Inspiring Biography of Kelsey Hughes (74 Gear) (Wiki)

Kelsey Hughes is a popular Boeing 747 pilot and aviation YouTuber.

He has more than a million subscribers on his YouTube channel by the name 74 Gear.

Introduction-

Kelsey Hughes hails from Dallas, Texas, United States.

He grew up near the location of TOPGUN and MCAS Miramar in San Diego, California by watching the fighter jets flying.

Inspiration for becoming a pilot-

Kelsey’s uncle was a smart pilot, mechanic and an aviation engineer.

And thanks to his uncle, he wanted to become a pilot.

Later, Kelsey approached his uncle for advice for whether he could become a pilot or not because he was an average student and his uncle inspired him that he could definitely become a pilot.

Kelsey’s aunt was a flight attendant in between 1970s and 1990s for Pacific Southwest Airlines (later bought by USAir).

His uncle inspired him so much that he right away joined a ground school even without flying a demo flight and he started working to save money for the Private Pilot License (PPL) and later, he joined a flight school.

In the flight school, Kelsey had the most flight time in Cessna 172, Cessna 152 and Piper PA-28 Cherokee aircraft.

He also had some flight time in his friend’s Cirrus Aircraft and got his Private Pilot License in Las Vegas.

Career-

After completing his flight school, Kelsey started off his career by joining a private regional jet company, flying small charter jets which were poorly maintained and thanks to them, he had to consider emergency landings a few times.

He also did regional flying on Bombardier CRJ900 airliners and he also flew Bombardier CRJ700 series airliners.

Then, Kelsey joined a passenger airline company and he also flew corporate and private jets.

Later, he flew military charter flights.

Then, Kelsey joined a cargo airline and started mostly flying cargo planes and occasionally flying passengers.

Here, he pilots Boeing 747 airliners and sometimes also Boeing Dreamlifter aircraft.

Kelsey holds an airline transport pilot license (ATPL) and is a commercial pilot and loves travelling.

He hasn’t publicly disclosed the airline which he works for as a part of his employment contract.

Starting 74 Gear YouTube channel-

In 2017, Kelsey had a layover of a couple of days in Hong Kong and at that time, he was flying from Hong Kong to Delhi and back to Hong Kong.

As he was bored in his layover, he started a YouTube channel by name, 74 Gear on 30 May 2017.

Kelsey publishes aviation related videos onto his channel and also collaborated with other YouTubers like Sam Chui, Mentour Pilot, etc.

His channel became popular thanks to his Hollywood vs Reality videos and TikTok Roast videos and also because of the unique Boeing Dreamlifter aircraft.

A successful YouTuber-

As of February 2023, Kelsey has 1.03M subscribers on his 74 Gear YouTube channel.

And has 123K followers on Instagram and 87K followers on his Facebook page.

Kelsey also has a couple other YouTube channels namely, 74 Gear Español (Spanish channel) and 74 Gear 日本 (Japanese channel).

He earns from advertisements on his YouTube channel, YouTube memberships and affiliate marketing.

Kelsey films his videos with Panasonic Lumix G85 and GoPro HERO7 cameras.

He uses Bose QuietComfort 35 as a travelling headset and uses Bose A20 Aviation Headset.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Kelsey Hughes?

Share with me in the comment section below.