FAR AIM | Aviation Reg's | Aeronautical Info | FARAIM
Old aviation podcast that records once in awhile for old times' sake.
https://forum.pilotground.com
https://rumble.com/FARAIM
FAR AIM | Aviation Reg's | Aeronautical Info | FARAIM
#142 | Beyond the Private: What It Takes to Get A Commercial | FAR 61.129
Rob, Scott, and Lee explore the requirements of FAR 61.129 for obtaining a commercial pilot certificate and discuss the challenges pilots face when pursuing this rating.
• Breaking down the 250 total flight hours needed for commercial certification
• Analyzing the cross-country time requirements and how most pilots struggle to accumulate enough
• Discussing instrument training requirements and instructor qualifications
• Exploring complex aircraft options and the 10-hour training requirement
• Addressing the anxiety around night flying requirements and safety considerations
• Lee sharing his adventure flying a Super Cub cross-country through turbulence and challenging conditions
• Examining the differences between part 141 and part 61 training approaches
• Discussing the concept of a premium tailwheel-focused flight school
• Debating the value of learning to fly in tailwheel aircraft for developing better stick-and-rudder skills
Check out https://forum.pilotground.com/t/142-commercial-pilot-requirements-far-61-129/89 to connect with other aviators and continue these discussions!
* Episode title and description brought to you by AI
-----------
Things change as the years go on. Regardless of what was said in the episode that you are listening to, the best way to reach out to the hosts in 2025 (and chat with other listeners) is by joining (for free) the Pilot Ground Forum here:
The best way to be notified of livestreams in 2025 is to subscribe to the Rumble channel (and turn on notifications) here:
Welcome to the Far End Podcast. This is Q2 of 2025. We are not promising quarterly releases, but so far we've done it in 2025, one and two. Maybe we'll be a three and or a four and aura 4. Uh, we've got, yeah, scott boris and lee griffin here and uh, we're gonna do 61 far 61.129 aeronautical experience for a commercial pilot's certificate not a license, it's a certificate um, among other things we'll eventually get to other things, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we have. My rumble is showing the live stream ended. See you again soon. That's not good.
Speaker 2:No, not usually.
Speaker 1:Okay, it looks like we're back. So yeah, like we're back, um. So yeah, basically, if I can pull off um getting some time up in ohio this summer for like a month or so, again I was gonna. My kind of my tentative plan was to fly the you know what off of scott's airplane to knock some rust off yeah and uh yeah, then get scott his commercial.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna go through this because I was curious. I'm like I should probably look up what is required for Scott to get his commercial. If I was going to be giving him said instruction for the commercial, I'd have to pass the written. That would be a hard part too. If you saw, on Pilot Ground we got the forum back up. Link in the description Pilotgroundcom. As of this recording doesn't go to it. You got to put in something else at the beginning. I'm not going to say it though, because I want to be able to remove the link if I want to, in case it gets too crazy with people signing up and not chatting drives me nuts. People sign up and then just not participate. It's kind of weird.
Speaker 2:But anyway, lost my train of thought but it's a slow burn on the sign up and participate. You know where there's slowly being more stuff. You know build and spider webs happening, so that's yeah I like it.
Speaker 1:It's not. Yeah, just a nice slow growth, not too fast. Um, I forgot where I what. What made me lead to that? Oh, shepherd air. I was going to try shepherd air. I made a post about it on shepherd air on uh for my, for my um advanced ground instructor I was going to get to try to refresh some of my knowledge, force myself to read a couple books and then sit for the exam yeah but then I thought I don't really want to, um, I don't really want to learn.
Speaker 1:I don't really want to fail over something as stupid as an ag.
Speaker 2:Like written.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I want to make sure. Once I read the books, I'm for sure going to pass it, and I know Ryan Echol had mentioned that in the past. Yeah, supposedly it's like cheating, but yeah. I'm going to see, I'm going to make a report. I'm going to go through the Shepard air for the AGI. See what it like.
Speaker 2:I've heard nothing but good things. I didn't use it. I've never used it, but I've heard that all kind of came like after I was done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone says, apparently it's the best way to pass the exam by learning absolutely nothing about what the exam's about Sounds like my kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But that's how I think all of those are.
Speaker 3:All those test prep books.
Speaker 2:They're all the same. I was thinking, I would just ask.
Speaker 1:AI and just tell it to tell me everything I need to know to pass this exam? I don't think you can have ChatGPT in the exam.
Speaker 2:Well, no, you study its response, right, you ask it yeah.
Speaker 1:I just I use Grok now.
Speaker 3:Yes, naturally.
Speaker 1:Image generations, though, as Tyler did, the logo for PilotGround is a little better On, as Tyler did, the logo for Pilot Ground is a little better On ChatGPT, yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you see the?
Speaker 1:original one. Grok made us for Pilot.
Speaker 2:Ground? No, it's pretty rough.
Speaker 1:I'll forward you the link.
Speaker 1:If you scroll down far enough, you can see it on Pilot Ground. Okay, 61.129 aeronautical experience. I'm going to refresh. Whenever I refresh it comes back. Is everybody else losing the feed, or is it just me? It seems fine to me, but Okay. Section A 61.129A Alpha For an airplane single engine rating. This is what Scott would be going for, except as provided in paragraph I of this section. A person who applies for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and single engine class rating must log at least 250 hours of flight time as a pilot. That consists of at least, and then we'll go into the details. Scott, are you at 250 yet? Yeah, I'm at like 287, I think. Okay, you got your logbook right in front of you, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay so we got that covered 289.7. 289.7,. So you got that, no problem. Check, check A1,. This consists of at least so we're getting into what has to be within this 250 hours, 100 hours in powered aircraft. You have any time? Not in powered aircraft? No, I don't either. Yeah, would that be hot air, I guess glider yeah, glider okay, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes. You got at least 50 hours in airplanes.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's all helicopter, oh shit oh man, oh, we're gonna have to go for commercial helicopter, then, who knows?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I guess we can just go straight to the chopper yeah well, I I can't be your cfi yet. Okay, a hundred hours of pilot in command flight time. Do you have that? I'm sure I do yeah you don't have a separate column in your logbook for pilot in command. Probably some, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I haven't totaled anything he definitely does, but it's not totaled up okay, I so if I dug out my logbook out of safe whoa oh wait the last time I totaled it up.
Speaker 1:Okay, I did total it up, not that long mike talking in command 174.6. I mean it's higher than that now because that's what I was gonna guess this isa few pages back, but so one, I don't know, 180 something, probably okay check. So of that 100 hours of piloting command time, 50 hours has to be in airplanes, which we already covered right. Yeah, and then 50 hours in cross-country flight.
Speaker 2:This is where it starts getting dicey for everybody, of which at least 10 hours must be in airplanes.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, it's all airplanes.
Speaker 2:Do you have 50?
Speaker 1:hours, even total in airplanes.
Speaker 2:Of cross-country.
Speaker 1:Or cross-country? I mean Probably not, but I wouldn't think I'm too far off.
Speaker 2:I guessed earlier today that you have probably 30.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably.
Speaker 2:Because I'm looking now, I believe you need 10 for your private and it's pretty ridiculous. I have to look this up. But yeah, I think you have to have 10 for your private, so I was guessing you had 20 more from your own, whatever.
Speaker 1:Probably.
Speaker 2:Five hours of solo cross-country time for your private, but I guess you're probably 20 to 30. I'm still going with that and either way, that's reasonable. I think to expect so that was my original statement was this cross-country time the nighttime. That is the valuable time as you move on. After that private, those start to become coveted hours.
Speaker 1:Wait. So to get my commercial do I need nighttime cross-country?
Speaker 2:We're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. But those are normally satisfied while you're doing the rating. That's how the normal progression would be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but do I have to fly my plane at night?
Speaker 2:yes, yes why is that a? Problem right now yes, well, hold well, hold on. Well, I guess now's the perfect time to talk about. Why don't you rob? Jump ahead, read this, the pertinent section on that, or I can, if you want okay, um, okay.
Speaker 1:So there's one hour, there's one two hour cross-country flight in a single engine airplane in daytime conditions. This is the 20 hours of training under part three. So this is with a cfi that consists of a total straight line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure. We did that and I've flown so much in my logbook, scott, that it's on the same page that I just finished.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean mine probably is too that was 2018, which is when I'm trying to get some more hours this summer by flying the you-know-what off of your plane. So we did that in 2018.
Speaker 1:We got to do that again at night, though, I don't know if that's in my logbook, it says one two-hour cross-country flight in a single-engine airplane in nighttime conditions that consists of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure. So we don't have to do that exact same flight we did uh. We have to do something that that hits at least two hours on the hobs and uh is at least one of the airports, is at least 100 nautical miles away from, I would say, 88 Delta, which we did in the daytime. I was thinking maybe keep it at Port Clinton, for if we're doing night, we have runway lights now. Oh yeah, I forgot about that that's pretty fancy yeah, so we could just come back to here.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they work good Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they look really good driving by at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I've never flown with them, obviously, but other people- like them.
Speaker 3:We're going to change that this summer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it starts getting really hard to do these nighttime in the summer.
Speaker 1:Because you've got to get super late.
Speaker 2:Super late Because nighttime for logging purposes isn't until one hour after sunset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would really not be my sleep score. And it's sunset, it's like 10 pm.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you can't even start logging nighttime until 11 pm, and then you've got to do a two-hour freaking flight.
Speaker 1:So that's not the time of year you want to go doing that stuff. But well, whatever I mean a, I don't go up into it up there in the winter because it's the winter and it's cold. Yeah and two, that's, I feel, like the weather. I'm more comfortable with night time, like a good summer night weather, versus like wintertime at night up there. Yeah, like you. Do. Get clear days at night in the winter, that would be beautiful, but they're few and far between.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Versus the summertime, where it'd be pretty easy to just pick your day. I say we go on a Saturday night. Sometimes, scott, you skip the drinking, and then we move that to the next week, and then you drink on a Saturday night. Sometimes, scott, you skip the drinking, and then we move that to the next week, and then you drink on a weekday and we'll record the Q3 episode. Yeah, but then it's going to cut into my work. No, no, no, no, no, it won't, it's fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Anyways. So yeah, that's one of the the requirements I'm going to jump back up. So 10 of those hours cross-country have to be in airplanes of the 50 hours of cross-country flight check and check. So right now we have 250 hours total 100 hours in powered aircraft, 50 hours must be in airplanes, 100 hours of pilot and command flight time, which includes at least 50 hours in airplanes, which you have, 50 hours in cross-country flight, which we don't.
Speaker 2:You probably might need some more yes, I would say, I'll guarantee he needs more yeah I know I had when I was going from private to commercial.
Speaker 1:I had to just specifically go do some cross country to hit the 50 because I wasn't, I wasn't very close, uh, outside of my like, once I got my private and you haven't done a ton of cross country since you got your private have you no I mean most of it's just flying around the islands. Yeah, pretty much. I mean whatever. Remember that time we flew to west virginia. Yeah, that time we took sam down to get that truck.
Speaker 2:Yeah but see in that well, and so we come back to you know you own your own airplane and if you're trying to, if you have a goal in which is get the, get the commercial rating a 150, and owning it starts to make a lot of sense, because now it's not that fast. So like you're only trying to go past, how many miles, scott? 100. No, to satisfy a cross country, how many miles is that?
Speaker 1:100 nautical miles right 50, 50 nautical miles.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's it. Yeah, you have to have a point of landing more than 50 nautical miles. Oh that's it. Yeah, you have to have a point of landing more than 50 nautical miles.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so 50.1. So you can go that far. But in a 150, you get kind of more bang for your buck because the airplane's slower, right, because you're accumulating hours and once you land over 50, all that counts there and back. So you kind of get a good bang for your buck that way. And you know, instead of people like I got to rent this 172 or this Aero or whatever that does 140 knots and cost me $230 an hour. That starts to add up cost and you're not getting a lot of hours for it. Yeah, you can pull the power back, I guess, and that saves both ends, but you're paying for it. It's just I don't know, it just doesn't make sense. So it comes back to owning your own airplane for the ratings. If you're knocking them out, it's still man. I still think there's a real big case for owning your own airplane?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Even though. But now, if you were to go rebuy your airplane, you wouldn't do it. No, you wouldn't buy your airplane today.
Speaker 1:Oh God no so. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's why I don't sell it, because if I sell it, then it's. Yeah, you can't replace it, I'm done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah exactly yeah, I wish I didn't sell mine.
Speaker 2:Well, coulda woulda shoulda.
Speaker 1:It's water under the bridge, yeah sure yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a pattern whore down in Texas now A pattern whore. Well, so you can go ahead and move on, but, like I was saying, the cross-country time and that nighttime, that is the coveted, that is the hard stuff to get and that's where everybody runs into the issues. That's what they have trouble satisfying the nighttime and the cross-country time satisfying the nighttime and the cross-country time.
Speaker 1:I definitely would have to spend a lot more time in the airplane flying before I would feel comfortable flying at night again. Oh, me too, for sure just the thought of it is like giving me anxiety. Yeah, and I'd probably have to, even though there's runway lights there, I'd probably have to, a couple of times, do what we used to do when there was no runway lights and just start when it's still light out and just keep going around the pattern as it gets darker and darker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how we used to land there, without runway lights, because we just dial that in every summer a couple of times yeah and then we'd be good for the summer. But I'd feel like doing that with lights now just to make sure I'm good now that I'm older, like I think about things too much.
Speaker 1:Oh, me too, when I was younger it's like when I was younger, like yes, I knew that. Like if the engine quit it would be a problem, but, like in my young brain, it was like eh if it happens, I'll figure it out. Probably hit a field, it'll probably be fine. It's like if the engine quits at night I'm probably going to die.
Speaker 3:Yep, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:And like when I was younger, like I just I didn't think that way. No it was like even though, like I knew that, like an engine failure at night is not good. But in my young mind it was like, well, I'm going to survive it. But in my adult mind it's like like if this thing quits, I'm probably gonna die, which makes zero sense, and I've said this before on the show, that it should be opposite should right, it should be you have less years right, so you shouldn't be as worried about it right, whatever, whatever that is
Speaker 1:yeah, so you should be less worried about it. But it's opposite you you get more worried about it the older you get. When you're young, it's like God, I got my entire life ahead of me. I should probably be careful so I don't kill myself. Yeah, but you're not. You're like eh, let's see what happens. Yeah, Probably going to be fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I went almost a step further. I so do not want to fly a single-engine airplane at night, that I bought one that didn't even have an electrical system.
Speaker 1:I can't fly at night if I wanted to. Well, that's how I feel about getting this commercial thing. It's like making me anxious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, and, like I've always said, that's why going higher on cross-countries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I get that now. Like back in the day, I wanted to sightsee and it was like I don't feel like spending Like how high would you have to go in Ohio to do that route and be able to glide to an airport? We're not talking.
Speaker 2:You're not gliding to an airport. You're not gliding to an airport.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to write highway or highway. Yeah, I don't know if you saw that, mike patey video where he had that, I forget. He had a name. He names all his planes, but he had this crazy lance air turbine on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah and uh I. He's one of the content creators I try to watch. I see maybe one video a month and but I remember one of the videos I saw was him. He had an engine blowout. It was a turbine, it's pt6, I think off the king air and uh, he was going to oshkosh, I believe, or some flying and he, it blew, completely, exploded in air and he but he was so high in the air he collided to an airport. What was he flying?
Speaker 2:it was a lance air like a lance highly modified, I think he set some sort of speed record with it. Yeah, probably a Lancer Evolution. They do like 380 knots.
Speaker 1:Well, you put a PT6 on it too.
Speaker 2:That's how they come.
Speaker 1:It was crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how they come.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought he modified it with that.
Speaker 2:Well, he may have upgraded it from the standard PT6 that comes on it, but yeah, I don't know the exact Lancer model. I don't know anything about the dude.
Speaker 1:Maybe I should watch more videos. Maybe that's what he did, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, there's very common Lancers that are very fast, come with a PT6.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, what was his altitude? They do like 380 knots.
Speaker 2:High.
Speaker 3:He was up in the flight levels.
Speaker 1:I'm sure he was on oxygen I think yeah, oh, I guess I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't, then I definitely don't know, because I thought the evolutions were pressurized, but I'm not really sure. I really have no idea. I mean, that'd take a toll on your body to be flying, but either way, yeah, hi, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so think, go ahead. He was able to glide to an airport which, i'm's say, you were on your night cross country in a 150. What would your altitude be? Say wind is not a factor. Wind is not a factor, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm going. So you have to do at least 100 nautical mile right. So you know you can string a couple of them together. Do we have any multiple airport scenarios in this Went to our cross country of them together? Do we have any multiple?
Speaker 3:airport scenarios in this One, two hour cross-country.
Speaker 2:Well, sometimes you have to do more than one point of landing Alright, so this has.
Speaker 1:So I can tell you exactly what we did for the daytime one.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, one two-hour cross-country flight in a single-engine airplane, in nighttime conditions. That consists of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure. A straight, total straight line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure. So that that's it. So there's only one point of landing required. So you could do a couple short segments, but as long as one of them is longer than 100 nautical miles, it's all going to count and satisfy that whole, the whole scenario we did, we did8 Delta to S24.
Speaker 3:That's Sanofsky County.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:S24 to PLD. Pld, pld to 8.8D Across the border in Indiana.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:That's what we got For what it's worth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, sure, yeah, sure. So you did.
Speaker 1:I think our altitude was about 2,500 feet yeah 25 feet? 25 feet maybe. Yeah, we were in sparsely populated area actually.
Speaker 2:yeah, I don't even from. From 8a delta to sadowski county is for everybody. That's probably like a 25 or 30 nautical mile um leg um I think we just need fuel.
Speaker 1:I'm probably 3,500 probably.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking probably 25 to 3,500, probably more like 3,500. Um, the hemispherical rules for the altitude doesn't start until 3,000 agl. So 3,500 around where we live here. That's kind of any direction, anything goes. You can do 3,500 east or west. So 3,500 is kind of the highest you can go before you get into those hemispherical rules that start doing odds and evens. So I'd do 3,500 to get over Seneski County. Then after that it'd be heading west still. So I'd be 6,500, 8,500. When I brought my Super Cub home I came at 8,500.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, and that was in the daytime.
Speaker 2:so well, yeah, this was in the daytime when we did it this last time, yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know what the aversion is. Obviously, you know I was climbing into a headwind at the time, but options were important.
Speaker 1:Options were important to me then did you fly over some terrain coming back from pennsylvania?
Speaker 2:yeah, it was all kind of like hilly the alleghenies, whatever we're gonna get into this trip after this, for sure I'm so I'm just saying don't be afraid to go higher, because it gives you those gliding well that's what I was thinking we might have gone a little higher.
Speaker 1:We were still I don't know. Scott was a little timid. I had just come off of banner towing and stuff, so I was just like you know. I made it through that without dying, like it's cross-country flight's gonna be easy. Yeah, I was. I was nervous, I mean, I just I would be, I don't know I'm, I'm just I'm uncomfortable in my plane right now. That's, that's yeah, I don't have a plane anymore, but that's kind of how I am it's only natural.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's only natural and that's just the way it is I did a flight review in 2023.
Speaker 1:It's on the same page as, uh, the 2018 flight. We did scott with lee in your plane and, uh, it was terrifying. I mean, lee wanted me to fly through some rain. Oh hell no, it was basically like hard IFR to me. Lee said it wasn't even close.
Speaker 2:You might as well.
Speaker 1:Just nose it into the ground at that point.
Speaker 2:To me it felt like Pull the chute, pull the chute, pull the chute. There's rain on the windshield.
Speaker 1:Pull the chute. I kept trying to explain to Lee that this aircraft is not certified for hard IFr and lee kept laughing at me saying this is a little bit of rain. We can see the island still, so there was a little disagreement on the visibility it's not certified for flight in a known precipitation yeah, you, uh, I was getting wet in your airplane was it coming in the vent? It was coming in the vent. It was coming in the vent. I was getting, my legs were wet.
Speaker 3:This was in the 150, right, yeah, my left short leg was soaked.
Speaker 2:I remember that and we didn't have the windows open or anything. So your plane leaks.
Speaker 1:It's not a boat, it's okay. It's not certified for hard IFR. You couldn't be flying in the rain anyway. Oh my god.
Speaker 2:god, it was unpleasant but I mean so yeah, so yeah, you lose that edge right. We've gotten older, we're not flying as much as we used to, at least in these ga or like. For me, I'm not flying these ga, it's, it's uncomfortable, everything. I tend to really over control. I misjudge how quickly it'll slow down, I misjudge all kinds of different things, and I think that's just normal. But what I would say is, when we're thinking about these cross country flights, the purpose is to build time, and I know we all have like that get there-itis, even if it's like you're trying to press it down and suppress it, like I know. I'm just trying to build hours. So why do I care how long it takes me to get there? I're trying to press it down and suppress it, like I know. I'm just trying to build hours, so why do I care how long it takes me to get there? I'm trying to build cross-country time. Why do I want to go fast? I should have this thing just barely above stall speed getting there and knock it all out. You know what I mean. I know that's over the top, but why do we want to go fast? We just do, we just do. We just do so. With that being said, why not go a little higher, even if you have a little bit more of a headwind? You're just trying to get hours right.
Speaker 2:And then you have the options if there is an engine failure. Altitude stores kinetic energy four times better than airspeed does. So when you think about like let's go from 2500, which is really only 2,000 feet above the ground, okay, and you go up to 4,500, you're kind of you're more than doubling your altitude above ground level. 25 to 45, you're more than doubling. And then if you think from a perspective of how much energy you have from that altitude, it is exponential how much, how many more options, what your radius becomes. So think about this you're, you're climbing up to altitude 8,500, let's go crazy.
Speaker 2:And you know, in an underpowered GA airplane, my super cub, your 150, whatever, they're all underpowered, but you're just, you know, barely getting up there. You get to 8, underpowered, but you're just, you know, barely getting up there. You get to 8500 and you're into this bitch and headwind and it's going to take you forever to get to your cross-country destination. So maybe it does, but you're trying to build hours anyway. So who cares about that?
Speaker 2:And then two like oh well, yeah, but you all have. You have that headwind and you know your glide distance is going to be reduced as a result of that ground speed differential, because of that headwind. Turn the airplane around, well, yeah, you're going to glide 50% further or whatever. All that headwind is going to help you, right? So you don't have to think about just. You know like we talk about if you lose that engine. You know, just right after takeoff and you're at 300 feet, you know only look. You know in like this 70 degree. You know like whatever in front of you, or 130, whatever. It is just kind of out in front of you, a little bit off to the sides.
Speaker 2:Don't go crazy, don't try and think too long. Find the best spot, commit to it and work on dialing in the airspeed configuration and your plan. Basically, don't try and find the perfect spot, find a good spot and make it happen when you're at 8500 feet and you have a ton of altitude and a ton of energy, kinetic energy, to play with. Um, you have, you can. You can take that time because, remember, you're a cruise. First off, you need to slow down to best glide speed, which will take some time, as all know. Think of when you go to get configured for a power-off stall. That shit takes forever to get there. You know what I mean. That's all time you can be using to assess what's around you. So altitude is your friend. I know it can be painful when you're going into that headwind and you're trying to get somewhere. But for this instance, especially where you're trying to get somewhere, but for this instance, especially where you're just trying to build, hours just go high.
Speaker 2:Save the fuel, build the time, and then you have the options if an engine fails.
Speaker 1:The problem with being up higher is, though, if something goes wrong, you're going to hit the ground even harder because you have all that speed.
Speaker 2:Yes, because that's how airplanes come out of the ground in BC or out of the air? Yeah, the airplane stalled, it just lawn darted right into the ground right.
Speaker 1:So if you stall it, you know a few hundred feet it's safe, you're not gonna hit the ground that hard. Yeah, right stall it at eight, eight thousand feet. You're dead, right, yes right I texted
Speaker 1:ryan eckle today to tell him I need to go over some stalls and stuff and scott's playing potentially with him. Uh, before I like I said, I just told eckel all the maneuvers I go, because if I'm teaching, yeah well teaching them. I should probably know the good thing is, if you're teaching it wrong, I'll never know i't know either. That's why I want to get some practice on you, potentially aiming and like at this point, like I don't really care if I fail.
Speaker 1:So like if I go to the examiner to take the checkride and I fail, like I'll just be like huh, I failed. See, this is what makes me not want to do that, because then that's like a hard mark on a CFI certificate.
Speaker 3:It looks bad for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see. It looks bad for you. Doesn't that look really bad for you, Lee, as a CFI?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you don't want it.
Speaker 2:Someone student bombs it. No, you definitely don't want that.
Speaker 1:So we got to make sure that doesn't happen, Scott. Yeah, it's definitely a reflection on you, see, I was thinking I'd just wing it because I don't really care if I pass or fail.
Speaker 2:No, you got to do it for me.
Speaker 1:No, I have to sign you off for the written too, which I don't want you to fail that. That's why I'm making you do Shepard Air. What, wow? When am I going to have time to do all this?
Speaker 2:It's going to be easy. The Shepard Air should make it easy. I mean, yeah Again, learn anything out of it. And I mean I never learned anything out of any of the writtens the way I studied for any of them, shepherd air or not.
Speaker 1:I mean, I just go, I'd black out the wrong answers and only focus on the right ones. Right, many people told me they learned more from the foreign podcast than they did for studying for the writtens wow, I don't think we're live on rumble, I'm not sure I know I was gonna say that, uh, I don't know what happened to it.
Speaker 1:It failed. I apologize. Um, I'll try to get this stuff up as soon as I can to rumble and the audio version onto the normal podcast feed. So for those of you who tuned into the live stream, thank you and we apologize. I'm gonna have to contact the company that I just paid money to to have them handle this and it obviously is not handled. So my apologies. But yeah, so I'm not going to try to. It's going to cost too much editing and stuff for me to try to do it. It's probably just going to do it again because it did it when we first started anyway, so it's not worth it. But but yeah, we'll figure out what's going on and hopefully quarter three episode we'll get it dialed in.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to bring that up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people. I actually got the email to work this time, because quarter one I sent out an email and I didn't have it configured correctly, so it went to everybody's spam mailbox, so it was not that many people watching.
Speaker 2:and then we started to get up to like I saw like almost 30 at one point on rumble and then it just stopped do you want to try and just do it and then not even worry about like, or is it not worth it to you, to I?
Speaker 1:I don't I don't want to cut this because it's going to cause too much. I don't. I don't want to cut this because it's going to cause too much. I don't have the software to edit easily right now, okay, so I don't want to stop this and then have to splice stuff together and we're just going to go live like we're live still, and then I'll post everything okay, okay, um, so yeah, moving on moving on.
Speaker 1:We're on part three, still okay, so I just I feel like I need to keep recapping to tell where we're at, because we get so off not off topic, but sidetracked a little bit. 250 hours, of which 100 hours powered aircraft 50 must be in airplanes. 100 hours of pilot and command flight time, which includes 50 hours in airplanes, 50 hours cross country, 10 of which has to be in airplanes. Now we're into three. This is the 20 hours of training on the areas of operation listed in this blah blah blah reg. That includes at least 10 hours of instrument training using a view-limiting device, including attitude instrument, flying, partial panel skills, recovery from unusual flight attitudes and intercepting and tracking navigational systems.
Speaker 2:Five hours of the 10 hours required on instrument training must be in a single engine airplane so this may somewhat raise a question to some people if they're going through a 141 program like well, of course I have 10 hours, I have an instrument rating, but you don't have to have an instrument rating for a commercial pilot certificate.
Speaker 2:Yep a lot of people don't understand that and that would be fine. Like if you want to go fly to the lake erie islands and, just you know, have kind of the time of your life with minimal amount of cost and training, whatever you could go, do that legally, easily, easily. Private pilot certificate, commercial pilot certificate, no instrument rating. A lot of people like they go through a 141 program or a more traditional path, they're going to get their private and they're going to get their instrument. Now, first off, the instrument very valuable because it helps them build up time, cross-country time, all that sort of stuff which you can see. We're running into a little bit of a deficit in the cross-country time the nighttime we're going to find out in a bit because that instrument rating is lacking. That's why it makes kind of sense to get an instrument rating, but it's not required.
Speaker 1:You can go fly to the Lake Erie Islands. You need a commercial 500. I'm gonna convince lee's brother to hire you. That's all you need, right that's pretty much it yeah, yeah, uh. If I get a commercial license, like then can I legally charge people for rides. Not that I would ever do that, but yeah you got a commercial.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously there would be other and I and I honestly don't even know, but you you'll have to reach out to the local fizdo and get some photo, some form of ride letter, um like a letter of authorization whatever, from them to to do it. But yeah, you can do all of the other more fringy commercial things, the banner towing stuff and crop dusting and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:You can't go point A to point B, though.
Speaker 2:No that's a 135 certificate. Yeah, that's a different deal. That's a different deal If you work for somebody who has a 135 certificate, yeah. But yeah, for a ride you gotta go A to A, right. You can't even stop at B to get gas while the person stays on the plane, no, you can't do somewhat seemingly common sense things because they're not using it for transportation, right, because they didn't get off the plane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so then it's not, but that's still according to the FAA. Doesn't like that? That's not how it works. Not that they would know, Guy on that snowmobile could be out there, Scott.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you never know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't know, you have no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, but you could also just not care.
Speaker 2:There's that you don't even need a commercial at that point. Well, yeah then. Yeah, why do you need a license at all?
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you don't even need to have due maintenance on your plane.
Speaker 1:Think of all the money you'll save. Yeah Well, I don't want to get into like criminal territory. I want to like stick within like suspended license territory.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Smart man, I don't want to pull in the old Trent Palmer Right. I don't really care if you suspend my pilot's license, but I do care if you put me in jail, that's the reason.
Speaker 1:I'm willing to bend the rules. I just don't want to go to jail. That's not a knock on Trent either, I just wanted to. I guess they did suspend his license after all that we had talked about that. I know you guys don't follow it that much, right? And that was when I was like you know. So what? Like jokes on you, I only fly once every 90 days anyway, that's true.
Speaker 1:You know, oh man, I'm going to have to stick to my regular flying schedule. Yeah, when was the last time you flew? I don't know.
Speaker 3:It's probably it's even longer than that. Now I haven't flown, you could have.
Speaker 1:You could have turned served three consecutive suspensions right now right, yeah, oh, yeah yeah I could probably do more than that with like I said, I think I. I think I flew in october last I've got 2018 through 2025 on the same page of my logbook right now.
Speaker 2:Oh my, God and see, I don't even do my logbook at all.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:I haven't done my logbook in three years, and there's, I don't know, 1,500 hours, to be fair you log the hours though, right no? Why I have a senior pilot's flight log and record. I have that same one, so the pages are a little bigger. I have that same one. Yeah, I can get a few years on a page you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you probably got 10 lines on that.
Speaker 1:I could only get like one or two years on a page on my old log book I have the same one. And I have it because when we maxed out our little ones, you convinced me that we needed this one. And you're like, because you're going to fly all the time, you might as well just get the big one, because you're going to fill it up. You'll never have to buy a new logbook, ever again.
Speaker 2:Rob is right. I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1:I could have bought the little mini one and I wouldn't have filled it up In his whole life.
Speaker 2:But, scott, you've got to factor in you're going to live forever, since you're so healthy. You're going to live forever, since you're so healthy. Your VO2 max is so good.
Speaker 1:VO2 max says that I will live forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:See, yeah, it's a good thing you got the big logbook, not if you fly GA at night, though Right, I know that's true.
Speaker 2:It's going to ruin life expectancy plummet.
Speaker 1:It's going to ruin my whole plan to live forever.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we need to have who's your idol. Oh he's definitely not my idol.
Speaker 1:The guy's weird, you kept saying his name like he and I knew it Well, we were talking about trying to live forever, so I brought it up, but Brian. Johnson.
Speaker 2:Everybody knows who Brian Johnson is oh, I thought you were going to say Walt Disney. No, I wasn't sure.
Speaker 1:No, no, brian Johnson's the guy that's trying to live forever. I mean there's a few other ones too, but he's like I don't know howard hughes was pretty healthy back in his day, yeah yeah, I can analyze his fingernail healthy as a horse, not mentally, but physically so those 10 hours of instrument, we can do that in scott's plane not being IFR certified.
Speaker 2:Oh, 10 hours of instrument.
Speaker 1:Using a view limiting device Does the actual plane have to be IFR certified? I don't think so no. I, as a CFI, don't need to be instrument certified either, because I do not have a double I. I'm pretty sure that's right Send the hate mail.
Speaker 2:if that's incorrect, I'm pretty sure that's correct, though I mail if that's incorrect. I'm pretty sure that's correct, though I'm going to have to think on that for a second.
Speaker 1:Why would they issue? I can do private, I can do commercial, I can do flight instructor with my regular CFI. Why would they have that? If you have to go to a double I, you need to be a double I. You don't even need a double I for all of the instrument training. It's just 15 hours of the instrument training has to be with a double I, if my memory serves me correctly.
Speaker 2:No, you are correct, I'm going back. I just want to look at some. Ask Grok.
Speaker 1:We got Grok now.
Speaker 2:What's the?
Speaker 1:question you want me to ask. Can a CFI without a double I do the 10 hours of instrument training required for a commercial Scott's got Grok premium. I'm going to tend to agree with you you pay for the good one, don't you Scott the premium, the? I pay the $80 a year for X, so I get the.
Speaker 3:I think that's a better deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it's $30 a month if you go straight to Grok. I just paid the. I don't know. There's some deal for if you sign up for a year. Type.
Speaker 3:Can AC?
Speaker 1:This is Grok. We got Grok on the show now. Fourth co host. That's good Grok Without a CFII-double-I All I'm looking for is some specific verbiage.
Speaker 2:I've been out of it for a while so I don't know this offhand. I would tend to agree with you.
Speaker 1:I'm willing to hang my hat on this. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2:Well, you're more up on it than I am at this point.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. I came up with the harebrained idea to start instructing within the last few weeks again.
Speaker 2:You know where I stand on that, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:You know where I stand. Yeah, oh, it's going to be good.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's going to be phenomenal.
Speaker 1:We just got to figure out if I can legally do the Before.
Speaker 2:don't I finally found the section. Don't read it when you find it, scott.
Speaker 1:Let me weigh in before I. Okay, this is going to be good, since I can't edit out stuff easily. Radio silence.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm trying, I'm reading, rob, so fill the silence with something.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay so like I said, we are at the FAR 61.129. I mispronounced nine earlier. I apologize. I said nine, not niner.
Speaker 2:I would agree with you, rob. You are correct. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:You are correct. I knew that before you leave, because I do things the modern way. And I just ask Grok, I don't like flip through pages of a book. Okay, let's flip through these pages like a treasure it's a treasure hunt and find the information this is kind of fun for me, so because just like.
Speaker 2:Rob's journey like getting back up to speed. Learning regs learning regs no, I'm just kidding. I get it but to find it the old fashioned way and to definitively agree, and then Grok agrees game over now. Now we know, yeah, okay, so what were we debating there, rob? The 10 hours of instrument training for a commercial pilot certificate. Yes, I can give it Can be from a CFI.
Speaker 1:They don't have to be a double I. Correct. Okay, just wanted to straighten that out. You have to be, your instrument has to be proficient. You have to be instrument proficient, though that's what Grok says. Yeah, When's the last time you? I don't. I think that's BS. The CFI must be proficient in instrumentifying to provide effective and safe training, even though they lack the. Cfii endorsement. We know that, yes, they have to be proficient.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then it's maybe not current. What is the difference between?
Speaker 2:proficient and current. Oh, there's a big difference. Okay, I mean right.
Speaker 1:You can get proficient in a simulator like a Microsoft.
Speaker 3:Flight.
Speaker 1:Sim.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You can't get current in Microsoftrosoft flight sim you could get.
Speaker 2:Well, that's also that's true, but the converse is also true and also more appropriate. You can legally do your three takeoffs and landings atrociously and be current. That's true but not be proficient that's so.
Speaker 1:That would be more.
Speaker 2:That would be another way to look correct yeah, well, yeah, that's probably the way to look at it. So everybody walks through the door who wants a flight review, like, oh, I need one hour flight training. Yeah, dude, you need like four hours of flight training. I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:I know. That's why I tell people. I don't tell people. I want a semi-legitimate review. Grok does say that you should consult with your DPE to confirm their interpretations of these regulations. Zeus, I got it. Got to ask Zeus Okay, lee's got to go to pee break. Can you hold this together, or am I going to have to edit this section out? Scott, maybe I should take a pee break too, what no? That's going to be me by myself.
Speaker 3:And I can't edit this stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh well, I can, we'll hold it together, so let's hold down the fort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so neither one of us knows what we're doing. No, so let's hold down the fort. Yeah, so neither one of us knows what we're doing.
Speaker 3:No. So it's going to be fun because we're going to give you a commercial Right.
Speaker 1:It's going to be. You're going to learn how to instruct while I'm learning how to fly Exactly, which I think is good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good first student.
Speaker 1:Right, because commercial is basically like an elaborate private and I know you don't want a failure on your markings or whatever, but if you think about it like it would be even more stressful if you had a student that this was really important to them for you know. You know what I'm saying, because it could get exam stressed.
Speaker 3:Well, no for you.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, like say like you've never done it before. Obviously you haven't. No, you've never instructed anybody, never done it before. Obviously you haven't never instructed anybody, especially not for a commercial. Not for a commercial. Now, let's say, your first commercial student is like planning on doing this for a career and it's very important oh yeah that would add stress to you, because it's like oh yeah oh shit, like I don't want to mess this guy's stuff up, you know yeah but as where it's me, it's like if you teach me something wrong and then I fail, like I, I just I don't care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that is. That is a positive right. It's a little bit of a stress you're not actually going to use the commercial either.
Speaker 3:No no.
Speaker 1:So if I leave out some critical detail about how to fly a plane for hire, I don't know what that would be. So if you don't teach me to be up to commercial standards, but somehow I still pass the examination, you don't have to be like oh God, am I going to get a bunch of passengers killed Because there's never going to be any passengers. Yeah, Like you don't have to be like, oh God, did I? Am I going to get a bunch of passengers killed because there's never going to be any passengers?
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Like you're never going to screw up the PA announcement no and blame it on me no. Cause you're never going to do a PA announcement. No, Unless you. Just what was that situation, Didn't you? Didn't you? Didn't you joke about hijacking an airliner?
Speaker 2:at some point.
Speaker 1:No, I wasn't gonna hijack it, I was just saying it would always be. It was like this you know, thought I had like what if it would be pretty cool, if, like not cool for the pilots, but let's just, you know, look past that. Uh, let's say, terrorists take over a plane and they kill the pilots. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I kill the terrorists you are going to kill.
Speaker 3:Right, I kill the terrorists. You're going to kill the terrorists.
Speaker 1:I'm the only one left to fly the plane. The pilots are already dead. The pilots are dead, nobody else. The terrorists are dead.
Speaker 2:Nobody can fly the plane.
Speaker 1:The plane has already been hijacked.
Speaker 2:Right, you are not the one that hijacked it.
Speaker 1:I'm not the one who hijacked it, no, so I feel like say I'm Spirit or well, I fly Frontier. Usually I'm on Frontier.
Speaker 3:You can do some negotiating, I could make some demands.
Speaker 1:You know Like I'll land this thing for you, but like I don't have free flights forever, yeah. You know I wouldn't make any crazy demands.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you'd be reasonable about it.
Speaker 1:You know I'll be like I'm just going to let this thing go unless, like you, want to give me some like unlimited miles. You want a little more than a pat on the back.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For saving the day.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe slide some cash too. You know, yeah, I mean, I don't know, you can just go back to 37D and sit down. I'll go back. Is that the very back of the plane?
Speaker 3:How many rows do they have?
Speaker 1:Because I'm always in the back. Yeah, because they make you pay more for the the way they cram men in Frontier and Spirit.
Speaker 2:There might be a 47D for all I know.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, so I get on the radio and it's like I could probably get this thing down without killing everybody, but I'm going to need a little something to make it worth my while you want to be sitting in that frontier gold lounge without having to pay for it.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, okay, yeah, that's what it was.
Speaker 1:I knew it was something along those lines. So I didn't hijack the plane, yeah I'm not.
Speaker 3:I'm not a terrorist, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna blow the plane up.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna crash it intentionally yeah I'm not gonna take it somewhere and steal it you're just gonna go sit down. I'm just gonna go sit down, okay that's last you make it worth your while. That's great. I remember there was something along those lines. I'm glad we explained it Okay.
Speaker 2:Oh my Lord, I hope you like going to Cancun, because that's like the only place I freaking go Frontier.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They go to Florida. No, I, I Well, I know, but as far as like, really exotic.
Speaker 1:Oh, like cool places. Yeah, I mean, that's just One of the top ones.
Speaker 2:I don't even know when all they go.
Speaker 1:But that's fine, yeah, yeah, I don't think they leave like North America.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we can do.
Speaker 1:We can do the instrument part they might do South America. I don't want to overdo it so don't miss your flight right, they don't want to wait till the day after tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Too many options hey, that's true that frontier is great.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I've never had a bad experience with frontier. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I haven't ridden on them in a long time, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean other than like it's not very comfortable, but like I don't really care for a two hour flight to Florida. I think we had a delay once. Spirit, on the other hand, I had some bad experiences, but Do you see the thing?
Speaker 2:about the roaches today.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Some lady took a picture, or some passenger took a picture of cockroaches crawling on the inside of a Spirit plane.
Speaker 3:Oh God.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's rough, not good.
Speaker 1:Probably chewing on things in there.
Speaker 2:Well, they want to go on vacation too.
Speaker 1:I don't know what to tell you. How else are they going to get there?
Speaker 2:They're not going to flap their own wings.
Speaker 1:Do cockroaches even have wings? I don't even know. I think so, maybe I don't think they have wings, I'm pretty sure they do. I don't think they have wings. Grok Grok. We were in a drought here in Florida I'm just going to keep the same conversation.
Speaker 2:I planted an oak tree. I'm not going to start a new conversation.
Speaker 1:I planted an oak tree a few months ago, so I was watering it because we were in a drought, was watering it because we were in a drought and, uh, I was watering it daily and all the cockroaches out in this area realize there must be water here daily yeah I'd never seen so many in my life.
Speaker 1:You were training cockroaches well, yeah, well I I turned the hose on and I set my five minute timer on my watch, so, and I'd wait, so it would flood this section of the yard because I was trying to just deep soak this tree for a couple weeks to start roots and yeah, it was, it had to be hundreds of them.
Speaker 2:Hundreds, that's it.
Speaker 1:Did they have wings?
Speaker 2:No, How'd they get there so fast they?
Speaker 1:must have been Madagascar hissing cockroaches then. Okay, 10 hours of training, training. Okay, part of this 20 hours you need from a flight instructor. Let's get back on topic here I heard cockroaches. American cockroaches have wings and can fly short distances, especially naturally birthplace of aviation.
Speaker 2:Baby right brothers. The right brother, the german cockroaches.
Speaker 1:They have wings, but they rarely fly, they prefer to run. Uh, there's a joke in there somewhere I can't even just move along 10 hours of training in a complex airplane, a turbine powered airplane or a technically advanced aircraft Ooh, what's that? That meets the requirements of paragraph J of this section, or any combination of thereof. The airplane must be appropriate to land or sea for the rating sought. Right, your plane's not going to cut it for any of these guys.
Speaker 1:What so I have to. No, oh, I'm never going to do it. Yeah, we don't know anybody that has a plane like that. You don. Oh, I'm never going to do it. Yeah, we don't know anybody that has a plane like that. You know anybody that's got like a G1000 with an autopilot at Hind that would let you do 10 hours in the plane? I don't know Not anybody that I would ask. I feel like we're like a complex.
Speaker 2:To a certain point, it might be cheaper to just go the traditional route and get a full, complex airplane and I would argue those skills would probably be better served. I know what you're going to use it for, which is nothing. It's just kind of putting another rating or certificate on your license. That's literally it. But I think you would get more out of having it. How?
Speaker 1:many hours in this thing. Ten, ten, holy crap, yeah, and I can only imagine what renting one of those would cost per hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, depending on what it is. I mean, if you go to like a, I mean you're talking $180 an hour.
Speaker 1:Yeah For like a 172 with a G1000.
Speaker 2:You're talking $180 an hour, yeah, for like a 172 with a G1000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If not, more Didn't you use. You went to American Flyers right Briefly. They had a retractable gear.
Speaker 2:I thought A lot of these places still I mean still do that. Shouldn't be hard to find something in retractable gear.
Speaker 1:Tiffin had that one with the T-tail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, T-tail arrow.
Speaker 1:The T-tail arrow. That's complex.
Speaker 3:I did some time in that.
Speaker 2:That might be the way to go these days. I mean, scott definitely doesn't need to spend any time learning a G1000. Here's the issue. You've got to play the game with your DPE a little bit. It's a lot easier. No offense, scott, at all. Obviously I know you're super intelligent and can learn anything about G1000, but there's just too many reasons or ways they could trip you up, get you to the wrong screen and tell you to get back.
Speaker 1:You have to show that you know how to use it, especially if I've only got 10 hours in the airplane and you're not going to spend any time learning all that crap.
Speaker 2:That's absolute horse shit. But you can put a gear up and down, it's one thing, it goes up and it goes down.
Speaker 1:What about flaps and a constant speed propeller?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he already knows flaps. He already knows flaps.
Speaker 1:What about four flight with an iPad? I feel like that's probably good enough.
Speaker 2:No, because you have to have an electronic PFD. Two iPads yeah, I'll put two of them up there.
Speaker 1:Well, you're getting closer, slap a Garmin logo on the top. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, trick them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trick them. Yeah, you have to have a PFD, an MFD and a two-axis autopilot to be this technically advanced aircraft or technical advanced aircraft. So it's more than just screens or whatever. So I think like maybe finding an arrow, or somebody who knows like that, that lake buccaneer, yeah done or whatever he has.
Speaker 1:Whatever that is that would.
Speaker 2:That would that would work, that would yeah it's constant speed right yeah, absolutely is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go so I mean I'm just saying you could think of plane rating. Yeah, you could like who's gonna? Who's gonna check me out in that thing? Anyway, and like I wouldn't want to ask him, lee and I could I'm not gonna, I don't like, I don't like little airplanes, they scare me, I never bought a little airplane and flew it all the way home.
Speaker 2:I just get back and it scares me yeah. They are scary.
Speaker 1:My DPE had a Lake Buccaneer. We went bombing around the Everglades after one of my check rides.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying that's one that I know, that Scott knows the guy, so I mean that is an outside-the-box kind of thing, but that would check the box outside the box kind of thing, but that would check the box, the retractable gear, constant speed, prop and flaps. So he's not a cfi though, I'm just he could use the plane. Yeah, yeah, if he was a cfi.
Speaker 1:That'd be a cakewalk, so he could just scott could ask to go fly.
Speaker 2:That guy's flying all the time yeah, if, if he was a CFI, I'm sure he would do it. Hey, can I sit in the seat?
Speaker 1:and you teach me for 10 hours of the BS. Run around and I'll cover the cost, or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that could be a way to do it.
Speaker 1:I was reading through this earlier. This is the hardest part of all this.
Speaker 2:But yeah, what is? Just the 10 hours in one of these, yeah, and a lot of 141s. They tend to make you want to do the private instrument and then you do your multi engine, because then I've heard of a lot of them doing that, because then it kind of just makes sense.
Speaker 1:Because, most multi-engines are all this you get 10 hours during that training and satisfied yeah, I can think of very few multis that are fixed gear or something weird like that. Scott, just go get your multi in the Apache. Yeah, it's never going to happen.
Speaker 2:Not going to happen, no, no, that thing's nicer than it's ever been. Oh really, yeah, it's never going to get used for construction ever again.
Speaker 1:I thought I heard of some couple, but that was back in the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not anymore. New engines, new prop, new interior, new paint. It's a brand new airplane.
Speaker 1:I mean, what does he use it for? As decently nice as it was, it is nice he likes Scott though I don't know.
Speaker 2:It might make an exception.
Speaker 1:Who's that? He's always like Scott, your brother, my brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't think he'd go train me in it.
Speaker 1:He likes Scott more than you probably yeah. What does he use that plane for?
Speaker 2:Just personal use. Yeah, like when we went to go pick up my plane, he took me over there in it. Yeah, yeah, like when we went to go pick up my my plane, um, he took me over there in it. Yeah, yeah, and that's I don't know what else they, how often they fly it even, or anything but I didn't know if he doesn't do any anything other than just personal use with that.
Speaker 2:Just personal use, yeah I wouldn't mind having one of those. I wouldn't do like the. Well, the 180s are nice, but I don't think I would need them. But it's nice. How much space is in those old airplanes?
Speaker 2:all of them, the aztecs, the comanches there's so much more space like. And then we had this dead zone with all the cherokees, the 172s and everything for whatever, 50 freaking years or more, 70 years. And then the cirrus comes out and now it's back to we have. We have room for two adults to sit next to each other.
Speaker 2:Finally you know it's just crazy how much space there used to be then. There wasn't for whatever 70 years, and now the cirrus has made it, made a little more, um, enjoyable, whatever yeah, I was so ticked because don, our scott and i's instructor, don, he owned a bunch of airplanes.
Speaker 1:One of them was a 310 and we kind of made the deal to learn to do my multi in the 310. So we started and did two hours in it, uh, and then he called his insurance company and they flipped out about me being the left seat. They said not a chance. So then that ended very quickly after that. First I think it was, I don't know if it was one or two flights I know it was two hours because this day I still have two hours 2.0 of multi in my logbook and that's the only multi I've ever done.
Speaker 2:It was the 310, but that's a nice plane did you guys get like like, hey, we raise it up to insurers for dual and we'll pay for it? I yeah you must have gone down that road it.
Speaker 1:For whatever reason, it never worked out.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's why you can go on to Controller, barnstormers, trade a Plane and find Maltese for a decent price, all things considered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not that expensive. You can buy 310s for not that much.
Speaker 2:I don't even know. You're much more in tune with the market.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I don't know, Like a 310 up to your standards would probably be pretty expensive. But if you want like a beater 310, they're not very expensive. What's not very expensive, I don't know Like 180, 170. Oh less than that, really, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how much less.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1:The ones I look at are more closer to salvage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they're like 60, 70.
Speaker 1:Scott you should get something that meets these requirements. That's about to be run out.
Speaker 2:You only need to run it for 10 hours, get 10 hours out. You could do it all in the pattern. No, not even 310. Do something cheap complex.
Speaker 1:Put the gear up and down, 10 hours out of it for this requirement and then part it out.
Speaker 3:Make money off the deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. Okay, well, that's just really. That sounds like a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, and yeah, maybe dangerous. Oh, the gear comes up, but it doesn't come back down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm afraid to fly my plane. I don't think I'm going to buy something that's 10 hours above salvage. Take it right to that end, dude, I mean some of these planes I part out, it's like this thing was flying like that, it's kind of scary, yeah, thing was flying like that, it's kind of scary, yeah, because you, once you get in there, like I mean, most planes that I take apart have frayed control cables, like you know, they have worn out shit, just stuff that probably nobody would notice, because, like you, can't see everything right yeah, no it is.
Speaker 2:It is kind of scary, yeah, but I mean, think of the loads that go on those cables, or yeah, they ain't gonna break?
Speaker 1:I mean they, yeah, they'd have to fray a lot more before they broke.
Speaker 2:They're not gonna break that yeah, that is not something, that the control cable is not something that concerns me at all. Now maybe if it was in the wrong spot and bound on the wrong pulley and then gets jammed, that could be troublesome, that could be really bad. You know, think of an aileron jam, a rudder jam, that's yeah, that would be bad if that frays the wrong spot.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you would think. That's why you should do always do control checks before you take off. The thing's not going to fray while you're in flight. You know what I mean? Yeah you got to do that, you got to do that.
Speaker 1:Control, check yeah, okay, one hour, one two hour cross-country flight, a single engine airplane, in daytime conditions. That consists of a total straight line distance of a more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure. We already discussed that you got to do that same flight at night. This is still with the instructor and you have to do three hours in a single engine airplane with an authorized instructor in preparation for the practical test within the preceding two calendar months from the month of the test. So that's all the stuff with the instructor.
Speaker 1:Now part four is 10 hours of solo flight time in a single engine airplane or 10 hours of flight time performing the duties of pilot-in-command in a single-engine airplane with an authorized instructor on board. They changed this, didn't they? This used to have to be solo, but I think now you can do it with an instructor on board as long as you're PIC, logging as PIC, either of which may be credited towards the flight time requirement under paragraph blah blah blah, the section on the areas of operation listed in blah blah blah that include one hour or one one hour one cross country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance, with landings at a minimum of three points, one of which is a straight line distance of at least 250 nautical miles from the original departure point. However, if this requirement is being met, in hawaii, longest segment um straight line is only 150 nautical miles um this one. So, yeah, it has to be solo, or it has to be with your instructor, as you with PIC, though I'm not doing it solo.
Speaker 1:So I did this solo and I had just read it myself and I thought you had to do a $250 a mile leg. So that's the closest I've ever come to running out of gas. Yeah, I was going to say that's about the max on a 150. I cranked it over to Indiana. Why did you almost run out of gas? Yeah, I was gonna say that's about the max on 150.
Speaker 2:I cranked it over to indiana why did you almost run out of gas?
Speaker 1:what I planned it, and then there's more headwind, so I just I didn't break the law I didn't break the law because I planned it and I had the 30 minute daytime vFR reserve, but then, for whatever reason, I did not get that performance, because probably because of little headwinds. More than so, more than more than were forecast in my math. So I ended up eating into that reserve a little bit.
Speaker 2:Okay, so said another way those numbers, those, those reserve numbers don't matter once you take off.
Speaker 1:Yes, as we've discussed Right, that came up in the. I learned that in the Jack Cochran episode. Like he brought that up.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Those are all planning numbers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's for planning. It's not illegal to actually eat into that during the flight as long as you're following that plan. That showed that you wouldn't have to.
Speaker 2:Right, right, Yep, you know I got to think on this a little bit longer. This 10 hours of solo flight time in a single engine or 10 hours of flight time performing the duties of pilot command in a single engine airplane with an authorized instructor on board? I don't know exactly what they're trying to do here, but yeah, I remember it being 10 hours of solo flight time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's changed since I did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now it's referencing A2, which I don't think is anything. I've had enough to drink now that I'm not quite thinking correctly, but I don't really care. It's easy and clean to just say solo. If I was doing this full time I would maybe know this, or I'd spend more time thinking about this or whatever, crowdsourcing the proper outcome, but just treat it solo, which I know would be tougher for like Scott, like I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to go do 10 of this 300 nautical mile cross country solo well, no among other things yeah, so like you couldn't take your wife and go do that, scott, because you wouldn't be solo, really, no right, you got to be the sole occupant of the plane, or it looks like they changed it to acting pic with an authorized instructor. Okay, and then the last one, but not least five hours in night vfr conditions, with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings, with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern at an airport with an operating control tower oh, which one of those scares you worse, scott what's that?
Speaker 2:long cross country or 10 takeoffs and landings at a controlled field with an operating control tower.
Speaker 3:What?
Speaker 1:what scares me more. It would be like the night cross country. That would be more scary. But what would be more like difficult would definitely be the tower, yeah well put Because like I said, if I mess something up and they yell at me and I get my license suspended or something, I don't really care, but I don't want to die, yeah, so it looks like you could do that with an authorized instructor too, as long as you're acting PIC.
Speaker 2:I guess I would have to agree with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we could go to.
Speaker 3:Toledo again.
Speaker 1:Scott, and then radio can fail. I have to go turn the runway lights on. Okay, scott's going to go turn the runway lights on. Is that code for something I don't know?
Speaker 2:I. I wish I would have, I wish I would have known that this was a change, because I cannot. I feel the element of time, the pressure to read it and understand it, but I can't. I've drank enough that I'm not quite. It's foggy. So, yeah, it's referencing other sections here to make sure. But yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, just reading it, it sounds like you can have an authorized instructor on board. Which man? That just seems like taking a lot of the difficulty.
Speaker 2:You're still acting PIC and you're acting PIC on a flight review and you're acting PIC on a flight review. A lot of times you're acting PIC when you're Well, hold on, this probably comes into. You know, there's a difference between acting PIC and logging PIC. Logging pic right, you can be logging pilot command time like you or scott. Scott, like, let's say, this is me and scott, just to make it a really pretty big gradient and experience level, scott is, um, he's flying along and we're doing this night cross country. He is logging PIC, but if something really goes down, something's happening, I'm acting PIC like he's he's, he can log it, it goes in his column, but if something happens or is going on, I'm going to assume control. I am at logging PIC and acting PIC. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And this is saying they are performing the duties of pilot in command. So I am looking at that as acting PIC. So I think I see what they're getting at. Again, I need to see what this is referencing. The other section it's referencing, to be sure, but I think they're just trying to make some latitude. But as long as you're acting PIC and not just logging PIC, I think that's what they're trying to get at, because that somewhat gets you back in the hot seat as if you were solo. So that makes sense to me to a certain extent. But in the old days you know, solo you're going to go do these 10 takeoffs, landings at a control field at night.
Speaker 1:You know you're going to go do this long cross country. They kind of sissified this a bit. We had to do this excrement solo. We had to do this. We had to do this excrement solo. There was there was no ambiguity about who is acting as pic when you're the only one the plane right, right, exactly, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:Well said, yep, yep, yeah, it happens. Well now, now you don't have to do the takeout, you can do it in a technically advanced airplane. It doesn't have to be in a complex airplane anymore, you can just have glass panel and you're good. You don't have to put a gear down until you're flying a King Air, until you landed that job flying a King Air.
Speaker 1:It's weird to me. If you learn in a TAA aircraft which a lot of people do now, that's probably pretty easy and benign to, just because you know everything that the, that the garmin does. So it's, you know, it's no, no big deal.
Speaker 2:What's that? What do you mean? What do you mean? What's no big deal if you learned how to fly?
Speaker 1:learn in a technically advanced aircraft something with a g1000. Yeah, like, then it's probably pretty easy to you like To fly To fly what you learned in yeah to fly that airplane. Because you'll know it in and out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I don't know where you're going with that, though.
Speaker 1:We learned on steam gauges so we knew the steam gauges in and out, but we had to do extra stuff for the complex. Oh yeah, A lot of people learning in G g1000. So that's nothing to them. So this is basically like not even a requirement anymore. It's like they dropped it for the new guys oh, yeah, no, yeah, I'd agree with that I'd agree with that.
Speaker 2:That's all I'm saying yeah, yeah, I think I see from a um big picture perspective, I think I much rather have somebody go the traditional route yeah be kind of on the spot for putting that gear up and down.
Speaker 1:Yeah or a turbine like I. That's a decent substitute to me I.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think of why that would be like like it's.
Speaker 1:It's fairly complex. I I've never run a turbine, but to me that seems more complicated than putting a gear up and down or running a constant speed propeller um, no, I mean you're still running typically most of the time.
Speaker 2:You're still running a constant speed propeller exactly yeah, but so that that's checked, I would say. I mean, I feel like you have to have more fundamentals of knowledge on, you know, operating the aircraft. It's not so much, it's not as much like a car, like you're really watching, like, okay, that gauge can't be past this. If this gauge goes here, you got to do different things. So I feel like you're elevated in your understanding of what's going on with that engine, where it's not necessarily so true with a, I mean, a typical piston engine airplane, it's like a lawnmower, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean? That's a FADEC.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know you could go into a Pilatus. Well, I mean, that doesn't matter because that's got a retractable gear and all that stuff too. So yeah, a lot of times you know they're putting all those things together caravan care, yeah, caravan, but that has a prop lever as well. That is not a fadec, okay. So I'm trying to. What is a turbine powered airplane that has one lever, and I know, like a Pilatus does, but then it's got the gear though.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a jet, though you don't adjust the prop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of them now like the TBMs. They're automatic yeah it's all one lever. Yeah, go ahead, it's all one lever operation. So they're trying to make everything because jets are all one lever.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, yeah, that's true, it's all figures stones shits out yeah.
Speaker 2:But they're trying to make and like the Cirrus is now, I mean I believe you only have a mixture and a throttle no prop yeah, no prop, it's all linked together by it's kind of nice, yeah, linked together by.
Speaker 2:It's kind of nice, yeah, it can be. You know, if you're going from, you know a Trainer 172 or a Cherokee and you go up into that. It's nice to still just have the one lever and it's going to modulate the prop, depending on how much I think it's smart. It's smart, yeah, but I feel like it's removing the pilot out of the equation which I really equation, which, well, I mean they're.
Speaker 1:They're working on that as you wrap. Yeah, breakneck face.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I mean you'll probably be all right, but I don't know if I'd the generation after me won't yeah, I was gonna say I don't know if I'd tell my kids to go into it, because no, yeah nope, but it's only gonna take one crash, I think, maybe two I think that it'll take more than that I used to I used to agree with that, but I think that the amount of money that autonomy is gonna save, that, I think that they'll, they'll, they'll blast through that yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I mean it's gonna take a while.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's gonna happen overnight but did you see that thing about liftonza? Uh-uh the fo or whoever passed out for 10 minutes oh she while the captain was out of the flight deck, and so the dude was out for 10 minutes he fell asleep. He fell asleep or he had an undiagnosed neurological condition really yep captain couldn't get back in. Eventually the fo came back, let the dude in, they disclosed it and everything they medically diverted to somewhere.
Speaker 1:Holy cow.
Speaker 2:And yeah so, but it's so, like all of us, domestically. You always have to have two people on the flight deck for that reason. That's how we do it. I can't believe that in the European Union, whatever that they don't have there.
Speaker 1:Well, if somebody has to, pee it might change now.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I don't know why they're behind. Normally they're more like they're more stringent on their things than we are right you know what I mean for the most part. So, uh, we always have to have so, like, if somebody has to go out to pee, flight attendant has to come in oh okay, you have to have two people on the flight deck at all times I've observed this from seat 1B on Spirit, see any roaches. Maybe that was a big roach that went in.
Speaker 1:If there's a giant roach, is that good enough?
Speaker 2:Yeah. But we know, they know how to fly, so it's all good.
Speaker 3:Lufthansa still has the good stewardesses.
Speaker 1:So you bring a flight attendant into the cockpit. Are they supposed to fly the plane? If the first officer passes out? I wonder that they can unlock the door to let them.
Speaker 2:They can let the other guy in for sure?
Speaker 1:I guess For sure yeah.
Speaker 2:But in I mean up at cruise when you're doing any of these types of functions, it's all autopilot anyway, yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously you're going gonna run out of gas eventually, so you need to do something. But yeah, let's the other guy in, but the periods of time that somebody, that there's only one person, one pilot up there is, so I mean it's nothing, it's decimal, points out percentage of the flight. So the odds of things happening right then are minuscule.
Speaker 1:They gotta like block the drink cart and stewardesses have to pretend like they're gonna block some marauding arab from getting at the flight deck while the doors open for two seconds. Yeah, the whole song and dance is a little ridiculous it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't have that the regionals, but we have it at the, we have it at the bigger carriers for sure. We didn't have any of that the, the cart, the beverage. We didn't have any of that, the beverage cart. We didn't have any of that stuff at the regionals. No, no, you can always go walk up and down the aisles, you know, stretch your legs.
Speaker 3:Huh.
Speaker 2:You know. But now, yeah, they do. It's not over the top. It only takes one time for something to go wrong. But yeah, yeah. So back to automation, back to single pilot operations. Yeah, they're gonna do anything.
Speaker 1:They think what that would increase their revenue oh, yeah, you only had to pay for one pilot that's why you know, that's why it's gonna happen I know they're driving for me too much money, it'll go I mean the freight carriers will do it'll go first for them.
Speaker 2:I think it'll be a while till the passenger carriers but yeah, no, I, I think that would be the test bed, um, for sure, I mean, I, I, I want to see, I don't want to see, I don't want to see any of it, obviously. But I would think we'll have a lot more understanding when we have, you know, full self-driving cars.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that will really further and expedite the transition for aircraft.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because, like, if a car can, because that's going to be data.
Speaker 3:If a car can handle, they're going to be generating data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If cars can handle like busy highways and intersections and stuff like.
Speaker 2:Pedestrians.
Speaker 1:Right Pedestrians all and intersections and stuff like pedestrians, right, pedestrians, all kinds of stuff like this. Like, arguably, flying an airplane is more complicated for a human than driving a car, but as far as automating something, it might actually be easier to automate an airplane than a car because there's not as many. There's not as many scenarios, yes, Close-in obstacles.
Speaker 2:Close-in variables.
Speaker 1:We don't have those yeah.
Speaker 2:We have a ton of airspace and if you put AI working with air traffic control and AI in the plane, you know, yeah, it should enhance safety. I mean yeah, I mean it's kind of crazy to think about, but it should. I hope it doesn't. I mean I want three pilots up there. Yeah, job security.
Speaker 1:I think they should bring back flight engineers and a navigator.
Speaker 3:And a navigator yeah.
Speaker 1:You got to get some entry-level positions, like you know, scott and I could get into yeah get some of those airline pilot perks without actually having to right, I could be a navigator okay, I would just tell the pilot what the gps is telling me to tell him I would just relay the message. We'll get the union to demand that the pilots don't have access to the GPS from their seats and then put it in a different section behind them as a seat and then you sit in that seat.
Speaker 2:I sit in that seat and run the GPS.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your heading's good Yep, a little to the left, a little bit to the left. Three clicks how much, I don't know, just turn a little bit to the left and I'll let you know. I'll tell you when the lines line up.
Speaker 2:Give it a one potato, two potato and then stop Okay.
Speaker 1:So renting or borrowing people's aircraft I won't say who exactly, but let's say, hypothetically, I was going to borrow somebody's airplane, maybe this summer, and I was concerned about maintenance. What do you look for? As just a pilot who's not an AMP, and you're just walking in kind of blind to what's going on with a potential airplane? Uh, I don't know. Let's do a good pre-flight, is that all you can do is just do a good pre-flight?
Speaker 2:do you have access to their logbooks? I would argue, if you're going to like any flight school or where you can rent, I mean, I you should have. In my opinion, you should have complete access to their log books. Obviously you don't need their whole log history back to 1967, but probably their last annual, the last 100 hour, you know, last oil change, those sorts of things. Get a good sample of its maintenance history, maintenance practices, and if you see something like, for example, you look back in the logbook and you see, um, a replacement of something, a damage of something, a repair, you want to be able to match that up. You need, you should take a note of what that is. Okay, uh, wingtip replacement, whatever. You should be able to go match that up and look at the wingtip. Oh, left wing. Oh, yeah, that looks like a brand new painted wingtip right there. You should be able to kind of corroborate the storage the logbook is telling. In my opinion. Okay, take a few quick notes.
Speaker 1:I'll be able to take that out there as you do your walk around okay, I kind of I figured it wasn't much you can do unless you know really what you're looking at man, dude lipstick on a pig, I mean, I mean all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:Thorough pre-flight, I agree with scott. I mean, but how, oh man, how thorough do you want to go? Do you want to start looking at safety wire on that bolt? You want to start looking at that? Is that castle? Yeah, I see there's a cotter pin through that castle nut, but is that castle nut tight? I mean, just what do you want to do? Yeah, how clean is that oil?
Speaker 1:I figured we were screwed, but you're just kind of at the mercy of the A&P yeah pretty much. Okay, another thing. You flew a Super Cub back from Pennsylvania not too long ago. What was that like? Tell me this story. We briefed on it a little bit. You flew out in the Apache to get the, the, get the old, drop off. Yep, okay, start, kind of start from there was pennsylvania to ohio yeah, this was like middle pennsylvania, back to basically north central ohio.
Speaker 2:So I mean it was. I can't remember how many nautical miles or whatever it was, but a couple hundred, three 300, I'm not sure, but it was going to be for that airplane. It was a significant cross country, you know better part of a day. So we fly out there and we're up at I don't know 5,000 feet. We just start getting rocked by turbulence. We climb over 7,000 feet, so I knew it was going to be rough coming back. This is in the Apache. This is in the Apache and it was pretty bad. We come in.
Speaker 2:My brother is a phenomenal pilot. I mean just mind-boggling, self-consciousness-inducing. Anyways, coming in land, no problem. The guy wanted to check me out on the airplane. He wanted to make sure I was good to go to take you home. He didn't even want to fly. That's how windy and shitty it was. He's like I'm, I don't want to fly with you today. So, whatever, like, okay, well, I'm gonna take it anyway. So let you know, let's go. So I haven't flown a super cub since I have got to think 2012, 2011. So 12, 15 years ago, yeah, 14 years ago so. And those are all on big Tundra tires and blah, blah blah. This one had these little tiny like 800 by 4 tires, really tiny.
Speaker 1:You were complaining about how small the tires were in the group chat. They were very small and Scott shared your sentiment. I'm just thinking about it. Yeah, I'm so pissed. Yeah, you just put me in a bad mood.
Speaker 2:And I hadn't flown tailwheel. So I went and got Kurt in my family's J3, now my brother's J3, and flew that a couple times, like literally two times, and I hadn't flown it since 2015 or 2016, whatever it was. So I wasn't really comfortable. Got current in that, but not proficient. Got more comfortable and then this is a totally different airplane just cold, you know cold. Turkey got fluid, took off in this wind. Just get violent the most violent.
Speaker 1:Will you buy yourself, or did thomas go with you for a little bit?
Speaker 2:no, no, just took off and headed to the first field. Oh God, you're nuts.
Speaker 1:His dad went with him for the first leg or something, but no it was apparently solo from the get-go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, took off. Just get absolutely rocked to the point where I'm not my hand's not on the throttle anymore. Normally it's stick and throttle right, just like anything else. I'm holding on to like a cross member like to stay steady. I mean just losing hundreds of feet with every hit of the oh, it was beyond brutal it's the closest to scared I've been in an airplane ever in my life.
Speaker 2:So we keep. So I'm climbing out, I mean, mind you, this thing and the perception is different too, because you're going so goddamn slow I'm climbing into this headwind and my original plan was to climb it to up to 4500. I keep climbing until it gets smooth, because I knew at 7000 it was a lot smoother. By then the day had warmed up some, the wind had picked up some, blah, blah, blah. So it's now 8500. It smooths out of like 82 or 8300 feet like a light switch, like it goes from rough as shit to glass smooth, like in a couple hundred feet. So now I have all these grandiose plants. I have sun shades to block because there's a lot of glass, so there's a lot of sun coming in. I can. I have sun shades to block because there's a lot of glass, so there's a lot of sun coming in. I can put up these sun shades. I can get out my iPad, put in my little kneeboard thing that I got, which I have right here. This thing is so freaking easy and sweet, but anyways, I have all this new stuff. I have this plan. I got my snacks, got my water, whatever in the backseat. I can't even get any of this stuff. It is so rough I'm afraid of losing control of this airplane.
Speaker 2:So I finally get up there. I haven't navigated for like 20 minutes. I'm pointed. I'm following this valley because my dad told me, because he used to pick up airplanes brand new from the Piper factory at this airport and he's like it'd be the smoothest if you go that way. I'm like, well, fuck, I don't know, I don't have any better ideas, so I'm just gonna do that. So I kind of head to the southwest and just follow this ridge line and hope that it gets better the soonest and whatever. So I do that. So I'm way off course from my original course. I'm way higher than I originally thought, so that means I went even further southwest as I kept climbing.
Speaker 2:So now I've got to find, figure out so I finally get up to 8,500 feet, get the iPad out so I can see like this was what my line is supposed to be. This is where I am. I've got to get back somewhere up to my fuel stop so I can kind of make sense of where I am and figure out these airports, like pilotage and what my new course needs to be and all this stuff. So I get to my first fuel stop and I mean I've so I've never done a landing in this airplane. I have no idea what's going on. So I fly this pattern and I'm all, it's all great. But if I backtrack I'm like I'm four thousand feet higher than I thought I was going to be.
Speaker 2:I don't know how much fuel this thing burns per hour. Am I going to run out of gas, like because I did all my planning on that? Now there are other airports on the way, but like I didn't do any pre-flight planning for them, are they even open? Can I get gas there? I'm thinking about all these things while I'm trying to maintain, control this airplane. So I get up to altitude, I kind of get a bearing on how fast I'm going across the ground, all this stuff. I'm like, okay, I'm going to make it. I I'm gonna have a little less fuel than I thought, but it's gonna be fine, like way fine, because I was. It was a conservative fuel stop to begin with. So I land there atrocious, freaking landing, as you can imagine yeah, because it's wind.
Speaker 2:It's windy as shit it's supposed to get better as I come east or west, but not it's windier than was forecast it.
Speaker 3:It was just terrible that scared the shit out of me. So this airplane- oh, oh.
Speaker 2:It's like I said, like I just bought this thing and I'm going to wreck it on my first landing. It's like what's going through my mind.
Speaker 1:That would be an incredible story yeah.
Speaker 2:It wasn't at the time. It sounds fun right now, but it was not at the time because I've done two hours of white knuckle flying. So now I got to descend basically through this turbulence I'm like bracing for impact, for this turbulence that I experienced back there, which I know I embellish a lot all the time. It was bad. I mean it was so bad. My dad wanted to come with me, like you guys said, like he thought he was going, he talked about it. He didn't mention a word about it. When we got on the ground there it was brutal and you know, you guys know my dad, I mean just like whenever flying, he'll fly in anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can sleep while I fly, type thing and actually fly, and I mean it was brutal. So I get there, I do my pattern. I'm bracing for impact, like you know, because as I descend from 8500 down you know I have no radio there's active parachute jumping at this airport, which the airport manager told me about the day before and I saw it on the chart. She told me about, like, if it's a nice day and it's supposed to be, they're going to be parachute jumping and I'm like well, is it accurate where they jump for what's on the section? She's like yeah, it's right there. If you look at the chart, that's where they drop. I'm like, okay, cool, I stay north and if I remember correctly, it's the south. So I stay north and it worked out for the pattern. Everything was fine. I did see them, but I have no radio so I'm just looking out the window and just getting rocked. Come around, do a normal pattern. Look at the windsock, do a normal pattern?
Speaker 2:Coming in land was super cruise prop, so it doesn't slow down. I'm used to a j3 where it doesn't matter. You can point it almost at the ground and it's still slowing as you point it at the ground. This airplane is not like that. So I have a. I'm doing 70 whatever something on miles an hour on final with this thing and just not slowing down. I chewed up a ton of runway in a Super Cub. But if anybody can do it, I can do it. So I just slow. I mean I just use up all the freaking runway, just totally screwed it up. I'm just in ground effect just working this thing on in this wind and I just use up a ton of runway and then do a bad landing at the end. Anyways, it's not like I used a ton of runway to do a good landing. I used up a ton and did a bad one.
Speaker 1:Anyone was watching. They're like what the hell is this guy doing?
Speaker 2:Well, and there were, there were, there were guys. So I go up there and taxi over to the fuel thing because I asked, I called ahead, asked where the fuel pumps are and make sure there's no issues with that, what credit cards it takes, blah, blah, blah. So I taxi over where they described it was and it wasn't marked. So I'm glad I mean it was right.
Speaker 1:So I talk to the guy, he goes, oh, you had your hands full, didn't you?
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, I'm glad you noticed, you know what I mean. It was just brutal, like I'm just like tail between my legs, you know, and get gassed and take off. And as I went further west, coming home, I get closer and closer to familiar terrain. I start feeling a little bit better. I didn't climb as high, I think I only climbed like 4,500 or 6,500 initially, because I got a good sense of what the bumps were like as I descended in for this airport. So I didn't climb as high and got progressively smoother, like it was supposed to. The winds died down as I came further West. I started getting into familiar places. So I my pilotage I could, I could devote less time, you know descended below the Cleveland class Bravo airspace, split a couple other airspaces and then, uh, kept kept getting more and more of a feel of what the airplane is actually doing, what the performance and whatever. Kept getting more and more of a feel of what the airplane is actually doing, the performance and whatever, and I ended up saving like a half hour on the flight. So it was a four and a half hour flight, almost four hours and 40 minutes. Ended up doing it in four hours. So I saved a lot of time on that second leg.
Speaker 2:And then, like I posted, on Pilot Ground, I get up kind of in the lake. The the wind was out of the north east, north northeast, and it started taking some of that really stable air from off the lake, kind of inland, so about five or ten miles south of the lake. You know. I started really feeling some really stable air and like super, super smooth and um, I started like really seeing okay at this power setting, once my eyes weren't jiggling. Looking at the instrument panel, I could see this is my RPM, this is my airspeed, I'm maintaining altitude perfectly and was really kind of able to, for the first time, to be able to feel it out on this whole trip. And then I get up to Fort Clinton, do an okay landing after learning everything from the last one, and then I had this grandiose plan my family's there, my wife and kids are there, I'm taking her for a ride, like I just got my ass kicked for four hours and like all I want to do is go home, you know oh, and so I.
Speaker 1:You had to fly people after that I will.
Speaker 2:I took my son for a quick ride. I ended up having my brother take my mom for a ride because I just did not have it in me. My daughter didn't even want to go for a ride, so I took her. My wife still hasn't flown in it yet, so I took my daughter. She didn't want to go for a flight, but she wanted to ride in it, so we just did like a quick little taxi thing and that was enough for her. But Will wanted to go fly, so we did that and he didn't want to come down. But I'm like God, I just want to go home. And so I've flown a couple of times since then and it's I'm. I have my comfort back, but I don't have my proficiency or skill back. So that's a.
Speaker 3:That's a work in progress, but I got to own the plane now, so you'll get it. Yeah, I know you do. All right, see you, scott. Have a good one, scott, I'll see you yeah, later later I got a full beer right here I got
Speaker 2:a half of one here mind if I use a restroom can I do that?
Speaker 1:yeah, go for it. Okay, we're not live. So, yeah, right, that's what I was thinking. I'll hopefully be able to edit this out, but I'll maybe talk some gibberish just in case. Oh, there you go. Okay, I just feel terrible about the live stream.
Speaker 1:I was looking it up. Yeah, hundreds of people had opened the email. I sent it out kind of late, so I don't know what that equates to how many people opened the email versus what would have been on the live stream watching. But yeah, I'll have to figure out what happened and try to make that not happen in a few months. Hopefully we'll record again in a few months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's unfortunate. I mean, I'm looking forward to interacting with everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's better with the live chat, for sure.
Speaker 2:What I'm happy about is I think we've covered the commercial crime. It's pretty good, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that section, that's what I'm going to title the show. Yeah, but so how many hours you got in the new plane then?
Speaker 2:Um, I can tell you exactly. I don't know off the top of my head, but I would say around seven. Uh, I can tell you exactly. So, my, it does not have a Hobbs meter which typically goes off either electrical or oil pressure On more complex airplanes off like a squat switch. So when the weight comes off the wheels on a retractable gear airplane and that really gives you the most accurate time in service is a squat switch or an air switch. Some things have an air switch which we're going to put in mine. Mine has no timekeeping device at all. You have to do it all manually. There's no tack time, there's no Hobbs time, nothing. So you have to do it all manually. So, as of right now yeah, I mean in the 7.4 hour is what I have in it.
Speaker 1:How do you know how accurate your times are then?
Speaker 2:I look at a clock basically when I'm about to take off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I understand how you do it.
Speaker 1:I mean from like a you would just purchase this, and it's obviously not new.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, yeah, you don't, you're just kind of trusting that the other person was accurate.
Speaker 2:I'm trusting that they're doing basically what I'm doing, and I'm sure there is a high degree of error, to be honest. But this is not the first airplane I've seen like that from a wear and tear perspective. Let's say I am a super conservative mechanical engineer who owns a Bonanza retractable airplane that operates on a squat switch, but I taxi from my hangar out to the runway and I'm waiting to take off, but I'm at the hold short line for that runway. I wait until I have optimal oil temperature. So my engine's been running. How long does it take to get to optimal oil temperature? Clearly it is accruing wear and tear on the engine sitting there at roughly idle to get that oil temperature. It's not gaining any time on the airframe or engine this whole time because that that hobbs meter is not running.
Speaker 2:it's not really that much different in my mind yeah you cannot quantify how much time somebody spends taxing, doing leak, like run-ups for a leak check. You can't do it. You know what I mean. So I just don't see it as that much different, although when that thing does take off, you have a very good idea how much time it spends at high power settings and whatever.
Speaker 2:And so we're actually going to be installing in my airplane an air switch, going to be installing in in my airplane a air switch, so we're going to pull power to an air switch. That then runs to a hobs meter so it gets power, but the but it doesn't close until it gets a certain amount of air speed and that's when the hobs meter, rolled, start running. So we will have super accurate time and service numbers. So again, when I'm taxiing around or just staying still letting it warm up in the wintertime, let's say I'm doing ski flying and I want good oil temperature before I run it up hard or run it hard, I'm going to let it warm up. I want that. Why wouldn't I want that? I do so. It's not going to accrue any time and service. And it warm up. I want that. Why wouldn't I want that? I do so. It's not going to accrue any time and service and it shouldn't.
Speaker 2:The definition of time and service for an aircraft, for an airframe or an engine is from the time it leaves the ground till the next time it touches down on the ground. All that taxi time run-ups, whatever warm-ups, none of that should count, and so I'm trying to make mine parallel that as best I can. It's cost-saving a little bit of weight, but it's some cost savings for me, and it also doesn't make me in any form of rush to just go jump in the air with a less than warmed up or whatever engine that makes sense. Yeah, and I'm aligning with the definition.
Speaker 1:So yeah what I can't find those 90. I was kind of looking for them a little bit, since you bought one just for sale. I can't find the 90 horse super cubs.
Speaker 2:Not many of them, they quit making them kind of in the early 50s and or mid 50s, I should say. Well, actually you know what I take that back. They kept making them until maybe the early 60s, but it was obviously not common because the 150 horse came out in 1954. And they had prior to that they had 125s and 135 horse, they had 105s, 125s, 135s and then finally 1954, 150s, and that pretty much continued until 1989. And then they did a special run in 1994. They made 12 of them in 1994. But the 150s is what they made the whole time after 1954. Um, so the 90s, yeah, I'm not right.
Speaker 1:I mean they're rarer for sure they made 12 of them in 1994 yeah, that is special order um special order of them in 1994.
Speaker 2:Huh, huh, yeah, and that's why that I mean I would love to have one of those last ones.
Speaker 2:I mean that one like in like on pilot ground, that one in Nebraska I do. I mean that would be. I mean I don't. I think it's like up to 136. That's pretty good deal. I spent 90 on mine for a nine 4990 horse but I got. It's got issues, just like everything else. Although it was meticulously maintained by the guru of Cubs, all of those things in a great pedigree, it's still got things that need tweaked and done differently.
Speaker 1:Who's the guru of Cubs?
Speaker 2:His name is Clyde Smith. Okay, he was actually a product engineer for Piper on the Super Cub in Lock Haven before they moved to Vero Beach. Okay, so he still lives there. He is like the world-renowned Cub guru. He was the one maintaining this airplane when I got it. Really, I mean, they did a great job with everything.
Speaker 1:So it's all downhill from here.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, but I guess what I'm saying is, though, even though it does have that pedigree, does have that maintenance history, you're just going to find stuff. I'm not saying they did anything wrong, they're just things that I kind of have a little bit of a different opinion. I don't want to say I want to go in a different direction, because that's not the right thing, but I have a little bit of a different opinion on how things should be done, and there's a little bit of subject to some interpretation. It's my airplane now, so I think, for example, like elevator travel, I think it should be. This is how I would. Obviously it's black and white how you want to measure it and define it, but whatever, that is something that is ongoing. To be honest, in my airplane there's an elevator travel issue depending on where your seat position is, and I don't think it should be subject to seat position. I think you should be able to get that full elevator travel, no matter what position the seat is in. The stick should not bottom out on the seat frame.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So I think I should be able to have the seat all the way forward, because I'm very short. A lot of people probably don't, but I'm very short, very, very so I need to have the seat all the way forward, and then I wish it could come forward more, but I have it all the way forward and if I do that and I actually don't fly with it all the way forward, but if I wanted to, for whatever reason the seat would hit the, the stick would hit the seat frame before I get full elevator travel and even if it's in an intermediate position where the stick comes back, it will hit the control stop, not the seat frame anymore, but it will still be five degrees less elevator travel than what it should have. So just little things like that. I'm not saying anything. I think it's great, I think they did a phenomenal job and I wouldn't change a thing.
Speaker 2:But we are going to change some things. You know what I mean. It's just the way it is. When you have an aircraft so you can go, you know if you're a broker, a seller or you're shopping, you have to account for even if it is exactly as represented, you need to count on spending. I would have said years ago. I would have said five grand, but probably these days you got to count on spending 10 grand. Even if it is exactly, you're paying a fair price, it's exactly as represented. I would plan on spending 10 grand over the first couple years of ownership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have two, two, three thousand dollars worth of parts that I ordered for the plane before I even took possession of it. Yeah, and some of those are somewhat, you know, uh, subject to you know like what I personally want, but some of it's like why wasn't that done? Why doesn't I have this?
Speaker 1:so oil filter you have mentioned these before. I looked these up too, after I didn't find any 90s anywhere yeah for whatever reason, it made me think of those legend cubs you had mentioned yeah, they make one that seems very close to the j3. Yes, only it seems like it's certified to solo in the front seat. Yes, and it seems like it has an electrical system still yes okay, I'm just curious, let's start. Let's start it like a couple hundred grand new, which I was. It was just interesting to me you think?
Speaker 1:that's higher. No, I feel like that's that's reasonable for a brand new airplane these days. Obviously, it's very small, very basic plane, so it makes sense. Yeah, I was just hypothetically just thought processes Like if you're going to start a flight school where you wanted to train people in tailwheel as the primary which has always kind of been in my mind like I probably would never want to start a flight school, but if I did, I would want to do primary and tailwheel just out of principle, let's do it.
Speaker 1:And call it pilot ground, um, and it seems like that would be a potential plane to do to just have a have like two or three of those, yeah, and it's like if you're doing primary, you you do that. Like that's what you'd have to have instructors that are comfortable teaching tailwheel which those are a rare breed, yeah, comfortable teaching tailwheel which those are a rare breed yeah, but you learning how to fly and something like that would be put your skill level stick and rudder skills way higher than than most people learning how to fly today for sure yeah yeah, I think it's a reasonable obviously you have to figure out something else if you're going to do instrument training now I think the way to go with that is probably just really focus on doing plane rides and tailwheel endorsements yeah not primary
Speaker 2:no, not a lot of it. Maybe maybe work in a way to do um, like a flight review or whatever, but like, not do like, hey, you're not going to start to finish your private pilot certificate in this, because eventually it comes to a point where they're gonna have to do solo time, and it's just. It would just be really hard now granted, they get their tailwheel endorsement in the process they used to do that.
Speaker 1:This is how people used to learn. Why is everybody such a pussy now that they can't? They can't learn how to do it in a in a tailwheel yeah, I mean, they don't even have to hand prop the thing.
Speaker 2:It's like come on yeah yeah, well, you know, I agree with you. You know, I just look at like what I have gone through with my um, coming back to ga a little bit and then getting into one of these ultra light.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't use excess natural term um very light a very light aircraft that is easily tossable in the wind, very subject to the windy conditions, and it's not easy. And I got 9,000 hours of flying time now coming up on 9,000 hours of flying time, so it's like it's just not easy. So when I think of taking on an entry level student and taking them from never flying an airplane to they're going to solo in a tailwheel, I know that it can be done. I totally get that. But I mean, at this stage of my life, that is just a that's a threat matrix position that I don't really want to be in. To be honest, I see, hey, let's go fly for a weekend, we're going to have a couple of really great lunches and we're going to knock out your tailwheel endorsement.
Speaker 2:That's what I want to do. There's no unsupervised solo. There's no solo. There's no nothing. You know what I mean? Your work. There's an instructor on board who can completely control the amount of wear and tear for the most part. Um, that's going on that airframe. That that's the way I would want to run it.
Speaker 1:I don't want that's why nobody does this with something like that I mean I wouldn't want to do it.
Speaker 2:I mean and that is my favorite, my favorite is doing entry-level instruction. I feel like that is the one where you are making the biggest impact on somebody. They come in the door they don't know anything other than that they probably want to learn how to fly, and then you take them to solo, you do a solo cross-countries, and then they take them to solo you to a solo cross countries, and then they take their check ride and it's like, dear Lord, like I've made a profound impact on this person's life and whatever. And that's that's a very rewarding thing to me of those same things. But unfortunately that just ratchets up the responsibility on me, that ratchets up the threat to me that just you go send somebody on a solo cross country in a J3 Cub. For all intents and purposes, that's a little nerve-wracking, don't you think? What if it's windier than forecast we were planning?
Speaker 2:on them landing runway one, but now they've got to land on runway one-zero and it's like, oh, I don't know what they're going to do. When we went there we didn't land on that runway and no-dums and.
Speaker 1:I was thinking it'd just make for such better pilots.
Speaker 2:Well, there's no doubt. There's no doubt, and you know, better pilots need better instructors, and I'm not one of them. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For me. That's the way I look at it. I am not at that level where I can turn out that level of product.
Speaker 1:So the deficiency is on me and I'm'm just I guess I'm letting that be known. You know what I mean? Yep, here's another aircraft in this hypothetical school that has crossed my mind is, uh, the satabria yeah, yeah still a tail whale.
Speaker 1:You're still getting way more skills than you do in like a 172 or a Warrior, an Archer, something like your typical trainer. It's not as limited in wind amounts. So you in theory could add an instrument rating to your school and have the same aircraft on your fleet, same engines across the entire fleet for your maintenance. That'd be a big thing of mine. If you're going to do something, it's just have the exact same aircraft, exact same engine for everything. What's that guy?
Speaker 1:I just mentioned his biography to you the other day Southwest, oh, herb Keller. Herb Keller, yeah, you read that and you realize. Yeah, that's the way to run a fleet of aircraft is make sure they're all the same. It eliminates so many different variables, but anyway the Satabria variables, but anyway the satabria same. Make model satabrias, all ifr certified, all the exact same engines. I think you could run a flight school off of that and there'd be a value proposition. It'd be more difficult. You're not going to get the same type of clientele that like ADP is going for, or American flyers, I don't know. I look at the way I learned how to fly as very good.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize it at the time until I saw how everybody else was learning how to fly. If I could go back and change one thing, the only thing I would change is I would have done it in a tailwheel, which I could have done. Don could have taught us in a tailwheel. He's got no problem instructing in a tailwheel. I just I didn't know anything when I got into flying and the 150 was great. But I just feel like I would have been a better pilot if I did my whole initial in a tailwheel something.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think anybody would agree or disagree with that. But I think what maybe you would run into, though, is you know, from a, I own this business and I have somebody walking through that door and remember, you have instructors who are comfortable now. They're tailwheel certified, they're comfortable flying tailwheel, and with that I think there is a built-in amount of experience that they have that the corresponding local 141 flying Cherokees or 172s does not have. How did they get that time? Did they pay for it? Maybe they did so, I think, but so I either way, I think that instructor gets paid more. I think your instructor gets paid more, which means your hour cost gets is more.
Speaker 2:Maybe you got a real. You're doing really well and you're buying the airplanes right and you've streamlined it because you're offline, you have fleet commonality and all these things. You do everything you can on that front. But now you have somebody come in the door and you're the first place they checked out, or the third place, or the 15th place they've checked out. Like, well, why am I going to spend 10% to 15% more to learn from you than go down the road to ABC Flight School and learn from them? What are you going to teach me?
Speaker 2:You'd have to take the luxury approach you try to make the case that, well, when you're done here, you're going to be a much better pilot. When you're done here, you're going to be a much better pilot. Like, well, in the age of Google, Grok, whatever, they're going to be asking all these questions when they go home.
Speaker 1:So I think, is there anything that's going to say that you learning a tailwheel doesn't make you a way better pilot than not?
Speaker 2:I think what probably.
Speaker 2:I don't think anybody out there make that argument yeah, but that's not who's going to be answering their question. Probably they might go to a forum and that might be your saving grace that gets them to come back to you. I'm dude, you know. I'm on the same wavelength as what you're talking about. I'm just playing devil's advocate. If you're pitching a business thing to me right now, I think they're going to go talk to ai and all ai is going to dig up for them and their little google search is going to be that learning to fly tail wheels more difficult and some of them be like, oh, I'm into that, that's right up my alley.
Speaker 2:And then other people are like, yeah, it's more money and it's harder, I'm gonna go over go over here.
Speaker 1:You're going to purge everybody on price and everybody who just wants to easy route For sure.
Speaker 2:But to what end are you going to lose how many of them? How many people want to learn to fly to begin with? Now you're in a market where maybe you can lose 20% to 30% of the people and be like, oh, we got more than we can handle as it is, maybe, maybe. And to 30% of the people and be like we got more than we can handle as it is, maybe, maybe, and that's fine. I'm just saying those are considerations that I would have, because it's not easy. You know, you get somebody done, you got to replace them. You finish a private pilot certificate. You have to replace them.
Speaker 1:This isn't something I don't think would not work in Ohio. It'd have to be in Florida, where, where there's more money, obviously because you're selling a premium salute. Learning how to fly is already a somewhat premium thing, if you look at it. And this is even on top of that and you're basically saying that you know, like if somebody's coming in for price, it's like we would do at the ferrari dealership. It's like, yeah, we're the most expensive place you can instruct. Like that's a bragging point, like and everybody has to have that attitude who works?
Speaker 1:and I get that where it's like someone brings a price you'd be like oh, absolutely, we are. We are absolutely the most expensive, and here's why, like that's kind of the approach you'd have to have with it yeah yeah and I get that, um, get that.
Speaker 2:I think there is something to be said for that. I think that would help you land some of the people. I have always maintained this is completely divorced from the tailwheel, versus conventional or not conventional, but tricycle gear conversation. What I didn't understand my first year, year and a half flight instructing is it's a sales position yeah and I hate to say this kind of out loud that's the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 2:You're not really there to teach people to fly. You're there to keep them coming back. Keep them, because if they are coming back, that means they enjoy their time with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is that you're doing and yeah, you know, for from a um statistics standpoint, you know you want to get people done, but there is a segment of people that that you know, that I experienced. It's not a high percentage, but I obviously I did a much smaller market than you know some of these other big commercial schools and big commercial areas. There's a small percentage that all you can expect is for them to just show up next week. They want to be spoon-fed everything. They're going to go at snail's pace and your job is just keep them happy doing that. What does it matter to you if they if they you don't want to be too mission oriented with those people you want to treat them with kid gloves. You want to keep them happy, keep them coming back. What does it matter to you if they don't have the ambition to really get through or they're not comfortable or whatever the reason is, whatever their reasoning behind learning to fly is, or their reasoning for not pursuing the certificate, they want to learn to fly but they're not pursuing a certificate. It's kind of a weird thing, but I've experienced that.
Speaker 2:There are several people that I got all the way through solo cross countries and they completely petered out. I mean, there were a couple people that bought airplanes. They owned airplanes and didn't have any real desire to get to get their license taxes whatever, write-offs whatever. We're not in that big of a market. We're talking that. I mean maybe a little bit, but it's just like you just keep them coming back. All they want to do is they want an insurance policy. They want the joy of going and flying, perhaps, but they want you to be the insurance, the cheap insurance, for them to go, enjoy what they enjoy doing and not really have any of the responsibility. And it took me a long time to figure that type of shit out.
Speaker 1:That makes sense.
Speaker 2:It does, so you have to play that game a little bit too.
Speaker 1:you know, in terms of those people, the 141 schools, a terrible idea for them. Like that's awful. Like I would say. I lean more towards what you were saying then, like I had a terrible experience.
Speaker 1:Every time I try to do a 141 program is because it's like, hold on, what is this craziness? Like I want to actually master this little segment here. Let's do some more lessons on this. And that just does not fit in a 141 program. We're like you know what we did last week? Hold on, let's go do that again. Like I didn't quite feel comfortable with that.
Speaker 1:I want to go redo that and I'll do that with a lot of stuff and, um, yeah, that's just that's different. It a lot. It costs more money to do it that way, but I, if you're able to do it, that's a. I think you have this concrete. You're not skipping over stuff. When I was taking check rides I I was very proficient at the check rides I was doing because if there's anything I wasn't 100 on, I just go do some more lessons on it and until I was just dead on and everything which obviously if you looked at what I paid for my ratings versus even though I own my own airplane for a lot of them I would still say it would be higher like amount of hours and stuff.
Speaker 1:My solo was very quick, for whatever reason, but a lot of other aspects. I had a lot more hours, Not just total time, but if you drill down to each little requirements, like I went way over on a lot of stuff just because it's like I want to actually know how to do this and I think that falls in line with a lot of um, the uh.
Speaker 2:You know the personality type that wants to learn how to fly and wants to do some of these types of things. It's that very, very type a personality. You know where're a successful business people or people, very competitive people, whatever. That's all those types of people and that makes sense. They're not used to and most of the things they do in their life they're able to practice, practice, practice and dial it in and be perfect. And a lot of these courses are not really designed to get you the bare minimum, like barely be able to check that box. Yes, we covered it, let's move on. And a lot of us are like, well, hold on, I want to master that.
Speaker 2:And sometimes that accelerated training can manifest, or the shortcomings of that accelerated training can manifest themselves, not super often, because with that there is some serious structure.
Speaker 2:As you and I both know, there comes some serious structure with the 141 training programs that can be obviously very easily lost at 61. So you're taking some good with some bad. You know, yeah, you want to master the thing but, like some of the, some of the procedural things, like you see, I'm not proficient with whatever this, this uh, uh, stick and rudder of okay, I just had an engine failure at 1100 feet and I gotta swing it back around Procedurally. They're thinking like, okay, we're going to get out this, I have this flow memorized to do all these steps to get this engine running. I'm not saying you can't do both of those things, I'm just saying that that's kind of the contrast. I'm trying to make Procedurally checklist, sops, regulations. Those 141 guys have us beat because that is kind of the world they live in, where maybe they don't have the stick and rudder per se, or they live in more of a fantasy land where everything's more cut and dried. But there are definitely some positives to the 141 too that I feel that I never had.
Speaker 1:For sure, for sure. I just feel like if I did this hypothetical school, I'd try to combine a lot of that. A lot of that drill down stuff, yeah, but in more of a like I'd be going after the clientele that is not trying to blast through ratings to go get an airline job and I'm with you.
Speaker 2:I just think that you will starve for the first lots of years. I love what you're after.
Speaker 1:I love. I don't think I I don't know if I'd do it, or if I did it it'd be, like you know, when I'm retired and I'm just more of a hobby business.
Speaker 2:Well, you better have a pile of cash to get you the for. Through the first few years I think that it will sell. But until you have a reputation and when the word of mouth spreads enough where you can have whatever five, six full-time students to keep you afloat um per instructor I then I. I think it's going to be a really rough road. Up until that point I love everything that you're saying. We infuse the 141, the SOPs and all of the technical knowledge and big picture stuff of the 141, but then we're also giving you the stick and rudder skills on the other side of it. Yep, we're giving you the full package in a little bit of an unconventional manner and it's in brand new Satabria's IFR certified.
Speaker 1:We have the highest paid instructors. They're not their. Their career aspirations are to be instructors. They're not trying to just do this to build time. And then there's a premium price for this.
Speaker 2:And I think you have a great case. But I just think you know you've got to have a pile of cash to sit on to get you through until you have that critical mass rolling where the word of mouth that machine. As soon as you get somebody done, you've got somebody else coming in the door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, you need a waiting list.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, ideally you have a waiting list. Yeah, ideally you have a waiting list. Yep, for sure.
Speaker 1:I spent time at Ferrari Like the whole thing would just be taking the way Ferrari does with their cars. Let's just apply that to a high end flight school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just apply that to a high-end flight school. Yeah, I mean so you should have no students but still have a waiting list. Right, that's where you're getting at.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:When you open the doors day one, you have a waiting list.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean that exclusivity, you know, and there's no reason it shouldn't be exclusive from day one. Yeah, you know what your product is and you know what you're offering, and there's no doubt that the outcome will be that. So why not sell the exclusivity a little bit? I only have one student, but there's still a waiting list.
Speaker 1:We're going to try to get you in. Maybe we can get you an intro flight, let's see how it goes. Let's kind of have like ferrari does it? If you, if you walk in a ferrari dealership as a joe schmoe who's never, it doesn't matter how much money you have like you're not going to go place a custom order typically, I mean you can be you can be really lucky. You could potentially maybe know somebody. They could potentially have a build slot open, but that's typically not the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just like slow down, you're going to buy some used cars from us. We're going to establish a relationship and over time, you know, we could get you potentially some build slots on some eight cylinders and then potentially 12 cylinders down the road. If you're interested, like you're, not just oh, I want to order a brand new, you know the latest, hottest model, exactly how I want it, and you've never owned a ferrari before. This is typically not going to happen and that's. There's a mentality that they have waiting lists like crazy for those cars and they charge crazy money for those cars and is there any allure to ordering it from a specific dealership?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I mean, each dealership would probably tell you yes, but no, and and the relationship is per dealership, right, like if you have a relationship with with one dealership. It doesn't mean you can go to another dealership and just like, okay, um, maybe if they see you as like a huge customer, they know you're a huge customer and you got ticked off. That's happened before.
Speaker 1:There was a location I worked at. It was another location where it was a famous golfer. You'd know his name. He's a huge customer with Ferraris golfer. You'd know his name he was. He's a huge customer with ferraris and um, he got ticked at the dealership it was actually somebody took a photo of one of his custom order cars. So he stopped buying cars from this individual dealership and he went to another dealership and um, they worked with him because they knew he was a huge ferrari guy. Him being famous probably helped somewhat famous. Um, it's not the, it's not the one you're thinking of, that everybody knows. But if you're into golf you would have heard of this guy. Uh, and yeah, like. So so that was an exception where, but usually not like, usually you gotta then kind of re-establish that makes sense a relationship if you switch dealerships.
Speaker 1:But they knew he orders like a one every other month and like they're like okay, let's cater to this guy because he's no longer going there. We know he orders a ton of cars.
Speaker 1:Let's get him build slots yeah so, yeah, you take that mentality to like a high-end flight school and it's. Yeah, I just think you could. You could create the ideal way to really learn how to fly like stick and rudder, like in the classic sense of like pilots just used to be better like stick and rudder. Um, I think you could do that. I just I think you'd have to do it in a way where you're taking money out of the equation a little bit because you can't do that as cheaply. That's the. That's why most flight schools have gone towards the direction that they've gone now is because economics. So the only way to go back to that kind of classic, heirloom flight legend style learning how to fly is it just have to be marketed as a premium product yeah, I mean looking at what the larger Cirrus, you know Piper's higher-end offerings, obviously Cessna with their citation model line.
Speaker 2:they're not backing away from this entry level up into what do I want to say like the pathway. All of these airplanes are all a pathway to upgrades as you progress through your flying career and your ratings and your experience level. So there's I mean there's money in it. They all recognize it. We all know that. I mean it's a foregone conclusion, but it just from everything that I ever saw, just because of where we're from, it's just, yeah, there are very wealthy people doing it and they're great customers to have, but it's just most of them. That's not most of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. So you're going to, obviously, from an FBO standpoint, you teach somebody to fly.
Speaker 2:You sell them an airplane. You make a commission on selling them an airplane. You sell them maintenance, you sell them hangar rent, you sell them gas. So I hangar rent, you sell them gas. So I mean it just cascades out and you know that is a lot of the drive, but, like, if you're just man, do you always have that? I mean, most of the time that's the ideal scenario, the ideal scenario, but most of the time, you know now, like that, I've seen you get somebody a rating and then you see them maybe almost never again. Like they go buy an airplane and base it somewhere else. They only rent once, uh, once or twice a year and one of them is their flight review. Then they fly like the week after their flight review and then you don't see them again until their next flight review.
Speaker 2:It's stuff like that and it's like I know life gets in the way and stuff, and whatever. You know, a student through is a student through and you know a flight review is great, and then them renting an airplane a couple times a year after that, um, it's all. It's all great, you know, but it's just. It's just a different market. Like I can't even imagine a market where you're able to sell somebody on like hey, you know, yeah, we're more expensive than everybody else, but here's why. And then them buying it. I guess I guess that's the kicker them being like, yeah, that sounds good, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's just how much money's in the area, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Palm beach is different than Sandusky. That's just. There's no ways around that. Shocking, yeah, shocking. Okay. Well, that's a that's. I feel like we ended on this note. I forgot I had a project I started gettailnumberscom I completely forgot to mention. I think I'm just gonna throw an ad in the beginning of all episodes to kind of run that and, uh, I'll explain it.
Speaker 2:Four episodes a year huh, it's probably gonna give you a lot of traction. Four episodes a year.
Speaker 1:Well, I can run an ad that plays at the beginning of the entire back catalog.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so you get those emails.
Speaker 1:I mean, the entire back catalog is still getting a decent amount of plays every month. I don't.
Speaker 2:I didn't even look at them until I went to sign in today for this.
Speaker 1:Oh, really. So yeah, that's not so good, not as much as when we're publishing every week, but there's still a lot of just classic, timeless episodes to go in the back catalog. Yeah well, let's keep making them. Yeah, once a quarter, that's a good rhythm for I feel like where we're at in our lives. Keep it going. Keep Pilot Ground going. Yeah, check out the forums. Don't just sign up and not participate. It's a worthless sign up. Sign up and comment and get involved. Try to answer other people's questions. Ask questions. You've got a question Ask questions.
Speaker 1:There is so much knowledge between all of us on there right now I mean it's if you can help guide the conversation oh yeah, everybody gets elevated because I try to think of stuff to ask and I do it right every day right it's so hard to do and uh, when other people come in with like just random stuff, they're not trying to think of a good question, they're just they have a question that those are the best seriously, yeah, you see an article, you something that's been, you saw a youtube video, whatever let's.
Speaker 2:I mean, let's talk about things you know, because you know, if we, even if we have to go research, like I mean, we're researching with our own body of experience behind it, none of that makes any sense or is really pertinent. It's just fun though. Yeah, it's fun, I mean, as the conversation everybody learns a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say the link verbally, because I don't want to sear it in. I want to be able to pull the link if I want, but if we are still deciding to have the link available, it will be available in the show description here Pilotgroundcom. If you just go there right now, it doesn't take you anywhere, it doesn't forward it. You got to add a little something at the beginning, which maybe you can see below in the description, or maybe we got frustrated with a bunch of people signing up without participating, so we just pulled it, and then I don't know what you do. Then you just have to wander around on Reddit. Good luck with those mods. All right, they're no fun. That's we'll. We'll leave it at that, though. Thanks for listening, and hopefully we can pull another one off in Q3.
Speaker 2:Yeah, looking forward to it Later. All right, see you.
Speaker 3:Okay, finally it shut over. Pulse is.
Speaker 1:X, then it kind of knows about what your vo2 max would be gotcha something I'm not probably ever gonna do. I probably don't need to know that number, it's probably yeah, I mean you don't really need to, but I just like tracking that shit.
Speaker 3:I don't know for viewers okay, because I think it's gotten in your head okay well, no, well, no, I mean.
Speaker 2:Did you hear Rob? He got it to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, okay, so we are live. It only took 24 minutes to get it to work. Are we live?
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So we should talk about airplane stuff then yeah. Yeah, not VO2 max, oh yeah. Yeah, we're just shooting for a 7.30 start. We just kind of wanted to start a little early just to make sure it was going to work, which we're glad we did.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:So we're just doing a little pre-chat.
Speaker 2:There's only five viewers right now, so we'll let some, I'm waiting for mine to catch up.
Speaker 1:Roll in here, shoot us a question in the live chat. If you're one of the five, did you really send your mom over here, bob? Yeah, she's going to drop off some beer for you. God damn it. It's going to be great. What kind of beer. I don't know.
Speaker 2:What kind does it take, Elvis juice? Get the dude some Elvis juice.
Speaker 1:No actually I stopped drinking IPA.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's too heavy.
Speaker 3:Too heavy.
Speaker 2:No, actually I stopped drinking IPA. Oh, it's too heavy. Too heavy, Is it too unhealthy for you? Extra cancer. You get extra cancer with.
Speaker 1:IPA, it is extra cancer juice. How is IPA extra cancer inducing Higher alcohol content, right, yeah, for whatever reason it like. Oh God, the cut water. Mai Tais I drink all summer probably aren't good. Probably not, probably not 12.5% the cut water mai tais I drink all summer probably aren't good, probably not, probably not 12 and a half percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably not uh think of all the wine humanity has consumed over the generations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, wine is. Is might be a little bit better for you, unless you just got a lot more alcohol got more alcohol. Well, it depends on how drunk you get off of it like ipas are bad, ipas are bad, particularly for me, because when I drink them I get wasted. So if I don't get wasted, then it's not any worse than any other kind of alcohol, right, okay, so basically, I mean if, if you drink.
Speaker 1:If you drink one long island iced tea versus 18 beers, like the beers are lower alcohol content but it's healthier to drink the one really strong drink than it is to drink 18 weaker drinks. You can't break into your wedding vodka tonight. No, there's not very much of that left. Actually, I broke into that so many times when we were recording the first time around, like there's not really a lot left is it live?
Speaker 2:my mine's not showing live on rumble uh, it cut out for a second. I think it's back okay, I see in the Nothing in the chat or anything. I think it's a delay.
Speaker 1:Severe delay More than normal.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:But three minutes we'll start.
Speaker 2:We'll record an episode. I don't even know why I'm watching. This is not working. I don't even know why I'm watching. This is not working. Do we have any other topics that we're going to discuss, or just mostly put everything?
Speaker 1:into this. I was going to do yeah.
Speaker 2:Obviously it's going to go 61.129, but it's fairly quick.
Speaker 1:Okay, I had some questions about, like, what to look for if you're like borrowing people's aircraft.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:We'll get into that afterwards, which will probably lead into it. It'll lead into it. That little lead into that. Guys, get real quiet once we're live. Although it wasn't aviation related.
Speaker 2:I thought I was doing something pertinent to our operation here, 2.8%, uh oh. Feedback.
Speaker 1:I fixed it, okay, yeah, so what are we going to talk about? I don't know. Planes and stuff.
Speaker 2:That's the plan.
Speaker 1:My flight review Until.
Speaker 2:Rob's not going to. I wanted to do Actually I was gonna see if you could tomorrow, but my mom can't come watch the kids tomorrow, so I can't.
Speaker 3:Whatever?
Speaker 2:I was gonna announce it live on the air.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, that would have been exciting, I know breaking news.
Speaker 2:But I tried to get it all teed up, but it didn't work out.
Speaker 3:Didn't work out so it's gonna be after Memorial.
Speaker 2:Day.
Speaker 1:Jim wants to clean the plugs on it because he flew it the other day. He said it was running a little bit rough. He said it's fine to fly. But you know I figured well we can just wait.
Speaker 3:I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
Speaker 1:I've been in flying for a while. While I don't like the idea of running rough, yeah me neither. Yeah, that kind of freaks me out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah I go, I want it to run smooth well, it just depends on is it running rough all the time, or running rough when he does a mag check, or running rough when well, what I didn't really ask and he didn't really specify well, well, I'm just saying that's a general statement, because I mean like if I don't go fly for a while, like remember anything?
Speaker 1:piston runs rough as shit to me right flying a jet all the time they just it's so different yeah, you know, yeah, you probably think this. You probably think it's falling apart exactly all the time, so a little bit extra rough. It's falling apart Exactly All the time, so a little bit extra rough, it's like whatever.
Speaker 2:I can't tell the difference Unless it's a mag check. But how much does he fly that Like per year, would you say?
Speaker 1:I don't know, not very much really, maybe like 5, 10 hours.
Speaker 2:The majority of it is him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the majority of it's him.
Speaker 2:So 5,10 hours. And what's he do? Does he just do takeoffs and landings? Yeah, he flies around.
Speaker 1:He'll fly over to Port Clinton and get breakfast and stuff.
Speaker 3:I don't know that stuff's tough.
Speaker 1:Aviation Mike howdy, Good to see you in here. Aviation.
Speaker 3:Mike.
Speaker 1:I guess it's 7.30. We can just roll into it here.