 She looks at me and she said, listen, kid, can you read? And I said, ma'am, I said, yes, I can read. She said, then, honey, I think you're blind. All I have ever wanted to do in my life was to fly helicopters. Growing up, I was literally the kid that had every toy helicopter that you could buy from Toys R Us hanging from my bedroom ceiling. There was just always this innate pull and a fascination to flight and aviation, but specifically to helicopters. We chased a lot of helicopters. Mom, there's a helicopter. Come on, come on, let's go see what's going on. We'd stop whatever I was doing. We'd jump out the car and chase the helicopters, see where they were laying the land. And to be honest with you, it happened all day long. And it got a little bit annoying. For me, at Rotary Flight, it just always represented the ultimate magic carpet ride of aviation. That ability to hover a machine above the earth and then you could just take off basically anywhere and then land the aircraft on a dime. You know, that concept to me was just so enthralling and it was captivating. Even down to just the sound of the helicopter blades biting into the air, I just, I couldn't get enough of it. I think probably still to this day, one of the greatest moments of my life was when my uncle and my grandpa, who both love aviation, took me to my very first air show at our little community airport. It was up to a Hebrew air show and we kind of lost track of Clint. The first thing I did when I got there is I scoped out all of the aircraft that were on display. There was only one helicopter sitting on the ramp. And so I marched into the FBO and I just started asking everybody that I could if they knew who the pilot was. This loud voice behind me, answering saying, who wants to know? And I started to just tell him how much I loved helicopters. I wanted to meet the pilot. I had all of these questions. I gave this guy the biggest sales pitch of my life. Clint's coming out with the guy and he goes over to the helicopter. He's talking to my dad and dad says, Clint's getting in the helicopter. We looked over there and the guy's starting a helicopter. They just took off. I'll never forget that helicopter pilot who gave me my first experience of flying. He's sitting there pointing out everything to him. And Clint already knew most of this stuff and he was amazed at that. Once he got the taste of a helicopter that pretty much ingrained in his head. And he's never lost that want or dream. After that moment, that's when I was hooked. I knew that becoming a full-time helicopter pilot was exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. And I even remember I wrote in my bucket list, it was number 22, to one day own my own private helicopter. When I was a senior in high school, I ended up enrolling into my local flight school that helped young students just like me gain experience and save on flight costs. On April 28th, 2006, I graduated from that program as a private pilot and officially earned my wings and took that first big step in my aviation career. And then shortly after graduating, I went and did a two-year study abroad mission for my church. When I came home, one of the first things that I had to do was renew my driver's license. I made an appointment to the DMV. Finally, the lady, she called out my number. I handed her the paperwork, she starts thumbing through everything and then she said, okay, put your head in the black box, we gotta test your vision. Put my head in, the screen went white and there were six black dots. She said, read the letters. I said, ma'am, I think maybe there's a glitch or something's wrong with the machine. She said, no, you gotta push harder. So I push again, same thing, white screen, six black dots. She eventually comes around the counter, pushes me out of the way, she puts her head in the black box and she reads out loud, CKG, ELF, WZYN. She looks at me and she said, kid, can you read? Ma'am, I said, yes, I can read. She said then, honey, I think you're blind. And I remember just being so confused and I looked at her and I said, listen, with all due respect, I drove here today. She said, well, you're not driving back. She took that stamp, she pushed it on my paperwork. You know, I'm now under house arrest at the DMV. I ended up calling my mom and I said, mom, I can't drive home. She's like, what are you talking about? I said, I didn't pass the vision test. And long story short, we ended up at the Moran Eye Center with a doctor who was one of the top leading authorities in a rare and degenerative eye disease known as keratoconus. And as a young 21-year-old kid, my eyes were as bad as an 87-year-olds. Keratoconus is a progressive, thinning and steepening of the cornea. And in a lot of cases, can lead to scarring and permanent vision loss, in which case a cornea transplant is required. That day in that cold, white room with that doctor, he said, Clint, you've got until age 30, maybe 31 until you go blind. And we can do corneal transplants, but the failure rate on that is high and it's probably not gonna help your eyesight improve. That was a hard day. It was a hard day in Dr. Moshe Fyer's office. As he explained to Clint, he nestled up to him because he knew that this was important to this child. And he said, you will not be a helicopter pilot. He said, it's never gonna happen for you. He said, with where we're at right now with your eyes, the technology that's available to us, it's never gonna be a possibility for you. And Clint looked at me and I looked at him and he had tears in his eyes, very disappointed. I didn't want to accept it either. I wanted him, I wanted his dreams to come true. And I didn't want him to face a cornea transplant that may not be successful. We were looking at a lot of things down the road and a lot of devastation for Clint. The sky fell in all around me and I went from having purpose and passion and direction to literally having no idea what I was gonna do with the rest of my life. I ended up going to college and I graduated with a bachelor's degree and I worked in the fast-paced medical field as an orthopedic specialist for a long time. I eventually wrote a book. I started my own business as a professional speaker, sharing my story all over the world. But still deep down in my heart, I still just wanted to be in the sky. And I remember a few years after graduating, I got the call about a brand new procedure for people with my eye disease called corneal crosslinking. There was an experimental procedure that came about that was used to slow the progression of keratoconus in its early stages before it became FDA approved. And now it's one of the main ways that keratoconus is treated and can help patients have a stable cornea and help them avoid even having to have a cornea transplant. They did it first on my right eye and then they did it on my left eye four months later and it completely stopped the degeneration of my disease. Crosslinking worked 100%. But unfortunately most of the damage had already been done and so I still had to wear hard-rigid gas permeable contact lenses that would constantly pop out of my eye and they still wouldn't allow me to have 2020 vision which was needed to fly helicopters commercially and obviously have a first class medical certificate. I will never forget one day I saw this ad of pop-up on social media. There was this man named Jason Hill who all of a sudden out of nowhere literally announced to the world the launch of this brand new helicopter that had been in stealth mode for over 20 years. And it was called the HX-50. It was love at first sight. I mean the elegance of the design of this helicopter from the exterior, the engineering, the overall look of the interior, the craftsmanship, the digital cockpit, everything about it was stunning. And then the performance of the helicopter that they claimed that it would have 500 horsepower, max range of 700 nautical miles. You could cruise at 140 knots. And then so affordable it was out of this world the manufacturing, the strategic design, how the company was funded and how it was being operated. I remember telling myself in that moment, man, if there was ever a possibility, there was ever a chance of you owning your own helicopter the HX-50 would be the one I would buy. So now fast forward to 2022. It was just a routine eye exam. And I met with this doctor, his name was Dr. Loveless and he started looking over my medical history. After looking at where things were at with his current hard contact lenses and knowing his dreams and hopes of being a pilot, I told him, I really think we can get you seeing better and have a better fitting contact lens if we switch to a scleral contact lens. He said, I bet these will change the game for you. And so I could tell at first he wasn't sold on the idea and was maybe a little hesitant and skeptical. Yeah, probably not. I mean, I have gone through this process for years and he said, let's give it a shot. And fit after fit after fit, trial after trial eventually two months later, I met with an FAA flight examiner and for the first time in over 18 years, I was able to obtain my first class medical certificate. And you better believe right after that on March 22nd, 2023, I officially bought my first private helicopter, the Hill HX-50. Leonardo da Vinci, he's really the man that conceptually invented the helicopter. And he's famously coined for the phrase of saying once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been and there you will always long to return. This video really today marks the beginning of my return back into the world of aviation and specifically my journey to the Hill helicopter as I pursue what's once a lost dream that can now become a reality. So I hope you'll like, subscribe, follow along the journey. This is it, we are beginning a new chapter in my life. Oscar Wilde was the person that said to live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people merely exist and I am living. I am living to pursue something that just hasn't been a part of my story and now can be. So come along the journey. We're gonna be going to flight school, we're gonna be going over to England, we're gonna see the helicopter, the development of the helicopter. There's a lot that still needs to be done. So I hope you'll join me. Thank you for the support. Thank you for watching. The best is yet to come.