All right, we got a special episode of the student pilot cast today. Um, I'm here on location, which we don't usually do. Um, but I'm here at a local new flight school called Legion Air, but we'll get to that in a second.

Chandler Tower, Cherokee 4 1 2 1 tangos at Chandler Air Service. We have Zulu and, uh, we'd like a south departure, please. One of those, it's said to be an angel.

Alright guys, so welcome to the student pilot cast. Oh, thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So I'm sitting here with Max and Carl and Matt. You guys want to introduce yourselves real quick?

Yeah, uh, my name's Matt. Um, locally from Arizona, been flying for four years now and just really love aviation.

I'm Carl. I'm from New York, uh, Hudson Valley region. I've been flying for about four years now. I just got a position as first officer in a regional airline.

Awesome. My name is Max. I'm originally from Tillamook, Oregon, the land of cheese trees and ocean breeze. Um, so it's been quite the transition moving down here and dealing with the heat, but I'm really enjoying the aviation community.

It's pretty nice this time of year though, right? Yeah,

definitely.

Cool. All right. So we're here because you guys just started a flight school a few months back, right? All right. So, so before we get into any of that, Um, I want to ask you guys, uh, one at a time. Max, I'll start with you. Okay. Why aviation? Why'd you get into aviation?

Yeah, definitely. Well, I grew up with an amazing pilot grandmother who ultimately raised me, um, so we spent a lot of time at the Tillamook Air Museum just bumming around on the weekends trying to catch rides and fancy old World War II warbirds. And that just sparked a passion in me. Um, I ended up going off to school, um, taking a break from flying. And then once I graduated in 2020, I realized this is where I wanted to be. So I took the plunge and here I am.

All right. Carl, what about you? All right, yeah. Silly story, but a fun story, right? So, uh, I went to college for music performance. Jazz performance on the guitar. I was kind of like following what my dad was doing. And I ended up moving out to Texas for a while. And I was a part of the blues rock scene out there. And to make ends meet, I I was an Uber driver, right? Cause like my whole philosophy on life is just like, try not to be behind a desk. You know, I feel like that's sort of driving sort of crazy. And, um, you know, a big part of like the Uber driving route would be in the mornings, right? Four to 6am taking people to the airport. And so I'm driving into Austin, uh, international airport and I see, you know, just like a Boeing flying overhead and it's coming in on approach and I'm sitting there. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, bro, I could do that. I'm already doing that. Right. I've got a couple of guys in the backseat, taking them to the airport. Might as well just like get in an airplane. So when the pandemic hit and it dropped the bottom out of the music industry, uh, I was like, all right, sweet. It's time, time for a career change. So I went back home, did an intro flight. I was like, this is one of the best things I've ever done. Uh, and started research and flight schools figured that probably Arizona was the place to be. And that's how I met these two guys, right? Uh, they were both, uh, well, Max wasn't Matt was my student for a hot second. Um, that's how I originally met him and started flying out here. And, you know, it was definitely one of the best things I've ever done.

Awesome. So, um, you're basically wanting to be an Uber driver of the sky.

Yeah, that was the entire intention. I was like, they probably get paid better, you know, like a little bit better than what I'm making. The

app is better.

The app is, oh man, dude, let me tell you about the app. The app is amazing. The app can follow you across the country.

Nice. All right,

Matt. Uh, what about you? Uh, for me, I, uh, I'm the fourth generation pilot in my family. Um, fifth current pilot. active pilot in the family. So aviation just been part of my life growing up. And one day I took a flight with my uncle and he's like, you know, you should, you should do this. And I was like, there's no way I can do this. Um, struggled through high school and thought aviation was just a hard thing to do. I'm not smart enough type thing and then started flight training and here I am today.

Excellent. All right, so you had people in your family that were sort of mentors and things like that. Um, Max, did you have anybody like that?

Yeah, definitely. Your grandma, right? Yeah. So, um, my grandmother. And her father, uh, before her, were both pilots. Um, she's not current anymore, but I've always just carried her passion for flying and aviation with me. Um, I remember being, I think, ten years old and reading through her father's war diary, essentially, and just thinking, while it was horrible, the experiences that they were going through, um, how amazing it was to be in the air. Cool.

All right. Well, you guys came to Arizona and you ended up meeting each other and then starting a flight school. How did that happen?

Uh, well, originally, um, we were at the big pilot mill, uh, ATP and Max and I ended up being in the same CFI class together. And we just kind of sat in the back and just kind of started talking to each other and BS and about aviation and trying to build our lesson plans together. And we just hit it off. And then, um, like Carl mentioned earlier, I was, he was my CSI instructor. So I went up on a couple CFI proficiency flights with him. Just ended up really jiving with his aura and everything, and we've just been friends ever since.

Yeah, and I think that's one of those prime examples about how things just fall into place like they're supposed to. I remember that first day at CFI Academy at ATP. I'm not a real talkative guy, not very outgoing, but Matt just turned around and started talking to me. And from then on we became study buddies, we worked through our lesson plans together. And then he met Carl and somehow we all wound up working at the same flight school that wasn't ATP a little bit longer down the line. It just was miraculous really.

All right, and how did you meet him, Carl?

So, all right, you know, really, really met Matt originally as a student and, uh, you know, he ended up moving on. I didn't really think I'd see him again until I walked into, uh, yeah, the local flight school that we all ended up working at. And I was looking for a job, right? So that was kind of an accident then. Oh, 100%. Yeah. But it was, but it was great. Like, you know, I walk into the lobby, I'm wearing a suit and I'm like, Hey, like, Hey, what's up? I'm like, I need a job. He's like, all right, cool. And I ended up getting hired there. Uh, and then. You know, they eventually, I was running their CFI program and eventually ended up making me their chief. And me and Matt were becoming really good friends at that point. And we made him my assistant chief. I'm like, sweet. And then as things were progressing at that school, we realized that there were other roles that needed to be really taken care of, right? Cause it kind of bottlenecked up to one guy. So I was trying to spread it out. And that's when we got Max on board. At that point, the three of us had really solidified as a team. And when we determined that it was time to start our own flight school, it seemed like a very logical transition that it was going to be the three of us kind of up against it.

You know? So I, I have to stop here for a minute. Um, you guys got to tell me, So, how did, uh, how did Carl pull off a suit? This I would like to see. Yeah.

I missed out on that. It was just, uh, cause I knew Carl in the, the ATP blue and I was like, what the heck are you doing here, man? I had shoes on, nice shoes on and not as Vans and I'm like, well, look, you clean up good. Yeah.

Yeah. So for listeners who don't know this, when I started. Uh, my CFI training, Carl started me off, and I can't picture him in a suit.

I'm having a hard time with that. Yeah, he came in the other day wearing his, uh, has get up from and I was like, holy cow, man, you actually look, you look good.

Nice.

All right. So why, why start a flight school? Like why, why not just keep working at other flight schools that are in the Valley? What, what is special about Legionnaire? What are you trying to do? Uh, that's maybe a little bit different.

Yeah, I think the main thing that all of us had in in mind of what we wanted to do when we came up with this idea was just we saw a bunch of the pros and we saw a bunch of the cons and every school that we had gone to and work work for and trained at. They just seemed like the transparency was a huge thing. Uh, there just wasn't enough transparency with the training aspects of it. And it was like, Oh yeah, just come on, you're doing fine, you're doing fine. Well, we didn't really like that. So it was like, all right, well, how can we make this better? And then we were all sitting having a beer one night and let's just start our own school. Next thing you know, here, here Legionnaire is.

Right. Cause like such a big. Deficiency that we're finding right now is people are, they're glued to procedures, they're glued to things that they're like, you know, they've been taught to do. It's like, this is just how I enter a traffic pattern, but why? Right? You know, and this is one of the biggest complaints we hear with the DPEs that we work with is that you got, you got some guys who are acting just effectively, robotically, right? Automatic response. With. A lot of situations that, you know, that they're fluid, even in something as basic as landing, right? We were having a conversation with one of our students today and with like some of the key fundamentals of just getting an airplane on the ground. And as you know, like an airplane has to move forward in order to work. Right. So it's all about elevator effectiveness. So how do you make the elevator more effective? If you're trying to keep the nose gear off the ground when you land, it's like, dude, you gotta go faster, right? You need the plane moving through the air. So you're either losing too much speed or you need something else to get the nose off the ground, which would just be adding power. And it's these types of things that we're really trying to get our students to think about so that when we put them up against a DPE, they're like, yeah, dude, this guy is an aviator. He's not just someone who met the requirements to legally pass a check, right? This guy is going to be good and safe. And, you know, big picture, all of these guys are going to be flying around our friends and families for the most, right? That's most, mostly what we're The pilot training nowadays is, is going to the airlines. So who do you want to make to put in that flight, you know, like put in that, uh, put in that flight deck. Cause otherwise it could get really bad. You know, as you probably know that we might end up talking about it, like when things go bad, they go bad fast. Right. Um, and getting out of it isn't that hard if you, if you really know what you're doing. Yeah. If

you understand what's going on around you versus just, I got to do this, this, this and this. Well, why do you have to do that? So that was a big thing that we saw when we were doing all of our stage checks and mock check rides for students. It's like you, you have the knowledge there, but you don't have the knowledge there. You just have the real understanding of what's going on.

Yeah. And circling back to why we did this, uh, flight schools are naturally a polarizing subject, right? There are a lot of people who. Um, felt like ATP worked for them, right? But their process is fundamentally inflexible, right? And that's why it doesn't work for everyone, and that's why people wind up washing out. Um, the benefit of starting a smaller flight school is we're allowed that flexibility to really tailor our processes to the individual learner. I mean, as CFI training, a huge part of the process of obtaining your CFI certificate is Tailoring your teaching style to your individual student, right? So it doesn't really make sense to build it around one type of person when there's so many types of people out there. Cool.

All right. Sounds good. So why Legionnaire? How did that come about?

Oh, all right. So the types of planes that we're flying right now are Beechcraft Musketeers, right? And so it's kind of a pun, right? We're Musketeers in a Legion. So you're now a Legionnaire flying a Musketeer, right? Clever.

Um, all right. And so how's it been going? Like, what's it like to start a flight school?

Oh man, it's been tricky. Yeah. There's been some stuff that you, you think, you know, everything, but you don't know everything. And it's, it's every day is a learning process. Um, like Max was saying earlier, trying to build a, a syllabus. All right. Well, this, how, what, what works best? Well, this worked good for me. That works good for you. And then trying to incorporate that all from, let's just take all the good stuff and put it in there. And so it's like constantly remolding it until we get that Perfect, uh, syllabus and so, uh, plan, basically. All

right. I don't know. It's, it's tricky. Well, I mean, anything's tricky in the beginning, right? So, it's, it's kind of funny in the sense that the easiest part about starting your own flight school Flying, right? Yeah. Cause then you go back to everything that you, that you've been doing and you just know it so well. It's like, yeah, dude, the easiest parts about this is just being in a plane. Right. I think, uh, for, for the three of us, the thing that we're finding is the most difficult part is just the business aspect of it. Right. You know, it's just all the daily stuff that you didn't really think about when you had that overhead provided for you. Right. And now it's up to us to make all that stuff happen. Like finding DPS,

like

what a bummer. Tell me about it. You know?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I can totally see that. So, um, now that you're getting started, what's the best part about running your own flight school and what's the worst part.

It's definitely like the personal relationships that we have the opportunity to form, um, our students are no longer molded into being just. Cash flow for someone else. I mean, we can actually spend the amount of time, um, dedicated to our particular student, right? Um, and we don't really have the same big brother oversight looking over our shoulder, um, forcing us to do things the way that they want things done, right? There's that flexibility once again.

So, what you're saying is basically, um, Yeah. You have a philosophy on how you want to do it, and by running your own, you're able to do it the way you want to do it.

Yeah, definitely. Treat people like people, not like numbers.

And like, you know, alright, who was saying it? Was it your uncle? It was, or bringing up this comment that like, you get a lot, especially in Phoenix, right? The majority of your cross country flight training is to like three airports. Yeah. You know what I mean? And like, I can't stand that. Oh, it's ridiculous. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, sure. Okay. Marana from here is cross country, but if you only ever go there, do you like really understand how to do it? So like Max and I flew one of our students. And, uh, Utah, you mean? Utah and back, right? And that's something that we can do since we're in charge of the operations of our aircraft now, right? As opposed to going to, you know, whatever management and be like, please let me do this. Like, oh, it's too far, too much of liability. It's like, dude, what do you mean liability? Like, I'm a pilot. I'm training this person to be a pilot. You know, crossing state borders is huge, right? Now you have to really think about things like fuel planning, weather patterns, uh, change in pressure, all that different stuff that you're not going to get in such a localized area.

Yeah. Time zones. Yeah.

Who has time zones? It's all Zulu time, right? Oh, that's there you go, baby. Yeah. So, I. This is a pet peeve of mine. I'm trying to, my son, my listeners know that my son, Merrick is a private pilot. he, his plan has been to continue on, although he's in a bit of a I don't know, a slow point right now, a holding pattern, there you go. but, he was trying to build time and he was doing these cross countries and I'm going, bro, you've got to go other places. Like this is not teaching you anything. I don't remember exactly how many hours I had at the time, but I think. Um, I, it was probably back in 2010, I probably had like 150 hours and I decided to take one of my club 182s and fly with a non pilot to Oshkosh for the week. I learned some stuff on that flight, as you can imagine. And it was an incredible experience and those are the types of experience that I think pilots should have. And it sounds like you guys kind of agree. You probably don't know this, but I, I do a, I do a feature on the podcast called beyond the check ride, and I do it with one of my old co hosts from the pilot cast. And, um, we're always talking about, we take a single topic that isn't really covered as part of the, uh, Any curriculum for private pilot and, we kind of go into that. Those are the types of things like fueling your airplane on your own. like how do you tie down at a strange airport? you know, how do you plan your descent when you're on a real cross country? How, you know, those types of things that really aren't in the, um, I, I almost said PTS cause I'm old, but in the ACS. Um, but those are the things you learn when you start actually flying. So how do you guys give those sorts of experiences to your students?

we had one student that, uh, was going in for a CFI and just came from one of those pilot mills that, All they knew was GPS and that was really lacking the, uh, um, piloted skills. And so it was like just taking that GPS away from her and Carl made her just fly it with a VFR sectional chart. I mean, you can speak more on that. Yeah,

you know, I mean, but, but that's, that's the whole idea of it, right? So it's kind of bringing back some old school techniques, right? Like I, you know, being able to look at a map and just identifying it. What's on it and where you are in relationship to it. So like, you know, this particular student of mine, right. You know, I kind of did a demo with her as we were flying back from Wickenburg, which is just North of Phoenix. And it was nighttime and I kind of wanted to make sure that I could do it. So I was like, all right, dude, I'm like, I'm going to prove it to you. Right. No GPS at night, paper sectional. I'm getting us back to Falcon. Right. And you start thinking about all these different, you know, Different ways of, uh, you know, just looking around and different types of cues. Which is, that's, that's one of the big things that people are lacking. Like, the, the biggest example I gave her was like, we're looking straight ahead and like, do you see this light, like way off past the prop? She's like, yeah. I'm like, do you see how it's skipping off the ground? It's like reflecting. She's like, yeah. I'm like, okay, we're in Arizona. What do you think that is? Like, why do you think it's skipping off the ground? She's like, I don't know. Yeah, it's not ice, but it's like ice is water. Right? So here you go, kid. Right. What's the only major body of water on this map right now and is a Lake Pleasant, right? Yeah. And we're like sick. All right, cool. So we know right now we're facing Lake Pleasant. And we just got to keep going that way. Look at your compass. Which way are we going? We're going Southwest, uh, Southeast. Sweet. All right. So on this heading, right, once we get over that lake, what's going to be another landmark and it's that sort of stuff, right? Things where you can like really take the time to like, just get them to work on something. Um, that's going to be like wildly beyond the comfort zone of most flight schools. Like a lot of flight schools don't even want you flying at night unless it's for the night requirement. Right. You know,

yeah, when I was training at one of those big box flight schools, not all too long ago, um, I was accomplishing one of my cross country flights with my instructor. I was working on my commercial rating and we flew up from Tucson to Phoenix Mesa gateway, right? And we got off a little bit late. We got dinner, we got back to the plane. Um, and the sun was starting to set, you know, we ate up more time than we had anticipated. Um, and unfortunately that school had a requirement or, um, yeah, a requirement that we could not fly at night unless it was for the purpose of satisfying nighttime towards a rating, right? Wow. So we had to call their headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida to receive approval to fly back to Tucson right after the sunset, right? I was, uh, an instrument rated pilot at this point, working on my commercial rating. She was a very experienced CFI with 1, 400 hours and we could not fly back without the approval of somebody sitting in a cubicle in Jacksonville, Florida. Does that make any sense? No.

Yeah, that's pretty wild. I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't know that kind of thing was going on.

I mean, that's just the stuff that you get at the flight schools that are really just producing pilots, like based on FAA. minimum standards. You know what I mean? Uh, like all the, all the fast track stuff, which there's nothing wrong with a fast track program per se, right? What ends up going wrong is, uh, you get a lot of the blind, lean the blind, right? So you get, yeah, they'll, they'll, they'll, they usually hired house, which is like pretty typical for like any place. Right. But you get a weaker instructor who isn't comfortable flying at night. Right. They produce a pilot that isn't comfortable flying at night. That pilot becomes a flight instructor. Now, their student, right, isn't, is probably even less comfortable flying at night, having learned from a person who is uncomfortable flying at night. Right? And it just like starts snowballing on itself.

And eventually they get to their 1, 500 hours and all of a sudden they're an airline pilot who's not comfortable flying at night. That's

scary. Right. Or, I mean, at least without the use of autopilot. Right. And it's like, right. Cause you know, what do you, what do you do if the autopilot fails? The plane will be fine. The plane will be perfectly fine. You just got to use trim now. Right. Easy solutions. But think about like the panic and the shock factor that goes into it and how much people start getting wrapped up in their heads cause they're just not used to it. Right.

Yeah. I

mean, that's why I'm a, I'm a big proponent of like teaching people in six packs. I would love to have a glass cockpit, don't get me wrong. But flying in a six pack just makes you fly the plane as an extension of yourself.

Well, the, the avionics can be a huge distraction. Yeah. And I mean, even with a six pack, sometimes you have a hard time getting a student to look outside the airplane, right? But you put a giant video game screen in front of them, and it's going to be way worse. Especially for younger pilots or younger students who have grown up in a video game age, right? So, yeah, for sure, those are huge distractions, and it's hard to cover them up with a small sticky note. Oh yeah, without like taking the whole thing out, you know?

Yeah, I think a big part of our, uh, idea here is try to, try to break all the crutches that we've seen, right? You know? I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you just don't need it. You don't need it. I mean like, it's, I don't know dude, I feel like flying a little plane is like riding a motorcycle. Which you know. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you gotta like, you gotta make that bike do what you want it to do and not the other way around. Cause once it goes the other way around, stuff starts getting weird. Like. For

sure. You know. And one last thing to note. Something to consider with those bigger box flight schools is the last filter in all of their decision making from the headquarters on down to the flight instructor. is liability, right? That's the last thing they consider. There is excess liability when they send a certified flight instructor and a commercial student out on a cross country at night when they don't need to, right? That's money that could be potentially pulled out of their pockets. And we don't have that filter. I mean, not to the same extent, at least, obviously we don't want our planes broken. We don't want to put them in an unsafe condition. We would never do that. But there's Necessity and there's excess, um, risk consideration, right?

Right. You know, just from like a purely monetary standpoint, like that's not what we're concerned about with our risk mitigation. You know, it's like, yeah, dude, it's fine. We'll spend a little extra money to give you a really valuable experience. Right. Like as best as we can, you know what I mean?

Right. Well, that's, uh, that's pretty cool because, I, right. In my, you know, my time, my 15 years in aviation, I've seen it change quite a bit. Back when I was doing my private, we, we did more of that, at least where I trained at, at Chandler Air Service back then. It's a totally different place now, different management and everything, but, and I'm sure they're great. I'm not saying anything bad about them, but, it was, it was really like new experiences and we were supposed to go get new experiences. And I was, you know, my long cross countries and my, my cross countries, my solo cross countries, I should say, we're all into the mountains in the summer, which, I think are good experiences, you know, as long as you're being taught to expect what's going to happen in high density altitude and, how much extra runway you're going to need and the climb performance. And I mean, these are things that I think, does a pilot good, to experience and experience on their own sometimes when they're the PIC, even before they get their ticket. So I love, I love that you guys are doing that.

Most definitely. I don't think I really thought that I could fly an airplane until I left from Chandler. And flew all the way to Dallas solo in a single and in the Musketeer and eight zero Quebec. And I was like, Once I landed there on a grass strip, never landed on a grass strip before. It was like, man, I actually just circumnavigated half the United States with a VOR and stuff that that's kind of what we want to bring in back into the training environment is like what Carl was saying earlier, is just breaking that, those crutches and. to the nitty gritty of making a decision and being able to determine whether or not you're making the correct decision and how to perform that.

All right. So let's get into some, uh, let's get into some controversy because most of your students, most of your students are probably, You know, headed to the airlines. it seems to be, you know, a lot of the students, learning to fly right now are not planning on going just into GA, but some are, but a lot are going to the airlines, right? How, how do you think this type of training, uh, by changing your model, how do you think that's going to affect positive or negative pilots who end up in the airlines? and On the other side of that coin, how does training to the ACS and kind of, you know, doing it the pilot mill way, if you will, how do you think that, you know, contributes to the negative side of going to the airlines? Can you guys talk about that a little bit?

Yeah. Right. All right. So I think. A major mindset of a lot of these students is going to the airlines. I'm going to be flying a super sophisticated. Automated plane, right? You know, and like speaking from experience right now, like the main part of your job is just taxi takeoff and landing, but they take that mindset with them into, uh, like their regular everyday training. I've got like one of my CFI students want to bash my head against the wall is like here. Tell me about VORs and it's like, give me like this, like a little spiel about it. And he's like, but like, realistically, I would just use a GPS. I'm like, yeah, dude, I get it. I get it, right. Yeah. You would realistically use a GPS, but we're not gonna, you know, there are very, there's a very slim chance you would have to rely on a VOR, but you gotta know how to do it, right. And you gotta be able to know how to do it well and figure it out. If you have nothing, right. You know what I mean?

So, most people don't understand that GPS signals from the satellites are barely above the noise. These, you know, there's these massive like solid state filters on these GPS to even get the signal out of the noise. Very easy to jam. So So, And very easy to lose that. And we've become so accustomed to always having it, that we think it's always going to be there, but it's really not that far fetched to think that there'll be a time where you're up flying and GPS is not accurate. Oh yeah. And Matt and I

experienced that. I, when we were working at our last flight school, we had the opportunity to ferry two Piper Archer threes from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Falcon field here in Mesa, Arizona. Right. And it was a very long flight to do in one day, and we had to do it in one day for reasons we'll probably get into later. But, we were passing through West Texas, near White Sands, and very hot military area, and they had jammed all of the GPSs. And we heard, uh, uh, what was it?

ATP was like, they were telling them to do a departure, and they're like, well, I can't. And They were like, well, career track, you got to do this. You'd fly the VOR. And they're like, well, my GPS is out. And it's like, what the heck? And yeah, then when we landed in Deming, um, there were two other planes that landed in front of us, a Cirrus and a, uh, one 82, I believe, and both of them grabbed their POHs and went into the boardroom and I was like, I wonder what those guys are doing. So I went in there and talked to him for a second. And they're like, yeah, our GPS, GPSs weren't working, our autopilot wouldn't work, and I just bought this plane, we're flying back to California, and now it's not working, and I'm like, yeah, it's not, you're not going to find anything in there, they, they jam GPSs over here in the white sands all the time, and he's like, oh, I thought something was wrong with my airplane. They're just, everyone's just so reliant on. The new stuff. Okay,

I rest my case.

Right, yeah. I mean, we're all on the same page for sure. And I think, I think it's students are going in with the wrong attitude as a result, right? They're trying to make it to the stage where like, yeah, you become a glorified button pusher. Which, to be fair, to be like completely fair to like all the airline pilots out there, it's not all it is. Yeah. Like, you know. You're there

for the emergencies too.

Well, yeah. Yeah. But like, you know. I mean, just, just remember this, like, next time it's super bumpy coming into land, there is some poor 30 year old guy sweating it out, like, death gripping the controls trying to hold plane level. You know what I mean? Like, they're probably not taking the GP, like, the autopilot all the way in, right? Just

like you were in flight school. Just like

you were in flight school. Some

things don't change, right?

Right, and like, now the thing with the ACS is, it's the FAA's way to try to standardize and present a template. To be tested on, right? People are testing to the ACS. So what they're trying to do is they're trying to create every maneuver in every scenario based on a set of like given parameters, because that is the legal document that they're supposed to be tested on. And I think what kind of like what we were alluding to earlier in the conversation is, is just preventing people from getting like a really good. experience in a lot of ways, right? What is it for commercial? A hundred hours of cross country? Uh, I think so. I'll top of my head. Yeah, we should know. I mean, but, but point being right, you can fulfill that by going very short. Consistent distances, right? But it's not real cross country. You, you're legally required to do one 300 nautical mile cross country, but that's, that's it, you know what I mean? Like how much do you really learn from doing anything once? Yeah, it's just like, you know, they're, they're doing their best, but like, if you, if that is the training document that you're teaching to, you're teaching people how to get out of very specific situations, right? And you gotta, you gotta start like thinking about. You know, like the more broad sort of strokes, you know what I mean? Like, well, I mean, like, here you go. What do you do if your oil temperature spikes? Do you know what's going on? I don't entirely know what's going on. I have an idea of where I would start though. Right. And okay, here we go. Right. Matt, you know, this story better than I do, but, uh, uh, the, uh, the Oxford Atlanta on the road. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Not too long ago. Like a ridiculous situation right here. Yeah, just give them the

synopsis. Out by, out by my house and like a bunch of my neighbors text me, did you try to land at your house? And I was like, no, I didn't. Cut my commute down, but it wasn't me. And um, they said that they had smelled electrical fire or fire. So they shut it down and they landed on a two lane highway out in the south practice area. And school buses had to dive off the road and they landed. And after, after they started investigating it, uh, from my knowledge, from what I was reading is that there was no fire or anything. But even then it's like, okay, what would you do if you got an electrical fire? Well, I'm going to start pulling breakers and shut the master off and I'm going to continue on to Gateway.

Fly to an airport. Yeah. With all

the electrical system off. Exactly. And so it's, but they were just following the SOPs and this is what I got to do. I'm going to go here. And I got into a debate with, uh, another one of the CFI students, and I said, well, what would you do in that scenario? Well, I probably would've done the same thing. And I was like, why is that? You wouldn't troubleshoot in a

helicopter,

right? But we're relating it back to the airplanes. And he was, uh, is like, I'd probably do the same thing because that's the procedure out there and he was military and they're, you're trained in the military to follow the procedures. And so it's like, okay, well. Let's break that and then I'd explain my my thoughts on it. He was like, yeah, you're probably right I would probably do the same thing. I would want my Students to think that way. So that's kind of what we're trying to hope to bring to it because they

And for anybody that uses the ACS as a crutch Right here on the first page task a in regards to risk management We have the applicant is able to identify, assess, and mitigate risks associated with proficiency versus currency, right? And that's what all of these arguments come down to. You can be a current pilot with a private pilot rating, who does not know or understand how to handle a situation where you smell smoke in the cockpit, right? Whose first reaction is to land on a two way highway and not only risk their lives, but the lives of the kids in the school bus, right?

Right. Yeah, I mean, like, I think it is important to remember that these procedures are in place, like, if it is a really obvious thing. Procedures are also a good place to start, right? But, you gotta, you gotta be, you gotta be, you gotta be a pilot, right? At some point, just be like, alright, here we go, right? First of all, if I smell electrical smoke, what could it possibly be coming from, right? And that's why, you know, you shut down everything. That's the thing. But if you're really knowledgeable about what's going on, it's like, yeah, dude, if I shut down everything, but the mixture's in and the mags are still on, the plane still runs, right? And like, how long does it take me to get from, it was basically like Johnson Ranch area to Gateway, right? Five minutes, right? You know, so unless you see like actual fire licking up by your feet, go forward. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. Uh, just, you know, just follow your lost comms procedures, make a safe decision, land on a runway, call ATC afterwards, right? Because I think that is another thing, is a lot of people live in this world where they're just afraid to get in trouble. It's like, stop, right? You know, it's probably better to be thinking about the ATC system with pilots more as a team. You know what I mean? Like, they're not gonna, they're not gonna, you know, Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I bring up the, I got a phone number, um, and I'd tell all my students that I said, it's, don't be afraid of them. They're there to help us. Um, don't get in the mindset that we work for them. They work for us. They're just helping. They're just help clearing the area. We're the ones

with the butts on the line. Right. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. When I landed on the, I was, I was out at Chandler and coming into land from Dallas in my mind, I'm like, all right, cool. I'm going to land on 22 right from Deming, New Mexico. I just kept saying that in my head, I'm cleared to land 22 right. Cause that's where the plane ties down in the ramp and he cleared me to land 22 left and I was like, yeah, cleared to land 22 right. And came in, landed, and he's like, Hey, I got a phone number for you. And I was like, Oh my gosh, yeah. My heart sunk, and I was like, I just lost my cert. Everything's done. I called him up, and he's like, Yeah, do you know why I gave you the number? I said no, but we talked about it, and he said, You landed on the wrong runway, you're cleared to land 2 2 left, and you landed 2 2 right. Luckily, there was nobody there. I was the only plane coming in. And we talked about it for a second, and I said, well, I, I'm pretty sure I said 2 2 right. And he said, well, let me check the tapes, and he came back, and he said, yeah, we both missed it. So, it's a learning experience, and that's what the FAA really, at the end of the day, wants you to Right. Is, don't be afraid to make a mistake, cause you're just, you gotta learn from it. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. All right, cool. So we've already talked a little bit about it, but you guys know I just, um, am a brand new CFI. Congratulations. So what are, what are some of the things I can look forward to? Give me some of your best. Instructor, or when you were a student, stories. Uh, I got a

bunch.

Alright, alright, alright,

here we go.

And we'll, you know, we'll leave names out to protect the innocent or the guilty.

Alright, here we go. I'll tell you the quick story of how I ended up, uh, working with these guys at our 61 school. My departure from ATP. Awesome. It was awesome. Right? So, uh, I went a little too hard on a maneuver. Uh, so unusual attitudes. I, I think I've, I've told you the story. Yeah. Right. I do remember. You know, the short and simple of it was, um, you know, when I was working as a, You know, uh, a CFI instructor, right? Teaching people to be CFIs at ATP. And, you know, I wanted to give someone a genuine shock factor because it happens from time to time, like, you know, I've been unintentionally spun by a student and that's a genuine shock factor. You're like, Oh, okay, here we go. We're in a situation. And so, you know, one thing. That, you know, I don't know if I've told you, but just remember your students are incredibly literal, right? And so you have to speak in an incredibly literal way. And I was demonstrating that with this guy and I was like, all right, cool. Show me how to trim the plane. And he's like, okay. So I'm like, all right, so what's the idea, right? Like the, the plane feels like it's a. Fail the plane feels like it's starting to pitch up. What do I do? He's like, oh, you know, he's just like, uh, oh, no Yeah, the plane feels like it's pitch day. He's like, yeah, so give it some uptrip now We're in a Cessna 172 the trim wheel right if you spin it from the floor That's nose down, right? And so I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna be a little silly guy. Okay, sure. I'll give it some up trim. Right. And so I spin the wheel up and I know he's not looking at me. So I'm like six. So this is another good, like you got to monitor your student. You got to like, and you

were sort of acting as the student. Yeah,

it's just like playing around. Right. Uh, pretending to be the student. Which, you know, PSA to all flight instructors out there, right? You gotta watch like everything your student does, no matter their experience level, right? The guy who spun me was a commercial student on his commercial mock truck ride, right? Full on spin dope. Anyway. So this kid, uh, I started spinning the trim wheel up and I'm like, all right, cool. Now I'm holding the plane like. Level and I'm doing a pretty good job because we're like straight level, right? You've been

going to the gym. Yeah, you know, yeah,

it's just absolutely juiced up and I turn to him like alright, so how do I know when when the plane's trimmed out? He's like, well, you should be able to let go of the yoke and the plane will stay where it is I'm like, oh cool. So I did right and the plane proceeds to incredibly dramatic nose dive. Just BAM! Right, straight down. And, uh, you know, his eyes go wide, and I just get this giant grin, and we pull up, uh, and, you know, he's like, ah, man, that was crazy. I was like, oh, yeah. And, uh, we, we went negative G's and I looked in the back and there's a huge crack in the window. I'm like, Oh, right. Cause in the dive, everything that was on the ground went to the ceiling, including the chalks in the back of the airplane. Right. Uh, which. I mean, big learning experience for me, right? Obviously don't do that. Or, you know, or

tie everything down.

That's the real, that's the real thing, right? Because if I just secured everything in the aircraft, you know, uh, probably wouldn't have lost my job, but then I would have never really linked up with these guys. So I'm like, yeah, okay. You know, I'm kind of happy I did

that.

I didn't like in the long run.

For all those, uh, future Legionnaire students here. We do have cargo nets in, uh, the baggage compartment of the musketeers, and that

We learned from previous mistakes. Hey, that's what

it's all

about, right? Yeah,

it's a learning experience. It's always learning. Always learning. Awesome. Anybody else got a good story they want to tell?

Um, I got one just from being a student. Um, so I got my license and then never thought I would do anything in the aviation industry. Just wanted to be a good pilot. because my whole family was a pilot. That's how I

started too. And then here I am with CFI.

Right. And, um, so got the, the idea one day to go to flight school and, uh, went to ATP and loved my instructor. We still talk all the time. She's now flying for Airlines. And, um, so we still have a really good relationship, but, um, It was on one of my instrument flights, one of my first flights with her. And I had about 250, 260 hours at the time, because I did a lot of just flying on my own. And she, I was her first student and, uh, we got done after the flight and she was, very upset with me and got out of the plane and got her stuff and like looked at me and she goes you're a phenomenal stick and rudder but you're a shitty pilot and flipped her hair at me and walked away and I was like what the heck does that mean? And um, Didn't, didn't sign my log book that day. It didn't, didn't even debrief me. Nothing. She just let me sit on that for a day and came back the next day. And she's like, I was like, what was up with that? And she's like, you don't know how to hold your altitude. You don't know how to hold a heading. Cause I had 250 plus hours of me just being a VFR pilot, flying however I wanted, doing whatever I wanted to do. The weather anymore. That, that gets, I look outside. Um, and so that was like a big eye opener for me. It was like, Oh, okay. I got to take this serious. And that was a, a big thing for me because at the time I was like, I don't need to listen to you. I have more hours than you and type of thing. So yeah, it was a humbling moment for me. Oh, that's cool.

And there's always something we can learn from anybody.

And a piece of advice for all those future flight instructors out there, you vomited on at some point. So I have a fun story about that one. Yeah. I had a student who, for the first six flights in his aviation journey, vomited every time. The first time he didn't have a barf bag, but headset bag didn't make it out of that venture. So who has to clean that up?

Maintenance.

We taxied back in and after that first flight, he had gotten most of it out of the little like five by five window, um, on the side of the Piper Cherokee and painted a nice racing stripe down it. Um, and we were taxing in and the flight school that I worked at at the time had a really, really great ramp guy. Um, and I could just see his face drop as we rolled in. Um, we got out of the plane and I insisted that he let my student and I clean it up. But he was very, well, more insistent than I was that he had to clean it because it was his job. He was one of those very literal folks out there. But, um, you know, later on down the line, after that had happened a few times, we got to the point where I had to sit down with the student and say, Hey, man. This isn't going to work for you. This isn't going to be a career for you. If you can't hold your luncheon for a one and a half hour flight, right? Next lesson, we're going up. I'm doing all of the flying and we're going to do commercial maneuvers. We're going to do lazy eights, steep turns, 55 degree bank. Wait, wait, wait. He was a commercial pilot. No, he was a private pilot, but this was my plan, right? So we go up, we do all this stuff. He's completely fine. The whole flight never comes back. So I don't know if I had, uh, you know, happened upon an ingenious idea and fix this guy's permanent motion sickness or what, but he never threw up again. And what do you think did it? I pushed him past his limits, right? Oh, you were doing

maneuvers that you, that you hadn't done before. You're doing maneuvers that got you more over more up and down. Yeah, exactly. All right.

Right. I mean, like, yeah, anxiety

puke. Cause that's what a lot of students just come in and they just so anxious and, Oh man, what do I got to do? And I know I had one, on his first flight, did the same thing. And I was like, Oh my gosh, don't do this. I

think, uh, in, in terms of that, you know, as you get your first student, like if you get a zero, zero time student, Try to take them up like early in the morning or kind of in the evening, especially when like the air is smooth. When it's

smooth,

yeah. But what you got to remember in the beginning, because motion sickness is just really, really bad. Um, like it's a fight between what you are visually seeing and what your body's feeling. So when you're new person in a new airplane, you're gonna, at some point you're going to feel sick. And then one comes down to you, how well you can hold it in, but doing things like what Max was doing, which helps fix their sight picture. Of like, what they're feeling and what they're seeing. Once your brain reckon, like, starts to rectify what it is, the motion sickness goes away. Yeah. Right? And so, you know, just doing, doing some easy stuff in the beginning. Uh, and I remember when I was first learning, I got the most motion sick coming into the land. Really? Yeah, for me it was, it was the uh, scale change, and like how fast the scale changed, and then like what you're feeling, you know, as you're coming in, you're like, whoa. Uh, I got over that in a couple of flights though, but again, it was once, once your body gets used to it, you're going to feel a lot better, or your students will feel a lot better, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, guys, good luck with the flight school. Really appreciate the, uh, the opportunity to sit down and talk to you. It's fun to hear the stories. Thanks

for having us

on.

Yeah, thank you.

Absolutely. All right. Thanks. We'll talk to you soon.