Good evening YouTube, welcome to episode 2 of the Midlife Pilot Podcast, a live stream recording. My name is Chris Moran, known as the Midlife Pilot on my YouTube channel and I'm glad you're here tonight for this next episode, sorry for not having our fancy intro tonight.
We have the untimer technical difficulties, things are off to a roaring start but certainly glad you could join us tonight for episode 2 where tonight we're going to talk about some of the challenges that have to do with learning to fly later in life as opposed to maybe learning to fly in school or right out of school and some of the things that go along with that.
So a couple of quick things I want to point out, actually before we even point anything out, let's bring in some other folks so I don't have to do this all by myself. And let's start with of course, co-host and producer of the Midlife Pilot Podcast, one Brian Siskind from the greater Nashville region. What's up Brian? What's going on? No worries on the technical difficulties as long as we have them here on the ground. Exactly, better, better here than in the air for sure.
So tonight's going to be exciting. We're going to get into things here in just a few minutes, we're bringing a special guest, someone that you've seen on the channel, one of the folks who have been a part of my learning experience, Kevin Webb, CFWI is going to join us to talk about this from a CFI's perspective. Certainly he's got a lot of familiarity with students of all ages so we'll get into that with him coming up here in just a few minutes. But first let's talk briefly about the podcast.
So if you were with us last week it was the inaugural episode, it's now available as an audio podcast which is kind of the intention all along of the whole thing. It's out there just about everywhere that you would get a podcast, it's on Apple podcasts, it's on Google, Spotify, anchor, pretty much everywhere that you can get your podcast. So if you're interested in doing that knowing you won't be able to watch every one of these live probably.
Do go out and subscribe to them wherever you get your podcast so that you can follow along. If you're going to do that, we'd appreciate taking a minute to give us a rating and maybe a comment or two if you're on various platforms. Just let us know what you think and we would appreciate that. Make sure you comment also, that's the other part of this show is pretty heavy driven from interacting with users and the comments from our viewers that we're getting throughout the live stream. Right?
So it doesn't matter what platform you're seeing it on but you're probably on YouTube, feel free to throw some words at us, some thoughts, questions, hopes, dreams, maybe not so many desires but everything else. Yeah. What's been going on? You've been flying any? Yeah, I have. I actually had probably one of the coolest flights I've had. Actually, no, it was the coolest flight I've had, especially since I got my license but last weekend we went a bit of a cross country.
It was only about 60 miles east of here but we went to Jackson County Airport which is out east over center Hill Lake and just north of there. This little airport is unbelievable. It was the coolest approach I've ever been able to do. It's right about 4,000 feet but it's right exactly on the river banks.
You're just coming in around these hills and it's really neat approach and it was me really getting a taste for the first time of sort of like what I really wanted to do in the beginning which is to explore new places and just go to all these random spots that I've never had the ability to get to before in this way. So anyway, we had a great flight and everything went totally smooth.
The only thing that was weird that happened was I was going to land at Smithville Airport which is right there at center Hill Lake first so that I could put on my cameras and record this amazing approach into this other airport and I was getting, we got into Smithville and it was one of those things where there was about 100 airports on the same CTAP and it was just a bunch of like, it was so crazy that I was like, you know, we don't even need to bother with this.
I couldn't make out one transmission that was about the airport I was trying to go to and it's like a weird awkward new pilot kind of thing but you know, I probably could have just kind of bolded my way in there and looked around, you know, but it was like I didn't need to be there so like, why am I going to put myself through that? So I didn't get any video footage of it so that's awesome and that was the best flight I've had yet. So that's what I've been doing, yeah. Cool, very cool.
I hadn't flown for a month, almost a month since the Araniversary trip and later in September, sneak peak, hold on, I love the video about it. I'm going to break awkward promotion break, new video coming out Sunday, part two of the anniversary trip will be our return trip to Fairmont, which includes some pretty exciting trips through clouds and stuff getting back into Fairmont. It was pretty exciting. So there's some of that coming up and I'm looking forward to sharing out with everybody.
That will be available. It's available for patrons right now, but it will become available publicly coming up on Sunday. Anyway, I hadn't flown since that weekend and got a chance to go out the other night. It's been kind of cruddy here for VFR pilots with cloud cover and stuff lately. But I got to go out with Cecilia the other night. We did video that flight. We took about an hour, kind of sunset-y, reasonably decent ceilings, but like it was nice. Some fall fall.
Just pretty time here in West Virginia. So we just kind of made a quick loop around. We did a couple of anti-clockwise burger and then came back to Fairmont. Yeah. So that's the first time I've flown in like a month, but it was good to get back. Nice. We'll talk to Kevin when he's in a little bit to a new series coming soon to the road to instruments series. We'll be starting. We're going to start Kevin, put a syllabus together for me.
We're going to start the instrument training here coming up pretty shortly. It's kind of like you, do you feel like you kind of missed the pain of learning just for the way that you went about your private pilot? It's hard for you. Oh, yeah. And so now do you feel like now that you're out of that, that part of this? And of course you want to have an instrument rating and have what's available to you and be a better pilot and all that and continue the learning.
But at the same time, I feel like there's a part of us that just, I've already started to feel this a little bit where I'm like, where's the, like now I just can get in a plane and fly around and like, okay, like this is great. I mean, it's amazing. It's a life dream. But where's the pain that goes along with it? Yeah. I remember like, you remember the studying, like leading up to the check ride and in the written test, even like it was nonstop effectively.
I had audio books in the car every second that I was in the car. And now I'm looking back and I'm already thinking like, I get to go back and look up. So, you know, I knew all these figures by heart. I could have recited everything by heart. And now like, I'm planning a cross country that flies over a, like a wildlife area. And I'm like, what? What is the outside? I don't even, I got to look it up because I don't remember, you know, I don't remember what altitude it is. Like that stuff.
But I've already started, I've started to pull some material for, like, ground school stuff for the instrument. And I'm thinking, I remember how this was not super fun, like the studying part. So like, I'm excited to do the flying part, I think, you know, really kind of getting in the plane and doing that stuff. It's like anything else. Who's excited for the book work, but it's part of it.
So, no, I'm looking forward to getting back into some of that again to like, yeah, looking forward to get back into kind of the learning again instead of just, you know, I don't know, some more missions to the flights, I guess, or some, you know, some things to come out of it. So I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Well, that's awesome. And I think that, um, that kind of leads into our topic a little bit too, which, uh, for those who aren't counting.
What we really wanted to talk about tonight is kind of specifically the challenges of being a person that's not a spring chicken and taking this on for reasons that are not to go to ATP or some other professional application. It's just you doing it because the challenge or because you love it or because you, you know, maybe a thought about doing it your whole life and just never got around to it. And I think there's a lot of people in this boat.
Um, and I think there's a special set of kind of, uh, uh, uh, sort of pleasures and pains that go along with that. It's very gratifying in a particular way. Uh, but it's also particularly more difficult, maybe in some ways. And so I wanted to kind of, uh, make sure that we, we covered a lot of that and want to hear what everybody else has to say about their, their sort of experiences, uh, compared to, you know, perhaps when they were a little younger, I know they're like, for me, having
a, a fully formed frontal lobe and having a brain that can, uh, process, um, danger and consequences, um, you know, being a little bit more cognizant of things and having maybe a little bit more to lose, uh, then maybe I did when I was 21.
That's maybe as a good starting place as it's, uh, it's really just about where you are in life and how you think and you want to value this thing and you, you know, this pursuit, uh, but at the same time, um, you know, maybe you're not in as much of a rush or, you know, whatever. Uh, but, you know, for me, it was a lot of, a lot of things.
I'm really interested to hear what people have to say and, and, and one here, your point of view, Chris, but for, for me, specifically, it was something that I, I, I think that I focused on it and learned more and was more disciplined about it now than I would have been when I was younger, uh, just like anything else. I think there's some of that. I mean, I think that, um, yeah, I think there's some of that for sure. It's things change a lot. I was not a great student of anything.
I mean, I, I did well in high school, you know, I had a scholarship. I went to college. I didn't finish college, uh, you know, I was in college for three semesters. I did not, I did not have the discipline to do well on my own in an environment like college. I didn't care enough. Um, I didn't, um, I don't know. It was, I would not have done well at 20.
Now some, I know there are plenty of people because I know a lot of them who, who did take it very seriously at that age and who did do very well with it, but it would have been terrible for me.
I think there's a cost aspect of it too, you know, I mean, some of it is you, you know, it's kind of like, say it's, um, when it's your own, you know, you realize every, what every minute, you know, some points during my training, I was counting like, you know, much every minute of time that I'm in the plane with instructor and the engines rang, like how much this costs every minute? Like, I didn't want to, I didn't want to waste that. I didn't want to take it for granted.
I didn't want to, um, spend any more than I needed to, obviously, uh, but it's different when it's your, when it's coming out of your pocket and you're earning the money to pay for it. And it's so, yeah, I definitely think there's some of that. And I think we'll get a lot of great insight from, uh, from Kevin and some others on that. So, um, I think we should bring Kevin and what do you say? Let's do it.
Kevin, what many of you have, uh, seen him talk to him, uh, not talk to him, maybe commented on some of our videos that he's flown with us. Uh, I'll let you talk about Kevin. Thanks for doing this. A short notice. I texted Kevin like 20 minutes before I'm like, Hey, do you want to come talk about this from a CFI perspective, but, uh, tell us about you briefly. I mean, most of the people know you have, I've set you up pretty well like instructor fair month state. How long you've been doing that?
You know, when you get your certificate, uh, how many hours you have, how much you find every week you're teaching a ton, just a little bit about your, uh, about your story. Likes dislikes. Yeah. Awesome. Uh, glad to be here, guys. So thanks for having me on. So yeah, I, uh, like Chris said, I'm a full time CFI, a double eye at the Fairmont State University. It's a part one 41 flight school located here in Fairmont, West Virginia.
Uh, so I started that program the summer of 2018 after a year at WVU in Airspace Engineering. So then I picked up a flight training after I decided, you know, and the engineering wasn't exactly there out. I wanted to go. So I started my private summer of 2018, um, went through all of my ratings, uh, rather quickly, um, as 141 schools tend to, um, do push their students through. Uh, so I ended up, uh, getting my CFI and double eye, um, four days apart actually in January of, um, 2020.
So I've been instructing for almost, um, two years now. Uh, so I have, uh, 100 hours now, uh, on my way to ATP. Hopefully you're looking at an airline here in the near future. Um, awesome. Yeah. And then ever since the, uh, oh, this is spent. So I want to know what's coming next. I know. Ever since the what? No. I feel like he's got really good things to say. We just can't hear them.
This is a pretty good to reenactment of what it's like to have a conversation with the CFI though when you're a student. Hmm. It is. He doesn't know we can't hear him. Oh man. That's unfortunate. That's unfortunate.
Well, you know, one of the things that my CFI said about, uh, having saved someone my age as a student, uh, versus maybe some other younger students is, you know, he said that he's had plenty of experiences where the students that he had, you could tell that, you know, the parents were sort of motivating or pushing the child to kind of go do this thing or the maybe even bankrolling it.
People that are just kind of there because they just, it's a, it's a cursory requirement or exploration for them on some levels opposed to something that just madly possessed, you know, to accomplish or do. So he really liked having, he really likes having people like me come through that are just, you know, really motivated, you know, and really purposeful about the whole thing. You know, he said I was the most prepared, you know, um, student that he ever had.
Um, and it was just, and that's, that goes back to that, that whole thing of like, uh, I'm not messing around, this does cost a lot of money per minute and, uh, you know, I might not pick this up at the same rate in some ways as perhaps somebody that's a little younger, but I'm going to work, I'm going to make it for that with a, with a work ethic that is not going to be, uh, compromised by anything. That's right.
So Kevin, in your training time, so you, you obviously teach at the university and so you're seeing students, college students all day long, uh, and training. So what about the, I mean, what are you like, okay, big picture, like top down overview of like some of the key differences between teaching like students there. And then in the last year, so you've had a lot of chances to fly with some older folks, like folks in the club, uh, the flying club that you've been training.
What, do you have some thoughts on just like overview, like what are some of the big, you know, there are differences that you've noticed between those? Oh, yeah, you know, for sure. And, um, it's like some of the things you guys brought up earlier, you know, one of the big things is, um, a little bit of the dedication factor, you know, sometimes where students kind of get swamps with, you know, the workload of a 141 curriculum and working on a college degree program.
Um, you have to be a very dedicated, um, individual in order to succeed in that kind of an environment. So the ones that do, uh, dedicate themselves and put themselves 100% into the aviation, uh, tend to succeed, um, but there are just as many, um, and I think that has to do with, uh, some of the maturity, uh, a factor of students that, you know, they, they struggle to find that balance of between, you know, school and flying.
Um, and, you know, obviously there's a lot of other distractions and things with parties and having a social life, um, that can distract you from flying, which, uh, really isn't to the benefit of, of your flight training. Um, but yeah, it's been, it has opened my eyes, you know, training with the club, you know, getting with some older members. Um, they, uh, seem to have found more, they're more able to dedicate themselves.
Um, I don't know, when they're like, I said, it was maturity, uh, a factor or, um, but they seem to be, be more dedicated and, uh, really more dedicated in their studies, you know, that, that seems to be one of the first things that slips in the college students is, is their studies and their ground knowledge being prepared for flights. That's good stuff. Yeah. That's been my observation too, um, that I, even though I say it's not maturity, I mean, I, I ground was hard for me.
I mean, that was hard for me to force myself to do the, you know, it's not fun. You're not flying the plane, but I, I do, uh, yeah, I can relate to that for sure. But, um, I have to post this up here. Uh, one dog geek says, uh, it's hard to determine which team is Kevin's favorite. And if you can tell from the, uh, on the background here of the, uh, of the room there, who is, who's, uh, his support is for. But, uh, yeah, definitely, uh, amount and year. That's awesome.
I feel like, uh, the room's been like this for a while. I feel like I probably wouldn't have passed the I'm safe checklist until I was about 26, uh, on any given day, I was not going to meet that criteria. Uh, yeah, that's fair. I mean, yeah. I see a lot of, um, a lot of the college students, um, you know, when we talked about that, I list a lot of these college students, um, you know, we talked about, you guys mentioned the financial side of things a little bit ago.
Um, a lot of these college students are working one sometimes even two or three part time jobs, um, you know, waking up early morning hours, working till late and then trying to come in and fly, uh, you know, the next day at either an early morning flight, where they were up late the night before or late night flight, where they've been up.
And since 4 a.m. and, uh, those are all factors that really contribute to, um, a deteriorating performance with the fatigue, uh, that, uh, deadline sets in and becomes a, I've turned down a lot of flights. I mean, I, I've wanted to fly in evenings a lot of times before, but I've just decided not to because I didn't feel, I just was just completely exhausted from just life or from the day and thought, you know, I don't, you never take a chance, right?
You mean, you go, that checklist should be part of every, every flight playing, but especially when you're just saying like, I just want to go up and put surround for no reason. Um, there's really no reason. Um, you know, it's, uh, so I think that probably happens for different reasons for people who are in different stages of life too. Um, do you notice any, how about like, here's a good question.
So since I never got the experience of trying to fly at a young age, like what, do you notice any difference in the, in pilots, pilot abilities to, um, the muscle memory stuff, the physical stuff, like the aptitude for picking that stuff up. Do you notice a difference in that in based on the ages of the, of the students? Um, um, surprisingly a little bit.
Yes, this conversation with, with Bill, you know, one of my students in the club, uh, we were working on his, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, good work when we introduced his flight by reference to interestments instruments. So yeah, I do think, um, I have noticed the younger, uh, college aged crowd seems to have, they pick up on things a little quicker and retain a little bit, um, more and they have a, seem to have a little bit more of a, uh, hand-eye coordination.
I don't know how much truth there is to it, but, um, I kind of relate a little bit of instrument flying to like a video game a little bit, and I feel like, you know, some of the younger judges kind of grown up with that, um, I figured you guys, midlife guys might have, I mean, you guys might be into it now, um, but I actually didn't grow up much of that like we have today. The Atari 2600 was not nearly as demanding. No. You play pong, Brian spent a lot of time with like, uh, on pong.
That was his kind of when he was a kid. That's where he was at. That's right. You do have a quick question for you. Um, so from a CFI perspective, I, I, for somebody said this somewhere and I thought, that sounds accurate, but I wanted to see if you thought that this was correct. That basically, cause just all these conversations about solowing, right? Like when am I going to solo and, you know, what's, what's normal hours to solo?
And it's, it's a ridiculous conversation because the context and the environment and so many things matter to that. However, it seems if you had to pick a general rule that you can take your age and have it and it'll be that many hours. Now this is true, maybe except for Chris who's soloed at 1.3 hours. Uh, or something crazy like that. I think he's soloed on a discovery flight. Nine. Knock it off. But what do you think about this half year age, uh, kind of phenomena?
Because I, here's the thing that's frustrating for me. I don't feel any different. I don't feel like I've lost coordination. I feel like I'm still moving around and doing all the things, but there is, uh, you know, the things are running a little slower upstairs, I guess. Yeah. Um, I have heard that before. I don't believe in it from my experience.
Yeah. So I've seen, you know, 16 year olds, we actually trained some 16 year olds at Fermat state over the summer, 16, 17, uh, year old high school age group, um, you know, some of them were up into the 20s, even before their first solo. Um, and I've had students in the club, um, midlife pilots that are in the fly, you know, there were 10 or 12 hours, uh, solo. Um, so it can fall anywhere, um, in there.
So I don't, I don't think there's a ton of, ton of truth, uh, and that all depends on, uh, you know, your dedication, um, I think more so contribute to your consistency of flying, how often you're able to two or three times a week that helps a whole lot more, um, whether you know, like once a week or every other week, uh, that consistency seems to be a lot better determined factor of, uh, when that solo is going to have.
For sure, there was a question actually that kind of related to that, uh, earlier from one dog geek who said after asking me after not having flown for a month, how long did it take you to get the rest off? That's an interesting, like that used to be a huge factor for me in training. Like I remember when I was working on my primary stuff, like I felt like if I didn't go out every few days that it was like, I just felt a little bit weird.
Um, that is getting, and Kevin can probably tell me whether this is like normal. I mean, this, that is all, that's getting less and less of a factor. I don't know that it took me when we left, you know, we got to our checklist and got to the runway. We were, it was about a smooth, honestly, I told Cecilia when we were doing a lot of, with the video part, we talked about this last week, it takes me longer to get in the, it just takes a while.
That was the smoothest in the plane to the runway take off probably, I think from the time we got in the plane and we're starting up, we were taking off on the runway like six minutes, which that's pretty good for me. Like that entire flight, I didn't necessarily feel like there was any, I mean, I don't know that it would have mattered if I'd have flown two days before or the three weeks before it didn't really seem to make that much of it.
I mean, I didn't notice anything specifically that felt weird. And I think that probably just comes with reps like anything else, like it's kind of like the bike riding thing like that. When you're first starting out, it would probably be hard to like go three weeks, you know, if you had 10 hours total and like went three weeks, probably like this is, I don't know, but I think the more you do it, it just kind of becomes, it's like anything else with flying.
I've told people this before, things that used to take all my attention like airspeed and all the phases and like, you know, in the pattern and like just, it took me, it was all I could do to like figure out how to manage that stuff. You start to feel that differently and that starts to become, you know, it just becomes more natural. Do you notice that even now, Brian, like it's got to be different because you're flying a lot more, but like, it becomes less of a big deal.
At least that's how I felt it to be. No, absolutely. There's a couple levels to that too. Another part of that I think is after you get your license and just not having the constant evaluation of an instructor happening right next to you at all times, there's some sort of extra taxing sort of element that that is. I want to perform well. I want to, I want to do that in the plane by myself, but there's some other taxation that happens with that.
So I feel like now that I'm on my own, I can kind of relax a little bit. It doesn't mean I'm slacking on anything. In fact, I'm probably just a stricter, more strict about, you know, pre-flight and everything else, but it just, it flows so much more easily because I'm not worried about something. And the context of the training environment, even if you're not flying, you're weighed down and your brain is divided by so many things, all the studying and all of that.
And then also you find yourself thinking, you know, how much is this costing? I need to do this the most efficient way possible. I don't want to extend this any longer. And if you're thinking about scheduling for a check ride and you're thinking about, you know, weather and environment and you know what, like, I don't want to do this when it gets too hot or, you know, because then it'll be 95 degrees every day. And I don't want to have a check ride when it's 95.
Like, you have all these other reasons to kind of compress everything. So yeah, in my experience, since it's been kind of a little bit more, yeah, just relaxed and automatic and nice in that way. So for Kevin, that's what we were getting to and one doggy guest, perfectly. The one is what I was saying, something you've seen true for others that the rest builds up more for students and it becomes less of a deal the more hours you get. You find that to be true. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, we're a real good example of this. Actually, you know, later with the whole pandemic and the COVID shut down, our flight school got shut down, you know, for, uh, it was about four months, uh, there when everything first was getting started. And you could obviously tell there was a big difference between, you know, people that were working on their private, you know, were getting close to solo and then had that four month stoppage, essentially, of not flying.
Um, it took them, you know, a significant amount of time, uh, to get back to the point where they were soloing, whereas, you know, we got had some students in, or late instrument or even into commercial, um, where that rust, you know, a flight, maybe two, they were, they were right back where they were, um, before our, our shutdown down there. So yeah, it's definitely the more experience you have, um, bike, the more experience you don't want to come back, um, when you get back into the plane.
At tracks, at tracks for me as well. Let's see. What do you want to run through questions? You got something else, Brian? You want to run through some, uh, chat? Yeah, let's go to the chat. Yeah, let's see what's going on. We got a bunch of stuff. This is cool to see everybody kind of talking amongst themselves in here during this thing. Uh, our boys and say just start flying again after 13 years of not flying. That is awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, back to the video game conversation.
Uh, uh, did have limitations. Kevin, there's nothing about those limitations I would imagine. Not clue. Intellivision. I do not. Intellivision is real cool. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'm not a gamer now. Oh, by the way, Chris, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I've never used a flight simulator ever and once in my entire life. And so I don't even have that to sort of go by, um, I guess I just want to do the real thing all the time.
But, but I would probably be a lot better if I had used a sem. I'm sure once I get to instrument, uh, training, that'll be just a necessary thing. Um, it definitely helps. We could, I mean, we could talk about that if we want to. I mean, there's, uh, I've said this before, it definitely helped me with, um, radio stuff. I mean, for years before I was flying, I was doing flight sim with that sim. I don't know if anybody's used that over the years.
It's like a virtual air traffic simulation that's been around for a long, long time and much like there's people like me flying a plane on a flight simulator of some form. There are other people sitting there looking at radar scopes and there's a, you run a little plug in and it connects and they can see you and you do all the things they talk to you. So that was great for a long, long time. And then, uh, more recently, um, pilot edge is another service that came along.
It's a paid service, um, that paid a subscription for. They staff it with real people like really good hours and basically get the whole California or the Western coast, um, coverage, all of the real coverage is though. Like I mean, every position is covered in a lot of cases, you have ground and tower and approach and center and all of them are clearance delivery. Like it's the real deal. And I spent a lot, a lot of time flying, uh, on those platforms and working on radio communication.
Um, and so that was completely, that entire part was taken off of my plate. Like I didn't think about it from less than one. Like the radio was never, some people, that's a big hurdle. Like just to get over the idea of the things you have to talk about, things you, it never wants to me was, uh, I didn't, it was not a stressful thing. It wasn't a part of it.
So I think as far as the flying for like learning to like get the field, the airplane and fly and like primary training, I don't think you get a ton of like, it just doesn't track. But definitely for instrument that I've already kind of started looking at some ways that people are using simulators for like instrument. For sure.
Because if you're basically you're, you know, you're working on approaches and holds and procedures that are documented that you can replicate them matter how the plane feels to fly. You've gotten past that, right? Or like what you see out the graphics, you see out the window who cares? Don't show an outside view. I mean, the ideas you're not looking outside anyway. So I think from the instrument and kind of further on, that's probably a big, uh, probably a big help. Whoops.
There that looks better. There's a question. Does it come, uh, Johnny Williams has a question for Kevin. I see it. Yeah. Let's put that in here. I recommend part 141 or part 61 for instrument. That is a good question. Yeah. So all the in that I've ever done has been through the 141 school. Chris will actually be my first part, 61 instrument student. The biggest difference between the two trainings is obviously going to be your amount of time with an instructor.
So, you know, under part 141, um, at least our approved syllabus is 35, at least 35 hours. Um, and that's all with a double eye. And then the part 61 requirements, um, you do have the additional cross country, the 50 hours of cross country requirements to meet, um, but only 15, uh, hours required with a double eye. Um, the rest of your, your hour requirement can be made up safety pilot, uh, under the hood. I personally don't have a strong opinion on this yet.
Um, I do feel like more time in a plane with the CFI than 15 hours, uh, is going to be extremely valuable, uh, in an instrument setting, especially, um, just because there are so many procedures and regulations, um, that really make up the whole instrument flying
and, uh, having that double eye there to kind of guide you through, um, that the IFR world, uh, I think is more beneficial in a pilot, but we will definitely see how, um, Chris's instrument training goes here as we get started on that hopefully here in Wilson. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to see how that works too. And so 15 hours did seem a little, a little thin to me.
And one of the things we talked about, Kevin and I've already kind of talked about up front is I do want to spend, so I've met, I have met my 50 hours, uh, PIC cross country time, which is one of the requirements, but I have not met, I forget whatever the hour count is, um, simulated or actual time, whatever it is, uh, just flight by reference instruments. A lot of that you can do like Kevin said with a safety pilot, but Kevin and I've already talked about the importance.
There's an important part of that, which is having time with an instructor already where you've learned the scan, your scan technique is solid and you're doing things the right way because it does you no good to just run out and jump into playing with somebody else and just go develop all these terrible habits that you're going to have to undo at some point.
So we're going to be pretty intentional up front when we start to do some of that work very early before I set off with these other guys in the club who want to go and we can just like work, you know, on that stuff together.
So I think that's a key, if you're going to try to do this outside of the flight school environment, you know, where there's a little bit more flexible with what you do, um, I think it's probably important to get the fundamentals, make sure you have enough time with instructors comfortable with you going out with somebody else just to build the time at that point. Like make sure you've got to find the mental stuff down first.
Here's some good questions here related instrument training or maybe I don't know if Indiana Penny's asking about if this is for instrument or for private, any advice or preference for an online ground school is probably for all of us. I don't know. I can say that I don't know for instrument yet because I haven't done all the research. I know for my private, I used a handful. I used a gold seal aviation. That's Rust Stills program. I use that for private. He doesn't do anything beyond private.
I don't think it was pretty good. Chris Palmer angle of attack.com has a online ground school video series that he offers that I did use throughout. Those were the two primary ones. And then Sporties actually to be on a sporties private course, I thought was really good. I've heard mixed reviews about their instrument. It's a little shallow and the videos are really sweet and polished but it's like the content is a little lacking.
I don't know what I'm going to do yet for instrument but I'm definitely looking for a course there. Do you have any of you? Kevin do I can remember if we talked about this. Do you have any insight? Not really as far as the online ground schools go. All of our grad schools in the flight school are strictly through the engineering ground school. Use the glign packages for that. They do offer an online ground school as well.
We seem to have good luck with all their content and simply with a solely online ground school so I'm not completely positive on that end. Thanks. What a quick question for Kevin. Yeah, you have a hit it. So, given that you've already given us more than anecdotal evidence that we as the older set are not quite all there. We don't have all the capacity.
Given that older people maybe get a little bit slower at things like this and you specifically mentioned instrument, I guess I'm just curious about in either the build up to pursuing instrument or considering it or actually being in the process of getting that rating, what particular observations or advice might you have for people that are midlife pilots? Is there anything unique that you can see that might be better?
Is it something where in person ground school be better than an online ground school or any number of other things? Just curious. The first thing that has to do with your specific learning style, whether you learn better from videos or from an in person that you can interact with someone there, like I said, I don't have a great experiment or a ton of experiment around school stuff.
As far as the flying goes for instrument, like I kind of mentioned earlier, consistency is most definitely going to be the key to that, so staying in the plane, keep developing that instrument panel scan. That's a solid scan, so more procedures on things like holds and approaches that that basic scan is already there. Then even we talked about flight simulators a little bit ago, even the at home flight simulators.
I have just a basic side tech, yoke and throttle quadrant with X-plane 11 on my laptop. It did great for me all the way through instrument training. The flight school allows me to back and forth between six pack and a 1,000. X-plane 11 has both of those in the default, so I could go back and forth practicing procedures on both aircraft and really develop panel scan.
Then even the procedures of my way through the GPS is loaded in the approaches and flying those at home for practice before I actually went and got in the plane. The flight sim will definitely help, especially for instrument. But one dogie asks, what do you think would be a good number of hours that we were talking earlier about? The minimum feels like 15 is maybe not more would be better.
Do you have an idea of a number or is it really more dependent on the student as a case by case, do you think? Yeah. I think it definitely falls more along the line of case by case basis to put in how the students progressing like our syllabus that we laid out. Chris, we have 20 hours planned with a CFI. I think anywhere in the realm of 20 to 25 with a double eye and the plane should cover all your bases and give you a good foundation for those last 10 or 15, 20 hours with a safety pilot.
Very good. I have actually another question. I'm right here, I have a microphone, I thought I would just ask. Chris is going right into instrument, obviously. For me, I just got my certificate a month ago. My inclination is to just give it a minute, recover financially, spiritually, intellectually, work wise, whatever all the things are that I've put off and had to put to the side to focus on.
I'm just regrouping while staying at it and trying to fly once a week, even if it's just for pattern work or something. Just just stay in it and stay on it and keep giving myself a little bit of a new challenge each time. I definitely want to get an instrument rating, of course. But I don't see myself doing it soon. I don't see myself doing it for probably, I don't know, a year, something like that, maybe a little bit more.
It's just going to take me that long to recover and turn the corner and refocus and get stocked up on some imaginary money that's going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen with that. Maybe turn your super chat on, Chris, let's get this thing cooking. Oh, God, is it not on? But I guess I'm just curious. I'm still thinking, well, I should at least try to make the most of it right. Get cross-country time. Anything I can do to consciously.
If I have the choice between flying somewhere that's 47 miles or 62 miles, fly the place that's 62 miles and get that in the books, right? That's about as far as I can think about it. I guess I was curious for you to tell me it's a student who's going to do it, but it's not doing it now. How can I intelligently set myself up for it while I'm in this middle period? Yeah, definitely. Like you said, building that cross-country time can definitely hold up for some people.
Any chance you get on building the cross-country time if you're going to pursue instrument part 61 is definitely to your advantage. The other thing I would say is just try to stay as consistent as you can in your flying, just to stay in the plane. All those procedures from private, the basic airplane flying skills are still there.
You don't take big gaps and let some of those skills that you have fresh out of training, kind of deteriorate over the year or so, that you're just enjoying the privilege of a private pilot. So I would say you're definitely going to enjoy instrument training. It's rewarding when you do. You'll find out. And Chris will enjoy this when he gets his instrument rating, not as limited on flight and cross-country, and there's a little bit of a cloud layer.
But as for round, I think with what you want to do, just fly around, take small trips with the family. And we're here and there. What you're doing is perfectly fine. To take that little brake layer kind of reset and it gives you a chance to really enjoy flying and get out of the training environment specifically for a little bit and really fall in love with it. Back into the instrument phase that'll be there and you'll be set up in a good position to do that. That's what I did.
It was a year, almost exactly. It was a little over a year. It'll be a year and two months by the time we actually start. And the catalyst for me was I've been frustrated a handful of times about not being able to leave Fairmont because of the entire flight. I had a three hour flight, I spent about 40 seconds in a cloud layer going through it. And then it was like clear and a million, the rest of the way to my destination.
So we ended up making a nine hour drive a couple of weeks ago that would have been an hour and 50 minute flight. And that was when I was so that day was it for me. I texted Kevin the day and said, this is it. That's, I'm not doing, I'm done with this. I'm just done with this. There's no, if you're going to just, if all you want to do is a hobbyist, just fly around on sunny days and like, which is fine. And a lot of people do that. If that's your intention.
But like if you, if you want to use your certificate to like be able to go places with any kind of pre planned mission, you can't not, I mean, it's just impossible. It's just impossible to do that, I think, without an instrument rating. I just don't know how you can, with any certainty, expect that you can use the air plane for this trip. You just, I don't know how you can do it. So, you'll come to Nashville and pick me up for things that I need to do though, right?
Well, I mean, you know, if you'll pay your pro-radar share of our flight expenses, then my amateur-radar share. Miss Ivy Giler in the chat room tonight said her husband would like to know, Kevin, how did you get to be so awesome? Our husband Bill is one of our club members, also a midlife pilot learning to fly. And he, frankly, is also killing it, I think.
He's one of Kevin's students, but he has been, I think, an exemplary, an example of someone in midlife who's taken it very seriously and really applied it, wouldn't you say? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And really, it's a joy to instruct students like the passion and the dedication for flying and there, you know, 100% in it, you know, all the time. I think he's so good with, pretty low hours somewhere to you, Chris. So, yeah, it's been a blast.
No flying with Bill. I suppose that's a rogue little wants to know how many days a week do you recommend to take flight training? I'm going to assume that is primary training. Let's go on that assumption. I think it's less important, maybe, the day, you know, how many days a week, for instrument is probably a little less important because there's probably less, I don't know, maybe not, but you have a recommendation on how many times a week you should fly while training?
Yeah, I say if you, I say twice a week, it is a pretty good number. If, you know, you're in a busy area or maybe, maybe funds are an issue at least once a week, so you can stay in the plane. But I think two is a good, a good middle ground. It's a good number to stay in the plane, but still give you time to stay on top of your book work essentially.
And then three, obviously, if you're lucky enough to be able to fly three times a week, that would probably be the max, at least for primary training, just because it's a lot to really, really kind of let that absorb between every lesson. And then you can stay in the same level with your training in the books. You flew pretty regularly, didn't you, Brian? Like mine was really spread out. We've talked about this.
Mine took me like two and a half years, including a gap in the middle of like seven months where I didn't have a single lesson. It's a mine was so irregular. I went through phases where Tyler and I were flying like three, maybe even four times a week, and then there were periods where it would go like every other week for an hour. And just like it was so irregular. But I remember you had some pretty, yours was pretty consistent. You flew a lot.
Yeah, I ended up, I was kind of looking back at my logbook and you know, like in four flights, it'll sort of separate it by the month that you can kind of see. I was, I think averaging probably about between 12, 14 flights a month. So whatever that amounts to three times a week, sometimes maybe a little bit more, but sometimes a little bit less.
I was kind of wanting to go, depending on what phase of the training it was, when I was building up to the point where I was about the solo and it was just about pattern work and just getting landings down. And the focus had become very singular. I wanted to go every day because I just wasn't getting it and I just wanted to get it.
And then things could kind of spread out a little bit more when it was more about cross-country and you know, and check ride prep and things that had a lot of other sort of menu items around it. But yeah, I flew a lot. I started April 22nd and I got my license on the 23rd of September. So about five months exactly. And considering the weather here in Nashville and then there were a ton of delays. I probably could have done it in three months if there were no delays.
And so that's what I was going to say to your point, Kevin was like, you know, a friend of mine who's just starting, you know, she was curious about how often she should fly. And I said, sign up for three flights a week because one won't happen every week, at least. And that way you still get your two flights and you have some insulation against that week off kind of thing happening. Yeah, that's good. Absolutely.
You know, everything in aviation, you know, is weather or maintenance or plane availability or something. Something's always always going to happen there. So yeah, that's a great system. Schedule. Or when your instructor is like, oh, you know what, I've got to go do some serious training, you know, in another state where I'm going to make so much more money than dealing with your, you know, one 72 training. So yeah. So we have, we have nine minutes left.
I'm going to, I want to run through a handful of questions real quick that have come in because I think some of these are going this one, Kevin, this is pretty much for you from one doggy again. Are there any risks that you see going straight into instruments? Like you get your private certificate on Saturday and Monday is instrument less than one. You guys probably do that a lot. I would assume at the flight school level, I would think for efficiency, say, are there do you do that?
And are there risks you think going straight into it or is it better? Yeah, we definitely do that in the flight school setting. That's exactly how we do. Find as you finish your private. Then you go run an instrument, you know, I don't really see any risk associated with that. I think instrument definitely makes you a better pilot overall, gives you a better feel for the airplane, gives you a better handle of procedures and it gives you an out.
If you ever, you know, do get into the I part conditions that, obviously, a private pilot might not be as equipped to handle. So yeah, I don't see any. I want to write an instrument that risk with that risk would certainly I would think out outpace any risk associated with starting the training early, like in advert and I am see, I don't know that there's a much greater risk, you know, truthfully at the young private level, in my opinion, another great question.
These, we've got some folks in the end of the penny and some of these have been great tonight. If there are multiple CFIs to choose from, how do you know which one to choose? For example, I'm wondering if a midlife pilot would learn better from a fellow midlife pilot. I definitely have opinions on this. I don't, and I'm going to just, I'm just going to let it rip and then you guys can because I also have the mic and I'm talking currently.
I think, I don't think I could have found a better match for my primary training for me than Tyler was. It was completely happenstance and it's not like I got to audition instructors, right? So it just, I couldn't find one. I could not get into the local flight school that's available to us, not Kevin's collegiate program, but, and it was a random Facebook thing. It was like, do you know an instructor and they can't be find an airplane and we just kind of got hooked up with people.
So it was completely happenstance and he's way younger than me. So we're not, we're not even close on the age. I mean, we're at least, I don't know, 15 years apart probably. I don't know how old Tyler is, but from a personality standpoint, we were perfect. He's about as laid back and chill about everything, like nothing is going to kill anybody and everything's fine all the time and like, let's just go fly the airplane. And I was the, in the complete reciprocal of that.
Everything was a disaster. We're going to die every lesson because everything fails and the plane's going to fall apart. Or, you know, it's just, I was spaz, pretty consistently. And he, it didn't face him one, I, I, I, I, I, I remember all of his little sayings, like it was just like, stop being an idiot, like just go do this thing. Like, what's your problem? Everything's fine. You know, it was a lot of that. So he, we just, I think it has more, in my opinion than you guys can answer.
It has more to do with personality and like learning style and teaching style and being a match. And also just getting along with people. I've been really fortunate, truthfully, like between Tyler, just the, we have a, we just have a great network of people. I've not got the flat, believe it or not. I've not got to fly with Sam or other one of Kevin's friends to teach with him at Fairmont State and also an instruction at our club. I don't know how that's possible at this point.
I have not flown even a flight with him. But like Kevin and I have done a few lessons together and turn in the 235, like when he got me checked out when we got that plane in Kevin also is really good. Like, he has a very similar personality. I think the Tyler, like the, it just kind of, um, anyway, compliment me and I think it's a good fit. And I think this is going to be a good fit for instrument. Um, we're flying. We're going to be flying the plane that we both own together.
I mean, there's just a lot of synergies here for us. Um, I think in that you guys have input on, uh, Brian, what do you think about the age? Does it matter? I mean, I think it's obviously more about fit than anything else or having somebody that's complimentary. I don't mean to like in a, um, I mean, like as a good example, you know, my instructor definitely 20 years younger than I am, um, and he's very laid back.
Um, but he was also one thing I really learned to appreciate about his style was that he wasn't really, he wasn't easy on me. He didn't, uh, sugarcoat things and I, I, I respond, I think well to that. I've seen, uh, other instructors, you know, that are, you know, and some people really like this where it's sort of like, you know, a lot of reassurance, a lot of positive, uh, you know, feedback along the way and just really trying to keep somebody spirit up the whole time.
I think that, I think that my, my instructor would, um, I don't know, sometimes kind of break me down a little bit, you know what I mean? Like it was kind of a, you know, uh, man, I really thought I did something great. It takes, like what do I have to do to get this guy to be like, oh my god. That was a great landing or just something. And then when he finally would respond to something and be like, oh, you know, damn, like that was, you know, it was like, uh, wow.
Okay. I really know for sure that I, I, I did something great. So I, I think I benefited from that sort of somewhere, you know, uh, if, if you're self loathing like myself, I think to have a little bit of tough love is, is a good thing. Um, but um, but that was, that was my experience. I think that, I don't know if that's really about age as much as, um, maybe experience.
You know, he, even though he's young, he had, you know, a lot of students prior to me and, and uh, I think he knew how to deal with, you know, people like me. And I think that a good instructor will kind of not be a chameleon or shapeshift to, uh, you know, better adapt to that type of student. The better instructors, I think, can do that. Very good. Um, one more question is three minutes, three minutes remaining. I don't know why I feel like I have to have a countdown.
It's not like we're in a hard out here. Um, Brian and Chris and Kevin, this will be fun to ask Kevin too. How many hours did you have when you passed your private checkride? I don't know exact, I don't have my logbook exactly. Uh, I think I had like 60, it realistically could have been 40. I mean, we had a little game. Tyler was trying to get me done at four. Like he was like, this is what we should try to do. We probably could have done it.
I was, I really was, my checkride was a, it took me a lot to get to that point. And I was scared and we took a bunch of checkride prep lessons, a bunch, a ton. And then I got delayed three times, but I was taken into Clarksburg. So I ended up flying, I mean, probably five or six more hours at least, maybe more, you know, just in the delay, weather delays between checkrides. So I think I was right about 60. Where were you at, Brian?
I was about 65 and had a similar kind of thing towards the end where it was really, um, the prep was kind of there, but it was about being primed and in a good spot at the right time up to the appointment and battling weather and stuff like that. Yeah, 65 hours. Kevin, do you even remember 1100 hours ago when you got your private, how many hours you had? Yeah, yeah, it's about 42 and a half. Oh, there you go. Hey, um, I got a quick thing for Kevin.
I know we got to go, but listen, what I really like to get from CFIs is, um, and I'll give you an example of this, like, you know, my CFI just told you about when he, when I went on my first solo that was sort of, you know, after the practice area or whatever, that, you know, the kind of first solo that you actually take off the plane by yourself and do all the things by yourself.
I told him, I said, you know, when I got back, I was like, you know what, I just got out there and I was so excited to be kind of flying. I just kind of buzzed around. I did a few steep turns, came back like I didn't really go through a bunch of stuff and he was like, oh, man, that's no problem. He said, he said, I was so freaked out when I went out to the practice area for the first time. I literally just, uh, flew out there and just went in one giant, huge circle and then came back.
I was just so freaked out that I was even doing this. So I guess, you know, for, to try to humanize these superhuman, uh, CFIs or CFS, um, you know, what, what, uh, what moments of actual learning and insecurity do you have when you were, when you were at our low hours? Um, yeah, so if any. Yeah. No, there's definitely plenty of opportunities for learning. Um, you know, one, it was all my first or second practice area solo.
I could remember, uh, I'm out, um, I was scattered, layer, out there, um, nothing too crazy. I mean, it was 4,000 feet or so. Um, but yeah, while I was out there, um, it kind of closed up, uh, a little bit and dropped a little bit. So, um, you know, that was a learning curve kind of thing. Um, yeah, that was one of the things now. I'm supposed to do all these stalls, but, you know, I'm out there.
It's like, yeah, I'm just watching these clouds come down and I'm just going to kind of fly around here and get back to Clark's Burger Sings. I can't. So yeah, the definitely, there's lots of those kinds of things that happen. Uh, on your cellos, but, uh, out there, there, therefore, it is an aspect of it. Awesome. Okay. And I can't thank you enough, uh, for taking an hour on a night, uh, away from everything to do this at short notice. It was great to have this.
This was a great topic to have a instructor like you with the perspective of both all the ages of pilots. And so I think it was super beneficial to get your input on all that. And, uh, so thanks for coming tonight. And hopefully we'll get to do more with you in the future. And stay tuned everybody for instrument training with Kevin and me in the 235 and the 172 Lord willing, um, getting ready to fly to, uh, uh, Alito Ohio to pick up a piece of sheet metal for its long story.
Um, hopefully we'll get this thing flying again here soon. But, uh, yeah. Anyway, thank you, Kevin, for being here. And, um, we'll do this again with you soon. Okay. Absolutely. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Yes. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Kevin. It was awesome. So a couple housekeeping things, Brian. Let's work in real quick before we go. Uh, podcast is out now. Please look for it. If you are a podcast person at your podcast place of choice, right?
We'd love to get that, uh, Roland and, and make the content available to you. Listen to in the car or whatever and share it with your friends, share it in groups. If you want to, um, kind of help get the word out about this. Um, thank you. Um, for all the questions tonight was very, very good. Um, in fact, I guess, uh, yeah, we have more than we even got to tonight, which was awesome. And we'll keep doing these live. We're going to try to stick to this Wednesday night schedule.
I think it's working out pretty well. We'll see how this works. Um, that's what I was trying to do. You just jinxed it. There's no way we're going to make it one more week. Um, cause it just seems to be going so well. No, um, no, I think that's, that's it. I think the Wednesday thing will work generally. And if it doesn't, you know, I'm like, well, we'll come back. The next Wednesday and it'll be all right. Um, but yeah, so the audio, I, uh, the audio should be up.
I think, uh, maybe some time tomorrow. Um, and, you know, uh, if everybody goes and clicks and does all the things, I guess that's good and, and, um, you know, more than anything, uh, I've always just kind of been interested to do this because I, I don't know about a lot of the people here, but, um, I went through a lot of this stuff by myself. I didn't have anybody to commune with or anybody to call or, or anything when I was going through the, the hardest parts of my training.
And so I was really determined to make an effort to put myself out there and meet people and, um, and so I appreciate everybody being here and, and allow me to kind of do that. Absolutely. The community's been it for me too. That's really the reason that I think, um, the, all of this thing or all these things that we're working on, the YouTube channel, like the continuation of the midlife pilot channel, this podcast, I mean, there's nobody's getting, nobody's getting, this is not a get rich.
This is not a money making venture, but I do love finding groups of people who are like minded with common interests, um, to kind of support each other and share content and, um, um, it's just been great. And this is just one more extension and I'm really looking forward to developing this podcast with you and with this whole community and getting this stuff going. So, uh, yeah. Thanks a lot. It's just fun. We'll do it again next week. Look for that podcast audio coming out tomorrow.
Subscribe wherever you do and, uh, I guess we'll talk to, uh, fuck that brain next week. Sound good? Appreciate it, everybody. All right. Good night, everybody.