Episode 1 "Pilot" Dave Reinaman Regional Airline FO

The speaker talks about how the person they are speaking to taught them how to fly and helped them get their pilot rating. They discuss their time flying together and catching up after not seeing each other for a year. They also talk about the process of setting up for the episode and reminisce about their flying experiences. The speaker asks the person about their career in aviation and why they decided to become a pilot. The person shares that they always wanted to be a pilot and started flying after going up in a 172 with a friend. They talk about their training and getting their ratings. They also discuss the differences between part 61 and part 141 flight training programs. The speaker shares a personal experience of failing their private pilot checkride but being determined to continue and succeed. had to make this the pilot episode wouldn't be right if I didn't kick it off this way because you actually are the one that taught me to fly obviously you know that for everybody out there that doesn't know that Dave here man was my primary instructor for getting me my private pilot rating so wouldn't be possible now I wouldn't be able to do this all jokes aside like if you hadn't you know done what you did for me man so it's only right that we kick this off the right yeah absolutely so but yeah man she was a princess we flew together you probably about a year about a year I left like a year in two weeks ago so yeah Tom definitely flies man so before we actually like went live so had to go through this whole process of like getting everything set up so of course we're catching up we hadn't seen each other yeah I don't think we've actually seen each other might have been physically flat last flu that's crazy yeah man we talk all the time and like pretty much almost every day yeah we talk all the time like whatever like we're always talking and texting but haven't actually seen each other physically in probably about a year I didn't even realize that until now so definitely good to catch up but more of the story is that as we're getting set up man we were just kind of going over old stories and just talking about our times flying together so man it's a really special day man I've been excited about this yeah for a long time so but yeah man so we'll kind of like dive into it dude so you are now a first officer yeah a regional airline so yeah man a year ago was flying with this guy single engine piston properly man big daddy's over here flying so crazy that's what's up dude crazy super happy for this guy man for real happy for him proud of him knows we're sound proud cuz I was your student but super happy and proud of you man so but yeah that's that's where he's at now man so we'll just kind of get it started dude uh yeah first question I have for you man why aviation what led you it was one of those things I started out look up at the sky yeah every time we're pilots every time plane flies over you look up and say oh my gosh I wish I was there walking through the airport you know you see the gates of like this plane is going to this location or all these people just came from you know wherever all over the world and I always thought that's the coolest thing thinking airports are kind of the place that everybody collides into one from all over the world so that I always wanted to be a part of it but I never knew how to I kind of just thought one day I decided I wanted to be a pilot and I applied to Delta and they say except my application essentially I didn't realize there's a very long process to it so I was talking to one of my friends who he was a Marine Corps pilot and he took me flying in 172 he said we're going flying I thought we're going like a jet or something and I pull up to the airport and this little thing was at 172 so we went flying and you know I probably barely did anything but he made me believe I was doing everything like a takeoff the landing and actually flying I just fell in love with it so he put me on with his instructor and the rest is history I just started training with him going through my ratings but yeah it's just one of the things that I feel very lucky knowing from when I was very young exactly what I had to do I didn't have any questions or anything I feel like there's still so many people who don't know what they want to do but knowing from a young age exactly what you want to do and chasing it is special absolutely it's funny how you mentioned like you know you thought that you're going to show up and see a jet I think a lot of people I get questions all the time like people hear the term private pilot so yeah when you you know when you don't really know anything about aviation you don't know yeah very small people don't realize how small the aviation industry like is but it's kind of big at the same time yeah point being I get questions all the time people like oh you're a private pilot and they see like what I'm flying around yeah okay that's not what I imagine at all so even commercial pilot too you think commercial oh they're flying for an airline but commercial is just for hire there's you can fly a single-engine Cessna for hire exactly so it's funny see that's why we got guys like him where they are man they're here to educate us on all that stuff man so that's what's up dude um oh I was gonna ask you so no one in your family is a pilot nobody in my family is after I started one of my cousins has since become a Navy fighter pilot but he started kind of after so nobody in my family inspired me to be a pilot or anything so first one okay it's always good to kick it off man be the first one yeah what's up get the train going okay uh so yeah man so tell me a little bit about your you mentioned like you kind of just went from there after you went with your buddy you know you went up in the 172 you just kind of went right ready where were you actually do your training so I served at a little mom-and-pop shop up in Stafford Virginia went occasionally maybe once every two months which as you know doesn't really do much by the time you come back to your next lesson you're repeating absolutely everything so I did that for a couple months I finally I sold it up there then after solo I kind of just stopped then went to college never flew in college after college I graduated and went down to school in Chesapeake and I actually buckled down got through my private after my private I went to ATP in Richmond for instrument commercial CFI and CFII got the rest of my ratings and then started teaching and then later on got my commercial multi but so your first CFI job was that here okay yeah got you all right and then y'all were affected by COVID right we were yeah I think when I think when you and I first started flying together we were like kind of post like the height of where like when COVID was really like at its height yeah it's kind of weird I think we had to like mask up for a few times like but yeah man like it's a it's kind of crazy how like you know things kind of come full circle like that but I started in October of 19 so I had maybe three or four months of normal flying and then almost immediately we went straight into having the masks and they restrictions and being closed for a couple months and yeah it's just crazy Wow man so what was your experience there like when you were if I get starting at it like at the you know place open staff yeah so that was interesting they were very good 61 part 61 yep cool and the instructor I had was a career instructor he'd been instructed for like 30 years no intentions of the airlines no intention of leaving he's actually still there and this was 12 years ago maybe I guess I mean that makes sense but I guess I just made you so young I don't think of it that way it was 2012 when I started flying so almost 12 years okay he um he's still there and he was phenomenal and I was definitely the problem with my schedule it was one of the things where my parents said if I get good grades I can fly so I would get great grades for a month and they would let me fly and then I'd be like cool I'm flying I don't need to get good grades anymore and they're like okay well now you're starting to slip with your grades you can't fly anymore that's why I had to wait till after college when my grades didn't matter and there's no such thing as waiting for good grades so that was a 61 program yep and then it's actually let's talk about that yes there's a lot of people that reach out to me often just trying to get information or gather like if they're interested in their flight training so that was obviously 61 I know ATP that's 141 HP 61 oh okay can you break down the difference for anybody that's curious about like a dip even if yeah over you 61 versus 14 the main difference is the structure the structure 141 has a full course outline which 61 does to however it's a lot more maneuverable than 141 there's like some other differences but that's pretty much the main one 141 is a lot more and the our requirements are a little bit different as well because it's more structured you don't have to have it's only 35 hours you have to have instead of 40 right honestly they're not too too different you learn all the exact same things the absolute minimum our requirements nobody ever reaches it's extremely normal to go 10 20 30 hours over the minimums it's a but again I don't think I ever had a student within like 10 hours of exactly and I'm at a very very very good pass rate and nobody can really do it and I felt my first private pilot check right guys hey it happened man but you know it taught me a lot and you know I think for me I don't mean to cut you off no but I'm just thinking about it now like you know at that in that moment that was one of the lowest moments of my life man like I'll never forget that day got me on the short field landing and I just remember being over at Hampton Roads or a PVG yep and flying back now I didn't want to fly back but I did it anyway I was like you know I'll man up like I'll take my medicine and you know I took that day or day probably the next day too to just be like pissed about it yeah but then after that I just was like man back to business like I've invested all this time obviously money and effort man at that point in time so I was like I kind of let it be known like nothing is going to stop me yeah I'm gonna do this like if it kills me yeah so man we just got back to it dude like we got back to the grind I think we like literally went out here to the air for one day beat up the pattern for like probably an hour or so man literally just over and over and over again man so like I just really dollied in so yeah I'm just kind of reflecting on that right now maybe think about it but um and I have three failures as well I failed my instrument once and my CFI twice and I mean CFI is very hard that's not too once you get like later in your career they don't carry too much about CFI but I was so scared going into my interviews thinking oh they're gonna see my failures and they're gonna be so hard on me about them but you just go into the interview they say oh what happened on it tell them what happened tell them what you learned they're like cool and that's literally it they don't care about failures as long as you say you know I messed up I learned X from it right I mean exactly don't blame the DP exactly blame your instructor like I did it was all his fault he never taught me that yeah nah nah we don't get down like that man but nah that's that's that's big of you to say that man that's good to for people to know because I mean again obviously we're talking to the first officer currently at a regional airline who has as he described multiple you know check run failures and so that proves right there man that don't believe everything you hear what you read on the internet as far as you so you know your check right whether it's private instrument commercial so on that your career is over is simply not true man I know they want to make sure that you can learn they don't want you to say I did everything perfect my DP doesn't like me or something like that they want you to be able to say I completely messed up I thought I was doing one thing or I just didn't pay attention but I learned this from it went back past it was fine because it boils down to trust and accountability exactly when you're where you are now you've got X amount of people yeah sitting behind you like literally trust me with their lives they don't want someone to make excuses exactly someone that can make sound decisions and take accountability yeah actions man so and even where I'm at we still mess up all the time but hey there's two of us to correct each other but also it's the errors are just way smaller and I mean you're not doing steep turns or stalls or anything but it's a it's just a little bit different yeah for sure man that's what's up dude so um kind of on that topic of your ratings I wanted to ask which one was your would you say was your toughest to get? CFI. CFI? Double I? yeah oh my gosh double I was very very easy it might have been because I had the same DP for my instrument and for my CFI and for my double I so he knew I knew instrument he knew I knew how to be a CFI so it's very... Chico. yeah yeah but CFI is that first initial check right where it's like you pretty much have to know everything and if you don't know it you have to know exactly where to find it there's no such thing as making it up because the law of primacy which you learn up about is the very first thing you do or a student hears is what they're going to go off of even if it's not true that's what they're gonna believe because that's the first thing they heard so you have to be right the first time yeah if you don't know you have to be able to find exactly where to go to find to get the right answer but man CFI and you're in the opposite seat you've done 250 hours or so in the left seat now you're in the right seat it's a whole different sight picture it's I mean the biggest thing is you're so used to doing it this way right that now you're over in this seat and you still want to use your left hand and then nothing is over here you just have the window so now you're oh shoot I need to use my right hand and then where everything that you know exactly where it is when you're in the left seat you now have to go back and look for it you know you can probably be in the left seat reach for the flaps not even think about it now you're like I have to think and look where the flaps are I have to look at which light is you know which switch you got pretty good at that because you love pulling my engine when I'm in the right seat and you get very good at tricking students to to look at somewhere else and pull their engine and see me I started getting kind of like hip to it right like he tried that like later on in training and I'm like oh I didn't see a helicopter like I don't know so he's like okay I'll start getting smart yeah exactly I see what he's doing yeah man so so for pilots that are time building would you recommend the CFI route or other low time pilot jobs like you know where they got skydive pilots yeah aerial survey CFI is definitely the fastest the most common not exactly for the faint of heart it's a very long days it's tough it's very frustrating a lot of times almost painless too yeah it's I mean your expectation is to get the student their rating right a lot of times the student isn't even the one that wants to get the rating it might be their parent who's a pilot or their parent really wants them to be a pilot or just a million other reasons they aren't interested they come they don't they just have a long day at work they don't want to fly but you're trying to motivate them and that's the last thing that they last place they want to be so that's scary for you as an instructor yeah I know for me you know I think we did a lot of our training especially at the beginning yeah I think so the first flight we ever did that was day I remember that real quick I just thought about this very first flight miss I know you mentioned like with your you're with your instructor everything was like I don't know if it was your instructor or your buddy that was going to repilot when he took you up yeah he's my friend but uh you know when you said that maybe he made you think you were doing everything yeah you know I'm with Dave like no kidding I'll never forget that you always remember your first instructor yeah all your lessons I'll remember this man for the rest of my life we get in the plane you know we go through we do the pre-flight go through that whole process and we start taxiing out to the to the taxi to the runway which was atrocious by the way because I'm over here. Do you remember that? I've got the yoke I'm trying to try to turn left. It's not a car so it's not going to work that way. Again, first time I'm ever like flying a plane I have no idea what I'm doing so but anyway like I'm attempting to taxi out the best that I can right and like so we're going on the taxiway and he's just kind of talking to me about different things he goes all right man so um yeah you're taking off today I'm like what he's like yeah you're gonna do the takeoff I'm like I don't know what I'm doing right you're gonna be fine like I promise like I'm obviously he's you know kind of shadowing me on the controls but now I'll never forget that feeling of getting that takeoff clearance we're right on runway two zero we're in three off a ball never forget it and man he's like all right apply full power once you get to 55 knots yeah go ahead and rotate man and pulled back on the yoke and started climbing out and I'll never forget dude we got to like treetop level and I just remember thinking myself like I cannot believe I'm doing that you know like your brain is just going like a million miles an hour sensory overload I got ATC in my ear so but I just remember like being at tree level and just like looking down like this is insane yeah and we get out to the practice area we did uh I think we did like some like turns to headings and just basic yeah right climbs and I don't know if it was just him trying to make me feel good but he's like hey you sure you've never flown before I'm like nah bro this is it like the only other exposure I had at that point or experience with GA I had a buddy of mine back when I was living I was just Kansas City Missouri and his flying club he was a part of they had a Piper Archer okay I don't remember the year but yeah it was a Piper Archer and man that's really what did it for me and that was probably only about maybe three or four months before I met you oh really okay yeah so that kind of solidified I'd already kind of been studying the ground school for the pilot and all that I let it be known to him I think his dad was a pilot for FedEx if I'm not mistaken yeah what's up shout out shout out the sub Andrew but yeah man dad flew for FedEx they had a flying club the Piper Archer dude and I was hooked like yeah man I kind of just knew yeah but I was in a transition from PCS and from my base out there in Missouri to here so I didn't actually start flying so I got here with you that day man February 6 2021 never forget it man so yeah life my life changed I did that with all the students cuz a you walk away from your first flight saying I just you know took off for the first time right and I'm granted I have every control my side that you have on your side so right and some students I'm really doing it but I just make them believe but honestly if you know you just tell them the right thing don't put it right where it needs to be and you can just go hands-off and I mean you might have to help a little bit but it's honestly not too much and they uh again it's one of those things where now you for the rest you're like you say you remember it because it's so memorable it's just like a cool experience your very first flight you took off and I wasn't there so I didn't land he tried to get me was like hey man you feel comfortable landed and that's one regret I think I'll have for yeah it's not even attempting the landing on I just it was a lot and I was just like now I think you got it so crazy enough the very next flight we did flight lesson to kind of going back to what we said a minute ago I did a lot of my training at night just because of my work schedule but my first landing was actually a night landing yeah I'll never forget I think I came around to the runway seven because yeah we flew right over the top of target oh yeah yeah I'll never forget that man but uh first time I ever landed in the airplane I did night which is crazy that was my landing on the first one pretty good I mean oh my gosh I don't know if that's how it's supposed to go but I didn't mean to do that but nah nah he killed it man he buttered it in there so next question I have for you man so aside from flying with me of course yeah what would you say was your best or favorite part of a flight instructor oh definitely the milestones for yourself or for students okay when a student would solo I mean granted as an instructor your heart is in or your stomach is in your throat every time it depends how much you trust the student okay I mean granted I would never send a student that I wasn't 100% sure about right but some students you're just like like legally they are naked yeah 100% I trust that they'll do it they'll get it on the ground fine but it's just like the nerves for because I mean I look back I really all of my career to all my students yeah so I remember my first solo how terrifying it was and I remember my family came out for my first solo I remember meeting your family when they came out for yours and just like the emotions I guess of that day looking out as I was taxing out to my family on the ramp and just like how excited I was but nervous and then I think like how I will literally never forget that day so I think about you know that and how exciting that is and how pumped I get when like they have a good landing when maybe they struggle steep turns for a while and they've just finally it clicks and they nail them like how excited like I get then or check rise especially I get as nervous for a student's check ride as I get for my check ride like I get so nervous for him really invested yeah it's and it's one of the things that I don't think I would have thought that before I became an instructor but then once I did become an instructor I realized like this is I don't think it sounds weird but I put all of my like effort into you passing as if it was my own check ride right cuz I pour all my knowledge I guess into you so it's like a reflection of how good I did but you know a lot of it is on students too man like they of course there's a bunch of dumb little mistakes that they can make but at the end of the day I get so amped when they walk in or when a student would be in the plane with the examiner and I would see them shake hands and I know that that means he just passed or the student just is smiling when they get out of the plane I get so pumped so that's definitely like the best feeling is but again the day to day of instructing is tough it's very draining and frustrating and it's just long but it all is worth it for seeing them finally succeed at something or finally passing that check ride or especially the private pilot check ride because that's like they're the other term is like yeah now you're in a rated pilot now you're a commercial pilot which is super cool but you go from not being a pilot to now becoming a pilot with your private and that's like the coolest thing is like he's finally met his goal of becoming a pilot and that's true because I can I can definitely attest to that because I tell people this all the time I is happy and as elated as I was to finally get that instrument rating huge weight on my shoulders the feeling that I had when I got that private pilot certificate like that can't I don't know if that can be do this I really don't like and which is crazy because the instrument rating is much tougher but if y'all were hearing that like I said in the beginning we're at the airport right now so we're here in one of the flight planning rooms right here at dispatch so if y'all are hearing the radio you know we've got planes actively flying taxi and all that stuff so we're just a real raw and authentic it's like we're not in a you know studio or nothing like that now we're right here at the airport man right on the field so we're getting it in but yeah man it's it's for real it's getting that private pilot I said going from knowing nothing trying to taxi using the yoke as a steering wheel kidding like actually becoming a private pilot man is huge so yeah you're never forget your instructor like we said but uh yeah man so so it sounds like you definitely would recommend the going to CFI route overall yeah it's definitely the to get to unless you are interested in doing one of the other routes yeah it's definitely the fastest and probably easiest way easiest in the sense of getting to the airline right but not like mentally draining it's yeah it's a lot harder I'd say got you um so all right so let's just kind of keep it moving man so I gotta say I'm sorry hold on I'm mixed up here got a couple of notes so um all right I gotta throw this out there bro so I guess it's positive range aviation so like I said you know our mission is to lead others yep you know to climate greatness through the lens of aviation right so with that we want people to be the best version of themselves so you know like we talked about before the pod maybe look like you you've been lefty a little bit a little bit of iron man my boy trying to stun on me that's all good um but you know what I wanted to ask you though man with that being said like how hard is it like if you got to talk about if at all to stay on routine it's a like when you're on the road yeah like as an airline pilot what is that like how difficult is that to make healthy choices do you meal prep you know when you're on the road kind of talking about that so yeah on the road it's kind of tough our typical trips are four days three night so maybe like once I'll try and go to the gym when I'm out but it's honestly it's very very easy to get into the routine of get to the hotel grub hub you know maybe take a walk around whatever city I'm in and then go back to the hotel and yeah exactly it kind of depends the city there's some cities that are phenomenal you have your little spot in each city that you want to go to but some cities man you just want to I don't want to go outside it's like 20 degrees outside and absolutely not yeah you can a lot of people do meal prep but it's just kind of that extra thing it's an extra bag to bring it's just not yeah especially we get per diem for per day so I just use that for food yeah yeah I try to go to gym every single day that I'm not working yeah so that I make up for the my rest days of the days I'm off essentially I got you yeah cuz I mean yeah I can't only imagine how draining it must be I mean because going through the training that with like the instrument stuff from what I understand y'all pretty much file and fly instruments everywhere right yeah every flight so I mean that's all right back I had some technical difficulties man I'm I'm stupid and then a rush trying to get over the day and being unprofessional man I completely forgot to bring a spare battery so I apologize for that definitely not in the business of wasting wasting anybody's time so but we left off man we're just talking about um you know habits and trying to maintain those healthy habits you know even while on the road and basically how you you were letting me know that you know you kind of take your rest days as your day is out on the road right yep so kind of moving along man just to keep this going so yeah so it's pretty weird going from seeing you every day you know flying with you right so you're just kind of being gone you know dude basically abandoned me man I felt abandoned so but no seriously so kind of walk me through man what was that process like when you left here so I know we flew together like last October and then after that I was kind of you know on my own like a baby bird to fly on my own so what was that like yeah so we uh I left two and a half weeks before training two weeks before training you have to go out to Dallas do an ATP course to get your airline transfer professional get that requirement done so you go out there it's just a week-long course you just look at accidents essentially and then you get time in just random jets in the sims so you do that come back you have a week off then you actually start airline training which you have about a month and a week or so of ground tool two weeks are actually in the classroom the other time you're in a almost like a computer screen sim where there's no yoke you can't you fly it but it's just the cockpit just computer screens to like push buttons so you do that where you just learn your flows learn kind of where everything is then you once you pass that then we went to Charlotte in our case or to actual sims which are just super super fancy it's what are the exact cockpit they're like 18 20 20 million dollars well they're very expensive but that to say they're exactly the real thing everything feels exactly the same everything is exactly where it should be it's as realistic as you can get even as you're taxiing you feel the bumps in the runway and the taxiway that's how accurate it is so climbs descents like rolls like you feel all the motion yep almost may turn on all the turbulence turn on everything so you feel it feels exactly the same so you do that and you have three different check rides through that the first one is an oral just like in all your other readings right then you have that envy which is the degree validation where you do steep turns you do souls you do single engine go around single engine I left the one cut just all the different scenarios you might run into and then your last one is your LOE which is line operating experience and that one is a normal flight from point A to point B where you have a minor failure flat flap sail maybe just a random message will pop up that essentially you have to break out the book read about it you might have to run a math equation or something but for the most part that's a pretty easy flight like we do every other flight right so that whole process is to me about two two and a half months okay and that was going from it was that Dallas or Charlotte I'm sorry from the start in Dallas to finishing in finishing okay gotcha so two and a half months before I actually touched the real jet got into the actual aircraft okay Wow yeah man I tried to kind of piece that all together and obviously you know we still maintain contact as much as we could you were busy you know I know you had a lot going on but you know whenever you would have the time I know you tried to kind of break it down to me and but you know you don't know what you don't know man why like you know you taking the time today so like you know good because you know you kind of bring me up to speed on what I can kind of expect as well as anybody else so a couple friends who went in before me so I talked to them got kind of download what was going to happen and the people who went in after I kind of gave them some materials gave them some tips and like what's gonna happen what they expect so once you all know theory then yeah absolutely good to know people ahead of you for sure like relationships and again you couldn't speak to this obviously way more than me man but relationships in aviation like it really is man like you you know you could be the best stick and rudder like guy in the world I've come across people even in my short time here I had the flight school where I'm like man God's a decent you know decent pilot yeah I can't imagine being like stuck in the cockpit with this guy for hours on end days at a time and so more of a story be a good dude right so cool man um well let's see here man again not to take too much of your time but uh so that was kind of the process of getting kind of certified to where you are today doing what you're doing as a first officer so real quick man what's next so what's kind of on the horizon in the near future for you and your career about 350 hours now not sure or go on to another airline okay mainline more than likely mainline in the next probably next summer okay I'll make this switch can you maintain your base depends okay probably with who I'll go to you probably not okay but see that's kind of the benefit of where I live now I can commute very easily right so it's kind of like a I've decided to go to the captain route so is that kind of where they talk about that quality of life yeah you know money kind of balance right yeah the quality of life is everything you don't want to commute where you have to find the day before and then you can't fly out to the day after your trip because if you have three or four days off now that eats up one day on each side right you only get one or two days home before you're back out again you know if it's a four day trip you're on each side you're gone for six days right so quality of life living in base is huge at least having a nice commute yeah is very very big yeah yeah okay so looking to go the mainline route by next summer yeah okay yeah hopefully I can hop on one of those flights so to get to kind of sum all this up man we'll kind of get ready to wrap this up so we've got a little Q&A yeah we're going to go through here and I like to call this the clear for the option if you will play on words for those of you out there who currently fly kind of have an idea what we're talking about but we're just going to kind of do kind of some quick comparing contrast man so just kind of spit off to me like you know your answer that comes to mind the fastest if you want to elaborate on it kind of give a brief reasoning as to why totally up to you but just kind of something fun that we'll do to kind of wrap this up but uh all right man so you're clear for the option so part 61 or 141 141 141 better structure better I think this just will help students more okay 135 or 121 I figured you to say that but yeah I figured I'd throw that out there now VFR IFR VFR is more fun and you can do more but IFR I guess that's what I do every day so the money's made you get to fly in the clouds yeah sir thank you Cessna or Piper oh all we flew here is Cessna but Piper. Piper? Did you start off flying Pipers? I fell first in a Piper and then everything at ATP all my training was in a Piper and then I switched to Cessna when I came here gotcha okay I was like more Cessna time but I like low wings okay I've actually never with the exception that first flight I talked about earlier and my buddy in the Archer I don't have any low wings on like I kind of want to change that. Who wants to go? CRJ or ERJ? CRJ all the way. okay CRJ so it's actually funny the 175s have auto throttles and I've talked to a couple ERJ people and they all say like CRJ pilots like actually are the ones doing everything they just push a few buttons and it essentially does itself. CRJ is a lot more hands-on yeah and it which is a better transition to I mean Airbus kind of doesn't seem to you right but Boeing's and stuff it's a lot easier transition then just be a body in the seat pushing a few buttons we're actually hand flying a lot more yeah makes it more fun okay don't know this one applies or not Sun and Fun or Oshkosh? Never been to either but Oshkosh because it's bigger. Okay we gotta go. I would love to fly in. I got a couple of buddies I talked to this past year after Osh and they're like man we gotta go so let me know man we need to make that happen. Yeah I'm with it bro. What's your favorite flight you've ever flown? It could be where you are now you're at your airline or you know could have been with me on to a grass strip somewhere. I don't know what my favorite flight was. I got to actually on Father's Day this past year I flew from DC and had an overnight in Norfolk which my parents live in DC I live in Norfolk with the rest of my family so my parents met me at the airport in DC and I got to fly them in the jet for the first time to the town of Norfolk and we had Father's Day dinner at my house yeah so that was a super special time. Kind of brought everything full circle man going back to them like telling you if your grades weren't right you know what I mean like and now to have them like have their son that's something that's special man yeah thank you. Glad the grass trip was with you. Thank you thank you man come on now best overnight city so far in your in your short young career? Honestly Des Moines is pretty cool. Iowa huh? Yeah there's a nice little downtown bar with like 50 beers on tap. It's a pretty cool city. We'll keep going. Charles Smalls Virginia some of the places you wouldn't really expect are sometimes kind of the best even like the Savannah or Pensacola which is like cool airports but I mean you kind of expect them to be cool so maybe it's the fact that I don't expect much out of it yeah and you find that hidden gem. You know what I talked about earlier in like the cities you have like a favorite place to go to. Those are probably some of the best that you have your place and you just look forward to going there. Yeah yeah absolutely man. Cool man so last but certainly not least will be your biggest piece of advice for anyone that's watching or now listening because forgive me but oh yeah battery died sorry guys this is my first one charge it but uh yeah what would be the biggest piece of advice for anyone currently listening to this that's interested in pursuing a career in aviation? Biggest piece of advice? A to B just go for it. There's a lot of people who will wait or think they're too old or think I mean a career change is big and scary but it's really just a return on your investment but you're never too old the I mean from start to finish with training to get to an airline if you can do it fast would be four or five years maybe even three if you really try if you're 55 you still have a good seven eight years until your fourth retirement so you can go fly a jet aircraft for a couple years but advice would be everybody hates the studying yeah get the ground done get the boring stuff out of the way so then you can go have fun and fly because everybody will be great at the flying part everybody will get out to the plane and love doing that and go home and not study until they come back to the plane the next time and then we really can't move forward too much without you will save yourself a lot of time a lot of money by studying and getting the books and staying ahead otherwise you're just backtracking absolutely yeah man I mean if you don't yeah you're not studying if you don't have your ground knocked out I mean you'll never see the plane anyway in terms of like check rides right yeah you don't make it out of the ground like you go through your oral exam you'll never see the airplane anyway so it doesn't matter so I tell guys that all the time and that's so true I mean the second you get into the plane and you already know what you're gonna do on that flight you already know everything to look at because you've already spent it on the ground right now you're not having to teach them play there's another guy that says the airplane is a terrible classroom because you're going 100 knots you're you know have a thousand things you're supposed to be looking at while it's loud and you're trying to you know maintain your heading and maintain your altitude and now you're trying to learn in your concepts like if you already know all that now you can just go out and practice and then perform it instead of learn it in the plane so it also goes down to your instructor making sure you're ready and you learn that beforehand which I try to do it you did your best but definitely just knock it out go for it but study and don't just show up unprepared yeah absolutely man well shoot man I think that pretty much does it for today man I definitely appreciate you taking the time again I apologize for the the you know wasting of the time a little bit here just feel working the kinks out man I just appreciate the grace that you shown man and definitely look forward to to getting this out dude so hey definitely appreciate you coming through and yeah yeah it was a good time man it was kind of a first for the both of us you know me kind of doing this and I asked him if he'd have he's done a podcast before and he said no so it's kind of cool to be able to share this which was kind of the intent right yeah I said that I wanted my first one to be you man I wouldn't have wouldn't have felt right otherwise so yeah man maybe when you come back next summer maybe by that point you'll be a be captain you know the or not a captain maybe you'll be at least at mainline yeah so cool man well yeah definitely I appreciate it and look forward to this coming out man absolutely yep thanks dude