Time in Flight

Peter Zaccagnino went to Embry Riddle for an engineering degree. While he was learning about aerospace engineering, he was taking flight training and was getting to amass experience with flying sky-divers and getting tailwheel experience initially in a Pitts Biplane and then a Cessna 195, with a rotary engine. He was 19 when used that Pitts to get into aerobatic flying and discusses what that preflight entails. Peter loves to flight instruct in the MIG-29. He also likes to teach out of larger seaplanes to include the Grumman Mallard, Goose, and Albatross. Peter used his engineering knowledge to also fly as a test pilot. Peter has also raced both prop and jet aircraft in the Reno Air Races and has won 4 times, making him an Air Racing Hall of Famer. Peter is also the author of several books. The first one is Relevant and has just released the sequel called the New Cold War. Peter has also been on television shows such as Air Dogs and Aircraft Repo.

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Born in Mumbai, India. Moved to New York when she was a little girl. Her first love was music and she can play 7 instruments. Audrey fell in love with aviation at 16 and started going to Embry Riddle to be an aerospace engineer. That’s where she learned she actually wanted to fly and left Embry Riddle to pursue her flying career. She did her Private and Instrument training in Cirrus SR-22. It took her about 3 years to get the 1500 hours she needed to get to ATP and around age 22 she joined a regional airline. At age 25, she then decided to transition to Part 135 flying and went from a large regional jet to a turboprop King-Air and is now a New Hire at the largest fractional ownership/part 135 operator in the country.

With her passion for music, she’s seen being a pilot as being akin to a conductor of a symphony in how everything is orchestrated together.

Mike Geyer

First was introduced to flying by his father, while he was stationed in Japan for the Navy. His father gave Mike his first discovery flight as a present for his 11th birthday and this was the ‘fish-hook’ moment for him for wanted to become an aviator. After high school he decided to attend an aviation university in Louisiana but after two years, he was notified that program was going to close down to ‘reorganize’ and he was given a decision to change his major and wait for the program to come back or leave the school.

He decided to leave that school and enrolled in a rapid certificate program, where you can get all of your ratings in 10 months. Once he achieved all of his ratings, he was still below 250 flight hours, which was the minimum time required by the regional airlines were looking for. Right as he approached that number is when the Colgan Crash happened in 2008 and Mike found himself need more time as the minimum flight hour requirement kept increasing. He did a multitude of flight instruction jobs from teaching Private Pilot skills to new Marine Corps pilots to moving to California and instructing international students. Mike then pursued his dream of joining the military and became an Air Force Load-Master on a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane. He is now a captain at a regional airline

Hunter Dunlap-Getting Commercial during Covid

This guest has been on the show before during the 2018 Oshkosh Air show, were recorded under the wing. The reason Hunter has returned to the show is that he has reached a major aviation milestone and earned his Commercial pilots license. As a non-career aviator, Hunter explains his passion and reason for pursuing an advanced aviation license that is not required for a private aviator. He discusses how speaking with friends and fellow pilots helped him come to his conclusion for investing in a pilot's license.

He started his journey by getting a Gliem ground school program and studied at home, and just after he successfully completed his written exam, the country shut-down for the Pandemic is 2020. He discusses his VFR Day ad Night Cross Country going through the NYC VFR Corridor and what it was like to land in White Plains, NY. He also talks about needing to reschedule his check ride due to springtime weather in Maryland.

Hunter also discussed what happened the day of his check-ride, to include the oral and practical portions of the test in a Technology Advanced Aircraft (TAA)

Looking back on his commercial experience, he appreciates all the new skills he’d learned and how far it has bought him, since first starting to fly in 2010.

In this episode, our guest is James Onieal who has a wide variety of pilot experience from flight instructing at Embry Riddle, flying turbo-props at Colgan Air, Embraers 170s at Republic as well as being the youngest pilot hired and subsequently furloughed from Netjets. He currently does navaid verification flight checks as well as an entrepreneur, as the founder of Raven Career Development (www.ravencareers.com).

James got his start in aviation during his time in high school when he started taking private pilot training in Central New Jersey. From there he attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and ultimately became an instructor there. That’s when he had his first airline interview experience and learned that you need some additional skills, to just being yourself, to be successful.

Because of James’ experiences in the part 121 and 91 worlds and the ever changing landscape of hiring within the aviation industry, James started his career development company to help assist other pilot navigating the pitfalls, as well as, educate pilots on how to be focused but adaptable in their approach to their aviation careers.

James also shares some of his advice for pilots who are looking to start their aviation career and provides some great resources for aviators of all ages to check out, such as:

• ravencareers.com : Resources Tab that includes Master Classes (free), Weekly updates on hiring trends and other news within the industry that comes out every Tuesday (https://ravencareers.com/industry-news), and the Raven Careers Podcast 215 (https://ravencareers.com/podcasts-webinars/)
• Contact James directly at: [email protected]
• ProPilotWorld (https://www.propilotworld.com) Pilot networking and knowledge resource

This episode’s guest is Austin Kaminski, who is a native of Northern Virginia and is now a captain at a regional airline. Austin discusses how the National Air and Space Museum really inspired him to pursue aviation as a career. As a child, his father would also take him down to Gravelly Point, which is an area within the National Park Service's George Washington Memorial Parkway in Arlington County, Virginia. It is located on the west side of the Potomac River, north of Ronald Regan airport. From there you can watch planes landing on Runway 19 or takeoff from Runway 01.

At age 5, Austin’s father took him on his first flight at College Park Airport in Maryland, to his mother’s chagrin. But from there he knew that he was hooked on flying, once he realized that he wasn’t going to be a professional NBA player. He also discusses how, at the age of 16, he was able to attend the week long EAA Air-Academy in Oshkosh, WI. This is where he got to meet engineers from Boeing, flight instructors, got to take a Young-Eagle flight and attend the Oshkosh Airshow. That is where he got to meet the former Seattle Mariners baseball player, Ken Griffey Jr, who turns out to be a pilot.

Austin then went on to work at a local flight school, first working the front desk and then as a flight instructor. He says that his time at the front desk was very valuable in setting him up with the relationships that helped him succeed not only as a flight instructor but as a regional airline pilot. Austin is now a captain for a regional airline.

COVID-19 Follow up Episode. In this show Peter Teuten and I look back at our initial predictions of how the Corona Virus would affect the aviation industry back in March of this year. Now in October, we saw that the TSA passenger numbers hit over 1 million in a given day for the first time since the pandemic began. We discuss how it has  effect the 121 commercial flying as well as the private charter/fractional ownership air-transport models. As Peter says, “The math is the math” and what it means we look at these affects as they come downstream.    

This episode’s guest is Bill Sivley, who at age 53, recently earned his Flight Instructors License. The very next day, Bill was flying an aircraft he is part owner in, and experienced an in-air emergency. The engine of his C182 stopped functioning properly. Bill describes what happened in the 5 minutes and 33 seconds that followed and the training the lead up to him having a successful conclusion to the situation. Bill discusses how having another pilot with him helped as well as the roll of Air Traffic Control.

This show’s guest is Tyler Dodson, a Captain that I recently flew with at a Regional Airline. He got his start in flying in high school and perused his aviation career by flight instruction and flying King Airs. He was hired as a regional pilot on his 21st birthday. He made captain by age 24 and is currently writing a book about his aviation adventures and stories he has experienced.

Tyler has many stories of challenges that he faced on his road to becoming a commercial pilot, as well as when he became one, not to mention the current situation caused by COVID-19. He has also had notable passengers on board, such as Mike Rowe, where he discusses education and the different type of aviation jobs that are out there.

Will Kool joins us this episode to discuss how he got into aviation and how in his quest to achieve this dream of flying, took him to many places around the country and to many different jobs, so aviation some not. He also goes on to discuss his unique perspective of the COVID-19 virus, since his spouse is a medical doctor. Will goes on to give some advice on what aviation resources he uses to stay in contact with his aviation communities such as: Women in Aviation, OBAP, NGPA, AOPA and Flying Magazine. He also uses Ravencareers.com as a news reference as well.

Captain Kool also discuss some prudent financial thoughts to consider during these trying times, for those that are already in aviation, such as, ‘don’t make career decisions based off of speculation’. Will also discusses some other matters such as trying to stay current on your aviation reading as well as what aviation movies and books have been on his mind, while he has been at home.