EP6 - Lunch in Tashkent, Passover with Steve, and listener Q&A

26:46The food is kind of secondary, but not for us. Like for us, it is about the meal. There's a great Israeli restaurant in Philly called Zahav. So next time you're here, if I know in advance long enough, I might be able to get us a reservation. It's hard to get into. It's amazing. It's like one of the top restaurants in Philly. It has been for years, but that's the closest you're going to get. Yeah. Well, I love food from that area of the world. You know, I mean, Lebanese, Israeli, just that, you know, kind of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, you know, kind of a mix. A lot of similarities, man. I mean, the religion is different.

27:22The food's very similar. Right. That's what you get, right? That's what you get in that region. So anyway, that was my dinner. I'm still undigested here. And what's going on in the aviation world? Well, I received a message that United Airlines has decimated their points system. Some big changes. In what way? Because we have a lot of United points. We do, man. The changes look like they've come to generally penalize non-United Airlines credit card holders. Non? Non. Oh, man. So it's like a cardholder first model. So here's the basics. General members, non-card holders, the losers, according to the article that I read.

28:18That would be us? That would be us. I have American cards. Maybe I'll just cancel my American cards and just get United Mileage Plus card. Yeah, I might have to get one. It's just, I continue on and I'll vent my frustrations. The rate dropped five miles to three miles per dollar for non-card holders. But I guess you don't have to buy it with the card. But if you're a card holder, it's attached to your account, it looks like. That's what it looks like to me. You go from five to three on the accrual, which is bad. that's reason enough right there to get the card, I guess. We're not advertising this card, by the way.

28:54Don't get it. I don't. We're not hawking cards here. Not until we get on the affiliate program, that is. Right. Yeah. If they want to pay me to say that it's good, then I'll do it. But no, actually, on the contrary, I'm not taking any. We're not entertaining any sponsors that aren't relevant or that we can't really get behind. So if we do start taking sponsors at some point, know that we will be getting behind them. We use those services or products or we like it. We don't have any of those yet, though. No. We should. We're open to it. We're open to it. So anyway, Premier Silver rate dropped from seven miles to five.

29:32Premier Gold Platinum 1K, that's us all. Tears saw a two mile per dollar decrease in the base. Ugh. Wow. Now, the cardholders now earn more miles just for having an open account, regardless of whether they use that card to pay for the flight. General members with a card earn six miles per dollar, higher than the previous five. Premier 1K with a card earn 12 miles per dollar for just having the card and up to 17 if they also pay with the United card. Well, we might as well get a card and whether we use it or not. I guess, you know, maybe they're anticipating a reduction in travel and saying, you know, people get our, the United credit card is going to be rewarded better because that's how they'll make ancillary revenues.

30:20I guess, you know, I'm sure that, you know, they've, they've, you know, gone through it and figured out the financials on all this stuff. But gosh, it sure seems like a terrible idea to like piss off your people that are, you know, paying your airline millions of dollars, you know, for business class travel for their entire company. And attach it to having a credit card, you know. Yeah. I will definitely be canceling another credit card. I am not in the business of racking up lots of credit cards. It's just, I don't like doing it. I have a couple that I use and that's, those are the ones I use.

30:55So, I mean, I guess I don't really fly American much anymore. I can, I can drop those cards and pick up a United one, I guess, but I don't know, man, it's kind of annoying. It really is. It's very annoying. And I don't know. Just the whole airline business just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah. As I talked about before. So on that front, man, things are not, you know, the price of oil is still well over$100 a barrel. Yeah. I mean, I'm hearing about, you know, airports and entire countries, you know, having shortages of jet a you know i think it was was it australia that was talking about that you know having to maybe ration jet a i didn't i didn't have any time to read the news this week yeah i just kind of just briefly heard that um or or maybe write it somewhere i didn't really look into the article to see how legit it was um but you know i've also heard about airlines that are going to cut back a lot of the kind of regional flights yeah you know stuff that doesn't have very good load factors, they're just going to cut it out to try to conserve fuel.

32:08Yeah. Well, we quoted some trips this week. Actually, it's been a busy week with requests. We'll see if they pay dividends and come to fruition. But I think I quoted at least a dozen trips this week. And one of them was a series of A330s coming out of storage in Turul, Spain. Did you happen to see the fuel price in Turul? Yeah. So it's always insane there. But this is next level insane. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 1870 a gallon or so, 1890, I don't remember. Yeah. A gallon! It's wild. I mean, it's just insane. Yeah, for an A330, we're looking at, I mean, the airplanes going to South America, you know, we're looking at almost like$400 ,000 in fuel.

32:58Just in fuel. I mean, we got to hope that by the time those ferries actually happen that things stabilize and come back down. But we have a workaround, too. I mean, we're still going to have to take some gas there. But, I mean, like we're looking at stopping, I think, in Casablanca. Yeah, we figured out how to save them money. So, you know. It's ugly. Even the places that we were paying$2.50 for$2.90 a month ago are now$4.50. Yeah, it's$5 a gallon, you know, almost everywhere now that we're looking at. If not, you know,$6 or$7. Yeah. In the United States, and the U.S. was always, you know, we're paying, what,$2.53 a gallon or something.

33:41Maybe$3.50. But, yeah, it's definitely$5 now. We're over four for premium. My cars take premium, so I'm stuck with that. I'm six out here in Arizona. Six. Six bucks a gallon for the premium stuff. Well, at least they pump it for us here in Jersey. I got to go out and do my own. It's felt like Arizona here the last couple of days. It's been like 75 degrees, man. Really? Finally heated up, huh? Well, it's cold tonight, but yesterday it was like in the 70s, like mid-70s. Yeah, it's been nice out here all week. It's been just perfect. Yeah, we're going to have a good weekend. I think I'm going to go to the beach this weekend, check it out, bring the dogs.

34:25Yeah. Yeah, get the beach house stuff going again. Yeah, man. So you got anything else to add before we get into side stick? No, not really. I think that pretty much covers the week. I've been, you know, just knee deep in AI, man. What do you mean? The AI just, I started messing around with Claude and building out websites after actually you started talking about it. Yeah, because I used Claude to help build out, well, help. I helped Claude build out cockpitcasual.com, which is now online. Yeah, and y 'all got to check it out. It's unreal what Steve was able to build using Claude. I mean. It took two days.

35:13Yeah. Only two days is what's amazing. I know. I got to do our nomadic website with it next. But basically, I just said what I kind of wanted it to look like. I mean, there's some things that I had to do. Like, it's got like a video background. And I grabbed some awesome footage of us walking around the boneyard. And I pasted it together in a 20-second loop, which, of course, took like three hours. but I'm a perfectionist, you know. And they get the motion blur right and like the slow it to 80%. It looks unbelievable. I mean, it looks like, you know, some$50 ,000 or$100 ,000, you know, web team built it.

35:48Yeah. It's really cool. Built by AI. And like it's great. You just kind of like drag and drop the files into like boom, boom, boom. And it just, it's like magic. I mean, it really is. It's just I've been going down some rabbit holes with it. you know, was going to help with productivity. Me personally, that certainly helped the company. It's just, I mean, we're - Can we start firing people soon? You better be careful saying that. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, I don't think it's going to replace, like, because the people that, we're so lean, man. I mean, like, we have a dozen employees.

36:27So much, I mean, look, AI is definitely not not in the headspace that, uh, our dispatcher Mark is in. Thank God. Or it may never be. Sorry, Mark. And, uh. He doesn't listen, does he? I don't know. But, I mean, this is the thing. It, nobody else could do that job. No. I mean, he is. Not even another dispatcher. No. I mean, this is the thing. It's just like, it's just unbelievable what he knows and just his thought process in getting things done. Sometimes it makes us a little bit crazy, but at the end of the day, he's usually right. Yeah. No, he is. He is. He's like, I compare him to like almost like a lawyer in that.

37:14You know how your lawyer is always the buzzkill? Yeah. You want to do something and then your lawyer's like, no, you can't do that. Yeah. No, this is the way it's supposed to be done. And we go, well, just do it anyway. Well, no, you know, you're going to get in trouble. I know. He keeps us out of trouble. He really does. He really does. So as do all, pretty much everybody at Nomadic keeps Steve and I out of trouble. Especially Mark and especially Christina, our lawyer. Yeah, Christina, definitely. Definitely. There's a lot of head shaking and eye rolling on her part. Yes, she's a very patient woman.

37:47But if you get Steve and I together, we will go down some bad paths together. As you probably already know if you're listening to the pod. Exactly. We will talk each other into some bad decisions. Yeah. There's a lot of stories of those over the years, too. Like having a weekly podcast? But anyway, check out cockpitcasual.com. If you're a diehard, you already know a lot of the stuff, but it's still worth looking at. It's cool. It's an example of what you can do with AI. Yeah, absolutely. In two days. and there's some sponsor pitch deck, not really a pitch deck, just like a preliminary early stage sponsored card on there.

38:33If you do have an aviation related business or travel related or something like that, we are going to start actively looking for sponsors. I didn't think we would be at the point where we're doing that for several months, but all combined sources, month one, check this out, Bob, 133 ,000 views across all the platforms. Wow. In our first month, five episodes. And just the podcasts? Just the podcasts, but that includes the YouTube version, which is by far like the strongest. Spotify second. Spotify is getting like between 5 ,000 and 7 ,000. Apple's a bit less, like 1 ,000 or 2 a week, but that's like a week per week for each of these platforms.

39:17YouTube's getting like 10, 15, sometimes 20. And then they keep going on YouTube too. But the real impressive thing is like the duration. Like people are listening for the whole thing. Apple's was like 80%. Wow. That's crazy. Like the average I think is 40, 49. Wow. Yeah, because I listen to podcasts like probably five, maybe 10 minutes at a time. um so anyway thanks to all the viewers listeners you guys rock very happy with how this thing has been performing so far and uh we owe it to you so anyway um cockpit casual.com check it out bob you have a side stick this week so let's do it all right should we do side stick is there like is there going to be music for it cue the music for side stick so here it is if you could fly with any celebrity pilot, pilot that is known to be an aviator, who would it be and why?

40:25That's a tough one, man. My gut tells me to say Harrison Ford just because I respect the guy's acting. I love him. I mean, he's awesome. Just seems like a good dude. I don't know. Maybe he's not. He seems like a good dude. but I hesitate to say that because hasn't he crashed a couple times? Yeah, I think so. I mean, he's like crashed several times. I mean, he's walked away every time. Yeah. I don't know how he's, he's got to be getting up there in age. I mean, I, I mean, I, I assume he's still got a medical and still goes out and flies, but yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, he would be a cool one. Hold on, hold on.

41:05Let me give you a better answer. Like then my, then my second thought, cause I'm on the spot here. I didn't know what you were coming up with for side stay. Okay. Yeah. My second thought would be Nathan Fielder, but of course I've already done that and I couldn't do that almost any time. You know, that's what I was, that's what I thought your go-to was going to be since, but we've, we've actually already done it. We've done it several times. Um, and, and why he's fun to fly with. I mean, he's like, he's, and he knows what he's doing for the most part, you know? So that's, that's good. Um, but like, you know, any celebrity pilot, I don't know, maybe I go solely and I start asking about like, you know.

41:46If he did listen to that music. If he listened to the music. If he breastfed into adulthood. If nobody understands what we're talking about, go watch season two of the rehearsal. All these people have already seen that. They're watching our show. They've watched the rehearsal. I would assume so, but. I mean, we're credited on it. Come on. Yeah. If you didn't, you should. Yeah. We're actually on it. We're in some scenes. So our claim to fame. Actually, the finale, the finale of episode, you know, episode six is the finale. That's the one that we worked on for a long time. And the closing scenes of the finale were shot through my FX3 cameras because it was he was talking about his time flying for us.

42:32That's right. You did a lot. You did a lot of work on a lot of those scenes. There was even a scene where I didn't know I was in it. There's a scene where he's on the phone by the pool looking for a 737. That was a real call that I was having with him about when we were trying to locate a 737. I had no clue that that was being filmed. Really? Yeah, you could hear my voice. You didn't know you were being recorded. I didn't. I didn't. Oh, my God. So anyway, I've digressed. I'm going to say solely, man. That's my celeb pilot. yeah is he considered a celeb at this point yeah he's like the most famous pilot in the world besides captain bob or chuck yeager or something but i i'm thinking yeah so i mean he's dead he is bob hoover bob hoover's definitely dead i don't know i can't keep track anymore orville wright the original celebrity pilot so i'm gonna go full scale actual real celebrity like actor celebrity and go with tom cruise oh i forgot he's a pilot i would i would i he's done some he's done some really cool flying yeah you know and you'd feel tall next to him yeah exactly We'd be kind of probably like the same height, maybe.

43:55No, you're taller. We'd both be wearing boots. So give me more. Why would Tom Cruise be your guy? It seems that he, like, gets way into these roles. Yeah. To the next degree. Great actor. And so I'm going to assume that carries over into flying, that he's probably way into it, very knowledgeable and and probably highly skilled he has a lot of different airplanes I mean he's got like I think he's got a p-51 yeah which would be like unbelievably cool to go out and fly yeah so you know I just think that you know he would be a good pilot I'd I'd I think I'd feel safe with him flying around with him yeah and and I think I would get along with Harrison Ford Yeah, exactly.

44:52Sorry, Harrison Ford. And, you know, and he's got some, he's got cool planes. He does. So did you know, what was the, what was that one where he was Barry Seal flying the Aerostar? Yeah, exactly. American made. American made. So he flew that airplane quite a bit during the filming of the movie. And interesting story that, so, you know, I'm an Aerostar guy. I had an Aerostar 600 for years. Selling it was a very regretful decision because I'm actually I'd like to buy another one. I loved that airplane. That that movie obviously, you know, hit me because, you know, that airplane is prominently featured.

45:34Well, the airplane that was used in that movie crashed during the filming of that movie. Well, I didn't know that. Yeah. In Columbia, it was a 600. I want to say it was serial. it was very close to mine it was somewhere between 10 and like 16 or something it was a 69 600 which i had a 69 600 mine was serial number 13 um so when that plane crashed they hadn't finished filming so they actually used two different aircraft in the filming of of that of american made and sadly it was a fatal crash so the pilots wow yeah so the the pilots um perished it crashed into a mountain low level scud running down the mountains you know columbia is unbelievably mountainous yeah um and they slammed in the side fortunately tom cruise was not on board for that because they had regular stunt pilots and tom cruise flew some of the scenes himself, but that aircraft actually crashed.

46:36And when the team was looking for a replacement aircraft to finish filming, it had to be a 600. It had to essentially look as close as possible to the original aircraft. And the previous owner of my aircraft, a guy by the name of Ed, was asked, he was the guy that I bought the airplane from. He was asked if my old aircraft, 600 Echo Delta could be used. And they came out and they looked at it and they determined that it wasn't really a great fit because it had some upgraded avionics that were not true to the period. And he didn't want to swap out into old avionics and swap back. So it was not used, but my former aircraft could have been used.

47:22That would have been cool, man. Yeah. The 600's a hell machine by the way yeah i love that thing but i of course now if i buy another one it'll be a either a superstar 700 if i can afford it which i can't at the moment but uh maybe a 602p the 602p is a good bird oh yeah is that pressurized yeah the 601p 602p are pressurized so any aerostar we're totally digressing on this but any aerostar that is pressurized so there's basically two versions of airframe there's the non-pressurized version and there's the pressurized version any pressurized Aerostar 601p 602p can be turned into a superstar 700 with the mock-in mods and the type certificate uh for Aerostar was purchased from piper by a company called AAC Aerostar aircraft corp and they manufacture every part for that airplane currently i mean they're not cheap but anything that you need for an Aerostar can be bought new from from AAC including the mock-in upgrades.

48:24Yeah. I had no idea. So you could put any engine variant of the IO540 TSIO regular. I just had straight IO540 G1B5s on mine, which were the old motors. There's the K1J5 is the preferred 600 IO540 K1J5, I think. But there's, you know, you get into the turbocharged and intercooled ones and the pressure, you know, they could be put onto the 601P, 602P. I think the 602P has the intercooler. There's a bunch of different variants, right? But you can upgrade the exhaust, everything, like VG kits, and you can turn it into a Superstar 700, which is the fastest piston twin you could buy. Really? Wow. Yeah.

49:11Like how fast? So it's 700 because it's 350 horsepower a side, so 700 horsepower, right? on the airplane. Um, I, they true out at like, I guess between 19 and 24, um, the true out at like, uh, two 40 ish, two 40, two 50 neighborhood. I think I might be some, if someone knows, you know, you can somebody will, somebody will correct you. Yeah. So, but my 600 normally aspirated non-pressurized, you know, it was still a 200 knot airplane. I mean, it could do 205 at like 80%, which, you know, you don't run it at 85 lean a peak, but I would run it at 75 % and get like 199 to 202 true. Yeah, that's pretty good.

49:59At 8 ,000 feet at 28 gallons an hour. Oh, wow. Total, 28 total. Total, 14 a side. Yeah. Man, that's not bad at all. I mean, I could even lean it, you know, you get up to 10, you could lean it down to about 13, eight a size a little too lean maybe but um 28 is is kind of econ cruise you just i mean 200 knots at econ cruise man i mean it's better than a baron in every respect yeah well it's such a sleek machine and those little thin wings there's not much drag to it that's for sure no and it's a tiny little rudder too which means that it has very poor low speed single engine handling characteristics you cannot get slow in that airplane you will kill yourself yeah that airplane is a handful i mean it's it uh it's killed a lot of people over the years that well you know bob you know once we get rid of this west wind um i know we want a turboprop but i'm telling you a superstar 700 might be i mean you can get a really nice one for about 400k if you want a partner we might have to look into it i know of one um i i kind of want another aerostar honestly man and a 700 would be would be awesome i mean it's it's a six seater it's really a five seater you take out one it's tight in there but that's why it's fast yeah and it goes a long way you get an aux tank they have winglets we'll get one maybe tom cruise will come fly with you in it shit man yeah if that happens the offer is there tom you could come fly any of our airplanes i wish tom listened maybe someday he will maybe and harrison ford i think we didn't run a timer we did side stick it it turned into an aerostar discussion but that's what happens on cockpit casual definitely we can't be pinned to a subject we we cannot stay we cannot stay focused for the sake of the show.

52:04Well, let's do some listener questions, eh? Yeah. I wish we were like one of those old time talks, you know, shows where people would actually call in live. No. It's so cool. But we need like, we need a staff to be our bleep. We'd have to have them on a delay. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get started with the questions. This one is coming from Andrea. Hi, Steve and Bob. My name is Andrea. I'm originally from Italy, but I've lived in Los Angeles, California for the last 15, 17 years. I just had a quick question. I've been following Cockpit Casual for a while and started following the podcast. I was just curious.

52:49I don't think I ever heard you guys explain how you two met. I'm always curious to understand how people meet. so if you guys wouldn't mind talking about that it's always fascinating to me and then I wanted to thank you for the content you guys put out it's very fascinating it's very entertaining I also would like to know which one is your favorite city to travel to whether it's for work or not for work Bob you go first let's answer the city question and then I'll answer the how we met the whole romantic how we met version

53:29I get asked this all the time. What's my favorite city? Where do I like to travel to? And I can never answer it because just like airplanes, people ask me, what's my favorite airplane? I can't pin one down. I love variety. I love the variety of all the different places that we go. I love the variety of all the different airplanes we fly. um and so much about a city or a destination depends on the weather the time of year makes all the difference in the world it does yeah and man i just you know i i love the entire world i really do i love going to so many diverse different places with different people different food oh man i mean i've been to some cool places i mean katmandu you know was was an amazing place all right pick one bob pick one god man oh i can't okay well i will sydney australia is my favorite city in the world sorry it is i love it there's nothing there's there's i got nothing negative to say about sydney australia i love it brisbane's great too um i i love australia to be honest um and unfortunately it's a place that we don't get to enough and some good friends down there um summertime there is just oh man so good yeah i mean it's a great place god man there's so many good places it's just i can't i know it's hard to pick just one yeah all right how did we meet uh i was flying a trip at allegiant i was flying with this guy who was our former partner a while back in the jet test days.

55:15But he was captain. I was FO. We're flying an MD-80 along. And I was a new guy. I was like a new hire at Allegiant. And he was telling me stories about how he was going to Romania to ferry an MD-80. And I said, what? What's ferry? You know, what does that mean? And so he went down and he started telling me about his adventures around the world, ferrying planes with this guy named Bob. And I was like, man, that sounds awesome. And he and I had become pretty good friends at this point. So I actually later that evening, I went to his house and, you know, we're having some beers in the pool, just kind of chilling out.

55:57We were paired together for the month. So we were flying together like every day and then we were hanging out at night. I wasn't married yet. Like, you know, we're just like young guys hanging out. And he said, I think he had a few beers in him and he goes, Hey, do you want to go with on? He kind of talked like that too. Hey, you want to go with? You want to go with to Romania this weekend on this trip? I'm like, yeah, dude, of course I do. He goes, all right, I'll call Bob and I'll see if it's okay. And he did. And you said it was okay. so it was two airplanes they were dc-9s dc-9s yep these uh were they tens they were 30s yeah and they were going to romania serbia oh serbia that's serbia okay i got the place wrong similar close and so i'm like yeah sure so there was two airplanes he was flying with another guy and i was to go fly to be, I guess I was going to be your co-pilot, Bob.

57:01And I didn't even see this, our friend, um, former friend. Um, he, he just said, show up on Saturday in Phoenix. Bob will pick you up. I'm like, okay. Cause the, the, the airplanes were staggered by a day. So I think he left Friday and like, we were supposed to leave Saturday. So I went down to Phoenix and Bob picks me up from the airport. You had the red Jeep Cherokee back then. Yeah. The license plate that said aviacrew yeah cru and i had never met this dude before ever you know bob was you know even as a young man bob was bob i was still bob we had a great time he took me to his house i slept over his house met his wife his kids were little um we smoked cigars and drank beers the night before we hit it off real well and then we just had a blast at you know of a trip and i remember when it was ending um actually we flew dc-9s out there and then we rode back on an a330 ferry that you weren't even a330 type to that no i wasn't tight but actually i don't back then you at the fo didn't have to have that's right an sic so we we were the si hired a pic and then we were the sics yeah and so we rode back on that i think we were gone a week and and it was an i mean in retrospect, it seemed like it was like a month long because I was just soaking it in, man, like everything about it.

58:26I had never flown, you know, over the pond flying over Greenland and we landed in, you know, Ireland or something. And it was awesome. And I was immediately hooked. And I remember leaving. I'm like, Bob, listen, man, I love this. I would love to do it again. Call me if you ever have any opportunities. And he started calling me. I guess he liked flying with me. So yeah, well, after, after that first trip, cause I don't know if you remember the whole story, but we were flying. I was like, this guy's never going to, he's going to run away so fast after this trip. I was flying into, it was like midnight.

59:06We're going into Ypsilanti. I had to clear customs outbound to the U S in Ypsilanti. So I'm coming in Ypsilanti tower is closed. We're clicking on the lights and all of this stuff. I cannot find the runway for the life of me. Steve's like, it's right over there. And I'm coming around. I'm like, I can't see the runway, man. Finally get it. Come inland. Go over to this little customs area. I think it had a circle painted on the ground. And it's just pitch black, man. There's nobody out. I get on my phone and I call customs. And the customs agent goes, oh, yeah. He goes, I left Ypsilanti. I'm over at Detroit International now.

59:44I'm at DTW. You got to come over here. I was like, man, I can't come over there. You're supposed to be over here. I'm like, I'm flying this airplane. I don't have like, we don't have air stairs. We might have, I don't know. But I'm like, I can't come over there. So he's like getting this argument with a guy. And to make a long story short, I took off and left the United States without going to Detroit. it went over we did our thing you know we were gone over there for about a week in europe end up in zurich with this a330 that we fly to lake charles louisiana soon as we land in lake charles louisiana there's this big customs agent down at the bottom of the stairs and he yells up he goes is there a Robert Allen on board this airplane?

1:00:34And I'm like, oh, no. Uh-oh. I say, yes, sir, that's me. He goes, son, you need to come with me.

1:00:47I jumped in his car, and he goes, he goes, boy, I don't know what you did up there in Detroit, but you're in a lot of trouble, son. So I had no idea any of this was going on, by the way. I was such a deer in the headlights. Well, I had never flown a DC-9. I mean, I had a DC-9 type rating because I flew the MD-80, but I had never flown a DC-930. So, I mean, it was hard enough, like, trying to wrap my head around that prehistoric cockpit. So, while all this was going on, I was oblivious, man. I was a bad FO. Yeah. Well, like me back in those days, I was usually just throwing somebody in the seat that I was single pilot anyway, most of the time.

1:01:32So, but no, we had a great time. Like I really hit it off with you. I mean, we were just, I mean, you know, I mean, we were like brothers from the beginning, man. I mean, we thought the same way, had much the same philosophies of, of life and of aviation. and you were very entrepreneurial too. That's one thing I did notice. I mean, you weren't, you didn't have any like, you know, companies or anything at the time, but you were like talking about that the whole time. Yeah, didn't I? I tried, shortly after that I tried and you actually funded it. Like I had no money. I mean, I was like an FO at Allegiant, right?

1:02:09So I was like poor. And I had that idea to like put advertising on like seat backs. That didn't happen. Like that ended up being a thing, but it wasn't a thing at that time. Yeah, you were actually onto the right thing. It just— I was. It just never could get it, I don't know, into the right hands or whatever. Yeah, I think you spotted me like five grand. Yeah. And like I went out and I had like mock-ups made. I even made like a frame. Yeah, that would like mount onto the back of the seat and like all the, like this, whatever the certification that was going to happen. I mean, yeah, it was like a real deal.

1:02:44Yeah. But again, technology just flew right by us. And next thing you know, they're putting videos in the back of the seats. Yeah, that was a long time ago, man. There really wasn't videos at that point. Exactly. All right. So that was a good one. Let's go to another question here. This one is from Vance. Vance, 119. Let's see what you got. What's up, guys? Steve and Bob, I love your podcast. The very first episode was awesome. Listened to the entire thing. I'm taking you up on this. So my question is, well, first off, Steve, as much as I love Bob, I think you're more of my kind of dude. I play a whole bunch of instruments as well.

1:03:24I'm actually a police officer, and I'll get into my question here in a second. But I actually play multiple instruments as well. I grew up playing the piano, clarinet, saxophone, and now I play the bagpipes, play the guitar, write music, other stuff like that. But my name is Vance. I guess my question is this. so I'm transitioning out of being a police officer I want to become a professional pilot I'm 44 years old and I live down in Texas I just finished my private pilot certificate and that that's awesome I loved it took me a little bit longer than I wanted to a little over a year however if y 'all were in my shoes what would be your path to get yourselves to a commercial level of flying as quickly as possible at the age of 44, coming from one career to another?

1:04:19That's my question. All right. Thanks, guys. All right. This is one we get a lot and I'm glad that he asked it. So we actually ironically have a friend who was a police officer in San Diego and became a pilot at somewhere around 44. I mean, I don't know. It might have been 40. It might have been 50. But yeah, Fred. Fred. Yeah. Yeah. Fred. Cool dude. Cool dude. In fact, remember that footage of the tank that was driving down the street in Los Angeles or San Diego? San Diego. Yeah, someone stole a tank from a National Guard armory and drove it down the city street. I don't know. It was in the 90s, maybe.

1:05:05And he, Fred, was the officer on the scene for that. And he's in the film. He was the guy pursuing the tank. Jumping on the tank. Yeah. Oh, man. So, all right. 44. So, airline retirement age is 65. So you got some time, honestly. You know, you're not going to have a 30, 20-year, 25-year airline career, but, I mean, I didn't either. Yeah. Well, and was that, did he mention that that's the direction that he wanted to go or just a pilot career? Just a pilot career. So, I mean, there's definitely, first of all, there's pilot jobs in law enforcement. Yeah. Like a ton of them. Lots of them. Lots of them.

1:05:53Fixed wing, you know, I don't know. You would know better than me. Vance, like, you know, maybe if your department doesn't have an air unit like that, there are, you know, there are police departments that, that do have these air units. And, and I know a couple of guys that became pilots, fixed wing and helicopter, and were paid to train by the department because they had that interest. And I think they started out with a private or something like that. So definitely look into that. That could be, if nothing else, that could be a way to get the licenses and ratings. Yeah. Yeah, I leased out an MD-82 to a sheriff's department that was doing that.

1:06:31They were taking their low-time guys, getting them time on 182 so that they could, you know, go into the larger equipment and, you know, get more time for insurance. But the other thing is federal. Federal departments also like to hire, you know, the LEOs. People with law enforcement backgrounds. Exactly. So that's definitely an option. If airlines are your choice, I mean, private biz jets, things like that, you could even do at an older age, until an older age. But you're certainly not too old to get started. And realistically, I mean, it depends how often you've got to fly. I mean, you could be commercial multi-engine pilot in a year and a half from now, right?

1:07:18I mean, you're not going to have an ATP yet because you're not going to have the time for an ATP. But you can start working professionally, whether that be as a CFI or towing banners or doing something in law enforcement. I mean, there's different gigs out there that you can get to build time. Right seat in a bizjet, something like that. That matter, like NetJets and those companies love to hire people that are like that age because they're not going to go to the airlines. Right. That's another thing. Companies that are looking to recruit pilots, sometimes they like, it's kind of a sweet spot age, mid-40s, even late 40s, because you're not going to bounce and go someplace else.

1:07:59And that's perceived as value to the airlines. So if you're, I mean, I would assume, you know, you have a full-time job and so you're not going to be able to get it all done in a year and a half. But I think that realistically flying a couple days a week, two, three, four days a week could get there in three certainly. And within five have the ATP. How do you get there? Well, I mean, I would go part 61 school all the way. It's hard to do a structured 141 program with a job. It's also, I don't, I feel like it's tailored for like the younger guys that are like wanting like a structured program. And my son's in one right now.

1:08:41I could tell you at 48, I wouldn't want to do that. I would rather kind of do it one-on-one with an instructor. Another thing is you're gainfully employed and making a good living as a law enforcement officer, it would probably be a good move to pick up a cheap trainer airplane that's instrument capable. We have a Cherokee 140. Bob and I bought it. It's a nomadic asset. My kids are training on it. Bob's kids want, you know, if his daughter wants to train on it, she can. You know, you're looking at like a hundred grand, which you'll get back when you sell. Like they don't, they don't depreciate anymore.

1:09:16So yeah, you can get a, you know, you get a hundred thousand dollar airplane, make sure that it's something that you can use as an instrument trainer, something that is IFR capable. So whether that be a Cherokee, a warrior, you know, PA 28, 161, or a Cherokee 140 like ours, Cherokee 180, a Dakota, um, a Cessna 172, um, uh, really anything, but there's no need to get complex, like get a simple trainer. That's a good instrument trainer. you'll spend a hundred grand on it now and you will literally sell it for either the same or a profit in two or three years use it to build time as a 44 year old that's the that's the cheat yeah exactly that's the way to go i mean especially if you can find a local instructor that's that's going to stick with you through the private commercial and instrument yeah i mean you know Then you got the same guy and just you save a lot of time and money and frustration if you can, you know, have just one or two instructors.

1:10:18BYOP, bring your own plane. Let's move on to the next one because we're not getting through these very. We never do. We never do. I'm just randomly grabbing them, man. All right. Let's see. We got Jude. Hey, Jude. Hey, Bob. Hey, Steve. super happy that you guys are doing this podcast super happy to add it to my weekly listening on the way to school or work and whatnot got a question for you mostly for you steve but bob if you want to pitch in that'd be great heard you talking the first couple episodes steve about golf i gotta ask man what's the handicap not an aviation question but just thought i'd throw that one out there appreciate you guys super happy that you're doing the podcast can't wait to listen to more Thanks, guys.

1:11:04That was not a video. Dude, my handicap is nothing to brag about, man, sadly. So let me put a disclaimer out there. So I had shoulder surgery in December, so I have not played any golf since then. And for about six months prior to that, I was in a lot of pain, so my game was crap. But ordinarily, I'm about a 12, you know. Even having a golf simulator in your basement? Dude, a 12 is pretty good. I mean, it's not Aaron Van Arsdale, but it's good. Yeah. But it's a lot better than mine because I don't even have one because I'm so bad I don't even try to track it. My progression was once I started tracking handicap, I was at around an 18.

1:11:50And then, like, I kind of hovered around, like, a 16. And I really worked on my short game, and I was able to get it to, like, about a 12. I'm probably going to be like probably more like a 15 to 18 when I get back into it here in another month. My PT told me today that I'll be golfing within a month. And I really, I hope, I don't know. I'm in a lot of pain today, so I'm not sure. Don't screw it up. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have a very far drive. I'm a short game guy, man. I mean, I could drive it 250 yards, but not now. But I don't, if I go for distance, I put it in the woods. yeah so you know i'd rather yeah i mean i slice it but not so much that's not really my problem it's for me it's to the shot like i don't have a strategy like i don't man i'm going off the off track here but when i play golf with a guy who know who's really good like aaron yeah when i golf with ava he's like hit it over there because then you're gonna have a night you know set up your second shot you know kind of hit it out to the right i i don't distract like that part of it of the game i i don't know it's like anything else that's what you always get better if you play with better people you know yeah i i always play way better when i'm with him because he gives me pointers the whole time all right we're not gonna bore everybody to death with golf i'm good enough to play with clients and and stuff and not look like a fool but like you know if i play with anybody i'm never playing for money or with tiger woods oh well maybe that's a bad guy to bring up right now never mind I'm talking in the car with him.

1:13:29I'll play golf with him. The next question here.

1:13:51Ha, ha, ha, ha.

1:14:04oh bob we were together i'm pretty sure um well he asked you so i'll let you pick yeah i well i don't know i don't know if i've ever been scared with you i mean i don't know if I've ever been scared in an airplane. The time in the DC-9 where we had to land with the landing gear hanging out? Nah, that was just concerning. That was like... Dude, I mean, at one point, I didn't know that we'd have the gas and we were over the Western Sahara. Yeah, I mean, we almost ran out of gas for sure. But I mean, we calculated it down to having like, what, 400 pounds left or something? In a DC-930 over the Western Sahara in Africa.

1:14:46In the middle of the night. In the middle of the night with a landing gear that like an uplatch broke and it dropped into the slipstream. And we couldn't maintain altitude. So we had to descend down to like 18 to where the air. And so now we're burning more gas. And there's nowhere to divert to there. There's nowhere to divert to. There was absolutely nowhere. We had actual charts out. With flashlights. Yeah. Trying to find airports. This is like 05, 06. Yeah. It was bad. I mean, it was like, well, I mean, I think we got enough to make it. As long as it's not water in the bottom of those tanks and it's actually gas, we're going to make it.

1:15:25Well, maybe you weren't scared. I was scared shit. Nah, I figured we were going to make it. I mean, look, the only time I actually thought I was going to die was taking the MD-80 out of Kinshasa. And it was an airplane. I should have never gotten the airplane. Um, the, uh, the emergency standby power was not working. Uh, the transponder head was missing, uh, as were many parts of the airplane were, had been stolen off the airplane. I was repossessing this thing out of Kinshasa trying to get it to Texas. It, um, it was a mess. The, uh, standby attitude indicator, the battery was dead. It was just spinning.

1:16:09Um, I had basic instruments. Anyway, I was supposed to take off that morning. Like everything else with ferry work, we didn't take off until the sun starts setting. Thunderstorms all over the place. The radar wasn't working. I should have never taken off with this airplane. This was back in probably 2004, 2005, maybe 2006. I can't remember. But when I was very young and bold and brave and stupid, I took off. I'm flying out of Kinshasa. I'm heading north to, I think, Lome. Lome, somewhere up near Nigeria. So I started heading up. I go into some clouds. Like I say, the radar is not working. I started getting bounced around.

1:17:07So, one other thing about this flight is I had one engine-driven generator, and I had the APU generator. The number two generator was in op. So, I had two generators, but I had to keep the APU going. Going through about 14 ,000, 15 ,000 feet, I'm climbing. I'm in this small cell. I'm getting bounced around. It's raining, and I'm hoping it's not going to get any worse because the radar is not working. Well, at about 16 ,000 feet, the APU winds down. It shuts off. And when that happened, the autopilot clicked off, and so did the other generator, the engine-driven generator. Everything popped off, and I had no power whatsoever.

1:17:56I lost all electricity. I lost all my instruments and my IFR. so I immediately try to get the generators back online I'm I'm trying to reset those nothing is happening trying to restart the APU nothing is happening the autopilot's off and I'm just basically letting the airplane fly on its own it it was going up at about 1500 feet a minute when it turned off. So I'm hoping that it just keeps continuing that and doesn't turn into a bank and or get slow or get too fast. Anyway, I don't know how long it was, but I'm sitting there and I cannot get any instruments working. And I'm not sure if the airplane is flying straight and level or climbing or turning.

1:18:54And I started thinking about, should I even attempt to try to do something again i'm like i'm not going to touch the airplane but i'm starting to kind of like feel the feel the vertigo feel the seat of the pants and i start thinking man this is this is going to turn out bad i'm eventually either going to get too slow and it's going to roll over i'm going to crash or i'm going to get into a high-speed dive or it's just going to roll over. I have no idea. And all this is going through my head and I'm thinking, I'm probably going to die. I cannot get anything back on, turn the battery switch on and off.

1:19:38I'm just banging on stuff. I'm hitting the overhead. I'm hitting the GCUs. I'm doing everything that I can to try to get power. Nothing is happening. And I figured at that moment, I'm probably going going to die. They're going to, this, I'm going to end up in a hole in Africa and nobody's going to have any idea what happened to me. And this is how it ends. And I wasn't scared, but I was really angry. I was so pissed off at myself for getting myself in that situation and ending my life this way. And about that time, I thought I was like navigating with a Garmin GPS, that little black and white GPS, and it had a GPS ground speed and sort of this wing level thing.

1:20:28And I thought about that page, and I pulled up that Garmin, and I pulled it, and I could see that I still had a rate of climb and that my airspeed wasn't slow or excessive. So I couldn't tell if I was in a bank or not, other than the heading was drifting. and I just sat there and stared at that thing for I don't know how long and I eventually blew out the side of the cell and it was the sun was in my face I had turned probably 90 degrees from like north to due west and I'm seeing the sun and I'm thinking man there is a god thank you god The fairy gods came through. Exactly. And then you continued across the ocean with nothing.

1:21:18Yeah. Well, this is true. I actually made it to Texas in that condition. My God. I might have to cut that whole thing. Yeah, I know. This was a long time ago. Statute of limitations are over. I was a young fool. All right. Let's get to – let's do one more, man. we're running out of time all right hey steve hey bob this is marise from seven germany just listen to the latest podcast episode and when you were talking to pat about his type ratings you mentioned a330 but not a350 as far as i know that's a combined rating is there some specifics in the part 91 world or in your operations that made you not mention a350 or is there actually some difference in training that pat just didn't do yet to ferry or to fly A350s.

1:22:12Would love your insight on that topic. And thanks for the podcast. So the A350 and A330 are only common in Europe. They're only a common type in EASA. I don't know why. It's extremely annoying. Well, I mean, I don't fly the A350, so I don't know. Maybe there's a reason. In the United States, it is not a common type. So the A350 is a completely different type rating that you have to get. And right now there are no part 91 programs to get an A350 type in the United States, which is why Bob and I are not typed in the A350. And we fly the A330, 330neo, no problems there. But in EASA, it's considered common.

1:22:56In the United States, it is not that simple. Yeah. And I don't know, we probably won't see any 350s for quite a few years, honestly. Yeah, we barely see 7.8s. I mean, they come across, but it really, it's about 10 to 12 years before the first leases start ending, and that's when we start seeing them. So, all right, let's do one more, and then we'll call it. Hi, guys. Absolutely love the content. Aside from the amazing soundtrack, the thing I'm really interested in is what it feels like to fly an empty airplane. I'm an older guy. I've been on a lot of planes, but only twice when it's been empty.

1:23:38The first, when I was a kid flying out of Central Africa to Europe in the 1970s, and only again at the height of the global financial crisis in early 2009 when I found myself on an empty Qantas flight one night flying across the country. So, for mere mortals like me, a very rare and surreal experience. But for you guys, another day at the office. What does that feel like? Emotionally, subjectively, physically? How does it affect physics, the aerodynamics, the flight planning, and the fuel management? I'd imagine an airplane with only two guys and a pizza on board goes a little bit further. Anyway, I'd love to know more.

1:24:13Ciao. You know. I love it. That was a great one. Yeah, totally. You know, they're definitely more efficient because they're lighter than a full airplane. So the only downside to an empty airplane is that it's harder to get a good landing out of a light airplane than out of a heavy airplane. And I wouldn't even remember what it's like to land a heavy airplane at this point because my last flight flying passengers for an airline was in 2014. So, you know, that was 12 years ago now. But I do know that there was, and I've gotten so used to landing light airplanes that either that or they're just all bad.

1:24:56But I don't know exactly which is it. But a light airplane is hard to land. They float and then they drop. It's really hard to hit your mark if you're not doing it very often. It's also really hard to get a soft touchdown on a light airplane. Other than that, everything else about it is awesome. We don't step climb very often. I mean, yeah, at an A340-300, we got to step climb. you know in a 7-8 you got a step climb to get up you know above like 43 but 7-5, 7-6, A320, 7-3 even full tanks we can pretty much get right up to max cruise every time immediately so that is fantastic the takeoff performance is I mean whenever we fly out of Goodyear we generally fuel stop in Phoenix because the fuel's half the cost and we flew a 757 freighter which is lighter than a regular 7.5, with RB211s, with 10 ,000 pounds of fuel on board, and just me and Bob and a pizza.

1:25:57Well, not a pizza yet, but a case of water. And you rotate, and you're going through 1 ,000 feet before you can blink. And you have to level off real quick. I mean, you have to fight the airplane. And a 7.5, empty 7.5, you got to fight the airplane to make a 2 ,000-foot level off or a 3 ,000-foot level off. And it's a struggle, man. You rotate, and you're like, positive rate, gear up, and you're like, holy moly, I'm blowing. Like, you've got to push it down to not blow through the altitude. That's how aggressively a light 7.5 will climb. 7.6 does the same thing. Yeah, got to be very aggressive with the flight controls, with the attitude, pushing it over to level it off and pulling back the power.

1:26:41I mean, it's a lot of momentum going up in one direction that you have to change in a short amount of time. But I don't know. I mean, I think the coolest thing is just walking around the back of the airplanes while we're flying. Although it's kind of creepy at night and some of like, especially in the wide bodies where you go way back there and it's dark and there's just nothing back there. But I don't know. Then some of the people we picked airplanes up from tell us the airplanes are haunted. Yeah, I've heard that a couple times. So I start, like, getting kind of creeped out, and I'm, like, start seeing stuff behind corners or sitting in seats and galleys.

1:27:20My imagination starts going crazy. Back in the days when I smoked, I used to go in the galley in the back and smoke cigarettes the whole time. Yeah, so you just get up and walk around, stretch your legs, you know, go back there and eat, whatever. I mean, it's, yeah. Take off your clothes. It could. You do whatever you want. I mean, change clothes, whatever. Yeah. Take a nappy wipe shower after like days on the road. You go back there and you wash yourself up with handy wipes or whatever. Well, you know, I mean, just from the, you know, people talk about the fatigue thing. You know, it's very helpful to be able to get up and walk around and to like, you know, wipe your face off and stuff and even change clothes.

1:28:03and you kind of come back like 100 % and you're good for several more hours again. We pull the circuit breakers on the cockpit door as soon as we get on an airplane. Like we don't want any, I mean, obviously we're never both exiting the cockpit in flight, but we do both exit the cockpit on the ground. And, you know, you don't want to be in a situation where you lock yourself out of the cockpit. No. Even on the ground, you know, because then you're going to be struggling to get back in. And so it's, the door's always open. we prop it open, we secure it open in a lot of cases. And it's just, the whole tube is our domain, you know?

1:28:39So that's, it's really nice. I love flying empty airplanes. I mean, it's just great. And once you get used to landing them. Yeah. It's, I would hate to fly passengers. Yeah, me too. Or cargo. Or car, anything. But like the heavy airplanes that we fly, I mean, even it's funny, like, you know, even on a triple seven, the passenger weight, the payload is nothing comparatively to the weight of the fuel that the thing carries. Right. So we're not light. Like when we take off with a full triple seven or three 30, I mean, the airplanes. Yeah. We're taking off heavy, you know, a lot, a lot of times, but we're not landing heavy ever.

1:29:21And if we are, there's something wrong. Yeah. Well, I look, these are great questions. We got through some of them, not all of them. Keep sending them in, guys. We'll keep trying to pound through them as we get them. I think we're going to make the deadline and get episode six out this week. I hope you enjoyed it, and we'll be back next week. I don't know what we have in store yet. I think we might have a guest next week. I will look into that and enjoy the pod. Check out cockpitcasual.com. Also, check out the YouTube video of this because there is a little mini cockpit casual in the beginning.

1:29:55Yeah, that's going to be cool. I'm looking forward to seeing it myself. All right. Have a good weekend, and we'll see you next week.