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My name is Jason Miller.

I'm a career flight instructor.

I've been teaching flying in California since 2002.

I specialize in mountain training, technically advanced aircraft and instrument flying and my philosophies for training have have grown over the last couple decades and have been released in a series of YouTube videos and podcasts and ultimately Culmin in our Ground School app, which is a proficiency and training app for pilots of all levels.

AV Nation, what is going on?

And welcome back to the Pilot to Pilot podcast.

My name is Justin Seems and I am your host.

In today's episode we have Jason Miller on from Learn the Finer Points in the Ground School app.

Now, as you know, they're a sponsor of the episode, they're a sponsor of the podcast.

I'm a big, big believer in Jason and his mission of what he's doing in aviation and teaching pilots.

The first thing he says when he introduces himself is I'm a career flight instructor and you feel you talk to him, you can tell that he loves it, that he has a passion for it, passion for teaching and I highly recommend checking out the Ground School app.

It is something that I wish I had when I was in my training and I think it is very, very valuable for you as well.

So please check it out.

It's just a wealth of information and so much knowledge in there.

But in this episode directly we are talking about how to save money.

We talk about someone who is maybe a businessman and has a ton of Money and how they can go about their training.

And then we also pivot to, you're a student pilot, money's tight.

You want private.

We give you a couple tips on what you can do and how you can expect what your training is going to be like and how you can save money as well.

Because as we know, it is very expensive.

There's.

There's no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Flying is going to be expensive.

It's a major hurdle to getting in aviation.

It's just the overall expense, but you can do it.

Other people have done it as well.

So there are a couple tips for you in there as well.

Aviation.

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

If you do, please leave us a review on Spotify.

We just passed 1,000 reviews, which is crazy.

We're trying to get 1,000 reviews on Apple podcasts.

So go there as well and leave a review.

Last time I checked, I think we're at like 9:30.

So we're close.

We're very, very close.

I appreciate you all listening to that effect.

We do have something coming out Cool.

Later this year, so if you sign up for the email list, that'd be great.

It's on the website Pilot the Pilot hq dot com.

I'll make sure that it's there and I'll send it out either on Instagram or I'll just make it more available on the website.

But something is coming that I think is gonna be pretty cool and we're putting a lot of work in.

Shout out to Nick, the video editor.

Shout out to Nick.

You're the man putting him to work.

But we're making something pretty cool and I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.

So, Avia Nation, I hope you're having a great day.

Without any further ado, here's Jason and how to save money in your flight training.

Jason, what's up, dude?

Welcome back to the podcast.

Thanks, Justin.

I'm happy to be here.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to have you here as well.

I. I need to go back and start counting, but I'm pretty sure you are the most returning guest.

You've probably been on here more than anyone else, so I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing for you, but y. Yeah, well.

That'S a, that's a great honor.

Yeah, I think it's three or four times now.

Yeah.

Well, cool, man.

Well, today, you know, we've, we've had the series which we actually haven't finished yet.

I believe we stopped at commercial, so we need to continue that series that we did, but this one is going to be more specific and how to save money in flying.

I think it's a very, very hot topic, right?

Like, I mean, you see people taking out tons of money for loans.

You see some people on Instagram be like, hey, I only spent 20 grand on all my training and this is how I did it, or I didn't have any loans.

So there's.

There's really kind of like a huge spread of people either side.

Either they spent a ton of money or didn't spend much money at all, were able to pay it off.

So I think it's a very hot topic, you know, how to set.

How to save money.

Because it is very expensive to become a pilot.

And probably the number one reason why people don't do it, because it's such a burden on people.

And especially with what it looks like right now, where a lot of people aren't getting hired for regionals or aren't getting.

There's not as much moving as there was a couple of years ago.

So I think it's a very good time to touch on this.

So I don't know if it's gonna be five tips, 10 tips, 100 tips, or three, but we're gonna have a little solid conversation on save money while training.

Yeah, yeah, that's great.

That's great.

You know, and I think straight away, there's kind of like two different, I don't know, types of people, or two people with sort of two different goals or agendas, right?

Like, there's the people that you mentioned that come into flight training with the idea that they need to get their certificates and ratings, and then they want to get hired, right?

So it's like, how fast can I get all of that stuff done and start to earn money as a pilot?

Maybe that's like one group of people, and then there's another group of people that are just successful in business, or they've come to a time in their life where they want to become pilots and they maybe want to buy an aircraft and enjoy the world of aviation.

And maybe that's a second group.

And I think it's slightly different for each one, which is why I think we should probably make that distinction.

Yeah, for sure.

Because, I mean, you do have the businessman that's like, hey, money's not really an issue.

I want to be the best pilot I can possibly be.

Here's a blank check, essentially.

But I think focusing on this will probably focus on kind of like the younger student that really wants to make this a career or just has.

He doesn't have the opportunity to have the funds necessarily available and has to go into loans or has to go into cost saving.

And you know, they're eating beans every single night so they can afford one more hour of 172 or 152time.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's, and we can talk about strategies for, for that group of people, for sure.

And there's some, There' there, there is a lot that they can do.

But one thing I would say, let me just say this for the, for the, maybe the other group.

And it's not so much that they can write a blank check, but it's.

It.

I think the main difference is in, in one group, you, at a certain point you're going to turn around and flying will start paying you.

Right?

And that's so like eating beans and getting all your certificates and ratings and doing whatever you have to do to get that job.

You know that there's this day where the flow is going to reverse.

There will come a day where all of a sudden all, and all this effort I put into flying, the career will start paying me.

And that's maybe just different from like a, a pilot that's doing it on the side, whether they're super wealthy or not.

That second group that's just doing it not as a career, but doing it because they love it, should really think about it as a monthly expense.

Right.

Like that, like flying is not something that you, you know, you learn to do and then you stop spending money on.

Unless, of course, it's going to pay you, which we'll talk about in a moment.

But if, if you're somebody that just is trying to get a pilot certificate because you want to enjoy this world of aviation, I really think you should disconnect yourself from the overall expense.

All of us have to keep flying for instrument currency, for passenger currency, for just, you know, keeping our, our skills sharp.

And that'll, that will never really end.

So I, you know, I think that for people that are going to not get paid, it's important that they just start thinking about it.

On how much per month do I want to invest in flying?

And, and, and what's a number that I can sustain sort of indefinitely?

Yeah, yeah.

My, one of my neighbors when I was growing up, he became a pilot.

I don't know how much money they had, but they were able to afford lessons and start flying right around the same time I was doing my training And I think for him it was a monthly expense.

And then eventually life gets busy.

He goes back out to fly and scares myself in the play.

And it's like, all right, I'm done.

So keeping up and thinking of it as monthly and making sure you are doing a couple hours every single month will help you maintain this as a full hobby throughout your role.

Prolong it way longer than taking a month or two off, because there will come a time where you're not going to be as proficient.

You're going to be like, oh, I'm a private pilot.

I can go take this.

172.

I've done it before.

But three months later, you're like, oh, crap, this feels weird.

And you're behind the airplane and you just scare yourself and you take the time off.

So try not to do that.

Yeah, 100.

I see that all the time.

That's incredibly common.

Yeah.

Because the.

You know, the thing that makes you anxious up there is when your skills starts to decay.

And unfortunately, like you said, you generally find that out on a flight where you're thinking to yourself, I'm not ready for this, or I scare myself or whatever.

You know, I don't feel prepared.

So, yeah, the antidote to that is consistent flying or even consistent training.

But really, you know, like, what they would.

What you do in the professional world at the airlines or really at any professional job where you're going back every six months for recurrent training, like, there's a.

There's a rhythm to it.

And I think for.

That's good for anybody, whether you're a professional pilot or not.

You should really think about it that way.

So it's not like.

It's not like you achieve this goal and then all of a sudden the expenses are gone.

Right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

Yeah.

But, yeah, recurrent.

Six months, 12 months, depending on your flying.

121, 135.

But yeah, it.

It's always good to go back and do the training, you know, to.

To get refreshers, because you might be a little bit slower when you.

When you haven't done it in a year.

And it's good to just have it on your mind.

And just a lot of things I like about recurrent is they kind of tell you what's happening on the line, like, hey, we've seen a lot of this, or we've seen a lot of this, so make sure you paint.

This is a hot topic right now.

So pay attention to that.

And it helps keep your brain fresh and just thinking about things.

Because you know, as pilots, you, you think sometimes you fly and you're just like, I've done this before.

But every flight's different.

And it's really important to take every flight as their own and, and make sure you're not just.

Just being complacent up there.

Yeah, it's true.

I mean, it's like having that community reflection is.

Is really important.

You can get into a little silo by yourself, you know, like in your own little world if you don't have that feedback.

Yeah.

Even just, you know, I do this thing called office hours where every Friday I just meet with a group of pilots, attend.

We, we have new people coming in all the time, but it's like a.

It's.

It's turned into this group that just gets together every Friday and, and it's really great, you know, like just hearing what's happening for other people out there, problems people are dealing with, just that sort of community support and awareness of what.

What other people are experiencing is.

That's awesome.

So now kind of transitioning to what we're the second part of the group.

Right.

So let's talk about like student pilots, private pilots, getting that private pilot license.

I know when I was training, I think a private pilot license was anywhere from like six to $8,000.

Do you know, is that pretty much what it is now?

Or has it gone up with inflation?

Is it.

Is it pretty crazy?

Man, that sounds really low.

Yeah.

For.

From where I'm sitting.

But let's just, let's just say it's a. I mean, it's.

I mean.

And I don't.

This number might sound shocking.

And keeping in mind, I'm in the Bay Area, in San Francisco, and here in any part of California, really, the numbers will be skewed a little bit, but I'm seeing people spend more like 20 or 25,000 for the private.

Wow.

Geez.

Now let's just say any.

That.

Let's just call it a range.

Okay.

Let's just say anywhere from.

It's hard to get it with less than.

For less than 8, but let's just say it's 8 to 25,000.

I think the main thing is the strategies that people can use.

And I guess there's two things that are really present on my mind.

And one of the things that I finished recently was a private pilot syllabus.

And it's.

It's funny, the finer points hadn't generated a private pilot syllabus until about a.

And it's contained now.

If you get our Ground school app.

Anybody can just go to the Resources tab and check out the syllabus.

But there were two, well, there was, let's say, three things that I think are unique about our syllabus that I didn't see in other syllabi.

And maybe these are good, good points to talk about because I think they're directly related to saving money.

And one thing is the concept of dry time.

And I know we talk about couch flying, we talk about dry time, we talk about this in kind of a vague way like your CFI will tell you, oh, you know, you should really do some couch flying before you go out.

One of the things that we did in the syllabus and one of the things I really believe in as a money saving practice is for every single lesson there's like a dry time assignment.

So before you go to lesson two, you have to complete all of the assignments for lesson one.

And some of that is actually sitting down in a little procedural trainer where you're not spending any money at all.

There's no cfi, you're not paying a CFI hourly, you're not paying for the Hobbs time.

But what you're doing is going through all those procedures and all of the things that will get you, you know, like, like in the run up area, for example, like if you're in an airplane in the run up area, you're paying your cfi, you're paying the Hobbs time.

And if that's the first time that you've looked at the run up checklist and tried to find all the switches and all the, the, you know, everything that you have to do in the run up, that's the wrong time to be doing it.

I mean, you're spending, you know, potentially three, $400 an hour sitting there trying to learn this stuff.

So there's, there's no reason you can't.

And, and students really should do that in a procedural trainer if it's just a picture of the cockpit or even sitting in the aircraft without the engine running.

But all that stuff should be like, you know, should really be well rehearsed.

It should be comfortable and familiar before you ever go to the airplane.

And you know, a lot of what I end up saying in the world about flying is really emulating what works for professionals.

Because if we just, if we sort of back the camera off.

The pros have been at this for a long time.

The companies have survived many decades of accidents and transformations.

So a lot of what professional pilots and professional pilot organizations do is really the right way to do it.

And, and if the path, if the road is paved, like let's just follow it, you know, let's not.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If it's working for them, it should work for us, you know, so, so this is, as you know, this is how the airlines and the military and, and all of those higher level flying organizations deal with this.

Right.

You go to a procedural trainer before you go to the sim, and you go to a sim before you go to a plane.

Yeah.

Because they want to save money, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

That's my point.

Right.

They've got it all dialed in, so we really just have to copy it.

So.

Yeah.

Was like for, for every single lesson in our syllabus, there's a specific dry time assignment that has to be completed before the next lesson and that's designed to just really save money just to trim off that slop, you know, that sitting in the run up area looking for a switch, you know, where's the, where's that switch again?

Yeah, that's valuable time and adds up, right?

Every point matter.

Every point.

One matters.

Absolutely.

A hundred percent.

And going back to dry time, I mean, even when I was doing my 121 training a couple years ago, before the initial check ride and in my initial was, you know, standing in my hotel room and I was like, all right, v1 cut and I'd like walk and then I turn left.

Like what do I call here, what I call 400ft?

What do I call?

What's my speeds in here?

And I would do that.

So then I felt comfortable enough in my first lesson that I didn't waste anyone's time.

Because when it comes to 121 training, you know, you're on such a time crunch, it's like, you have to do this, you have to fit all this into this lesson.

And if you don't, you start getting behind and it's really hard to catch up.

And if you take that mentality into what you're talking about with, with student pilot or private pilot training or any kind of training, it's going to help you save money in the long run.

Run.

Yeah.

100.

And exactly how you described it.

Right.

That's what you do when you're training to be a professional pilot.

I'm sure a lot of us have seen the Blue Angels on YouTube, you know, when they sit in the conference room and all of them with their eyes closed, rehearsing every little move and every little call out that they're going to hear on the radio, like, that's the highest level of precision.

If they can't do it in a conference room, I'm pretty darn sure they can't do it in an F16.

And the same thing translates to.

To any pilot training.

Right.

If you can't, you know, like with engine failures, for example, right.

We go through A, B, C, D, and E. Right.

Airspeed, best field, check systems, declare the emergency.

If you can't, quickly tell me what systems you're going to check when we're sitting here at my desk.

What makes you think you're going to be able to do that?

When we're gliding toward, you know, a field.

Yeah.

You know, and then there's terrain all around and there's wires and all these things you're thinking about.

So.

So I think that just, again, emulating the way it works for the highest achievers is.

Should be trying to do.

And.

And I think it's going to feel weird at first, right?

It's not going to feel natural sitting in a chair, be like, all right, well, Gumps, you know, you're just like, okay, cool, did it.

But really, just like, honestly, just close your eyes like the Blue Angels and just imagine you're in the airplane and try to imagine the switches.

And the cool thing with technology.

I'm sure there's going to come a time where you can put on a VR headset and you can put yourself in a 172, you know, put up flight simulator, hook it up to VR headset, look around and you're in the plane.

You're kind of there if that's your cup of tea, you know, if that's the way you want to do it.

And in my mind, it doesn't like, that's an option in today's world, if you want to get, you know, fancy VR headset and put yourself in a virtual 172.

If you want to go to your flight school and just ask to go sit in the airplane.

Right?

There's no.

Usually flight schools, flying clubs, they don't mind if the plane's not being used.

Just go sit in it.

We all know.

So a lot of times planes are maintenance, and so you can sit in there while they're getting worked on.

Right.

Or, you know, even just a picture of, you know, of the panel.

But I think the main thing is, is to really bring the attention to bear, like you said.

And so you don't just sit there and be like, okay, Gumps, I did it once.

I know it.

You know, it's, you know, go through all of the normal procedures and then go back through all the, the emergency procedures.

And this is where I found, when we were writing the syllabus, that there really are, for every lesson, very specific things you can practice and you can build on it.

It can become kind of a cumulative.

It's too much to do in one or two or three little sessions, you know?

Yep, absolutely.

What do you got next?

For.

For.

But you said there's three steps kind of.

What's the second one?

Yeah, well, yeah, three or four different things that sort of pop to my mind.

Another one is.

And this one's a little bit counterintuitive.

I've got two kids, and so over the last, you know, 15 years, I've been a father, we've been raising children.

And one of the things that has sort of presented itself in my life is this Waldorf education.

Have you ever heard of it?

No.

It's like an alternative education concept that's pretty fascinating.

And there's a reason I'm going to tell you this, because it relates to flight training.

But traditional education is kind of a linear path, right?

They basically say if you start at zero and by 18, you have to graduate college.

We're going to just break up every little thing you have to know into even parts and we're going to start teaching you kindergarten.

You learn this.

First grade, you learn that, second grade, you learn this.

And it's just a little bit more every year until you get 18.

In the Waldorf education, it's a little different.

It's a curved path, okay?

So they start out slower in the beginning.

They don't, for example, introduce reading as early as a traditional education, might they.

They invest in socialization skills or the ability for the child to concentrate, or, you know, they kind of set the context for learning.

And their theory is that if you create a good context for learning, you create the appetite for learning, then everything accelerates.

And it's got kind of a hockey stick shape to it, and it's been proven quite effective.

Like here in our local town, the Waldorf school has the top 8th grade testing scores of any school in the district.

Right?

So.

So the proof's in the pudding, right?

Like they, they, they take them slow in the beginning, but those are the highest performing kids on tests here locally.

Our syllabus, when I was writing it, is, is very similar.

Like, I really believe, and I want people to hear this, if you invest in your early flying skills, if you take the time to really learn how to Fly the plane in the first 25 hours, really understand where should I be looking?

What does the rudder truly do?

How does the rudder change as I add power?

How does it change as I slow down?

You know, that stuff, if you invest in that very, very early on will make everything downstream go faster and it will have that similar sort of hockey shape shape, hockey stick shape, you know, to the, to the, to the, to the goal that the Waldorf education has.

And so you know, you don't often find, when you look at a syllabus, a flight training syllabus, you don't often find lessons, for example, where you might go out and just fly with your feet the whole lesson we're not going to touch the yoke.

We're just going to fly with our feet or go out on a lesson with the flight instruments covered and you're just drawing on the window and it's like, you know, mostly in flight training we say things like, well, you have to know steep turns.

So today we're just going to, to, we're going to go work on Steve turns.

And I'm a believer that if you, if you really slow the beginning down and invest in that foundation so that you, you know, pilots can see the sight picture in turns, they know when the pitch is changing in turns, they know when the bank is changing in turns.

All of that investment early on will make everything super easy and super fast.

You know, if you can do minimum controllable airspeed with your instruments covered, then the maneuver slow flight is a no brainer dinner.

You know.

So I, so two experiences of me with that I did most, I did my private out of high state 141, you know, fast paced.

We do this now, we do this now, we do that.

Like it was just fast paced and I thought I liked it at times.

It's all I knew.

But then I moved back to Charlotte and I went to my local flight school and I flew with this really, I don't want to say really old but he, he's an older Texas, you know, flight instructor and my goodness gracious, we got in the plane for the first time.

I was like, boy, he's like, so I don't touch the, like don't touch the ailerons.

We're flying with our feet today.

And I mean, yeah, I wish I had that in the beginning because it opened up my knowledge to just so much more about how and why and it really helped me feel the airplane right.

Like it helped me feel the controls anticipating and really understanding what it feels like.

They always say, like, feel your butt when you're in a turn to make sure you're coordinated, but they just tell you that they don't like, show you or tell you how to feel it or what you're supposed to be feeling.

And he really, really kind of opened up my, my brain to kind of understanding why we're doing this and why we have to learn this, you know, rather than just be like, all right, this is on the checkride.

Steep turns.

All right, proficiency check, you know.

Now it helps you in the clouds, you know, it helps you in everything if you can really understand what's going to happen when you do what.

Yeah, 100%.

That is absolutely true.

And it's just, it, you know, it might be hard to believe that if you're, if you're a student coming in and you don't have a lot of money to spend, you know, and you're, and you're concerned about money, it's like, you know, you might be thinking to yourself, if this is a linear path, I can't take that long in the beginning to, to work on those basic skills.

But what I'm telling you from decades in the right seat is that if you take the time to build those skills the way you're talking about those, like, lessons like you had with that guy in Texas, everything else is easy like that, you know, like that is what we're trying to accomplish.

You can look at any one of the flight maneuvers on the private ACs, and we're essentially trying to test for a handful of things, you know.

You know, are you aware of the, the rudder really?

I mean, like, you think of all the areas in the acs, you look at the maneuvers you have to do.

Slow flight.

What are we looking for in slow flight?

Pretty much to make sure that you can manage the left turning tendencies when we're at a slow speed and that you can understand the pitch power relationship as you get to the slow end of the envelope in power off stall recoveries, when, you know, making sure that you manage the rudder when the power comes in, the go around, manage the rudder when the power comes in, you know, so it's really like a lot about the rudder and it's a lot about managing speed and angle of attack.

You know, there's these basic concepts.

And so if you don't really understand that stuff, you can learn, learn maneuvers rote, you know, for years without ever really getting to the bottom of why you're doing it or what skills are involved.

Absolutely.

And what do you think the importance is of making sure your first instructor.

Instructor teaches you that because, I mean, it is the law of promise.

You right.

Like, I can't even tell you how much I go back to my initial training in private now.

I had a ton of instructors because the 141 school, they kind of just pair you with a new instructor every single quarter.

But I really do.

My very first instructor, who thankfully was a good instructor, was the one that I kind of like lean back to now, and if I have an emergency, like, you know, I kind of.

I go back to what I was first trained on and how to handle em.

Emergencies, which is just crazy to think about.

Yeah, yeah, everybody does.

Yeah.

I think it's.

You know, this is a tough one to answer because I, I happen to be someone who I loved my first flight instructor, but she was young and inexperienced, a really cool person.

Nothing.

I'm not knocking her at all.

She did the best job she could, but she didn't know what she didn't know.

And it wasn't until I met my instrument instructor, who was an older guy from the Air Force or whatever, that he really.

He really changed the way I fly.

So I think, to answer your question, I think it's.

It's very important.

However, not everybody has access to that.

In fact, this is like, this is one of my life's missions, really.

I mean, this is why we give our app and our syllabus, it's all free for instructors.

And the idea is that we want to try to make this education available to everybody.

So if you go through our flight training, the flight training side of our app, for example, all of these exercises and lessons are there.

They're part of our syllabus.

And so I always say to people, if you're not sure, you know, if you, if you're like me, if you really like your flight instructor, but you are aware that this person is like 22 and just learned 12 months ago, you know?

Yeah.

You know, then you should get our app and just follow along and make sure that your instructor has it also, because your instructor would get it free and make sure that some of these lessons are being built in, if possible.

Right.

Because this is, you know, this is like, this is.

There's a lot of meat on the bone here, so to speak.

You know, I have right now two private students that I'm working with.

And, you know, I. I was flying with one of them the other day, and I was having a heck of a time getting him to use his feet.

You know, he's like, he's, you know, he's post solo, but it's like, how is this my student?

Right.

I mean, you.

You know me, and I'm like, I am doing all these things.

How is it that my student isn't using the rudder the way that I want him to?

And I realized, you know, and I realized we need to really go out and do a couple lessons more like what we're talking about where we're going to go fly with a dry erase marker, the instruments covered, and we're not going to touch the yoke.

You know, we're going to do falling leaf stall exercises and slow to minimum controllable airspeed and do all these things that are not on the acs.

But once all of this stuff comes together, that's when.

Just all those goals that I was saying that we're looking for.

Yes.

What the examiner is trying to test.

Does this person know the rudder?

Does this person control the angle of attack in a way that is safe?

All of that stuff will be there if we just invest in those initial basics.

That's really.

Yeah, it's a, it's a.

It's a hard thing to come by and.

But it's really important.

And it's counterintuitive.

It's a little bit like if anyone's a sailor, another example you can think of is it's like tacking a sailboat.

You know, sometimes when you're sailing, you go the wrong way because you're trying to get into a better spot so that you can go faster.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's what this is like.

Yeah.

And I think, I think another one that's counterintuitive is making sure you are spending money and flying, too, because you need to stay current.

Right.

The longer stretch that you have of taking time off is gonna just make you repeat lessons and it' to extend your training.

So if you can find a way to make sure you're staying consistent.

And it, like I said, it might be more expensive, but in the, in the short term, but it will save you money in the long term.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think there's a lot of examples of how we can think about this.

I mean, it's like I was just telling you when we got on that I was at the gym this morning, and, and you're, you know, you're an athlete, so you know that like, you, you go, well, there's a, there's a regimen, right.

Like you might go to the gym one day and you're working on lower body.

Right.

And Then the next day you go and you're working on upper body and then you go do like a cardio day or whatever it is.

And this is sort of where we started is if people start thinking about flight training as a monthly expense, you can design a program for yourself.

Yeah, like if you were somebody that just really money was tight, you might say, well you know, one week of the month I'm doing just dry time.

That's like first week of the month I'm out there doing dry time and procedures.

Second week of the month I'm like reviewing accidents and listening to atc, practicing radio communications, whatever it is.

Third week I'm going to go flying or you know, whatever the program is.

Maybe I fly every week or twice a week or three times a week, depending on how much money you have monthly.

But you want to start to think of like a consistent rhythm like you're saying, because if you have gaps, that's where you're going to end up spending way more in the long run.

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And then what do you think is like a sweet spot of how much you should fly in a week?

Like let's just say someone has unlimited money.

Money.

Do you think it's healthy to fly five times a week, seven times a week or what's kind of the sweet spot in training versus kind of having fun and making sure you have a life outside of this?

Well, if you want a life outside of it, I think twice a week is a sweet Spot because you really have to understand that you're not being as efficient as you can be unless you're like putting three hours in for every hour you fly.

Okay, so like all this dry time I'm talking about and the radio communications practice, maybe studying regulations, you know, for every flight you go on, you could walk away with a list of things that you could dive into the books and, and study.

Something happened on that flight.

Some guy entered the pattern in a certain way or something happened in the airplane that you're not sure about.

Whatever you know, you can go, you know, build your knowledge and study from the actual experience of your flight.

If you're in training, there's stuff your instructor is going to tell you to go review or think about.

Out.

Filming the flights is a, is a really wise idea.

Maybe not posting all on Instagram or YouTube but for your own consumption to make sure you're a better pilot.

Right?

Well, yeah, but I mean filming, yeah and just you know, like having a protocol, you finish the flight, you maybe you have now you've got to review the video.

Then there's going to be things that come up in the video that you want to study and research and then there's some procedural practice that comes, comes out of it.

So the problem with flying five days a week is there's just zero time to study and do all that prep work in between the lessons and then you're learning in the airplane.

So it's not the most cost effective way to do it.

I would say if you had no life like you just were full time in flight training, three days a week would be a sweet spot.

Yeah, no, I think, I think three, I think two to three is probably a great recommendation.

That's what I try to do.

When I, when I stepped away from football and I made it kind of like my full time job was flying.

I worked part time at the Apple store too, but that was just whatever.

But, but yeah, it was just two to three times a week and just try to enjoy it as much as you can.

I think one thing to say about this as well is to understand that some days are going to be harder than others.

There's gonna be some days you get out of the airplane, you're gonna feel like you cannot do this and that this is not a career for you.

And I just want you to know that, that I promise you you can do this and this is a career for you.

I know a lot of people who I would probably be like, I probably don't want to fly with Them, but they are airline pilots right now.

They're all trained SOPs.

They're all doing great.

But it's like, you know, you just have this.

You.

You saw what they did when they're in their private.

You're like, whoa, that's a little.

A little weird.

Yeah.

But you can do this.

Anyone can do this.

I promise you, you can become a pilot and you can have a great career.

There are going to be days, and there's going to be needed days where instructors are going to be really tough on you and be like, look, dude, you're not where you need to be.

And you need to understand that criticism and take it as.

Not necessarily as attack on you, but just burn the fuel to help you burn the energy to make you want to do this even more and be the best pilot you can be.

Yeah, for sure.

In fact, there's a conversation that is so consistent for me that I. I expect it now on the instrument rating, there's always a point where I have to tell my students that they have to, like, basically try harder.

Yeah.

And.

And.

And it's not just them.

I mean, I had that experience.

I remember I was.

When I was going for my instrument rating, I was keeping a journal, and I remember there's this page, like, when I laugh at it, where it's like, I had my annual goals.

Right.

I can't remember what year this was.

It was a long time ago, you know, maybe 99, 2000, a long time ago.

And.

And the goals were something like, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna travel to France this year.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to, you know, fix my sailboat.

I'm going to do all these things.

I'm going to get my instrument rating.

The year went by and none of the goals happened except the instrument rating.

And even that I didn't finish in a year.

It was like I just every day had to wake up and realize I have to put more into this.

Like, this is going to take more of my energy.

This is going to take more of my time.

And as I started teaching, I realized I have that conversation with almost all my instrument students.

There comes a time in instrument training about a third or halfway into it where I have to sit down and say, look, you're doing great, but I need more.

Yeah, like, I need more from you.

You're going to have to try harder.

And I think that's a healthy conversation to have and a needed conversation to have.

And I think as the student, when you receive that I know I said this before, but try not to view it as a personal attack.

It's just what you need to do.

It's like your expectations for, for passing this check ride and even just being a good pilot, of that being safe is that you just have to be better.

And I think that everyone has to have that conversation at some point.

Yeah.

And it's not easy.

And so, like, to.

Your comment up front is that people will have those days where it feels like, I can't do this, but you can push through those walls.

And in, you know, in all the years that I've been teaching, there are very, very, very few people, if anybody, you know, one or two maybe in decades of teaching where I thought, okay, this is probably not for you.

Yeah.

You know, this is like, you know, you should maybe think of a different career.

Coding.

Coding has been great.

Yeah.

You know, and, and to be honest, like that, like, when we, if it ever gets to that place, it's a. I'm the last person.

It's usually the student trying to convince me that it's time for me to give up on them.

You're like, no, no, no.

I promise.

You can do it.

I promise.

Do you have any other tips that you can think of right now?

Yeah.

What was the other one?

The standardization, you know, is the other thing.

And I think that standardizing your behavior in the airplane will make everything go faster and help you be more proficient.

At the end of the day, I'm trying to think of good examples.

It's like a, it's like a freeing.

It's, it's, it's mentally freeing.

Now, for anybody that doesn't.

Isn't familiar with the idea of standardization.

This again is just a concept we borrow from, from, as you know, Justin very well, professional operations, when you go to the cockpit of your airliner, it doesn't really matter who the captain or the first officer is.

Like, you don't have to necessarily know this person you may have never met before.

The two of you sit down and you start executing a ritual that you've both been trained to execute.

That is the way to fly an airplane that, I mean, I, we could talk for hours about that.

Really.

It's.

It's the cornerstone of safety.

It's.

It's valuable in many, many ways.

But one of the ways that it is valuable is it just allows you to hold less in your mind, really.

Like my, like a fun example in GA is if you standardize, after your pre.

Flight, you do a final walk around.

Right.

If that's that's your standardized procedure.

So I go, you know, let's say I go to the aircraft, I do my pre flight inspection.

When the pre flight inspection is done, done, the last thing I do is a final walk around.

You don't necessarily have to remember all the things that could go wrong in a pre flight.

You don't necessarily have to remember that the pitot tube cover needs to come off and that the control lock needs to be taken off, the rudder and the tow bar off, the nose wheel and the chains off and the fuel caps and all that sort of stuff.

You don't have to remember it necessarily because in that final walk around, it's like a catch all to make sure that you didn't miss any of those things.

So as long as you're doing your checklist and you've got your final walk around, you're kind of guaranteed that you're not going to miss anything.

Standardization in that way can simplify the process a little bit, turn it into a ritual in your mind and help you stay proficient.

It can be, you know, there comes a point in my training program where I know that my students are ready to go when the standardized procedures become their safety blanket instead of a stressor.

So like with instrument students, for example, I have a standard way that I want them to sort of talk about what we're doing, right.

There's always a checklist for what's happening right now.

And then I want them to say, okay, when we get to the next point, here are the five things we're going to do.

And then we sort of deal with the after that effect.

Now initially when I introduce that for them, it's stressful.

They'll be flying along and they'll get real, real quiet and I'll say, okay, I need you to talk ahead for the next event.

And they'll say, okay.

And you know, it's like kind of half coming out, okay, when I get to the waypoint, I'm going to turn, you know, and they, it's kind of a stressful thing that I've added into their life.

I know that they're there when later on in, in training, I stress them out by saying, okay, now, you know, like, let's, let's get an approach.

Let's, you know, we've been holding here long enough.

Let's get vectors to the approach and you can push them down the road.

But you know, they're not quite ready.

And when I see them react to that, that pressure by slowing the aircraft down and immediately going into talking the way I want them to talk.

When they use that as sort of like their safety blanket, like that's it gives them confidence to be able to talk in front.

That's when I know the things have switched.

That's when I know that it's become deeply become a part of their foundation.

Yeah, I mean, I just think about my training when I knew, I know in myself whenever I was getting overwhelmed, you know, you get really quiet, right.

You just kind of like freeze up a little bit because you're usually using all of your energy just to focus on what you're doing.

And you are just so laser focused on one thing in that if you, if your instructor is like, hey, I need you to talk about this.

And then you're just like, you start getting even more flustered.

But it's important to understand how to multitask and when you need to multitask and there obviously are times where you just need to focus in and talking is not the right thing, but it's a great exercise and getting yourself out of just being laser locked and focused on one thing.

Thing.

Because you know, if you're just staring at your VSI or altitude, you might not be looking at your air speed.

It might not be.

If you're staring at the radios or your map, you might be looking to see you're getting slow, you're getting uncoordinated.

You know, there's so many things that are happening and keeping your scan and standardized.

What you're talking about four airlines, right?

Triggers and flows and you mentioned it.

I don't, let's see, 90% of the time, I mean, I'm relatively new to the company.

I don't know who I'm, I've never met them before.

But we sit down, it's like an act, it's like a show.

Like we have triggers, we have flows, we know what, what's going to do.

We do some pilot stuff in between there and then and.

But we know like at 18,000ft he's going to touch this button, he's going to call for this checklist here.

It's just, it's a show and it's a play and we all have lines.

But yeah, I think it's very important to, to lock that in very early on in your training.

Yeah, 100%.

And that, that is the way you should fly.

Whether you're flying in an airliner with a crew or whether you're flying single pilot.

And if you really take a closer, close look at single pilot professional operations, they do exactly the same thing.

There.

There doesn't need to be two people there to have the show go on, so to speak.

Like, you know, even in the single pilot world.

And there are many, many reasons why that's important.

And I, you know, we said this earlier in the conversation, but we can just.

We don't even have to know why.

We can just take it from the pros that that's the way it works.

And.

And that's the way we should do it.

And.

And I guess my point on saving money is if you learn, if you ritualize your flying, you cut out a lot of, I guess what I would call slop, and you give yourself this very clear ritual that you have to remember that gives you confidence, and it gives you.

It's like.

Yeah.

I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it's like putting on your uniform, you know, like when.

I don't know, when you guys played football, all.

I'm just.

I haven't asked this to an athlete.

I've asked law enforcement officers, soldiers or whatever, but, like, did you.

Was it a different level of play, let's say, when you got in uniform than if you all were just in sweatpants and T shirts throwing balls around?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, like every Thursday we had like a walk around with just a helmet on.

And it's more fun.

You know, you're just walking around.

But when you start putting pads on, or honestly, the very first time you put pads on and the very first time you do a live practice, that's when stuff gets.

Starts getting really serious.

That's when, you know, some people can play really well without pads on, but as soon as you start hitting, as soon as it starts becoming very, very real, that's when the real kind of athletes and the best players show up.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's the way.

That's like your training.

You touch back into it, I would imagine.

Then after that, if you do enough really hardcore training with those pads on, when it comes game time, like, you put those pads on, you go through the ritual of putting on your jersey and, like, getting yourself all suited up.

You walk out there and now you're in top form, you haven't even done anything yet.

You're just connecting back to all that training and.

And the ritual of becoming that athlete, you know, and it's.

It's the same reason why soldiers wear uniforms and police officers wear uniforms.

And there's a.

There's a whole psychology to it.

Absolutely.

I. I know you got to go soon, but I Got one more question for you as a cfi, if you notice that your student that money is very, very tight.

What's something that you can do as a CFI to help them out?

And I'm not talking about giving them money to go fly, but like just something that a CFI can do to understand that their, their money is very precious, their time is very precious.

What could you, what do you think they could do?

I think that the CFIS can, if, if this, if I'm speaking to CFIs, you can really tee the ball up better for your students.

So like one of the things that I'll do with my students, each one of my students, we have a Google sheet, like a Google spreadsheet and I make sure that at the end of every lesson they know exactly it's written into the spreadsheet.

Here's what we did today.

Here are the things that you did like wrong or that you could do better.

And here's the things that, here's the stuff I want you to do before we meet again.

So giving your student a clear set of direct, you know, directions coming out of a lesson saying before we meet again, I need you to go back and review the following things from today, but I also need you to look at these four or five things that we're going to do next time and then when you meet next time on the front side of the A lesson, same thing.

The objective of today's lesson lesson is to make sure that you have a full understanding of, you know, we will know you're there, we will both know when you can do the following things right.

So clear objective, clear completion standards, you go execute the lesson.

If you're not there, if you fell short of the completion standards, then make sure that you had you give them direction for how to get back up to it and what you're going to do next time.

And by the way, I may not have mentioned this, but we, we recently just put together what we're calling the Pilot Roadmap, which is like, like a free PDF document with all sorts of suggestions, tips and tricks.

Like all the things that I've seen.

It's many pages, if anyone's interested in it, they can go to pilot roadmap.com it is free for them to, to grab and it's like this kind of stuff.

Just how do you be more effective and more efficient in training?

Love it.

Yeah, we'll head to pilot roadmap.com sign up.

I'll link it below as well.

And I also have a link for for 10% off of the ground squab as well for you as so go ahead and check that out.

Awesome.

Yeah man.

Well Jason, I appreciate it.

You're a busy man.

Appreciate you sending some time across and looking forward to getting this out.

Thanks Justin.

It's always great to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Have a good one.

That's a wrap on today's podcast.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode.

I really appreciate it.

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Thank you for listening.

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