MY BLACKHAWK IS DONE! Time to Fly it Home

ladies and gentlemen it's Blackhawk time [Music] listen you guys have been following and on this journey with me as we've bought it picked it up took it to Thoroughbred Aviation back in June dropped it off to get all the maintenance and stuff done and I'll be honest with you guys this has been an insane ride getting to Joe's and checking out the helicopter on Sunday night was it was like an overwhelming experience for me and I don't get overwhelmed very easily and I don't really get anxiously excited about things I do get excited but my form of excitement is basically just I'm ready I'm ready to go I'm ready to jump in this thing and so getting there the night before was brutal because we were able to get in there check it out get outside about it and then we had to go back to the hotel and pretend like I was going to get any sleep which I did not oh my goodness yo dude [Music] no picture was doing this Justice in fact what you're seeing right now probably isn't half as good as what I'm seeing right now this is the most beautiful helicopter I've ever laid my eyes on dude is so sweet no no picture no video no look at that I know look at the gator step dude seats guarantees the only Blackhawk in the world with diamond Stitch seats dude wow this is incredible you already gait or something yeah it looks brand new dude it looks brand new surprise me hey man nicer than my vehicle I report it ain't working here no I'm not how am I supposed to hoverboard this is nicer than your 1997 Buick yeah it's an LHS so I've been getting you know pictures and videos along the way here and there but uh nothing that he sent is doing this Justice like not even answer I mean the thing about Joe is he's so particular and everything has to be done perfect so he would text me along the way and say hey this is going to take you know x amount of time longer to do but I feel like it's the right thing to do and it's like Joe look you're the man you make those decisions if you if it's got to be perfect or if you don't think it's perfect stop and take the time to make sure that it's perfect I'm seeing now that it is perfect I can't believe I freaking own this thing it's not even real yet feels very surreal I've seen a lot of Blackhawks you know in my years of wanting one and drooling over them and dreaming about them never seen one look like this and you guys are probably just thinking that's just a black helicopter but the details everything about it it's just it's incredible man I can't believe we're gonna fly this thing home tomorrow look at this thing just I don't even know how the doors work apparently this work like regular doors I've never seen you so flustered I it's a lot this is a lot to process a lot a lot to take in I'm also starving that's cool I freaking love that it's like the perfect blend of Civilian and rugged and Military it's like it's like a high class utility luxury utility yeah I'm overwhelmed at the moment if you can tell I gotta go get a sandwich hey buddy what's cool you ever seen one of those pretty I've seen one pretty not this pretty not this pretty no not this fancy congrats you're talking about me or the bird doctor just just this I just want a handshake ah don't hug [Music] smells so good it smells like a new car this is this for me for me Sparks is this guy buy brand new shoes for this did he buy brand new young man this isn't me one of the coolest things that has ever flown I agree it's probably so cool with these you're taking the best helicopter in the Army inventory and you just diesel Brothers it you know what I'm saying like it's awesome we're gonna head to the hotel try to get some sleep it's about 11 o'clock right now we're gonna try to be here around 6 30 a.m tomorrow 7 o'clock JT and I got a couple of familiarization flights in the mornings and then we're heading from here to see a friend that many of you may know foreign [Music] went over the final few things that we needed to check out on it make sure everything was good to go JT and I went out and did kind of a proficiency flight make sure that everybody was comfortable with it make sure all the systems were working properly which they had already been checked out during the maintenance test flights but this was just one extra step to make sure everything was good my goal with this project from the very beginning was to do everything to make sure that I didn't have to you know continue to work away little things on this Blackhawk I wanted it to be perfect from the get-go yeah [Music] some of the main upgrades that we did on the Blackhawk include obviously full phase inspection full mechanical inspection inside and out then I obviously wanted to repaint it so Joe and the guys completely blasted it down to Bare Metal the chemical stripped it and they did an incredible paint job in true Blackhawk fashion it needed to stay black and the satin black paint turned out literally better than I could have ever expected this paint job is immaculate we did a whole basically stripped out all of the old military wiring any components that weren't going to be used in the civilian World shaped off three 400 pounds worth of old wiring and Equipment the audio in an aircraft as far as for the pilot and the passengers needs to be a good experience so we completely gutted it and put in a 15 Place intercom system that means that all the passengers Pilots everybody can talk to each other as the pilots who have the ability to isolate the comms to just both you know pilot co-pilot so that the people in the back aren't chattering over Radio Calls and stuff like that Joe and his avionics team did an absolutely incredible job one of the biggest bullets that I had to bite with this project was buying all new headsets the one I've had best experience with and the one that most people would say the same about is Bose and unfortunately both headsets are not cheap and I had to buy 15 of their noise canceling headsets but that's an investment in the user experience the passenger the pilot experience everybody on board has noise canceling headsets that are comfortable light and the audio is crisp and perfect we also installed the Garmin 750 screen these models these older models don't have big digital displays everything is pretty much analog on some of the newer Blackhawks they have you know newer displays and Equipment stuff like that but we wanted to keep it simple the Garmin 750 screen has everything we need as far as navigation terrain avoidance traffic along with the ability to make Radio Calls everything else on the main Dash stayed the same the instrument panel we didn't change really anything everything that we changed was basically below that kind of on the center console another thing we did was obviously since it got repainted we stripped the inside and the Outside Inside got fully repainted all the parts and pieces looked like they're brand new and in doing that I wanted good flooring I wanted good Traction in there I didn't want slippery floors I didn't want metal floors and that's why I decided to go with the gator step Gator step built this foam flooring it's flame resistant it's got tons of traction and it quiets a lot of sound and it looks really cool so Gator step Big Time came out 3D scanned the whole helicopter and they built this amazing floor for it that is way more comfortable it's padded cushioned deadens the sound like that's one of my favorite features about the helicopter passenger Comfort was a big deal for me because you know we will have people in and out of this thing and that's why he decided to do all new seats the Blackhawk comes with troop seating which is basically the tubes with a piece of cloth and that's what the military runs we didn't modify those at all all we did was create new seat cushions that are diamond stitched as you can see and we laid those over the existing seats and they just strap on with velcro they're super comfortable look really good and I've never seen a Blackhawk with diamond Stitch interior another thing that we added was new lighting all the way around we added Weyland lights so upgraded all of the lights to LEDs and it looks amazing at night you know how those dreams that you have like their anxiety dreams when you're excited about something but everything keeps going wrong that was last night and it was this recurring problem of I was trying to fly this home and fuel was available but I couldn't bring the fuel with me so like I would stop and I would fill up and then they'd be like oh sorry you can't take that with you and so I couldn't leave so I had all the fuel I just couldn't fly because it was like in boxes and it wouldn't fit a weird deal so I'm really hoping there's no issues with fuel today I was up all night literally just tossing and turning thinking about this bad boy did you get any sleep Dave no I sat here and thought about how much fun this was going to be it's gonna be awesome you wanna do something helpful yeah they're all the same though I want you to show each and every box you unlocks as if it's something different What's it gonna be man I'm so excited 18 Bose headsets oh no way what do you think's in that one it's time foreign [Music] [Music] foreign starting engines and use the switches on so start is engaged and G is rising PGT is below 150 for this this aircraft and I'm going to let it spool up just a little bit and go to idle at 45 seconds for a couple of things to happen I've got to have a resident engine oil pressure Rising PGT and Horizon transmission oil pressure if I don't get any one of those things up about to start it's working working [Music] foreign [Music] that was exhilarating that's exactly how you imagined it right that's everything I thought the first uh take off the Blackhawk would be it would just drive on past but it looked so sick driving fast there's not another vehicle that looks like cool driving fast foreign now the helicopter is currently classified as experimental you'll see big stickers up and down the side of it experimental means that it's moved into the experimental category according to the FAA which means it's not considered a certified aircraft certified aircraft is something like you know a Bell Helicopter or a Boeing jet comes from the factory and the factory says yes we went through all the parts and pieces and the steps and everything to make sure that this is a certified aircraft and this technically is kind of the same thing because it came from Sikorsky and nothing was changed from what they did other than the upgrades that I told you about but in the experimental category it allows us to do things with an ex-military helicopter that you can't normally do we have it in the experimental training category and the experimental exhibition category training allows me to do training the other category is experimental exhibition which allows us to fly to air shows and basically do demos and anything that you would expect from a helicopter that a lot of people want to see this helicopter is also restricted category that the restricted category allows you to operate this helicopter in a commercial setting under a very specific set of rules and guidelines restricted category limits how many passengers you can have on board basically you can only have essential crew on board so right now it is not in the restricted category even though we have a restricted category certificate there's a lot of paperwork of stuff that we have to go through but everybody got together and made absolutely solid program that allows us to be in complete compliance with the FAA and all the other regulations involved in flying this helicopter thank you it's blue it's blue Blackhawk about an hour flight and it's smooth and powerful and awesome there's so much room holy [ __ ] it's a Blackhawk it's it's finally starting to sink in a little bit now so we pulled out of there load all the guys up took off straight towards Tennessee this is where we met up with whistling diesel hung out with him for a few hours filmed some stuff it was pretty awesome to see what Cody was up to and I know on YouTube and on the internet he looks like just this insane Wild Card who doesn't care about anything but he's an actual very smart kid and it was really cool to see you [Music] foreign [Music] naturally we had to stop and see Mr Tennessee right here are you buddy good to see you man at first I was mad when you sold your other helicopter right but not mad anymore it's like a floating like school bus but like badass version like a video game yeah it's larger in person how long you been here like a year yeah I've been here like a year yeah it's it's a huge improvement from what it used to be believe it or not like you couldn't not that you're worried about driving down the driveway but it you couldn't even get in here when I first got it the only way to get here is by Blackhawk right yeah and or excavator that's the only way to infiltrate the perimeter um it really he's not lying because flying over you know we have the coordinates and we're thinking okay we see everything from the sky we're like where is he where is he where is he where is he and you can't find you and then all of a sudden he's literally surrounded it's like the fortnite Battle Royale map like incredible you cannot see in here from any point of the outside this is exactly where you needed to be I was I was thinking you could maybe land on the hill but the the altitude you get like thinner air up there and yeah yeah actually surprisingly didn't dust out very bad you know oh no I kicked it I got mad when it comes to Cody like nothing surprises me anymore and somebody's building this truck I knew it was big but being here looking at it and you can't even process what this is not a truck anymore [Music] [Applause] foreign this is the first time I've ever seen this truck ever even before when it was Baby Max and middlemax and now it's monster Max we've been working hard on it like this is all we work on it's coming along holy [ __ ] I had really high expectations and this is a lot higher this is so much higher yeah so this is kind of built around monster Max so it fits to that door because it's like you know wider than the usual doors it almost is all functional now so other than the rear engine we could drive it today I was saying like tug of war Blackhawk versus she's got some air brakes put on this bad boy yeah literally like air opinion disc brakes we haven't tried it yet but it should lock up the tires like it should slide are you gonna try to find a way to get us stuck so we can try pulling it out so I've been working on that is there anything that you haven't been able to get out yet not yet good good employee of the month one December as you can tell I worked the hardest I can tell yeah I usually win but Seth is nice work Seth yeah what do you think it's insane dude it's actually really really well built yeah we try to like not go like undersize anything [Music] I don't know if I've mentioned it or not yet riding passenger in anything especially with Cody he's the worst [Applause] [Music] you are you got me beat hey you gotta come back up and shut the door though yeah dude stop that's my new truck oh Cody I got it not be closing my door with my excavator hey oh [Music] did you turn the pressure up three thousand each yeah and I was buying lunch so not anymore you're not buying lunch anymore that wasn't me that was like that before we shot here because I remember when we walked into the shop I was like man thing looks good but why is the mirror looking like that yeah politely you're not invited over here again you know if I go for all of us if you had mirrors I would politely break them off there's been a little bit of an emotional roller coaster here at Cody's place it's good to see that he cares a little about something I thought we were going to lunch now there's a semi-point down the driveway I can't tell how mad he was about the uh no it was there was there was some emotion in that yeah but isn't it kind of nice to see Karis kind of nice to destroy somebody else's stuff for once it's great it feels amazing I have I have something special arriving today I've been wanting for a very long time and I think it's finally time that we level up Dave here has a Blackhawk so I wanted to one-up him so I have a little something something coming so that I can just Flex on him a little bit helicopter baby that's right I have a helicopter now guys look at this oh look at that so we are uh refining this is for high speed it's almost there man it feels good [Music] not the lambo how was your day I was with some Diesel's places everything I expected it to be and then some he showed us around gave us the whole tour of the place and exactly what I was expecting and then some and what uh he has up his sleep for you guys here soon is going to blow your mind it's also going to make you very nervous which is why we're leaving right now [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] from there we flew up to St Louis Missouri to stop in at first form headquarters say hello to our friends Andy and South Rosella and just hang out for a minute before we continue on heading west we spent the night in St Louis woke up the next morning landed at first form headquarters flew up near the you know St Louis Arch and saw some cool stuff we actually did stop at Midwest military equipment as well to check in with Joe and his team so from Joe's Place we drew a straight line to Salt Lake and just started moving this helicopter can fly for approximately two hours with the current fuel setup that it has we averaged 150 knots all the way home which is incredible because most helicopters cruise at like between 100 and 120 so this thing is fast I think we ended up having approximately seven fuel stops total on the way home hey welcome to my crib oh you got company hey Christmas lights Garland uh Christmas ornament we got everything you need we got Bing bags been playing some Battleship uh [Music] video's coming hot chess and checkers I made to go for the Rocky Mountains before dark which was awesome that was really a big goal of ours and it was smooth sailing up at 12 000 feet over the Rockies typically when you're going that high up over mountain ranges you got to go slow and you're gonna get bumped around on the Blackhawk it was just smooth easy and beautiful so we made it Salt Lake right at basically Sundown I didn't have to fly over any mountains at night which we wouldn't have done anyways we were able to get beautiful weather all the way home this is when probably the hardest part of the journey began because my airport is not necessarily designed for Blackhawk helicopters it's not not designed for it but the taxiways are a little smaller hanger doors and the hangers are are not giant like you see at Thoroughbred Aviation so the Moment of Truth getting back was figuring out whether or not this helicopter is going to fit inside my hangar and it doesn't fit tail is Too Tall we're parking it outside behind my hanger and then from there I'm going to move it to a different facility so the storage thing is really kind of the only issue I do want to set up a program where we can give veterans rides that is one thing that's very important to me it's one of the main reasons I bought the helicopter is to be able to take veterans from all over the country gather them up put them in a Blackhawk and fly them around on a Leisure flight instead of a combat flight and give them the experience that they grew to love in the military in a non-hostile situation and just be able to take it in and enjoy it with that said I just want to give a huge shout out to Joe and his whole team over at Thoroughbred Aviation trying to find the right shop to work on a Blackhawk helicopter is not an easy thing to do but when it came time to make the decision of where to take it Joe and his team of thoroughbred the option of my eyes and Joe cares his team cares just thank you Joe next up you got JT obviously JT is the pilot he's the man who has helped me through this process every single step of the way JT also runs a training program called above the best where basically he takes anyone from just young kids all the way to you know corporate Executives and puts them through very intense kind of survival and different types of training programs so that uh basically to build people up and to be able to help them become better versions of themselves so you'll see us doing more training with JT here soon but you should definitely check out the above the best program I'll tag in the description below next up Timberline helicopters the whole team up there just thank you you guys built an incredible program and you provided above and beyond support that I didn't even expect but you did it you went the extra mile and I really appreciate it next up I'd like to thank the guys from XP Services they are also a Blackhawk buyer from the military and they have their own program where they set them up and refurbish them and do really cool stuff with them just a great company and an insanely good product and they've been very helpful with this whole process as well so thank you guys at XP Services you got Gator step obviously the flooring in this thing is something that I'm super excited about thank you to you guys thank you to Waylon lights for providing us with all the lights we need to be completely safe and protected while flying this thing around doing this this thank you is really hard for me because there's so many people involved in making this project come together that I can't name every single name the Blackhawk Community I will tell you is extremely tight-knit and extremely helpful people that have literally no interest in my business or people that don't even know me have reached out and said hey I'd love to help you with this let me know if you have any questions about that and uh the support has been incredible also this is something that most people wouldn't expect to hear but I want to thank the FAA the FAA has a reputation sometimes being hard to work with you know different Pilots have different experiences with them and I've had good I've had bad and I've had everything in between I'll tell you that the FBA and my local physio office which is basically a branch of the FAA have been absolutely incredible from checking in on the project to see if everything's going asking if we need any help I think what I've learned through this whole process is they do care which I I don't know if I ever fully understood before they care about the safety of the pilots the crew people on the ground and making sure that everything is is a good experience for everyone involved with the whole flying process so never thought I'd say it but thank you FAA and it's been an absolute pleasure working with you and the local offices I also need to thank the Arizona National Guard these guys are here for letting us come down and check out their simulators and their facility and just learn more about Blackhawks and their whole Aviation program those guys are awesome and I definitely suggest checking them out if you're interested in getting to Aviation so thank you guys for the support thank you for your views thank you for your comments I would love for every single one of you to take a minute and drop a comment below and just tell me what your thoughts are on this whole thing so far tell me the things that you would like to see us potentially do with it different types of recoveries different types of missions and also with the veteran flying program that we're putting together it's not quite ready yet but we will have information on that available soon where you can submit information or nominate a veteran to go flying with us again we're not going gonna be able to take everybody but we'll take as many as we possibly can [Music] what do you think bro there you go buddy it's all you put this hand here that makes you go up and down this makes you go forward back left and right there you go where you guys gonna go Pizza Hut yep the mountains can you can you fly me to McDonald's yep okay let me know when we get there Mac your feet don't quite reach the pedals oh boy don't worry whatever start that anymore so cool [Music] oh you guys are still here I'm still working on the sandwich well I've got you though this is a good opportunity to remind you that you should click the link in the description below get entered to win the last Diesel power of your giveaway truck ever get free cash in your order and get a chance for 50 of you to receive a phone call from me and Diesel Dave just to chat but you have to do it now because the giveaway ends like 24 hours from now so go ahead and just do it now I got a message from World War RCS he says Hants you should definitely go for a nickname like Mayday which why would Mayday fit Dave mainly because you kind of scream out loud when we do crazy and wild things like you're screaming me for Mayday every time we do a turn in the helicopter or some of Sam kind of the the weaker one of the group I just hit vocal it's like ah whoa dick come on so just know in the comments if Mayday is a great nickname because I think it honestly I think it works really well I think it fits fits really well if we have a Mayday you're the one saying Mayday I probably won't say Mayday itself I'll just scream profanities this is a good seat

Channel: HeavyDSparks

Views: 5,133,452

Keywords: susan powell, true crime, trailers, family friendly, no swearing, Recovery, Diesel, Diesel brothers, Heavy equipment, Caterpillar, Whistlindiesel, Cleetus McFarland, Demolition ranch, Matt’s Offroad, Adventure, For you, Heavydsparks, Sparks motors, Freedom bus, Dirt, Dirt work, Tractor, Machine, Dave sparks, Diesel Dave, Dieseldave, diving, murder, mystery, racing, tow truck, wrecker, blue collar, adventure, missing persons mysteries, csi, blackhawk, helicopter, army surplus, trucking, kenworth

Id: m3P3FWkBFU4

Length: 30min 32sec (1832 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 30 2022