From Israeli Navy to Flying Citation Jets: Ep.3

Join us on "The Fly Media Podcast," where aviation enthusiasts and aspiring pilots can dive deep into the world of flight. Hosted by Osa Aikhionbare, in todays episode, we interview Gal Edry a Gold Seal CFI and distinguished flight instructor of 2024 by AOPA, this podcast offers a unique blend of personal journeys, expert advice, and behind-the-scenes insights into the aviation industry.

In this episode, Gal shares his path to becoming a pilot, offering invaluable tips for new pilots navigating the challenges of flight training. From the complexities of weather conditions and restricted airspace in Israel to the importance of finding a supportive flight instructor, we cover it all. Gal emphasizes realistic training timelines, consistent flying, and understanding critical flight factors like density altitude and tailwinds.

Discover Gal's favorite general aviation aircraft, his path to becoming a Gold Seal CFI, and the significance of building strong relationships with students. Whether discussing the nuances of flying with experienced students or the joy of volunteer work in aviation, Gal's stories and advice will inspire and inform.

Tune in to hear about the journey from the Israeli military to bar owner to flight instructor to medevac pilot, the unique challenges and rewards of flying in Florida, and the importance of networking and staying humble in the aviation community. "The Fly Media Podcast" is your go-to source for aviation stories, advice, and passion.

Channels mentioned for learning and inspiration:
Fly me to fun https://www.instagram.com/reel/C70LKRPOIOj/?hl=en
Pilot debrief: https://www.youtube.com/@pilot-debrief
Blancolirio channel: https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio
Pilot Mentour: https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot

Time Stamps:
00:00
Introduction and Guest's Background

01:28
Getting into Aviation and Challenges in Israel

08:31
Certifications and Challenges in Flight Training

14:17
Struggles and Tips for Flight Instructors and Students

20:43
Advice for New Pilots and Student Pilots

28:04
Favorite General Aviation Aircraft

30:28
Understanding Density Altitude and Tailwind Factors

37:04
Achievements as a Gold Seal CFI and Building Relationships

41:27
Building Relationships and Continuous Learning

42:55
Following Procedures and Knowing Where to Find Information

43:51
The Importance of Debriefing and Self-Learning

47:13
The Challenges and Rewards of Flying in Different Locations

56:22
Embracing the Journey and Enjoying the Experience

01:07:33
The Joy of Volunteering in Aviation Organizations

01:19:31
The Role of Networking in Career Advancement

Listen to the Fly Media Podcast on all major streaming platforms and catch the video version on YouTube. Don't forget to leave a review and share this episode with fellow aviation enthusiasts!

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Officialflymedia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialflymedia/


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. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce today's guest. He's a Gold Seal CFI, a distinguished flight instructor of 2024 by AOPA, and he now flies Citation Jets.

as a medevac pilot. My good friend, one of my flight instructors, Gahl Edry. Glad to be on the podcast. Thanks for coming. I'm super excited to have you on here. I know there's a lot of information, a lot to unpack. Viewers are going to learn a lot from you. We're going to cover a bunch of different things from your journey and how you got into aviation. Definitely tips for new pilots such as myself. You and I spent, I don't know, probably 80 hours sitting in a little 172 together. So we definitely got to know each other quite well.

and shared quite a few laughs along the way. Yes, you have this compilation on your Instagram. It looks like the F1 guys. Again, thank you for coming. As we dive into it, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into aviation and where your journey started? My dad was a captain on cargo ships. So travels from Africa to Europe to Asia to Australia. And when he did it, unloading a cargo ship would take

few weeks and every port he got to, actually got to travel and visit and see the culture. Well, nowadays, when you travel to a cargo on a cargo ship, you're waiting outside of the port for two months. You get in, they unload everything, they send you on your way. And I was in the Navy at the time, Israeli Navy, and I really wanted to travel the world. And slowly I understood that actually being a sailor won't give me what I imagined.

what it used to be 20, 30 years ago. And I saw a Facebook ad, the most random Facebook ad about a commercial pilot school in Israel. Now we will talk about the airspace in Israel, but usually if you want to become a pilot, you're either more flying fighter jets at the Air Force or no, like there's no civilian route and they've started a new commercial flight school. And I said, well, let me try this for like a year or


see if I like it. If not, I plan to go to study the biomedical field and I gave it a shot. did mention to me, you know, while we were together in the plane, you mentioned some of the challenges of learning to fly in Israel. What kind of planes were you flying at the time and what were some of those challenges? So we were flying Piper Archers, Warriors, which was a little bit of difference in the horsepower and the Cessna 152.

The notorious Cessna 152. Now some of the challenges. Well, the first thing is weather. At the airport that I used to fly out of and the limit was 40 degrees Celsius for the airplane, it would be 45. Now for most of you guys, I'm talking like 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. It's bumpy.

You get sick very easily. have a story about how I threw up in my commercial training. It's on the airplane itself. Our oil temperature would always be all the way up. And that's something you need to get used to. How do you manage it? How do you shorten flights and leaning the mixture, which also affects the engine temperature, all of those things. And the other thing is that we have very close borders. Now, due to

There is no VFR flight direct to destination. So in the USA, you want to fly from one point to the other. We can just go straight line. Just like IFR routes, there is a specified altitude and heading and speed limits on the route that you take. And sometimes that route can be one mile away from Jordan, one mile to the left of Egypt.

and all the way up to Syria and Lebanon. And it's like you're either flying on the route or you're violating the regulations. And if you're violating the regulations, you might get intercepted for everybody's safety. Because, you know, if your transporter goes off and you're flying half a mile away from an active border, same thing in the U .S. You have the warning zones. The only thing is that the whole airspace is a warning zone. So learning how to navigate basically

Only VFR, you have to know the points, the name of the villages, the name of the highway. You cannot just say, this is a big mountain. I think this is Mount Diablo. I'm going to pass next to it. It doesn't work that way. what you're saying is a student pilot training there is far more difficult than here. We don't have the same, you don't have the same luxuries that we have here where you can just fly willy nilly with a smile on your face, deviating from your route. Like everything's cool. my bad.

Only 30 degrees off. No problem. Let me get back. There's no GPS or RNAV because it's not used for GA, the general aviation. And also with the whole things going on in the Middle East, Russians out of Syria can intercept GPS. So you might be in Tel Aviv and it will show you that you are in Beirut, Lebanon.

The whole thing there with ISIS and Russia and Israel, there's a lot of GPS small functions. So you really don't want to rely on GPS. Wow. That's actually very interesting. Now that I fly around, you know, as a VFR pilot, I use GPS for everything. It is like a godsend. So the thought of not having that and pulling out paper charts and going, all right, looking for this town with that hill and then looking for this

That would be very challenging and very different folding up your map and you're sitting in the little one. Timer that you have to sit with a timer. So yeah, man, that's nuts. So, a little bit more about your journey. Like when you started and got into flight training, what were you doing? You know, where were you and what were you doing? You did mention to us that you were in Israel, but what were you doing at the times and what were your alternatives? So I've just

the military after three years of monetary service. And I had to figure out what do I want to do? And this opportunity came. And with that, the airport was about 300 miles away from my home. I would say like more like 250. And the challenge with that, Israel from north to south is like 300 miles. So I was like almost moving from one point to the other. And I started working in the hotel industry.

which also gave me a room to stay and food to eat. And I was going towards the customer service hotel and then I ended up becoming a bartender. Now, as far as options, I said, I want to become, I got my biomedical degree, engineering and just moving that route because I used to work with, it's funny that nowadays I work medevac, I used to volunteer in ambulances. So somehow it ended the full circle.

But I was more interested in like the medicine, medical world. And that's what, where I was heading. It's just that this random ad out of nowhere, I was never an aviation enthusiast. I never searched airplanes, show me the F -16, show me the F -15. Never really like tickled me until one day, just one thing led to another. And I said, let's give it a try. Let's give

One years, two years, I like it good. I don't like it, but just move back to university and roll forward. many other people, one day it just kind of, you saw something random and decided, wow, all right, this aviation thing sounds awesome. Let me get into it. So from there, you mentioned starting your journey. What all certifications did you get at home in Israel before you came over to the U S? So I got my private pilot. got

instrument rating, which nowadays is nearly an impossible task in Israel. And I'm going to talk about it in a second. And I got my commercial single. Now, there are two things to understand. You live in California, and as much as aviation is expensive in California, it is nearly double in Israel. Why? Because you have to ship everything or flight, including aviation fuel, airplane parts.

airplanes themselves, the whole thing has to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The other thing is how many airports did we have near the home airport we flew out of? I can count 10 in the next few seconds. Livermore, Concord, Rio Vista, Napa, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Hayward, Oakland. The list goes on. In Israel, if I'm not mistaken, there's anywhere between four five airports.

And my logbook consists of airports that don't exist anymore because they were shut down. So general aviation is very small and that basically leaves you with only two ILS approaches in the whole country. To get your instrument training, you have to practice those. And the way to practice those, you're either going to fly 200 miles away to shoot one approach. Or if you want to fly to Bangor Yon International,

You have to request by mail an hour block, usually between a month to two months in advance. They'll be like, oh, so on the 11th of August, between 12 to one, you can come to an approach. Now if it's IFR, if something happens, something's squawked, the slot is gone. You can no longer come there and practice. Wait, wait, wait. So let me get this straight. There are only two ILS approaches in the entire country.

and one of them at the international airport, as you were saying, you have to write by snail mail and submit a request one to two months in advance. Yes. Now my luck was it happened during COVID, my instrument training. So I got it a little bit expedited because nobody was flying. But the other option is to go to the other side of the country to shoot an approach. You got your certifications, those in Israel. So when you came to the US to say, okay, I want to continue my route and become

professional pilot, airline transport pilot, flying for, you know, bigger companies and companies out here. When you got here, what happened? Did any of those certifications transfer over or did you have to start from square one? So when you are doing this conversion so -called, you can come to the U S wherever you live in the world. And if you have a private pilot certificate that they can actually validate, you are getting, it's called based on.

It's a based on license so you can still fly as a PPL in the US. And if you want to get any extra certificates, then you have to do everything from scratch. So what I did, I converted my PPL to a FAI one and I got my instrument rating commercial single commercial multi CFI CF double I which is instructor for instrument students and MEI which is instructor for multi agent students now.

Usually it's multi -engine commercial, but every now and then you have this rich guy who comes in and is like, yeah, no, I just have my private pilot, but I want to fly something nice. So we just want to go get it. sounds awesome. I don't think I'll ever be in that situation. Flying multi, as you had told me, when we were flying together, you said, Hey, buying a multi is great. you plan on flying over water or mountains or things like that, you have a bit more of a backup with the second engine, but you don't go that much faster.

and you burn twice the amount of fuel. And then you also were telling me, Hey, when your engine overhaul time comes, you've got to replace two engines, not one. So you're definitely going to pay twice the amount. just doubles the cost and doubles the everything. And the benefit is not as big as people think. So if somebody were to ask me, gal, one day, if you make a few millions, what would you buy? I'm going to say something a little bit controversial. I would buy a PC 12. And you know why? Because you can buy

a citation, but the operating cost is ridiculous for the same price that you can buy a PC -12, still very fast, way more seats, way more comfortable, easier to operate, doesn't actually require type rating. You can do it a single pilot for the most part. There are many benefits, but I've talked recently with an Airbus 350 captain was also a 747 captain. And he told me one of the biggest mistakes he made is in life.

He told me his whole story, five hours. The first one was getting divorced. The second one was buying a multi -engine. Guys, 70 years. And one of his biggest mistakes in life was buying a multi -engine. Message received. So, anybody who's out there who doesn't already own a multi for thinking about getting one, and there's no real reason for it in terms of your mission and safety flying over mountains or bodies of water, stick to a single.

You mentioned you did your flight training here. You know, the things that you had to do, you had to get your instrument rating and go up from there. So only thing that transferred over was your PPL. about that, did you have any struggles or bumps in the road along the way? Yes. And yeah, there was plenty. So, and this is not only going out to students who listen to this, but also to instructors. I've met some extremely experienced pilots.

I had an instructor who was a 767 captain, 35 ,000 hours. The guy joined the Air Force when he was 18 and he didn't stop flying for the next 50 years.

Just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you know how to teach it. It goes to flight instructors, it goes to stock traders, it goes to personal coaches, it goes to football players. We all know somebody who is extremely talented that doesn't necessarily transfer to actually being a good coach, mentor, instructor. As a student,

Or as an instructor, you are either a customer. Or if you're a flying structure, that is your client. My biggest struggle moving to the US is that you move to those flight schools and there's like 15 instructors and there is always demand because there's always people trying to fly and they do you a favor by teaching you. They are taking it for granted. And as a client.

the student who was putting his life savings into that. I found myself more often than not begging for information, begging for structure. And that led to check right failures that came later on that I can still say to this day, I have to work harder to compensate for. But my biggest struggle were instructors who don't treat you as a client. They treat you as a you are another one of the students on the roster

Structure and training is something that is very important. And I'm sure you can elaborate on yourself that after every flight, you knew exactly what you need to go over, where to find it, what do you need to memorize, what do you need to work on? There would always be homework. And I think that any of my students that see this podcast can agree on one thing about me, whether they like me or not. I always do a


The most important part of flying is debrief. And my biggest struggle is that my instructors would be like, give me a log book. I signed that. And the short field was a little bit too long. They power off. You didn't flare enough. And yeah, that's not how you move forward. And not being treated as a client, having your time respected and your money respected and not having constructive

criticism combined with the debrief because I would walk home either get yelled or shouted at by an instructor. And I had 50 students never met a single student. When you tell him you fly like shit has ever improved. And if you ask me what would be with the one thing that I would have done different is, and I have done it multiple times is no to say, Hey,

This relationship doesn't work for me anymore. And take your things and leave to another instructor. There are so many good instructors that will be more than happy to take your money and give you a good experience. Nobody's doing me a favor and I don't care if they are gold seal, if they have 30 ,000 hours, if they're the only instructor in town, you should be treated with respect. And I think that's something

where most instructors fail to understand. instructors, respect your students. For students who are coming in seeking flight instruction, understand that you're paying for a service, right? So when you pay for a service, you have the right to make sure you're getting a service that works for you and that your needs are being met. Yes. And again, it's kind of like this weird relationship

I mean, the longer I keep you with me, I make more money and for most instructors, I make more hours and I had students coming to me. I think he had like 12 or 15 hours of nighttime and I was like. You haven't got your PPL. Why do you have 15 hours of nighttime? The legal requirement is across country, three hours and 10 landings. That's it and I can tell you, I think you and I did it. You can do across country.


Well, we flew to Oakdale, I think. Then you fly back. Modesto. Modesto. You bang 10 landings, you go back. And that's it. And people will say, oh, well, your student might need more experience before he goes fly at night. OK, there might be half a year gap between your flight lesson and when you actually get your pilot certificate. So and personally, I would tell all of my students you have no business flying at night unless you have your instrument rating.

That's just the way it is. because in night flying is mostly fine based on your instruments. Once you rotate, you just look inside looking outside won't give you anything. So yeah, there's so many instructors that are just trying to grab hours and move to the next part. And you can tell I believe that if you fly with somebody for like few hours, you can tell who is actually trying to become an instructor.

And who is just there for the ride to get his ATP to go work for Skywest? Definitely. I was blessed I didn't have that experience. Like I said, you were my instructor for about 80, 85 hours. And then I finished up my last 30 or so hours with Jamie. Flight training took me a very long time due to, you know, landings was something I struggled with. But I got the feeling that both of you were very invested in the training of your students. I mean, me specifically, obviously.

and I got all the help that I needed if I needed to call you with questions, if I wanted, hey, I need to go over this, the next flight, can we start with this? no problem. Let's get that dialed in so that we can move on to the next thing. So that was very, very helpful. And I definitely fully agree with the advice that you're giving there. would actually later on when we get time, I would like to talk about some of the things that you did right that help you with your flight training. Sure. We can move right into that right now as we're kind of on, you know, the flight training as a whole.

What advice would you give to new pilots or student pilots who are getting going? What were the first steps that you would say they should take? So a big one that I'm going to give, again, you've done your discovery flight to figure out you actually like it, blah, blah, blah, blah. One thing that also did that was great is when he showed up for the first lesson, he already had a common language with me.


And how is that? Because you worked for your written exam, right? Yes, there are so many things you need to learn that knowing what an altimeter is helps. What is the heading? What is taxi? What is an airport diagram? What is the checklist? Also had this understanding of like, if I say airspeed, where to look at an airplane is a very expensive class.

I heard different ways to say this. I'll say the polite way. When the engine is running, your brain is not. It's really hard to be fully focused when you're flying and most of the work is done on the ground and also showing up fully understanding and taking it seriously. People think they can just do it as a by the way. It's not going to happen. It can happen. It will be very long and very

Another thing that is a tip for new pilots is I remember the day that you called me in regards to flight training because I just had a student who left and he told me, yeah, I was told in flight school that I can get my PPL in three or four weeks.

Take your things and go to that flight school. They're probably better than me. Have realistic timeframes. Now again, depends if your goal is just to get your PPL or to get all the way to ATP. There are different routes to take 61, 141. Plan to fly at least twice a week. And then you can aim for anywhere between four months to less than a year.

Now people might say what? No, my flight training took two months and my flight training took days. No problem. I went to my check ride with 55 hours. More than the average pilot. Also, how long did you wait until you get a DP? I think we were ready in around November and I didn't get my track ride till March. So it was about four months of waiting. And during that time, you know, I may have had the hours, I may have been comfortable.


but I still had to keep flying, right? Cause these are diminishing skills. So if I took that next three months off and said, I'll just wait and I'll pick it up a few weeks before my landings would have went back to crap and I would have struggled. definitely. And again, it's things that have nothing to do with you. The airplane went down to maintenance. There's nothing you can do about it. The DPS we were, where we're living at, used to live at. We had the home examiner. The guy went for two months in Hawaii. What can I do?

Okay, another one passed away. Happens. People are old and fat. We had another guy who got his license revoked because he was such a bad DPE. There was another guy who crashed on the Seneca. I think it was not Seneca Baron 58. He crashed and got killed. within like two months, we went from having like six available DPEs to zero. So now you have to get somebody from Oregon.

My DPE who did most of my check rates came from Iowa, think. On the other side of the country, I used to live in Oregon. How did that whole thing work out? So maintenance. We had the weather. I remember the weather being like IFR for like three weeks. And let me tell you something. Right now I'm in Florida. There's a thunderstorm every single day for the last three weeks. Now, water systems in the East Coast, they move in and out fast.

In California, there is a cloud. For the next five days, there's cloud. There's nothing you can do about it. It's there to stay, and that's it. So understand that you can make plans, whether it's your budget or your timeline, add at least 25 % to it. I would agree with that wholeheartedly. And there's one more thing that I would like to use your example. Consistency.

And also we got to a point when we were flying in Livermore where your landings have been amazing. And then there was a graduation of a family member and you were off for two months. We got back, we started nailing the flights one after the other. We got back to the proficiency, got married. You need to go somewhere else. You need to plan the wedding. You need to try the suits, go get the rings. Another two months off. Then it was time for the winter.


Today it's gusting 30. So again, people ask me, what is the best time to start flight training? it winter or summer? It doesn't matter. Make sure you have the availability, at least, know, even if it's once a week, you can work it out and have your budget set. Cause I had people getting close to a check ride and just not able to complete it. Why? in Ukraine, airplane parts, that more expensive. Now the flight school wants more.

Airplanes down to maintenance. Fuel prices. Things change. DPs. How much did you pay for a checkride? My checkride, I believe, was like $900. So it's not something you want to fail and have to do again. And renting the airplane? Renting the airplane, that part was another probably two hours or so of the engine running. Maybe two and a half. So yeah, that's, another where when I was running at about 180 an hour for the 172. So give or take, you know, we're looking at about 500 bucks.

So just that it's a thousand five hundred out of the window and you need to have a budget ready for it and do your homework, do your research, go to different flight schools, get different quotes. We had in the same airport in the same city I'm living right now. There's a place I can rent an airplane, wait for one twenty seven. And on the other side, I can rent an airplane for two ninety. And I'm not talking about a serious I'm talking about the Cessna one seventy two now.

You can say glass cockpit. You can say N model, model, P model, whatever. It doesn't matter what you actually learn to fly on. I flew on Piper's, I flew on Cessna's, I flew on RV's, I flew Piper cups. The idea is the same. Like you were saying, advice wise, shop around, check out different flight schools. There's more to it than just cost. There's, you know, finding an instructor that you mesh well with because you guys are going to be sitting

you know, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder in the plane. It might be hot and warm for quite some time. So I definitely think those are important things to look into. Yeah. Awesome. So we've kind of gotten into some of your certifications, some of your challenges. talked about flying different airplanes and aircrafts. What are you like your favorite general aviation aircrafts? So we have friends with 172s and more knees and all that. A really nice airplane.


is something called a Stokala Trinidad. It's a TB -20. Now this airplane has a lot of oomph and it's kind of like under the radar as far as US flying. I will say the maintenance can get a little bit tricky because they import parts from France. But the best airplane that I recommend to get is an RV -7 or an RV -9. Why would you say the RV -7 or 9? You get so much airplane for such a little

So first of all, flying tailwheel, if you haven't got the chance to do it, every landing is so rewarding and so much fun. Like I would never get tired of flying tailwheel aeroplanes. The other thing is so much performance. So even though the engine is not 300 horsepower, the aeroplane itself is so light and you can get glass cockpit and you have the canopy. you have

It's another experience of flying. You're flying like an airplane where you say, this is so much airplane. I won't say it can pull some Gs, but you can have a lot of fun with it if you actually want to pull your limits a little bit. And maintenance is cheap. The airplane itself is cheap. Yes, you cannot carry all of your four friends. Honestly, on a 172, if it's a more than AC temperature day, you probably can take four guys anyways.

Your friends are too fat and you can't take them all. So might as well fly a two -seater. Get somewhere nice. Mentioning flying around in the 172, that makes me think when we flew to airport day in Rio Vista with my wife Tatum. It was the three of us. We had full fuel. The useful load on the plane we were flying was just over 900 pounds. So we were well within limits. But I remembered when we were flying back, I've got the controls, my wife's in the

You're sitting next to me, obviously, because I'm still a student at this time. So I'm technically not allowed to fly people. So was just instructional and she was with us. And you looked over at me kind of crazy, like, hey, man, what we missing? heck's going on here? Like, what are you doing? Like, why are we, why are we shaking and going like this? Like the plane's dancing. And I'm like, hey, man, it's not me. I'm not doing anything. You're like, my controls. You take the controls. I'm like this looking at you like, what's going on? You're sitting there like, I don't know. Finally, we look back and Tatum's in the backseat and she's just.


She was busting. Having the time of her life. Bro, that was so funny. She and I talked about the other day when she was on the podcast. It was quite funny. And I was looking, I was like, I was like, is the weighting balance fine? Why are we barely moving? And it was just a warm day. We were nowhere near the maximum of the airplane. But remember, whenever you're doing the paper calculations, this is when the airplane was brand new in 1972.

It's been over 50 years since you're not going to get the same performance. I don't care how much, oh, they 20 horsepower to the engine. No bullshit. So take the performance of the airplane with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to service ceiling. Good luck taking the 152 to 14 ,000

I don't know how high you can get up with those things. think there was somebody that I follow. think it's a fly me to fun on Instagram. They own a little blue and silver 172, I'm sorry, 152. And they were flying it trying to see if they can get it up to I think 11 ,000 feet or so. They did it, but they explained that yeah, it definitely took some time. Did you and I fly from Lake Tahoe? No, we never ended up making the Tahoe flight. That's one at the top of my list. I do want to go up there at some point, I think.

I'll have to do it maybe in the spring or fall after summer heat, but I'll definitely ask you for some recommendations on how to make it happen. Yeah. So that's a good time for storytelling. are two things you need to keep in mind. I had a student who want to fly from Rio Vista. Now Rio Vista is about sea level to Lake Tahoe. It was a warm day. It was like 80 degrees and the density altitude was about 8 ,000 feet. Now for those of you who don't know when you can open the chart of Lake

The runway itself is long, but there's also this less threshold before that. You can really use the whole like 10 ,000 feet of runway. And if you look at the Piper Archer POH, you see that somewhere around 7 ,000, 8 ,000 feet of density altitude, the takeoff goes from a slow line to nearly vertical line, which basically means it doesn't matter how much runway you're to have, you're not going to rotate.

I had days where you take off from Lake Tahoe and there's trees in the end of the runway. If you don't pitch for VX, you're flying to the trees. So people say, VY, all that. If you don't go to VX and you are barely making 200 feet per minute, you're not getting out of there. And you have to go a certain way because if you go the other way, you're flying to the mountains. So you're like, where do I prefer to crash? Into the mountains or into the

Usually it's towards the lake and you better hope that there is no tailwind. That's another thing to keep in mind. yes, and a big tip for the IFR guys, especially Lake Tahoe, if you want to check the charts, just because you can land somewhere doesn't mean you can take off from there. And you can land a 172 in Lake Tahoe, no problem. Can you follow the instrument departure? You need to climb 700 feet per mile. At 6 ,000 feet?

you're not really going to get it. So something to keep in mind. Density altitude is a real factor. And I remember during our training, one of the things that you mentioned to me, said, Hey, you want to understand how tailwind works and how it makes your takeoff distances or landing distances far more insane. Pull up the P .O .H. And even jets, you don't take off with more than 10 knots of tailwind. And I'll add another thing on that is people don't figure out when you think 10 knots of headwind

It doesn't change your performance by that much as far off lending. You look at your POH, it's like 10, 20%. As a tailwind, 50 % more. So, and what's going to happen is that you're like, am I about to rotate? Am I rotating? What's going on? I haven't rotated yet. No, that's definitely interesting. That came up on my checkride. One of the questions he asked was calculate your takeoff and landing distances here at Concord. Here's the weather and here's the wind.

And the only thing he looked for out of all the questions he gave me was, did you pay attention to that tailwind factor? If you didn't calculate that right, then he knew my math would have been off and he would have checked every other answer. He checked that one and saw that I did it and calculated it. He goes, if you can do that, I know you can do everything else right, no problem. And we prepared for it. We talked about it before. Exactly. We definitely talked about it. As somebody who had over 10 check rights, guys,

If you answered, you've prepared for months, you know everything by memory and you want to flex on the DPE. If the DPE says you're good, shut up. You are not trying to impress anyone by showing more knowledge. I ask you something. You answered me, shut up. And I had on my multi -engine instructor check, right? I was mid answer and it's like next. And if he says that I raised the board and you move forward. And well, actually I had a friend, he thought he was a smart ass

He's talking about ML, the minimum equipment list. And he said, well, we don't have one, but the 737 has four compasses and then you can only fly with two gyros instead of having the whole three gyros. The guy in front of him is the captain of a 737 in United for the last 20 years. And he looks at him, he's like, why did you say that? Like you barely have 200 hours, you never touched a 737 in your life.

Why do you start talking about the MEL of a 737? You know, that's a rabbit hole. So just keep it safe. You know your shit. Say what you got to say and move on. Yeah, that's great advice. As somebody who talks a lot, that is something that I struggled with during my checkride prep sessions. All the oral mock check rides that I did with you and Jamie. Jamie was like, you, stop, shut up, shut up. Don't go into anything else. Just so finally I was like, all right, I'd give my answer and I'd be quiet.

If the DPE wants more, what are they going to do? They will ask you. They're going to ask you to elaborate, right? So don't offer up free information. Kind of moving forward into, you know, your career as you advanced, you know, you yourself are a gold seal CFI as well. did receive that designation of distinguished flight instructor of 2024. You know, what, do you think led to being able to achieve and receive those designations? So I'm going to talk about it as an instructor.

point of view. for those who don't know, Gold Seal CFI is something you get from the FAA if you had more than 80 % pass rate for 10 students. And for me, I've failed multiple check rides. Now I will say for the guys who actually want to become commercial pilots, two strikes, two check ride failures is fine. Three, it starts getting a little bit more sticky. Maybe if you're a CFI, you can work through it. If you have more than three check ride failures,

It's going to be hard. And unfortunately for me, I have more than three checkride failures. I can tell you that it stopped me from getting jobs that I really wanted to. But how do you move forward from checkride failures? And that's something that I took for myself as a mission. If I failed my instrument checkride, which I did, I became CFWI, because I'm going to be an expert in that subject. And I failed my multi -engine.

I became an MEI. I'm going to become an expert. And let me tell you something. Out of my 141 students, none has ever failed their instrument check, right? Out of my part 61 multi -engine, none of them have failed their check, right? So the point is, as an instructor and as a student, you know your weak points. Work on them. Don't avoid them. So for me, becoming a gold seal CFI was, I felt my CFI check, right? I was

I must be the best CFI that I can be. So to do that, you have to really become involved with your students. I showed up for their check rides. I gave them multiple preps. I sent them to another instructor. You give them the overtime. There's no way you're going for a check ride without checking the Intel on your examiner. Somebody flew with them before. Some examiners have some really weird perks.

and tricks and people say, you're supposed to know everything. Okay. And tell me everything about aviation. It doesn't work this way. Some of them have a little bit more emphasis about certain acronyms. Some of them are more about flight planning and it's easier to prepare. Now, my biggest way to do that. If you're a student and I'm saying the word ACS, you don't know what that means. Give your instructor a phone call.

What is the ACS also? The ACS are basically the Airman Certification Standards. Yes, and this is your checklist for checkride. Those are topics that they must review. So in order for me to have high pass rate for my students, think out of the 50 students that I had, all of the failures combined were less than my failures. So the main way to do it is to really sit down with your students and make sure they

fully aware of all the subjects, where to find the material. It's okay not to know things, but know where to find it. Don't try to bullshit your way out of it. Now, as far as the AOPA, while the gold seal is more about, did your students pass the check right or not, the AOPA survey for the front instructor of the year is, and you filled one of those, it's basically a questionnaire about how do you feel about your CFI?

I cannot tell which student put out what and it has to be multiple students. And for me, it was important because as a student, I check right. So I had to become a goal to CFI. I had to prove to myself that I can do it because it's like this little dark cloud that stayed over my career and I had to push through it. When it comes to the distinguished file instructor, I did not have a really good relationship with my instructors because

I was frustrated. I was unhappy. I was treated as a money bag or a way to build time. And it was really important for me to build a relationship that is close with my students. Now they are still clients. And when it came to relationship, I can tell you also can testify by himself. We would spend, we would go to dinners. I met his parents. He met my parents, went to this wedding. We went to LA one time.

There are flights where also says you can sense with me. I don't like it when it's 100 degrees in the airplane. Everybody gets pissed and sometimes when it's the 10th lesson in a row where you're all landing suck. And you know, sometimes I would have to tell awesome. You know exactly what you did wrong and we talked about it last time. And when the blame is on yourself. They are going to be tensions, but. It was important for me to have my students understand

They're first of all clients. I respect them. I respect their time. I respect their efforts. And on top of that, to have good relationship with them. I nowadays, I have three students who became CFIs in the same flight school that we flew out of and they still call me and I'm happy with that. I had a student, Misha, which we can put a flag for his YouTube channel. And the guy had more flight hours than me when we started. And that's a challenge. You're going to have


Students with more experience than you. I had 400 hours, the guy had like 700. How do you compete with that? I had students who tried to challenge me. They're like, but my instructor told me this and he has 2000 hours and you have 400. What do you know? The best tool as an instructor is know where you got the information from. I heard that or I was told that is not an answer. And also I can testify. If I tell

something he knows where to find it. If you have for flight, you have every single publication of the FAA. It's all there. It's all written and you see that in airplane accidents where somebody says, I have my way of doing this. Ignore the checklist. I come on guys. There's been millions of flight hours put into this procedure.

And you're the one guy who fly the airplane 5 ,000 hours. You know better than every single pilot who ever flew this airplane and the manufacturer. Right. A big thing with, you know, pilots and issues is hubris. People kind of, you know, feel, I guess, entitled or become know -it -alls as they become comfortable sometimes. One of the biggest things when we were flying together that I really appreciated was your emphasis on safety. I remember there was a day when we were taking off

We had just done our run up and we took off and something wasn't right. The engine wasn't climbing like it was supposed to. The power wasn't right. And we're both looking like, what's the issue? Said, my flight controls. And then you read, you know, you're going through the checklist and you reach over to check the magnetos. And we noticed it was on left as opposed to both. So after checking them, I guess I clicked it back over to left and didn't click it back over to both. You want, you know what? We're going to turn back around. We're going to land this and cancel the flight because I don't want this to linger in your mind.

and ruin the rest of your flight. You I don't want mentally you not to recover from this during this particular flight. Let's go back down, put it on the ground. We can talk about it and plan for the next flight. And I think that was at the time I was like, oh no, no, I'm good. But thinking about it, I think that 100 % was the right and safe thing to do. So I definitely appreciate that. Thank you. And it's annoying because you didn't work that day and you drove to the airport and you made plans and you know, for flight instructors.


You only get paid when the engine is running. So I'm like, well, the flight was 0 .2. I just made a quarter of an hour pay. Okay, but are you here for the short run or you actually care about your students? That's a question that needs to be asked. And I think that throughout our flying experience, you learn from each other and you learn new things and you learn that some things that you've done are good and some of them are bad. And yes, they're going to be self -debrief even as a flying instructor.

And I think those are the things where I sat down with myself and said, what are the things that bothered me in training that I can do better? What are the things that I did? Well, my instructors did well. And I think this art of debriefing, if there's one thing I want people to take from this interview and those who flow with me can testify. Debriefing is an art in everything in life.

debriefing whether you are a professional athlete, are you know probably better than me. And debriefing if you do relationships, you can learn from every single interaction that you have. And debriefing from my word making cocktails. What was good? What was bad? What can I keep the art of self learning is a never ending journey. But it's always worth it. And me.

I can say about stock trading, I've been doing it for nearly five years. If you don't learn to sit down and learn from your mistakes and learn from the right things, know, sometimes every flight we had, tell Ossa, okay, what did you do right? And sometime he will nail that. And I said, I have nothing to add, write it down. So not only debriefing, writing it down, keeping it on record and hold yourself accountable. It's something you did. It was amazing. I cannot compliment enough

before every flight, you would have the last two, three flights and you would review that. Once you drive home, you'll forget what we talked about in the debrief. And in Hebrew, say the opposite of forgetting is writing things down. I'm gonna use that when I talk more about checklists. We talked a little bit about your professional experience as a CFI. Now you are flying as a medevac pilot. How many hours do you have and what part of the country are you flying out


So I'm currently approaching 1700 hours, which let me tell you, once you start flying part 135, you are no longer begging 100 hours a month. And actually my hardest month, I think it was July of last year, I flew about 140 hours. And I would be happy if you can actually show that on for flight. We flew from Concord, California.

to Bend, Oregon to Walla Walla, Washington and back. And by the way, just for clarification, another is a CFI because CFIs have a limit of eight hours per day. Yeah. I didn't know that. So the FAA, if you're watching, you're not going to get, catch me. see me. You're not going to take me down anyways. So nowadays I fly about 20 hours a month and I'm flying out of Tampa, Florida.

very challenging experience as we talked about before where the weather is different. So weather systems come and go while in the West Coast, because you have more terrain and mountains, it kind of blocks the weather that comes from the ocean and it just gets stuck there for sometimes weeks at a time, usually cold fronts. And here it's more common to have thunderstorms. So while I had problems flying in Oregon in the winter where it would be icy and

If I was flying a Cessna out of here, every day is a thunderstorm. So it's kind of, it's tricky like in the summer. So again, that's why I say when you look into flight training, you can say, I can start in the summer, I can start in the winter, I can do Florida, I'll do Arizona. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter as much as people put emphasis into it. Just know that California is expensive. Shocking news. If you didn't know, California is an expensive state. And I'm telling this.

to I know some of my students are going to watch it and foreigners, et cetera. And when you're making those decisions, remember that whatever you can get in California, you can get in Florida or Texas or Arizona for cheaper. Now, again, if you live in the US with your family, that's one thing, but you're going to be surprised how big the market is for foreign pilots in the US because the aviation here is so much better. I know everybody likes to complain about the FAA, but yeah,


Nowadays, I'm flying the jet out of Tampa and we do medevac flights. Now, let me break down a little bit the routes that a pilot can go once they want to go commercial. So let's say you've been a CFI, you've done the jump pilot or some unique survey jobs that 1 % of the pilots actually get. There are a few routes. There is a part 121, what you know as airlines. Now it can be both cargo, can be

It can be the low cost carriers, whatever. Everything that has a schedule is a 121. 135, which is charter or on demand. So, and I like to give this example and let's say you're a rich guy like John Travolta. He owns both a 707 and a 747. He flies the 747 by himself or with a crew, but it's for him. That's a part 91.

If he was to charter it for other people to use, it would be a 135. If he says, guy, the airplane is leaving Connecticut tomorrow at 12, buy your tickets. Now we schedule it's part 121, even though it's the same airplane flying the same route, different regulations to be first officer in a part 121, 1500 hours for part 135, 500 for part 91, Wild

You can have 100 hours and fly like again, insurance will mess with you. But yeah. So the route that I picked is a little bit different. Medevac flights are part 135. And the most of our job is for what I do is organ and transfer. So when somebody passes away and their organs can still be used for somebody else.

The problem is that Oregon sometimes have a four hour, six hour, eight hours window where you can still use them. And to transfer them, we had a flight to New York city yesterday, New York city to Tampa took us about two hours, two and a half hours. So what we would do is we'll pick up the medical team, take them there. They will do the Oregon harvesting. We'll put it back, fly back. And if it goes to the hospital,


And you know, that can be somebody's grandpa, somebody's mom, somebody's child that actually gets to live another 10, 20, 50 years. And you know, it's always unfortunate when I get called, you're like, somebody just died or is about to die, but somebody's else lives might change for the better. And it has a little bit more purpose in it. I will say it's not a high time building job.

It's good for scheduling. depending on what kind of job you get, you get to spend most of the nights back home because you would go take the Oregon, bring it back and then spend the night. There are so many unique ways you can be going the cargo route where you're gone for 17 days a month, where you can be home every night. So I decided to take this Medevac route because I was always passionate about the medical field. And it gave me an opportunity to fly a little bit of 135 before I commit to

20, 30, 40 years career in a 121. And I'm happy I did it. You learn a lot because you actually get to make decisions. And as a medevac pilot, you always have priority over other airplanes. it's not about the most efficient flight. It's the most, let's get to the destination. Okay. fly fast, fly efficient. You still have to be safe. And there is a fine margin. It's a PPL. You can say,

Water is bad, I don't want to fly. When you have a mission, so there's a big area of safety. And as your proficiency grows, the margin between staying professional and staying safe gets smaller. And you have to make decisions based on that. Now, part of the benefits of a jet, you can climb to 45 ,000 feet. So a thunderstorm is not a matter of left or right. Sometimes you can go above it, but then

There are so many changing variants and you don't do the same route. One day we're in Texas, one day we're in New York City, one day we're in Cleveland, Ohio. It's a nice challenging environment and I like it. I like it. It's like for me, it's like general aviation because I get to fly to different airports every day. I go have dinner while the team harvest the organ with the company's credit card. So it's challenging. It's refreshing.


Will I do it forever? Probably not, but I think it's an important chapter in my aviation career. you're telling me you get paid to fly an airplane, have a hundred dollar burger on the company dime. I wish it was a hundred dollars, but we'll keep it that way. Right. man, I can only imagine how much fuel you guys burn and the cost of flying those Citation jets. Yes. By the way, the nice thing about citations, I'm going to say something controversial. It's kind of like the Cirrus.

When they met, and again, they will tell you that the OG Citation Pilots is that it was made for pilots. So you can think about it as like rich clients who actually want to fly the airplane, which is like Cirrus. Cirrus was made for pilots, usually like rich people who just want to fly the airplane. The Citation is so easy to operate. I can teach a monkey how to fly it. Like it's not that complicated as people think it

There are airplanes that are a little bit more tasking, but it is so easily made and simple and it just make it easier for the pilot. So it was a very quick and easy transition for me. Yeah, because let's be honest, whatever is going to be my next airframe, I'm going to spend like at least a decade of my life flying it. So more challenges to come and more growth. So as you continue in your professional career and pilots in general,

from Medevac pilot, then what do people typically do? You mentioned 121. So that's like flying for the airlines? Yes. So for me, my goals is to actually get some captain experience under the Medevac operation. Again, let's see how if this interview age well. There is something I want to mention for the pilots listening to this, especially the one that inspired to be commercial pilots. When I was a CFI and you fly every day and it's 100 degrees.

You're like, I just did another pattern and another part. And your students are like showing up full energy. Let's go do 10 touch and goes. And you're like, this is the fifth time I'm going for 10 touch and goes today. And then you're like, I can't wait until I fly a jet. And then you go fly a jet and you're like, I can't believe I have to fall asleep on the couch at the FBO for the next three hours and eat again, fast food. And then you get to the airline and you have.


An eight hours flight where you turn on the autopilot and you're fighting your life not to fall asleep. There is always something nicer and faster and better paid and something that I regret throughout my flight training. And I put a giant emphasis with my students and we had it before your solo cross country and have fun. Embrace the journey. Nobody becomes a pilot because they don't like

people go become an accountant. they get a lawyer, I can make money, they become a medical doctor for different reasons. Nobody becomes a pilot. Because don't like it. Because somebody forced them to. I know like maybe one scenario or two, but it usually doesn't last very long. You do it out of passion. Don't let flight training become a task that you hate another way to mark a check. And I had a hard time before I moved to

US where I was contemplating whether I want to this career because I had my business, but I know the US has a better market. And I had a fun instructor who was going through divorce and he had two kids and didn't really get to see them. And I asked him, like, how can you fly when you have so many things like dwelling on you and, and like, how do you have the capacity to deal with that? And he's like, what do mean? Flying is my fun. Flying is my therapy.

flying is what keeps me going and doing that. And he said, just because you've been through so much flight training, you forgot that you actually like it. So I say, yes, it might be a few extra hundred dollars. Go take the airplane, go fly to a new airport, go somewhere new, join a friend on the flight. Even if you can't log the flight, experience it. I can tell you some of the experiences we'll talk about later.

are things I've done for fun. for me, getting my tailwheel endorsement was so much fun. I had a blast. And we've been talking about it to get our seaplane rating. Because sometimes we forget why we're doing it. And those are the rare flights. It's not the flights where you flew to the lowest minimums. And it's not the strongest wind that you landed.

It's those little experiences that remind you why you're doing it and how much fun and how much also look at you like two years ago, if I told you, you'll be flying an airplane with your wife. You'll be like, that's amazing. That's so much fun. And if you, if you told me five years ago, I'm going to fly a jet in the UA, I'm going to fly to New York city. Amazing. I'm going to get paid more than $20 an hour. Amazing. But sometimes being your pilot.

part of being a pilot is complaining and that's fine. But just remember, there's always a positive in this journey. You know, even when my scheduling calls me 3am and I curse them in five different languages, I say, I'm going to save somebody's life today. I get to do the job that I like. I like flying airplanes. It's a blessing. It's and I'm very fortunate to do this

Enjoy this. You're going to see so many grumpy pilots and you're like, but nobody's forcing you. Why are you grumpy? Right. Or grumpy dispatchers. we're not throwing shade, but we both know the grumpy dispatchers. And if any of my students see this, you can comment the names down below. Don't be shy. Don't be shy. That's too funny. But you're right. like I say all the time, you

the, having the ability to fly or as I, as we call it in aviation, having a license to learn. It's a blessing. I fly different places with friends and family for lunch, flew my wife down South for her birthday, a surprise birthday party. And it's just amazing experiences that most people would say that they don't get to experience. So don't take it for granted. There are clear skies ahead. and stay motivated. One of the words that you use that, really resonated with me was the word passion.

that's something that definitely helped me to push and fight through the struggles that I had in flight training. I'm telling you, you can attest, there were times where my landings went horribly that I regressed. They went back to shit and they'd be like, all right, the next hundred landings is going to be God awful. Here we go. And it was literally the next hundred landings were terrible. And then they'd get good and they'd be good for awhile. And if I would stay with flight training and not take a long break, they'd continue to be good. So,

Sometimes you've got to fight through it and think about why you're doing it, what your goals are. For me, I just want to be a private pilot, fly around and have fun. $100 burger, weekend getaway trips, flying to different airports and seeing different places. So figure out what your mission is and use that as motivation and inspiration. Where is it only $100?

I guess the term just never changed, you know, as the pricing is more like a five. It's more like a $500. The food itself runs up to maybe 50, 60 bucks and the flying it's an hour or so each way at 180. So you're looking at minimum, probably 600 bucks. That's the reality of situation. But the $600 burger doesn't have the same ring. You know what mean? For the guys who fly instrument, you know, and even the PPLs, if you mess with the avionics, you have an option going between

navigation based on GPS and based on VOR or ILS. And that button that switches it called CDI. And they call it the $200 button, which sometimes people would fail instrument check rights because they forgot to change it from GPS to VOR.

Right? What check right? It's the thousand dollar button. I paid $1600 for my flight. would love to have been flying when the costs that were associated with these terms were a thing. Right? $100 burger was real and that's what it cost. Flying must have been amazing. You can rent a Cessna for 10 bucks. Wet? Like what? Are you kidding me? I met a pilot the other day that said that when he started flying, he could rent a Cessna for $10 wet. So we flew one hour every morning at 7 a

I'm like, yo, you're living the life. That's 100 % what I would do. I would fly every day. know, with that information, we're kind of just going to pivot a little bit and we'll talk about some of your volunteer experience. You only fly and give or take around 35 hours a month. So that gives you some other free time. Um, and there are some organizations that you've been getting involved in. Do you want to talk a little bit about those? Yes. So something we had in Concord and in California is young Falcons. And if there are any parents listening, maybe it can work for


There are certain, it's young falcons and there's like young eagles and different kinds of things where basically kids fly for free. And nowadays I volunteer in a similar organization, which is an infinity Aero Club out of North Tampa airport. And the idea is exposing kids to STEM, but also to aviation. And for two reasons. The first one is

That kid might not even been aware that he's capable of ever becoming a pilot. Most people, I tell them I'm a pilot and they're like, well, did you go to the Air Force? No. I didn't know that was a thing. And many pilots, they remember the first time they went on the airplane and they were five or you might ignite a spark in somebody and lead them to an aviation career or just show them that they can.

I used to be a surfing instructor and for those kids who got to catch their first wave their whole life, everybody told them that they're a failure in school. They never get to accomplish anything and they've just conquered something. Once you understand that you're able and you can, it might change the kid life. So we got to basically take kids for free rides on the airplane, let them experience a little bit, play with it a little bit, make them feel seen. No, for some of those

they might never to get any experience. They don't go to the park, they don't go ride a roller coaster, and this might be the best day they had this year. I think, and again, somebody got to pay for it. And I think volunteering is my time as a pilot, allows to lower the cost and let others experience the great joy of aviation. So that's something I've been affiliated with. And there is my dog story. There is a great.

group of pilots called and pilots and pause where people own airplanes basically let others and use their airplane as a mode of transport for dogs. So my dog, Mr. Skipper was a rescue dog where he got found in the woods in the middle of Florida and was moved to West Palm beach and he couldn't handle it there and they had to fly him nearly 200 miles and they actually had a fun story where he broke the crate.

mid -flight, start running around the cockpit and I had to do some kind of an emergency landing. There are so many ways to volunteer in aviation that I highly recommend. If you want to become a better pilot and if you just want to volunteer in general, look for the nearest way to volunteer in aviation near you. There might be different kinds of ways, even if you're not a pilot, the more you get to deal and work with aviation, you're going to become better in aviation and it's very satisfying.

I get a lot of comments from the kids or the parents. And if you ever want to be happier in life, volunteer, go somewhere, do something you feel. People say, what's up for me? I can tell you that by volunteering, you get more yourself than you're giving, even though you get nothing in return. It's an amazing experience. Well, thank you. think I myself, I'm going to have to look into some of the organizations here. I know there is one similar.

to pilots and pause that's operated here. The woman operates out of Rio Vista. So I'm gonna dive a little bit more into that and hop on the phone with her soon. Maybe even have her on the podcast to explain a bit more about how our organization works and how, you know, local pilots in the Bay area, myself included, can get involved. Now that we've talked about your professional experience, your volunteer experience, let's talk about some of, you know, your fun experiences, some of your most memorable flights. Okay, so there are...

few that comes to mind, but I'm going to start with the one that was the most special.

You mentioned about the landings where you had 100 landings that you tried so hard. I think my logbook has 2000 landings, but there is the one I remember the most. So I was flying my girlfriend at the time to a place called Half Moon Bay. And if you guys want to do it, it's a little and half Island. Later that day I proposed to her where she became my fiance and we flew back home as the engaged couple. When we landed

She said something that I'll never forget. So I flare, I go idle, I touch down. Then she looks at me and she's like, did we land? When did we land? That was the most buttery landing ever. And I was like, you know, she doesn't need to know how many times I bounced, how many times I broke down the landing gear. It's that one landing where she's like, did we land? I didn't notice anything.

Amen, smooth like butter on my toast. Yes. That's awesome. Special one. Another one that was done just after I got my PPL was flying my dad. I took him on the Israeli coastline where you can only fly 500 -day GL, which is crazy because some of the cliffs are taller than that. So you're just flying over the water. And if you lose an engine, you got like 10 seconds and you're on the beach.

And I got to fly him all the way from the hometown where we grew all the way up above his high school, which for some people, like they never thought they're going to fly an airplane with their son over their high school. And we got to basically see all of the places where he grew up and the whole experience was really nice. And you know, your parents and your friends, they don't see the whole journey. They see the result. And if those flights were like, they don't know what you know, they don't know what you don't know, but you still.

able to give them a good, safe, fun experience. That's worth a lot. Then I said, I'm going to tell the story about the medical. So we were flying over the Dead Sea. Now we're going to pull up the plate of a MESADA airport, which is the lowest airport in the world. I think it's about minus 200 feet, which is funny because when you descend, altimeter starts going backwards. So the pattern altitude is like nearly

and then the altimeter starts going backwards. Now you can obviously think about the density altitude is negative, so the performance is top notch. Tits. I'm sure some of you have seen that there is like in some airplanes you have this like little cable that connects to a little mic that you have in the middle of the cockpit and we probably you've kicked it multiple times but you never got to play with it.


This little mic connects to the speaker. So we're flying over the Dead Sea on the border between Jordan and Israel. Me and my friend are just bored. And I pick it up and I'm like, ladies and gentlemen, and you can hear from speaker. So everything you say becomes more base. So you're flying and you speak and it sounds like more radio. And the whole area is military frequency. So it's very quiet. Nobody talks at it. And I'm

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just lost our engines. Mayday, mayday. We're gonna go land on the beach. The whole thing. You know, we're just playing on the radio, right? The reason this mic exists is in case your headphones fail, you can communicate with ATC and you can hear yourself from the speaker. So for the last five minutes, I'm talking shit on the radio and it's transmitting to the military frequency and nobody says everything. So I'm on

an active border, military frequency. And I'm like, ladies and gentlemen, today we're to go have some stakes for American. And then, know, I'm talking for like five minutes and then they go, the frequency is like, you know, we can all hear that. Right. Now is that quiet? I was like, can I request frequency change? They're like, approve. I was I'm not staying on this frequency anymore. Bro, that's crazy.

They let me go for like 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Talk about a Southwest moment. Doom. Want to get away? You know, in the U .S. people, they view on frequency. We went the whole 15 minutes. It was giving me the performance of my life. Man, you were going. This was your 15 minutes of fame. I had to move to the U .S. That's hilarious. I was like, I can no longer fly here. Oh, that's why you moved. Yeah, we were just playing. You know, because sometimes people talk in the airplane. didn't realize this button was transmitting.

Nobody ever told me that. So if there's anybody out there, do not press the button because it will transmit outside. talked about, you know, the importance of clearly knowing your aircraft and the way everything works, i .e. your radios and which things do and don't transmit. Don't play around all willy nilly. Do you have any more recommendations in terms of like study material or resources or a favorite book? And don't say the far end. That damn thing is too heavy.

So as previously mentioned, all of the books that are relevant, you have them on four flights. Get your ground training for the written exam before you start flying. It will help you so much. Always review the debriefs from your last flight before you actually go flying, because then it's going to be fresh in your mind. And we even used to practice at UNI where you go for a landing and you say, just one thing, I'm going to change this landing.

This time, I'm going to flare a little bit earlier. Always look for those small improvements. And as I talked about in volunteering, surround yourself with aviation. There are some great YouTube channels like Pilot DeepRief, a great source of usually accident investigation. There's the Long Collegial channel, which is also a California based. Great information.

The more you can surround yourself by hearing ATC, learning aviation, you can never know too much. There is a pilot mentor, also a great channel. So much I'm learning from there every single day. That's great advice. I'm going to make sure to link those down below in the show notes. Find other people that are doing the same thing as you and learn from each other. Join others debrief, review the material

It's very hard to progress in the aviation world without having somebody that is doing the same things. There are Facebook groups, communities, forums, other. I used to have my students talk with each other. Hey, this is Billy. This is Kyle. Get to know each other. Get to talk a little bit. Transfer information. You know, that's. That's the most cost efficient way. And if you're starting flight training and you're flying two or three days a week, you have no business quitting your

I know some people like, I'm doing five training twice a week. So I quit my job to job. You don't need it. You generally do not need it. Don't overcomplicate things. So, and as we said before, enjoy it, have fun, hold yourself accountable, hold your instructor accountable, do your homework. The best way to make progress in the air is on the ground. Awesome. That's amazing advice. So before we land the plane and end this episode.

There's a new segment I want to start kind of a rapid fire questions. So first up, I'm just going to shoot it out there. You give me your answer. What's your favorite aviation related app or tool? Best money spent for flight. And if you ever want to become commercial pilot, use the digital log book. had 1500 hours where I had to copy flights from five years ago. Go figure out what approach I showed. Go figure out how many landings I did on that flight. So thank you. That's another golden

Use the digital log book if you want to become an airline pilot. If you could fly any aircraft, past or present, what would it be? That's a good

I would say the Boeing 757, they are slowly retiring those, but that's a piece of an airplane. They put so much power on such a little airframe. Every pilot that I met that got to flight at 75 only has good things to say about it. What's your favorite in -flight snack? It's tricky. I have to go with those sour gummies worms. You know what I'm talking about?

The Charlie sour gummy worms? Yes, those ones. Those ones are really good. And I I once flew at 11 ,000 feet and I ate an apple and you're like, you know, Apple is organic. can like throw it off the forest, right? Don't open windows when you're flying at 11 ,000 feet. The pressure change is so strong that everything in the cockpit would just fly out. Bye bye Apple. The apple stayed. I actually ended up throwing it in the trash can.

Don't open the window when it's minus 20 degrees that you're flying 11 ,000 feet. It's not a good idea. So what is your favorite airport or FBO? Easily by far the best airport is Schotter Cove in the West Coast, California. Now for those of you want to look it up, it's zero, Quebec five. And good luck finding a good day where it's not fully eye father. There's a restaurant in the field.

It's called Gyppo Ale milll and I'm probably butchering the name. They have the best brownies and ice cream and everything on their menu is amazing. Well, first of all, the airport is 3 ,400 feet. Doesn't give you very much. And the airport is on the ocean. So come again, you're going from a 3 ,000 foot cliff to the ocean and you can show the video. There's basically, if you're losing an engine, you're going

And if you overshoot the runway, you're going down and the biggest challenge with this airport is that I had students. We were just eating a burger. In five minutes you can go full IFR the fog of the West Coast just pulls in and before you know it, it's IFR and you cannot take off. You cannot land and there's no and there's no 80s. There's no A was there's nothing there. So we had one time that many students were sitting there eating in the restaurant and I'm

Japan, go get the bill. I'm running to the airplane to start it. And within like two minutes we had to take off. Like lucky for us, the oil was still warm because if we waited another two minutes, we would have been completely stuck there the whole night. So, but again, if you live in California and you get a chance, Sherbet Cove is the most beautiful, amazing airport I've ever been to. Very special. All right. So last question before we close, what would you

advice to a new pilot who's decided, hey, I want to go down the career path of becoming, you know, airline transport pilot. 100 % network. Network, network, network. You never know. I have students who became airline pilots before me. have instructors who their instructor pulled them to a different company and the amount of advice, knowledge.

You never know where you might circle back to someone. Just stay humble, make friendships, exchange numbers. These field there's so much knowledge that can be transferred from one another. And as a pilot, we are always happy to share information, share knowledge, learn from each other. And the only way to do that is by being humble. I've learned from people with 50 hours.

I had students with 7 ,000 hours that learned from me. There's always more knowledge to know and the more you make friendships, connections, volunteer. You never know. You see somebody old in the airport pushing an airplane, go give them a hand. You see somebody stuck with their fuel and farm, go give them a hand. Sometimes it's that opening a door, it can lead you to a whole adventure.

Where can viewers find you on social media? What are your social media links? So I've just launched a new YouTube channel called Get Better. I'm going to be commenting on the podcast, so you might be able to find it there. And yeah, that's where I post most of the stuff. If there will be any demand for aviation content, we might see some aviation content. And I'm sure that you and I will get to feature a video on your channel sometime soon. Awesome. Thank you. So Get Better, again, that'll be down linked below in the show notes.

so that you guys can keep up and follow up with Ghaul and see what he's up to. So as we land the plane and we call this thing a wrap, I want to thank you guys for listening. I want to thank you Ghaul for coming and being on the show. There's definitely lots of knowledge shared. I learned about, you know, tips for further training, tips to become a professional pilot. We shared laughs. We talked about tips for being a better CFI, being a better student and how to navigate some of the challenges of aviation.

And lastly, in closing, he gave us a great nugget of networking. Networking is the way to propel yourself forward as a professional pilot. So make sure you network, get out there and meet people, go to events, be helpful, be present. Again, I'm O with the Fly Media Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. This podcast is streamed on all of your podcasting platforms. You can find us on YouTube and Instagram at officialflymedia.

Make sure you tune in next time. Thanks again. Peace.