In this episode of Behind the Prop, Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn sit down with Barry Knuttila, President and CEO of King Schools. With over 3,000 hours, multiple type ratings, and a lifelong passion for aviation, Barry shares his unique journey from the tech world to leading one of aviation’s most recognized training companies. He talks about his early experiences flying with his father, the pivotal moment that led him to join King Schools, and his growth alongside mentors John and Martha King. Barry also reflects on the company’s DNA of authenticity, student-centered teaching, and adapting to industry changes. From VHS tapes to app-based flashcards, checkride preparation, and future learning tools, this conversation reveals how King Schools continues shaping pilots at every level.
What happens when a tech executive with a passion for flying gets the chance to combine both worlds? In this episode of Behind the Prop, hosts Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn welcome Barry Knuttila, President and CEO of King Schools, to explore that exact story.
Barry recounts his early flying background, how a corporate collapse unexpectedly redirected his career, and the fateful moment he reached out to John and Martha King. That outreach led to a role as CTO during King Schools’ transition to the internet era, eventually growing into leadership of the company itself. Along the way, Barry earned advanced ratings, flew Falcons with John and Martha, and became a familiar on-camera instructor.
The discussion highlights King Schools’ unique ethos—authenticity, humility, and an unwavering focus on student success. Barry explains how listening to customer feedback and treating students like friends has guided the company from the days of shipping VHS tapes to today’s mobile-friendly apps, flashcards, and integrated flight school tools.
Listeners will hear about how the flight training industry has shifted from primarily self-paced, individual learning to ab initio, career-focused programs. Barry shares how King Schools has responded by expanding its B2B offerings for universities and flight schools while continuing to serve individual learners. The conversation also covers innovations in course design, the importance of breaking training into smaller, more consumable segments, and King Schools’ efforts to reduce checkride anxiety through immersive preparation courses.
From personal reflections on flying helicopters and biplanes for fun to insights on the future of aviation training, Barry’s perspective underscores both the timeless values and forward-looking vision that continue to shape King Schools. Whether you’re a student pilot, CFI, or aviation enthusiast, this episode offers inspiration and practical wisdom for every stage of the journey.
00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic. Three mile final race straight in Runway two five join four mile final.
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.
00:28
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:29
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:31
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. Today's guest has type ratings in a Falcon 10, 3000 plus hours and 45 plus aircraft. Just added a helicopter pilot certificate to his logbook. He's also the CEO and co owner of the training company that has taught half of America's pilots at some point. And yes, you've probably seen him teaching on camera. From bush flying to seaplanes to business jets and brand new student pilots, he's obsessed with making aviation simpler, safer and more fun. Welcome to the show, Barry Knudla. Thank you for joining us, Barry.
01:07
Barry Knuttila
Well, thank you Bobby and Wally. It's great to be on the show and looking forward to see where the conversation goes.
01:15
Bobby Doss
So Barry and I got to spend a little bit of time at Oshkosh. That's been a few weeks ago now, but we got to hang out. The weather was great where were that evening, but boy was the week hot. It was very hot up there. Wally was at Oshkosh. Didn't get to participate in our little cocktail hour, but we put this on the calendar and I really appreciate you joining us. We got all kinds of little things to talk about today. Barry, I think it's always a good starting point to say how did you get to where you are? Right. This is a crazy journey. I'm a tech guy. You have a tech background obviously that works for where you work at King Schools. Give us a little pitch on where you came from, how you got where you are today.
01:57
Barry Knuttila
Well, you know, Wally, it's oftentimes you don't end up where you start out heading toward. And that certainly is the case here. You know, I started out in the tech world and doing software development and creating products fortune 500 companies and working for, you know, for very large software development organizations. But I also was a pilot from a young age. My dad was a corporate pilot and I grew up flying, grew up in the, you know, in the back of 172 is going on family trips and that sort of thing. And, and I knew that was something that I wanted to be involved with in my life and I had the opportunity to do that, you know, all throughout Recreationally. And at one point in my career I had the opportunity to start looking for a new job.
02:46
Barry Knuttila
And that opportunity was a kind of a rough one that presented itself to me when the company that I was working for went under due to some malfeasance of the, at the CEO and CFO level and publicly traded company that went from, you know, being a billion dollar a year company one day to on its way to bankruptcy the next. And that was a shocking experience. So, so I started down the path of looking at other opportunities within that same industry and I got really close to accepting a position at another large software company and I just had this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I had to look around and see what there was for aviation. I looked around San Diego where I was living, found out that John and Martha were in San Diego.
03:33
Barry Knuttila
I didn't even know it at that point. I'd use some King School's products on videotapes and love the product, but I had no idea. So I sent off a message to John and Martha, guested their email addresses and was right and got a response almost immediately. And two days later I was sitting with a job offer to go to work for King Schools and run their technology and become their cto. And it was a time that they really needed some help to make that transition to the Internet and the Internet in terms of product development and also in terms of marketing and having the technology to do that. So it was very appealing to me, but it was a different turn in my career than I, that I had expected to be making at that point, smaller company and what have you.
04:22
Barry Knuttila
But, but you know, they tempted me and they did the worst kind of temptation you could possibly do for a pilot. And they offered to pay for additional certificates and ratings. Oh my God, can you imagine? I get to work and they're going to support me in terms of my flying and my flying career. So I went from being a private pilot with an instrument rating and started going on and got my commercial, my cfi, my double. I, my mei started to fly the Falcon with John and Martha and did my type rating and ATP later got assessed at 500 type and then eventually helicopter rating as well, which was really a thrill in my life. But, but you can see that little turn in my career was exactly what I needed because all those things were fulfilling.
05:19
Barry Knuttila
But even all those things together haven't been quite as fulfilling as being able to lead King Schools. And after about 10 years in my position as the CTO and then taking over marketing. The president left, was a wonderful person, but he retired and I had the opportunity to take over and run the company. Bought into the company with John and Mark, then became business partners beyond just an employee. And that has been one of the most rewarding things in my life. It truly has. The way that they run the company, the values, how much they care about the industry that we participate in has made them the best partners you could imagine, as well as mentors both in flying and in business.
06:06
Barry Knuttila
So that's really how I ended up where I am now was, you know, kind of leaving tech behind a little bit in terms of that being at the 100% focus. Of course it's a giant component in what we do at King Schools, but I brought some other people in to take care of that. Where it's grown far beyond me and beyond what I could do personally.
06:31
Bobby Doss
I've had the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with John and Martha. There is a unique DNA that they have. I think they are exactly who they are on their tapes. I think they're, they're everything they say they mean. And I think they're extremely humble. What do you think the King School's DNA is? What, and why is it so strong? I mean, it's amazing. I'm a small business owner. I want that to transcend my business. What makes that the glue that holds the company together?
06:59
Barry Knuttila
Well, there's a number of things that contribute to that, but I would say that one of the most important things, and this is something that John and Martha have always done from back when they were going around the country delivering in person two day ground schools and accelerated ground schools and so on. They kind of started off King Schools. They've always put an emphasis on listening to and responding to customer feedback and letting that help to drive directional priority within the company. And as you say, they're very authentic and very down to earth. They don't want to be fancy in any way at all. They're very humble and that connects well with folks we don't put on airs at King Schools. We're right there with you. And that has led into how we develop our videos.
07:55
Barry Knuttila
It took a little while and training with John and Martha, it wasn't something that I wanted to do necessarily in terms of being on camera an instructor, but there came a period of time where we realized that we needed to do that transition. We needed to have somebody else come in and start being on camera. And I didn't want it to be somebody who didn't have a long term commitment to the company and was going to be around for a long time. So I worked with John and Martha and that gave me some insight into who they are as people and how they want to connect to the student, the customer who's watching our videos.
08:30
Barry Knuttila
And it's really a matter of, you know, look in the camera, talk to that person as an individual like you would your best friend that you, that was getting ready to go fly and you wanted to make sure they had every bit of information that they needed in order to be safe. And that's John and Mark and that's King's fools. Really. It's, it's part of the DNA, no question.
08:50
Bobby Doss
Go ahead, Wally.
08:52
Wally Mulhern
I was just going to say that's one of the things that I think differentiates. There's, there's a whole lot of other things that we could talk about that I think are important about King Schools. But I don't think there's anything more important than the lack of pretentiousness and real caring for the customer. You know, one thing I think about when I think of King School is that this is kind of a weird thing, but I think of back in the 80s, there must have been a 20 or 30,000 square foot warehouse that housed all these VHS tapes. And now you don't have to worry about that. Oh yeah. There used to be semi trucks delivering empty tapes in the back door of King schools and picking up full ones and heading out to the post office.
09:38
Barry Knuttila
And that was a lot of VHS tapes at that time. And of course at King schools we had a giant duplication facility built into the building where people were working 247 around the clock doing, pretty much doing nothing but taking tapes out and putting tapes in, you know, and it was a whole different world at that time.
10:01
Bobby Doss
Oh yeah, that's crazy. So let's talk a little bit about Barry's path and the King ethos. We've done, we've done some of that. But like what does, what does the future hold? What does part B hold? Talk about your philosophy. We talked a little bit as were prepping today, part kind of your thought process on the training, flight training industry as a whole. I mean no one, I don't do anything without checking the Internet first on how am I supposed to do this, right? From screwing in a light bulb to getting a light bulb out. Like what does flight training look like and what is the industry going to go through in the next decade?
10:40
Barry Knuttila
Yeah, well, I can tell you that one of the biggest changes that we've seen in the industry is the evolution of flight schools and what that's meant to our business. And if you look back 10, 15 years ago, the majority, almost 100% of our business was selling direct to consumer. Then we started an agreement with Cessna and became the supplier of the Cessna flight training system for Cessna branded products. But we developed those and won that contract with Cessna primarily because of the things that I had mentioned before. They, they were looking for something that would be fun and enjoyable and John and Martha really embraced the simplify, clarify and make it fun ethos and they went with small king schools over some pretty large other options that they had. And, and it turned out to be a great relationship.
11:34
Barry Knuttila
But really that used to represent maybe 20, 25% of our business, something like that. The majority of our business was direct to consumer. That has slowly changed over time and as a company we've had to put a much bigger focus and really develop a discipline around flight schools and ensuring that flight schools had what they needed in order to do ab initio style training. And that's been a real change. And especially I would say post Covid as the airline industry has taken off and the pilot demand has increased, I think a lot of folks, yourself included, I'm sure and other flight schools have recognized that as a big opportunity to take somebody from zero and take them all the way through to a flow through program to the airlines.
12:27
Barry Knuttila
And so as that has developed and that ab initio style training has developed, it's taken a lot of folks out of the direct to consumer market because the first thing that they do is they show up at a flight school and they plunk down whatever it is, $100,000 or so and say, all right, take me to the airlines. And it's a little bit different way of doing things. And when I was starting out learning to fly, where mostly people manage their own training over time, they got their private, they, you know, used independent flight instructors, rented airplanes, did whatever they needed to do in order to get the certificates and the ratings that they needed, there weren't as many opportunities to just plonk down a bunch of money and say take me all the way through.
13:16
Barry Knuttila
So, so that's been a big change in the industry. Something that we've recognized. We've developed a discipline around our B2B side of the business, which is what we call our white school, colleges, universities, that part of our business also now maintenance facilities where we're selling our products directly to the flight school who's using those products all the way through their training. So, so that's something that I've posted. I brought on a really great leader view that actually had on the show in the past. Brian Huff. He was one of the folks that founded the Liberty University affiliate program where you can study at remotely with Liberty University, get a degree and fly with a local training provider. And so he developed all that. He really knows the university business well as the flight school business.
14:11
Barry Knuttila
He's been a chief flight Instructor, ran part 141 schools and so on. So, so part of it is bringing the right folks that can manage that business well. We still put a big emphasis on our B2C business to consumer market which is mostly fulfilled directly through our website on the web. But we've seen over time a shift as those folks are starting to study more and more at the flight school. They've come out of the direct to consumer market. We're ending up now at about half and half in terms of the volume of business between our B2B and B2C side of the business.
14:49
Barry Knuttila
And we're putting a lot of emphasis on the B2B side in order to support flight schools with integrations, the backs, back office products, the integrations with learning management systems at colleges and universities where they can develop a college curriculum and just pull over lessons for home study and for homework and be able to see those completed over time as they complete them in the King school system. They show up in their learning management system at the college or university. So that's where a lot of our development effort is going right now. Yeah.
15:24
Bobby Doss
As a flight school owner, I can tell other ones out there that maybe aren't partners with Cessna or King schools yet, that one of the most powerful tools that I use on a regular basis is talking to a young man or young woman who says they're doing all their homework, but they don't seem to be prepared for the lesson. They don't quite know the maneuvers they're going to work on. And the CFIs are so frustrated that they're not making the progress they need to make because they're coming unprepared. And I say have you done your homework? Have you done the ground school? And they say yes. And I said well, let's look at that together. And I pull up your back end system and show them that they've only completed 1% of phase one.
16:02
Bobby Doss
And I'm like, you're not going to solo if you've only completed 1% of phase one. This is what learning how to fly is all about. So the intelligence that it does provide a flight school like United Flight Systems, be able to log in by student, by flight instructors, see progress, know who's putting in the effort, who's struggling, maybe missing every question. You know the world's a remote device nowadays, right? It's the phone and your software, your flashcard stuff. Everything's available to a student if they want to use it, but they have to use it, right?
16:38
Barry Knuttila
Absolutely, absolutely. That's an area we're putting a lot of emphasis on, is to provide even better reporting and suggestions to flight schools like your flight school Bobby, that the flight instructors can very easily get information about the progress and get flags and warnings if the student is not keeping up with their home study at the same level as they are flying. You kind of need to keep those things in sync if you're going to do it efficiently. Right. They have to show up with the knowledge that they need at least for that next lesson and not be learning it in the air, as we know is one of the worst classrooms.
17:15
Bobby Doss
But I say it all the time, if you didn't do your homework, you're going to come fly, you're not going to fly well, and you're just going to buy my wife another pair of black shoes that she doesn't need. So don't waste your mom and dad's money, don't waste your money. Do the homework. And I think there's a big disconnect. Everybody thinks it's about the flight time, but it's not. It's about the homework. And so leading to that, what do you think the tools and things are that students of King schools and flight schools will be using in the future? Do you think it'll just be the Internet? Do you think it's going to be video? What do you. What do you see the future to be? Is it as it will be King School's business?
17:51
Barry Knuttila
For sure, Yeah. I think it will continue to be video. I think video continues to be one of the best learning methods that you can have. And I think that the way that we've developed the video over time is really effectual in transferring that knowledge and getting it into somebody said what they need to know. But an interesting thing is when YouTube came along and everybody is starting to learn from YouTube and watching videos there I was thinking, wow, we really did the right thing. We've got these videos down to, you know, five, ten minutes per video, which before that, you know, you just had a long running VHS tape and you stopped and started it where you wanted to.
18:36
Barry Knuttila
And, and we decided to break it down into bite sized chunks that you could learn one topic, you could sit down for a half hour, 40 minutes, go learn that topic, take the questions that follow it and get a really good chunk of knowledge from that. What we're seeing now is that what we thought was a small chunk of knowledge is not small enough. And we're thinking that now, especially with the, you know, the tick tock and you know, scrolling and things that people do, they're wanting even smaller chunks of knowledge. And that's a little bit of a challenge for us. And I used to think, well, 45 minutes, great, you know, anybody can kind of pick a half hour, 45 minutes.
19:19
Barry Knuttila
But now I think we need to start looking at, seeing if we can develop products that can deliver a chunk of learning in 5 minutes and 10 minutes and be able to fit into the way that people are using their devices these days. So that's one area we're looking at. I think it'll continue to be developed or delivered on the Internet as an option. But more and more our customers are using our apps these days in order to take the training. And the apps are very convenient. You don't have to be online. You download the lessons to your phone or to your iPad and you just take them wherever you are. And one of the advantages of downloading them to the device is just that everything is quicker.
20:04
Barry Knuttila
It's very snappy to take your training on the iPhone or the iPad through the app as opposed to waiting for Internet responses. So that's, I think it's going to go more in that direction and smaller chunks of learning.
20:18
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I don't want to tell on myself but you know, it's hard to teach everybody everything. As our school's grown and we've continued to commit to Cessna and King schools, someone asked me recently, what's the best flashcard app to buy? And I'm like, are you kidding me? You own the best flashcard app to buy and you don't have to spend any money. They're ready to invest more money. I don't think they understand the ROI or people don't understand that the best bang for their buck is a online ground school. And yours is by far the best online ground school for all the components that come with it, the companion apps, the flashcard apps. And if I want to take five flashcards on aerodynamics, I can tell the app to give me five flashcards on aerodynamics. That is very consumable.
21:01
Bobby Doss
When I'm waiting to go to the dentist or I'm sitting in the car and I'm waiting to go into a meeting, it's so easy to consume the knowledge that they just have to do the work and get that stuff on their phone. So I think it's a, it's a tidbit of information. It's an add on to your stuff that probably doesn't get enough exposure. I'm a little biased and I would say a King Schools podcast would be very valuable over time and happy to help however we can help. But I think that it's a form that is not going away either that I think will continue to help people get more better at their tasks, whether it's pilots or cooking or whatever. I think podcasts will continue to grow in the future as well.
21:46
Barry Knuttila
Well, it's been one of the frustrations that I've had with fantasy companies is really getting out the knowledge that King Schools has great test prep. Because King's Fools has such a strong reputation in terms of the video training side. And we've never wanted to separate out the test prep from the knowledge. We want to make sure that you have the knowledge first and then do the test prep, not trying to get the knowledge through test prep. So we haven't, we've never split them out. But a lot of folks don't seem to know that King Schools has great test prep that includes question review that you can view questions that you've ever missed, you can view questions that you've marked, you can do questions that you've answered incorrectly more than once. There's a lot of different ways that you can go through our question database.
22:33
Barry Knuttila
And then the most recent way as of I think last year sometime is the flashcards that you mentioned. So we have flashcards and that's really the topper on the, on your test prep. When you're, you know, you're getting, toward the end, you feel like you have things down and just start flipping through those flashcards. You pretty quickly get a picture of how well you understand the knowledge because you move away from this idea. Well, I got these three answer choices. I recognize that one a little bit because I've seen this question before and the Flashcards kind of take it to the next level where you just get the question and you have to formulate the answer in your mind as opposed to selecting one of three.
23:12
Barry Knuttila
And I think it's the nice topper at the end of the test prep to make sure you're really ready to go.
23:17
Bobby Doss
And I'll say this as a next software guy as well, the ui, the user interface on that flashcard app is really good. I think y' all did a really good job. And for it to be a companion on top of what I've already spent or invested in to have the videos and the test prepped, it is a nice add on feature for sure. Cherry on top would be a great way to reference that.
23:39
Barry Knuttila
Well, I appreciate that.
23:41
Bobby Doss
So the future of King schools. John and Martha are still active, very involved. They're at all the big air shows, they're doing it every day. They're feet on the street still. But what I think if I have one complaint or I've heard one complaint, right, it's still four by three. Like when are they going to update? I know you're working hard on updating the videos down, releasing courses in real time. What's the future and kind of what should the student pilot, the instrument pilot, the commercial pilot, what should they be expecting from King schools in the future?
24:14
Barry Knuttila
Well, as far as John and Martha go, they're really enjoying their role as statesman of aviation and they spend a lot of time traveling, you know, attending shows, doing personal appearances, giving talks both on aviation as well as aviation business, which they've enjoyed kind of sharing what they have learned over 50 years of King schools through a book called Lyft. And they do talks based out of that book which are very good and can be inspirational for business owners, especially aviation business owners, but just about any business owner, any entrepreneur. So, so they're enjoying that role. They still come into the studio every couple of, every couple weeks and shoot some lessons. So they still enjoy getting in front of the camera and doing the teaching, which is great.
25:08
Barry Knuttila
We meet once a week and talk about the business and what's going on and they give me really good advice on areas that I'm, I need a little help on or you know, I'm seeking another viewpoint. So, so they're still very engaged in the business but as we look, you know, further out to the future, you know, we want King schools to be part of aviation far beyond any of us. And I'm getting up there as well in age I'm not going to do this forever. But, but I think that the core principles that drive King Schools and have made it successful through the years will persevere. And certainly we're looking at ways to ensure that that happens and that's, you know, kind of part of the business, part of the planning for the future of the business.
25:55
Barry Knuttila
And, but as far as what we're going to do, you mentioned 4 by 3 video. We still do have some 4 by 3 video, especially in some of our older single subject courses, whether that's practical risk management or, you know, some of the courses that have been around for a long time. How to Avoid Unwanted Adventure, that's based on talks by John and Martha. And for the most part we've labeled those older courses King Classics because they have great information. But we wanted to make sure we set the expectation that this isn't, wasn't shot yesterday, right? It still, it still is great. We, we be very reluctant to take it off the market because it shares such wonderful insights with customers. But we want to make sure that people understand that this is King classic stuff, you know, and it's separate.
26:42
Barry Knuttila
As far as our core products, their private pilot, instrument, commercial cfi, all of those have been reshot in their entirety in HD video within the last, I would say five years. Starting with the private, we kind of worked through all the way through. We finished the CFI reshoot beginning of last year. So we've gone through all of those, made our primary courses and reshot them. And then it's of course a lot of work just to keep them up to date to reshoot new lessons and videos. When things change with the ACS or with regulation so on, we're always watching out for changes that we need to make to the courses. So that will continue. As far as other areas, we're certainly looking at ways that we can be more productive and generate more content more quickly.
27:39
Barry Knuttila
And the way that we generate content is time consuming. The result is wonderful. I think it's a great product, but it does take a while to get it to market because we really believe in using that green screen type of production where the instructor is able to turn around and point at something right behind them and whether it's animation or a picture or a video or what have you, and kind of involve the student together with the instructor in that background graphic. And we think that's very effective. But it takes a lot of work to put that type of production together from Script writing to graphic development to the table reads, to the corrections that are made, and then the editing process and everything that happens afterwards.
28:31
Barry Knuttila
So we have some ideas about using technology in order to be able to bring some well developed content to market a little bit quicker in certain areas, and we'll see how that comes out. AI is another area which we think has very strong potential to help us out.
28:49
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I don't know, you probably have done something, but when I was out at King Schools and I got to do a little blip with John in front of the camera, I mean, he hits a light switch when he starts talking and that teleprompter starts rolling. But a little behind the scenes would probably be interesting to all your customers and potential customers just to see it is not a small operation. I think even when were just doing a practice shoot as part of the Cessna Pilot center group that was out there, you know, there's eight people in a room right next to us that are doing a whole lot of work to make sure lighting's right and the position of the people are right and the green screen is not small. It's a whole freaking room. And cameras, teleprompters, multiple cameras.
29:36
Bobby Doss
It is a production. And then just post producing this podcast is a ton of work. I can't imagine multiple angles, multiple audio channels, multiple people, and somebody sneezes, man, let's start over. Like, that's going to be one take.
29:52
Barry Knuttila
Especially with our field shoots these days, when we go out and we fully rig a172, we've got usually between six and eight cameras that are all running, and that's generating a tremendous amount of video footage that then is brought back and pieced together and cut together in order to get down to a finished product. But, but all those views, all those options definitely lengthen out the amount of time necessary in order to do a good job of editing it all together. That's something that we're still working with. We have some, I think, really good people that are able to do that.
30:30
Barry Knuttila
And one of the keys to it is to have a subject matter expert who's really the producer of a show like that, and they have an idea of what they want to get, a very specific idea when we go out and shoot and then they work with the editors in order to pull it all together. So, so really become a producer of that particular segment and have the vision for it to start with and then do whatever's necessary to bring it to life.
30:56
Bobby Doss
So you just released Some stuff around private maneuvers, I believe. And we, if we put checkride in the name of any podcast, it seems to get downloaded a whole lot more. What. What are y' all doing or do you do around checkrides that maybe people don't know about?
31:13
Barry Knuttila
Well, you know, Bobby, one. One of the things that I think that we're hearing a lot more about than I remember when I was going through my certificates and ratings back in the day is just a tremendous amount of anxiety around checkrides. You know, checkride anxiety, we can label it. And I think that there's good reason for it because so many more or a much higher percentage of the folks that are in training, pilots in training, are doing it with the aspiration to end up at the airlines or in a professional career. And checkrides matter more than ever in that process. Partly it has to do with how long it takes to go through all the certificates and ratings. Anytime you have a failure on a checkride, it sets you back.
32:02
Barry Knuttila
And of course, folks want to be moving and getting through those, let's call them, milestones as quickly as they can. And it can be very expensive as well to have to go back and redo a check ride. And you have the scheduling, you have the expense of airplane instructor to go back over and retrain. You have the expense of the DPE to go back to and the airplane and fuel for that. You have the time that it's taken. So the cost. I think that if you have that airline crew in mind, the cost of failing a checkride is very high. And it's something that everybody wants to avoid.
32:42
Barry Knuttila
And also now with the pilot record database, all that ends up being able to be viewed by the employer at the end of the day, they'll be able to see how often you have passed the failed checkrides through your career. So I think all that has created a lot of anxiety among those when they're showing up for their checkride. And it's something that King schools have recognized and developed courses for. So we have checkride courses all the way through from private, instrument, commercial and CFI where you can get a vicarious view of the checkride. And John, Martha or myself will be getting examined by actual dpe and they'll be going through their plan of action exactly as they would with any candidate.
33:30
Barry Knuttila
And we try and give a model performance so that the folks that are watching it can have a really good idea about how best to answer a particular question that's asked and how to incorporate the. The New requirements of the ACS is now in terms of risk management. So how do you weave in elements of risk management into your responses so that the DPE feels like you're meeting that requirement and you're going to be a safe pilot who's able to manage the risks associated with flying? So we've done that in our checkride courses. They tend to be somewhere around 10 to 12 hours worth of video that include both the oral portion and the flight portion of the checkride. And I think that those, the feedback that we get is that those courses do a great job on alleviating that checkride anxiety.
34:26
Barry Knuttila
So this part of what generates anxiety is fear of the unknown. Right. A lot of, especially on the private level, might be the first checkride, probably the first checkride that they've taken and they're really not quite sure what to expect or how to answer questions in a way that is to the point and covers the elements of risk management. And that's something we've tried to do and the feedback has been great. We've Talked to some DPs that said clearly that they noticed the difference because they asked the students afterwards, well, how did you prepare for this check ride, whether they passed or failed it? And when they hear that they've used the King School's checkride course, they're reporting that those students do better and feel better and they're the ones that makes a DPs day.
35:17
Barry Knuttila
Because no DP in Wally, I'm sure is exactly this way, wants to fail. You want to have the very best candidate you've ever had every time. Absolutely feel good about that. So, yeah, so we try and help out in that.
35:32
Bobby Doss
I've watched a lot of those videos and the one thing I can say that is if you haven't seen them or you haven't been a part of them, it's the in and out of role play, right? Like of course you're not taking a private checkride, Barry, you've got that knocked off. But you're you or John or Martha or I think it's John doing it in the CFI when. And it's we're doing this role play and then he stops and explains the context or the DPE explains some context like that is really good for a potential candidate or applicant to see and understand that's, that's going to be very beneficial. So I highly recommend those checkride courses for sure.
36:09
Barry Knuttila
I agree and I should have mentioned that there's a lot of sidebar discussions in those checkride courses where you take a little break from the actual, you know, running of the checkride and talk about, well, what's the DP really looking for here? What's on your mind? What, you know. And those discussions tend to really reveal some gems I would say no doubt might not have thought about.
36:33
Bobby Doss
I'm still aspiring to get my CFI one day, so I've watched that, I've watched the FOI and the CFI check ride many times just to continue to hone my skills. I'll, I'll get the nerve done and I'll get over my own checkride anxiety one day and take that ride for sure. Well, I, I'm waiting for Wally to get approved, and when Wally gets approved, maybe I'll do it.
36:55
Barry Knuttila
There you go. I finished this year doing the CFI checkride. It's in edit right now. It's the ACS version of the CFI checkride. And it was intense. I have to say. I hadn't done it been, I guess, 10 years or so since I did my actual CFI checkride. So I had to go back and refresh a lot of knowledge. But, but I was reminded how deep the knowledge required for the CFI checkride is and how big of a checkride that is. And we're struggling right now on getting about 30 hours of video down to, you know, a reasonable level. Maybe 10 hours for the oral before we go shoot the in the air portion.
37:40
Bobby Doss
And 30 hours of video takes 130 hours just to even start recording it, and then 130 hours to record it. It's crazy how much all that puts together. We talked a lot about business and a lot about training. What, what do you do nowadays, Barry? To wrap up the show? What do you do nowadays to fly for fun? You have to enjoy it still. What, what's your passion? What's your passion flying nowadays?
38:02
Barry Knuttila
You know, I have to say aviation is my passion, no matter how I, I do it. And, but the things that I've enjoyed the most recently have been the helicopter rating that you mentioned, Bobby. That was really an amazing experience to go back through and start with a whole different category of airc again and to go back. And I think it was insightful for me for my work in King Schools too, because it was really going back to being a beginner and developing that beginner's mind, you know, kind of throwing out everything that you think that you know about flying and approach it from a, a beginner. And that for me was just thrilling to go back and do. And that first solo, all the memories came back of my first airplane.
38:49
Barry Knuttila
And when I lifted that helicopter, picked it up off the ground and started going around the pattern, I was thinking to myself, this is the coolest thing ever. And if I had tried this just a couple weeks before, a few weeks before, it would have been a suicide mission. There's no way I would have survived it. Here I am flying this helicopter solo around the pad and all the responsibility on me. And that is a, Gives you a sense of competency and a sense that, you know, the training that we do out there is valuable and really the instructors make a tremendous difference. And the instructor that I had was an amazing instructor. But the dedication required by people learning to fly in order to go through what we have, to go through, the examinations we have to do, it takes a passion.
39:45
Barry Knuttila
And I still have that passion that was wonderful to go through. And flying a helicopter was. It's different than an airplane. It has no stability. You're flying it all the time. But over time it becomes natural. And that lack of stability then becomes something that's completely enjoyable because it allows you to do things with the helicopter that you could never do with an airplane around. Flying slow around. Just the sense of being connected to the aircraft and, you know, looking to your left and saying, oh, I wonder what that is over there. That'd be interesting. And then the helicopter just snaps and goes over there, you know, and you don't feel like you're doing anything. So that was fun. Other things I, I love, I, I have a, a group.
40:31
Barry Knuttila
My wife and I both are members of a group of 16 pilots that own three Great Lakes biplanes. And we do tours through that organization along the San Diego coast. Coastal tours, aerobatic tours, formation flying, air combat. And that is a real kick because most of our partners are ex military guys. I didn't come from that route, but they have a lot to teach and enjoy teaching it and I've enjoyed learning and another area where get to go back to the beginner's mind again and learn how to fly formation, learn how to do some of these things that, and air combat techniques from World War I. You know, these guys are history buffs and you know, they know a lot of that stuff. So I, I've had a lot of fun doing that.
41:16
Barry Knuttila
Still enjoy flying the Falcon with John and Martha is incredibly rewarding. Also flying it with my wife now these days she's type braided in it as well. And so that's a lot of fun to fly together and enjoy that. So I don't know, I, I, I just enjoy everything, Bobby. It's aviation for me is just, it's in my blood.
41:38
Bobby Doss
There's been many spottings of John and Martha in the Falcon in Conroe, an Airport probably 10 minutes from Wally's house and about 15 or 30 minutes from our airport. If y' all ever come back through Houston and make a fuel stop at Conroe, please let me and Wally know. We'd love to come say hi and chit chat a little bit.
41:57
Barry Knuttila
Well, it has been a common fuel stop for us in the past, though. You never know. We'll definitely let you know.
42:03
Bobby Doss
Good restaurant there if y' all need to eat too. We'll, we'll break some bread together for sure. Very great conversation. Great show. Thanks for joining us. We look forward to many years of king schools putting out great materials for student pilots and those pilots that are already rated to make us all better pilots. We appreciate your passion, everything that John and Martha does. Keep up the good work and stay behind the proposal.
42:28
Barry Knuttila
Well, true, truly a pleasure to join on the show and talk about aviation. Doesn't take a whole lot to get me to start talking about aviation, so I enjoyed the time today. Thank you both for inviting me.
42:40
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@brave.theprop.com behind 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.