Midlife Pilot Podcast

Milestone night. Ted passed the instrument written with a 95 ("definitely my highest score of the four tests I've taken"), sneaking in days before the FAA changes the exam, and explained the back-to-back-tests energy in terms we all understand: "I was at a casino and I just was feeling lucky." Ben, for the record, still remembers his 88. Congratulations also to Lance D, who soloed tonight per the chat, and Adam V, who flew his whole family for the first time.

The tape machine brought Adam, a CFI whose new student read the Ultimate Guide and reported back with the most relatable status in aviation: "I can't even get this thing to the runway." Which, the panel agrees, is exactly the right place to be. Ask any pilot about their first solo "and you'll see this look come about them." Keep scaling it down; you're allowed to feel that way about taxiing. Elsewhere: Brian's new videos are filling Ben's YouTube feed, with filming on the way to Sevierville, and the hangar commute continues.

Tonight's wisdom: the windsock is a small piece of fabric with enormous authority.

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
0A9, Elizabethton, Tennessee: https://www.elizabethtonairport.com/
SRB, Upper Cumberland Airport, Tennessee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Cumberland_Regional_Airport
GKT, Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge, Tennessee: https://www.gktairport.com/
SISKIND, If My Engine Quits Here, I Might Not Make the Runway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bkL0Yh0zHk
SISKIND, What Happened to Nashville? A Local's View From 3,500 Feet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPR6MKvqsus
SISKIND, We Flew My 1967 Airplane Into the Mountains With No Plan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWp_5GmrDBQ
SISKIND, I Traced Every Owner of My 1967 Airplane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDNToeCLDdk
FlightInsight, What Does "Cleared Visual Approach" Actually Let You Do?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVfZ_ePn3RI
Opposing Bases OB394, The Art of the Visual Approach: https://opposingbases.libsyn.com/ob394-the-art-of-the-visual-approach
Opposing Bases OB263, Visual Approach Cavalcade: https://opposingbases.libsyn.com/ob263-visual-approach-cavalcade

Mark is back ("Thanks, Mark. Glad to be back") with Sparker transition-training dispatches: two seats, retractable, bubble canopy, Rotax 916, "about 165 knots at 10,000 feet," pending "a whole bunch of marketing inflation that I think might be going on there." Meanwhile a Phenom on frequency earned the highest honor this show can bestow: "the green machine of airplanes." And if they made an adult size Green Machine? "I would buy it a thousand percent."

Ted is deep in the instrument written, armed with Sheppard Air and Erica's class ("You're doing all the right things") while the questions do their job, which is making you feel dumb. Brian's advice from the far side of the test: be a glutton for punishment and take the IGI a day or two later. "Send it. If I fail the IGI test, like, who cares." On the tape machine, Drew prescribes the Jacobson flare for landing consistency in anything from a Cub to a 747, and Sir Elliot gave the family a tour of a G650. Say "narrow runway" five times fast. "Well, I've started drinking, so I'm not going to do that."

Tonight's wisdom: "a go-around isn't an admission of defeat. It's a pilot refusing to let pride fly the airplane."

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
The Green Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB2T8dnbhhw
Opposing Bases: https://www.opposingbases.com/
Erica's Instrument Pilot course: https://www.gilbertaviation.com/ifr-course
Sheppard Air: https://www.sheppardair.com/instrument-rating.htm
Gulfstream G650: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfstream_G650/G700/G800
The Jacobson Flare: https://www.jacobsonflare.com/
Mark's TL Sparker: https://tlsportaircraft.com/sparker/

Ted did the math: episodes 83, 108, 116, 119, 128, 155, 188, and 201 were all more or less about landings, and tonight makes it nine, because you filled the tape machine and we have no self-control. The eternal question of this show, asked out loud tonight: "Oh man, how does this even work? What is landings?" Ted's official position: "I don't want to be the landing podcast. I do want to be the emotional rollercoaster podcast." Exhibit A, Micael: two weeks ago, six attempts, five go-arounds, and "I walked away in tears." This morning, six for six. That's the ride, folks.

The panel's collected landing science: it takes "100 landings more or less" to figure it out, the whole business is the Magic Eye poster of aviation (everybody else could see it, and Brian couldn't), and the real breakthrough is to "just start loving how bad you're doing." Or, as a bar mitzvah kid with a cracking voice once told rabbi Ben Stiller: embrace the suck. Welcome to new Land-o-matic members Ben H. and Hector R., and a salute to Elliot's first instructor: "You have eight hours. I can't believe you're not perfect yet."

Tonight's wisdom: a flight review is where you discover which bad habits have become traditions.

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
Houlme, Orcas Island, Washington: https://www.houlme.com/
EAT, Pangborn Memorial, Wenatchee, Washington: https://www.flywenatchee.com/fbo-services/
RMG, Rome, Georgia: https://www.airnav.com/airport/RMG
SISKIND, Learning to Land: The Magic Eye Poster for Student Pilots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_UDm4n7zxs
"Embrace the suck" in Keeping the Faith (2000, Ed Norton/Ben Stiller): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_the_Faith

Last week's emergency deserves a sequel about the thing you reach for in the later phases of one: the checklist. Enter returning special friend of the show Checkmate Barry, two years to the day (October 1st) from taking over CheckMate Aviation, the premier checklist company. His origin story is extremely midlife pilot: he redid his 182 panel, his trusty checklist no longer matched anything, so he designed his own, laminated it himself, watched it fall apart twice, and concluded "they make a better product than what I can do at home." He sent them the file. He now owns the company.

Around the group: the Beast will be unleashed Wednesday (two and a half weeks in the avionics shop, plus one buffer day, "that's what you do"), Ben is inbound to Phenom indoc where a single-engine approach go-around is allegedly the single hardest thing you can do in that jet, and hold entries are being practiced the honest way, drawn in a notebook, no navigator, no pause button. Tonight's wisdom, from the old-school book: the aircraft may fly poorly, but it will always crash well.

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
Checkmate Barry's CheckMate Aviation: https://www.checkmateaviation.com/
QuarkXPress (Barry's design roots): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuarkXPress

Ryan and Jackie flew the beautiful RV-10 down for the EP200 hangar show. On the way home, the airplane had other plans: autopilot master fault, attitude indicator misbehaving in IMC, showing level while the airplane turned left, a wall of clouds ahead, and one analog instrument left in the panel: the compass. Ryan keyed up center and, per his own post-landing text, "declared mercy." So tonight is the rarest kind of debrief, one with the pilot in the room: round-robin questions, every decision second-guessed with love, and the sobering inventory afterward: "all the backup to the backup, that would not have worked."

For the record, as established on air: Ted did not fly into a Bravo. Tonight's wisdom, pulled from the show's earliest days and never more fitting: remember, you fly an airplane with your head, not your hands and your feet.

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
Anderson, Indiana (KAID), home of unleaded fuel: https://www.airnav.com/airport/KAID
Garmin Axis: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/aviation/axis/overview/
Picking up an IFR clearance on the ground: https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/regulations/how-to-pick-up-an-ifr-clearance/
Rensselaer, Indiana (KRZL): https://www.airnav.com/airport/KRZL
Purdue University Airport, Lafayette (KLAF): https://www.airnav.com/airport/KLAF
Garmin GSU 25: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/532062/
East End Grill, Lafayette: https://www.eastendmain.com/

The Discord kept circling one subject, and it happens to be printed on our favorite t-shirt: I forget how to land (or have never learned in the first place). So this one's all landings: the plateau, the last five seconds, and the sight pictures we grade ourselves against "a little less forgiving than they need to be." Just don't ask the internet, where landing advice is "one of the most painful exposés in human behavior" and somebody always soloed in 0.6 hours and wants you to man up.

Field reports: seven hours in and "squirrely around the pattern" (that's the hardest part and the most fun part, hang in there), a Cherokee pilot whose new ride lands "like I'm flying straight into the ground," and Hammack600's accidental greaser followed by the cardinal error: one more touch and go. Plopped it right in. Put the greaser in the bank, people. Then leave us a tape machine message at midlifepilotpodcast.com: under two minutes, the moment landing finally clicked for you. Tonight's wisdom: checklists are what smart pilots use when memory starts feeling confident.

Mentioned on the show:
Leave us a tape machine message (and everything else): https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
The "I Forget How to Land" shirt and other merch: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
Van's RV-12 (Ted's squirrely trainer): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van%27s_Aircraft_RV-12

Two hundred episodes, and this one comes with a studio audience: live from a hangar at McCollum Field, at a non-event event. "Come if you want, come as you are," and people came anyway, some from very long distances.

Ben opened the show with engines running in the background and Lucy parked directly behind the crowd, and the staffing was deep: AJ, Lord Alpha Juliet of the Airline Pilot Guy show ("you shouldn't call him Substitute Mark"), Luke of Luke's Landings on production, and Evan, Brian's third-born, running the FBO shuttle.

Brian's arrival got the full KRYY treatment. AJ knows "pretty much everybody in the tower," so the welcome came over the actual frequency, preserved by LiveATC and played on the show: "AJ called and told me to tell you it took you long enough."

Then Brian turned his microphone around, unplanned, and pointed it at Dev Cannon of the Music City CAF: Navion owner, based at M54 in Lebanon, active in the Commemorative Air Force, and the volunteer on the ad hoc committee helping shape the coming Bachelorette Bravo. The job "pays exactly zero dollars," and Dev is the one synthesizing everyone's concerns within the FAA's framework.

Happy 200!

Mentioned on the show:
Dev Cannon and the Music City CAF: https://www.cafmusiccity.org/
LiveATC.net: https://www.liveatc.net/
Airline Pilot Guy show: https://airlinepilotguy.com/
Luke's Landings on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lukeslanding2230
Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (KRYY): https://www.airnav.com/airport/KRYY

Eleven minutes of "we're keeping it a mystery," and then out with it: our friend Timestamp Tedder went and passed his private pilot checkride. "No longer sport pilot extraordinaire." Theoretically he can still hold the title, he just kind of added some more. A hard-won medical, a pile of hours in the Egg, and now a private pilot certificate sitting on top of all of it. So tonight is the full checkride debrief, from a guy who did it the midlife way: over-prepared, slightly terrified, and delighted.

The flight portion opened with a gift from the aviation gods: two lane faults on the Rotax during the run-up, in front of a DPE who is also an A&P. "Oh no, this is not a good sign." Flip the lanes, they reset, never came back, and if you also just said "lanes?", the 912iS explainer is linked below. Ted's adrenaline on boarding "just went nuts," at which point he discovered the top note on the DPE's own checklist: relax. "And he keeps pointing to it in the flight. It's like, wow sir, that's not helping." He did, however, collect planning points for knowing Redmond's Flight Following Lite: squawk 1237, tune the frequency, say nothing, and "they'll call you out if they need you to move."

Around the patch, the wins keep coming. Gary in Colorado passed his private and asked the question of the week: is it normal to feel numb the day after? Gita's ruling: "totally normal to feel dumb or to feel numb the day after. Both sort of feel normal." Gita also shared a pattern with a police helicopter fresh off studying rotor wash, and received a comment from the helicopter pilot "best left unanswered." Ray B. in Australia passed his sport pilot nav ride, "but most importantly it was done in a Piston Peasant t-shirt." Skip L. passed his private after life got in the way for two and a half years, which is the most midlife pilot sentence there is. Sierra Squared logged 1.5 of floats, seven takeoffs and landings, and retired from float flying at "almost 700 bucks an hour." Tonight's wisdom: nothing improves your crosswind technique like an audience at the FBO.

Mentioned on the show:
Gita Brown and the Calm Cockpit Podcast: https://calmcockpit.com/
Description of the Rotax 912iS electrical system and lanes: https://www.rotax-owner.com/en/912is-technical-questions/11220-basic-description-of-generator-and-lane-system-operation
"Flight Following Lite" in Redmond Oregon: https://notams.aim.faa.gov/lta/main/viewlta?lookupid=2667888510941271769

Ted has a private pilot checkride on the calendar, so naturally the crew dedicated the evening to helping him prepare. And by helping, we mean: "You may not be nervous at all for the checkride. But you will be by the end of this conversation. It's our job to make you nervous." The chat piled on until it got so deep into aerodynamics that Erica announced, "if a DPE asks about dynamic stability on a private pilot checkride, I'm quitting." The actual best advice of the night came via Nathan B., quoting Barry: slow down and think, doesn't matter if it's an egg, a 182, or a jet. Wind your watch. Midlifters will get that reference.

CFI Sam lobbied hard for Ted to combine private and instrument into one checkride, a suggestion Ted received with grace: "How dare you try to minimize my suffering. I want to suffer as much as everybody else." One over-prepared checkride at a time. And when he passes, the assignment stands: bait r/flying with "I passed my private pilot checkride at 1,200 hours." (It was 1,005 hours last episode. The creeper bot confirms he's been flying.)

The mailbag delivered the ultimate "I will never" correction: a listener who got his PPL in 1998 as a band teacher retired in 2022 and was promptly offered a charter job in a King Air 200. Then came type ratings in a BE-40 Beechjet and King Air 250 and 90, sims at RVR 800 and 200-foot ceilings at night, "pretty much like drinking from a fire hose." His own verdict: "So much for, I will never."

Ted's medical saga got a postscript: Xyla Foxlin's video on her FAA medical fight. "It made me cry. Seriously, like tears." (The dusty plane in the hangar will get you.) Standing disclaimer, in his words: don't take from what you hear from me that anybody can get a medical. Know the risk before you apply.

Also aboard: the beast (Ben's 182) is in the avionics shop losing the Cuisinart, an old Narco audio panel riding on 1968 wiring, in favor of two GI-275s. Congrats to Gary, our newest private pilot. Welcome, Hammack from HSV. And the cheeseburger that made Erica tear up has a name: Bare Bones Butcher, burgers 11 to 3 only, new potatoes deep-fried in beef fat, dipped in mayonnaise. She didn't want anything too heavy. "I don't care. We're going to go get this burger." Tonight's wisdom: airplanes convert fuel into noise and money into memories.

Mentioned on the show:
King Air 200/250: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Super_King_Air
BE40 Beechjet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_400
King Air 90: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_King_Air
Xyla Foxlin's medical story, "The FAA Has a Mental Health Problem": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj0H8oVS7qg
Bare Bones Butcher, Erica's best burger ever: https://www.barebonesbutcher.com/

A listener comment set the agenda this week: as the hosts stack ratings and turbine job offers, do the 20-to-200-hour faithful still see themselves in the show?

Ben answered by wearing his Nobody Cares hat, the one from the Nashville meetup of the same name, and explaining why: he had maybe 250 hours when Brian and Chris started recording, and hearing them talk about their first solos "hit home with me like a ton of bricks." He is still as excited for every first solo and first cross-country posted in the community as he was for his own. The whole thing turned into the closest the show has come to a Lloyd Dobler rant in years: "I don't want to manufacture anything, I don't want to sell anything."

Because here is the thing about ratings: this is not a competition, and in the words spoken on air, "we're still terrified little babies on check rides." The instrument ride at 800-something hours was not easier for the experience. It was worse. And in the most on-brand development this show could possibly produce, Ted, freshly armed with his hard-won medical, is now preparing for a private pilot checkride, with a standing dare to post "I just passed my PPL at 1,005 hours" on the flying subreddit and watch the comments roll in.

Ben, meanwhile, is still waiting for the beast to get out of the shop ("There is a very good chance that the beast will be done by the end of this week." "So one more month." "Exactly. That's what everybody says."). His new employer filled the gap with computer-based training homework that ate his entire weekend before Phenom 300 indoc, and they sent him the AFM, which he is respectfully not opening yet. He has, however, already downloaded a Phenom for Microsoft Flight Simulator, so training is basically complete.

In the mailbag, a student pilot who lost his medical shortly after his second solo wrote that Ted's story "is exactly what I needed to hear to give me hope," and asked whether BasicMed can put the whole fight to rest. Fittingly, the community chat channel has become the Ted and Mike Alpha Golf medical regulation hangout, currently nerding out on FAA changes around antidepressant special issuance, sleep apnea, and diabetes.

Also aboard: a 1985 Toyota MR2 blew a head gasket, grew a pinhole in a freshly fabricated muffler weld, and confirmed that its owner "will never win the lottery." Toby K passed his instrument checkride, Bill S got checked out in his flying club's A36 Bonanza (15 hours of dual for the checkout), and there is apparently an equity flying club out of PDK called Bonanza Five with access to five Bonanzas. Welcome to new patrons Ryan C. and Arnold A. And every "It's Ted" now triggers the Ren and Stimpy Log song, for which we apologize in advance. Tonight's wisdom: every great landing begins with a good approach and ends with a story that improves by dinner time.

Mentioned on the show:
* Ren and Stimpy, The Log song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc7xLsp_mcg#t=35s
* Bonanza Five flying club: https://www.bonanza5.com/
* Lloyd Dobler rant ("I don't want to sell anything..."): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuc_BqAPxRo#t=23s
* NOBODY CARES fly-in video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAjPnyxtrSM