The Hangar Z Podcast

Inside SR3: Revolutionizing Rescue Training | Ep 359

• Jon Gray • Episode 359

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Welcome to The Hangar Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS, in partnership with Vertical Valor Plus.  This episode was recorded live from the floor of VAI Verticon 2026 in Atlanta at the Vertical Plus booth. 

In this episode we catch up with two returning guests and highly respected rescue and aviation professionals, retired Las Vegas Metro officer and owner of SR3 Rescue Concepts, Dave Callen, along with longtime law enforcement pilot and SR3 instructor, Tony Weber.

This was a rapid-fire conversation in the middle of a packed convention floor, but that energy made for an outstanding discussion centered around one critical topic — precision training for real-world rescue missions. Dave and Tony share their perspectives on the importance of outside training, the impact of the Hoist Users Conference, and why realistic, mission-focused preparation can make the difference when lives are on the line.

We also discuss a quote that resonates deeply throughout aviation and law enforcement: “The absence of an accident does not imply the presence of safety.” It’s a mindset that challenges organizations and operators to constantly evaluate training, proficiency, and readiness long before something goes wrong.

As always, there are plenty of laughs mixed in with the serious conversation, and we’re incredibly grateful to have two trusted subject matter experts join us again to talk about the evolution of life-saving rescue training.

For more information on SR3 Rescue Concepts, visit SR3rescue.com

Thank you to all our sponsors Onboard Systems Hoist and Winch, Summit Aviation and Quantum Helicopters. 

SPEAKER_04

The Hangers E podcast welcomes Dave Callan and Tony Weber of SR3 Rescue Concepts.

SPEAKER_02

Absence of an accident does not imply the presence of safety. Yes. And just because you've gone 20 years and you haven't had an accident doesn't mean you're safe. Maybe you are safe, but it just doesn't necessarily assume that you're as safe as you could be. And obviously nobody's 100% safe, but you kind of get the meaning. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Welcome to the Hangers E Podcast, recorded live from the floor of VAI Atlanta 2026 at the Vertical Plus booth. In this episode, we catch up with two returning guests and highly respected rescue and aviation professionals. Retired Las Vegas Metro Officer and owner of SR3 Rescue Concepts, Dave Callan, along with longtime law enforcement pilot and SR3 instructor, Tony Weber. This was a rapid-fire conversation in the middle of a packed convention floor, but that energy made for an outstanding discussion centered around one critical topic: precision training for real-world rescue missions. Dave and Tony share their perspectives on the importance of outside training, the impact of the Hoist Users Conference, and why realistic, mission-focused preparation can make the difference when lives are on the line. We also discuss a quote that resonates deeply throughout aviation and law enforcement. The absence of an accident does not imply the presence of safety. It is a mindset that challenges organizations and operators to constantly evaluate training, proficiency, and readiness long before something goes wrong. As always, there are plenty of laughs mixed in with serious conversation, and we're incredibly grateful to have two trusted subject matter experts join us again to talk about the evolution of life-saving rescue training. For more information on SR3 rescue concepts, visit sr3rescue.com. Thank you to all our sponsors and our followers. We appreciate the support. Thank you to our sponsors, Summit Aviation, Quantum Helicopters, and Onboard Systems Hoist and Winch.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Hanger Z Podcast. Brought to you by Vertical Helicasts. The Hanger Z Podcast is the first and only podcast dedicated to promoting and exploring the personnel and equipment behind the missions in public safety aviation.

SPEAKER_00

So Southbound's getting to a stop down by here. Looks like they're getting ready to bail. Heads up, guys, bailing. Okay, the guy's running through the house, jumping the fence, through the shotgun, through something out, grabbing the shotgun, don't go over that fence, dump over that fence, grab the shotgun again. He is on the stay there. Hold your position.

SPEAKER_04

Welcome to the Hangers E Podcast, brought to you by Vertical Helicast and partner with Vertical Valor Plus. We are at Verticon 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia, uh in the vertical booth, having a good time already. It just started 15 minutes ago, and we're already sitting here laughing and having fun and enjoying ourselves with some friends. And uh, so how appropriate that this is gonna be our first one uh of the of the conference with me is the creator of the Hanger Z podcast, John Gray. John, Verticon.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, Verticon. It's always amazing being in this booth. Verticals knocks out of the park with this booth. I walk up and I'm like, holy cow, this is this is amazing. So this year we've got we got rid of the frosted glass, and you can see people walking through. I'm sure after this recording, Dave and Tony will be mooniness at some point. Probably there's some shenanigans that will happen. But I think last year you let off Verticon as well, right?

SPEAKER_05

We got the startup morning slot when he was with us. It was great. Um, but now this is more like the fish pole effect. People we've already been getting clowned here, so this will be good. It'll get better as the time goes on. No doubt.

SPEAKER_04

Uh we're we'll introduce our guests here in a second, but I'll start by saying, John, do you remember when uh flying commercial used to be really enjoyable? You know, there was a time, right? It was where it was a little bit less stress. Southwest Airlines was known for uh their flight attendants giving the briefing in a funny way. I don't know if they do it anymore. I don't think so. They used to do it regularly. Yeah, they didn't. And one of my favorite ones, and you'll see why I'm leading to this, one of my favorite ones I ever heard was a flight attendant said, and uh for those for the one the less than one percent of you that don't understand a seatbelt, uh, you insert this, and I uh I laughed out loud. I mean, that guy was great. Well, for our audience today, for the less than one percent of our audience that doesn't know who these two guys are in the in the in the world of hoisting, particularly, uh, we'll introduce them. You know, that's how I'm looking at this because these two guys uh are really well known.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, I mean he he knows the father of flight, and he's been around. I flew with the Wright brothers and helmet right here.

SPEAKER_02

He did flight testing with figuring out how to build the thing.

SPEAKER_05

He did, yeah. Dude, we're only five minutes into this and then getting abused.

SPEAKER_04

I'm surprised it took that long. Um so for those of you who don't know, the owner of SR3, Dave Callum, is with us. Dave, welcome to the hangar's eye. Thank you, sir. Pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_05

Oh wow, that's cool.

SPEAKER_04

That was absolutely magical.

SPEAKER_05

It is kind of magical. That is awesome.

SPEAKER_04

And the man, the myth, the legend, the man who does not quit, the man who never will retire, the Brett Favre of Aviation from San Diego County, ladies and gentlemen. Tony Webber. Welcome back, Tony.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, well, thank you for teammate again. Like John said earlier. If you see a double weed going back over there, this is going to be awesome. I'm sure the listeners will be able to do that. I just can't believe you guys invite me back. It's a flaw at home whatever's listening to this. Why did you invite me back? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04

And for those of you that watch all the time, you remember last year we had a game show with Tony.

SPEAKER_05

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_04

Didn't go real well. As a matter of fact, off air, just before we started, we actually gave Dave one of the questions. He got it faster than Tony did about Journey. It was pretty embarrassing.

SPEAKER_05

But but I'm never gonna get invited to a concert again.

SPEAKER_04

No, but it was great having you and Wendy on last year. Wendy was wonderful given the uh wife's perspective of her career. I think she killed it. She killed it. Yeah. 82-year career, and she was with you the whole way. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_05

Um, so let me ask you a question. 82 years of that we've gotten getting a lot of old jokes, but whose hair is grayer, Jack's or mine? I don't wear a hat, so you can see the slides. Oh, okay. There you go. It's a tie. Okay.

SPEAKER_04

Mine.

SPEAKER_05

We're good.

SPEAKER_04

Um we're so glad to have you guys. Thanks. I mean, thanks for having me. Not just because it's fun, because you guys are great guys, but because uh in the industry and in the topic we're gonna talk about, which is the hoist world and training and um and the onboard systems hoist operators conference, you were just a big part of. Uh, we want to talk about all that. But before we get to that, for that less than 1% that don't know who these guys are, uh start with you, Dave, because I mean everybody knows about his background because he's been on 25 times. Uh give us your give us your background, Dave.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's an honor to be here, guys. Thank you. Thanks. But yeah, I started with Las Vegas Metro Police, hired in uh 2000 out there. I did a little over 20 years in the unit, and um probably about two-thirds of my career was was out there in the aviation unit. Uh the rest of that time was was on the street in patrol. So um yeah, I did uh a good portion as a as an officer pilot in the unit, and then um actually promoted to sergeant, went back to patrol, and then they brought me back, and that's where I finished my career out there. So I just blew a lot of patrol, uh, a lot of rescue stuff, place rescue, short haul, one skid type stuff in the 500s, flew Huey's 407s, MDs, uh the H-145 when we took delivery of it from Airbus. Um was flying that when I retired in 2020. And um yeah, owner and one of the flight instructors uh at SR3. So pretty much uh, you know, full-time, very busy full-time gig for me. Heck yeah between uh running the company, growing the company, and then also going out there and and doing a good bit of the work as well.

SPEAKER_04

So you're you're you're still a hands-on boss, uh, right? Very much so right now.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, try slowly trying to, as time goes by, um, back myself out of that role, but it's tough. There's a lot of work out there, so yeah, yeah, still going quite a bit of classes. Yeah, that's not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_06

In 2025, we did the Blades of Alor tour and one of the stops was was in Vegas, and I knew you had worked there, and I knew that it was your background, but until we went there and actually saw the terrain and what you guys dealt with on a daily basis, uh, I I had no idea. The environment that you operated in uh lends to your expertise and your ability to go and teach around the world. Um so I get it now. You know, uh the expertise that comes from your guys' experience out there, yeah, it's it's pretty amazing. Talk about your time there a little bit.

SPEAKER_02

I was fortunate because yeah, the the conditions are challenging. Um, you know, people don't realize, but there's some really high altitude mountains out there, and um the the county itself is about the same size as the state of New Jersey, so the area that we would respond to is very large, but just within you know 30 minute or less flight from the hangar at North Las Vegas Airport, you could go down to Lake Mead or um you know downriver of uh the dam there and be you know almost at sea level and then fly up to the peak of Mount Charleston at one eleven thousand nine hundred feet. Yeah. Um and then Red Rock is there just to the west, so uh those altitudes are you know between, I don't know, four or five, six up to seven thousand feet. But um that's the second most popular climbing destination in the United States. Oh, really? I didn't know that. It's incredible between just people like Tony and I go out there with a case of beer and no water and a dog and get lost, you know, or you know, you get these these uh these professional rock climbers like Alex Hodd lives out there and he does you know free solo climbing out there all the time, and there's very technical climbing routes out there for folks. Um so but the terrain is just incredible. Um and the altitudes are high, the temperatures are high, and then uh one of the other things that you know to me it it it sucks when you're doing it, but it's great experience is the wind. You know, you don't have a lot of low ceilings and visibility in Vegas, but the trade-off for that is wind, it's just windy all the time, right? And you know, that along with uh you know power management skills, having to learn all that stuff and doing it at night, it was a blessing for me because I learned a lot from a lot of really talented pilots over the years and then was able to carry that into what we do now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_06

As much fun as we're having and joking around in here, I I love it, but I think what's what it translates into is is what you've created at SR3. When you go get training somewhere, and the the people that are providing the training are people you want to hang out with and joke with. Well, when you're training, there's a time and place for it, right? Like when you're training, you're training and you're focused. But the fact that you guys are all people that you want to be around, I think makes SR3 kind of what it is. Not only are you and everyone at SR3 subject matter experts that you should learn from, but they're also people you want to spend time with. Yeah, you know, so kudos to you for creating that culture and environment because you know the I've been a part of a lot of training classroom more than anything when you're like, oh my gosh, I just want to leave, you know. But that's not the case with SR3.

SPEAKER_04

So I made him stay. I made him stay. Yeah, you're not leaving. It's not even lunchtime.

SPEAKER_03

I appreciate you saying that.

SPEAKER_02

That's true. That is one of our one of our main focuses and our goals. And it's hard to find people that fit that, yeah, that have a lot of experience, they're hard workers, they get along with our team, and you know, they they're good instructors. I know Tony's sitting next to me. I don't know how we picked this guy up years ago, but uh but yeah, most importantly, you know, they have a positive attitude, they they project that, you know, they're not arrogant, they have very small egos. Again, I can't believe I'm saying this stuff to them sitting next to me, but I know it's it's hard to find good people like that. But SR3 is is it's not Dave Callan, it's not you know Jason Connell who founded it with me back in the day. It's uh it's these guys are SR3. You know, it's all the guys collectively that that project that. So yeah, I appreciate you saying that.

SPEAKER_06

You've been on the podcast a number of times, and you people have probably heard the story, but again, for those that haven't, can you just talk briefly about how SR3 was founded and what SR3, the call sign, means to you?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, um, so just you know, the the short version of that is uh 2013, we had a fatal accident, and uh one of my very, very close friends and Jason Connells as well, uh, was Officer Dave Van Buskirk. Um he was at the time, Call Sarn was SR3 in the unit. All the guys, you know, in order of seniority, SR1, two, three. So Dave was SR3 at the time. Um it was a night hoist rescue back in one of our Hueys, and uh just a climber had gotten off trail, was hiking in an area, um, tried to descend and at night got off trail, was ledged out. Uh so they went up there, tried to affect the rescue, and essentially uh we were using a non-locking hoist hook at the time, and there was some things that um we didn't realize that we could have been doing a lot better. And essentially what happened is his uh carabiner dynamically rolled out of the hoist hook that we were using. He became disconnected when they made the pick. The victim remained on the hook in the rescue device, and Dave unfortunately fell to his death. So um we uh we founded Jason and I founded the company in Dave's honor, and initially it started with us just teaching about the accident and uh doing some presentations on it, and then realizing that there may be some other f folks out there that were in our situation that quite honestly, like I've I've said for years that the accident occurred uh July 22nd, 2013, but um it actually you know the the start of that actually occurred you know many, many years before. And it really happened because we just got a little bit complacent, but you know, we just kind of thought we were the best at that and nobody could show us how to do it better. So we stopped sending people out to conferences like this or you know, receiving outside looks maybe to look at our organization. And uh, you know, we just we we were kind of behind the times. So, you know, there's a few things between the gear we were using and procedures and things like that that were a little bit outdated that contributed to it. So that was how it was founded in Dave's honor, and that's kind of the goal now is to you know it it obviously grew into something much bigger, yeah, but we try to stay true to those roots.

SPEAKER_06

It was sobering for for me knowing the story when we visited the hangar, seeing his uh I'll call it a shrine at the hangar. It was really neat to see that.

SPEAKER_04

His flight suit, yeah, yeah, and that game was incredible honor.

SPEAKER_05

Very well done.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that that uh on that it it's amazing. It needs to be said that out of a tragedy, a terrible tragedy, where you lost a friend and a colleague, you think about the lives that you're saving in creating and running this company. There is no doubt that your your company's influence on operations has saved people. There's no doubt. We don't you can't calculate it, you can't say here's the numbers, but you certainly have. And that there's no better way to honor somebody that's fallen than to save others. That you're doing that. Yeah, you I know you feel that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we do, we do, and I appreciate you saying that. It's and like you said, there's no way to to measure that or put a put a number on it. But um, yeah, I I believe we're doing good work. Yeah, um, you know, it's it's nice to at least have his his name and his memory out there attached to something like that. Because I know he would honestly you'd probably laugh, you know, and he would it would you know I think he would be surprised at you know how it's turned into what it has. Uh but it's cool, and I know we we all appreciate it. We don't forget him when we're doing it, and his family appreciates it too. And it's I think it's a good thing. That's cool.

SPEAKER_06

One of my favorite things to do on the podcast is find somebody who says something inspirational like yourself and take the quote and totally butcher it. I always I always do that. One of the things you've said, and I'll just summarize it and I'll pass it back to you, relates to what we're doing here. You talk about training, conferencing, or conferences, networking, all the things that happen here, the importance of doing that you kind of highlighted by the tragedy that that fell, right? But talk about that that idea that just because something bad hasn't happened to your agency doesn't imply that what you're doing is completely safe. So give me first give me the correct way to say it, yeah, but then talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I uh unlike Tony with the journey question, I can actually go this too straight. Because I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, it's uh no, the the absence of an accident does not imply the presence of safety. Yes, yes, and just because you've gone 20 years and you haven't had an accident doesn't mean you're safe. Maybe you are safe, but it just doesn't necessarily assume that you're as safe as you could be. And obviously nobody's 100% safe, but you kind of get the meaning behind it. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

It's great. And it applies to so many things. Yeah, you can apply that theory to almost anything. Driving a car. I mean, you could but certainly in the rescue in the hoist world, oh boy, oh boy, that that is so important.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks to our sponsor, Summit Aviation, a full service provider for business, government, parapublic, and military aviation, specializing in maintenance, modifications, avionics, interiors, and paint. Discover more at summit-aviation.com.

SPEAKER_06

It seems like the number of agencies that are that are kind of siloing themselves is diminishing. I feel like there used to be a lot of agencies that did that. But I feel like a lot of people are kind of subscribing to the the mindset that you've got and and find value and understand the the importance of of these types of training environments and the conferences. Are you seeing that as well from your perspective at SR3?

SPEAKER_02

I would say so. I think the frustrating part across the board is that the people that are on the operator level in these units, um, you know, the pilots, the rescuers, the mechanics, um, maybe even at the the mid-management level, you know, sergeants, even lieutenants, um, they want it. But it's difficult at times to convince the administrators or the upper management level people because particularly like we just said in that quote, if they're thinking, well, you you do all these rescues or you do all these missions a year, you've never had an incident, everything's going fine. Why do we need to spend money to either get you more training, get you recurrent training, or you know, we do uh a good amount of like you know, unit assessment, evaluations, audits, whatever you want to call it, two or three days just to look at everything, make recommendations, kind of bring people up to speed, if you will. And it's difficult to sometimes convince the people that actually control the money, because then unfortunately it does come down to money that those things are needed or necessary when there hasn't been any in their mind reason to do it.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, another dynamic, let me jump in here of the getting guys to this training and getting the right guys to this training. I mean, I have seen that the guys that are holding the purse strings, I'll see upper management here, and you don't see the soldiers actually doing the work, your hoist operators, your your down guys, maybe the pilots, and I see that a lot. You'll see upper management here, but you don't see the guys actually doing the job here. That's it. And I see that at the hoist users conference. I'll see some of the guys that are up here, but where are all your guys? Where's your hoist operators, right? Where's your down guys that probably need this class? Yeah, it's odd. It's an odd dynamic, but you see that also bothers my mind in like the cop world. Let's talk about the cop world. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04

You getting a lieutenant or above into a tactics class is like an act of God. Yeah. So you're you found the opposite of it.

SPEAKER_05

You're seeing some of that dynamic too. So you see it all here. You'll you'll get to these classes and you'll ask somebody, hey, where's so-and-so? Oh, he couldn't come. Our budget is limited. Oh my god. But we sent these two guys. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_02

The only flip side to that is every once in a while, then if there is an administrator that comes in that does have the purse rings and they see that and they see the value of it, it could also have them. This would be great. Yeah. But it's, you know, again, that the people that most of the time, I think Tony's right, that get the most out of being here are the people that are actually boots on the ground. Right.

SPEAKER_06

Have you found, and this is for maybe unit managers that find themselves in a position where they're trying to justify the expenses related to the training that you provide. Have you found any I don't want to call them silver bullets, but any any useful tips for those folks listening who might be trying to justify those expenditures?

SPEAKER_02

I mean, yes and no. Um, it's difficult, you know. If you're I've always maintained that that if you're trying to convince something to somebody, you can generally get your point across a little bit better if you attach it to some sort of an emotion, you know, or a reason. And you know, I don't like to use any of our accidents or tragedies as a reason to sell our product or you know, the other companies too that are you know doing the same thing we are that are out there. We're not the only option, obviously, but um, you know, you hate to use that, but uh you know, unfortunately it it's a risky business, and um, you know, a lot of times that's what folks will will use. They'll just say, hey, you know, we we don't want to have an accident. You know, so-and-so had an incident, there was an accident last year. It would be great for us to get some training or great for us to have a look at the unit. Um really that's usually the where a lot of people start, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, I think it makes it makes sense, right? Case studies approve our points in ways that you couldn't otherwise do, right? And those case studies show what we don't want to happen, what we're trying to avoid. So yeah, I I think that's a a great tool. And I don't think it's disrespectful at all to the folks that we're highlighting the cases from. You know, it's if anything, it's uh it's like SR3 trying to create a positive from a negative, right? So I agree with you there.

SPEAKER_05

Gosh, in the last year Dave's side, they went down and did voice training with a specific unit. I did firefighting training with them. And not too long ago, they lost their own member. And you know what? Good on them for uh getting through all that. And I don't want to mention their name, but they got through that tragedy. Uh our unit's been through it, his unit's been through it. And to get past all that, and then go out and get proper outside training. Right. And we were lucky enough to be chosen to go uh train with them. And we knew what happened. And you know what? What a great unit when we trained with them. They were all dialed in. Yeah. They were like sponges. And it they were one of the best groups we've had in a while. And they were part of your tour too. So great group of guys. Yeah. Wow. Excellent.

SPEAKER_04

Let's uh again for the less than 1%, Tony Weber. Oh, I thought we were, I thought we got past that. No, we didn't.

SPEAKER_03

Tony.

SPEAKER_05

This is like the best upgrade ever of the sound effects. Um for those that don't know me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Tell us about tell us about you, Daniel. All right.

SPEAKER_05

I'm gonna keep it short because I think everybody knows me. So look at the abuse that I take here. So after I got done flying with the Wright brothers, I started a career with San Diego Sheriff, and I was there for 42 years. And boy was I lucky to have a career there. It was a great career. I have no regrets. Don't have a lot of complaints. Got to fly all kinds of helicopters. They taught me how to fly, became a flight instructor. Um started out in the MD products and then went into the Bell 407s, then into the Bell Mediums, uh, specifically Bell 205. Got to do everything. They taught me how to long line, fast rope, firefighting, everything, you name it. And uh I got to do a lot of time there. I will say I semi-retired last March. I came in and talked to you guys about that, about hey, the upcoming transition and what does that look like? Um, and then three months later they hired me back part-time, yeah, which has actually been a blessing. You're enjoying it? I am joining it. Okay. Still a lot of time off, still get to fly, still get to keep current, still get to teach. Yep, still get to teach. And then another sideline is working with Dave and the SR3 team and still getting to go on those jobs. And uh specifically, I'm more on the aerial firefighting side, but I'll probably move into the he needs help with the uh hoisting side for CFIs. Yeah. So I'm gonna move over and start doing that.

SPEAKER_04

So and you're still out on the beach riding your bike with Wendy, dog. Yeah, everything's good. I got no support.

SPEAKER_05

And one of the best things of coming up through a law enforcement aviation career is I met YouTube characters. Oh, isn't that nice? Yeah, and you know, getting tagged by the LAPD guy, putting stickers and speaking of the book. We gotta check our booth really good to make sure there's no stickers anywhere. You might want to check that.

SPEAKER_04

Uh that's classic. Uh and and is it true that you were that you worked San Diego County SWAT before you had a driver's license?

SPEAKER_05

Yes.

SPEAKER_04

I was in pictures, and I think it's you were like 14, I think, when you didn't. You and Dan, and who else was in there?

SPEAKER_05

Me, Dan Magnum.

SPEAKER_04

Guys that ended up at air support.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, yeah. Um Dave Douglas, you remember? Yeah, Dave, that's right. Dave Douglas was on the team too. Yeah, so guys, you know it was it was almost like we were cherry picking people off our SWAT team to come over to aviation. That's pretty cool. But yeah, it was good having some tactical experience. Yeah, you know, you get in the cockpit and you're on, you know, a scene that you need tactics. Yeah. Came in handy, and you know that how to run the seed. Yeah, so all of it was very valuable experience. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

For those that don't that haven't never seen that SWAT photo, you know, Dave hasn't.

SPEAKER_05

I look like I'm blown.

SPEAKER_02

Did you really he he asked me to pick him out of of the guys in the photo? Actually, no, I got it right.

SPEAKER_06

Was it one of those photos that like they they pulled a string and the explosion happened? No, no, it was actually a really cool photo, man.

SPEAKER_05

It's surprisingly that I'm picking them, right? That's cool.

SPEAKER_04

Danzer and Doogie Hazzard's right there in that picture, and you gotta pick them out. I mean, it it you do look like the 14 in that picture.

SPEAKER_05

I I think I was the youngest guy on the SWAT team at the time. That's cool. I mean, I was just uh I'll tell you. You get on there at that young and you're around all these operators that have been there for a while, and they, you know, as a young guy, they take you under their wing and show you the way. Man, they they took care of me.

SPEAKER_04

Well, you had a heck of a career, and it's so cool that you're still able to go there and and thank you. I appreciate that. They're lucky that you came back.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Uh, because they they were losing a lot of experience. We still are and it would have been that would have been devastating. I mean, LA just lost their chief pilot and chief default of retirement in the same month.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, that's tough.

SPEAKER_04

Think about that. I mean, and that's just like and that's two guys. Losing you is like losing four guys because of all the stuff you did there uh and the experience that you had. I appreciate that. I'm I'm glad that you're still doing it because I know it's in it's in your blood. And and again, you'll know when it's time. Exactly. Okay, that's enough of that. I'm gonna go hang out with Dave more often.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, well, I don't know about hanging about with Dave. I'll come hang out with Dave.

SPEAKER_06

I was you you like Dave operated in a unique environment. People think of San Diego and think of the beach and palm trees, and it's much more than that. Talk about the county and some of the unique operating environments that that you worked in that have translated into your ability to then go teach with SR3, the firefighting role in particular.

SPEAKER_05

Sure. So if you think about San Diego County, it's just not like you said, palm trees and beaches. We have uh 4,200 square miles. And the awesome thing about where we're located is you can go from a call at the beach to the US Mexican border to the Riverside County line, and then 30 minutes later you're down in our desert all the way to the east. So you have all this varying terrain with mountains, beach, desert, and then uh you take into the US Mexican border, and when the uh border was wide open there for what was it, a couple years? Yeah. When that happened, the migration coming across our south border in San Diego, our hoist tripled at that time. Oh, and the tripled happened because we were uh hoisting migrants because we have an area called Otai Mountain, and it is rugged. And they tried to go through Otai Mountain because if you went around the easy areas, you got caught. So they took the hard route. And our uh hoist rescues went through the roof. They got a helicopter ride to survive, they did, and so I can't tell you how many crazy rescues on the border, and you're going you're pulling out kids, you're pulling out ladies that are pregnant. We the surprising part is you think you're going to the border and they're going to be Hispanic. We're pulling out Chinese and every other country you can imagine. Right. We figured out they're going into Mexico and then they're coming across to the US.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

And you would not believe the different nationalities that we were pulling up into the helicopter. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_06

Heard a very similar story from from Texas DPS, and we were visiting them. Probably same crazy.

SPEAKER_04

As a matter of fact, we talked to yesterday we did a flight with uh with Shotover in their caravan, and our pilot was Marcus from DPS, who had just at the podcast last year. Wow. And we we John, I think you asked him about it. Hey, the borders changed a little bit. Yeah. And he was like, wow, night and day. Night and day. I mean, they're they're they're not doing anything down there. The overtime went away. There's no work there. Yeah. Zero work.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I mean, even in San Diego, yeah, zero people coming across. There were times where we would go a week and we were doing one and two, sometimes three rescues a day on the US Mexican border. That's how many people were coming across.

SPEAKER_04

That's a that's a heck of a mission pace right there. Yeah. I mean, that because that's you know, that's it's stressful work. Yeah, it is you need to be sharp and not not tired, not hungry, not thirsty. You gotta be focused and right that's right.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, before the border finally got closed again, and we know how that got closed, and we won't need to get into politics, but we started going to rescues where we started running into the groups or group somebody in the group was injured, and we started to figure out the coyote was still with the group. Yeah. Then at one point, uh a few were in partnership with Cal Fire, so our down guys are Cal Fire employees. They're not armed. And we put them down there, and things started getting a little sketchy because they can pick out who the coyote was. And then we thought, what if we send our guy down and all of a sudden this person's armed? That becomes a problem. That just changed the rescue scenario, doesn't it? So we had that dynamic thrown at us like, what are we gonna do if one of our guys is now at gunpoint? So we we kind of just had to get really careful about looking at the scene before we deployed somebody down. So interesting. Yeah, that is interesting.

SPEAKER_06

Going back to the firefighting side, talk about Sandio County's fire response because again, go East County, you go from the beach on the west side where it's sunny and 70, and you go into Alcajon and beyond, it's yeah, you know, over 100 degrees. You've got light, flashy fuels, a lot of potential for fires, which you do get a lot. Oh, yeah. Talk about your experience fighting fire there, and again, how that's translated into what you're doing at SR3. Think it are sponsored quantum helicopters. For over two decades, Phoenix PD, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Mesa PD, and the Pennell County Sheriff's Office in Arizona have trusted quantum helicopters for primary flight training. We've helped boost their efficiency, cut costs, delivered unmatched quality, and keep them focused on public safety. Don't just take our word for it. Reach out and see how we can deliver the same results for your agency. Visit QuantumHelicopters.com to learn more.

SPEAKER_05

So we uh we have two sides of the unit. There's a law enforcement side, and they're running the 407 GXIs, and then we have a fire rescue side. We're all the same unit, but there's two sides of the coin there. And we run uh Bell 205s, and then we about a year and a half, two years ago, we got a Bell 412 EPX. So it's our first twin-engine aircraft. So on the fire side, we're we're in partnership with Cal Fire, meaning we own the uh helicopters, the Sheriff's Department pilots fly them, and then we got a front seat Cal FIRE captain, and on one of the two helicopters, we have a Hellattac crew, and on the other one, there's a hoist rescue crew. And during the summer, both helicopters will go to each fire, and we're initial attack, so we get the first call because we're in partnership with them. So we're the first ones on scene, and like John said, during fire months and some years it goes year-round. We're that busy with fires, but we'll get an initial call, we'll do initial attack, get on scene, and it's our responsibility. If we look like air attacks not there, because when we go on a fire, people don't realize this. It's our two helicopters, air attacks coming from Ramona in at least two fixed wings. There's your minimum. We all get on scene. And if it looks like we can't hit it hard and stop, and it looks like it's gonna go big, we start calling from our helicopters. We don't mess around anymore. Yeah, we'll call the whole world. In San Diego now, you cannot throw a rock without hitting a firefighting helicopter. We have Hawks, uh, we usually have a Sky Crane on um call when needed. They're there. Uh last year we had a Chinook in the county that we had on contract. So there is um helicopters everywhere.

SPEAKER_06

We have a good Mike Calhoun down there now.

SPEAKER_05

You got Mike Calhoun. Remember, he was with Riverside, and now he uh retired, he's double-tipping at San Diego City Fire. Yeah, uh, we don't get to see Mike very much. It's almost like they're the last call because we have all of the other ones in the county. But uh I'll tell you, it's crazy. It could be something for uh, you know, a five-acre fire, or we get there and we've got some Santa Ana winds, and it's just going like a freight train. So you got the full gamut, you got your little ones that we hit hard and they're out, and you never hear about them. And then we'll go to one and the wind's already caught it by the time we get there. And it's either gonna go all day or for a couple days. So taking all that fire experience, I started uh fighting fires with the mediums in 2005. Wow so I flew them for a long time. And then Dave, when him and Jason started SR3 right at the yet-go, got a call from Dave, hey, um, would you be interested in coming over with us, starting this new company, uh teaching aerial firefighting and doing hoist rescue? And I already knew him and Jason for gosh, I knew you guys for like 20 years. Knew them, I knew they were good guys, and I knew if Dave was involved and Jason was involved, yeah, this is gonna be a quality company. I just said, dude, sign me up. And here you are. And we've been married ever since.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, and so it's been a beautiful relationship. Uh that's great. Thanks for that overview for for those that didn't uh didn't know about you. Tony's amazing. Um, been doing a long time. That's that's they and and John's right. I mean, both of you worked really unique terrain and stuff. That I meant to say this before that your takeaway was mine from when we went to Las Vegas Metro Police is that you could be in the snow doing a rescue and then get called to 110 degrees uh at the Lake Mead, right? And and it it's just incredible. And you're the same way. Yeah, you know, that the their red rocks was your what's it called? The where the waterfalls are.

SPEAKER_05

Oh yeah, their red rocks was our Cedar Creek and our three sisters. Yes, that's it.

SPEAKER_04

I I always see the rescues there going, oh my god, it's so similar because a lot of people go there and unprepared. And next thing you know, they roll an ankle and they it could be life or death because they have no water. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

And even, you know, some of the terrain, same with Las Vegas Metro. You get into Cedar Creek or the Three Sisters, it's a gnarly hike in there. Yeah, even if you just roll an ankle and can still there's only one way out. There's no roads, yeah, and it's by helicopter. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Wow. Well, let's let's go to what happens each year before uh VAI, before Verticon. There is a conference, and uh it's the onboard systems uh hoist operators conference. It was Saturday and Sunday before this the show floor uh begins. Dave, let's go to you first. Tell us about that conference, how did it go this weekend, what it is, and uh explain to the the listeners what it's all about.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's a great conference. I think it's a great way to start this off before VAI actually gets going. And uh they've been doing it for many years. It was previously known um as the Goodrich Conference, that's what everybody kind of always called it. And then when Cygnia came in with onboard, you know, and all the the kind of acquisitions occurred, now it's you know what you just described is you know, it's now it's the onboard conference, is usually what people call it. But it's really cool, they do a phenomenal job. Um, it grows every year. I think they had the highest attendance ever this year, but um the focus is hoist rescue, so they bring in a lot of people and um they bring in uh not just people from the US, there's always a lot of people from Europe and and Australia. Uh we saw this year as well as uh last year. But yeah, it's just it's kind of a variety of topics, and they'll give some presentations on gear and um they do a really good job of giving a good mix of maybe somebody will come in and do an accent review or someone will come in and talk about lessons learned. They'll have some maintenance-related things, somebody might come in to talk about the hoist itself or the cable or cable conditioning, things of that nature. Um you'll have people come in and talk about procedures or you know, ways to do things. Seen a lot of uh classes and topics on avoiding spin, you know, dynamic versus static hoisting, things like that. So overall it's really good. And it's cool because there's again such a variety of people with a lot of folks from Europe and and other parts of you know, you see a lot of people from Japan and some of the Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand. So it's cool. It's a big, big variety of attendees. And we presented on Sunday. Um we try to present every year at uh at onboard, and it's for me, it's always a challenge because I always want to put something out there that's informative. I feel like if if people come to these things, they want to learn something, even if it's just one small thing. You want to take something away that you can bring back with you, you know. So um it can be a challenge, especially after so many years, to come up with something new or something unique. You know, it's something that's gonna you know engage people and make them think, oh, that was great. You know, I took I got something out of that. Uh but that's what I want. I want to learn something, and I don't want a sales pitch, you know. So that's always been my thing to the guys like we're not gonna get up there and sell anything, we just need to provide good info. And so Steph Mayer this year had a good idea that I I think it went well, but it went good. I mean, we realized that there's there's all these different topics that generally uh are debatable in everything, but particularly in hoist rescue, because this is focused on hoist rescue. So what Steph said, we said he said, Hey, you know, what if we pitch to them, we'll do a debate, and we called it the Great Hoist debate. And so we had a list of, I mean, there's so many of them, but we narrowed it down to about five or six, and we said, Okay, we're gonna have two teams of SR3 instructors, we'll have it a CFI on each side, and then one of our rescue instructors on each side, and then Steph will get up there with a big ridiculous suit with helicopters all over it. It was a cool jacket.

SPEAKER_04

It was a really cool, it was a really cool jacket. Steph was the moderator.

SPEAKER_06

I mean, I don't know if cool is the right word, but yeah, I mean very painous, it was a painous jacket.

SPEAKER_02

It was like it was like ugly sweater cool, right? But I thought it was pretty silly. It was funny. Yeah. Steph was the moderator, and so what we did was we picked all these topics, and they're things that I have noticed, and the guys and everybody have noticed that people can just you know literally argue about these things, but they're not necessarily like someone's right and someone's wrong. Yeah. So we just thought, well, if we can bring a little levity into that and keep it a little bit light, but also make it informative and just talk about things. So what we did was out of these topics, and you know, it was static versus dynamic, tagline versus no tagline, you know, pilot pixel load versus hoist top record pits to load, you know, we had all these things. And so Steph just basically would flip a coin and then we went back and forth and we had to advocate for it. And it was funny because it did put us occasionally in a bad spot where in some situations, you know, maybe that wouldn't have been what I have done. And we to be fair, we we personally always push out there that we don't like to say always do this, always do that. We we type like to train everything and then be able to have our folks that we train say, okay, pick the right way to do something. Yeah, and what I always say is you should be able to explain to me why did you do that? If you use the tagline or if you did a static voice or whatever, you know, if you flew laterally into a spot, just it should make sense. We don't do it just to do it. So we went back and forth, and I thought it was pretty good. It was cool. It was entertaining, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Well, what's an example of a topic?

SPEAKER_05

Um so what like we started out with um the first topic because we had like a PowerPoint up on a big screen, so everybody what was there about 150, 200 people there? I think they had like over 300. Oh, 300. I was three.

SPEAKER_04

You're so used to having so many fans in front of you that you don't even have.

SPEAKER_05

It doesn't even we know who has the most fans, this guy. Um so we had it we had a first topic up, and it was use a tagline, don't use a tagline.

SPEAKER_04

So something very basic in your world.

SPEAKER_05

Very basic, and like Dave said, we tried to keep it light and and insert a little humor because sometimes things get a little too serious there. Yeah. Um, so we started out that way, and I think we won the coin toss. So I I got up first and Quinny was on my side, and and he had Lenny. Lenny Cunningham. And so I started out and said, hey, you know, we started out in San Diego and we were very rigid when we first got taught. So I was using us as an example. Every bag or uh basket load tagline. We were very rigid at that. I said, over the years we we started seeing the light and started moving into what's called dynamic hoisting, where the helicopter's moving and you don't use the tagline for anything, and then you go into the advantages of that, you're you know, shorter time on station. Your uh hoist can go three to four times quicker than a static hoist. So you get in all that and you you throw, and we Dave would give his side, and and now we're throwing little barbs at each other, you know, keeping it light. So he he was trying to defend using a tagline, and when he got finished, I go, man, that was some good snake oil. So then it's so we started you know, giving each other jobs it's a very good idea. That's how we went. And again, our point was to start stimulate some conversation because these are topics that we have argued about inside this class for 20 years. Sure.

SPEAKER_04

You probably hear them at night over the beer, too, right? I mean it's one of the topics like that.

SPEAKER_05

It doesn't just stay there. Oh, yeah. And so we did that and we went back and forth, and I I thought it went really well.

SPEAKER_04

I think it's a brilliant idea. Yeah, I mean that's all stuff, mayor.

SPEAKER_02

He came up with that whole idea.

SPEAKER_04

That's really cool. But to do something different, the humor you're getting information and humor at the same time, that's gonna keep people's attention. They're not gonna be sitting there on their phones for that one.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, and it was fun doing it with the guys, so yeah, it was good.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so did you have to intentionally, even though you might have agreed sometimes, you you Intentionally kind of through the through the devil's advocate in there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and we fortunately we uh would have the starting team would advocate for their topic and then we would advocate for ours, but then we each had a chance to respond to what they said. Yeah, there was a bit of a rebuttal there. And you know, some of these again, they're difficult. And I I had to stress many times and tell everybody, hey, listen, this is supposed to be educational. We're not saying that, you know, Tony Weber does not advocate the use of a tagline. We have to keep saying that, you know, don't take this out of context. But uh, you know, people did get a lot out of it. And then it was cool because when he would bring up something or um, you know, Crony would bring up something, we could have a response to it again, well, yeah, but you need to consider this. And that was the whole point is we just want everybody to realize, hey, there are different ways to do things, but when should you do it? Here, and we wanted not so much to focus on the negatives, we wanted to focus on the positives. So, you know, why should you use one or why should you not, or why should you static, why should you dynamic, and give all the reasons and then let people take that back with them and you know, hopefully use you know, use that to maybe you know decide down the road what they should be doing and why. Yeah, yeah, the why is the most important show.

SPEAKER_05

And we we let the crowd decide. So we would give our side, do some rebuttals, and then Steph would take over again. It goes with a show of hands. Did Dave's side win? And you'd see some hands, or did you know Tony and Quinny? And that's how we got awarded a point. And it was like there was a score going. Was it a two?

SPEAKER_02

We absolutely on a cataclysmic Chernobyl level destroyed these guys, man. It was I felt bad. We we we ran through it. Yeah, we didn't read these points. But uh we we had some topics and then uh we we wanted to get some engagement. So near the end we opened it up to the crowd and we had some folks that were asking, you know, what about this? You know, one uh one person asked, hey, you know, what do you think about higher holies heights versus lower holy sites? Which was a great question. Yeah, completely off the cuff, but we addressed it like, hey, here's positive. But um, yeah, it was I mean, overall, I mean, there's there's really no winner or loser in that situation.

SPEAKER_06

Quinney's just entertaining, period, so that's any fun to watch in them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you gotta cut that dude's mic off.

SPEAKER_05

Quinney's next to me, and my my levels right here. I like one cup of caffeine, and then when I have Quinny the mic, it's like beep me in a shoe box.

SPEAKER_04

That's a great concept, man. Yeah, that was uh because normally what do you do? Uh just a kind of class on a specific.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you give a topic and you do a like 40 minutes uh they give you about 40, 45 minutes, and you know, again, every year we we've been blessed for them to allow us to present something, and we generally it's been a lot more educational, but this one was a little bit more of a you know, kind of a banter back and forth. Well, I mean a couple years ago in Anaheim we did the family feud thing, which was kind of on the same pretty funny. It was a good one, but then that actually led up after Sunday. We started a uh an event that we are been calling the debrief, and Rob Monday actually started this. Yeah, it was great.

SPEAKER_05

You guys attended last year. Last year, yes, yeah, yes, debrief.

SPEAKER_02

So we we rolled into that Sunday night, and and that all came to be because everybody uh and Rob had brought this up a few years ago. We realized that after uh Sunday evening, there isn't really any events happening yet because VAI has not yet kicked off. So there isn't any you know parties or corporate events to attend. So we were generally saying, Hey, you know, where are you guys going tonight? Where are you going tonight? You guys gonna have dinner or you want to have a drink later and talk or meet up or somewhere? And we were in you know hotel lobbies and things. So Rob had this brilliant idea, and we started it in Anaheim two years ago. This was the third year, but we said, Well, what if we just find a brewery and literally call the brewery and say, Hey, could you accommodate 50 people if we just show up and just start buying beers and food, would that be okay? And they said yes. So we uh we started it that first time in Anaheim where we did you know tickets and hey, you know, if you if you spend 10 bucks, we'll take that money and we'll put it to the bar for drink tickets for you. Show up, you get two tickets, we had a food truck show up, and it was awesome. And uh then last year in Dallas, it grew, it was much bigger, and then this year we stepped it up. Um, the tickets were free. We had some other folks jump in with us, so we reached out um onboard and uh let me see who else. Life saving systems, digital airware, and then um micro aviation all jumped in and said, Yeah, we'd like to get in on that. And so we just made a flyer, made sure they got a lot of recognition and you know, corporate sponsorship, if you will. And you know, the the goal is not to make any money off of it. We're just like, hey, the more money we can get, the cooler the event will be for everybody. So we all just kind of you know took that. Steph again, man, Steph hit some home runs this year with the conference for us, but um, did a lot of research. We found an amazing place uh called the uh Monday Night the Grove, about 10 minutes north of here. Outstanding, just big open area, separate, own bar, you know, just food runners back. Man, it was amazing, it was so fun. And um, way more people than we even thought were gonna show up. And uh, you know, it's cool. It's really it's it's for us just everybody getting together and networking and talking and telling stories. That's exactly what it is. Just a chance for everybody to get together and kind of unwind, but talk and meet and share experiences and stories and you know, kind of kick off the AI.

SPEAKER_06

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SPEAKER_05

The good thing about going to that environment, and you guys know it, you've you've done it many times, we've done it, is you got guys in a classroom setting like that. Uh-huh. And there were it was a big crowd this year. And you have people that are reluctant, they might be new at it, they don't want to raise their hand, they don't want to say something that they're maybe not sure. You get fast forwarded to the bar, they've had a few drinks, people let their hair down, then you got people coming up to you, and hey, I wanted to ask you this today, but but now they're asking you hey, when you this presentation, what do you think about this? Why do you do that? That's where the networking goes down. And I'm not saying, hey, let's all go out and party, and we're not, yeah, not that. I mean, you get it, and people are more relaxed, and that's where you find stuff out, it's where you make your contacts, and people will actually open up to you and go, yeah, I want to bring this up in the class. But when this guy did this presentation, what did this mean? Or what do you think about this? And it's great. Those type of conversations go on, which I think are great.

SPEAKER_06

After a couple beers, it's a lot easier to ask questions. Exactly. You know, then you sit in a class and you're you're tired or whatever the thing is.

SPEAKER_04

So you're the new guy. You're the new guy. Yeah. Well, even a veteran, 300 people, you're gonna be the one to raise your hand in front of 300 people, and you're well, that's there's pressure there. We got away from the classroom. Exactly. No pressure at all. I could go up to Dave or Tony and ask them anything. I'm not gonna be judged, and they can answer it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and they're meeting other people. They might meet similarly situated units, or you know, hey, you guys fly this. How do you handle your maintenance? There's just that's the goal. And I I think there's more, I shouldn't say more, but uh half of what the benefits of this entail are that. It's it's after you leave the showroom floor. Look at Queen's out there with his daughter. Yeah, we love you too, buddy. That's five cups of coffee in right through the eyes. That's what it looks like. But that's that for me, I've seen over the years, is as beneficial as attending classes at DAI or the Hoist Users Conference or any of those things, you know, meeting places on the floor, but it's all these discussions and meetings that you have with other people, and you're helping each other and you're learning. So for us, it was about that, and and it's been very successful. So we're stoked to do it like next year and hopefully keep it growing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

This music in the background was supposed to come on when you guys got here, but I don't know. It's a little late, isn't it? Robert Robin. Yeah, it was 45 minutes late. Somebody's having a party here. Wow, it's big. You hear that? Some some debut of something is going on. There's uh there's a lot, obviously a lot going on here. Uh, for those that don't know, there's like 15,000 people, I think, attend this. Is that is that right? Oh yeah. There's 45 plus helicopters inside this convention hall. Hundreds and hundreds of vendors. Uh it it this is big. This is the big one for the world. Absolutely. People come, there's every language is spoken in this hall uh these these days. So um pretty amazing. In the time we have left, John, you you you told me uh that you wanted to make sure we talked to them about something, about some trends. Go ahead and uh lead that conversation.

SPEAKER_06

I I gotta be the the the monitor of time here. Oh, we've been on. There's a ton of conversations we're having on the the helicopter, which is really cool. So the last, I don't know, five minutes or so we got. I'd like to talk about kind of the the state of public safety as far as uh well we talked about the conference, the the hoist operators conference. You talked about the numbers being higher than they've ever been before. Yeah. And as you talk about that, my mind goes to you know what we're what we're seeing when we go travel is we're seeing increasing numbers of agencies wanting that multi-mission platform, wanting to adopt hoist operations into their set. Yeah, they're they're all adopting uh other mission sets outside of just your typical patrol uh law enforcement mission set. So I guess the question I have for you is that is is that what I'm seeing? Is that what you guys are seeing in in the SR from the SR3 perspective, and and is that why you're seeing growing numbers at the conference?

SPEAKER_02

I would say yes to to both of those questions. I think particularly you know when you're looking at these agencies that are whether they're big or small, they're they're trying to do as much as they possibly can. And you know, let's be honest, these using it's it's challenging to staff them and to you know acquire aircraft and equipment and all these things. So it it only makes sense that you know if you can offer firefighting services in addition to rescue services and patrol and you know maybe a tactical option for your SWAT team and things of that nature, that yeah, I mean, let's do it. I mean, if I was a you know, uh even a a non-aviation person in a police department or a fire department, I would be asking, like, what else can we do with these aircraft, you know, and and get more bang for our bucks? So yeah, I think that's definitely a growing trend. Um, and we see it quite a bit. So um yeah, I mean, between that and then I think that also drives the numbers with people as as these things tend to grow, they realize this particularly BAI is a great source to send those people to to not only learn how to do it, but look for options, you know, aircraft, equipment, training, things of that nature too. So yeah, overall, um, I I would say that we've seen an increase in that. And we do, as Tony said, we are seeing more of our clients that are multi-mission where we will provide more than one service to them. You know, I think SR3, we're mostly known for hoist rescue, but we train a lot of other things as well. You know, a lot of firefighting. Um, we do MVG training, you know, we do fast rope, we do aerial platform shooting, things like that. So more of our clients are now reaching out and saying, hey, we want to um broaden our capabilities, we want to start an AUF program, or we'd like to get a bucket and start dropping water. So yeah, um we I would say we've seen a good bit of that in the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_05

And it's not only Dave, there's a lot of uh members on the team. Uh people will approach me or they'll appro approach Steph, hey, do you guys hey you work for SR3? What do you think about this? And you know, and I'll tell them, hey, we can help you out with that. Talk to Dave, he'll give you, you know, a proposal, see if it fits your budget. Um, but the ones that are doing one thing, and they if if they come to me and they're say they're just doing law enforcement ops and we want to move into aerial firefighting or we want to start a hoist program, absolutely, we can help you out with that, we can train you. But I give them a caution and I ask them one question. I said, Is your new task gonna come with a budget? And they go, What do you mean? I said, Are you gonna try and roll into aerial firefighting and you have this budget just for your uh law enforcement side, and you want to get a medium now with a tank or a bucket and start doing this? And a lot of them will say, No, our budget is not going up. And I just said, Be careful because your new task, whether it be hoist rescue or aerial firefighting, comes at a higher cost. You're gonna be using different equipment. If you're just gonna buy a bucket and put it on whatever helicopter you have now, that's one thing. But if you're talking about getting involved in firefighting and and you know helping the Forest Service or Cal Fire and you're gonna try and get big, your budget needs to grow with it. And I just give them that caveat little nugget as a caution if you're gonna go down that road. But we can totally give you the training, yeah. But you need to look at that. Yeah. Some of them didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_04

Well, that's 82 years of experience that uh that's that's that that came from. You knew that. I'm sorry. I always get that wrong. 85 years of experience. You've seen how you know you can want to do something, and you can do it, but if if you don't prepare financially for it to have the right equipment, the right upkeep of that equipment. Everybody wants every agency in the country wants to buy a helicopter. Yeah. Well, I can go ahead and I think I can get a helicopter for this much, but that's just the beginning. The the cost of the helicopter is this much. Same thing with everything, right? Hoisting, uh, same thing, you know, you you purchase a hoist. That requires maintenance now. Did you understand the training involved? How many hours are you willing to do that investment? That's great that you point that out ahead of time.

SPEAKER_05

One of the most common ones that I've seen, and it's not a lot, but it's a smaller unit. They get offered, you know, hey, you can get this military surplus hawk for firefighting. And if you do not do your due diligence to know that, okay, you have the money to buy that hawk and you're gonna outfit it. Do you know how much maintenance it's gonna take to keep that thing flying? Yeah. And if you don't do all that ahead of time, that hawk coming in that you got a good deal on is now a budget trainer. Yeah. And you just you really got to be careful it goes away or you overnight.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, where they have it and now it's already gone because they're going, are you kidding me? This we have to pay this, this, this, this, and this.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

That's great.

SPEAKER_06

Are are you guys seeing any unique trends as it relates to requests for training or uh unique aircraft uh acquisitions or just any kind of unique trends that you're seeing in your travels?

SPEAKER_02

I wouldn't say anything really unique. Um you know, we're seeing some of the newer aircraft coming out. Um we're seeing like the new the H-145, the D3s are now coming out. We're doing more training in those as people are acquiring them. Um so no, I wouldn't say anything really earth-shattering. Um, you know, but just maybe really only that. I mean, just I can't really think of anything else. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05

Um I we just talked about it. I think a lot of agencies and I don't know if you want to call it unique, but they are either trying to or being asked to do more with less. Um and sometimes when you talk to agencies like that, or we go to train one and you see how much they're doing with X amount of personnel, um, you can almost see that it's stretching them pretty thin because they don't have a budget for more members and don't more TFOs, more pilots. Um I have seen that that it's a growing trend where people are being asked to do more with less. And man, that can catch up to you.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, the personnel side of things is a unique twist, right? Because a lot of agencies are now in a position where they can barely fill minimums as far as flight line pilots. And you're also trying to implement the training that goes along with these different mission sets. So I can see some definite challenges that we're gonna face as an industry going forward. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

One one thing that does come to mind is on that topic, we have seen more organizations that are um they're branching out, and they're as you said, maybe uh a police agency owns an aircraft, provides pilots, TFO oyster operators, system operators, but then they'll reach out to uh a neighboring fire department to provide medical personnel for rescuers, and then they're able to maybe divide and conquer over a budget and um acquire more people to get the mission done. Absolutely. And I'd say there's there's probably the last couple of years we've seen more of those types of setups. Honestly better because uh we've gone on somewhere, it's all like say a police department, and the rescuers are going to be dual-trained hoist operators, rescuers. And we asked the folks before we get there, what type of medical training do your TFOs have? And it's like, well, they've had CPR AED for the band-aid on. And we're like, oh man, okay. Now we and now we have to have a discussion about that, you know, and we can provide that training too to some level. But we're like, hey guys, you know, just something again, like Tony said, there's so many things that people don't think about. Yeah, and that is, you know, if if I'm the guy that gets sent down there to package you and you're just lost, well, that's fine. We can get you out. No, but if you're if you're very critically injured and you send me down there, you know, currently with my level of medical training, man, that's a problem. Now we both have a big problem, you know. Probably should just leave them down there, actually. Yeah, but when you look at if if that agency can grab like a local fire agency and paramedic cross-trained, and now you've got a paramedic down there that can do some pretty serious interventions in the field, they can push meds, even if they can't hoist a person out or or extract them with a short hole. I mean, would you rather be carried for an hour in a litter with a broken leg with no pain meds or no pain meds? Yeah, you want that person to get the the higher level of care. Sure. And that's one way to do it.

SPEAKER_06

Yes, uh, San Borino County is doing that too. Yeah, you know, a lot of like you said, a lot of agencies seems they're they're they're piggybacking on that idea, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_04

You gotta get creative. Yeah, you can't just if you go, wow, this is really stretching us. Hey, the fire department, they have paramedics. Next thing you know, you're you're you'll surely find people that are interested in becoming involved with the aviation side of it. Yeah, we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_05

If they want to come do that, you the thing you got to remember, and we tell people, hey, go get your local paramedics. You tell them, hey, you want to do helicopter rescue, they're chomping at the bill. Oh, they're gonna jump up, but you gotta train them to be a rescue specialist. And if it's a revolving door, means you got to do a bunch of them. Yeah, so um it's not as easy as you think, but if you're gonna be in the hoist rescue business or you're getting called, like Dave said, to somebody's remote, your goal should be eventually get to ALS instead of BLS, be it advanced life support, get a paramedic, and it means go out to your local fire fire agency to get them, go do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

So whether you're a new unit wanting training or you're an agency who wants someone to come out and give an uh an outside look or advance their current program, in the last minute we've got left. Talk about you know how they can contact you, where they can find information, and we'll kind of go from there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I appreciate that. Um they want to reach out to us, they can uh the best source is our website. There's a lot of really good information on there. We updated it a couple of months ago. Uh there's a contact us form in there, or they can submit some basic info so we can get back to them. They can also email us at our info at. It's just info at sr3rescu.com. Um, you know, you can track Tony or I down on any of the social medias and you know DM us directly if they want to or any of the other SR3 team, which is pretty significant in size now. But yeah, uh really best thing is just go to the website, take a look at everything on there, and that contact us form is best because it gets sent out to the you know the the people that on our team that are gonna get back to you and be able to answer questions and you know get you the info you need and help you out. So yeah, definitely go to website. Tony's on social media. He actually has an impressive social media presence. He's he's phenomenal at social media five years, bro. Yeah, it's also great.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. It lets me keep track of where you are. Yeah, I started with a technical.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, you're doing great on that. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04

And the dog pictures are cool.

SPEAKER_02

He initially was like it was Morse code when they started, and then they were sending it when they were pending the railroads to the continental. Somebody was making he was making tweets, you know, somebody cut the top to the telegram line.

SPEAKER_05

Tony, Tony's not getting through. The problem with all this abuse is what I call the SR3 HR line. He answered.

SPEAKER_06

Sorry, brother.

SPEAKER_02

This is great.

SPEAKER_04

Well uh closing thought.

SPEAKER_06

Every time we talk, I love it. You guys have been on the podcast a ton of times. You're a co-host in the Hanger Z podcast. You got your your co-host hat on. Uh, just appreciate you guys what you're doing for the industry. SR3 is is a is a powerful force in our industry, and uh I think it's really cool. So thanks for spending time with us. Yeah, you got a busy day, you got a busy day, and you're sitting here with the video. Thanks for having us. Thank you guys. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04

We knew when we invited you that we were hoping you'd say yes, because we know what this week is like for both of you. And so we really appreciate taking a few minutes to come hang out and have some fun, inform our listeners about some important topics, important work that you're doing with SR3, and uh and just learning about the 85 years of experience. It's just always valuable. But thank you right that time. 85. Thank you. We were we were really honored you took the time. So uh with that, Verticon uh is beginning. We'll get to do some more stuff. Uh we've got other podcasts planned, some uh other other events that we're gonna attend, some and we're planning on learning a lot this week. It's already been amazing. Oh, yeah, and we just started. So uh with that, thanks to all of our sponsors. We really appreciate the support. Again, we're at the vertical booth, uh MHM, uh vertical plus, valor plus. The support's amazing. And uh and Rob's with us, our editor, standing product producer. Editor this week, Rob, is behind the scenes and he's helping us out a lot. We appreciate that, Rob. Thank you very, very much. So, with that, everybody out there, you stay safe, and we'll catch you the next time on the Hanger Z Podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Hanger Z Podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe to hear more stories that promote the personnel and equipment behind the missions in public safety aviation. Lastly, stand by for a message after a word from our sponsors. Cheers. Whether your mission is saving lives or servicing high-value assets, onboard systems hoist stays ready to assist. Features such as single point payout reduce the potential for hoist-induced load swings, enhancing overall safety. For more information, go to hoist-winch.onboardsystems.com. Thank you to our sponsor, Quantum Helicopters. For over two decades, Phoenix PD, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Mesa PD, and the Pennell County Sheriff's Office in Arizona have trusted Quantum Helicopters for primary flight training. We've helped boost their efficiency, cut costs, delivered unmatched quality, and keep them focused on public safety. Don't just take our word for it, reach out and see how we can deliver the same results for your agency. Visit QuantumHelicopters.com to learn more.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks to our sponsor, Summit Aviation, a full service provider for business, government, parapublic, and military aviation, specializing in maintenance, modifications, avionics, interiors, and paint. Discover more at summit-aviation.com.

SPEAKER_04

We hope you enjoyed this episode with Dave Callan and Tony Weber. We are incredibly grateful they took the time during the busiest rotorcraft convention on the planet to sit down with us and discuss some very important topics affecting aviation operations today. One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is the value of outside training. Bringing in a new set of eyes to evaluate practices and procedures is critical. Sometimes the most basic techniques are not being completed correctly. And over time, those small deficiencies can lead to mission failure or even tragedy. Continuous training, honest evaluation, and a willingness to improve are essential in this profession. Dave and Tony are both deeply passionate about improving aviation safety, operational efficiency, and mission readiness. Their dedication to sharing knowledge and elevating standards across this industry is evident in everything they do. Thank you both for joining us once again. As always, the conversation was informative, engaging, and a lot of fun. Go to sr3rescue.com to learn more. Stay safe, and we'll catch you the next time on the Hangers E podcast.