The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - The Kyle Miller Show: Lakey Harkrader Of Vortex Flight School Joined Kyle Miller

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Lakey Harkrader, Owner Of Vortex Flight School, joined Kyle Miller live on The Kyle Miller Show! The Kyle Miller Show airs live Thursday from 2:15 pm – 3 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The Kyle Miller Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Kyle Miller Show. I'm your host, obviously, Kyle Miller. I'm here today to bring you stories of people who are doing fascinating things with their lives, doing amazing things, taking life by the horns and making it happen. And that's what I want to bring you all to the show. I want to bring you people that may inspire you to do something different with your life, may inspire you to go out and make that change that you're looking for. And with today, our guest today owns Vortex Flight School, okay? He's an instructor there as well, private pilot, and also flies in Alaska's backcountry,

dropping off hunters and fishermen and all of that. So I'm just really excited to hear what he's got to share with us today. Please welcome Lakey Harkrader. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Kyle. I'm super excited to be here, and yeah, I've been looking forward to this for a while. Man, I'm excited, and I have to let everybody know, guys, I have been working on my private pilot's license, and I've taken a little bit of a hiatus. I've guys, I have been working on my private pilot's license. And I've taken a little bit of a hiatus.

I've had a ton of things going on in my life right now. I am like literally two hours away from my private pilot's license. So I've been working with Lakey a lot. I've gone up in the air with him. He's taught me. He's trained me. He's taught me a lot about flying. So I wanted to bring him on here today because his story is kind of cool. He's got a lot of things going on in his life.

He's a young dude making it happen, and I just thought it would be pretty cool to share this story. Lakey, Randolph-Macon College, did you always want to be a pilot? No, that's a good question. I actually, yeah, I didn't. It wasn't something growing up that I really thought all that much about. I think it wasn't something I really thought all that hard about because it wasn't, I mean, no one in my family. I've got one.

My mom's cousin is a private pilot, doesn't fly a whole lot. But other than that, I didn't have anyone in the family who was in the aviation industry. And so it always seemed like this kind of far out thing that was almost like untouchable, kind of unreachable. It was just one of those things like out there that, you know, I didn't really think all that hard about until, I guess, really after college. Okay. So, yeah, I graduated from Randolph-Macon with an economics and business degree and worked for Faulkner Construction Company here in Charlottesville for a couple years.

Yeah. And a great job, great company to work for. But I had, I always had this thing in the back of my head that was telling me, you're going to regret it down the road if you don't, you know, going from high school to college straight into an office job. Right. And if you don't go, try something else. And so one of the things that I had always talked about growing up with my best friend was working for a big game hunting outfitter out west.

And so I got connected to kind of through my friend who was out guiding in Idaho and Montana and Wyoming and a little bit in Alaska. Through a connection he had, I got up to Alaska and started working under a guide hunting brown bear and mountain goat and worked into a guide position there. And that's what kind of started the so the avenue towards aviation alaska the flights didn't even get you to alaska like the pilot's license didn't get you to alaska it was right hey i want to go be a big game you know guide right and go help people you know all over and get to experience the mountains and the back country and just that whole lifestyle right yeah and now now you're sitting there going well, like, how does the flight come in? Yeah.

Because, I mean, that's an adventure on itself, right? Yeah. So you must be back there and you're packing things out and, like, a plane lands and you're like, well, how does that guy get that? How does he do that? Yeah. Yeah. There's, you know, everybody and their brother has a pilot license in Alaska, it seems like.

And so I got to fly in a lot of bush planes, you know, with the big Tundra tires, Super Cubs and Beavers on floats. And they're small planes. You get to talk to the pilots and get to know the pilots. And guiding is a seasonal job. And so, you know, I started, I guess, throughout that whole time period, I was thinking, what do I want to do long term that aligns with career goals and, you know, the lifestyle I want to see? Because guiding, you know, seasonal jobs are very, you know, it's a different lifestyle. It's, you know, you don't do it for, it's just a completely different lifestyle. So you've got to want to live that lifestyle. And, you know, for a while it's great.

You know, it was great for me. But I knew long term I was going to want something that was more, you know, I could have a family and not be gone for, you know, months in the wilderness at a time. And so, you know, talking to the pilots, the bush pilots up there, and getting to do some really cool flying with them, um, got me thinking harder and harder about, you know, getting my pilot license and going down, down that road. So that's, um, that, that's pretty cool. You know, I mean, I'm sure you've, the sights and views of just flying. I mean, I know just around, around this area. Right. But like

you put yourself in those mountains and you get to see the views of everything that's there. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. I'll tell you the, like the most freeing feeling that I think I've, I've ever had, right. Was not the first day of solo, right. It was like a couple of days after, you know, of going up in the air. Cause you, the first day of solo, it's kind of like really stressing. You know, like, oh, what's going on? I've got to make sure everything's right. But after you get a little more comfortable with it, you kind of calm down. And you know what to expect.

And you know what's happening. And, you know, you get over that first, you know, feeling. But I remember taking off and going up. And I was going out over Lake Anna. And it was just like, holy cow, like I'm up here. Nobody else is up here. I'm by myself and I where you can, one of those things that you can do, and it takes, you know, it's not like it's, like you said, it's not like it's always just an intense thing. Like there are periods that are like that first solo that, you know, you can be kind of stressed out because it's your first time in a plane,

in the air, on your own. There's no fallback. But, you know, it's one of those things that you can do um and kind of forget about everything else and like that's what you're doing when you're flying you're like in the air flying and it's right yeah it's pretty special yeah definitely is uh so tell me like you decide you're back country you decide you want to you don't want to guide anymore you're looking looking into different things of lifestyle and stuff. And you just, you just happen to be like, Oh, I want to be a pilot. Yeah. Um, yeah, you know, guiding is one of the

things I still do seasonally. Um, so, um, I, uh, it w it wasn't quite like, a, I need, I need another switch, another complete change. It started as more, you know, what can I do to fill in, what can I do to fill in the rest of the year you know that's not you know construction or you know for a while I went back and worked for Faulkner construction in the field and it was a great great thing to fill in the the seasons between the hunting you know fall and spring hunting season but every time I came back home and was just working in the field construction, I didn't feel like I was working towards anything. So it was just like treading water for, for months until we, you know, I went back to Alaska and I was like, well, something's got to change. I've got to, you know, I've got to figure out where to go. And yeah, so I started after, you know, getting to experience

flying in Alaska and talking to the pilots up there. It's like, wow, you know, aviation really fits, like checks a lot of the boxes for me that I love in a career. You know, it's, you know, there's all sorts of different types of schedules. You know, as a commercial pilot, you know, flying for hire, there's all sorts of different jobs of schedules, you know, as a commercial pilot, you know, flying for hire, there's all sorts of different jobs that allow for different types of schedules. So if you want to be home and with your family, there's jobs for that. If you want to make a lot of money, there's jobs for that. You know, there's all sorts of different avenues you can go down in aviation. You know, if I wanted to move to Alaska, there's, you know, amazing flying jobs

up there. I mean, that's like the pinnacle. And so, you know, when I realized it, it fit with, you know, what I'd want to see long term and something that I could do year round, you know, until retirement, it's, you know, then, you know, I was thinking about it harder and harder, and so finally I just decided to do it. Yeah. And, you know, after my first flight, it just kind of took over my life. Yeah. I love it. So you got the bug, and you just continue to want to learn more and more and more of this. Yeah, it's addicting. And so you're thinking about those flights. You're thinking about what kind of career paths you can have, and now you've kind of turned it into a business for yourself,

and this being one of those options that you can have as a pilot, right? You can be a certified flight instructor. Yeah. Right? And so now you teach people to fly, and that's what your whole business is right now. Yeah, it is, and it's been really rewarding. You know, I get to work one on one with people. And, you know, it's funny, something I've thought about over the years is in a lot of ways, it's there's a lot of similarities between my job as a flight instructor and my job as a guide because I'm working one-on-one with someone and a lot of times it's not always but a lot of times it's this person's something

this person's like dreamed about doing for a long time right so I get to help that person do what they've wanted to do for you know know, since they were, were little. Right. And so it can be really rewarding in that aspect. And, you know, I'm sharing my passion too, like both jobs, but, um, you know, I love, I love guiding and I love flying and, um, I get to share that as a flight instructor and teach people how to fly and, you know, get them into the industry. And so, you know, and also on top of that, as a flight instructor, you know, they say you never learn more about a subject than when you have to teach it. And so this allowed me to become, you know, a much better pilot myself when I have to constantly, you know, refresh and review and study myself or work through new problems,

get asked all sorts of questions that I've never thought of myself by people. So yeah, it's definitely been really rewarding. I mean, that's cool. When you say this has been kind of like a lifelong dream for some of the people that are trying to come in and get their pilot's license, but you just talked about all these different careers. What do you think that most of the public doesn't know about becoming a pilot? Because I know in school when I was there, I mean I was never told, hey, you can be a pilot. Like that was not part of the curriculum that you could like, hey, you go to call it. It was more like go to college. You can be a doctor, you can be this, you can be that. It was never like be a pilot. Right. Right.

So like, what is, what is it that somebody would have to go through or what's the steps in order for that to happen? And, and do you, do you have to like, special certifications before you get a pilot's license? Yeah. Yeah, it's a really good question because same with me growing up. You know, like I said earlier, I guess it's not something I ever thought about. It's not really in high schools, but it's really another trade school, and I think it's a phenomenal trade school. You know, most, most flying jobs, I'm not going to say all of them, and it's, and it's changed over the years. And I think it's, you know, more and more flying jobs don't require a college education. You know,

a lot of times it's a bonus, you know, a plus, like looks good on the resume for sure. And, you know, it was always a good, um, fallback, but you know, at the end of the day, it's, you don't have to go to college to be a commercial pilot, even, even at the airline level, which is, you know, the top really in the industry. So you don't have to be a, you don't have to have a degree to be a commercial airliner, like to work for American Airlines. There might be some. I haven't researched each one hard, but I know it's dropped off where there's definitely

some that you don't. So this is a career path that some kids could get into if they don't really like anything else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, looking at the cost between going to college versus, you know, going through private instrument commercial ratings to, to where you can fly for hire. Right. It's, you know, it, it looks expensive to fly and, um, and it's not cheap for sure, but, you know, you take four years of college and put it next to getting your commercial pilot license, and it's a fraction of what college costs. So it's a phenomenal trade school, really, and can make for an amazing career.

Now, for some of the people that don't know, like what are some – what could those type of pilots make? Like if somebody is listening to this going, man, I was really wanting a different career path. I don't really like what I'm doing. Like what is – if they looked into this, what is something like that? What do commercial pilots – what's the range, salary ranges that are out there for them? Yeah, there's – it's pretty big range, but, you know, with some, um, some time in the industry and, you know, in the airlines, the captains are making three, 400,000 a year, you know, plus probably. Okay. And, um, you know, there's so many different

avenues you can go down in the industry that the, you know, it ranges from the bottom all the way up to that. And so, like anything, it's building experience and time in different types of planes or whatever. You know, you're getting hired to fly and going through their training and working from a first officer, essentially co-pilot position to captain position. You know, that's like a, you know, you start as a first officer and you're helping the pilot with the flight and with, you know, radios maybe. Right. with the flight and with radios maybe. And then you move, once you learn the plane and learn that particular skill set to fly that plane, doing the type of flying that they're doing,

then you move into a captain position. And depending on your prior experience and the particular company you're working for, when you move from first officer to captain will like the time frame will change. But, yeah, there's so many different avenues you can go down that, you know, there's if you enjoy flying, there's something for everyone. I mean, you can be a flight instructor. You can be a bush pilot in Alaska. You can do crop dusting.

You can do pipeline patrol, like inspections, essentially surveying, charter operations all over the country, all over the world, airlines, you know, corporate stuff like it. It's just endless. And so we were just looking up, guys, before the show started. There's actually over what we say, 10,000 planes in any given time in the air during the course of the day. So there's a lot of planes in the air. Yeah. Every single day. Yeah. And those, you know, who knows how many people those planes are carrying the day. So there's a lot of planes in the air every single day. And who knows how many people those planes are carrying each day. So we didn't even get into that number. A lot of people in the air. Yeah, a lot of people in the air every single day. And it kind of goes into two things. Like one, two questions that are coming to mind on this. One is, what's the process like to get a license like that? I know

you kind of alluded to that, get your private pilot's license, get your IFR, get your CFI, like, yeah, what is, what is, what does that process look like? Yeah. So you can get your private pilot license, which is essentially just, um, the first thing everyone gets, you get your private pilot license and it's like getting your driver's license. So that allows you to fly any single-engine airplane wherever you want in the country, really. It just opens up the door. Now you can fly planes day or night.

There's not a whole lot of limitations on it. You can't fly for hire. You need the commercial license to do that. You can't fly in certain low visibility conditions. So you can get your private pilot license. And how old do you have to be to get that? At 17. 17? 17. So you can do it in high school. I actually just had a girl, her name's Skylar, who started with me back.

The name was made for her. Yeah. Yeah. Back, I think, last spring. And she turned 17 in September. I think September 28th, I think was her birthday. And, um, she was ready to take her license on her birthday and we had it scheduled on her birthday and the weather wasn't quite good enough to do it. So we pushed it one day and she got her license the day after she turned 17. So

it's very, very doable. Um, very doable. She's in high school. Yeah, it was super cool. It was pretty special. She's been coming back and renting planes for me. She's working on her tailwheel endorsement now. Yeah, so minimum hour requirements. I think you said to get your driver's license, 41 hours. Yeah, I read that somewhere.

41 hours is what the driver's permit license, to get your driver's license 41 hours yeah i read that somewhere 41 hours is what the um the the driver's permit license to get your license you have to have 41 hours behind the wheel yeah yeah so it's only 40 for to get your so you're telling me it's less to get a pilot's license than it is to get a driver's license yeah yeah pretty wild now you know realistically i think the national average is somewhere in the mid-60s. Okay. So a lot of people take more time than that. Right. Which is good, probably. But yeah, regulations, you could get it, you know, 40 hours in and be good to go. Guys, the flying part of it is not that hard. It's the weather, the weather and the wind. That's the hardest part of the flying aspect of this, right?

You basically kind of turn into a weatherman, understanding fronts, understanding weather and conditions, wind, visibility, icing, fog. All these different things come to play, and it's the flying. The plane flies itself. You just got to steer it, and it goes to where things come to play. And it's the flying, the plane flies itself. You just got to steer it and it goes to where it wants to go. You say that, right? Yeah. I mean, honestly, most of the time when things aren't going well for one of my students during flight is because they're trying to fly the plane, you know, trying to overfly and they're overcorrecting. And, you know, if they just kind of take their hands off for a second or you know just have like have a real light grip on the controls that's that's when things smooth out yeah they're super stable i mean they're made to be they want to fly yeah i want to be in there they

want to be in the air yeah right and so i i get this all the time too it's like well i don't want to go up in those small planes they're so scary i don't want to crash. XYZ, they come up with all these different things and say this. But in actuality, right, in actuality, they're not that bad. Some people think that if the motor stops, they're going to fall out of the sky. That's simply not true. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, one of the things that we practice pre-solo is emergency power-off landings. We don't shut the engine off completely, but we go to idle, which is like the engine shutting off. Yeah, no power. And glide it in and land. Right. So I always practice those a lot with new students prior to solo and make sure they can do it. And it's not a real hard maneuver. It's, you know, it becomes a little trickier if you try and, and land it precisely like within

50 feet or something, you know, that takes some time just to, um, just a little experience and practice to, to hone in on, but that's very doable too. You know, for a commercial check ride, you have to do a spot precision power off landing. And so it's very doable. But yeah, they're made to be in the air. And so if the engine goes, the plane doesn't fall out of the sky. It can glide for good ways. And the other thing is, right, and I've read some crash analysis when they do crash.

Like the majority of the time, it's not the plane. No. It's the pilot, right, making bad decisions. Starts on the ground. Yep. And so with that, you're in the air. You're making good decisions. The weather's good.

Well, that would be a good decision to go if the weather's good, right? If it's bad, that would be a bad decision, which then would cause an accident. But, you know, you're up there. You're not really going to have too many problems. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I tell people that pilots train for the, you know, the half a percent time that things go wrong. And that's what we train for.

And that's what all the training is really geared towards. But it's a real small, you know, fraction of the time. It's, you know, if you didn't plan well, you know, the better. And that's a big part of the training is how to plan to, you know, ahead of time to keep things from going wrong. And, you know, if you're, if you're, um, you know, half a pilot, then, you know, that's where everything starts is on the ground during the, the, the pre-flight preparation. And, you know, if you have a good plan and you've, you know, looked at your weather briefing and looked at your, your route of flight and, um, you've done all your pre-flight inspections and everything have a good plan going into it that's that's what mitigates all the the adverse conditions all the

you know helps helps to mitigate all the the crashes and and things going wrong because i think the i think it's like over 80 percent is the percentage that of crashes that happen because of human error yeah people making poor decisions essentially or not um not being proficient when they go up to fly right getting things overloaded getting not not accounting for the you know too hot of air not going to create enough lift yeah you put too much weight in it and then all these different things happen yeah so it's, it's poor decision making. Yeah. But poor decision making, the only thing it's just exasperated, but in an airplane than in a car, right?

Yeah. That's the only thing, right? Can't pull over on the side of the road if. Exactly. If you get lost. You run out of gas. Right. You didn't check the oil.

And you run out, like, those things happen every day on cars, right right um things happen there's more car crashes every day than there are plane crashes um but you know and things do happen and that's the thing just be prepared for when they do right yeah yeah that's that's all we can do things are always going to happen and every in everyday life something's going to happen just be prepared yeah you know going to happen. Just be prepared. Yeah. You know, yeah, that's what I love it. That's what we train for just in everything. Right. And football and sports, we always train for what if this little thing right here happens, what are we going to do? You know, this out of the blue thing happens. This is, this is what we're going to do. We may never use it in our entire life, but we're going to know what's going to happen when we have to use it. yeah but yeah ready

when it when it when we need it so so you've been in the air a lot right what are like what are some of the coolest things that you've seen up there flying around yeah that's a good question i've been i don't know if i can say i've seen anything like really crazy um i've seen some some uh some military jets flying around. One night I was taken off out of Louisa. It wasn't all that long ago. And I saw these two lights just kind of blazing by and they were, they were low too, um, just South of the airport. And I was like, what in the world is that? And they were moving. I mean, they were going really airport. And I was like, what in the world is that? And they were moving.

I mean, they were going really fast. And I looked at four flights. I can see the other traffic in the air, and nothing was showing up. And I was like, what in the world is going on? UFO? Yeah, well, that's kind of what, like, to the back of my head, I was like, no way. Louisa, here we go. Yeah.

But I think it was some military guys training. Yeah. And they were just like low altitude rolling by in formation flight, you know, two of them going by. So that was kind of cool. Oh, wow. I've seen them during the day flying over military bases and whatnot. Yeah. So that's always really cool to see.

Marine 2 sometimes comes into Louisa, the helicopter for the president. Yeah. We see them periodically come in. A lot of Blackhawks. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. A lot of Blackhawks come down into Louisa Airport and do some flybys, and they hover and do some drills and stuff out there. Yeah, they love training at Louisa.

Nice, quiet airport. Yeah. I think they fly out of Richmond. Yeah. And so they'll come up here to Louisa where it's quieter. Nice, quiet airport. Yeah. I think they fly out of Richmond. Yeah. And so they'll come up here to Louisa where it's quieter. Yeah, less traffic. And do laps with us in the pattern. Yeah.

No, that's pretty cool, guys. If you've never seen how big a Blackhawk is just next and flying in the air, they're pretty maneuverable too. Yeah. They can get it. Yeah, they are cool. Cool talking to them on the radio too. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's funny because they're doing the same thing we are. they're training new pilots and right now i'm out there training new pilots too so they're doing the exact same just you know pattern work doing laps and yeah practicing landings and takes takeoffs and what's cool is that like it's the the book guys for you know i don't have mine here but the book like is this thick, right? And everybody, yeah, the firing. Yeah. It's this thick and everybody that's that flies uses that book. So the across the country, it is the exact same every everywhere, right? They use the same patterns. They use the same calls. They use the same, how you talk on the radio. So if you're on the East Coast and you go to the West Coast, it's the same. Everything across the country is pretty much – now I don't know this for a fact.

What about like the rest of the countries? They all use it the same? I don't think it's completely standardized across the world. I'm sure some things are, but there's, there's a few other different types of airspace in other countries. And, um, I haven't personally flown out of the country, so I haven't researched that a lot. Um, I think there's some differences, but it's not a, I mean, it's not to the point where, um, you know, a little training for the company you're working for wouldn't get you there. It's not like getting a whole other license.

Right. Okay. No, it's just exciting, man. It's cool to listen to. It's cool to kind of go up and fly. I know I have just a couple hours left, and I've put it off, and I've got to do some different trainings and this and that. I've got to take the two tests, right?

But we'll get there. We'll get it done. It's just part of the process and just the way the flow of everything's happened in life. But I'm excited to do that because what I want to do, and I want to buy a plane, right? I want to be able to throw the kids in there, and I want to take the family and travel down and go to these different places so I can get out of the traffic. I can get out of the everyday hustle and bustle of the cars. Like, Oh, we need to go down to North Carolina, see the in-laws or whatever, like jump in the plane. What typically is a five hour trip, you know, five hour and 15 minutes

turns into an hour and a half. Yeah. And like, so when you're in plane, it just opens up so much more opportunity. Also, the amount of airports that I realized that are out there when I first started in looking and getting into flying is there are so many out there. Yeah, there are. It's kind of ridiculous. Yeah, you can find an airport probably within most places, 15, 20 minutes of wherever you want to go. Wherever you want to go. Yeah. That's exactly right. And so flying commercially, you only get the big airports.

You fly into the big airports, and then maybe sometimes you've got to drive another hour and a half over to wherever. In these small airports, being at Louisa, I've seen some planes flying in from New York and Boston. They're landing at the airport. They get in the car. They drive over to Lake Anna to meet the family or the builder or whatever.

Then they come back, jump on the plane, and fly back home. That's some people's lives. That's pretty cool. I want mine to be like that. I want to fly in, do that stuff, and fly back home. I mean, that, that's some people's lives. Like, and that's pretty cool. I want mine to be like that, you know, fly in and do that stuff and fly out. Pretty awesome. Yeah. So it opens up a lot of different possibilities being a pilot. It opens up just this freedom, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it does. And that, that's why I'm, I'm looking at,

you know, getting mine and going through that. But like, how can people find you on this? How can people reach out to you if they want to get involved in flying and want to start the process? What does that look like for you? Yeah. How do they do that? Yeah, I've got a website. It's vortexflight.com, nameoftheflightschool.com, and my phone number's on it. I think my office number's on there, and I think I still have my cell phone number posted out there somewhere maybe on Google. Okay. And I've got a Facebook page too, Vortex Flight School. Right. to Vortex Flight School on Facebook and Instagram.

And I try and keep up with those and post pictures of students soloing and cool pictures over the snow that we just got recently. I posted some. Nice. Yeah, so through any of those, give me a call or text, email too. I'm most reachable through text or leave a voice.

Because you're out and you're flying with some people sometimes. Yeah. So if you just give him a text, his number's on there. Yeah. As far as time frame, I know you said about 60 hours. Like typically what do you see as far as people coming in and getting their license? Are they doing – what's the best route for somebody who's like, man, I really want to do this. Let me get my license.

Yeah. Is it like coming in one day a week? Is it coming in two days a week? What do you think is best for something like that? Yeah, the more you fly, hands down, I've seen this firsthand. I think any person who's been through the process will say the same. The more you fly, the less total hours you'll need. And it's like practicing. I tell people it's like practicing a musical instrument. If you want to learn how to play the guitar and you practice once a week for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever it is, once a week. Right.

And then you don't practice again at all until the next week. Yeah. And you do another 30 minutes, hour, and then you don't practice again until the next week. You know, you end up, you can slowly build, but you end up reviewing a lot of what you did the week before. And so it's really hard to build on each lesson doing it that way. So the more you fly, you know, minimum, minimum twice a week, I'd say, if you really want to get through it, minimum. But, you know, the folks who I've seen do the best were the guys who came in as much as they could, you know, three times a week, four times a week, and every week. Because, you know, the other thing is we get a bad weather day and you have to cancel.

And if you're only flying that one time each week and you have to cancel the week, well, now it's two weeks later. And so there's always going to be weather cancellations. And, you know, we've had a lot this month. The weather's been pretty rough, so it's been a little slower. And a lot of lessons have gotten canceled. And, you know, it's just part of the industry. Nothing you can do about it. It's just part of the industry. Nothing you can do about it.

It's just something you have to work around. So the more you fly, the more consistent you can be with the flight training. And there's a whole other side that I always try and emphasize up front that's super important, as if not more important than the flying, is the ground school side. And that's just all the information that goes along with getting the pilot license. You know, the more consistent you can be studying and training, the smoother it will go and the more proficient you'll be as a pilot. I 100% agree with that because that's what I was doing.

I was flying two times a week, getting in, getting it done, maybe sliding another one in there. If the weather was good and my schedule allowed it. And I was cranking through, and then it stopped. And it was like this long pause of just, you know, getting through things and, you know, making stuff happen. And just, you know, and that's where it's been. Yeah. And it can be tough. I mean, a lot of the folks I work with have full-time jobs or they're working 9 to 5 or whatever the schedule is.

And so they only have certain windows or can only fly on the weekends and whatnot. But it definitely takes some commitment. You've got to want to do it. It's different in that respect than getting your driver's license. There's definitely some commitment involved and some hardcore studying and whatnot, but very doable. Well, I like you. Thank you for coming on and sharing this information, man. I think if you're interested, check them out, Facebook. Check them out on Google.

Look them up, Vortex Flight School. Yeah, Vortex Flight School. Reach out to them. You also do discovery flights too, right? Yeah. And so discovery flight is they come in, they go up just to see if this is something they'd be interested in. Yeah. Because you never know.

You don't want to just go in and start buying buying lessons and, you know, start making commitments. Like, yeah, go check it out. Zero commitment, you know, come take a flight and go up in the air and, you know, see if, see if it's even something you want to do. And usually people get hooked. Yeah. That's the leader in there, but go check it out. I mean, see if it's for you, see if you like going up in the air and seeing that and coming down and land in it and check it out. I mean, see if it's for you. See if you like going up in the air and seeing that and coming down and landing and check it out. I mean, there's really no other feeling like it if you're up there and you're flying, actually flying the plane. So check them out, guys. Reach out to them.

Book a, not a show, but, yeah, schedule a flight with them. Yeah. You won't be disappointed. Again, Lakey, thank you for coming on, man. I really do appreciate it. And enjoy the next flight. Yes, sir. All right, brother. Thank you.