Pro-Pilot Playbook Podcast #48 // You Should NOT Be a Pilot

but he was convicted of drunk driving four times and then some other legal things that I won't bore you with but uh and he's asking you know would he be a good candidate for a pilot um if you've got that extensive of a legal record it's probably not a good career path for you right I would say that it's probably three too many and [Laughter] [Music] hi welcome to the pro pilot Playbook I'm Mike Martin and I'm Sean Ritchie and we're here today to help you as we always do for the tips tricks and hacks to become an airline pilot faster and cheaper and uh we got a good tagline for this uh podcast today uh go ahead and tell everybody Sean yeah yeah well I'm sure you just read it but I don't know we love it for some reason you should not be a pilot this is what we call this one and basically this is a collaboration of uh some legitimate reasons we came up with that would probably either keep somebody from getting their dreams or maybe we you know talk you out of even chasing those dreams but then there's other reasons people come up with for not being a pilot that are not so legitimate and uh we're gonna talk about some of that too yeah so what sparked this is uh and we love this and I know in no way don't want to discourage anyone from sending us an email or commenting our YouTube video right right uh but we'll just leave the name off this one yeah so the channels exploded uh as we've mentioned in the last couple we've doubled in subscribers maybe tripled and uh our views are way up I mean some of our videos have 40 000 views so we're getting now I don't want to say inundated because we do look at them all but we're getting tons and tons of comments on YouTube direct messages and emails uh emails are good too um uh from all different types of people with all different kind of questions but there are some funny ones a lot of them uh a lot of them the inspiration for for this video came from some of the uh inquiries we get from our uh the UI video that uh we we had um we'll get some really really uh extreme emails that was way back that episode was in the uh it's one of the first few videos we shot I think yes yes because that is a big question can you have a DUI and be a pilot and it's a huge problem but yes you can do it that is totally true but man some of these uh like I've got one here and I'm not going to read the person's name but it it says uh uh you know he's got uh four consecutive DUIs of course some of them were not legit in his mind but he was convicted of drunk driving four times um and then some other legal things that I won't bore you with but uh and he's asking you know would he be a good candidate for a pilot um if you've got that extensive of a legal record it's probably not a good career path for you right I would say that's probably three too many and uh yeah any any is too many really in my book but yeah you can there's ways to you know still get hired with one and we go into that in that video Just Like Mike said but yeah the legal thing there's a few legal items that are probably gonna keep you from being a pilot however right now the pilot shortage you know it's we're in Uncharted water for sure I've I've never seen what's going on like this before right now yeah in my career ever nor have I ever heard anybody tell any stories the older guys tell me any stories about what's happening right now but um like any type of felony I mean just keep on the legal stuff uh the DUI thing they obviously I mean you can put two and two together if you're the type of person who has no regard uh to go out and operate a machine around other people you know high speeds you know inebriated or whatever in some way uh why would they it doesn't look good right why do they want you in there flying their jet filled with 200 people sitting behind you right um the felony stuff that's a big one I've never seen an application that doesn't ask that question yeah yeah I had a student um early on um he uh he started flying as a young great guy but he um he he got into his flight training and when he filled out his medical application for his Pilot Medical there's a question on there have you ever been convicted of a felony and he click no but he actually had one and then he's like oh they'll never find it right and then what ended up happening is he spent a lot of money and then he got uh he got into his flights training you know and then it they sent him a letter and he brought it in and they sent a big summary of His conviction and then they sent his form where he you know it circled where he lied and then he had uh to go to this meeting to explain himself and lost story short I he I never saw him again kind of after that yeah you can't you can't lie on any of this stuff you can't yeah we're living in the world of computers I mean I could you could just 20 years ago too right oh yeah I know now it's even worse I mean I can get online right now and in five minutes and for 9.95 with anybody's name I could see any every address you've ever lived at I could see your phone number I could see your date of birth I can see I mean jobs you've worked at I mean this is just the common guy doing a doing a background search on one of these internet sites I mean yes in these these Airlines aren't doing that they they high-end companies to contact municipalities and pull records and there's certain things that go to a federal level certain things are just I don't know you're not fooling anybody except for yourself if you think you're gonna get away with that yeah yeah no you're right um and so not to get two in the weeds to this legal stuff I mean it's pretty much common sense um uh when you're when you're thinking about this but once we we we're thinking of videos to do we're like this would be a fun one because our whole um Mo here with the pro pilot Playbook is to encourage people to get into flying and then to really make the general public aware of how easy it really is and how fun it really is um so for the majority of people with average intelligence and a not much of a criminal record it's it's it which is 99 of the population is really no issue at all but there are some things and then we'll get in some little things that if you know you may be qualified and you may have the money and all that but once you get the job you may not like it and we thought it'd be fun to kind of run to him a couple of those things that we've seen in our career uh either students or Pilots that that have not made it or changed careers or anything like that um and I want to start yeah yeah and I want to start by saying you know very few people that we see that get involved in this quit most people really do like it and uh and right wouldn't you say I mean absolutely uh one of those things I I I just as you were talking we were we were before we started recording we were having a conversation about guys as we were coming up you know guys we were flying with that didn't make it you know some of their reasons in um I remember this guy I and we did write down one of our things was attention to detail if you're not somebody who's in attention to detail these things this may not be a great career field for you now that's something you could teach yourself possibly that's not like having a DUI that you can't just erase um but I remember this guy flying Freight with and he always flew barefoot and he he would fly even his check ride he was take his shoes off to to fly his check Ride The Examiner got on him one day or like you know like why do you have your shoes off and he's like well good my feet sweat you know that was just whatever I don't know if this guy's gonna you know the I don't know if that falls under attention to detail but I mean this is probably the same kind of guy who'd you know never be caught dead wearing a collared shirt or that kind of thing you know there are there are certain things that are expected of your your hygiene and just your yeah looking like a normal human being right in front of the 200 people that are getting on Your Vessel sitting behind you so or the multi multi-millionaire that you're flying right in our case yes the limo in the sky you know right he does not want to hire a goober to fly his airplane so so I guess I don't know uh attention to detail don't be a goober I guess yeah there you go I don't know uh but that that could be some but that's something you can train yourself out of you know yeah yeah I would say 90 of the people that I saw that started on a career path and and quit it was Financial right absolutely it's always the number one reason and this is a widely known stat I mean you could Google it right now while you're watching this and number one reason people quit flight trick money right yeah that makes sense you know money is the answer to nine out of ten questions but yeah uh I personally it is it is expensive no make no uh mistake about it this is the most expensive things you can do however it is a little cheaper in the fact that uh it's changed here lately that you don't need a degree anymore uh when so all that money is going completely to Flight Training and they're still financing options out there there's ways to find money to do this uh and but it used to be more when Mike and I came up you know we both we both had to have four-year degrees plus all the flight training so you could look at it is it's getting a little cheaper yeah yeah another thing to touch on the work hours now we're always talking about you know Pilots have all this off time which they do and you know your neighbors think you're unemployed and all that stuff but um a lot of times when we do work we do work uh really strange hours and and it's not like working the night shift where you can adjust your body to the sleeping um um you know uh just a common just a very common thing that corporate Pilots do is uh the customer will have an 8 A.M meeting in New York and one of the benefits of owning your own jet is that you don't have to stay in a hotel that night so they know the flight from you know wherever you're at in our case Cincinnati to New York is you know an hour and a half so if as long as their wheels up at you know 6 a.m uh and it takes a half hour to get downtown or whatever that might be a little close but whatever they can make their meeting so for the pasture it's not that bad they just have to be at the airport at 6 there's no security and away they go now if you're the pilot though you know you got to be at the airport at least an hour prior to when the pastors want to leave so you know you're then that means you have to be at the airport at 4 30 or 5. right and then probably 4 30 really to make this whole thing work that I'm talking about so you know the you know you got to drive to the airport so that's you got to leave your house at four so now you're getting up at 3 30 in the morning um and you know it sounds funny but the majority of the population I mean you asked them when the last time you got up at 3 30 in the morning and they say well maybe I went fishing one time in 1984 and I got up there I mean it's not a normal right get up at 3 30 in the morning and you know it it's hard when you um uh you know you're on a normal sleep pattern well people say well if I gotta get up at 3 30 I'll just go to bed at eight well if you're used to going to bed at 11 or 12 you ain't gonna go to bed at eight you know on the first time so yeah Sean's done some of that night reach into the choir yeah I that is one thing however there is a little caveat is it a corporate we are constantly bouncing around different especially as a corporate operator the airlines all that stuff's a little more regimented out there's regulation around how many hours you can work in a day how many hours you can ever fly a day how many hours you're right on duty a day and then how much rest you need uh in between those periods and if you go over a little bit because something got delayed now you get what they call compensatory rests you get even more time before you got to fly right all that stuff's super regulated like right out up and down all over and Mike and I's world in the part 91 World none of that stuff exists no none of those regulations exist there are guidelines that folks are expected to handle but it it has happened before where you just have to make stuff work and you're coming off of that 3 30 a.m wake up and uh you know you sat around all day and maybe you got a nap somewhere and you don't get it until you don't get home till 11 o'clock that night that stuff does happen you just got to make it work however that whole time in between after we land at New York uh that whole day is yours you want to go tour the city you want to hit the gym right you know what I mean that's just your time you're not really doing it this video is about the bad stuff yeah yeah sorry sorry yeah but uh so if well the other part of that though you know you're hitting on the schedule stuff right you know there was I was just talking about uh you know when I was at flight safety which is one of the places Mike and I go fly the simulator you know every year or so to get recertified those instructors are usually guys that have lost their medical or they can't be out there flying for some reason but they still love Aviation so they need that that more of that you know eight to eight to five PM type of job and uh this guy had his wife had some serious medical issues he was at the Airlines and he needed to be home taking care of her so he left his airline job and started working for flight safety so he can be home every night so that would be another one if you know wouldn't want to be a pilot if for some reason you're that type of person who has to be home every night those jobs do exist in aviation absolutely but uh I wouldn't go into this thinking you're gonna you know find one like super easy like the girl on trees everywhere um yeah there's gonna be overnights involved hotels yeah yeah um I got a funny story about that so um yeah if you if you do I have seen this um where um how do I say this uh Pilots will have a very controlling significant other you know and that can be an issue um they're calling every minute wanting to know what they're doing because oh yeah they're not at home and and those type of things and you know that can get you in trouble but uh one of the first flying jobs we have this old cantankerous boss and uh uh he we were having some issues with a pilot and uh uh his wife was was uh was causing problems and uh I won't go into any details because somebody may watch this and that's but I remember his famous quote and I mean this guy was old and he's like what you got to remember is your wife can't get you a job but she sure can help you lose it yeah man that is good that is absolutely true yeah yeah uh uh I have seen too a lot of guys uh or gals these jobs will make you relocate to another city and you think it's great you're like oh look at me I can move over here and fly a golf stream and make all this money into this city and then you relocate your family and then there's all kind of problems with that you know so it might be great for you but it might not be great for your family um and and you know Sean and I have managed to have our entire career in Cincinnati but I would say we're a little on the rare side I'm not saying you can't do that and it depends on the city that you grew up with but oftentimes you may have to move to either improve your job as a corporate pilot or improve your quality of life as an airline pilot because of the commuting thing right well yeah I mean Cincinnati's kind of I mean we've got a ton of you know Heavy Hitters here in the corporate world right but and it's also centrally located at one point in time this was Delta's second largest Hub so it was easy to commute um you know when I was doing the airline stuff I was still living here but commuting in and out but yeah if you're somebody who has to be a homebody this may not be a career field for you right right while we're talking about the negative stuff um oh uh we missed you know the other thing if going on the complete probably shouldn't do it thing here uh just like we were mentioning the legal stuff and this is something in our program we talk about making sure and I'm talking about medical here any kind of medical history uh if you got something going on with yourself that that's why in the program we tell folks to go get that medical early and get checked out by the flight doc make sure something isn't going to come out of the woodwork that's going to keep you from being a professional pilot and there's different degrees of this it may not keep you from being a pilot but it may keep you from being able to get uh class one physical and which is what you need to be an airline pilot um there is that oh yeah that's the other thing that's another reason why like uh you know on our our question last week Zach was saying he's going to ATP ATP requires that you show up with at least a private pilot's license you know that's one of the reasons they want to make sure they're not going to get you all wrapped up into this big loan and going through all this training and then you can't pass a medical or maybe you just can't you don't work well and you don't can't do the cockpit well whatever you just you're not a good pilot for some reason whatever they want to make sure you have that first certificate before you show up to work with them yeah yeah I I think I've had I was just thinking back on my students so very few of them that weren't Financial didn't make it um but but um there was one guy um and this is a rarity because it's it's really not scary but I mean he was just so cautious I mean everything made him just overly nervous it was like man I don't know if you should be doing this you know like yeah is the wind gonna fall off and all you know he was just very uh he didn't he didn't like flying at night you know that scared him he had just a lot of anxiety um um just towards the danger of of actually falling out of the sky and things like that I feel like a lot of that gets weeded out though because people taking introductory flights or something but if you have a true feel of fear of flying you shouldn't be a pilot yes yeah no you you got to know your limitations yes that's that's an important part of just being a human on planet Earth no your limitations and uh you know and I would say I go I I have Mike I know you've heard me say this before but I got a little quote that I say and I don't know it's come up in interviews before I'll lay it out I and it's it's my this is Sean Ritchie original my my one thing that I think is the biggest factor in figuring out whether you're a good pilot or a bad pilot and that is the ability to determine what's important from what's not important if you're good at doing that you'll probably be a good pilot and that guy that you were just describing that sounds like he's so overwhelmed with silly stuff it don't even matter he's not ever going to be able to distinguish what's important what's not important because he's worried about a wing falling off when he's got a light blinking at him up here yeah yeah no you're totally right that's great advice actually I should write that down man yeah but yeah you're right now yeah yeah when you when you think about when you're flying or you know you're flying in a jet you're going 400 and something you know 500 miles per hour over the ground and this super scary environment where nobody can breathe and it's negative 40 outside um when you think about the things that could actually go wrong I mean all the way down to the you know mechanic and a bad day and he serviced something wrong and the bolt fell off and then the hydraulic fluid leak down you have to make it I mean there's literally like a million things it would overwhelm you you know what I mean yeah so you have to be able to sift through through that and and deal with things in a logical Manner and this student he couldn't do it so that's that's very good advice not only that I mean while we're talking about it the other thing that happens when something breaks in one of these machines uh when the first thing breaks it usually starts a chain reaction of other things that fall apart because that one thing broke so when you're when you're looking at your enunciator panel or your cast screen showing you what's broken in the airplane yes you know after that first thing breaks you may have eight other items there and you need to be able to look at it and say all right well obviously I'm assuming this thing busted and caused all the rest of this to happen because their related systems yeah but there's so many stories in aviation history of guys chasing down the wrong problem when all they had to do was like you flip this switch and pull this lever and they fix the whole thing but nope they were chasing the wrong thing and they you know ended up a smoking hole right and I I don't know if you have had this Sean but I I think I can only remember one student and really with some additional training he didn't find but um you know just really bad hand-eye coordination and and just really just very robotic on his movements and things and and and I I was thinking man maybe this isn't for this guy but he required a lot of extra training and he got through it but have you had anybody like that yeah actually I told this story this is one of my go-to stories with and you know we were going to talk about this a little bit anyway about people feeling discouraged with the training and yeah wasn't necessarily a money thing or whatever but they just thought it was too hard it was out of their scope of ability to do um or maybe just they didn't like the flight school maybe the flight school people were kind of being butt heads to them or something or whatever and they thought that was just Aviation But to answer your direct question I had this guy his name was Joe he had been passed around and I told this story like in one of the First episodes we recorded Joe had been passed around to several the instructors nobody could get into solo which typically happens you know anywhere from I mean average of probably 10 hours to I don't know 18 hours you're gonna solo but Joe had 60 some hours I mean most people get their license their certificate by that point and he still hadn't sold out and he'd been through three or four instructors and I was the new instructor there and the the last guy just washed his hands and of him and gave them to me and I flew around the pattern with him that was the Big Goal get Joe soloing and everything he could not land this airplane a little Cessna he either he'd either think the runway was I don't know he was trying to flare way above the runway and then the next time he would over he would correct for this and he would come in and smack it on the runway and we'd bounce and you know it was I just I'm like why is this guy so then I stopped trying to teach him and I'm like Joe do it again and I did nothing but sit there and watch his face and what his eyes were doing you know I realized there was a lot of squinting there was a lot of looking down whatever you know when you're flying an airplane she's like driving a car if you're staring like right in front of the vehicle you're not gonna be able to do anything uh you know when you drive a car you need to let your eyes look as far down the road as possible and well anyway this guy's problem was he couldn't see he hadn't had his prescription updated in years the guy just couldn't see so he was coming up with all these what would be the word for mnemonic or what all these like tactics to try to get himself to land this airplane right but anyway he went and got some new glasses we did one more flight and I signed him off to solo he was awesome dude I don't even know how he drove to the airport that's a great one man yeah yeah so yeah check on your vision make sure all that's good you do have to pass an eye test but you know he might have been just as good you know who knows I mean the student pilot certificate oh you're right that was three student yeah I mean uh they probably figured if he drove to the to the medical center he was good you know right right on that note you know it could be that you're discouraged from flying because of differences with your instructor you know maybe maybe you feel like this individual just isn't getting you or he's an old guy you're a young guy or vice versa you know he's he or she is probably not the only instructor at that school you know that is not a reason not a reason to not become a pilot right yeah even if it's the whole flight school maybe the whole flight school is just crap you know their airplanes are always leaking stuff and they're dirty and they're smelly or you know whatever there are other flight schools there are other flight instructors this should not be the reason you quit nor should you assume that uh all flight schools are like that because they're not some of these guys are flying brand new they get leases from these manufacturers like Cessna and Piper and they're flying brand new equipment with fancy screens that don't even have round gauges in them anymore and I mean there's all kinds of stuff out there yeah totally I think one other thing it comes to mind I've flown with uh people you need to you first of all you need to like to travel and that's obvious and we do Sean already touched in that there are flying jobs where you don't travel much you know they're training and things like that but for the majority of them you do travel um and you need to be able to adapt and kind of go with the flow and travel um like um I I'm sure you've been on vacation with these people but I have a family member who all remain nameless but you know whenever we go on vacation with them they have a set schedule of exactly what we're doing you know uh dinners at this time I have this reservation then we're going to wake up at this time and then do this and then we have this plan and then what happens on those vacations is it all goes to hell man oh Jesus and what happens to that person it makes all the plans right they lose oh yes lines and they're frustrated and yeah yeah and and this job is so fluid and there's there's constantly things changing you know delays weather uh the pastors may change their mind all this kind of stuff you need to be a person that can handle those changes and not be extremely type A that it just ruins your life you know if the boss says you're going to San Diego uh this weekend and then he changes it and then you're pissed or or um you know whatever you know it's just all or you know the hotel oversold and you got to move to a different one and now your night's ruined I mean it's just like you got to kind of just roll with the flow right you cannot take those kind of things personal and you got to be dynamic with everything actually when you were saying that going on vacation thing it just reminded me of my neighbor he's got back from he his wife's like that his wife actually she's a consultant hired by you know big companies like some of the biggest we have in Cincinnati to come in and she's just an idea girl she's hyper intelligent human being yeah yeah and uh they just did Disney and several Parks spent a lot of money on this her name's Debbie and Deb had this thing all mapped out down to the 30 minute window of what's where we're going where what's happening and my neighbor called it he had a name for this on day two he's like I don't know how much more I can take man I'm I'm back here day two Debbie's Disney death march [Laughter] That's it man yeah yeah I've flown with those guys they just can't take anything changing I'm like man that is the job like you know with the airlines your whole job kind of does revolve around a schedule we have this door closed by this time we got to push the gate back by this time right right whatever that's the whole job maintaining schedule in our world it's kind of the opposite that it's just maintaining our our people's happiness and where they want to go and it doesn't even matter you know it's every other trip hey we're gonna be there a little later Bill's wanting to do something for lunch and I guess we're waiting here so we'll see you at another hour you know that's all the time yep totally man so you got to be able to adapt I'm looking at my list here um the only other thing I think we were mentioning about talking about is yeah I think this is a good one is and I've had people ask this before and I've had I was just in a conversation with a guy down at lunken one of the line guys at uh lunken airport Cincinnati here just got a um he had an interview I shouldn't say he's hired but I would think he would get hired and to be a co-pilot in a beach jet was a big deal he didn't even he skipped flight instructing he didn't have to be a flight instructor um right into the right seat of a beach jet this is a huge thing this would never happen Mike and I were coming up um but anyway we we got talking about Flight Training and what was hard what wasn't hard and I've heard this from several people over the years that the instrument rating once people get to that instrument rating which is typically the second thing you do in your career the latter of training you get your Private Pilot certificate and then you start working on the instrument rating which is the license that lets you fly the airplane without being able to see out the windows you're just using instruments and that transition is difficult for people and right people you know people start thinking it's too hard I'm not good at this um when I was when I was renewing all my CFI stuff for this to make this program I was down in Florida I went to one of these hurry up get them done uh CFI recurrent things and there was a girl there she wanted to ride along she was an instrument student she was having real trouble with everything and she was thinking about quitting yeah you know she was feeling like she just wasn't getting it this isn't for her she's she something wasn't clicking and that's exactly what I told her something isn't clicking for you yet stick at it this is the hardest it is this is the hardest it gets and uh once you're through this instrument rating it's a piece of cake and yeah no it definitely is the most difficult and most important too because you know that's how you fly oh yeah every day every day but the day-to-day especially in these new machines with all these screens and computers and flight planning software we have you know when you're doing your instrument rating everything's the long way you know right it's they're trying to make it as difficult as possible so you can see every scenario and whatever really dive into every little aspect of what it means but in a professional Pilot's day to day it isn't like that yes that's a great Point yeah awesome man well I I think we hit a lot of the good ones uh please keep sending in our questions we love it uh just like I mentioned in some of the other videos the the channels exploding the course is exploding uh sales are way up the please like And subscribe this video we've got we've doubled our subscribers in the last few months it really helps us stay motivated to keep helping you people I had uh I had one of my I don't want to say my first because I've had others but I was in an FBA yeah yeah yeah yeah I had a celebrity sighting and come up to me and say hey are you Mike from the pro pilot play oh great so shout out to Noah he was a great guy he came up to me he started his career uh he was flying a jet but he was in a bonanza actually for his company and I took a look at his plane and I I took him out and showed him mine and uh yeah if you guys are out and you run into it certainly come up yeah come up and say hey it's like we're famous yeah Knights Mike's definitely had this happen to him more than me it has happened a couple times and it's it's I you know whatever it kind of takes you what I don't know it's cool plus yeah I'd love to run it into some of you guys that are watching this and like Mike went out and showed you showed this guy the Challenger and yeah yeah absolutely that would be amazing yeah but uh you know what I'm I'm just gonna I think after rattling through all that you know the title of this you should not be a pilot I think we only ran into a couple things that you I'm not gonna change the title of the podcast but I'm just gonna say you should be a pilot yeah way more uh uh you know Pros to cons oh yeah yeah I mean ninety percent of 99 of the people watching this will have no issue at all but you know it was good to uncover some of the things that we've seen throughout our career which wasn't many on people that really weren't really suitable for the job so um I think most of our viewers uh probably have less than four DUIs uh reasonable intelligence can do basic math and uh wear their shoes right yeah keep your shoes so we should be good right all right well if you have a question that you would like us to answer here uh email us podcast at propilotplaybook.com and uh yeah yeah we'll see you guys [Music]

Channel: Pro-Pilot Playbook

Views: 10,723

Keywords: learn to fly, pilot, become a pilot, flight lessons, ground school, flying, jet airplane, flight school, airline, aviation, pilot training, pilot career, pilot job, commercial pilot, how to become a pilot, avgeeks, steveo1kinevo, premier 1 driver, atp flight school, propilot playbook, pro pilot pete, pilotito, aircraft, airplane take off, podcast joe rogan, citationmax, aviation college, pilot course, tim kight, career opportunities, pilot shortage, American Airlines, jet pilot

Id: gAPRnYX9E_I

Length: 35min 17sec (2117 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023