SkyBaum Blog
JAY LUGO
HELICOPTERS AND VERTICAL FLIGHT
| SkyBaum Blog Florida Aviation Network October 2026 |
This month we are discussing the Helicopter Pilot Study Group (HPSG) and its creator John LeDrew. “Part 61 can be a very lonely place” says John. Hence, he started HSPG. Initially we met through the Meta platform site known as Facebook, however it was Not a good fit. During the first meetings it was John, Chief Warrant Officer (CWO 3), Michael Triana & myself. Michael suggested we use Discord and from three people at the beginning of 2026 it is currently nearing 400 members.
John LeDrew
The focus of the group is for pilots of any skill to become comfortable with presenting tasks from the Airman Certification Standards (ACS), the Helicopter Flying Handbook or any pertinent study material. John saw a need for this while going through his commercial helicopter pilot training.
At times he explains there were matters which he wanted to discuss beyond the book knowledge, however he felt there was Not many individuals he could discuss these matters at length. Typically, Instructors can be very busy going from one student to the next and other people are busy with life. So, he used technology to create this online community.
Since then, there have been 35 different study group sessions. Very early on, I suggested to John to promote the group while doing FAASTEAM presentations. He took me up on that and since then we have done approximately five different presentations together. Each time we mention the group more people continue to migrate over to HPSG. One of the FAASTEAM presentation we coordinated through the Denver area (where John resides) and after the FAASTEAM program manager, Charles Hamilton saw the effort put forth he asked John if he would be interested in becoming a FAASTEAM representative. He accepted thus he was officially designated so on August 5th, 2026.
So, in reference to HPSG, because of the above mentioned collaboration there has been big industry names such as Jay Bunning, Jessica Meiris, Mike Hume, Jerry Trimble, Kenny Keller & Leah Coates to name a few join the group on some of the presentations. Most recently John began corresponding with Rob Wood. Rob had a successful autorotation after an engine failure while flying a Bell 212 with 150 foot long line up in Canada. He joined us for our latest study group. A copy of the recorded episode is embedded below.
One of the key goals of HPSG is to encourage the helicopter industry to create passionate instructors and thus those instructors can provide better training and than in turn could possibly lower incident and accident rates. In addition as HSPG continues to grow the group has toyed with the idea of meeting in person at least once a year at strategic locations through out the nation. Go check out HSPG on the link provided below.
https://discord.gg/HgfNASE9S