The Hangar Z Podcast

Welcome to episode 71 of The Hangar Z Podcast.  This is another one of our shorter content-focused episodes where we get to sit down and chat with the Brotallion Brothers Brett Kroll AKA "CHERUB" and Spencer Payne AKA "SMOKEY."  To hear how they got their call signs and more about their aviation careers, plus how Brotallion was created check out episode 36 of The Hangar Z Podca...

Welcome to Episode 70 of the Hangar Z Podcast . The start of 2023 has already been traumatic for law enforcement as Riverside County Sheriff’s lost two deputies within a matter of weeks. This episode is dedicated to Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Isaiah Cordero EOW December 29th, 2022, and Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Darnell Calhoun EOW January 13th, 2023.  Our hearts go out to their fami...

Welcome to episode 69 of The Hangar Z Podcast. In this episode we brought the industries best leaders together to discuss leadership and leadership challenges facing public safety aviation today. This group of leaders include Clay Lacey from Texas DPS, Terry Miyauchi retired  Arizona DPS and currently at Bell Flight, Jack Schonely retired from LAPD, Bryan Smith a current law enforcement pilot in F...

Episode 68 of the Hangar Z podcast is live. In this episode we sit down and chat with Sergeant pilot Jerry Hunter and Senior Deputy and TFO Eric Johnson from the Kings County Sheriff’s Department. Prior to aviation Sgt. Hunter worked Patrol as a field training officer developing the next generation of patrol officers. He was a K9 handler, was a member of the SWAT team and was also assigned to gang...

Welcome to episode 67 of the Hangar Z Podcast. In this episode we sit down and chat with Richard Brandon from the London Metropolitan Police Department. Richard worked his way from the streets of London to the skies of the London Metropolitan Police Department or MET as they refer to it. Richard served the department for a total of 30 years as a police officer and is continuing to serve the UK as...

Welcome to episode 66 of the Hangar Z Podcast.  In this episode we sit down and chat with Andrew Baity from the Virginia State Police.  Andrew is a Virginia Military Institute grad who joined the Marine Corps and became a Bell AH-1Z Cobra pilot.  After Andrew's active service time, he was hired as a civilian pilot for the Virginia State Police. On top of that, Andrew still flys the Bell AH-1Z...

Welcome to episode 65 of The Hangar Z Podcast. In this episode we talk with the Uber talented aerial photographer and journalist Scott Dworkin.   Aerial photographers and journalists like Scott and publications like Vertical Magazine provide a valuable service to public safety aviation by providing positive publicity and by telling the stories of what we do to our peers, the powers that control th...

Welcome to episode 64 of The Hangar Z Podcast.  I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Jeff’s birthday than by bringing his *childhood best friend and enemy onto the show.  What’s really fun about this episode is that Jeff had absolutely no clue who the  mystery guest was until he came into the interview.  The guest and Jeff worked and tormented each other at Riverside PD, where he worked h...

Welcome to episode 63 of the Hangar Z Podcast! In this episode we get to hang out and have a blast with Rob Munday.  Rob is a world class hoist operator working for Blackcomb Helicopters in British Columbia.  Rob also works with SR3 Rescue Concepts where he is spreading his vast knowledge of all things Rescue to students and agencies worldwide.  Rob is an Australian native and has a super diverse...

In this episode we sit down and talk with Nick Minx. Nick is the owner of tactical flying who specializes in providing airborne law enforcement units with the most advanced thermal imaging and aircrew tactical training available.  In addition to owning Tactical Flying, he also works for San Diego PD where he is a sergeant, he has worked a wide variety of assignments including air support where he...

In episode 61 we spend more time talking about how technology is improving our industry by increasing our mission readiness. We sit down and chat with Todd Powers and Ronnie Ries from GPMS. GPMS produces a predictive health and usage monitoring system that is available for, a wide range of airframes which now includes single engine ships most frequently used in public safety aviation. This technol...

Welcome to episode 60 of The Hangar Z Podcast. In this episode we talk with an American patriot Ray Freeman, who served our country as a pilot in the US Army flying a huge variety of airframes to include the OH58 and the Blackhawk. During our conversation Ray unpacks his military aviation career which includes his involvement in the rescue mission after hurricane Katrina, as well as the evacuation...

In this episode we sit down with the man who co-founded a company that was instrumental in developing technology for flight crews that has led to the apprehension of countless criminals across the world. Churchill Navigation’s Augmented Reality mapping System has also helped TFO’s of all levels increase their skill set and situational awareness while assisting the men and women on the ground in pu...

In this episode we get to sit down and chat with Zoey Schade. Zoey is a Navy vet who served on the Aircraft carrier USS Abraham, and is now a commercially rated helicopter pilot serving CBP Air and Marine as a Aviation Enforcement Agent also known as a TFO.    During our conversation she talks about the great experience she had serving in the Navy as well as the CBP. She talks about CBP, its oppor...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by ECHO Heliops to join them at their national public safety aviation conference to Podcast from the convention floor in Austin Texas. In this episode we chat with Terry Miyauchi from Bell Flight. Terry retired from Arizona DPS as their Aviation Commander and is now with Bell Flight assisting public safety aviation programs. We previously interview...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by ECHO Heliops to join them at their national public safety aviation conference to Podcast from the convention floor in Austin Texas. In this episode we chat with Dave Callen and Rob Munday from SR3. We had the opportunity to interview Dave in episode 25 so check out that episode if you haven't already, it's an epic episode. During our c...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by ECHO Heliops to join them at their national public safety aviation conference to Podcast from the convention floor in Austin Texas. In this episode we chat with Michelle Kline. Michelle is a flight nurse and has been in the EMS industry for 24 years. We talk with Michelle about the course she teaches at ECHO titled Fit for Flight. Michelle is a...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by ECHO Heliops to join them at their national public safety aviation conference to Podcast from the convention floor in Austin Texas. In this episode we chat with Dr. Amanda Ventura who is an emergency physician in Houston, Texas.  We had to work some dark magic to resurrect this episode as the hard drive it was written to was corrupted. This is a...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by ECHO Heliops to join them at their national public safety aviation conference to Podcast from the convention floor in Austin Texas. In this episode we chat with the ECHO F.A.S.T Team (Flight crew Assistance & Support Team) from the conference floor.  The FAST team is a peer support program developed to provide assistance & support to Fli...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by ECHO Heliops to join them at their national public safety aviation conference to Podcast from the convention floor in Austin Texas. In this episode we chat with the ECHO executive board from the conference floor. During the conversation we talk about the mission of ECHO Heliops, the conference and about the future goals of the organization. Than...

Live......Episode 50 which is also our second anniversary episode of the Hangar Z podcast We thought it would be fitting to bring on the man who inspired the inception of The Hangar Z Mr. Ghetto Bird Pirate himself Scott Hebble. Scott is a Super Puma search and rescue pilot for the LA County Sheriff's Department. Scott has worked his way from patrolling the streets of LA County as a deputy wh...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by the Airborne Public Safety Association (APSA) to join them at their national conference (APSCON) to Podcast from the convention floor in Reno Nevada. In this episode we chat kinda live from the conference floor with Matthew Stanton and Senior Constable TFO Gabriel Gamboa. The audio on Gabe’s mic was a bit low and we apologize. Both Matt and Gabe...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by the Airborne Public Safety Association (APSA) to join them at their national conference (APSCON) to Podcast from the convention floor in Reno Nevada. In this episode we chat kinda live from the conference floor with Ryan Mason from Aerial Fire Magazine. During the episode we talk about Aerial Fire Magazine as well as the benefits of positive pub...

The Hangar Z Podcast had the honor of being asked by the Airborne Public Safety Association (APSA) to join them at their national conference (APSCON) to Podcast from the convention floor in Reno Nevada. In this episode we chat kinda live from the conference floor with Terry Palmer. Terry is ASPS’s newest Training Program Manager During our conversation she talks about her entry into aviation as we...