Flying and Dying: A Pilot's Journey from Cardiac Arrest to Recovery

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Sporty.Com sxmoffer I'm Tom Haidema, pilot for American Airlines. I am A Chicago based 787 captain and author of the book Flying and Dying AV Nation. Welcome back to today's podcast. Today's podcast is an interesting one because it is with the person who gave me my CJO at the airline. So I don't really know how this kind of worked out. I was just searching Instagram one day and his name popped up and I was like, oh my gosh, this guy's an influencer. He has 80,000 followers and I have 40.

So I was kind of like blown away by that. But he came to my feed again, say six months later as we're sitting, maybe even a year later because he released a book. The book is called Flying and Dying. You can get on Amazon, Amazon, you can follow his page. I'll link everything below. This is Tom and Tom writes about how he died for 20 minutes. He had cardiac arrest. He was dead, brought back to life by an aed.

It's a fascinating story and you can read it in the book, you can listen to the podcast, but I highly recommend you go to Flying and Dying. This conversation we had was phenomenal. If you are interested in applying to the airlines in general, American Airlines, we. We have some really helpful hints on how to prepare, how to come into the interview, and what you should kind of prepare for.

I think it's going to be beneficial for everyone, like I said, no matter what airline you want to go to, because a lot of these techniques, a lot of what the airlines are looking for are kind of similar. Every airline kind of has a little bit different of what they want. But Tom has helped hire a lot of people at the airlines, and he's very passionate about it. So when he talks, you should definitely listen. It's a great podcast, and I'm really excited to share this.

So go buy the book Flying and Dying. I have it right here. I'm hoping to read it. I just got caught on a trip, like, five seconds ago. So Mexico City tomorrow, here we come. I'll have time to read it, but AV Nation, I hope you enjoy this episode. And without any further ado, here's Tom Heidam. Hey, Tom. Welcome to the Pilot. The Pilot podcast. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm happy to have you on. You know, it's funny. I messaged you. I actually found your account.

Like, I think I was in the middle of my SIM training. I was like, oh, that is the guy that gave me my CJO at American. And I. I think someone I was sitting with was like, oh, he has an Instagram page. I looked him up. It's like, no way. He's got more followers than me. I was like, that's crazy. So that really kind of blew me away. And I watched some of your stuff, and of course, showing off the 787. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that.

So just watching those videos and seeing all that and then later finding out your story and your book, it's just crazy. And I'm looking forward to having you on, and I think you'll have a great story to tell and it'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to people learning about it, and hopefully it'll be of benefit to people also to know what happened to me and my past and where I'm going with it. Absolutely. Well, we're going to start kind of at the beginning.

I always ask everyone the first question. It's always the same. Why aviation? What was it about flying. Aviation that got you interested? Well, flying saved me the first. I remember moving to this country when I was about 4 years old and getting on an airplane for the first time, thinking it was absolutely amazing. It imprinted me from that time on. And when I was 14 years old, I took an intro flight at a local airport, Campbell Airport in Pittsburgh.

It's no longer there, but an intro flight back then, you get about 20, 25 minutes, and it was all of $5. And I can remember, yeah, it's a different day. And I remember just being absolutely amazed by it. Now. I'm six foot five now. When I took that intro ride, I needed pillows to see over the dash. So I've grown a little bit since. And I just remember that in high school or even elementary, middle school, I was never really interested in studying or learning anything.

But when it came to airplanes, it was different. It was just a horse of a different color. And all I wanted to do was absorb knowledge and learn about flying. So I started taking lessons at about 14. It was super cheap back then. I worked in a TV and appliance store. Oh, cool. And every couple weeks, I have a couple bucks together for a flying lesson. That's what I spent it on. That's incredible. Yeah. I saw the back of your book. It said, from a 150 to a 787.

I was thinking back, I was like, this guy's pretty tall. He's taller than me. It's like 150. Must not have been too comfortable for him. But if it was the intro for Fight, you had pillows to see over probably worked out pretty well. Yeah, I filled out a little bit since then, too, and quite fit in a 150 anymore. If I didn't even get off the ground with me in it. Probably not. It was. It was the first one. It was to me that was anything.

Even the smell of an airplane had this certain familiarity to it that was just very endearing. Yeah. And I really kind of relate to what you said about school just not really clicking. Uh, I was never a big school fan. I played sports, so that got me into college and. And I was a bad student by any means, but just nothing really was of interest to me until I took my first flight lesson. I was like, oh, wow. I. Maybe I just didn't like. Like, I'm not. School's not hard for me.

I just didn't like what I was learning, if that makes sense. Right. I think that happens for. For more people than what people think. Because a lot of people look up, see, pilots are like, oh, they gotta be super smart. It's like, well, I mean, you do have to Be somewhat smart, but we both know a lot of pilots that aren't the brightest people in the world, and they get it done. So who's to say you can't do it? Right?

But goes to show that when you find something you're passionate about, you can really kind of make it your craft and try to be the best pie that you can and always learn. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, you kind of.

And I see some of these posts where people, like, look at all these books, all this stuff I have to learn, and there's meteorology there, and there's aerodynamics and all these other things, but you kind of enjoy it because that's all a part of becoming a better pilot, is learning all those subjects. And though it may seem daunting at first, you just take it. As they say, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, and you start turning pages.

And some of it's a little drier than others, but for the most part, you kind of use a lot of it. And it's something that you build upon at each of those pages as you turn it. You're becoming more educated in being a successful aviator. Yep. Perfectly said. It's like building a house. You go brick by brick, right? You get the foundation, and then you keep going on, and you learn kind of the arithmetic, and you go into calculus or whatever the equation would be for that, into aviation.

So you started taking flight lessons at 14. Were your parents. Were they into aviation at all? Were they kind of like, you want to be a pilot? This is kind of strange. Like, talk a little bit about the relationship with flying and family and support that you had. Yeah, well, they saw that I liked it. I was a troublemaker as a kid, and not to show my hand in the book, but my mom at one point said, I just hope you're not in jail someday, and that you have a job.

But then she saw my passion for airplanes, and that would be my direction. And I was fortunate that flying isn't for everybody. I learned that as a flight instructor or even sometimes it's a. A medical reason. I notice pilots are people who tend to have a lot of situational awareness.

I can tell sometimes by how somebody drives a car, how good a pilot they're going to be because they seem to take things in and they're able to naturally figure out what the most important parts of what they're taking in are and have kind of a 360 view. And when people do that in a car, they tend to be good pilots, too. Good drivers. Are good pilots typically not. Not exclusively.

But for the most part, when it came to circle background of my parents, they were a little skeptical because I really had never hung on to anything. But this was the one thing that I truly continued with that I didn't want to give up on because I knew it was the only thing that I really, really wanted to do. And anything other than that would not have made me feel like I'd fulfilled my own dreams. So at 14, getting those pilot license or getting the pilot, you obviously have to go to school.

You got to complete school. Were you kind of motivated for this dream? Did this kind of kickstart you doing better in school at all? Or is it still pretty hard for you to focus in school when all you're really thinking about was was flying? Not really. I was on the basketball team. I was chasing. I'd love to say that it motivated, but it didn't. Back then you didn't need much of a GPA to get into college. Yeah, thank God for that.

I got to Embry Riddle and at that point things did turn because now I'm pursuing aeronautical science. I'm pursuing something I love. And yeah, my, my GPA went way up. I had almost a 4.0there because there are obviously there's subjects you don't like there. But now I'm in an environment with other people who want to learn how to fly. And you kind of motivate each other too. You tend to build on each other's inspiration.

And that I think helped me a lot to where I said, okay, I got to get serious about this. And I did. What was it about Embry Riddle that kind of drove you that direction? Just the biggest aviation school you could find. And I want to surround myself with other like minded people. Or did you have some other flight schools that you're looking at other universities? Well, I took academics at Embry Riddle and then I flew at north there in Prescott, Arizona.

Okay. I went to Emory Riddle because back then there weren't many schools that had aviation focus and I wanted to kind of get away. I grew up in Pittsburgh and I wanted to go somewhere kind of far away and do things on my own. So I went to the area, the campus out there in Arizona. And I guess at the time I didn't really consider there may have been other programs in other places.

Arizona just sounded really cool to me and it gave me enough distance from my hometown to where I knew I had to stand on my own two feet. There's something about that. I grew up in North Carolina. I decided to go to Ohio State. I actually played football at Ohio State. And it was one of the best decisions I ever made was leaving my hometown, getting out of everything that was comfortable and kind of figuring out how to do life on my own. Right. You have nothing to rely on.

You have little friends. You got to kind of figure out who you are and what you like and enjoy on your own. And I think it was one of the best experiences I ever had. Now, it's not to say it's not hard, right. And it's kind of scary when you think about it, especially if all you know is Pittsburgh or Charlotte or wherever you. You're coming from. But I think it's definitely something that is. I'll probably won't tell my kid that.

I'm gonna tell my kid he needs to stay close, he needs to stay local, you know. But yeah, as someone who's listening to this, definitely go, Go far away if you can. You learn a lot. Yeah. Yeah. My kids are a little too far away now. They went to school in State. Here I'm living. I live in southwest Michigan and now they're kind of all gone. So I'm kind of hoping they're. They'll come back at some point. I don't think they will. What part of Michigan do you live in?

Kalamazoo, just south of Kalamazoo. Portage. Oh, cool. Yeah, I love my house here. It's a great place to raise my kids. Yeah, it's a great area. I. I used to fly single pilot freight and we used to go to Holland. So that's how I was kind of putting together like where all the, all the areas are. So we went to Holland all the time. Went to Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, obviously Detroit and Ypsilanti for all the auto. Auto cars and everything. But yeah, yeah, but yeah, there's.

It's a great place and there's some great breweries up there in that area if people earn a beer, so. Can't go wrong. Yeah, there are. Yeah. Bells is the big one out of here. But there are a lot of micro breweries to lat 42. There's a couple of. And that new place down the street here called Presidential Brun. Boy, perfect. Yeah, we got some good beer there. They know how to make their beer in Michigan, that's for sure. You. So you're in Arizona now.

Did you get your private before you went there? Did you have any kind of certificates or did you get everything in Arizona? Okay, yeah, I had a private and I actually Got a multi engine rating when I was a senior. Oh, really? That's money. And I had a choice either to go to the prom or get a multi engine rating. And there was a flight school that had. They had this brand new Beechcraft Duchess. And I just not.

I mean, I know pilots are kind of nerds, but I really wanted to get my hands on that airplane more than anything else in the world. And it's kind of probably weird to admit that now, but I don't regret it. There were. There are plenty of time that. There's plenty of time to do other things too. And for me to get that rating. The woman who taught me that the Mei was actually a teacher in my high school. Oh, no way. Robert Rosny. Yeah. And I don't know if she flies anymore.

I haven't been in touch with her in 30 or 40 years. But she kind of gave me a bit of a push. She made me more of a perfectionist. I remember I would talk to her and she said, don't ever be 50 foot high or 50ft low and settle for it. Be right on your altitude. And she gave me tools to be meticulous that I. That I've carried throughout the last 45 years of flying now. Yeah, I think it's really cool. For me, it was when I was doing my commercial, my.

That's when my instructor finally, he's like, you are a professional pilot. You are expected to perform at professional standards, and you shouldn't be happy with anything other than those standards. And that has stuck with me ever since. You know, it's like you said, you're 50ft high. You're like, you're shooting yourself. You're like, oh, my gosh, that was awful.

It might be a smooth landing, but you know that you were either unstable, a little too fast, you could have done something better to make it perfect. Yeah, yeah. It's funny, you talk about stable, you know, nice landing. That's something. The pastor, oh, he made the nicest landing. Yeah, but he made it 4, 000ft down the Runway too. That's my favorite. Yeah, that's my favorite when I flew at my last company. Yeah, they're like floating down, way down. They're like, oh, that was so nice.

I'm like, yeah, but you're supposed to land back there. It's like, we probably should have gone around, man. What were you doing? Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah. Oh, it's pretty funny. Um, but yeah, so you're in Arizona now. You're at Embry Riddle, you're flying. Separate from Embry Riddle, which I've heard a lot of people do. Cause Embry Riddle is not the cheapest school in the world. So if you can find any discount to in flying, you go for it. Um, you get your training in Embry Riddle.

You get your training at a 61 school, you can still get to American Delta United. They're not going to care where you went, just as long as you have a good record and you have your training. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was able to get a lot more quickly, too. By my second year there, I had cfi and now I was teaching students while I was in school. And I had a good deal, too. I was the assistant athletic director, so that gave me free room and board plus a salary.

So I had a good deal at Embry Riddle. And I was doing stuff I love, too. I really enjoyed all the athleticism and being able to be in a school where I could do athletics as well as fly. Yeah. Did you ever think, you know, like 14 year old self even looking at your mom and dad, kind of what you said about your mom was like, man, I just hope you're not in jail. Was there ever a time when you became an instructor and your mom's like, holy crap, you're like doing this right now.

You're teaching other people and. Never thought my kid would be doing that. She. Well, it came a little earlier than that. I think once, once I showed a commitment, got my private pilot's license that really showed that I could complete a task. She was very impressed the day that I soloed. And I remember her thinking, okay, things kind of turned to where she now had a new confidence in me because she saw my passion for something. And some of us are late bloomers.

There are a lot of people who kind of start on the wrong foot and then one day they decide. And even in aviation, I'm involved with the American Airlines pilot interview standards team, and we hire pilots from 23 to 64. And some of those. It's been a lifelong dream, and I love to see somebody even in their later years be able to fulfill that dream. I think it's really cool you say that because I wanted to bring that up at some point today. Obviously we talked about how you gave me my cjo.

It was a great experience. Experience. But in that class of people that we had, even in the class that I had, we had, I think we had like a 24 year old. We had a 60 year old. So it goes to show that if you can do this later in life. I get a lot of DMS. I get a lot of people saying, hey, I'm 35. Is it too late? Like you still have 30 years of flying? Yeah, it's like you have a whole career ahead of you. Like, get started, go.

So it doesn't matter if you start at 23, obviously it'd be nice if you start at 23. I have a buddy who is a regional captain and the amount of money he told me he's going to make this year on bonuses and regional, I'm just like, that's insane. And he's like 24 years old. I was like when I was 24, I was making $15 an hour, building up all my time. It's like, good for you, dude. That's amazing. Yeah, it's great right now. And I kind of like seeing that come up, especially at a regional level.

I worked at a commuter airline and back then it didn't pay much. But a lot of it depends on life situation too. When people say, hey, I'm this age and I want to start just a lot of it has my answer to whether or not they should do it has a lot to do with their life, family or their life situation. If they have an infant, a 2 and a 4 year old, it's like, okay, that's where your priority should lie.

Because there is a sacrifice in learning how to fly and having a deal of lower seniority and not having a very advantageous schedule now the schedules and the job have changed now to where you can not only get move up a little more quickly, but to where, for instance, in America now there's holiday pay. So I always had to work Christmas. Well, now they jump at those trips because they're a premium pay trip.

So you're able to, once you gain seniority, have a little bit more manipulation over schedule if you do have family commitments. Yeah, I was surprised that I had Thanksgiving off. I was like, that's pretty nice. I like this. I could get used to this. So I was very excited about that. We'll find out about Christmas in a couple of days. But very excited about Thanksgiving. When you were going through training in every riddle, was there anything that you struggled with whether being away from home?

I know you said that it was great that you were not that way, but a lot of times it can be. Sometimes can be difficult when you're just so new somewhere or flying itself was instrument, private, commercial. Is there anything that you struggled with out in Arizona flying wise or personally? I wouldn't say flying wise, that went. That went well. Luckily, there was stuff that I could lock onto now, the flight ability stuff. I felt like I learned that quickly. Some of the.

I think when you go to an instrument rating that it just becomes another whole new chapter of learning how to fly and to incorporate your base knowledge and then do that. I think that's a big chapter and there's a lot of detail in that. I think more it was personally, you have those nights when you're just all by yourself and you wish you could talk to your mom or your dad or your brother or whoever. And it was 1981 when I was there.

So you couldn't just pick up a cell phone and do a FaceTime call. It was long distance and it was expensive. And if you made a long distance call, you were looking at what it cost per minute. And you can only have so many of those nights where you want to pick up the phone and lean on somebody that you know or that you can trust. And there were times I can remember where I thought, okay, I'm kind of out here by myself. These are all new people.

But it made me more comfortable with my own independence. And once you get through those kind of those couple of lonely times, you find a good friend group. You find people who are kind of like minded. And then you end up, you're doing so much stuff at that point to where you're involving with those people or those subjects or those activities to where you kind of turn the page on the things that bother you or maybe cause you to be a little bit more. Feel a little bit more alone.

Yeah. And keeping yourself busy, which I'm sure you saw too. It's like distracting your mind getting involved. Like you said, athletic director or athletics or clubs. There's a lot you can do when you go to college. You just got to look for it. The opportunities are out there. The opportunity is to sit at home and not do anything. But there's also opportunities to get involved and meet people. And sometimes it's just up to you to put yourself out there, which is scary and can be hard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It reminds me of a story I probably shouldn't share, but I will. I love it. I had the keys to everything as the assistant athletic director. And we'd go out and we'd be, we would. We'd be slightly altered and I'd be like, hey, let's go shoot basketball. And I'd open up, we'd be playing ball, there'd be beers in there and security show Up. And I'd be like, hey, that's Tom. All right, go ahead. Just lock up when you're done. But, yeah, that.

That little extra privilege, it opened a few doors, but we had some fun with it, too. Yeah. As you should. It's always good to have a bit of fun. A little safe fun, right? You weren't hurting anyone? Yeah, no, no. Just as long as the basketball didn't hit your beer bottle. Everything was. Everything was good. Being out there, being a cfi, what was the goal? I guess, as young Tom as a pilot, was it American Airlines? Was it just flying for fun, figuring out as you go, kind of.

What were your goals for your professional career at an early age? Well, the most important thing in all of this is to enjoy every step of the way. I. Of course, you want to look forward to the future, but you never want to miss out on what you're doing right now. And I talk about it in the books, actually. Chapter two, where I worked for a flight school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County Airport, places called Metro Air. And we were a dime a dozen at the time.

And they did everything they could to get us to go find students. And we would fly for sometimes a week or two at a time, hoping a student would walk in the door. And I always wanted that part of my career, as well as all the other parts of my career to mean something. I wanted to look back at my CFI days. It's not, oh, I can't wait to go to the next step. But how did I teach? What did I do? How did I empower others? So I ran into a guy. At. The Allegheny County Airport. I saw him every day.

He would roll. He was a paraplegic. And he would go to the airport almost every day, and he would just watch airplanes. One day, I just walked up to him, hey, how you doing? We started talking, and it turned out he had gone. He was registered at Embry Ribble. He went home to get his stuff and got into a motorcycle accident and broke his back. And he'd been in a wheelchair ever since. And I said, man, there's gotta be a way to get you in an airplane. He was a super cool guy.

Just. I just vibed with this guy right away, and we got a hand control and we installed that thing. And everybody at that airport embraced him, learning how to fly. And it's because he didn't have much money. The owner of the flight school let him fly for gas. And this guy ended up with a commercial instrument license. And we taught. Oh, yeah. Ross Wilson Roscoe, he was. Guy was a God. He was so fun to hang around with. His perspective of the world still resides with me today.

But we ended up putting together a program called the Pennsylvania Wheelchair Pilots. And I taught more pilots with disabilities than I did ambulatory pilots. And it was my way of. Okay. Instructing meant something. We put together a program, and it just kind of fell into my lap because I had an open mind to it. And it started literally with me walking up to the fence and talking to a guy that I saw every day at the airport as he watched airplanes.

A big corporate field Allegheny county was at the time. And it opened the door to this amazing program. And I've always looked at it that way. Every plane I've ever flown, I've really tried to enjoy learning it. An American I've got. Well, we've got a total of 10 type ratings now, nine of them in American. And a lot of that was just, I can hold airplane and I'm going to go learn it. And these check airmen with these check pilots, look at me go, dude, you're just a glutton for punishment.

I'm like, no, how cool is airplane is. I want to learn it. That's awesome. And by taking that attitude, I ended up with a lot of. Those are my merit badges. I got to fly all these cool airplanes and look back at them. And that's why I think every part of it, whether it's flying an airplane you don't necessarily care for, you can find good parts of it, and you can find things that. Where you can build and look back at it in a very positive manner.

Do you know if that program is still going on out there? Have you kept in touch with that at all? No. He passed a couple of years ago. The. When I left, it's not that it fell apart, but there were other. So there have been other instructors in other places. And that hand control, I think, is a matter of fact. I'm sure it's still available. But the glue of it kind of came apart.

Not that people lost interest, but I don't think it really maintained the force that it had or the propulsion, because once Ross had his commercial license, he was out doing other things, too. Didn't really want to commit to the flight school. Right. And he. For him, he just wanted to get in an airplane and go fly it somewhere new. Or he. He really. He became quite. Quite the pilot, and he went all over the place. Flying. That's so cool. That's a great story.

And I really love what you Say you don't have to do it on that level. Right. It's as little as just personally just enjoying the moment because I remember there was this one time I was. I was Pre flighting my 172 or my pre flighting my arrow, and I was super excited to be flying an arrow that had 200 horsepower. I was looking at the 172, a new student going in there. I was like, he's probably wishing he was where I was.

And then I'm here wishing watching a Challenger take off that I wasn't there. And it kind of hit me. I was like, I need to enjoy where I am right now. Enjoy this arrow. Because there's going to come a point in time where I'm probably never going to fly small planes ever again because it's, it's expensive to get into. You just find yourself getting busy. You have a family. You don't get back into it. 90% of pilots probably don't fly small airplanes ever again.

Um, so enjoy it while you got it because the chances are when you're done with the 172, you're not going back in a 1 72. Same thing with an Arrow. Same thing with a King Air especially. I mean, I don't know many people who can afford a King Air. Right. So the chances of you flying those planes or a Duchess aren't going to be very good. Yeah, it's true. That's why I have fun with it. Absolutely. Just enjoy the process. It's a grind, right? I mean, you definitely have to grind for it.

Some days are harder than others, but try to go to the airport with a smile on your face. It'll help you out. And honestly, people notice that too. People can pick up on just happy people or people that love what they're doing, and it's contagious. And it can really mean the difference between either getting a job or be like, hey, my buddy is actually looking for a pilot to sit right seat. I've noticed your attitude. I've noticed how hard you're working. Would you like to do this?

So just going to the airport with a smile on your face can help you out a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And what I've also noticed is the people who always kind of look for that next step when they get there. Not every, not every airline pilot's happy. They're an airline pilot. And when you, and I don't say condition yourself, but when you show that gratitude or that appreciation to fly all those airplanes when you get to an Airline. The newness for me, I know you have your days, but I don't want.

There's a part of it that never wore out. That wore off. And this month I go into my 39th year at American, and I'll tell you what, I still love putting on my uniform. I'm not flying right now. I'm medically out for a bit here. But I still, you know, when I. Even when I'm wearing my uniform to do interviews or cjos or administrative work, I just really have such a love for that and being around the people who do it. Another thing to parlay off of that is that positivity, it can be contagious.

I was at the mall here in Kalamazoo years ago, and I walked by this hot tub store and I just kind of thought it was cool. I walked in and the sales rep started talking to me. This guy by the name of Dustin, Lucius and Dustin, good guy, I could just tell. But he's kind of looking for something else to do. And we got talking about airplanes and flying and I said, it's the coolest job. I love it. Well, he just got a hold of me not that long ago. He just got on the Delta. Oh, no way.

He took the ball and ran. Hey, that's so cool. And that was nothing more than a conversation that stemmed from my love for what I do. So, yeah, I've always been really happy about my career choice, and that includes all the steps along the way to get to where I am today. There seems to be a barrier from the outside looking in of getting into aviation outside of money, people think they're not smart enough. Like we said earlier, people think they just can't do it.

It's not in their family, they throw the military. But when you realize it's honestly as simple as just picking up a phone or just driving to an airport, you could more than likely get in a plane same day and go fly and kind of start the process. You know it. Yeah, it's very easy to start it. Obviously it's hard to make the money to pay for it. And there's other barriers, but, uh, just go do it. Just go call someone, go do a Google search. Flight school is near me. And you can make it work.

Yeah, take. Take an intro ride and if you get air sick, then maybe you want to do something else. But there are a lot of ways to do that. And it's interesting because before you mentioned about Part 61 schools, and a lot of people feel they have to have the discipline of a Certain type of school. We don't really look at that now with us because we have the cadet academy.

That's something we're very passionate about because we're shaping these pilots from their first hour, and we really like them to do well, and we support that strongly. But if it's not something that's available to you, as you said, you go to the airport, There are other things and other ways to get to that and still achieve your goal. There are a lot of different avenues to achieve the end goal. Yeah, I mean, I've had. This is my 324th episode that recorded.

And I mean, there's a handful of people that have had the same exact path whether. Whether. I mean, everyone kind of has a general story that can kind of jive together, but someone is. Is doing fish spotting and a. In a champ, like 50 miles off the coast. Like someone. Everyone just has a very unique part of time building or flying or perspective. So I think it's really cool, just the.

The diversity that comes in your background when you get in aviation, and it leads to cool conversations when you're flying as well. I agree. I agree. When you go all the way to Rome or Shanghai or something. Goals. One day. One day, you know what, you kind. Of find the flying that works best for you. Yeah. There are folks like that. We've been covering, I believe the Dallas, Shanghai trip, And that's about 14 hours of change. And we take two full crews. That trip just crushed me.

I mean, sometimes you're up over the pole and it just feels like you're never going to land. And there are people. It's three on and, you know, nine off. Whatever it comes out to. It's a great trip. Yeah. But it just beat me up. Would take me four or five days to recover from that. There are others who like the kind of the up and down and getting their hands dirty and in and out of airports and that. That could be their thing. And my sweet spot was like a Chicago, Barcelona, something like that.

Try not to whistle as I'm packing my bag that way. Yeah. Like, I. I know I get home, I'm like, I'm really tired. She's like, yeah, right. Yeah. I'm sure it was tough going to Rome, drinking coffee and eating pasta. Right. Yeah. You kind of find the flying that works for you. And obviously that. That comes with seniority, too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. With my reserve status right now, I just pick up whatever's left, but it's all new to me, so I'm kind of just Enjoying it.

So it all works out like we. Like we talked about. Just enjoy the ride, man. Yeah. So you're. You're leaving cfi, you're starting kind of your career. Yeah. You're getting your next job. What came next for you after cfi? After. See, I did that for a little while, and then I was hired by a commuter airline, Pennsylvania Airlines, Allegheny Commuter. They were out of Harrisburg. And I flew a shorts 330. Oh, no way. Yeah, right. And talk about that thing was a boxcar, but it had PT6 engines.

And that thing would whistle when it started. I'm like, this is so cool. There are a lot of jokes. And I know I keep referencing the book, but I talk about that. They called it the Sky Pig and the Flying Boxcar and all these other things. But for me, I was hauling passengers, I was wearing a uniform, and I was like 21 years old. So it may have been 20 when I started, because I remember thinking, if I'm on a layover, I can't have a beer. I'm not old enough yet.

So working at Pennsylvania Airlines was great. State College, Pennsylvania. And it's all hand flying below 10,000ft. And after a couple of years, a lot of people really enjoyed that flying who were working at that company. And I transitioned to Simmons airlines in late 85, and they had shorts, and I decided to go work there for a little bit. And they were checking out captains fast. So right when I turned 23, I was able to check out as a captain.

And now I'm just really loving life because Simmons was a fun place to work. It was kind of a single crowd, so everybody was ready to go enjoy themselves on layovers. They were younger, and it was unlike the very more domesticated crowd at Pennsylvania Airlines. Simmons was a different story. And we'd fly Eagle out of Chicago, but Northwest Airlink out of Detroit. And so depending on where you were, you were flying, you're flying. And more.

It was a more regional company, too, so it was a lot of fun. It was a good transition. And then after Simmons, where did you go after that? American. Perfect. How many hours did you have when you got hired by American? I had just north of 3,000. Yeah. And that was. That had a combination of pic in the shorts. I didn't have much high altitude time, just a couple hours here and there. But most of it was a little bit of king air and mu2 stuff. But my first jet was at American. That's cool.

I was hired there as a flight Engineer on the 727 oh, perfect. That was kind of a good thing. Was that I said perfect. Yeah. Well, that way I could kind of watch the job. And it took a year and a half to go right seat. After being a flight engineer there and even getting on at American back, that was just post deregulation. So a lot of companies are going out of business. There was People Express and Eastern and Pan Am. And so the job market was fairly flooded.

And American, especially back then, they would go through a lot of applicants. They pretty much called anybody in. And even when they called me, I'm like, okay, this isn't, this isn't gonna really. I was too tall. That was the other thing. You had to be no taller than six four. And I'm six five. Oh, really slouched. Yeah. Like I'm. Yeah. So where luckily it was three interviews. Two of them were two days long. It was intensely physical. They gave us what was called the astronaut physical.

And somehow I got through all that and got a job. Just after my 24th birthday, I started American and it was, I was just so happy to think that I'd made this many steps and luckily a fairly short time. Let's take a break from today's episode to hear from our sponsor, RAA Justin here. Whoever said what you don't know can't hurt you clearly wasn't a pilot. In fact, what you don't know can set your financial future way off course.

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As someone who is very involved in the hiring process right now, to look back on what you had to go through, what do you compare? Do you wish it was more like it was right now? Just the differences in time and the astronaut physical. The two days of interviews, probably extremely technical as well. Talk a little bit about the differences and just maybe why it's different. Well, let me think on that physically. So let's take the physical aspect of it. You need a first class physical.

I'm still a big proponent, a big advocate of health and fitness. So you are responsible for your own fitness. And it's a good idea in the first place to create those foundations of fitness, health and fitness earlier on in life at American they don't do that anymore. First class medical is all you need. But it's a really good idea to be healthy anyway. And obviously we can follow, fall off the wagon a little bit. You don't have to have an extreme discipline in that, but taking care of yourself.

You just feel better and you think better. And it's a good thing to create foundationally. Technically, I came from six pack and we learned to scan, we hand flew, we didn't have autopilots. And even flying the Dreamliner, what I've always noticed is I love hand flying that airplane. To have good skills, it's a great idea not to just push buttons too much. Now obviously if you're fatigued or there are other reasons that you want to use automation, great.

But we had no automation back then, so we couldn't use it. And I think that also creates great foundations. So to those who are learning to fly, even if you have automation available, learn the automation, but also learn not to have automation because it makes you a better pilot. And where I'll fly with somebody who it's V1 rotate, gear up, autopilot like okay, and that's. And they'll click it off at a thousand feet coming in and crush the landing like, dude, fly the airplane a little bit.

I hand fly up to almost 20,000ft and before I turn the autopilot on and then it's begrudgingly because I'm like, oh man, this is cool flying this thing. And then depending on, I would say fatigue level, when you're flying Europe or somewhere far in the airplane, it's a good idea to use that automation because it's safety related. But if you're feeling fresh and you're just doing a couple of domestic legs in the airplane, fly that thing.

And if you get to the point to where other things are making it more difficult, for instance, if you're in a high and a saturated air traffic environment, obviously use automation. I'm not trying to discourage that because automation has created a lot of safety, but when you're able to to reduce that automation, it's a great idea to do it and just keep your hands on the airplane. So comparatively, we had no choice back then. Now automation is available.

But it's a good idea to today choose to take away that automation when possible. Yeah, I mean there's that famous American Airlines kind of training video. I think it's going around, it's been around on YouTube where I can't remember who it is, but he's sitting in front of like A recurrent problem. He's like, hey, when things go wrong, sometimes it's best to knock off that automation and just focus on fly the airplane. Right. Uh, so same thing. Yeah, yeah. You're a pilot.

You can fly an airplane. These are still airplanes, right? And I'm sure people be. It's amazed at how. How these airplanes operate, how they fly. It's like they fly well, right. It's not like you're flying a tank. So it's probably fun to fly. Especially when you get to the 78 and you think about how big that airplane is. The wing, the engines, everything. You know, you're just flying up there smiling. Oh, and I am. Every time I've ever taken off, I had a big smile on my face.

And you'll notice how different airplanes have different personalities to them. The 7 8, I believe, emulates 757 controls. But you can never duplicate a 757. That thing's just so cool. Oh, my gosh, that thing's a Ferrari with wings. There are other airplanes that are just gentle and predictable. And really a triple seven is the nicest airplane from a standpoint of just being a nice, big, happy, predictable airplane. It doesn't bite you the way otherwise can.

It's just a wonderful airplane to land, to fly. It feels so good flying it in your hands. Other airplanes aren't like that. The 727 was a solid airplane, but that thing could. It could hit you every once in a while. I mean, you. You'd make all these great landings. All of a sudden you crush one and be like, what did they do? I did. You know, same flare up 20 times in a row, and all of a sudden you're like, prang it. Yeah. And you would.

You'd had three rear engines, so sometimes you'd have to deal with compressor stalls and that number two center engine. Especially with like crosswind take. There were always things that you had to consider depending on what airplane you were flying. Even today, you have the 737 Max, where crosswinds become an issue because you can't really lean that wing over the way you put in other airplanes. So by flying different airplanes, you learn their nuances and really get to enjoy.

I know people are always, well, is this plane better than that one? There are planes we like better than others, but if it flies, it's cool. I've enjoyed every airplane I've ever flown, and I've flown a few squirrely ones. That's part of the process of building your time, though. You always Got to fly a couple squirrely airplanes. That put some hair in your chest, right? Yeah. Oh, the MU2. Yeah. That's a skateboard with three wheels, man. That thing was just.

I, I, you know, I've heard that the people that really understand how that airplane works and how it can bite you. I heard that a lot of people do actually like that airplane. But if you don't understand how everything works, that thing will. Will put you down in a heartbeat. Is not forgiving at all. No, it doesn't give you break. And it's loud, but it's fast. And it was a cool airplane, too, but like that, you really had to tend to that airplane. You couldn't look the other way because it'll.

It could do something to you if you're not careful. It was temperamental. Yeah. It definitely has a record. Not necessarily the best record, you know, but I've met a lot of people that enjoy flying it, so don't be afraid of it. Oh, I, I did too. I did. But I just remember it was a bit more of a challenge. What was your favorite. What would you. What would you say your favorite airliner you've ever flown was? I. I know you noticed. You said the 72 was fun.

You also mentioned your love for the 7 5. You also talked about the Triple 7. So it sounds like there's a lot that are kind of in the top tier, but if you had to choose one, what would be your favorite? Well, I would say the 757 with Rolls Royce Angels. Okay. It was so everything about it was cool. It looked cool, it flew cool, it sounded cool. You could go into.

I remember going to somewhere like Santa Ana, Orange County, John Wayne Airport, and you pretty much pick your brick, and it would land on it and would land nicely. And I had those eight big brakes back there. It would stop taking off out of there. You push the throttles up, and it was just roaring and ready to go. That you could cut an engine on takeoff of that thing and barely knew it. It was just going to keep climbing.

And the missions that an airplane could fly, also, you going in and out of La Paz, Bolivia, or it would carry more and do more than any airplane I think we've ever had. It was just unmatched in performance. And it had enough of a combination to where you still kind of flew a six pack with a little bit of EFIs, but it had enough of the newer technology that say that the 727 didn't have to. Where you could also, you could kind of let it do its own thing too, when you needed to.

Yep. Yeah, it sounds like a great airplane. I wish they're still around, obviously, because my dad was a pilot as well. He flew. He retired American two years ago. He was Piedmont USAir, US Airways. Kind of made his whole way up there, but he was timing a 7:2 and a 7:5. And those are his two favorite airplanes, planes he said he's ever flown. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah, yeah. And like I said, I. I've liked them all, but that one definitely stands out. What, what got you involved in pilot hiring?

Has it always been kind of a passion of yours to help give back, or was it just something someone came up to you one day, was like, you'd be good at this. Let's do this. Well, I spent 25 years with the union doing pilot professional standards. Oh, cool. So I had to deal with a lot of people we shouldn't have hired, and now I wanted to deal with the people we should. That's awesome. So that was kind of a turning point for me because I really, truly enjoyed doing my pilot assistance work.

So pro standards wasn't all bad. You'd have some that you're like, okay, folks you wouldn't want to deal with, but you could also make a difference. Professional standards with our union is, I think it's really been the industry standard. They do so many good things to help people, but obviously you're dealing with a lot of different elements at the same time.

So in that, like, I don't want to paint it as a bad picture, but we did have you kind of run into some of the more difficult people in that organization, also in that committee. So years ago, I thought it would be cool just to see who I'm handing my job to. And as an interviewer, having done this for so many years, it meant a lot to me to say, okay, I'm getting older now. I'm 62 now, and I've only got a few years left. And this was actually several years ago. So it was in my late 50s.

And I thought, I want to involve myself in who I passed the torch to. And you remember my CJO speech incorporated that, where I talked about these pilots from 1935? Yeah, you did. You pointed right to them. Right by the wall. Yeah, yeah. Did I give you CJ over there by the. Oh, really? Because, yeah, you. You met. You met us before, like, early on in the interview, gave us a big speech in the museum and then over in the back room by the 7 6. I think it is that's up there over there.

That's where we got our cjs. Yeah, that's kind of the secret. So everybody knows that they're in there. They pretty much think they're getting C.J. we'll switch it up every once in a while and bring it somewhere else. Yeah. And they're gonna, well, okay, you'll be hearing from us. And it said, it's a cjo, you. Gotta have some fun with it. Right, Right. Yeah. And so there is. There's a picture in there in the museum, the C.R. smith Museum there that's very near and dear to me.

And it was taken in 1935. It's of 10 pilots and there's a Curtis Condor behind them. And I go and I look at that picture anytime I'm about to interview pilots. And because these were forefathers, some of these guys got hired in the 20s, like I said, I was mentioning that in my little CJO speech, that this is our legacy. And these guys created this almost 100 years ago. They were hired not knowing this would one day be the biggest airline on the planet Earth.

And I, as a steward of my profession, have always wanted to pass my job along to somebody who has that same passion for it. And I don't know if I'm parlaying a little bit or if we're going to get into it, but there are things that I truly look for when I interview pilots. And it goes beyond the flying of the airplane. A lot of that is the passion of what we have, what we represent, how people view us, and what I'm passing along to the next generation. I was going to ask.

We are kind of going to get into that as well. Obviously we have you here, someone that's involved with hiring, that has a passion for hiring. It's a very hot topic. And people always want to know, like, what can I do to stand out? What can I do to get the job? What can I do? Or what is something that is almost an immediate no, thank you, apply again in six months. So if you have any tidbits or anything that really to focus on, let's say into the interview or that process.

Yeah. So we have kind of a rating during the interview that we look at candidate. And in teaching our interviewers, one of the most important things that we look at is a well rounded person, that he or she is somebody who we can truly say, this is going to be a great employee for our company. And we don't have that much time to evaluate that. So there are a lot of Necessary tools there.

Personally, I have three really big things I look for, the first of which is, is this a person who can technically fly the airplane? Is it somebody I can sit next to, somebody who will gel well on the flight deck and who can safely fly the airplane and truly be a professional in their job as a pilot? And that's a big one.

But there are two other ones that once I know this is a capable pilot, because there are plenty of people who will go and they get their license, they get their ratings, they can fly airplanes, but they don't do well with people. They're just kind of. There's something missing there. And that, to me, can even be a dangerous thing, because you want to know that that person next to you is somebody you can rely upon. The number two thing I call inside of the wingspan.

How are they with the flight attendants? How are they with the passengers? How are they with taking care of. We had some turbulence. What are they doing to accommodate everybody else? What about maintenance issues, things like that? To where inside the wingspan? And have they accommodated all of those nuances to where everybody knows that they're all involved and they're all an asset and that they all feel welcome to create a safe environment and a positive environment.

I always go back, I say hello to everybody. I want these people to know that I'm their advocate and that I really want everybody to have a good time and have safe aircraft. So that can go on. And you can kind of find that out quickly when. If you're asking an interview question and somebody seems at times, believe it or not, a little bit condescending, or if they just. Well, I focus on the airplane and that's it. It's like, no, no, you need to. Your role goes outside of that as a pilot.

And the third is what I call outside of the wingspan, to truly be somebody. And I know not everybody's like this, but I have always been an absolute ambassador of my occupation. And you can measure that. It's not like you're going to, hey, the old saying about, how do you know someone's a pilot? They'll tell you in the first five minutes. It's not always like that.

But I really enjoy hiring the type of pilot that if they're in the terminal and they see a little old lady that seems like she doesn't know where she's going, or a person who's a little bit duress or whatever, whatever, to approach that person, because we as pilots are an occupation that others look up to. And to be outside of the wingspan also, how do you do it? With ticket agents, with maintenance, with dispatch, with ground people, all of them. Are you somebody who embraces.

And it's amazing how even on the ground where somebody once pointed something. I forgot exactly what it was, but pointed something out on the airplane that was very pertinent, that he just sees these airplanes push back every day and goes, hey, is that okay over there? And I forgot what it was. But it was a very relevant matter. And by being a person who welcomes that and says hello to other. I mean, it's like I got a couple of Jeep wranglers, right?

Whenever I cruise down the street, we got the Jeep wave. Yeah. You know, we're jeeple. But what I notice is in the terminal, I will say hi to other pilots. Yeah, maybe that makes me a nerd. But hey, there are other pilots, you know, that we have, we have that in common. And so maybe I go outside of that a little bit more than most people do. But for me, that role means a lot. And it means a great deal to me to, to portray that.

And I use the word advocate a lot, but to advocate that within the public, outside of the. Yeah, I mean, you can definitely tell that too. And one thing I'll give you credit for is putting us at ease when we're in that moment too. Like, you know, it can be a very stressful situation for a lot of people. This is everything you've ever worked for.

You see your dreams right in front of you and there is the chance that, you know, you get thanks, but no thanks or thanks apply in 6 months or, you know, and that's not to say it's not going to happen or it's not the same airline won't hire you immediately. It's just how it shapes out in that situation. But it was very much a put at ease situation. And kind of like a deep breath and like, all right, this feels like a good place.

I feel very like, I feel welcomed, you know, and it was very cool to see that. And I think it's very important.

And the type of person you're talking about hiring, I mean, I've seen it with flying and it's important you deal with so many personalities as a pilot and you never know who's having a bad day and being able to manage those personalities and being able to manage people and realize, you know, all right, well, let's try to put a smile on people's faces and maybe let's try to calm the situation down or talk to the gate agent, talk to the ramp or talk to the ground. Screw all that kind of stuff.

And it's as simple as just saying hi and just being a person, you know, and that can really change the day and make it more personal. Yeah, it's true. And we look for that. And when it comes to our interview process, I love that it happens right in front of a DC3. It's a beautiful area. And we truly want the people who we interview to feel like they've been embraced and regarded and heard.

One of the things we always say is, hey, when we introduce ourselves, you'll notice we made it pretty brief. Why? Because it's not about us, it's about you. It's your time. Tell us about yourself and have a nice organic conversation. When it comes to. When it comes to getting hired or not hired, not getting hired or having to reply in 6 months isn't a bad thing. Sometimes it's great because we feel the candidate is just not quite ready.

Then they'd have trouble in training, maybe trouble getting through oe. And it's by no means a dig on that candidate. The way that I always compare it is it's kind of like when you're baking a cake, you throw it in the oven. Oven. It might not be ready quite yet. It's just got to cook a little longer. All the ingredients are there, but it's. The cake isn't quite ready yet. And we have. We're pretty strong about that if we believe that.

And a lot of times we'll just say, okay, just a little bit more. We just need. And we'll notice that in certain ways, sometimes it'll be technical knowledge where we think they. We'd like to see them just gain a little bit more before they come to us. Yep. And one thing I felt, I don't know if you agree with or if this is how you kind of is a big part of it is having good, clean logbooks that kind of felt like it was a big thing as well.

Just seeing the different logbooks that I saw in the people that got cgos. They seem to be the people that really kind of put a lot of attention into the small details in their logbook to make sure it was presented well bound. Whatever it is, it seemed to help out a lot. Yeah, well, it does. It shows that you're taking. We look for a lot of things with the log books.

The I've seen applicants with 20,000 or claim to have 20,000 hours and not one logbook and said to me, well, just call this employer. They'll tell you, I work there, and that's why. That's my time right there. Yeah. Okay. Others who literally logged everything. Original logs. The reason we like those so much is because we're able to look back and find the 6149s. If there are failed events, if there, we can kind of see where the continuity of that is. And not everybody's logbooks are great.

And if they don't have that, you're able to get an 8710 from the FAA, and we can fill that in. But one thing we have run into far too much are when somebody says they've never failed a training vendor, a checkride, and we'll go into the log books and we'll find four, five of them. Like, you're like. And then when you. When you ask them about it, like, hey, what? You know, it says a little different here than what your app says. Oh, I forgot about that. Like, right.

No pilot forgets about a failed check ride that lives with you for the rest of your life. Right. I even remember bad check rides. I mean, we're like, oh, you got on a crowd. You're like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe it passed me. Yeah. And that's. We're talking 40 years back. Yeah. Where you had a couple where you're like, oh, man, am I glad I got through that one. To say that the burden of having failed a checkride.

I know today especially, pilots are worried about, well, how many failed checkrides are too many. I've seen it all over the place. It depends on when those checkride failures were, what you learned. How. When somebody says to me, hey, I failed to write, but it's completely the examiner's fault. It wasn't me. Like, okay, it's a red flag. Because I want to say, even if you have an overzealous examiner, we've seen that, too. What did you learn from it? How did you prepare the next time?

What did you do? How did you move forward from that experience? And when you see somebody who talks about their learning and that, they embrace that and they embrace their failures. You know, being a football player and us having an athletic background, you learn. You learn from your mistakes. You learn from losing. If you win all the time, it's not a benefit. You have to be able to lose with your face up and win with your head down. I guess to be able to handle.

Both and facing failure and facing a loss or anything. I think it's very commendable to see how you respond, you're going to have adversity in your life at, at some point, things are not going to be perfect. Whether you had a perfect record. Now there's me a day when the deck is stacked against you and you have to perform in a very bad situation, essentially.

And seeing that you have had a failure in the past, I'm not saying it can help you, but being able to explain it, take responsibility for it, and be truthful, it can show how you handle adversity. You can come back from failure, you can put it together and you can get it done. And I'm sure that's something that you don't hold against them if they're. They're honest with you and they fully explain what happens. Yeah, exactly.

As a matter of fact, the humility of that, if anything, is a benefit to say, okay, you know, I'm not perfect. However, this is what I strive for and this is why I try to be better. And there are some cases where you really. You'll throw. Because we pretty much know everything that's gone on. There have been people who have had incidents and accidents, things like that, who are like, hey, you're not off the table here.

Just, we'll put some questions out there that kind of open the door to that and they'll go a different direction with it. And like, well, we're kind of hoping you'd talk about this. And we want to see the human side of people because that's important to us, that we're hiring people who throughout their careers will want to continually be on a path of learning. Yeah. Which I think is huge.

And you're gonna be a busy, busy guy here soon because all that's starting to pick right back up and getting after it. So if you're listening to this, make sure if you ever see Tom, be like, hey, I heard you on the pilot's pilot podcast, but it's really cool. And like I said, I felt like I was at ease when I was there. My two interviewers are great. Put me at ease. I mean, the first thing to say is like, you're here for a reason. Right? We saw something we like. It's essentially just.

Just talk to us and just be. Be yourself. That's what we want to see. I mean, my, my short experience in, in flying, it's a lot comes down to personality and can I be in this airplane with this person for 16 hours? Going to Shanghai, you know, are we going to get out wanting to. To report each other pro standards. Are we going to get out wanting to go get some dinner and enjoy a different culture. So a lot of it I feel like comes down to that. And I'm sure you would agree as well. I do. I do.

And you meet. I've made some amazing friendships, not just at American, but within the industry, just as I've often said, I said in my last post is that we're kindred spirits. Anything we're distracted from, anything from hummingbirds to helicopters and if it flies, we say squirrel, what are we talking about? And to have that connection with other pilots has made for some wonderful friendships. It truly has made life worthwhile.

After my medical event a couple of years ago, I've just the support that I got from the people I cared about meant so much. Absolutely. And we'll kind of end. We're going to talk about the book here in a second and kind of end off on, you know, American has been such a big part of your career. It really seems like it's a company you love. It's, it's been a great 39 years. You say that you've been there as a pilot now that maybe it's changing a little bit, but the choices are out there. Right.

We've seen people go from, from one major to another. They have options, which has not always been the case. As someone that is is talking for American and just your personal experience, why would you recommend American just in what you've experienced? There are the most important thing. A part of your job isn't your job, it's the family you go home to. So. But we often will see, for instance, a Delta pilot who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, that doesn't want to commute to Atlanta or whatever.

So we hire them and we've lost pilots, Delta who live in Atlanta or whatever. So when it comes to the big three, they're all solid. They're all really good guys and ladies and they're just. I can't be one of those. Oh, we're number one. Because these. I think they're all really solid organizations, the legacy carriers and even the discounts. My gosh, I go to these pilot conferences and we just yuck it up with the spirit guys and the. I mean, they're all a really good bunch.

Yeah. So why American? It has been, it's been a wonderful company for me and I can't speak for the management of other airlines or the unions of alpa. But, but first of all, allied pilots, they are true. They really are proponents. They're really, they have created so many different committees to embrace so many facets of a person's life. They're really proactive in being there for the pilots. We see them at all the conferences.

And I'm quick to say, hey, I may be on the hiring side here, but our union is absolutely wonderful. And to see that kind of strength standing behind us has really made a big difference. Even our aeromedical people are just unbelievably good folks. Safety Aliyah. They're people I've always truly been able to trust. On the American side of it, they.

Years ago, when I got hired, there was a little more of an adversarial relationship with management and a guy by the name Mark Cronin, who is our believe our east area, like line. I think he was just below the vvp. The director of Line Ops East, I believe, came up with a new concept where he said, I want the chief pilots to be there for the pilots. And he said, I will not have a chief pilot who does not advocate for a pilot. And he hired.

He started hiring chief pilots, coachable and personable and compassionate. And that made such a huge difference to me because even at the time, working at professional standards, to be able to talk to these guys who we truly shared that regard for. The pilot group, for me, created a cohesion that made. That set things apart that were. If a pilot was having a tough time, he called the union, but he could also call his chief pilot.

And when I had my medical event a couple years ago, the embrace that I got from the management side, I don't know if I'd have got any United Delta. I hope that I would. But they literally called me every day, the area director of flight. They wanted to make sure I was okay. And it meant it was like a soft landing to a very difficult event. And it meant the world to me to see that the American Airlines side of things was just so supportive. Supportive of me, definitely. And I love that.

And we're getting into that right now. So I got the book we talked about a little bit before we started this Is it Flying and Dying. I got it off Amazon. I mean, the title just jumps right off to you. It's. Yeah, I know it's going to be impactful. We talked a lot about flying. So if you want to focus on the other part, about the dying part, and kind of talk about where it came from and how what happened.

Yeah, I had something very unexpected happening two years ago, and I haven't posted about it. I haven't really talked about it other than friends at the airline know about It. I've been a health and fitness advocate my whole life, as it fit to fly. It started actually as kind of a fitness page and it transitioned into more of an aviation thing. But I had my whole life, never had any issues with anything. Didn't really ever get sick. I always felt great. And one night I was down in my.

We have a sauna in the house here. And I really like the hot. The cold transition to where I will just kind of cook in the sauna for a while and I'll jump into the ice bath or like into a cold shower and feels amazing. I go and I fall asleep. Well, one night I did that November 4th of a couple years back. And when I got in a cold shower, it kind of didn't feel quite right.

And I hit the shut off and I went upstairs and I laid down next to my sweetie and she said, you want me to turn the light off? I'm like, nah, give me a second. And I went. And I went into ventral ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest. My heart stopped. And just to let you know, cardiac arrest is not a heart attack. Heart attacks are when you have a blockage to the heart. It continues to pump, kind of like a fuel pump. It's lost a little bit of the fuel coming to it. Can't pump stuff.

Well, a cardiac arrest is like pulling the cables off of that fuel pump. Your heart stops. And I turned blue and my eyes rolled back and I went out almost immediately. I remember a quick gasp in my chest and that was it. And at that point, Desiree loved my life. She started. She jumped on me, she shook me, tried to see what was up, started CPR, called 911. My son, who hadn't been home in months from college, came home. He also was certified in cpr. He came up and gave.

Here's this, you know, this 22 year old kid who sees his dad dying and turned blue. And he's giving me mouth to mouth resuscitation. He's on me. He's. I'm just, you know, I'm laying back and he went outside of himself, as did Desiree, who was just working so hard on me just to try and give me compressions to. The two of them did such a wonderful job. About 10 minutes later, my friend Clay Hollister comes through the front door, who happened to be the head medic at Porta gms.

As he's carrying a defib, he said, is it Tom? And one of the things medics don't like is having to ever go to a friend or a relative's house, and he ran upstairs, and they hooked me up. And just after 10 minutes, I got my first shock. I went about 2, 3, 4 shocks in there somewhere, and then I just became unshockable. My. There was nothing there anymore. Very fortunately, I got a shot of lidocaine. At that point, I had a little bit of a tremble in my heart.

And after seven shocks, I came back to life. So I was without a pulse for about 20 minutes. Needless to say, that kind of altered my flying career a little bit, and it was a rough night. The odds of coming back after an event like that are very low. Out of hospital, cardiac arrest has a very high mortality rate, and the chance of brain damage, of cognitive impairment or even physical impairment is also very high. Cardiac arrest.

So at that point, I woke up several hours later in the hospital, and I'm like, what, though? And Des was standing over to me. She said, your heart stopped. We almost lost you. And then one of the first things I thought is, there goes my career. But. And that's where a lot of my healing had to begin, is to say, okay, well, I've done this for a long, long time, and how do I transition from what I am now to what. How I still want to fulfill a legacy that I've been handed?

And every morning, I would go have a little area here we call the Zen den. It overlooks our lake. And I would just start to write, and I would hang those words out in front of me. And we're familiar as pilots at something called the 36 inch rule, or if you kind of take a step back from something, you look at it, you have a better way of processing it. And every morning, I would. I would just write, and I must have written 75, 80,000 words or more.

And there was a healing in that and being able to say, okay, this is where I'm in. Where's my egoic attachment to say? It's so. It's so fun to say, hey, I'm captain Tom, and I'm, you know, dreamliner and Instagram and all that, whatever. And what I really realized and all that is that you could love your job, but it can't love you back. You can love flying, but it can't love you back.

And that's why one of the things I said earlier was the most important part of your job is the family you come home to. We love flying, but our families are so much more important because they not only we love, but love us back. And they create the True solid foundation of who we are and what we are. And they were all there, friends and family and the people I cared about. So it was, at that point, a matter of trying to rebuild things.

And the book talks a lot about all the crazy antics of the stuff I did earlier on my career, stuff we got into and some of the pro standards things. It also talks about pilot mental health and how important that is.

And I'd say almost as important as a pilot reading that would be a pilot's spouse or significant other, because it addresses a lot of what pilots go through, from the subtleties of our schedules to significant events like what happened to me and how I went from 10ft tall and bulletproof to, gosh, what's the next step? Luckily, I had a huge amount of sick time.

And I'm still burning through it now, slowly but surely, and unable to kind of transition out a little bit more on my own terms, which has been very beneficial. And then the other thing that happened, and I address it in the book, is. And I've never really paid enough, I guess, regard to this, but I had a magnificent afterlife experience. I remember going out of my body and that still. I mean, every time I talk about it, I get chills. It's not a dream or hallucination. There is still. There's.

It is magnificent what awaits us. And I was sent back from that and that. It also details that in flying and dying. When I wrote the book, one of the most important things was everything I had thought of that was going through my mind, I wanted to put down. So it wasn't like I went from chapter one to chapter 34. I think the first chapter I wrote was 20 or 21. And then I wrote the chapters and here and there. And then all of a sudden, as my brain was reattaching all these.

Who know, I don't know how it works neurologically, but I would think of stuff that I did in my 20s, like, oh, I gotta write about that. And it would come to me in this incredible detail. I mean, you know, we almost got crunched by the Duke lacrosse team on a layover one night, Meanest Guy apart. It talks about some really interesting stuff. Yeah, that was an interesting story. Just stuff that happens.

I mean, there are a lot of stories like that where you're like, oh, my gosh, I remember when that happened. I wrote about it, and the intention was not for it to turn into a book, but once I had all of that and I cut a bunch of the stuff that I didn't Think mattered out. It turned into a timeline of everything I'd done from the time I was a flight instructor to present day. And there was continuity there.

And in writing that, and really putting my heart and my emotion and not just telling the stories, but describing everything that was going on was so healing for me. I had not even planned to release this as a book. And a couple of friends read it and said, tom, you need to put this out here. This is gonna, this will help people who are dealing with things. And that propelled. It caused me to say, okay, let's put it out there.

Because anytime you write a book or anything like that, even you know how it is, you do an Instagram post, if it gets a million views, you're going to have a bunch of people, doesn't matter how positive it is, they're going to say something negative. And I'm like, do I really want to expose myself to people who are going to say mean things? I mean, what do I. I don't know if I really want that. But what I realized about that book is that it will help people.

And even if it helps just one person, it was worth putting out there. And so far the reviews on it have been very positive. I've been really flattered by what people have said about it and that it seems to make sense to people, which is very important to me. Yeah. And I mean, going back to the pandemic when people were faced with losing their jobs, there's a big identity crisis for pilots. And kind of what you're explaining is you realize that flying is not going to love you back.

Like, it's about your family, it's about your personal life. And so many pilots find themselves wrapped up in the thought that they are a pilot. So having the ability to write something that kind of can help people realize, like, hey, like, this is your profession, this isn't who you are, this is a job that you have. It's a duty you can do and it has a big part of you. But like, you need to make sure you appreciate the grind we talked about earlier.

Your wife, your kids, just life, just day to day situations, talking here, talking to people. So it sounds like you, you kind of have a story to tell. And I'm glad that you wrote that book because I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people realize that. I do. And I, and I really enjoyed it. I narrated it too. I turned it into an audio. Perfect. That was fun.

Because I get this really bad habit of imitating people once I know Somebody for a little while, I kind of learn their mannerisms a little more. And all of a sudden I'm like, and I don't mean to mock people when I do it, but it's kind of fun. And so with the book, I was able to do a lot of different characters and voices in it, too. And rather than have somebody else narrate it, I bought a mic.

I built a studio inside of one of my walking closets in the house, and I soundproofed it and everything. I did the whole. I narrated the whole book. Took me a long time to do it because I'd go through a chapter and go, ah, that one doesn't really have the energy. I, I'm going to redo it. And it became another really fun project as I was reading that book to, to. To. To turn it into an audio book. Absolutely. I mean, what a story. Like, you think about your, your 65.

You know, your career up to age 65, where you have to say bye to aviation. You don't ever. You don't think about how many pilots actually leave on medical before that. I don't know the exact statistic. You might, since you kind of went through that, but there's a lot of people that don't make it to 65. Health reasons, medical reasons. You're not guaranteed to fly till 65. It's just, you might think you are, but. And you might think you're bulletproof.

As someone that took their health very seriously, which I, I have to say, had to have helped you out in this situation, I believe the story would have been way different if you wouldn't have paid attention to your health and kind of neglected it for your whole life. So, I mean, I'm glad you did. I'm glad we're having this conversation right now. Yeah. So if anyone's listening is, take that, take that from that as well. As a pilot, it's very easy to fall into the.

I'm tired, I'm on a layover, I work hard. Or even just the, the. I eat greasy food, I have a beer or two every single night. That's not a good lifestyle to have. We have to find a way to stay active. You sit down in a plane for eight hours a day, you sit down in the hotel. You really got to find a way to, to stay healthy and make it a priority. And like you said, you know, you go ups and downs.

You know, don't get, don't beat yourself up too much when you're in a down slope and you're Eating pizza every single night and then enjoy the time where you're enjoying a salad and eating healthy foods. I agree. Yeah, I agree. But Tommy, I, I really appreciate you coming on and talking about this. I, I, I got this yesterday when I got back from a trip and I can't wait to read it. I think it's going to be a great story and I hope everyone takes a lot out of this.

It's, I mean, you offer a lot of great information about American. You're in a very unique situation where you see every pilot that essentially is going to come through these doors and, and represent the brand and carry on the legacy as you will talk to when they go through it. So it's really awesome. The other thing about the book too is it's giving me an opportunity to give back.

The portions of the proceeds are going to go to sudden cardiac arrest survivors, American Heart association, and to buy AEDs in public places. I did a post the other day. The AED in my gym has saved two lives already. And to think that, and kind of an interesting fact, 356,000 people die every year of sudden cardiac arrest. And a lot of it is 10. You go down 10% in probability of surviving every minute that you have to wait for an aed.

And so if there's an AED hanging on the wall there, you've got it and you get that thing hooked up. First minute after cardiac arrest, that person has a 90% chance of survival, whereas if it's after 10 minutes, they have a 10% chance of survival. So I'm using, I'm using these, a lot of the funds to finance it. If I go somewhere, a gym or something, and there's no AED there, I'm going to buy them one because it's my way of kind of giving back to what?

Yeah, so I mean, you said you're without AED for 10 minutes. So what, you're looking at a 10% chance. The odds are stacked against you. Yeah, yeah. I think after 10 minutes it was without CPR, it's a 98% mortality. So 2%. I believe the numbers. If you have CPR, it increases that without CPR. Yeah. You're about 1 in 50. So it depends. The numbers have, the new numbers that I saw are a little bit more. And that's the big thing. Learn CPR too.

Yeah, they were, the last ones I saw were 98 when I published the book. But I saw some stuff recently that says you can double or triple your channel chances of survival with cpr and if you don't know it, just start pumping on a chest and about 120 beats a minute or so, like the song Staying Alive is the cadence you want to use on someone's chest because a friend of mine, Delta Airlines pilot Matt Clark, went into cardiac arrest just coming in over. It was Newfoundland.

He ended up in Montauk, but his captain had not done CPR in 30 years, went over there and started pumping on his chest. They used the onboard AED and they brought him back to life. So crazy. Learning cpr. Having an AED nearby will save thousands of lives if we're able to get this program rolling. Well, I mean, I'm really glad that everything worked out so we could have this conversation, so we could share it, so you could write the book, so you could have it.

Honestly, sounds like you have the opportunity to help change a lot of lives and you're gonna. You're gonna take it and run from it. And I think that's really cool to recognize kind of what happened, how you can kind of pivot and realize one flying's not your whole career. You. You can do anything and you can enjoy it and just enjoy it and give back. So I think it's really cool. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, Tom, I appreciate your time.

This has been a lot of fun talking with you, and it's cool to kind of have this conversation. Wayne and I was just a little peon looking up at you, hoping that you guys would say yes at one point. So 1. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Nice to give you dj and I'm glad you're with. Yeah, it's been. It's been a great time. I have my 8 month review coming up soon, so getting close to being done with my probation year and just enjoying it while I can. But I really appreciate this.

It's been a lot of fun and I hope we can stay in touch. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, I appreciate it, AV Nation. That's a wrap on today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven't left a review yet, please go to Spotify. Please go to itunes. I want to try to get to a thousand reviews on each individual platform. So go ahead and leave a five star review.

I mean, that'd be beneficial and hopeful, but if you like the podcast, please leave a five star review on both of those and also write a nice little comment there. It helps more people find this podcast. And that's the goal, right? To get more aviators to find more people in aviation. If you already left a review, grab your dad's phone, leave a review on his end. But AV Nation, I hope you're having a great day and as always, happy flying.

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