This week we discuss the go/no-go decision on checkride day!
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00:01
Behing the Prop Intro
Clear prop S73 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final one trolley bravo makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:23
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
00:25
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This week we're going to address some topics about checkrides. We're going to call this show go oriented on your checkride day. As a guy who owns a fly school and does about 25 check rides a month for my school, we obviously have a lot going on. Many days this week included, we had one day with five check rides and another day with three check rides. Those are obviously hectic days and we always have our fingers crossed for good weather. But it doesn't always happen. Sometimes I get a call as much as a week in advance. Wally, you as a dp, I'm sure you've had a lot of funny phone calls with, hey, what do you think about the weather, Mr. DPE? And what's your initial gut, Wally, if you got that message, three days early.
01:16
Wally Mulhern
Three days early. I just, you know, I'm not even thinking about this checkride three days early because I probably have four before then. Weather is so finicky everywhere. You know, I'll get, I will get calls from people a week out, say, oh, it's supposed to be raining a week, you know, a week from tomorrow. What are we, what are we going to do about the checkride? And I, you know, I say, look, when we're within 12 hours of the checkride, let's have this conversation. But certainly not a week out. Yeah.
01:57
Bobby Doss
And I think there's some guidance for DPEs. We've talked about it. Right. You have to be reasonably, you have to have intent to complete the checkride, I think is the way the regulation reads.
02:09
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. And a lot of times people will say to me, well, yeah, we're not going to be able to fly. Let's, we're just, we'll just do the oral today and I'll say, that doesn't work. We, I can't do that. So we got to have the intent to be able to fly. And you know, I, obviously the easiest thing to look at is the forecast. All right, at XYZ time tomorrow when we expect to fly, what is the forecast? Are we going to be able to fly under these conditions? And then I will. What I will do is I will compare the forecast to the current conditions. So in other words, let's say it's 7 in the morning, we're doing an 8am checkride and we expect to be in the air by about 10.
03:02
Wally Mulhern
Okay, I'll say okay, well at 10 o' clock the forecast says 2000 broken. Okay, well the forecast for 7:00am was a thousand overcast but in fact at 7:00am it's actually 2000 overcast. So I will look at that and I'll say okay, well the weather right now is better than forecast. So I will, you know, I'll interpret it and say okay, I'm expecting the weather probably to better than forecast at 10:00am if it's better than forecast at 7:00am probably, you know, and you got to look at frontal activity. There's, there's a whole, you know, a whole lot of parts to the weather equation. It's not just simply looking at what the forecast is or the, you know, the trends, that kind of thing. You got it. You got to use some common sense.
03:57
Wally Mulhern
You got to say hey, we're expecting a frontal passage and the winds are going to shift, the temperature is going to go down. And so we do have to use some logic other than just looking at forecasts.
04:13
Bobby Doss
Well, in the same regard I've also been around, I don't have a specific example but I know I've been here while an oral has started with thunderstorms happening and that's another forecastable decision. Right. A squall line can move through at 8am and it can be a crystal clear day in Houston, Texas by 8:30am, right?
04:36
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
04:37
Bobby Doss
So absolutely. It's not just the, and what I try to tell applicants all the time when they're talking to me and probably way before they want to talk to you, but the concern shouldn't be a concern until you have to make that decision. And that's 8am if my checkride starts at 8am there's logic where you can say yeah, it's going to be a 700 overcast low IFR and a private's not going to fly. You maybe have a night before conversation but you still probably don't cancel. You still want to have that go oriented mindset that things can change. I want to keep my options open.
05:16
Bobby Doss
We, it just is so painful if we at the school lose four or five checkrides because of weather because we still have four or five more check rides to do which just I would never push or twist someone's arm to go when they don't want to go. But man, let's stay positive and do everything we can. Within reason.
05:36
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. And I have people right now asking me for checkrides two weeks out. And I, I'm telling, what I'm telling them right now is, look, I'm trying to clean up a mess from a week ago where I lost three. And you know, those people, I do give them priority. You know, I finish the first people before I start new people. So, and they understand that and they're appreciative of it because they're going to get that same special treatment at least with me, you know, And I don't know how other people handle it. That's one reason why I don't schedule six weeks out. You know, my logic, my thought process is I don't schedule more than about two weeks out.
06:23
Wally Mulhern
That way, if I start one today and I can't finish, I'm able to get this person back in and probably about two weeks or so, rather than saying, well, yeah, I'm booked through December, it'll be January. And then you start worrying about the 60 day issue and well, maybe I've got a, you know, a business trip planned and it can be a mess. So that's my logic.
06:51
Bobby Doss
Yeah, it makes sense. And I, I, we're pretty involved with one another. Seemed to work out really well. How many, and this is something, this came to my mind. How many people text you two, three days in advance worrying about the weather and nothing ever ends up happening? And then they start the checkride and they're woefully unprepared, Meaning how many people worry about the weather more than they worry about being prepared for their said checkride? You ever seen that happen?
07:18
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, oh, yeah, that, that happens. And you know, sometimes you just get a feeling that they're looking for a reason to cancel the checkride. And you know, if that's the case, I would much rather them just come out and say, hey, I'm not where I want to be. I'm not going to be able to do this checkride three days from now because trust me, I've got a list as long as my arm of people that I can call and probably fill that spot within three days.
07:54
Bobby Doss
Yeah, hopefully my school's at the top of that list. But I did. I read an article in flight training magazine from the AOPA recently and the quote in the big sidebar says on checkride day, There are so many things to worry about, like your level of preparation or enough fuel in the tanks, things that are well within your span of control. The weather, however, is not one of them. And so I think if you're an applicant and you're out there and you're really hyped up about the weather, maybe you should go check your checkride notebook or your preparation and make sure you're really. A game is on for the checkride. Being a weatherman trying to predict what's going to happen is probably not the most important thing for you as the applicant, for sure.
08:39
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. I remember flying an airline flight many years ago and we had come in and our gate was occupied. Most people have probably been in the back of airplanes when the gates occupied. And so you're. We're sitting out there with an engine running, waiting for a gate, and of course we make a call and try to, you know, of course we're thinking about us and only us and saying, well, gee, there's an empty gate. Why can't we have that gate? Well, of course, there's a big picture going on with the airline operation. You know, there might be 50 gates at an airport. And, you know, not all the gates can accommodate all airplane sizes. So they got a, you know, it's like a house of cards that they have to build to get all the airplanes into the gate.
09:27
Wally Mulhern
And I just remember my first officer looking over at me saying, and he was wrapped around, he was going crazy that we didn't have a gate. And I'm just sitting there relaxed. And he said to me, boy, when I get to be a captain, I hope I can have your mindset, your attitude. And I said, what do you mean? He says, well, this doesn't seem to be upsetting you. And I said, there's nothing I can do about it. I said, if it's not within my control, or my influence, would he be a better way of saying, if it's not within something that I can influence, it's not worth me getting and excited over? And, and I try to live life that way.
10:14
Wally Mulhern
Now granted, I mean, when my, my team is not winning the game and I'm sitting at home on the couch, there's not much I can do about it? I do get excited over that. So I, I need to listen to my own advice sometimes. But like you said, you can't control the weather, but you do know what your limitations are. If, geez, I don't want to fly with wind gusting to 15 knots. Okay, well if the wind is gusting to 15 right now and it's forecast to be gusting to 25, well, maybe you shouldn't fly.
10:50
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And everybody's gonna probably have a differing opinion on this. I have mine and I'm happy to share. But what if at 8am you're starting this checkride and the winds are forecast to be 10 knots right across the Runway? Is, is that the time to cancel the flight portion? That, that's set to probably start around 10am what are your feelings on that?
11:14
Wally Mulhern
No, no. I'd say, you know, let's.
11:18
Bobby Doss
But my personal minimums are 9. What if my personal minimums were 9 and it's still forecast to be 10.
11:23
Wally Mulhern
At 10am well, let's wait till 10am and see what it is exactly. Because it may be eight, maybe eight.
11:32
Bobby Doss
It may be five. Right. It may change directions and be right down the Runway.
11:38
Wally Mulhern
And we just, we do have a.
11:39
Bobby Doss
Lot of short sightedness.
11:41
Wally Mulhern
We do have some flexibility in how we can conduct the checkride as well. You know, let's say on a private commercial, you know, the landings are a part of the checkride. You know, there's going to be a cross country element, there's going to be some high work, there's going to be some ground reference maneuvers. So think of it as four, four different sections of the checkride. You know, typically I start out with a cross country phase and depending on airports, sometimes we'll do the landings at a, in another airport and then we'll do the high work and then the low work and then come back in. Or, or sometimes it's the cross country phase. It's the high and low work and then come back in and do the landings. But we can start with the landings.
12:34
Wally Mulhern
So there could be a day where it's 1800 broken to start with maybe a private pilot checkride. 1800 broken. We could start, we could do the landings. Landings are going to take probably, you know, by the time we pre flight and taxi out and all that stuff, that's probably close to an hour, you know, maybe 30 minutes on the ground and 30 minutes worth of landings. So you know, if it's maybe by the time we're ready to go out and do the cross country phase of the checkride, it's gone from 1800 broken to 2600 scattered. Okay, we can work with that. We can do the checkride. So you know, And I'm willing to adjust my profile on how we're going to do things based on weather because I, you know, the examiner wants to get it done as well.
13:39
Bobby Doss
No question. Yeah, maybe sometimes more than the student does. Right. Or the applicant does.
13:46
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
13:47
Bobby Doss
The other thing I was going to say to you, maybe just think about was, and I just know how you normally do it, not the other DPs in this area. But if you're gonna do two in a day, you're gonna schedule one at 8am and one at 1pm and in Texas about nine months out of the year, it gets dark at 8pm if the forecast is proactively changing for the better, are you willing to take lunch at 10:15 or 10:30 or adjust some of those windows of time in real time?
14:22
Wally Mulhern
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, we do it all the time. And then there are many days where I don't take a lunch. You just the number two guy, I, or the number two girl, the number two check ride says, hey, I'm gonna chew on some food while we're getting this first, you know, or we're checking all your paperwork. And nobody has ever objected to that.
14:46
Bobby Doss
Of course we want to get, we want to be go oriented. We want to get this stuff done and move on. So that's all good stuff. We were talking a little bit before of the recent thing that happened on a checkride and you did some math, talk a little bit about your decision or mindset, maybe new thoughts on what should happen with the gear up on a multi engine checkride.
15:12
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, there's, you know, I do obviously do a lot of multi engine checkrides and I do a lot of mei checkrides as well. And I always ask an applicant at what point are they going to raise the gear and the stock answer I get is when we're out of available Runway length. And I go, okay. I say, have you ever applied any math or science to that? And they go, they'll usually say, well, no. And I'll say, well, how do you determine when we're out of available Runway length?
15:52
Wally Mulhern
And usually what it comes down to as well, I just kind of look out the window and so if you, if you were to take your airplane, your multi engine airplane and let's use a, you know, use the Runway length at your local airport, whatever it happens to be, and what I'll use 5,000ft because we have a lot of our Satellite airports that we use for a lot of landings that have 5000 foot long runways. And I'll say, okay, let's take our takeoff distance in our multi engine airplane and then let's take our landing distance in our multi engine airplane and subtract it from 5,000ft. Okay, so now we may only have 2,000ft left. Let's just say, and I'm just using big nice round numbers, let's say takeoff distance is 1800ft and landing distance is 1200ft. That's a total of 3000ft.
16:53
Wally Mulhern
So if we to actually take off and then to land on a given piece of concrete we need 3,000ft. So now we have 2,000ft left and that's not even accounting for taking off yet. So now we figure out what our takeoff speed is and we convert it to miles per hour and we convert that to feet per second and then we figure out what our climb rate is. By and large at about 200ft in most airplanes on a 5,000 foot Runway, you're at a Runway, in other words, we have enough Runway to take off, get to about 2,000ft. And I use a two second reaction time because usually most airplanes you're doing about 130ft per second across the ground.
17:52
Wally Mulhern
And so you take off at about 200ft, you have something go wrong, usually an engine failure, you decide to put it back down on the Runway. You're probably out of Runway, you're probably out of Runway. And what I see with a lot of people on multi engine airplanes, we're not raising the gear until about five or six hundred feet above the ground. And so you know, in a multi engine airplane when you lose an engine you want to do two things. You want to increase power and reduce drag. And there's a little, takes a little bit of time to get that gear up sometimes. So if that gear can already be up, you've already reduced the drag. So just a thought, just a thought. And I'm not saying when you're out of available Runway is the wrong way to go about things.
18:53
Wally Mulhern
I think where this has come from is single engine complex airplanes. We take off in a single engine complex airplane and the philosophy has been keep the gear down until we are positive that we can't put the airplane down anymore. Because in a single engine airplane when we lose an engine we don't have any options. The airplane's coming down so we'd rather have the gear down and if we can put it on the Runway, that's great. Multi Engine, airplane, you have options. We can maybe keep flying or at least descend at a reduced rate. So we may be at a high.
19:35
Bobby Doss
Interesting topic.
19:37
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. So, you know, you can do all kinds of conversions again, figure out feet per second and climb rate, how many, you know, if we're going up at 600ft per minute, that's 10ft per second. And you can figure out, okay, well, okay, so that's 20 seconds to get to 200ft.
20:08
Bobby Doss
And yeah, and it's not going to be much. Even at this Runway, 7,000ft Runway. You're gonna, you're gonna be making, if you're making it visually, it's a different story. But if you do put some math behind it, you're not going to be that high when you really are no longer going to be able to land for sure.
20:25
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. So I don't know, might be a different philosophy to say positive rate, gear up. That's, that's the way bigger airplanes do it. And I'm not, you know, I'm not saying a Piper Seminole or a Baron or something is a bigger airplane, but I think we really ought to look at how much Runway it would really take in an airplane to take off to get to 500ft, have about a 2 second pause reaction time that, oh my gosh, what just happened? And then descend at X amount of feet per minute and figure out how much distance it really takes to do that. And I think you'd be surprised at how much distance it takes. It's probably well a lot more than what your typical Runway length is.
21:17
Bobby Doss
Yeah, for sure. So that's another good example of just a little tip on a checkride. What about again, going, being go oriented? We've experienced something this week and I bet other schools are experiencing it around the country. What if IACRA is not doing what we want it to do? Wally, is the day doomed? Are we doomed? Is it over?
21:39
Wally Mulhern
It's not. And we do have the option to do a paper application. Now, does the hassle factor go up immensely on a paper application? It absolutely does. And the whole process is slowed down. But if IACCRA is down and some examiners will not do a paper application, I don't like doing them. I, I do about maybe about two a year. And you know, something that you do twice a year, you're usually not very good at. And so when you do a paper application with iacra, there are, or a paper application without iacra, I should say there are a lot of potential errors. So one thing that I like to do is have the applicant come when you go in to Iacra, when IACRA goes down, it's usually for about a couple hour time frame and we usually know about it.
22:52
Wally Mulhern
And typically it goes down at 08:00 Central Time and they say it's going to be down for about an hour or so. And whenever I have checkrides on those days, I always get in touch with the applicant and I say, hey, IACARA is supposed to go down at 8am so let's start at 7:30 tomorrow morning. And they've always been accommodating. We get there, we get into iacra well before 8am and take care of all the ACCRA stuff so that we are logged in, they have signed the application. Then IACRA goes down while we're doing the ground, we go out and fly and usually by the time we come back it's back up. So it's a non event if you plan for it. But occasionally there are times where there are certain situations where IACRA does funny things with certain checkride.
23:44
Wally Mulhern
Certain checkrides you cannot do in Iacra and I won't get into all that. But the only option is a paper application. It's not something I would prefer to do just because a lot of there are a lot of things within IACRA that will kind of check. And when we do the paper, you're having to check it manually and when it gets to Oklahoma City, the rejection rate of paper applications is much higher than of IACRA applications. But it is.
24:24
Bobby Doss
Yeah. If it's down. How does someone get a certificate? Like if it's down, what happens with the certificate piece?
24:33
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I think what most of us have is we have printable PDF that we, or fillable, excuse me, fillable PDFs that we're able to fill in all the information. And so the temporary certificate that I will issue when IACRA is down is, you know, it's typed and it's, it looks nice and probably doesn't look a whole lot different things than the IACRA generated certificate that you get. And then I have to email the application that certificate and the knowledge test results. If this particular checkride had knowledge test results, all that has to be emailed into the faa, which the examiner will take care of. But with that in mind, when you do fill out your application in Iacra, just print, just print, make a paper copy of your Application. So if the morning or the afternoon of the checkride, boom, IACRA is down.
25:43
Wally Mulhern
And weren't expecting it. You've. You've got the application sitting right there and it's ready to go.
25:49
Bobby Doss
Such an easy thing to do that could save a whole lot of heartache and is the epitome of being go oriented for.
25:57
Wally Mulhern
For sure. Yeah.
25:58
Bobby Doss
Yeah, Good.
26:01
Wally Mulhern
Oh, I was gonna say, you know, my first flying job I had was. Was at a FBO that did charter and flight instruction. And, and my boss, a guy named Eric Mingledorf, I don't know if he listens to the show. It'd be great if he did, but he used to use that phrase all the time. Go oriented. Go oriented. You know, in the charter business, we are in the business of moving people around. And I will say this. I never, ever felt pressured into taking a flight that was unsafe. But on the other hand, people are buying a service and they are asking us to fly them from here to there. And, you know, we need to try to make that happen.
26:56
Bobby Doss
Yeah, that's. It's a good mindset to have. As long as it's not a negative mindset. That means, hey, I'm. I'm able to fly in this low ifr. I'm gonna. I'm being go oriented. That's not what we're talking about. It's. It's doing it safely and without risk.
27:16
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. We actually had a young man that sent in a question, and he asked about being pressured into taking a flight. And I've got to say, I mean, I've really only worked for three aviation companies in my life. This first fbo, my commuter airline, and my current airline. And in my career, I can honestly say I have never been. Been pressured into taking a flight that I felt was unsafe. Never. Whether it be mechanically or weather related. So it's hard for me to imagine working for a company where that happens. Now, I know it happens, but I can't say I've ever experienced it.
28:07
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I've heard a few stories, but they're stories and maybe a little blown out of proportion, but that's not, that's definitely not what we're talking about here. And as we transition to the. The next topic, it really is about squawks and things that could be anomalies on aircraft and just what some applicants might do to want to scrub the flight or not go or not be go oriented. Right. Again, not safety stuff here we're talking about. I've Seen, I've seen somebody come in demanding that I change a nav light for a tenant, you know, for a AM check, ride on a private checkride. And I, I challenged that a little bit. Like, we're not going to take the plane out of service and send it to the mechanic and let the mechanic put a green nav light in there for a daytime flight.
28:58
Bobby Doss
What are your thoughts on and have you got any good stories on some crazy squat conversations around the checkride?
29:07
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, that's. The airplane needs to be legal. And you know, as part of the qualifying the airplane, we talked about this few episodes. You know, the examiner has to be legal, the applicant has to be legal, and the airplane has to be legal. You know, you know, I will ask them if everything in the airplane works and hopefully the answer is yes. And if the answer is no, then we'll dig into making sure that it has been properly disabled and logged accordingly. But yeah, I mean, I'm fine with going with something that is not working as long as we've done what we need to do. If it's a day flight and a nav light is in op. Okay, well, let's placard it in op. Let's make sure it's in the log book and let's take care of that.
30:04
Wally Mulhern
But, you know, we do have the ability to go with inoperative equipment if it's properly taken care of.
30:14
Bobby Doss
Yeah. Can you imagine if you told your company we're not going because the coffee pot's broken?
30:19
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. No, I can't actually. Yeah.
30:24
Bobby Doss
That wouldn't go over very well, I don't think. Right. And I think.
30:28
Wally Mulhern
Right.
30:28
Bobby Doss
I think there's some things that are. That sound shocking that I've experienced. I've experienced some of it with you. Right. What if you get out there to the plane, this. The applicant turns the master switch on to check the lights and the flaps and the. Everything seems to be working fine. But the engine won't turn over. When they go to start it and they assume that it's electrical, is that a reason to cancel the checkride?
30:59
Wally Mulhern
No, I mean, it's just like your car. I mean, what are you going to do if you go out to start your car and your car doesn't start? Well, you might think about jumping it off and. Yeah.
31:11
Bobby Doss
So we have to jump planes for sure.
31:13
Wally Mulhern
Right.
31:13
Bobby Doss
And Right. It's not, it doesn't necessarily always indicate something's wrong with the plane. The pilot. Right before you could have left the Master switch off or on all night long, which happens at flight schools, unfortunately. And a jump.
31:27
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
31:27
Bobby Doss
Is not that big of a deal. I think as a young pilot, had it been my private checkride, I would have been freaking out if the flight school would have said, well, we'll just jump it. But it was my lack of knowledge and my lack of experience that would have created that for me.
31:42
Wally Mulhern
Right.
31:44
Bobby Doss
There's all kinds of tips to take some of that stress off. Right. Calling for fuel or making sure there's fuel. Have you ever spent any time waiting for fuel, Wally, for a flight?
31:54
Wally Mulhern
Oh, I, you know, there's two things that I seem to wait for a lot at flight schools and that's a, to use the restroom. Because most of the flight schools only have one restroom. That seems to be the norm. And the other is waiting for fuel. And I get frustrated when the applicant does a 30 minute pre flight and the last thing they do is check the fuel. I would think maybe the first thing that we would do is check the fuel. So while we're looking at the tail and looking at the tires, that fuel truck can be on the way. So you know, at my airline we used to say comforts and quantities. When you get to the airplane, the first thing we want to do is check comforts and quantities.
32:44
Wally Mulhern
In other words, if we need to get air conditioning or heat on the airplane. Let's, let's do that right now. And of course in smaller airplanes that's really not a factor, but quantities. If we, you know, in the big airplanes we're looking at oil, we're looking at oxygen, we're certainly looking at fuel, you know, wastewater emptied, potable water, all these quantities that if we need to address it, let's address it 30 minutes before the flight rather than one minute before the flight, which will cause a delay.
33:16
Bobby Doss
Yep, all really good tips for sure. One thing we missed in my notes here on the jumping the aircraft. If you've never been involved with jumping an aircraft wildly, what would be the step you would take? I mean, yeah, we're gonna get the flight school involved, but as pilot in command, what's the first thing you're going to do or turn to jump that aircraft?
33:41
Wally Mulhern
First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to look in the PoH and there is probably, well, not probably there will be a procedure for starting the airplane. Using external power is usually what it's called. And the big thing about that is in most airplanes, you're going to start the airplane with the master switch off. So it's a big deal. It's just the way the external power receptacle where it's wired into the system that once it's plugged in, you're going to get power to the airplane. So you're going to be sitting in the airplane and things are going to light up. The master switch is off. Now are all airplanes that way? I don't know. I can't speak for, say, a cirrus. I've never done it in a cirrus, but I know Piper's. I've jump started my Saratoga before.
34:35
Wally Mulhern
And the procedure is for the master switch to be off. So just like anything else, anytime you're doing a procedure that is not normal, you should pull out the checklist and follow it accordingly. You know, manual gear extension. If you're ever going to extend the gear manually, pull out the checklist.
34:58
Bobby Doss
Yeah, it's all good stuff. And I think theme and the title today is Be Go Oriented. Right. We want to get these checkrides done. We want to do them safely. But a lot of the little things that I've seen and maybe some big things that aren't as big as we all think they might have been that prevent checkrides from happening can be solved. Get the fly school, get the aircraft operator involved. Take time to try and investigate and troubleshoot and see if you can't be go oriented and get off the ground and make that day one of the most important days of your life. No matter how you do it safely and stay behind the prop.
35:38
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@bravetheprop.com the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co host is Wally Mulhern. The show is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember, fly safe.