Midlife Pilot Podcast

This week Ben, Brian, and Ted get into IFR currency: what it actually takes to stay instrument current and ready. Six approaches, holds, tracking and intercepting nav aids, and the clock that never stops running. Foggles versus a safety pilot versus the real thing, why the foggles are "the worst approximation of the instrument experience," and whether an IPC is the smarter move than chasing six approaches every six months. Plus a full tape machine of your voice memos and a whole lot of Oshkosh anticipation.

From the tape machine: Ash (flying_wheelies) on flying as a wheelchair pilot and sport pilot in his Paradise P1, and more of your feedback.

Mentioned on the show:

Brian's THE LONG WAY: https://www.makesmallcorrections.com/

Frequency Change Aviation, Nashville: https://frequencychangeaviation.com/

EP36 with CFI & flight school owner Jeff Ramsey: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep36-cfi-flight-school-owner-jeff-ramsey-on-how-to/id1591463789?i=1000615289723

Ash's Flying Wheelies: https://www.instagram.com/flying_wheelies

Paradise P1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_P1_LSA

ICP Savannah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_Savannah

When Do You Need An IPC (Boldmethod): https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/regulations/when-do-you-need-an-ipc-instrument-proficiency-check/

1DullGeek's "I Can't See the Runway!!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoIQv7IsfCw

Sport pilots get treated as lesser pilots. This week the crew takes apart why, and why it does not hold up. The restrictions are real. The skill gap is not. After MOSAIC put Cessna 172s and Cherokees within reach of a sport pilot, the training gap closed on its own. It starts with Rich, a sport pilot in Atlanta who walked into a flight school and got told he had "so much less training."

Also this week: listener Christopher H. crossed 500 hours and passed his commercial checkride. Tape-machine messages from Luke Johnson, Sierra Squared, and Chris M. From the community: Echo November Whiskey passed the instrument checkride after "5 reschedulings with 3 DPEs." PapaLima logged a 90-day run for the ages. hakan flew his first border crossing, Germany to Austria.

Support the show, join the Discord, grab merch, and send us a message at midlifepilotpodcast.com. If you are enjoying the podcast, leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and we will read it on the air.

Mentioned on the show:

Brian's THE LONG WAY: https://www.makesmallcorrections.com/

Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic since 1992: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia

Long Way 'Round, Ewan McGregor: https://www.longway.tv/

Yes, Long Distance Runaround: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La9Me7alNqA

Erica's IFR class: https://www.gilbertaviation.com/

Ben's coming back to McCollum with his wife in the right seat and the winds at 340, 18 gusting 28, basically direct crosswind, and he's already named the two north-south runways he'll divert to if he doesn't like it. That's the whole episode in one scene. We dig into go/no-go decisions, built around the Go/No-Go channel where you post a flight before you fly it and let the group reason alongside you. No bravado, no armchair quarterbacking.

Brian makes the case that scrubbing a flight you could have made is still a win, because you're teaching your future self the call was sound and next time the conditions could be worse. Erica Gilbert's 1,000-foot ceiling minimum comes up, and the story behind it: three emergency returns after takeoff inside 30 days. We talk through the real question under an IFR deck, which is how much time you want to find a landing spot when the engine quits, not if. The hardest scrubs are the ones 900 miles from home with work in the morning, so grab your meds and your underwear.

We also read a remarkable letter from Bruce, a 45-year-old monocular MMA coach who spent two and a half years fighting through medical denials to earn his certificate. Plus accomplishments from Teddy's second Mooney, an M20J flown Texas to Minnesota, and Checkmate Barry's 14-maneuver flight review, the Piston Peasant shirt Ted designed, and a second cohort of Brian's VFR cross-country course after the first sold out. If you can't be a good example, you'll have to be a horrible warning.

Mentioned on the show:

• THE LONG WAY cross-country course: https://www.makesmallcorrections.com/
• PISTON PEASANT shirt: https://midlifepilotpodcast.printful.me/product/piston-peasant-shirt
• New website: https://midlifepilotpodcast.com/
• I FLEW ALL DAY AND LANDED AT THE SAME AIRPORT shirt: https://midlifepilotpodcast.printful.me/product/i-flew-all-day-and-landed-at-the-same-airport-unisex-classic-tee
• Erica Gilbert's IFR masterclass: https://www.gilbertaviation.com/ifr-course

A whiskey episode, the non-format format where we catch up, work the live chat, and let it fly. Ted spots a pair of Canadair Super Scoopers fighting fires over Utah and IDs them on ADS-B in about ten seconds. Brian preps a 4:30 a.m. departure for West Texas to end-around a brutal heat dome, Tango 82 for a couple nights, then Marfa. Ted lays out the fatigue math of flying high for smoother air and better fuel burn, and when the oxygen comes out.

We read an invite to Ed-Air, a Part 137 ag operation in Southern Indiana with a pilot house, six beds, and an 80-year-old founder. Ben recounts his annual five-mile hike up to the Len Foote Hike Inn near Springer Mountain and the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, 19 miles over a weekend that doubles as Oshkosh training. Version two of the website is live at midlifepilotpodcast.com, with the Midlife Pilot Tape Machine and a VU meter that actually works, so go yell into it. Plus the long road to turning Nashville's Super Charlie into a Bachelorette Bravo, a Challenger pilot caught on the wrong frequency, the grace controllers extend to student pilots, bush wheels on a Cessna 140, and a shout-out to everyone with a checkride coming up. Don't scud run, people.

Mentioned on the show:

• Canadair CL-415 Super Scooper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CL-415
• T82 airport: https://www.airnav.com/airport/t82
• I20 Ed-Air Inc. airport: https://edairinc.com/location.html
• I20 info: https://www.airnav.com/airport/I20
• Len Foote Hike Inn: https://hike-inn.com/
• Springer Mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springer_Mountain
• Gita's Calm Cockpit Podcast: https://calmcockpit.com/
• Capt'n Todd's "portapilot" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR2HrQGf454

www.midlifepilotpodcast.com

Avgas hit 8.85 a gallon, so the $100 hamburger is now a $300 hamburger, and if you're renting, congratulations, it's a $1,000 hamburger. Brian, Ben, and Ted dig into how midlifers actually keep flying when fuel costs go vertical: pull the power back and trade five knots for four gallons an hour, cast a wide net for a safety pilot to split the cost, chase the cheapest fuel 50 miles out, and rediscover this thing called "morning."

The feedback bag is stacked this week. The Tuba Guy writes in from the Boston Symphony, 13 years out of the cockpit and finding his way back. Listener Jason followed in Brian's footsteps to Drift Aviation and got hooked on the J-3 Cub. And Cassie, a brand-new private pilot, relies on the show for her weekly "aviation friend fix," which nearly earns her 30 instant pilot friends in Portland whether she wants them or not.

Plus a legendary 1 Dull Geek Rant on the the eternal question of where exactly you're supposed to do your run-up. Brian's new VFR cross-country course is at makesmallcorrections.com.

Mentioned on the show:* Catherine Cavagnaro: https://aceaerobaticschool.com/* Justin Tidwell, Flywell Aviation: https://www.flywellaviation.com/aboutus* AC Super Decathlon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Champion_Decathlon* Coronary artery disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_artery_diseaseiep141* Getting a medical with coronary artery disease: https://www.faa.gov/ame_guide/media/Coronary_Heart_Disease_Disposition_Table.pdf* Episode 141 - Every pilot is creative somehow: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep141-every-pilot-is-creative-somehow-tim-lien-from/id1591463789?i=1000721686629* Bill Burr- helicopter bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ZSzuj1UpA* The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Midlife Pilot- second edition! https://midlifepilotpodcast.com/#guide* Lambert's throwed rolls: https://throwedrolls.com/* RYY airport diagram: https://www.aopa.org/ustprocs/20260611/SE-4/ryy_airport_diagram.pdf* Brian's "the long way" ground course: https://makesmallcorrections.com/Support the show! www.midlifepilotpodcast.com

You earned the ticket. Now what? Most VFR pilots get their certificate and then spend the next few years doing pattern laps and $100 hamburger runs, never quite working up the nerve for the big trip. There's no checkride for cross-country confidence, so nobody teaches it. This week, Brian, Ben, and Ted dig into everything that happens after your training ends and the open country begins.

The guys get into the gap in pilot training nobody talks about: en route weather reality versus departure-and-arrival thinking, why personal minimums need a methodology for ratcheting (not just a number on a card), and how to think about your airplane as your responsibility for three days on the ground, not two hours in the air. Plus the stuff that bites you in the real world: dead iPads in one-million-degree Texas heat, self-serve fuel pumps that put a $3,000 hold on your only credit card, progressive taxi at unfamiliar fields with crossing runways, and knowing where you're going to put it down when the engine quits on departure from an airport you've never seen.

Ben finally lands on the right runway at New Smyrna Beach, Brian watches his commercial rating show up in the airman registry, and a bathroom-wall sticker in New Orleans pulls another listener out of a training slump. Brian also announces The Long Way, his new four-week ground course built on everything learned VFR-ing all over the country, available now at makesmallcorrections.com.

Whether you're the pilot talking yourself out of the trip or the one who goes far but knows some of it was luck, this one's for you. You don't have to be IFR-rated to Ted yourself all over the United States.

Mentioned on the show:

• Ultimate Pilot's Guide to Becoming a Midlife Pilot, 2nd edition: https://midlifepilotpodcast.com/#guide
• Fairchild C-123: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_C-123_Provider
• New Smyrna Beach Airport: https://www.nsbairport.com/
• The Jerk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jerk
• The Long Way — Cross-Country Confidence for VFR Pilots, a four-week ground course: https://www.makesmallcorrections.com/
• Air Facts Podcast with Gita Brown: https://airfactsjournal.com/2026/06/podcast-dads-logbooks-with-gita-brown/
• Gita's 2025 Dad's Logbooks article: https://airfactsjournal.com/2025/08/dads-logbooks-keeping-a-daughter-on-course/

Brian is hiding from CMA Fest, Ben is back from the British Virgin Islands, and Ted has finally sprung the Egg from a two-month annual. Time for an Information Whiskey episode.

Brian gets back in the air after his exam binge with a visit to Full Stop Aviation at Union City, where he meets a 1,000 horsepower Reno racer, then executes a strategic family airstrike to the Virginia mountains and reports that Lucy's autopilot vertical hold now sounds like logging into America Online before giving up entirely. Listener feedback from Chris H. sparks a debate on whether heavy dual time before the private checkride is a red flag or just life happening. Community accomplishments include a PIN code for the DC FRZ, a 9,000 foot density altitude wake turbulence encounter, ten Young Eagles in one day, an LSRM-I sign-off, and fresh grief for everyone hand jamming a Garmin 430 in actual.

Then things go deeper. Brian unpacks his new video "Trip. Fall. Succeed." and the photograph he took of a family at Huntsville Executive just two days before they were lost in the Montana Aztec accident. It's a thoughtful look at how aviation talks about tragedy, and how Ron Horton's challenge to become instructors gives all of this weight and purpose.

Plus: episode 200 hits this fall, and the crew wants your votes for a very special non-event event at a no-place place. Hudson Corridor? New Orleans? A Denny's in Topeka? Send votes to [email protected]

Tonight's bit of wisdom: "Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

Mentioned on the show:

UCY - Union City:https://www.airnav.com/airport/UCY

Full Stop Aviation at UCY:https://fs-aviation.com/

Luke's Landing:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOrpUYt-M4Qosktmet7Jnfg

FlightChops video, going to UCY - Have You Ever Truly Experienced "Severe Turbulence"?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUrGSFulrwI

TUPJ - Lettsome International, British Virgin Islands:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrance_B._Lettsome_International_Airport

EP182 - DPE Ron Horton Part 1:https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yl5pJ0rvFXpg5nxNL7xTw?si=1XbAa1HlQKmC5oP5Xfaghw

I was today years old:https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-was-today-years-old

FLARE Bourbon distillery:https://www.flarebourbon.com/home

Checkmate Barry using the Icarus electronic foggles:https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2026-04-27/training-icarus-device-inoculates-against-iimc

Redbird AATD (simulators):https://simulators.redbirdflight.com/

Brian's new YouTube video, The Midlife Way: Trip. Fall. Succeed:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCim9wvwmO0

Blancolirio video about the family flying the Aztec:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7kT0_Jns0Q

Brian's video on monetizing tragedy, The Economics of Exploitation. Aviation's YouTube Problem:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129nlBPpVAI

Jim Morrison, No One Gets Out Of Here Alive:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_One_Here_Gets_Out_Alive

NEW, New Orleans Lakefront Airport terminal building:https://lakefrontairport.com/about/

Connect with the show:

Everything Midlife Pilot Podcast:https://midlifepilotpodcast.com

Patreon and Discord:https://patreon.com/midlifepilotpodcast

Live on YouTube Mondays 8 PM Eastern:https://youtube.com/@midlifepilotpodcast

Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts and we'll read it on the air.

If you haven't listened to Episode 182 yet, go back — this conversation picks up about five minutes later. Ron Horton, DPE extraordinaire, returns with the crew to finish what he started: a data-driven, story-rich tour through what actually happens on checkrides, what actually trips people up, and what a lifetime of examining pilots looks like from the other side of the table.

In this second half, Ron walks through his color-coded scorecard of common ground and flight failures — weather, cross-country planning, airspace, and the takeoff and landing tables that trip up nearly half of all students. Spoiler: if your entire weather education came from ForeFlight, you and aviationweather.gov need to get acquainted. We also dig into why so many students arrive with no mechanical intuition whatsoever (one applicant had never cut grass — and had someone for that), why VOR navigation has become a near-lost art, and what it means when a student shows up with a perfectly calligraphed weight and balance that they clearly didn't do themselves.

Brian gets called out — gently — for overthinking his commercial W&B scenario, which as it turned out had absolutely no landmine in it at all. Ron also makes the case that showing up with a pre-tabbed FAR/AIM you bought online is a very different thing from showing up with tabs you put there yourself. And he closes with the phrase that stuck with Brian after the checkride: What's time to a hog? — a farmer's wisdom about taking the long road when the long road is worth it.

Mentioned on the Show:aviationweather.gov: https://aviationweather.govSeth Lake (VSL Aviation) YouTube: https://youtube.com/@VSLAviationJason Miller — The Finer Points: https://thefinerpoints.netFreedom Aviation Network: https://freedomavnetwork.org

Connect with the Show:Website: https://midlifepilotpodcast.comPatreon: https://patreon.com/midlifepilotpodcastYouTube: https://youtube.com/@midlifepilotpodcastEmail: [email protected]

The crew is joined by Charlotte-based Designated Pilot Examiner Ron Horton — 60 years of flying, Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, AOPA Regional Instructor of the Year, and the man responsible for both Brian's and Ben's commercial certificates. Ron comes armed with something most DPEs don't bother with: actual data. Over 500 checkrides' worth of it, color-coded spreadsheets and everything.

In this first of a two-part conversation, Ron unpacks his checkride pass/fail rates across private, instrument, commercial, CFI, and CFII — and the numbers will either comfort you or send you back to the books. (Spoiler: the instrument rating is harder than you think, and it's increasingly the avionics' fault.) We also dig into the sobering reality that the average student now takes 103 hours to reach their private checkride — up from 81 just five years ago — and what that 36% creep in dual hours says about the state of flight training. Plus: why soloing students at 40 hours dual is, in Ron's words, "staggering," and why the instructors who never ask a DPE what went wrong are the ones who keep sending unprepared students.

Mentioned on the show:

* DPE Ron Horton: http://planevisions.com/

* Seth Lake- VSL Aero- How to Read a Jeppesen SID and Star (Made Simple): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2osAEHUpKjw

* FlightInsight- How toRead a Jeppesen Approach Plate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQViPd5XYk8

* EGCB - Manchester Barton Aerodrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Barton_Aerodrome

* Thorndike's Law of Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_effect

Support the show, get shirts and hats, and more at www.midlifepilotpodcast.com

Brian's got a shiny new commercial certificate, Ben just logged 25 hours in three days in a flying potato over Florida, and somehow nobody declared an emergency — so naturally, it's time to talk about flying like a professional even when nobody's paying you to. From sterile cockpit discipline to weight and balance on every single flight (yes, everyone), the crew runs through a practical list of habits that separate polished pilots from the yank-and-bank crowd. Plus: a listener who went from ICU nurse to CFII at 54, a fuel tank horror story that will make you check yours right now, and Mark prepares to hand a large sum of money to some people in the Czech Republic who have definitely sent him pictures of his actual airframe. Probably.Mentioned on the show:

* Time Building Mafia: https://volare.aero/timebuildingmafia

* The Calm Cockpit Podcast: https://calmcockpit.com/

* TL Sparker: https://www.tl-ultralight.cz/en/ultralight-aircraft/sparker

* 0W3 - Hartford County Airport - Churchville Maryland: https://www.airnav.com/airport/0w3

* PHKO - Ellison Kona airport: https://www.airnav.com/airport/phko

* SISKIND: Do Easy: How Fast Can You Take Your Time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqsg-iW3KBw