Original Message

I know that there are guys out there who consider YouTube creators to be nothing more than rich poseurs, or dilettantes, or otherwise undeserving of “success” as you define it - especially when it comes to owning and flying helicopters. I guess if they didn’t do it “the hard way” (i.e. via military service) then they don’t deserve anything good, and they must be poor aviators. Must be! “Haters gonna hate,” as the kids say.

And so you haters probably missed the Facebook announcement that Dave “Heavy D” Sparks and Cleetus McFarland both got Typed in the Blackhawk, one of which Dave owns. You might say, “Feh, money can buy anything,” but what you really mean is, “This doesn’t mean they’re anything close to being safe pilots, and they’ll probably crash into a church on a Sunday morning and kill everybody onboard and in the pews.”

Dave has owned a number of helicopters, and seems to take aviation very seriously. The videos he’s published show him to have surprising proficiency in his BO-105, a borrowed Astar, his (two!) AS-365 Dauphins, and his UH-60. It would be tough for any pilot to switch between those rotor systems and be good. But he is, apparently. So don’t hate on Dave.