Why I Fly - Exploring the world from VFR Altitudes: Ep.1

Join host Osa Aikhionbare on a captivating aviation journey in this episode of the Fly Media Podcast. Explore the skies through the eyes of a private pilot, content creator, and aviation junkie as he shares his heartfelt stories, experiences, and challenges in the world of aviation. From childhood inspirations to the thrill and struggles of flight training, Osa's narrative is sure to inspire and educate aviation enthusiasts of all levels.

In this episode, we delve into the pivotal moments that sparked his interest in aviation, the hurdles he faced during flight training, and the joys of exploring new horizons from the pilot's seat. Discover the struggle of of radio communications, taxiing mishaps, and the thrill of mastering the challenge of landings. Osa's candid storytelling provides a glimpse into the dedication and passion required to soar through the skies.

As Osa shares his aviation adventures, listeners will be treated to insights on the essence of flight, the joys of flying for leisure, and the camaraderie found within the aviation community. From navigating unexpected weather challenges to the thrill of surprise birthday flights, each story unfolds with a blend of excitement and introspection.

Join Osa Aikhionbare on this compelling episode as he invites listeners to embark on a journey of inspiration, learning, and shared passion for aviation. Whether you're a seasoned pilot or an aspiring aviator, this episode offers a glimpse into the adventures and lessons learned on the path to becoming a pilot.

Stay tuned for the next episode: The Pilots Wife: Aviation from the perspective of a Significant other - ft. Tatum Aikhionbare

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Thank you for tuning in, may there always be wind beneath your wings!

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Transcript

Clear prop. Welcome to the fly media podcast where we explore the skies through the stories of those who fly them. If you're an aviation enthusiast, a pilot, or someone who looks up every time they hear a plane fly overhead, then you've come to the right place. I'm your host, O, a private pilot, content creator, aviation junkie, and storyteller. And I'm super excited to share lessons, experiences, and laughs.

with you. The purpose of this podcast is to share stories and experiences to inspire and educate and of course build community along the way. The typical format of the podcast is going to be interview style. Guests are going to include student pilots, private pilots, CFIs and ATPs. So there's going to be a lot to learn. There's a bunch to unpack and I'm super excited to get into it. Topics we're going to cover are going to be things

the struggles of airplane ownership, training tips, career advice, and of course, just sharing stories and experiences. In this first episode, we're to talk a little bit about my inspiration and what drove me to get into aviation. Growing up down in Southern California, my parents had a church friend named Mike. Mike's dad was a doctor, but had a private pilot certificate and owned a Cessna. He used to fly them around on family vacations. Mike would share tons of stories and I always thought that was

coolest, most inspiring thing. It left a lasting impression on Mike, obviously, because he was a grown man in his 50s, 60s telling me these stories like he was yesterday. These seemed like awesome adventures. And I thought to myself, if I ever get the opportunity, then I'd like to look into this. But at the time, it kind of seemed far fetch. I didn't know any pilots. I didn't know anybody who owned an airplane, anybody who flew planes. So it was just kind of something that seemed cool, but kind of out of reach, if you know what I mean.

Fast forwarding, know, I did everything you're supposed to do. I went to college, I played sports, I got a degree, I started working in business, and I decided ultimately desk life wasn't for me. So I transitioned into something else, got into firefighting, moved up to the Bay Area, absolutely love my career now. I have zero interest in a career change. Moving up to the Bay Area, starting this new career and working, ended up getting married and buying a house. Around the same time I was buying a house, I'd hear small planes flying

Osa Aikhionbare (02:25.602)
we bought in Concord and Concord has a small municipal airfield Buchanan, which is about two miles away from the home. On a daily basis, you can hear, you know, small Cessnas, even jets flying in. It kind of sparked my interest and curiosity. And of course I started thinking about Mike again. And as the days went on, I just kept hearing these planes flying overhead. And by October, I couldn't take it anymore. I made the mistake of getting on YouTube and going down the rabbit hole. How do you get into aviation? You know, what are the steps? Okay.

Start off by getting your medical or the medical that fits your goals. Again, I don't want to be a commercial pilot. I just want to do this for fun, for leisure, to travel, to enjoy family and trips and experiences with friends. So all I need is a class three medical. So that's what I got. Next thing I saw on the list was do ground school online. It'll help you kind of speak some of the same lingo when you and your instructor finally get to training. I ended up going with part -time pilot.

I highly suggest them. ended up studying hard. All the practice tests I had taken through them, I got an 85. And on the FAA written test, I did get an 85. October rolls around, like I said, and I'm like, all right, here we go. I'm ready, I'm ready. I've been watching all these videos from SoCal Flying Monkey. I've been watching Flying with Kay. And their love, adventure, and all the fun that they were having in aviation was just like, oh man, I want that

I'm also interested in photography and videography. So I thought that would be a really cool way to, you know, use those skills and hone those skills in a fun way, kind of seeing the world from a different vantage point. So all those things coupled together got me super excited and ready to go. But then I had the biggest hurdle. I had to figure out how am I going to tell this news to my wife at the time fiance, now wife, how am I going to tell her, Hey babe, I want to start flying airplanes.

I already have a dangerous enough job, but as a hobby, I want to fly small airplanes and go on trips and do fun stuff. Oh yeah. And it's also going to cost who knows somewhere around $20 ,000. Oh yeah. We just bought a house. That sounds like, like a great thing to do, you know? So I had to figure out how to break that to her and, um, just kind of sell her on it. And she was obviously reluctant, but nonetheless, we ended up proceeding and going

Osa Aikhionbare (04:39.95)
I had struggles throughout my flight training. My struggles were the normal struggles that any student has. The first thing's gonna be radio communications, Whiskey Tango, Foxtrot, like the phonetic alphabet comes at you quickly, and you're kind of behind in anticipating what the next call is gonna be or what they're gonna respond to you at. So I struggled with that a little bit, which is normal. You start picking it up after listening to the radios quite a bit and paying attention.

You can anticipate what they're gonna tell you, what your response should be, and then what your next clearance would be. Next thing that I struggled with was taxiing. Most student pilots kinda struggle with it, cause it's weird the concept of steering with your feet, and that's what you're doing when you're on the ground, taxiing you or steering with the rudder pedals at your feet. My issues were, first, I was taxiing way too fast, which my CFI said is a pretty normal thing. Slow down a bit, pull back on the throttle, touch the brakes if need

Another thing funny enough, as I said, I kinda went down the rabbit hole and got a small little flight simulator and that was all cool. But somehow in the process of setting it up, my rudder pedals controls had gotten inverted while on the ground. So when taxiing to turn right, I'm using the left rudder pedal and to turn left, I'm using the right rudder pedal. I didn't really know any better. So it seemed kinda odd, but I was like, okay, whatever. guess that's how it worked. As soon as we started flight training and I got behind the controls and he said, your controls.

I'm hitting left rudder to go right and he's like, wait, hold on, hold on, wrong way. We got to go that way. I guess that's the reason why you're told when you start flight training, avoid using things like a simulator until you've been trained on it and everything is actually dialed in correct because you can learn bad habits from it. And I was a perfect example of that throughout the process of flight training. The next thing that I struggled with was landings and boy did I struggle. Approach speeds ended up being

you know, center line was all right. My main struggle was rounding out too low and close to the ground. And I was turning, you know, the round out and flare step into one step. So it wasn't like round out at, you know, 10, 15 feet above the ground, stop that descent and then flare to help cushion the plane as you touch down. me, round out and flare was one step. So I'm coming in, boom, boom, boom, round out kind of last minute straight into the flare. The plane touches the ground quite rough and


I struggled with that for a long time and getting the sight picture and just getting that into understanding and then being consistent. Another thing that happened with me was breaks in my flight training. sister graduated medical school. She had a match day. That was a month and some change off of my training. I was working a ton. There was lots of overtime involved. So balancing, you know, life plus flight training plus work was definitely a little bit of a challenge. If I could give you advice.

I would say obviously keep up with your studies and reading and book work, but also avoid big gaps a month, two months within your flight training. Cause regression is real. And I regressed horribly. My landings went back to crap. It took me another, you know, 50 hours or so of just struggling on and off till I finally got them down consistently and became ready for the check ride. And then my next issue, it wasn't a struggle of my own.

Everybody who's flying right now is having this issue, at least in my state of California. It was very hard to get a DPE to schedule a checkride. They were booked out, some of them for the year already. Some were already booked into 2025. And this was back in November of 2023. I started trying to get a checkride scheduled. And that was definitely a challenge. You get the checkride scheduled, you start doing your mock oral check rides, and then you realize, wait a

There is way more to weather than I know. So weather was definitely something that I had to put in extra time to understand and to make sure that I got down. The day of the checkride comes, trust me, it's the longest day of your life. I struggled to fall asleep that night. I'm tossing and turning. I'm clammy and sweaty. I wake up and take a shower from about 3 a .m. unable to go back to sleep. I'm sweating while in the shower, wet. Dry off, continue to sweat and feel clammy.

And it was just horrible by, you know, 8 a .m. my check rise not to 11 by 8 a .m. I've got, you know, sweat running down my armpits and I'm using a degree sports stick, whatever clearly not working. If anybody has any recommendations, go ahead and throw those down below in the comments because I'll take them. Anyway, the day comes, I'm well prepared, I'm studied, but I'm extremely anxious and anxiety is not something I've ever felt before. So to all those


folks out there that do struggle with anxiety. Holy moly. How do you do it? I was beside myself and I said, there's no way I personally would be able to deal with this type of stress or feeling on a daily basis. So to all the people out there struggling with that, I got a very small taste and I have a new found respect. The oral board portion went well about three and a half hours or so. I got a number of different questions, you

things to write down, equations to calculate, weight shift problems, your takeoff and landing distances, how those change if you've got a tailwind. One of the things that my examiner was looking at and really looking for, it gave me a problem where it was a tailwind, let's say about 10 knots, temperature is 22 degrees Celsius, so not really a big factor, but the wind in that particular model of Cessna that I was flying, POH says for every two degrees,

I'm sorry for every two knots of tailwind, you must increase your landing distance by 10%. I had 10 knots on my problem. So that means 50 % increase on landing distances. The airport we're flying it has runways that are about 6 ,000 feet long. So that wasn't much of an issue, but imagine it was somewhere with a smaller runway. Then that could definitely become a challenge.

So was something to look into. I passed the oral portion. We finally get up into the plane. I'm super excited again, still climbing. It's already been the longest day of my life. My check ride started at about 11. We got in the plane at around 3 .30 ish. Wind was supposed to be somewhere between nine to 12 knots or five to seven knots was the original forecast.

But when we got outside to the plane, it actually ended up being nine to 12 knots of almost direct crosswind. So that was a challenge. And those were situations that I didn't fly often, but understanding how long I had to wait for this checkride and not knowing how much longer I'd have to wait if I discontinued at this point. said, you know what, we're going to go for it. I'm going to work hard to be on my P's and Q's. And obviously if things are unsafe, they're going to take the controls and we're going to put the plane

So was definitely my most challenging flight yet, but things went well. Maneuvers were great. Most of my landings were awesome. One or two of them, I would say was just barely okay. But I think part of what was taken under consideration was the fact that we were going in some pretty challenging conditions being that the max crosswind component of the Cessna 172 I'm flying is 15 knots.

not the max that it's capable of, but they say the max observed, meaning that someone has comfortably and safely done. So for a new pilot, that's extremely challenged. Out of the DPE, you know, look, if it wasn't so difficult to schedule this check ride right now, I would have discontinued no problem. And even when I do get my certificate, I don't plan on flying in these conditions unless I've gone through more training on crosswind landings to where I've got them down. I feel like I'm safe. I understand what I'm doing and there's some type of consistency,

Hey, this is the most I've ever flown and let's give it a try. Absolutely not. Safety first. And after kind of understanding that, I think he gave me a little leeway for one or two landings that wasn't exactly perfect, but still safe. After getting my certificate, like everybody else, you kind of look into and think about airplane ownership and the excitement that comes with that. Hey, I want to buy a plane. Aviation is expensive. We all know that,

Of course, you now have a pilot certificate. You want to look at aircrafts and figure out what kind of aircraft you want or would fit your mission. And naturally, like most people, you think, my mission, I need a six seat plane that way I can load up with friends and family and buddies and this, that and the third. And then if you do get one, you quickly realize, wait a minute, none of my friends are ever available. I can never get six people to the same place at the same time anyway. You try to schedule friends for dinner and you know, people have lives and kids and they're busy. So my normal mission is just the wife and I or one more friend.

and we fly to lunch, we go to brunch, we just kind of enjoy. You know, the $100 burger is something that I really love the concept of, challenging yourself by going to new places, seeing new airports, new approaches, and then of course, rewarding yourself with some good food along the way. I absolutely love it. It's funny that they still call it $100 burger. If that was really still a thing where you could fly, you know, somewhere to and from an hour or so.


plus food for under a hundred bucks, I honest to God would fly every single day. I'd get 350 hours a year at least, which would be awesome. But the reality of situation is that's not necessarily a thing anymore pricing wise. So as you figure out kind of what your mission is and the fact that you're likely to only be flying, like I said, it's you maybe one more person if and when you have kids, yeah, you toss them in the plane, but even then they're not going to want to go all the time. They're going to age and have lives of their

and not necessarily be interested in spending all of their time with you in this little old plane. With that being said, I'm kind of sat back on the six seater and was like, maybe I don't need a six seater. Useful load, all that stuff is great, but I'm not gonna feel it like that. So right now the plane that I'm looking at the most, Moony M20J. They travel pretty quickly around 150 -ish knots on nine or so, nine and a half gallons of fuel per hour.

so they're really efficient, they're good looking, they're fast, and they're fun to fly airplanes. So if and when I get the opportunity and I'm set up correctly, that's kind of what I'm looking into. But for now, I've been renting 172s from the flight school in which I trained, and I use those for weekend trips and going out to lunch, because that's what my current mission is. Another thing I would highly suggest other new pilots do is join a flight club. You'll surround yourself with other pilots, people who probably have way more experience than you

The other awesome thing is you'll get the opportunity to fly additional aircrafts and maybe you'll be able to save a few dollars in doing so because you're getting slightly better price. The real icing on the cake is to surround yourself with pilots with more experience, stories, lessons, laughs. That's what I'm all about. So I'm running a club here in Concord and it has tons of pilots that have, you know, thousands of hours, 30 ,000 hours, 15 ,000 hours. So there's some airline pilots there.

and a lot of folks who have just been flying since before I was born. I'm 34 years old. I believe the senior man of the club said he joined the club in 1971. So he's been in there for about 50, what, 53 years. That's impressive. Other things that I'm very interested in would be getting my IFR rating, of course, make you a safer pilot, make you more capable in case for some reason you decide night flying is something you want to do. Something that actually pushed me even further towards wanting that rating.


is my longest flight to date. flew my wife down to Southern California for a surprise birthday party at her parents house down in Vista, which is North County, San Diego. The original plan was to fly down into Carlsbad at McClellan Airfield. That didn't quite go as planned. Nothing along that day went as planned. So I learned a ton that day. Again, it was a surprise. How do you surprise somebody by flying them somewhere? Well, I didn't tell her where we were going.

First of all, I told her we were going to Santa Barbara because the original plan was to fly to Santa Barbara, stop, have lunch, then we get back up in the plane and continue flying in. Of course, at that point, she'd have questions. We are maybe about an hour or so outside of Santa Barbara. This is in June. You know, June gloom, haze, overcast, all that stuff is real, but it was supposed to burn off by 10 a .m. Right? I'm a pilot. We check the weather, especially when we've got a big trip planned. You check the weather weeks before.

days before and damn near every 30 minutes from 3 a .m. the day up tossing and turning with excitement, right? So the forecast is clearly wrong. The clouds are not going anywhere. Now I'm sitting here thinking what are we going to do? So we continue on south. I'm like, oh, babe, we'll just go have lunch in Camarillo. You know, that'll all be good. Camarillo supposed to be clear by the time we get there in 20, 30 minutes. And I'm looking. Nope. Doesn't clear up. Well, fine. Now we're getting close to the L .A. Bravo area. And I had prepped and

and looked at charts and figured out, you know, which route I wanted to take. I wanted the special flight rules area, which is a VFR corridor in which you don't have to speak to ATC through the Bravo aerospace, because technically you're flying under it and you actually fly right over LAX, which is a really neat and awesome thing, except it's overcast and it's not VFR. So we're about 15 miles outside the Bravo and I'm like, shucks, I don't have clearance. I don't have anything. So I hop on the radio and start talking to ATC.

And I let him know, Hey, I was planning originally a flying through the Bravo airspace using the special flight rules area, which is a VFR corridor. Is that still an option? Cause I know it's not quite VFR there. I've never flown the Bravo. I'm a newer pilot and I'm from Northern California. He goes, no worries. I got you. I'm going to give you the coastal route, which is at 5 ,500 feet. If you're heading, you know, southbound.


which is what we were. And he goes, pull up that plate on for a flight. Take a look. If you have any questions, let me know. And I said, okay, no problem. But I am getting close. So I just want to make sure that was you clearing me into the Bravo airspace. Correct? Because the last thing that I want right now is them to tell you, Hey, you just broke the Bravo. We've got a number for you to write down. give this call when you land like, no, no, no, we don't want that at all. So yes, he let me know that I was cleared and flew the coastal route. And there was a

over LAX that was actually clear. So flying over the airport, I looked down and there's a 737 about to take off for one of their runways, obviously facing out westbound, which I thought was amazing because here I am in this tiny little, know, Cessna 172 flying over one of the busiest airports in one of the busiest airspaces in the country. And there's a 737 below me looking to take

The wife and I were both thrilled. Of course, at this point, since I knew things were going to start getting hairy, I had told her, babe, well, not hairy, but busy, right? Hey babe, we're actually going down to North County, San Diego. I can tell you more later, but right now need your help. I need you to plug in these radio frequencies. I need you to plug in these VOR frequencies so that we can navigate and be dialed in as necessary and update these GPS coordinates. Cause we were using the Garmin seven 50 that the airplane is equipped

She goes, okay, no problem. She had questions, but she understood, hey, this is getting real. Let's lock in. No, my wife is not a pilot. I barely became a pilot, but in some of our adventures, I had shown her how things work should in case we get into situations where I need help, you know, plugging things in, crew resource management is, you know, a big thing and very helpful. So we worked as a team, we got through that. And then when we finally got into that Bravo airspace, it was just,

Non -stop talking, Alaska this, United that. We couldn't even have a conversation and talk to each other for about an hour. There was maybe one or two words to get in. Otherwise the flight went well. It was safe. was just everything changed on the fly due to weather and forecast, you know, not being correct. So we learned don't check, don't trust the weather, work together as a team. And if you need


or don't understand something, make sure you ask ATC, because that's actually their job to help you navigate and help you be safe. We ended up getting towards McClellan Airport in Carlsbad. We're looking at it maybe 10, 15 miles away. There's no hold to punch through and it is IFR condition still. So I can be able to land there. As I said, nothing went as planned, but I did have some alternates in mind. One of my alternates was Fallbrook, which was 20 miles to the east.

I'm looking in general where it should be and I'm seeing that it is clear. It is VFR We can safely land so I divert and we go to Fallbrook small non -towered Airport 60 foot wide by 2160 feet is the runway I was told it's one of the smallest runways in the southern United States by folks down there on the ground We come in to land long day. I'm impatient I put the plane on the ground and I probably bounce maybe two or three times I felt

terrible, I was very upset about my landing and I hated it. But anyway, we taxi down to get fuel and ask where is the transient parking? I kind of hate that word. makes me feel like dirty. But you know, where is your short term parking? And they say, okay, it's up top. You taxi across the runway, go toward the helipad. You'll definitely see it. So as we're doing that, I realized we're going to to cross the runway anyway. Let's knock out a quick run up and let's do another lap in the pattern so I can come back and put down a landing that I'm proud

because I am not a person that believes in walking away from the aircraft after a bad landing. Well, to be clear, if your landing was bad because you're landing in conditions that you probably shouldn't be flying in or uncomfortable in, and this was just like your only option, then hey, yes, walk away from the airplane, tie it down, come back another day and put down the landing. The conditions were fine. It was just my impatience. I got my candy ass back in that plane.

flew another lap in the pattern, came back in and put down a good landing that I could walk away from and spend the next three days of my weekend without it bothering me. You know what I mean? So that was an awesome adventure. I know my wife definitely loved it. My parents watched us take off and leave. It was just an amazing experience that I don't think I would have otherwise obviously had had I not gotten my pilot license. So it's a really cool thing that my wife and I are now able to share in terms of experiences and adventures.

and just going on new things. I've been out to lunch with friends. We fly to Columbia for lunch. We've flown to Lamson Airport up in Clear Lake and went to Red Sky Room, which had an amazing burger. I was super pumped about it. They've got like a chef's menu that rotates and kind of changes daily. So that makes it unique. You're not going to go there every single day or once a week and get the same thing. Another one that's high up on my list to fly to for lunch is Ella's, which is located in Watsonville.

just outside of Santa Cruz, which kind of shares that same Bay as Monterey. So that's something that's up on my list, but that area can also be cloudy and such due to being on the coast. So I'll maybe wait till later in the fall to make that happen. Two more airports I'm really excited to fly into and to experience out here on the coast. Obviously Catalina Island, the town itself of Avalon looks amazing. Some great experiences. Go down there, scuba dive, nice restaurants, walk on a beautiful beach.

And you have no idea you're not in Europe because it really does look like parts of Italy. So I'm super pumped about that. And of course, flying into Sedona, who doesn't want to fly in and land on that Mesa that is, I don't know, I think 500 feet or so above the town. When we were there a few months ago, I definitely went to the airport and I just stood there like a kid watching a few small planes come into land. was like, damn, this is awesome. I've got to check that out. I've got tons of big plans. Other places I want to fly the Caribbean.

fly the country, anybody who's involved in aviation, especially for in the U .S., obviously Oshkosh is high on your list. I feel like once I do it that first time, it'll be something that I attend for the rest of my life, right? You can't call yourself an aviation enthusiast or aviation junkie and at least say you're not interested in going to Oshkosh. Maybe you're not able to for financial reasons and that's okay, no judgments. But if you really do consider yourself an enthusiast, of course you're interested in

I'm excited to, you know, to strap up. It'll be a great ride. Excited to continue to learn and grow as a pilot. As we land the plane and wrap this thing up, I'd like to give you a sneak peek into the next episode. We'll have my wife Tatum on my partner in crime, and she will share our journey into aviation, you know, flight training, aviation as a new hobby, and some of our experiences flying around together with you from her point of view.


If you're a new pilot or someone who's trying to get into aviation and you need to figure out how to get your significant other on board or kind of some insight into what they are thinking of their thoughts on it. This will definitely be an episode that you'll want to listen to and or watch with your significant other. Make sure you leave a review down below and share this with someone that you know is interested in aviation. You can find this on all podcast streaming platforms.

The video version of the podcast will be available on YouTube. Again, I'm your host, Thank you so much for tuning in. Peace.