the expenses. So I'm like, I'm pushing a hundred grand, you know? And he's like, Well, I think they're gonna pay like one hundred eighty. So I was like, okay. Three weeks later my secret clearance was complete and I was in the belly of a C seventeen with that helicopter in a million pieces and you know, landing in a quate and I was in my underwear, it was really hot, sweaty, and bolted that thing back together and And that that's a whole nother that's a whole nother topic. yeah. But and then tour. I really like flying tours in Hawaii. That was that I that was to me like very fun. I had a lot of autonomy in the sense that I could orchestrate the music to I could time the crescendo of a song when I was passing a ridgeline to then expose a thousand thousand foot waterfalls. I mean it was That that place was mat I'm like and the lady next to me, she I remember she looked at me, she goes, This is so beautiful. I can you had the best job ever. And I'm and I look at her back and I'm crying too. And I'm like, I know, it's amazing. You know. And so like I I had that I had that really good feeling for a while. And then, you know, had to get back stateside and family stuff came up. And so I I got back to my my initial goal, which was to fly Medivek. You know, saving saving lives was my whole reason for getting in in the helicopter business in the first place. which is which is I found a unique, unique path toward that. because it's like I could save so I wanted to be a doctor growing up. And I'm like, okay, that's I'm not really an indoors bird. So then I discovered helicopters when I saw the they are medical. I was taking classes, GE classes at at UCLA, and helicopter landed on the roof, and I'm like, That's I could also save lives doing that. And yet I could do something technical and respected and still go, you know, like out into the world and and be the outdoors bird that I knew I was. Adventurous, extreme sportist kind of a person I was. And I'm like, okay, let me do that. And then so then I'm saving I'm saving people's lives. I flew Medevac like eight years and one at a time, one at a time, one at a time. And I'm like, I need more, I I need more of this. I need more, more volume of this. And so instead of saving lives on the on the reactive side of things when when they get sick or hurt. I'm like this the the CRM and the threat and error management side started

really peaking an interest to me because these helicopter crashes were happening all around me. You know, like I would like I turned down a flight because of bad weather and then the the competitor, because they were doing helicopter shopping. So the competitor takes the flight, comes back and crashes like 30 miles from my base. And I'm like, I why didn't they turn that down? I did, you know, and there's a lot of this pressure to fly. Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: So I'm like, maybe I could save not only the passenger, because there's a crash every week. Every every seven days there was a crash, like for a while. and and I was like, maybe I could save the passenger and the pilot and the nurse and the paramedic all at the same time if I start getting into this behavioral Kristina Kennedy: I yeah. Ian: side of things. And that was my inspiration for creating this company, because it's like my my whole motto is scaling aviation safety. in order to save lives. And now that's extrapolating into all the way down into the airlines now. You know, and there's two hundred people or a hundred and fifty people on an aircraft. And that's a lot of lives to save at once that may or may not have had something happen to them. So that was that was what was in my mind when I was going through you know going through all those jobs. But you did you do like skydiving? Tell me a little bit like So you went from the the military to helicopter school. Fill me in on the whole aviation journey, skydiving the whole nine. Kristina Kennedy: Okay, yeah. So when I was in the military, I was going through Green Platoon, which is kind of a two month training program you have to get to get into 160th. And one of the guys in my class was putting his rig and parachute into the back seat of his car. And I was just like, What the heck is that? And he said, It I I skydive, I do it for fun. I go with Pete, who is one of our instructors. in the course on the weekend so they were going together. And I had done one skydive probably close to when I decided to start flying back in twenty fifteen and I didn't know that people did it for fun. So I just immediately, like I said, I'm all gas, no brakes, so I said I wanna do that. And I did. I went with the instructor from the course. He also was a skydiving instructor. And so ended up doing that and I've been doing that for eight years now. And yeah, I worked in the sport for a bit on the weekends as a coach and videographer. Got out of it for a couple years and then just got back into it in the last year since I moved to Vegas and then added another layer on top of that. I just went to a base jumping course in Twin Falls, Idaho, which is like the most extreme version of the sport that you can do. And yeah, it's it's a sport that's definitely changed my life, but it's kind of perfect for somebody like me who has a passion for aviation, getting my feet off the ground, attention to detail, making hard decisions sometimes with weather, you know, same deal. You see other people going to jump, even in not the best conditions, and you just have to make those decisions for yourself. So Kind of everything that I love gets tied together with the sport of skydiving or now base jumping. So started skydiving first in the military. And then I I did a couple of flights while I was in the service. At at that point I had still never been in a helicopter, right? I joined the army with the idea of becoming a helicopter pilot, but I didn't even know if I would like it. And so I was like, I should probably do a couple of flights just to see if it's something for me. And I did a couple of flights in the R twenty two in Nashville and I said, Okay, I I think I made the right decision here, but I didn't have the GI Bill benefit at that point. So I had to finish out my contract of four years. And then I got really lucky because Austin P State University was right across the street from Fort excuse me, from Fort Campbell. And they were starting a brand new aviation sector. With the university. And so my class was the very first class to go through their aviation program, which had its ups and downs. You know, we were the guinea pig of a brand new program. So that was interesting. And yeah, I just I didn't have to move and it transitioned perfectly. And I think there's a lot of misinformation online as far as the GI Bill benefits. a lot of old information says that you have to get your private pilot license first and then the GI Bill will cover the rest of it. At least at the time where I was going through, that just wasn't the case. It paid for a hundred percent of everything outside of your medical, your check ride and your written test. So I had zero student debt and the military was the best thing I ever could have done for myself for this career path, right? But Even then so, getting my first job in industry in Los Angeles, I didn't have a steep savings account, right? So then I'm not making as much money as I thought I would. I'm instructing and flying tours, but totally broke. And I was just completely blindsided by that. And the first year working in industry was definitely my hardest year. But then since then it's gotten progressively better. You know, you get you get a higher salary, you start making more money and doing the tours you also get to make tips on top of that, which I think helps everybody over instructing. Ian: So question then. This is a really good kind of discussion for the cycles, for the things, the thing the external factors that can make our lives easier or harder. so the GI Bill, what used to be forty hours, get your private pilot first approximately. Of course it's gonna take everybody a bit more, which is another fallacy that is out there. But 40 hours and that's what it's gonna cost. And then you're all of a sudden you're like, there's another 20 hours and then there's a times however many dollars per hour at that time at that time. Right. So you're looking at like 50, 60

hours, whatever it is. and then and then that's your cost. And then the GI Bill will cover all the rest. Like that was that was the case, like back back at one point. And then there was a flight school who one or two flight schools who was taking advantage of that situation. And they were they were like doing primary training in aircraft that were way more expensive than what it could cost for the same exact certification. Almost like what the military does right now, currently. but for some reason they don't want to pay that for this for the GI Bill users. They only want to pay it for the, you know, for the the current active soldiers to learn in a H145. What would that cost? but anyways, let's not I'm not gonna get into that. That's that makes me enemies. So but yeah so there was a flight school that was sending that was sending a bill to the GI like The invoice to the GI Bill department, it was like way like thousands of dollars per hour for for flying. And they were like, Okay, we got to put a stop to all this because somebody clearly found a loophole. And so they threw the baby out with the bathwater and they made no more GI Bill available for f and they stopped everybody's funding for a while. And that was like, when was that? Twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen? Kristina Kennedy: Mm. I think it was two thousand eleven, I feel like, when I I read that. I could be wrong, but I think it was around Ian: Yeah, I think you might be right, actually, 'cause I was in Afghanistan in twenty eleven, in twenty twelve, and then I remember there was a there was a soldier who would always fly with me out there. and he was like he'd the bug bit him when he was out riding around with me in Afghanistan. And he goes, Hey, how do I do this? So I coached him on the GI Bill, he got rebased to Hawaii and he got all the way through like I think he was working on his instrument or something like that, close to his commercial. And then this all happened. And I'm like, man, that's I'll well I'll train you. I'll do it all and I'll I'll create this crowd fund so I can use crowdsource money to then pay for you if if our tax money isn't gonna do it through the GI Bill GI Bill, maybe we'll just pay for it directly. So I started up this whole like it was called No Soldier Left Behind, No Soldier Behind. and we got a few thousand dollars for that. And I did some training, but then he ended up getting he ended up getting like a level of cancer of some sort, but he beat it and and but it kind of washed him out of out of all that. But That really that really made me sad for them, you know, when that when that all happened. So but now you say that the GI Bill is I'm no GI Bill expert, so the GI Bill Kristina Kennedy: Mm-hmm. Ian: is available for everybody now? Kristina Kennedy: At the time when I went through and I graduated the program in two thousand twenty, yeah, I covered even my private pilot license. So I didn't pay out of pocket for any of that. And then yes, you you are obligated to pay out of pocket for anything over the hours that are required for you to get the rating. I managed to make it work to where I didn't pay for any flight time. So I kinda got lucky there. But yeah, when you look up articles online, a lot of it says this old information that yes, you do have to pay for your private rating and then it'll cover everything. And as far as I know, that's just not the case anymore. Ian: Okay. Well, it's something to look into. I guess the advice for anybody listening to this would be study, make make phone calls, talk to people actually in person on the phone who are in charge of releasing the money from the GI Bill department to these flight schools and find out what what the latest program available is because hopefully that's what it'll be four years later once you can finally cash in on it and it might be different. But I think bottom line is like set your expectations to do it all yourself. And then if you can find bonuses, they're bonuses. You know, don't rely, don't rely on any external factor for money or happiness. That's been kind of like the big lesson that I've learned in this whole in this whole thing. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: So now, okay, so then you you did instructing like how did you get into this Vegas gig? Kristina Kennedy: So I never thought I would move to Vegas. My sister and her family's lived here about ten years. They always tried to get me to move out here and I said absolutely not, zero chance that I go there. But come to find out, Vegas is one of the top places that helicopter pilots go in order to time build and turbine engine helicopters. So I call it the pilgrimage that we all make at some point in our career to come out here. It's here, Alaska, Hawaii or Florida. are typically where people go during this phase. And so I honestly just pulled the classic. I broke up with my boyfriend, wanted to get out of LA, visited family, ended up applying and got a job. So yeah, timing was good. at that time I was at about nine hundred hours and they wanted a thousand minimum for the big tour companies here. And I just said, whatever, I'm just gonna go for it and the worst they can say is no. So I did what most people typically do. They just sprinkle their resumes around and and see what hits. And I've learned that a lot of it is about timing in the industry. I didn't think they would take me at 900 hours with a a thousand hour minimum requirement. And since I've been here, I've also seen them take people with even less time. Seven hundred something hours, right? And I think that's a common thing. where again it's just timing of things and how much they need pilots. So, it's something that I've had to learn where just put your name in the hat. And I had a conversation recently with a friend about how women are actually much less likely to do that. They see the requirements for a job listing and they, you know, out of ten they're missing four and they just say, they're not gonna want me

and they're not gonna even try. Whereas men are much more likely to just toss their name in there. And I found that to be so interesting because throughout most of my life I have been that woman that would think that there's no way that they would want me. And a lot of times that's just wrong. Ian: Yeah. And you never know what is cooking behind the scenes at a particular company or or a sector in the industry. a hundred percent always put your name in the hat to something that you're interested in because it shows length of interest. It builds it builds a personal brand for you inside of that company to be like, Hey company, I've been applying to you for like four or five years. I'm still applying to you. I really want to work there. What are your insurance minimums looking like these days? I might be a hundred or two hundred short of the remaining balance. And if you can have a conversation of the remaining balance of hours from where I am now until what your minimums are, what where would you like me to get those hours? Because I'm in between and I could go here or I could go there. I've got a couple things on the table, which would you prefer? And they might just say, Well, we'll just take you now, because we just dropped our minimums because retirement ages in the airlines caused a trickle effect that allowed you to get this job prematurely. And that's what happened. You know, I mean, no with without a doubt. And so that was that for me, that was the same thing. Like when I started flying, it was a thousand hours. And then by the time I graduated flight school and got my thousand hours, there was there was a pilot slowdown and from the airline from the major airlines. And it created a a major trickle effect. And then everybody just increased the minimums to three thousand hours. Like I rounded that corner and I got my thousand. I took my picture with my little pad of paper and I showed my logbook and I'm like, now I'm still Kristina Kennedy: Classic. Ian: unemployable. You know, like there's nothing there's nothing I can do here, you know. And it was a race to a thousand, and then it was I was in the pattern for another two thousand hours. And I taught, I taught for four thousand hours in the pattern. I never touched I I the first four thousand hours were in R twenty twos and r forty fours. That was it for me. Kristina Kennedy: That's so crazy. Ian: Yeah. And and it was I was broke. I mean, it was that broke life for a extended period of time. Luckily I had I had I had youth on my side. I mean, if I was so that's why I always see this question online, hey, I'm in my late forties or I'm in my mid fifties. Is it too late for me to start? And I see a hundred percent of the question of the answers in there saying, It's never too late, follow your dreams and everything. I'm like, but is it? Is it too late? It might be, depending Kristina Kennedy: It's a tough industry to do late. Yeah. Ian: Yeah, it like depends on how much money you need to make

in order to survive and how long it's going to take you to get there. And will that supply the nest egg that you were hoping for? It just depends on the financial, the individual financial situation, which only a calculator and like a night in a hot tub and a glass of wine with a person that you really is important to you to figure out what those dreams are that you need to know. What am I looking for in life? You know, and and then and then backwork from that. the s to solve the equation, can this industry supply me what I'm looking for? And there's no guarantees. I mean, because hiring is more than just hours in a logbook to get the job. I mean, there's so much more to it, especially during hiring constraints. it gets pretty competitive. And there's a lot of people left in the musical chair, you know, it's musical chairs and there's a lot of people left without a seat. and that is going to happen again very soon, you know, four or five years from now. There's going to be a lot of people who are training for to to be able to live this beautiful life that you're living now and they're gonna get stuck in the in the R twenty two seat for four to four to to a decade, you know, and that's going to happen until I retire, which is two decades from now. You know, and there's a whole slew of us out there who who went to the airlines at at midlife and we got twenty years left. And those seats are filled. They are full, you know, until until the retirements happen. So I I think that that was a long winded way way to say like I'm about to explain the the cycle to you really quickly, like really fast. Because I've I've gone at length on this on other videos, but you know, it wasn't that long ago from when airplanes as as a commercial airplane was even invented, right? Like 1902, flight was discovered. And then like what the 50s, 60s, all of a sudden Boeing starts creating all these aircraft. It's like pow pow pow. All of sudden there's this, there's this expansion of the population. You know, we went from like three to nine to nine billion people in the matter of like thirty or forty years. So demand in in the in the world's population increased. And then it's kind of like right right there right now. It's kind of we're we're undecided if it's still growing or if it's kind of plateauing right now. there's something to look into with birth rates. But anyway, that's another that's another it could go political. I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna wanna go there. But Something think about. I mean, you need to move humans around, and more humans means more job opportunities. So that's what that's all I was trying to say. so but that kind of that kind of expansion happened. All the Boeing 737s, 747s, all those were were invented. you know, TSA and Pan Am or sorry, TWA and Pan Am. those airlines filled all their seats up and there was a big old hiring boom. And then it was stagnant for a while. You know, they kind of met that supply and demand threshold. And

then all of a sudden, like being an airline pilot was the coolest thing in the world, and nobody could get those jobs. And that was a period of time. Like basically until the 90s. And that's when the low-cost carrier model was invented. And the low-cost carrier model, Spirit and Frontier and Allegian and all these, they they started popping up everywhere. And A320s and Airbus started started expanding into the market and filling up some of that. And it created this other like like a like a hiring boom right there for about a decade or so. And then and then 9 11 happened. Boom. And then it like that low cost carrier model was filled. And then there was the the began the lost decade. Right. And so when I was discovering, you know, from year 2000 I graduated high school till year two thousand two thousand five is when I began my flight training. I was like, I wanted to be an airline pilot, but I was I heard that there was no movement. Don't do it. You're gonna make $17,000 a year if you can get in a regional seat, but there's no regional seats, you're gonna be a flight instructor basically forever. And so I was like, all right, I'm not doing the airline thing. And that was that was that. So I'll I'll stick to being a doctor. And then the helicopter came in. And then there was this like, there's all of these microwaves, microwaves within the the larger cycle. and the one that I was jumping on or trying to jump on was the Vietnam veteran retirement. Age in the helicopter in the helicopter industry. There was a lot of there was a lot of Vietnam vets, and that was the advertisement. And so I jumped on that Silver State helicopter bandwagon and I I got all my certificates right in the nick of time for them to shut down. and and not get that $55,000 a year. I went to work for a mom and pop shop and just like everybody else does right now. and that was tough because you only get paid when you're flying and it's $25 an hour, even still, even back then it was $25 an hour, now it's $25 an hour. Not like nothing has changed there. Well, if you work like a twelve hour day but you only get three hours on the Hobbs, I mean, you made seventy five bucks gross, that's like forty to fifty dollars take home for the whole day? For the whole for the whole day. Like I spend that on dinner now every pretty much every day. When I'm when I'm flying, I'm out in the airports. Like that's my dinner bill. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Right. Ian: so that's tough. But yeah, so that was that was that like that little that little wave. And then and then now that has been looming are the seniority lists from the from the scenario that I just described. and the only thing that I can guarantee is that people's birthday is not going to change. That's the only guarantee that I can that I can give you. Okay. So if you can get your hands on a seniority list, all of the seniority lists, the smart play would be to go, okay, how many retirements are there? How many people are trained who are in front of me who can go into the airlines? And then like where am I gonna fit in the in from the time I meet that 1500 to 2000 to 2500 hour time frame? What is the opportunity in terms of volume, numbers of seats available is going to be there for me. And then take an honest look at your personality, your interview, your likability, how much experience you predict you're going to have, and see if you think that you have the odds of capture capturing one of those seats. Like that's that's the play that I wish I had known back then that just happened to work out, you know. and it's just it was just blind luck, pure, purely blind luck and and and in my case. But like it so I say all that to go like, okay, if I had a kid right now, would I influence them to become a pilot? And my answer would probably be no. If you were s if you were fifteen years old and you have to wait till you're twenty one before you can ha hold an ATP. Or is it twenty three or is it twenty one? I think is it twenty three? Kristina Kennedy: Honestly, I don't know. Ian: I forgot. ATP minimums. Hold on. ATP age minimums. Fact check me. Let's see what it is. 23. Okay, so it's 23 years old. you gotta be 23 years old. So you have like eight years before you're able to start working. Okay, well, what's that gonna look like? Okay, it's 2026 now. I might as well call it 27. eight years from now would be 2035. So what I would do is I would take I would extrapolate all of those retirement seats. And go, okay, how many people are going to be retiring when I meet those minimums? And I think you'll be shocked to find out that it's gonna be, it's gonna be less and less and less. And that has a whole impact on your seniority number. Right. So like if you got hired within within 2027, you're you're in you it's it's a moonshot of an opportunity right now. Like it's one that 'Cause I've I loved I loved helicopters. I still love helicopters. I love they don't love me back, but I love helicopters so much. And I would never I don't enjoy operating an airplane. I don't it's not satisfying to me in terms of the aerodynamic connection between man and machine. it doesn't give me it doesn't scratch any itches for me in terms of that, you know, and But that's kind of what I'd realized in the helicopter side. I'm like, okay, if you want to make more money, you gotta fly bigger twin engine helicopters. Well, the moment you get into a bigger twin engine helicopters, it has an FMS and an autopilot and they Yeah. They want you to fly it like an airplane. And I'm like, well, if you want me Kristina Kennedy: You're taking away what you left. Yeah. Right. Ian: to fly it like an airplane, I'm just gonna go fly an airplane. And that was that. And that was that. Kristina Kennedy: And make a lot more. Yeah. Ian: And and I make four times, five times whatever it is, you know, in in terms of in terms of the nested. It's it's ten X. The Nesteg ten X. Because yeah, you make four times, but but then compounding interest

over time, I mean it's it's like you'll end up with nothing. So I called Mass Mutual and I'm like, How much am I gonna have when I made this decision to go to the airlines? and they're You're gonna at this current rate of saving ten percent, you're gonna have six hundred grand when you retire at age sixty five. And I'm like $600,000. Let me do a quick little Google. How much do I need? And it's like 2.5 million. Well, how do I close that gap? I'm already taking only the minimum 13 days per quarter off. How do I, how do I get there? And the answer was you can't. I couldn't, not at age 30. And that's why I started having Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: this like, how do I do that? You know? So the cycles, that was my version, that was my response to you, you timed a GI Bill cycle perfectly. And you might be timing the grand cycle even more perfectly. It might be working out really well for you. Kristina Kennedy: And by grand cycle you mean converting to flying for the airlines? Ian: Maybe. either that or either that or the airlines are gonna be s vacuuming all of the smart helicopter people who financially smart helicopter people. It's gonna be vacuuming the industry and leaving you with even more opportunity if you should stay. and that was an interesting that was so I was flying Medivac and when I left when I left to go to the airlines and my boss, and I was I was like climbing the ladder in the company. I was I was a base manager. I was a CRM instructor. I was a safety officer. Like I was moving up the ladder. in in it for for what I think is probably one of the best EMS operators out there. And My boss took me out to dinner. We went to we went to PF Chang's. We had sushi. And he goes, Ian, what is it gonna get to take you to stay? Because if you leave, everyone's gonna leave. Because like you're the you're you're the guy who swears off airplanes. It was like skiers and snowboarders, you know. You're either a helicopter pilot or you're near I didn't even know what an aileron was. I said, I'm gonna go. I'm going to the airlines. And and he goes, and this is twenty seventeen. This is this is This is October of 2017. I was my base salary was 85,000. And he said, What is it going to take you to get Kristina Kennedy: How old were you? Ian: 2017? So I'm forty, I'll be forty-four in a couple days. so what is that six, seven, eight, nine years ago? So I was thirty, thirty two, thirty-three, somewhere in there. And he said, What is it gonna take? What is it gonna take for us to get you to stay here flying Medivac? And I said, $120,000 a year. And I'll never leave. I'll never leave. And he almost spit his food out at me. He started laughing. And he goes, You're never Kristina Kennedy: Really? Ian: that is never going to happen. And I said, made up my mind then. That was that was easy. You know, I just Kristina Kennedy: Let him out. Ian: I basically went to bed that I slept like a baby that night because I knew I knew like I struggled. I struggled with the decision to do that. And so that was October of twenty seventeen. By December, I had I had all of my ratings. They were all completely done. By March, I had my two hundred and fifty hours by March of twenty eighteen. that was my start date for the regional airlines. So it took me six months to build the two fifty and get all the ratings within that within that period of time with the full time Medevac job. In fact, I use the airplanes to work overtime at the different bases. So I would just I would take the airplane and I use it as my car and I just rented it and that's I built all my time flying all over California basically to to to work for the company that I was abandoning, you know. Kristina Kennedy: So the the airlines didn't care that you only had two hundred and fifty hours of fixed wing time? Ian: At that point in time, the the start of the hiring, the retirement wave began in like 2016, 2017. That's when all of a sudden, like, my God, surprise, everybody's aging out. Like nobody could figure that one out a decade ago and tell us. They had to wait until the very last minute, of course. But but anyway, that's kind of that's why we're here to let other people kind of be illuminated to that fact. It's it it it's a good and a bad thing because Like it provides an insane amount of opportunity, but it also provides an insane of opportunity amount of opportunity to people who are not qualified for it yet. And that is an implication to safety. and it's one of the things I'm trying to fix because you can you can model and coach and a lot of this tacit knowledge that is being lost in the airlines sh needs to get passed out, has to get passed on. And there's a lot of operational cost out there with taking on with taking on new pilots. I mean, look at look at the expense that the airlines are suffering right now. yeah, a lot of that is due to the the price of oil. A lot of that is due to the price of inflation. speaking of inflation, like that hundred and twenty grand that I that that that I told I needed, they pay that now. Their starting salary is like right around one twenty. But then but then Kristina Kennedy: Right. I was gonna say that doesn't sound too crazy from what I've seen. Ian: No, that's so 120, they're now paying it, which is what I told them I needed. But then inflation doubled and tripled what I would have actually my new number would have been. So my new my new number to do that job again would be 200 in today's in today's dollars. And inflation outran the the the pay increase that and that was one of the first companies to increase it. And I'm I kind of feel responsible for increasing that I'm I'm gonna pretend. in my own egotistical mind that I'm responsible for Kristina Kennedy: You had something to do with that. Ian: getting everybody more money. Yeah. And that's me at me and a number of other people who who vanished, you know. but but yeah it's it's something to to to consider and and you have to pay attention to the so you

have the overarching retirement cycle, but then you also have these suppressions within that cycle, right? So there's these little there's these little depressions in in there. COVID was one of them. but that had a slingshot effect because a bunch of those retirements actually punched out early. They left early and it created like a gaping hole in the industry back in 2021, 2022. And that kind of tapered off in 2023 when Pratt and Whitney, the A320 Pratt and Whitney engine issues, they they were like having cracks in the in the hot section of the turbine wheels. And so 40% of the of the industry's A320. fleet was parked. And so they couldn't fly the airplanes if they wanted to. So then all of a there was a pilot surplus again, like right after this big pilot push. And like people were getting in within a year from 2021 to 2020 22, people were climbing like 10 to 20 to 30% seniority points, which historically took 20 to 30 years. They were doing that in one year. Like I I gained in my airline 22% in nine months, the first nine months I was there. So what that means is I get I get nights off. I never have to work nights. I never have to use an alarm clock. I never work weekends. I never work holidays. And I never work my birthday. And until I switched to the airlines, I had worked every single one of my birthdays ever since I started flying. And Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, that sounds pretty nice. Ian: yeah. And so there's there is that. And then and then like the the narrative that I had to tell myself so I didn't feel like a sellout, which ended up becoming real. was that the extra salary and the quality of life increase enabled me to take what I was experiencing in the airlines in terms of training and weather. Cause now I've now I can tell you what it's about to smell like when an anti ice system kicks on in a jet. I didn't have that before. Like it was avoid icing at all costs. And I did. And I never got into icing in a helicopter. Kristina Kennedy: Right. We're actually flying IFR, which we typically don't do. I mean there's some gigs where Ian: Yeah, like you know, pushing, you know, when you get hundreds of hours in the cloud in the clouds and you can you can see and feel the lateral and vertical boundaries of bad weather, that that and I I was flying single pilot IFR on a helicopter in in Napa Valley and and s and Santa Monica and all these different places, Fresno and trying to get in over the over the mountain range from the valley, from the Central Valley and like over to San Francisco and s flying into Sanford and everything. Like, I thought I was great. Like I was great at the time, but now I'm even better. Like now I'm like, I and I'm still only far, far away from being the best that I could be. but it definitely made me a better helicopter pilot, especially in the terms of the IFR side, which is severely lacking, which there's all kinds of now private owners who are getting EC 145s, 140s, sorry, H H145s, H140s, H135s. and they're trying

to get them IFR and and now I have all this experience and then plus the train the factory level training with all the insurance underwriters. Like there's some really interesting things coming together for me in terms of bringing of of cross training airline experience with the IFR helicopter sector. So I'm pretty excited about that. but it but again I'm not excited about going to do it again in the airline. Like they can land themselves if you push a button, if you set it up right, you know. I mean, it's Kristina Kennedy: Absolutely. Yeah. So where Ian: But let's let l let's I want to talk about you real quick. you're you're thinking about how what's my next step, right? And that's kind of what you're that's why we're here, actually. Right. So Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out. So I'm kind of on the border of where I can jump to the next job, right? Two thousand ish hours. It's like you you qualify for a bit more and about a thousand hours of turbine time, more doors are opening up. And you know, I'm I'm just trying to figure out okay what what's the best next move. And yeah, as far as flying tours and stuff you don't have the best schedules, you know, you're probably working a five and two, maybe even a six and one. I've done that a lot as well. And there's a lot of other opportunities where you have like a two and two schedule or a seven and seven. And that has a lot of interest to me right now. And then after having our conversations about the potential opportunities of flying on the fixed wing side. And having then the money and the time to do things, I've it's something that I've never really considered, but that's why I love having these conversations because you get to see what other opportunities there are out there. And there's stuff that I hadn't even considered before. So yeah, right now looking at the schedules doing the the oil and gas companies, they're usually a two and two. Which then okay, if I wanna start flying airplanes and go that route, then I have the time to train, right? And I'm probably making better money and then I have the money to pay for that. So that's kind of what I'm considering right now. Ian: Oil and gas is an interesting animal. You can make probably the most aside from n from finding the one percent. Like I I know a floor mat company who has a dual-rated helicopter pilot, flies mostly the helicopters, but he's dual rated. he actually left his major airline career to go to that job. And he and his base salary is five hundred thousand, but he has to be two hours from the airport. He cannot be more than two hours away. and it's 247, seven days a week. The phone is on, you're two hours, you cannot leave. Or go on a vacation unless you like f a year out plan it. Like that, like, okay, so five hundred grand. Like that's you you see like stars in my eyes, you know, like, my God, I can have anything I want. But like you could have the same money and be in jail and it would suck. Like you're kind

of partially there. Depends it depends on what it is you value, where you are in life. Do you have kids that you just want to go to their softball games? Like, I don't know, that might be perfect. It might be and it might be torture to the traveling soul. Like, who knows? let's just clear that up real quick. Travel. I I just wanna set the expectation. This is like you think, I get to travel the world. I'm an airline pilot. I I want to change the word travel to transit. Okay, it's not like on social media, you can lie and make it look glamorous. But you are in a van, an airplane, or a terminal or a hotel. That is it. Like you get the the minimum rest, and a lot of companies push it. The minimum rest is 10 hours. So from the time you set the parking brake and pop open the door, your 10 hour begins. And then from the time you get back into the aircraft, close the door, release the brake. That's a 10 hour period of time. So you gotta sleep, get to the hotel, find dinner, find breakfast, iron your clothes, do all of your biological functions, check your email, whatever you want to do, which you don't have time for, and and sleep for eight hours, and preflight and get the plane ready for the next day is all included in that in that 10 hours. It's it's one of the initiatives that I have to try and fix that. It has to be a minimum of twelve hours. and and I think that this that the eight hour sleep. should begin the moment so so like an hour after your hotel door locks. That's when the that's when the eight hours should begin. An hour after. Because you gotta Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: you gotta strip down and and brush your teeth. I mean there's there's stuff you gotta do, you know? it's all part Kristina Kennedy: Things to for sure. Yeah. Ian: of that. You know, you gotta you gotta get ready for bed. And that takes an hour to wind down, especially after like a crazy day of hectic like weather decisions and and delays and all the kind of stuff. So Yeah, set your expectation for transit. And but you only have to do it for fourteen to seventeen days a month, you know? So it's and and and you can choose which of those fourteen to seventeen days you're and I say fourteen to seventeen because it's like fourteen or fifteen if you have a line, if you're if you're a flying pilot, and it's like seventeen or eighteen if you're a if you're a a a reserve pilot. And reserve is either good or it's either i the best. life or it's the worst life, depending on where you live in terms of your base and where and what your commute looks like and how expensive living is for your second life that you have to have. which we can dive into if you want. Even on this one we can talk more or we can just do a whole nother episode about it. Cause that's like probably another hour. or or you know, or you could be a line pilot. And depends on how much time you want with family, away from family, where you are in terms of kids and relationships. And but here this is a there's a golden triangle. there's nine facets to happiness in life that I've found. there's mind, body, spirit, right? You gotta be learning stuff, you gotta be exercising and healthy and eating healthy, and you gotta have your spirituality sorted out, whatever that may be. Doesn't matter. mind, body, spirit, then there's family, relationships, and friendships. And then you have hobbies, work, and that's what we're talking about exclusively of the nine things. And then there is your purpose, your purpose in life. Right? So we're zooming in on one of those nine facets of happiness or nine pillars. In the of all nine, where does work stack up in terms of importance? Is it at the top of the importance? Like if you were to shift all these and if you had to stack them in order. What is the most important to you of all those nine things? Kristina Kennedy: It's a great question and I think it probably shifts over time. So for me I would say work is probably like third on the list. Like it's it's pretty high up there for me. I don't have kids or significant others, so you know, like if I had well, I guess if you have kids, yeah, that's always gonna be at the top, you know, and and your spouse and stuff. Family right now is really important to me because I live right here and I have the capacity to, you know, be close to them. Whereas when I was in Tennessee on the other side of the country, you know, it was it was like a long distance thing, even with people that I loved. and so yeah. I would say work is probably about number three on that for me and maybe that'll shift over time, maybe it won't, but yeah. Ian: So it's good to so the reason for that exercise is it's good to set up your future work so that you can move it up and down within that stack of priorities without having to sacrifice the things that you want to put above it. And I wish I had Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: I because work was number one for me, you know. But when Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: I was growing up, it was mind, body, spirit. I was a karate kid. I all I would want to do was do my tournaments and And live the perfect, immaculate, healthy lifestyle. And I meditated for an hour and I did all this stuff. Like that was my childhood, you know, and and then work ch just instantly trumped all of that the moment I had to pay for myself, you know, my cost of living. And and so As I started getting older and started realizing that family and friends and hobbies and all that stuff need to start coming back on top, the quality of life for me is defined as how stressful work is, but also how much time you don't have to go there. So that was a realization for me, you know, when I when I got a little bit older. So, like if you take that one pillar now, work, let's zoom in on that work and let's dissect it apart. So there's three. There's three points to a triangle of of work of work happiness. Okay. It's your quality of life, which I just described. It's how much money you're making. Is it

satisfactory or is it meeting all your financial goals? And then is the work itself meaningful and make you feel satisfied? The quality of work, right? So there's there is that also. Okay. So And it depends on how you look at it. So like let's let's just talk about job satisfaction for a second. Like your the quality of quality of job. some people evaluate that in terms of adrenaline. How much fun is in it is in this in the job? And that's why cubicle nine to fivers, they're always jealous and scrolling on Instagram of all the pilots out there because they feel like their adrenaline is lacking and they have to find these hobbies and stuff like that. So there's adrenaline. And then you have The sense of helping something. Okay. And you can either help the planet, you can help animals, or you can help humans. There's only like three categories of of things that you can actually like do. Everything stacks up to one of those end things. So usually it's like, okay, well, helping humans and is that satisfying? And then how much autonomy do you have? This is a really big part of job satisfaction. Do you feel like you're a cog in the wheel and that if you quit tomorrow, nobody's gonna shed a tear or They're just going to replace you. and some people would say that's low job satisfaction. Others would say that's really high job satisfaction because I'm the stress is low and I'm not demanded upon and I can spend my energy elsewhere. Like it just kind of depends on how you view those things. and then, you know, the sense of adventure. So of job satisfaction, what is most important to you in terms of kind of those those thoughts, or maybe something else? Kristina Kennedy: Hmm, that's a great question. I think fulfillment is definitely the most important to me, which I think is part of why I've struggled in the industry and with flying so far, because like I wish that I just loved instruction excuse me, instructing because I feel like I could potentially have the best fulfillment out of that. helping people get into something that I love and that, you know, they might love too. It just wasn't there for me for the reasons we discussed. what I would love to do in the industry if I could do anything would be to mix art with flying somehow. and so I don't really know what that looks like yet. Maybe it's doing some sort of production work or doing more niche parts of the industry like chasing the races in Baja, where you're kind of working f on something that's more to create a production, or you know, you're trying to capture something that's just completely awesome. I don't I honestly don't know. And yeah, just kind of another little tangent off of that when you were talking, what you were describing reminded me of I believe it's a Japanese phrase called Ikagai. And I might be mispronouncing that. Okay, you're nodding like you've heard of that before. Okay. So yes, I think that's a beautiful way of explaining what what you're talking about here. And I might have

it wrong, but yeah, it's it's your work should do I think it's one of four things. I give you fulfillment. what you can do for the world, how you can make money and what you're good at. And when you put all of these together, that's when you find a guy. And I I feel like I can find it in the aviation world, but I honestly haven't found it yet. And so I think that what we do a lot is what you did. you kind of do all these random jobs in the industry and see, okay, which one makes me feel the best, which one gives me the best sense of purpose. And we're lucky because there are a bunch of different things that you can do, which most industries, like if if you're a doctor, if you're a heart doctor, well, you're gonna be doing and operating on hearts all the time. And so I feel like we're very fortunate in this industry where not only do we have different sectors inside of say the helicopter world, but you can also then branch to the fixed wing side if if this isn't enough. Or, you know, if you have maybe lofty goals where you think you wanna end up but you can't fund it. It's like, okay, well, here's a way where potentially I can make enough money where I can raise two point five million dollars to pay for what I feel like I'm gonna find as my sense of purpose in this industry, which I think is what you did. And that's amazing. And I have so many more questions about that. Ian: Yeah, well I was in I was taking I was taking classes at Ember Riddle online in twenty thirteen. So I came back from Afghanistan, I was flying Medevac and I was working in the Smoky Mountains. they don't call smoky mountains for nothing. I mean it was foggy and I was a VFR Bell four seven. I was sitting there for pretty much most of my week and I would do one, maybe two transports a week and the rest of the time sitting there for twelve hours a day. And so I'm like, all right, gotta that can't can't only watch so many movies. So I started I started my online school and I and I got into aviation safety and human factors, and that's what I was studying. And I read something that said there was 13,000 safety recommendations put out by the NTSB. And I'm like, okay, I started Googling how what's the average. page number, page quantity of a safety recommendation. It's like 50 to 70 pages sometimes of like evaluation. I'm like, okay, 13,000, let's just round it down to say like 20 pages. You, if you tried to even read them all, you wouldn't have be the enough time to read them all before you die. If you sat for eight hours a day and tried to read all the safety recommendations. So I'm like, okay Well, if i if if you like retain only even ten percent of what you read, that's not enough. And so no pilot can actually say that I've done my due diligence, honestly, because none of us have the time to scrape it. We just it's there's too much data. And so that is how my current company was born, the aviation intelligence community. And this is bef way back before the current AI revolution.

I wanted AI. I wanted AI to happen because I thought I discovered Watson. Watson was the first AI basically that beat it could beat Jeopardy players without being connected to the internet. it could reverse understand the question as an answer and it could it could spit the information out faster. And I thought this is basically like a collation of data and it can collate and disseminate in real time. And I thought that's the answer. We like there's these airplanes coming in to land and they're they're almost crashing into other planes on the taxiway because they didn't read the notum that that taxiway is now a runway and the other taxiways the the runway. They like the notum is the notum system is is complete garbage. You know and it's it's in it's like cryptic and nobody spends the time to do it. And you're not even given enough time. Like if every pilot pulled out the charts on the jet bridge and laid them all out and said, okay, lat long numbers here and there, unlit tower, this distance and heading from the runway threshold or whatever, if they plotted all of those threats, they would literally lose their job because it would take an hour and the the customers would be boarded up and they wouldn't have enough time to do it. So I'm like, okay, I found my icky guy. That's it. I need to, I'm, I'm the safety guy. I'm the guy that takes safety and training, marries the two, and sprays it back into all the sectors that have already flown and now and now to the airlines. I've finally done them all. And that that was that was my icky guy. I I had found it right then and there. It was like it was like the light bulb went on, and nobody can stop me. I'm just going and going and going until it's done. Kristina Kennedy: Beautiful. Yeah. Ian: you know, but I did go back, I did fly aerial. photography and videography. That was a big that was a big part of my my income back when I started my own flight school. you know I had realtors coming to me with with their photographers and I was going to do, you know, not only just little residential places, but big mansions and then also like developmental projects in downtown Miami. You know, I was with an R22 and a photographer in downtown Miami taking pictures of of the phase construction phases of of large skyscrapers. I mean, I was I was making good money, like everything was cool. All of a sudden, like people stopped calling me one time. Like I was doing poker run races. Like I would fly out, I would fly out to Bimini chasing with channel seven on board and chasing them sideways, the the po the speed boats all the way to Bimini and back and getting all the footage for them guys. Like I the Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: that's the b that was my Super Bowl. That was the Baja for me, you know, and and and yes, Kristina Kennedy: Right. Cool. Ian: yes, highly satisfying. But then everything dried up at the moment drones came into town. Like the moment the D Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask. Ian:

yeah, the Phantom One came in and and the moment the DJI Phantom One was released, I never did another real estate photography job ever again. That Kristina Kennedy: Crazy. Ian: was done. That w that was that was dried up overnight. And then it only got better and better and better. You know. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. I've been wondering if it's been just a dying field, which I mean there's always gonna be some things that they need it for, but from my understanding is the first time I told somebody that I was interested in that aspect of the industry, they just kinda laughed and they were like, It's a very, very, very, very, very short list of people that they call to do that kind of work and So basically, yeah, you have to get invited into the boys club or you have to start your own production company, which I don't know which one's harder, to be honest. I kind of feel like starting your own company would be the best way to kinda enter into that world, but then it's a gamble, right? Like you don't know how many calls you're gonna get just because drones are so prevalent now. Ian: Well, I mean you're gonna need you're gonna need an A star, so you're gonna need and the prices of of A stars are gonna increase to five and a half million next year, twenty twenty seven. And there's none Kristina Kennedy: Really? Ian: and there's none for sale and there's like a there's like a thirteen to eighteen month wait on on a green aircraft, and then you need to get it completed with paint and leather and avionics in it, so you need another six months. So you're two hour two years out from an A star, so you better start early. you need five and a half million plus another eight hundred thousand for the completion. So you need six and a half, basically. And then the insurance on an A star for somebody like yourself, would probably be in the range of, well, for commercial, anywhere from seventy to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year just for the insurance. and then and then you need the camera equipment. So then you need the gyrocam or whatever mounted on the outside of it, and then the crew to install it. And you gotta pay those guys a hundred grand a year. you might get one or two calls making five thousand a day a year. Like it's gonna take a long time. And then you gotta get good. And you don't start getting good till around 8,000 hours. Like really, truly good. so it's gonna be a while for that. I would probably keep that one in the dream, dream category. In terms of unless you find an investor who just loves it and they don't and they're using it as like a tax loophole, a tax write off, that would be a huge tax write off for the right person. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: So I'm there's more way one way to skin a cat. I'm I'm just saying. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, maybe that is the easier option. Yeah, it's just making the the right connection and instead of taking the the route of doing it myself. But yeah, that's like definitely big dream, Christina goals and if it never happens it never does. But you know Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. Let's hear it. Ian: I have an idea. I've got an idea. Why don't you why don't you come out to Florida sometime when you get a span of time where you're not working? And we'll shoot all of the maneuvers that you can do with the helicopter. We'll grab one of them. I've got access to some privately owned aircraft. and we'll film all the new maneuvers from different angles. Kristina Kennedy: Okay. I love that. Ian: And I'll talk through it and you can deal with the media at the end of the the whole project and have fun Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: you could have as much fun with art as you want to have, you know. So there you go. Kristina Kennedy: Perfect. Yeah. I love it. I'll say yes to that for sure. and sorry to to go back. I wanted to ask you With the path that you decided to take, would you have done it in reverse now, going from fixed wing to helicopters instead of what you did, helicopters to fixed swing? Ian: Sure that's a loaded question. I fly with captains. So Have 20,000 hours, 30,000 hours. And all they've ever done was they went from high school to flight school to the regional for like a decade or two, dealt with a couple furloughs. and then now they're at they're at the major airline. And the best conversation that I have with them is their disgruntlement. with the furlough era of their life. And they talk about their investments and some stuff like that. There's some pretty interesting stuff to talk about there. But I will say that most of the conversation is revol revolves around me and my flight experience in terms of what we're talking about. And I try to redirect it to try and I'm I'm a firm believer you can learn something from everyone. so every captain I fly with, I try to extract as much knowledge as I can, wisdom as I can out of them. but in terms of like what's great about flying, nobody wants to talk about flying. And when we do, it's like, yeah, I get my pairing briefing, right? And so the pairing briefing sounds something like, Yeah, I'm a helicopter guy, don't trust me. I'm not an airplane guy. I'm I'm like an average airline pilot. I'm a super helicopter guy, but all these buttons, you know, like I kind of make a joke about it. you know, if you got any tips to make me more efficient or less annoying for the next guy, like just let me know. like I kind of have this little spiel that I do. to open up the the the the avenues of CRM and communication really is what that's all about. But but as soon as they hear that I have helicopter experience, like, you went to the military? I'm like, no, I did it all civilian. I did the civil civilian helicopter route. And then and then Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Right. Ian: I have this elevator pitch spiel up that I repeat every single time because everybody asks me the same question. Is like, how did I do it? And I was broke for a while and then I wanted to do everything. Now I'm in the safety and

I'm using the airline, you literally using the airlines. To give me the quality of life and the funds I need to redirect back to trying to save lives in the industry. Like that's kind of one thing. And then like, that starts a question about all the all the flying I did. So I get to go relive and I try to tell a different story each time. And I don't ha I'm not running out of stories. That's the cool part. Is like I tell a different story from a different day, from a different n hazard that I witnessed or some different different struggle that I overcame or. something in the industry and and they they will sometimes draw a parallel and it it gets it can get interesting. but but every time I'm done flying every time I'm done flying, like I'm always so grateful that I pounded the pavements in the helicopter business because I've I have literally lived a life that most people are seeking to go earn money to then go live. I've already done that. You know, like Mark Zuckerberg is getting into the helicopter business now. He's starting to learn to fly. Yeah. And it's like, Kristina Kennedy: Really? No way. Ian: so I could go become a dot-com billionaire and and and do all that work and then finally circle back to then trying to do what Ian gets to do. Like that's the that's the pinnacle? That's what you spend your money on? It's like Kristina Kennedy: Ha ha ha. Ian: I'm already doing that every single day. And and so like Kristina Kennedy: Right. That's cool. Ian: It makes me feel so good so glad that the cycle timing and my decision to go to the helicopters worked out. and you know, but but during that time the the cynical side of me was I hated it. Like I was starving. I just want I wanted to Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: buy a steak for a friend or on a date so bad. I just wanted to pay for a steak for someone. And I could never do it. I could never do it. And, you know, I got to the point where it's like I got back from Afghanistan, had a little jingle, and then All my old broke friends from from from my childhood, they came around and I spent a lot of that money having fun and lots of steaks. But you know, there there's there's there's something to be said about starting with the helicopters because I fe I feel like it makes you an incredible stick and rudder. And even now I fly with people and I'm just like, you don't need to wiggle it like that so much at the end. It's like Don't you understand the lift equation? Like I I those thoughts run through my head, these like judgmental thoughts, all the time. And I'm just like, man, if they had l just a even a little bit of helicopter experience, they'd be so much better at at softly Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: landing a jet, you know? So Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, not a finesse with that. I could see that transferring over well. And yeah, Ian: Yeah. Kristina Kennedy: I I've had students who came from flying airplanes and over to the rotor world and not the best. So yeah, I've seen that. Ian: Yeah. You know, like if you put if you push forward on the nose under certain circumstances, if the engine quits, you you will die really fast, depending on the aircraft. but like if you're gonna go to the helicopter side from the fixed swing side as a career change, you would have to have something going on with that trifecta of of job satisfaction. So like Your quality of life would have to really suck in the airlines. like if you were in the bottom five percent and you didn't see yourself getting past that because you got in at the end of an era of a retirement era, and you were a commuter, like if you got a job and you were unwilling to move from your current location and you were a commuter, your life looks like this. I got a four day trip scheduled or a reserve period of time. It starts at like six in the morning. So gotta fly up the night before and buy a hotel on your own time. And then your duty day ends on the last on the last day. We call it commutable or non commutable. And so if your duty day ends late on the last day, then you gotta buy another hotel and then commute back to your home airline. Some home air some or some your home base. Some home bases are one leg away and some are two legs away plus a three hour drive. I mean, it just totally depends on the sit on the situation. So you could look at like getting paid for four days, but only but having to have like six days of your time gone. Right. So like a line pilot has like a four on, three off kind of a schedule, typically. It says four days on, three days off, four days on, three days off. Well, of the three days on either end, it's commuting. So you're really gonna get one day at home just to do your laundry and then go back. So that's like the work, like that's the worst job in the world. To have is a commuting, like a two-legged commuting with low seniority where you're where you're working every holiday, all nights, all weekends, like you're never gonna get out of that. You're stuck there. So, like that's why I say, like, if you are even thinking about doing it, you need to accelerate your decision making process and go like immediately, because every day is potentially 40 more people of seniority numbers you're missing out on every single day, you know, and during during hiring booms. during higher end suppressions, it's like maybe 40 a month that you're missing out on. So right now you're in the suppression. There's a suppression right now because the economy, you know, the the the low end the inflation has has caused like the low end airlines, like the low cost carriers to to suffer quite a bit because you know, people are living on credit cards. So the the top two companies are Delta and United. And they're basically like credit card companies with wings. They have a they have a large farm for their for their credit cards. So when the economy does really bad, people suffer and spend a lot of credit card money. And it makes Delta and United even more money. And they actually lose

money on the airplane flying and make money on the credit cards during times like this. And if you're if you're a company that was exclusively making money on airline flying, those all company are those companies are losing millions and millions per quarter. Millions of dollars, like a hundred and plus million dollars a quarter. They're losing money right now on the operational expenses. it's all something to consider, you know, if you're gonna go somewhere, because you know, all that plays all that plays a significant factor in your in your decision making. and your domicile being one of the biggest. Because, you know, like if you're gonna get hired in 2032 and you're a commuter, I would say stay in the helicopter business. Stay there. Like don't go like enjoy your EMS, make your 85 grand and or 120 grand, whatever you can get, and down, downsize your expectations and lifestyle. you know, get that three bedroom older house and slowly fix it up and stuff like that. Like, that cause cause flying the Medevac is way better of a lifestyle than bottom seniority commuter airline life. But if you live in domicile, if you live in a domicile. And you have like y you're not in the bottom thirty percent. You don't risk furlough, or for the most part, I shouldn't say don't, like not at all, but you're like nobody under thirty percent has ever been furloughed in the history of furloughs, unless the company completely went out of business. so that's something to consider. So how can I get into an airline that has the biggest seniority opportunity and what what does their pilot age group look like? And if you live in domicile or want to live in domicile of one of those of one of those places and you actually like your geographic location, you like the domicile, you know, you could be sleeping away from your own bed zero nights a month, one, maybe five at the most, where you bid for out and backs, or if you just bid to the reserve and you just take the two or three hundred thousand dollars a year minimum guarantee that they're giving you. and you could literally. Call them every 90 days, say, Hey, I need three landings, and they'll buy somebody off a trip for you and they'll put you on, you get to cherry pick a trip and like, I'm gonna go to Aguadilla, and then I'm gonna go to you know, maybe Vegas and then Washington, and then I'll finish up in New York, you know, and I'll get my three landings and then I'll then I'll just jump on a deadhead home. You know, you could do that in like a one-night, two day, two little two-day trip. And, you know, that could be That could be reality. I mean, you could work 50 days a year and make 200 grand a year. but it just it literally depends Kristina Kennedy: That's pretty. Ian: on how fast you can get in and what your seniority, what your seniority is looking like. And then you always have the option Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: with seniority to just like, my God, I'm I'm on the brink of a divorce. Let me go fly more because

I need to just get out of this house, you know. And you could just the next month turn on a full time flying schedule of 14 or 15 days a month and you could just go away. And then the cool thing is you don't have to do a four and three. You could do like like 12 or 13 or 14 days off in a row and then work the back 14. You could do that. You can stack them that way. And then you could even work the front 14 on the following month. So you're working basically like 30 days in a row, but then you could take 30 days off without ever calling your boss. Without ever calling your boss. Kristina Kennedy: Interest. Yeah. Ian: You just tap, you tap on the app and then you get you get a month off and you don't take a pay cut. Like that's Kristina Kennedy: Wild. Ian: that flexibility to me is just like, my God. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: And so that's how I do that's how I do my private, and I got it all approved with the airline. That's another thing to think about. Some airlines do not let you do outside flying. that was what steered me away from Delta. They prohibit their pilots from flying outside. so Kristina Kennedy: What do you mean outside finance? Ian: so if it doesn't if you're not getting paid to fly Delta, you're not allowed to fly an airplane or a helicopter. Kristina Kennedy: I see. Ian: some companies let you make side hustle. And so I picked an air an airline that lets you make a side side hustle. that was a big part of my decision making process. And so, so what I do is I I all my helicopter clients know and and everybody's on like a recurrent, you know, and and I do one or two clients a month. And I just like, okay, when I just look at the calendar and you want you want I'm like ninety days out. So you want the tenth through the fifteenth of of that month. Okay, let me bid I'll put it in my calendar and I'll bid for it and every single time I get it off. Every single time. And so then I just shift those, I shift my working days away from those. I try to get weekends off. And then, you know, and then we could dive into how you can like manipulate the game during during pilot shortages. That's a really that's a really interesting thing because there's pilots that can make a million dollars a year with with the right seniority number, the right base, the right equipment, the right seat. There's ways that you can pick up trips and drop trips and And pick up premium time and do all kinds of different ways to manipulate that schedule. But n another talk for another day down the down the line when it when you decide to go that route, if if you want to go that route. So Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. What was the cost or what would you say the cost is for the two hundred fifty hours fixed wain time? Ian: So it depends on how you do it. you already have some operational experience. I'm a I am a I'm hard against time builders, hard against it. Because I hire people specifically for for airlines. I've been on the hiring committee for a major and and for a regional. I almost never hire the time builder because they don't have the dis the pressure, the operational pressure to make those decisions. bad weather, maintenance and and like they could just call it. And it doesn't really build the skill that we're looking for. Like I need somebody to push back on a company and still keep their job when there's a line of pilots behind them willing to do it for less money or even pay for the gas for the cup for the operator. Like there's a lot of operational pressure on pilots to to get the job done and break the rules. And at the airline level, at the final stage, like they want people that build the time, but also never break the rules. So that's what the interview process is about. It has it has almost nothing to do with piloting. It has everything to do with conflict resolution, leadership, and things like that. So that's like my if anybody wants advice, that's my biggest piece of advice is like develop your leadership skills, the best quality aim as high as you can with with integrity and your ethics in terms of following procedures and policies. And aim that way at all times and then figure out where the conflicts are restricting you from hitting your mark. And then how can you change the behavior of people around you to get them to follow your lead to hit that mark, but also still want to take you out to dinner and and respect you at the end of it. You know, like that's the seek that is the secret of of getting any job you want in the whole industry. except for some, some companies will say, like, hey, so let's say you're Let's say you're let's say you've landed on a hospital helipad and you're doing your walk around in between the patient drop-off, and you notice that the green navigation light is burn out. What do you do? And no pilot 91.213 says no pilot may take off any aircraft with inoperative instruments or equipment unless you follow the MEL procedures. Well, if you say that you will follow the regulation and down the aircraft right there on the helipad, you won't get the job. If you follow the rules, you will lose money. Another yet another initiative that I'm trying to fix. it's not easy because money before profit in most cases, until you get to companies that that have enough profit to where they want you to write every single thing up. And I've found that pretty much there's a handful of companies out there, and I'm on a mission to find them all. If there's more than the handful I know of, I want to know. So, like if you know of anyone that that is not on my list. I want to have a podcast like this so I can so I can decide and other people can hear about it. in in one of these podcast episodes. Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: But these preferred hiring partners, I call them, I'm on the hunt for them because the people that I prep for jobs, I want to place them with companies that are legitimate and good. and they're and surprisingly, they're hard to find. They're really hard to find.

especially when they're promoting pilots within who have no management or leadership experience. Ooh, that's that's a tough one. You know, because we're equipment Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: we're equipment operators. We are we are technical experts, but people are a whole nother science, you know. So Kristina Kennedy: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Ian: there's so much I mean, I know like this is about you, but I I kind of feel like I know where you're headed and I wanted to give you as much as as much as I could, you know, to to make your decisions. and I'm curious to see where you take this and and what it is you're gonna try to get out of life. But zoom in on schedules, Kristina Kennedy: Me too. Yeah. Ian: zoom in on schedules on all the different things you're considering, zoom hard in. and if you're thinking about a two-week on, two week off forever. Try to live that before going there. Try to fig try to like go away from your real life for two whole weeks. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, I I know I might struggle with it because yeah, there's some times where even I have a normal weekend and if I don't have big plans, I feel like I'm wasting my time. I'm like I might as well be flying or making money instead of sitting at home. Like I I don't really sit at home that often. But the the struggle with it right now is is the lack of pay, right? So what I think I want to find is a segment in the industry where I get paid enough to where I can actually go and do what I want to do in my life, whether that's skydiving or base jumping trips or whatever, and not be stressed back home financially on the backside. Like I've never been able to do that, right? I haven't been able to travel the world and do all these things. And right now I'm in a perfect place where, you know, I I have kind of the the life setup for it. I just need the job that offers me the time and the money to be able to go do that. And I don't know if I'll want to do it forever. I'm not sure. But yeah, if I don't even wanna, you know, go off an adventure and travel around for half of the year. Well, then now we're talking about opportunities to segue into the fixed wing world. And again, it's like then I have the opportunity and the time and the money to be able to do something like that. Where, you know, in your first couple of years in the helicopter industry you just you don't have that. There's n there's no way. Ian: I would say oil and gas is an interesting place. It's a little scary because the the political cycles change the amount of hiring and the amount of layoffs in that in that field, literally in the oil field. So sometimes we import fuel from the Middle East, plain and simply, we bring it in. and during during campaigns that push that narrative there's massive layoffs out of the oil and gas. That's why PHI has the PHI Air Medical section. that's that was one of the companies I studied. And and during those during those times, Petroleum Helicopters Incorporated saves lives with helicopters instead of delivering people to this petroleum field. So so you kind of have to see how that's going because if if you get one party or the other, they're they're There's a flood back in and there's a flood back out. Or there's a flood back in and there's a flood back out. And there's these like boom, there's these booms and busts in the industry. So prepare yourself for that. But I would say that of all the choices in the helicopter business, if you are pre-airline, Either e depending on your flight time, and in your case, my answer is e is oil and gas, but I would say either oil and gas or EMS because working a split schedule, either seven and seven or fourteen and fourteen, is highly conducive to getting a lot done on your days off. Like I did a new rating every week off. I did my private in seven days, and I did my instrument in seven days, and then I did my commercial in seven days, then I did my multi-instrument commercial in seven days, and I done. It was like 30, 60. Kristina Kennedy: That's crazy. Ian: It was like 36 days of training. It was like it was just it's not it's not hard. It's not hard. It's really not hard. And then the and then the rest of the Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. And you got me thinking. You really got me thinking. Ian: time you're just like building time and and and trying to find the best barbecue spots and who has the best like rental or FBO crew cars that you can steal and go, you Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: know, do stuff with. and that's the route I would take if I were you. I wouldn't try to go like a part one forty one. school where you're sitting in Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: there ground school with a bunch of people who are just learning aerodynamics. Like don't go, don't go the 141 route if you unless unless the GI Bill's paying for it. which they might. So I would go that route, but something to think about there for sure. But I did the flying club thing. Like I went I went to the flying club and I was like, I need an airplane and I need an instructor who's available. And then when I would get the instructor, I didn't care if they liked teaching or not. I was just like, I need to learn this maneuver and I need to be to the ACS standards before the end of the flight. And that's your job today. I need this. I need this one done. I need eights on pylons and you're gonna drill me until it's done. If we have time, then we'll do the next one. You know? And so they're like, Okay, okay, kid. And then I s called my own examiners and I scheduled my own stuff. Like they had they they endorsed me and everything, but I d I I don't I didn't pay for like any ground school or anything. Like I just did the flying, you know. I paid the guys fifty bucks an hour and Away I went. so so that was that was, you know, I don't know, it costs like twenty grand or something, twenty or thirty grand, somewhere in that range, I think, to get my to get all to get my add-ons done. so so but I like oil and gas because you're

gonna fly a lot, you're gonna build more hours, more hours helps you in the grand scheme of things than EMS. So EMS is, you know, I would say if you had three or four thousand hours, go EMS. And fly to get try to get into single pilot IFR because then you get a lot of crew CRM and it's really it's a hard industry because like the bus is always coming and somebody is trying to push you out in front of it at all times. that is that's for sure happening in that business, and you have to get good at people. And I think that's the strong suit of of EMS. And you'll give you a lot of really great stories on conflict resolution because every hour somebody is not gonna like the sausage you cooked in the crew base and you're gonna have to mitigate that. Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: whereas the e the oil and gas, you're gonna try to get into an IFR, like if you can get into a S92 SIC position as fast as possible, that's the most airline esque position that you can find in the helicopter business that's similar to the airlines. And that's gonna give you lots of talking points, you know, CRM to talk about as well there. It's like, hey, listen, this been basically flying the same type of operation only harder. So why don't you hire me? And like that's that's pretty much Kristina Kennedy: Right. So what are we doing here? Ian: that I mean that's that's the essence of it. It's like, okay, we know you're hired. We're just basically like we're looking for red flags, stuff like that. background background Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: things or whatever. But yeah. So Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Amazing. Ian: yeah, that yeah. Oil and gas. I like it. I like it right now. We'll see what happens in when's the next election. I don't know, whenever that is. Twenty six, seven, eight, nine. What is it? Twenty thirty? Kristina Kennedy: Probably. I I should pay more attention than I do. Ian: for every four years, right? In twenty twenty six we had the other one. Or twenty twenty four. when was it? Twenty twenty four? twenty eight is the next election. So yeah, you better hurry. Kristina Kennedy: Come here. Ian: It's either gonna get worse or it's gonna stay the same. You know, there's only can only go two two ways for oil and gas. But hey, hopefully by then you Kristina Kennedy: Great. Yeah. All right. Ian: get a little bit of time and you know you can make your second decision from there. So Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. I'll I'll keep you updated on on how things go and then yeah, if I decide to get real crazy and do the fixed wing side, well I'm sure I have a lot to talk about. Ian: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And like do your research and if you if you're even like considering doing that, like I would run, not walk. I would run to oil and gas as fast as you possibly could. And Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Hmm. Ian: get into IFR. Tell them I I'm here because I want to fly IFR. I want a twin engine, Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: I want to fly IFR, and I want a stable schedule. And I would say that in the interview and they will give you the job. You know. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: And they might say, like, well, you gotta start in a four seven and pay your dues and all that. Like, cool. Take the CJO, but then rapid fire apply elsewhere too. So you might be able to get like a really cool part, you know, like a like a like a S92 SIC. Kristina Kennedy: Right. Ian: Like that's good, that's a good gig. Cause the moment you move over to to PIC, you're gonna be making a living that you could actually get stuck with, you know, if if they don't fire you due to the regime change. But yeah, like it's One forty to one sixty, you could make with overtime two hundred grand and in the oil and gas. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. Ian: That's a possibility. Kristina Kennedy: Not bad. Ian: So what else what else? Do you want you got anything? This is like what, two hours? Holy smokes. Our cameras are gonna die. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah. N I know. I sh actually should go. It's I can hear it. It's storming outside. I think a monsoon's blowing through here and I'm supposed to be flying here in a like two hours, so I should probably see what's going on in the world out there. Yeah. Ian: Okay, do your weather checks. I really look forward to talking to you more. This is this is cool. I'm excited for you. Okay, we'll talk soon. Kristina Kennedy: Yeah, thanks again, that was fun. I appreciate it and yeah, thanks for all the advice. Okay. I'll talk to you soon. Ian: Okay. All right. Bye. Kristina Kennedy: Bye.