We are joined by David Wright this week. David is currently a major airline pilot and the chief flight instructor at United Flight Systems. We talk about his many adventures, including a nearly three decade career in corporate flying!
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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.
00:24
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:25
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:26
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This week we have a guest. We've talked about having this guest on the show since day one. Really?
00:34
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
00:34
Bobby Doss
And that is David Wright, the chief instructor at United Flight Systems. Welcome to the show, David.
00:39
David Wright
Hey, thanks for having me.
00:41
Bobby Doss
So David and I have now known each other for just over five years. Really well. And I knew of him as he was around the flight school when I was a student. But David, when was the first time you started working for United Flight Systems?
00:55
David Wright
August of 1990.
00:57
Bobby Doss
August of 1990. And I say this to people all the time. You have literally seen everything in GA, I have to believe.
01:06
David Wright
Well, I've seen everything since 1985 at least, so.
01:10
Bobby Doss
Well, I mean just think about being an instructor at or around a flight school for almost 30 years now, right?
01:17
David Wright
Yeah, I've kept it current that long.
01:19
Bobby Doss
How many flat tires do you think you've seen?
01:22
David Wright
Well, I hope I haven't done many of them myself, but I've seen a few.
01:25
Bobby Doss
Yeah, so you've seen almost everything. Number of emergencies, we'll talk about some of that stuff. But let's just give a little bit of background on David. David started flying in 1985. Then you went to college. Where'd you go to college?
01:39
David Wright
Embry Riddle Prescott.
01:40
Bobby Doss
All right, so an aviation college, Aviation background through college. And then like today, I think people come be flight instructors. Is that what you did?
01:50
David Wright
I am a flight instructor.
01:51
Bobby Doss
No, was that what you did back then in those days? You graduated college?
01:54
David Wright
Oh, yeah, I graduated college. I came out and I flight. I got a job in Houston here at Hooks Airport. It was called Mary Worth Aviation then, but it has morphed into United Flight Systems. And I've been associated with the school since. Since August. Well, probably a little before August because I did my CFI at the school.
02:15
Bobby Doss
Awesome. And so how long in those days did it take you to get your big airline job?
02:22
David Wright
I was a flight instructor for three years. Full time. Living in a little.
02:28
Bobby Doss
Full time, 20 hours a week like some of my full time instructors.
02:30
David Wright
No, I, I typically, I worked. I was usually the top dog or one of the few of the top three because I, I wanted To I had, I wasn't living off my parents money and I was living in a dumpy apartment and I needed to be a man and paid my own bills. So I knew that to do that as an instructor you got to work hard. So I always just work tried to be pushed the limits and work.
02:54
Bobby Doss
Was the minimums the same back then? I don't even know. Is it like the same 1500 hours? If you got 15 hours you were eligible to get your ATP?
03:01
David Wright
That's correct. And you didn't have to go to a special school at that point. So I got 1500 hours instructing and then took my ATP in a Geronimo.
03:10
Bobby Doss
There you go. And so you had 1500 hours, you started interviewing. Did you get jobs offers?
03:17
David Wright
No, I didn't get job offers. I probably got a job offer at least started looking available do jobs about a year after my ATP. So that was three years in I got my ATP during my second year I interviewed at Continental Express with 1500, well over 1500 hours because I'm ATP and 500 hours of multi. And they looked at me and said you don't have enough multi time. So back then 500 hours of multi time wouldn't even get you a job with the regionals. So things are very different today for sure.
03:53
Bobby Doss
How many people do you guys think go to the regionals today with 25.0 or 25.1?
04:01
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, a lot.
04:02
David Wright
99% of them or.
04:03
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah, I, I got hired at original in it would have been the end of 1985 and I probably had I'm say thinking about 3200 hours, 1400 of it was probably multi.
04:21
Bobby Doss
Wow, different times.
04:23
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
04:23
David Wright
But I will tell you that was a fateful day for me because two instructors, me and another United Flight Systems instructor interviewed on the same day at Continental Express over at George Bush and this still a friend of mine, he's a captain now, he's a triple seven captain at United. But he had been working as a flight instructor and one of his students hired him to run a flight department for an old company. Well, he got me an interview because I didn't get accepted, I didn't get taken at Conel Express, but he did. So he got me an interview with his boss and that set me on a job for 26 years as a corporate pilot flying for an oil company here in Houston. So.
05:05
Bobby Doss
And I think a lot of people aspire to be a corporate pilot. We'll talk more about that phase for you. But in a 25 plus year career at a corporation where you're flying their jets. You fly the Same jet all 25 years or do they upgrade jets?
05:18
David Wright
No, it was a progression. We started in a pressurized twin Cessna 414. I flew that for four years. I did about 600 hours a year for flying down below 18,000ft in all the weather. Learned a lot about flying in that airplane. Then we progressed to a turboprop, a 441 Conquest 2 and then went to a Citation Bravo and ended up a couple other airplanes in there. I saw Citation Mustang, thrown in a CJ4 and finally flew in Citation XLS for four years. So.
05:54
Bobby Doss
Wow.
05:55
David Wright
So I was, I'm a Cessna. Prior to my job now I was an all Cessna guy. I have four Cessna type ratings plus the Boeing type rating now.
06:03
Bobby Doss
So do you only have to. How many cards do you have in your wallet?
06:06
David Wright
I only have one. Not like a couple of my friends who love to throw. They got that photo album, the accordion one that falls out. How many type ratings do you have? Well, I'm not like that.
06:18
Bobby Doss
How many cards do you have to carry?
06:20
Wally Mulhern
I just have one.
06:20
Bobby Doss
Really.
06:21
Wally Mulhern
One ATP?
06:21
David Wright
Yeah.
06:23
Bobby Doss
So back to the piston and the kind of the flight instructor world. I mean you being a par 141 chief instructor, you definitely know the regs and have been around the regulations for a long time. How many piston hours do you think you have?
06:38
David Wright
Let's see, shy of 10,000 probably in the 9,000 range.
06:45
Bobby Doss
That's a lot of time in a Cessna if you think about it. Not, not a Cessna jet.
06:49
David Wright
But that would be, that'd be. Oh singles.
06:52
Bobby Doss
I guess that would be twins.
06:53
David Wright
Yeah, I was thinking of reciprocating powered aircraft is probably 8 to 9,000.
06:59
Bobby Doss
So ton of time. Ton of time and again, probably seen it all. We'll talk more about those for sure. So talk us through a day in the life of a corporate pilot a little bit. We the did an interview with Wally last week about his day in the life. But what is a corporate pilot? I think a lot of people want to be a corporate pilot. What does that mean? What'd that mean then? You saw it up until four or five years ago. What is the corporate world like today? And what do people in flight training, what should they be thinking about or know about it?
07:28
David Wright
The corporate world is very related to your human, your ability to relate to other human beings. Because you're in a much more face to face situation in the corporate world than you are with the airline as an airline pilot, you know, we see you guys, we see the passengers board the aircraft and the door shuts. And actually, I know that my airline really doesn't want us to do much. Cause they don't want us to show up on video with our wing, our bars. But with the corporate world, there's nothing between you and the air, the passengers in the back. And typically in the smaller corporate departments, there are no flight attendants. So your job is to not only be a pilot, but is also to make sure that aircraft is clean and stocked and ready to go.
08:11
David Wright
And customer service is key in the corporate world. Whereas in the airline world, once that door shuts, my customer service is to get the passengers to their location safely.
08:24
Bobby Doss
Yours is to say something funny on the overhead. I know what Southwest does, but we'll talk about that more, too. Does that mean buying ice? Does that mean buying beer? Does that mean buying wine, cocktails on.
08:35
David Wright
The way to the airport? Early morning, it's on the way. Picking up the catering, picking up the beer. The Wall Street Journals, the New York. And whatever the specific customers ask for. That's one of the other things you have to know. M&MS, you're not far off. I had one customer who loved Big Red. The drink, that soft drink, Big Red. And if Big Red was not on the airplane, there was an issue. There was an issue. And so I had to, on a regular basis, find Big Red to make sure the airplane was stocked with Big Red.
09:07
Bobby Doss
That's an interesting squawk. I've never heard of squawk where no, Big Red, we cannot go. This is airworthiness directive. We need Big red. Right. So 27 years. I'm sure you saw it all in that world as well. Any memorable trips that you can tell us about that was maybe a little crazy or quirky?
09:28
David Wright
Yeah. We had one trip where the company had donated the use of the airplane to a sponsorship. People could. It was a fundraiser. And the people that had won the contest used the aircraft to take us on a jaunt up to Oregon to golfing. And we took off from Houston on a Sunday morning. And the first fuel stop was Salt Lake City. And we get a tap on the shoulder. And the airplane had been stocked with the little Minis. And they had gone through the vodka Minis drastically, quickly. And the tap on the shoulder was, hey, can you call ahead and get us some alcohol? And the first officer I looked at and like, it's Sunday morning and our first fuel stop is Salt Lake City. How's this going to work out?
10:19
Bobby Doss
You're chasing time. It's still morning.
10:21
David Wright
Still morning. And it's Salt Lake City. A pretty conservative city.
10:24
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
10:25
David Wright
Well, we called ahead and guess what was waiting for us when we got there. There was a bottle, there was a bottle of alcohol waiting on the. We're like, we could not believe that. And I just think that was a really interesting story. And then the same story, this one got really crazy. But we had to tell them we had to cut them off because it got pretty wild. And then they wanted to golfing and have us set up on another jaunt, another city. And it got really crazy. But that was not typical for our company. Very conservative. But this group of people, they were not our company people.
11:00
Bobby Doss
First time in a private jet.
11:01
David Wright
Yeah.
11:02
Bobby Doss
I would have probably act the same way for sure. So what's a day in the life like though? You go pick up ice and beer and whatever and you fly your president or executives to a location. Do you sit in the airport? Do you.
11:16
David Wright
Yeah, you. Typically a typical day for us would fly to another one of our outstation offices. It was all oil related, so it was going to be central western United States. And we'd fly our passengers to the office, they'd get out, do their work. 4:35pm in the evening, they say we're coming back. We'd load up the plane, have the food and the catering ready to rock and flight plans filed and we take off and come home.
11:46
Bobby Doss
Awesome. And that was, I mean, I remember you had a pretty good schedule back in those days. Like you had lead times but you knew you were gonna fly.
11:55
David Wright
Yeah, I would say that my corporate job was atypical in that sense. We probably had two to three weeks advance notice of a trip. Was very rare that we got a call, I said, hey, be at the airport and you know, in an hour because we got to go somewhere. But there are a lot of corporate jobs that are not like that. Whereas you're on call, we in the airline, we're called living the reserve life. But you're on call 247 and ready to rock when the phone rings. You know, in my career at that point, I'd had probably three of those over 27 years. So that's minimal.
12:30
Bobby Doss
Some guys get that probably each week.
12:31
David Wright
Yeah, for sure.
12:33
Bobby Doss
Tell us a little bit about how would you go? You meet a lot of instructors, a lot of people that are building time to go to the airlines and hopefully fly jets.
12:42
David Wright
Right.
12:42
Bobby Doss
What would your suggestion, tips and tricks be to someone who's in the 7, 800 hour range. Who wants to be a corporate pilot? Maybe they don't want to be an airline pilot at the airlines, they want to be a corporate pilot. What would you tell them to do?
12:56
David Wright
Well, the corporate world is one where you have to know somebody almost within the company just to find out what's going on. It's not like they advertise for their jobs. It's word of mouth. I heard that, analogy, you got to be inside the fence. And I think that analogy works pretty good because you have to know, in my situation, I knew someone who got me the interview. I wasn't the only one that interviewed for it, but was because of the connection that I got the interview. So people, connections is where you got to meet people. The man who started the company was a he was a student pilot. And that's how we met him, is through him, he was learning to fly. And he simply asked his flight instructor, hey, we need a flight department, would you like to set it up for us?
13:50
David Wright
And it just, it snowballed from there. And that was just because this man who is learning how to fly decided he'd rather have someone else fly him around.
14:00
Bobby Doss
Well, there's no doubt you can meet some pretty interesting folks around a flight school, right?
14:04
David Wright
That's absolutely.
14:05
Bobby Doss
People, people that are around learning how to fly, if they're in their 40s, they probably are doing okay, right? They probably have made some money or have money to spend on flight training. They're not, they're not being sponsored by parents anymore probably. And they probably got cool jobs and maybe have access to other planes. Right. I've had some great opportunities by just being around the fly school to fly some pretty cool stuff.
14:28
David Wright
Yeah, there's a. Quite a variety of people that you meet around an airport.
14:33
Bobby Doss
I've never, you know, I've never been in a Saratoga, but someday I just hope I can get in a Saratoga and fly somewhere.
14:39
David Wright
Yeah, I wonder who has one.
14:40
Bobby Doss
Who has one.
14:41
Wally Mulhern
Well, speaking of interesting people, let me just throw out a, kind of an interesting story. I was given a checkride to a gentleman and if he listens to this, he'll get a chuckle out of this. But we were talking and I was trying to get him to talk about the PoH and the comment I made, I said, well, you know, if you're, you don't know how to reset the clock in your car, what would you look at? He goes, oh yeah, the owner's Manual for the car. And I go. I go, yeah. I said, well, I don't know why I said this, but I said, by the way, what kind of car do you drive? And I expected him to say, a Toyota or Ford or a Chevy or something. He goes, a McLaren. And I thought to myself, wow, that's.
15:27
Wally Mulhern
That's like a race car. And so as we're doing the check ride, I'm googling prices of McLarens. And. And I went, wow, like, the. The cheapest McLaren is like. Like, really expensive.
15:42
Bobby Doss
More than a Cessna.
15:43
Wally Mulhern
Oh, much more than a Cessna. And I just. I just.
15:46
David Wright
It's a corporate jet.
15:48
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
15:50
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And I know you're talking about. He actually had two of those. They. They kind of.
15:53
Wally Mulhern
Yes.
15:54
Bobby Doss
Changed colors every couple of weeks. Right. And then when he wasn't driving those, he had a Lambo. So he definitely had his share of fine cars as well.
16:02
Wally Mulhern
Very nice guy. Very nice guy, too.
16:04
Bobby Doss
So transition a little bit now. You've flown Corbra for a long time, and you decide to make a jump. About four years ago, I think I did. Tell us a little bit about that.
16:14
David Wright
Yeah, I'd always wanted to go to the airlines, and a lot of things happened in there that, in my job, that kept me at the corporate. I enjoyed the corporate a lot, but I just decided, you know, pushing 50 is, like, time is not on your side. You got to do something. So I decided to go to the.
16:33
Bobby Doss
Airlines, and we've been around each other for a long time. You know, I'm a huge fan of Southwest. And you ultimately ended up at Southwest. Is it common for Southwest to hire people that are corporate, then want to transition or of age? Like, what. What did your class look like?
16:51
David Wright
So out of my class, there were two corp, maybe three corporates. Everybody else was regionals or military. So it's a small percentage of the class, typically. But I would say that probably being corporate, it's not a hindrance, but it's not a direct line, because most people who get a nice, solid corporate gig will retire from that. I decided that I want to do the airlines before I got too old. So I went, well, I say this.
17:24
Bobby Doss
I'm sitting in a room with two airline pilots who get to fly really big aircraft. I think it would just be really cool to sit in the front and drive a 737. I mean, that's got to be something that not many people do in this world, right?
17:37
David Wright
It's a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed is really different. The Life is very different from the corporate world. But I like them both. I think they're both fantastic jobs. I just wanted to experience both.
17:54
Bobby Doss
And so 35 year senior guy united and a three or four year senior guy at another major airline. Probably very different worlds. But what don't people understand about your world, David? Is it the bidding? Is it the commuting? Is it the, you know, we talked a lot about this a couple weeks ago in Wally show. What is it that they don't know that they should know? They think they all want to be airline pilots, but what's some of the good, bad and ugly?
18:20
David Wright
Well, I will tell you, if you do not live in base, you will be commuting. And I know lots of airline pilots that do commute now. I commuted during COVID due to shuffles of scheduling. I actually was forced to a new domicile. I hold Houston now, but I was forced to move to Chicago be based Chicago for a while. So I commuted from Houston to Chicago for nine months and that gave me a taste of how much I like living in base. But commuting is just a way of life that lots of pilots do it. They just have a system. The thing about commuting is it does take some of your personal time away from your life because you've got to use your personal time to reposition yourself to your job. But I know plenty of pilots who do it.
19:11
David Wright
Don't wink an eye at it. Blink an eye.
19:13
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I got a good picture from Wally day before yesterday. I think one of our assistant chiefs, Kevin Foster was up front riding a leg home with Wally this past week. Yesterday, I think Chicago to Houston they were doing. He finished up his IOE and pretty cool selfie. We'll see that on social media real soon because that's cool. Just shows the progression of getting there. You know, I can remember when Kevin, I interviewed Kevin and he gets his job here and worked hard and now he's finished up Ilee and hopefully to have a line or some path forward really soon. What do you think? Is there something that a 500 hour flight instructor should be doing if they want to be a major airline pilot that maybe we don't talk about regularly?
19:58
David Wright
Two things. One of them is get as many instrument students that you can because instrument, the instrument procedures are your life in the airlines. And the more natural you are with them when you get to the airlines, the easier it is in the simulator and then in the airplane itself.
20:12
Bobby Doss
So if I'm not a double Eye today I should put my fork in the ground and say, I don't need it, I just need 1500 hours.
20:18
David Wright
No, you need to spend some money on getting some education, on getting your double eye so that you can get some instrument students and then get out in the real world and do some instrument flying.
20:26
Bobby Doss
And I know your feelings, Wally, but you feel the same way, right? Like.
20:28
Wally Mulhern
Oh yeah. Well, David said something. I mean real world instrument flying, I mean, we have some, you know, we have some instrument pilots, but they haven't used it.
20:42
Bobby Doss
Proficiency in the sim doesn't count.
20:44
David Wright
Well, no, probably real actual amazingly teaches you a lot. The hood is, you know, it's important because it's what you have to do when you're training or you don't have clouds, but when you hit the actual, you have no choice but to do exactly what you've been trained to do. Because if you don't fly the way you're supposed to, you're gonna hurt yourself.
21:05
Bobby Doss
Well, I haven't flown a lot of actual, but I probably have 25 hours. While this room might have upwards of 40,000 hours, I'm not the big heavyweight in the room. But there's. Your body does feel different. You have to almost train it to believe that what it feels isn't there.
21:21
David Wright
And I don't know if Bobby still experiences this. I mean, you guys. But Wally, I still get the leans. I'll be in a cockpit and go, man, this plane's not doing that.
21:32
Bobby Doss
Yep.
21:33
David Wright
Yeah. And you just gotta say, yeah, you're right.
21:35
Bobby Doss
No, that's what I'm saying. Like I still, my body definitely still feels like, I feel like I'm rolling a little bit. And you got to say these instruments are right. You got to say that. Oh, you know, you got to believe those instruments. And I don't think if you just have foggles on or if you're sitting watching someone with foggles on, that doesn't really count.
21:50
David Wright
Right.
21:50
Bobby Doss
You got to really do it.
21:51
David Wright
And the other thing is you can't say I. You don't have the chance to pull your foggles up and say, oops, yeah, uncle, let's start. No, you're in the game. You're in the game. And the game ends when you break out and find the Runway and land.
22:06
Bobby Doss
You are committed, as they say, right?
22:08
David Wright
Yeah. So instrument training and I hear this a lot lately that no one wants to become a multi engine instructor. I think the things I learned as a Multi engine instructor directly led to me being a good airline pilot because the more you practice these engine out emergencies, when you get a real V1 cut in the sim or in the airplane, it's really not, it's kind of a non event if it's a natural thing for you. And the only way it becomes natural is if you do it. So I think that the double I and the mei. I can't emphasize the mei enough. And I'd hear, I hear a lot of pushback from instructions. Oh, I only need 24, 25 hours. Well, when you hit that sim and you haven't done v1 cuts for a long time, it, that can be a wild thing.
22:58
Bobby Doss
Yeah, bet I bet. I, I haven't flown a lot of jets, but I maybe four or five flights under my belt and I get my hand slapped every time I'm shadowing him because he, you're not supposed touch that throttle once that V1 call out happens. Right. And for me I can't let go of it because I'm used to flying a Cessna, holding it in a little bit. Right. So yeah, something that's not natural.
23:20
David Wright
My first, my first jet instructor said rattlesnakes. He goes, what's that word? V1 cut. That handles a rattlesnake.
23:28
Bobby Doss
Let go, flee from that thing. So obviously you've had a little bit of an up and down major airline career, Covid. You were one of many rookies, young guys and the majors that experienced the opportunity to fly a bunch and then fly not much at all with the fear of maybe not flying ever again.
23:50
David Wright
Yeah, there's always the, that's the. For new airline pilots, you are at the mercy of the up and downs. The ups are great, but the downs can be hard. I'm grateful that my company was fine. We, we made it through Covid without me getting furloughed. But that thought did go through my mind. I was like, I gambled a 26 year job to go right into this and it's like that's life. We'll just, we'll roll with it.
24:18
Bobby Doss
So. That's right. Wally. I don't, I, I know were doing this and other things during COVID but what was Covid like for a 30 something year guy? Did you have a lot of time off in Covid?
24:30
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I did. You know, with my airline we obviously, I mean the passengers, you know, went down to about 10% at one point, so.
24:42
Bobby Doss
And not international.
24:44
David Wright
So that was, you know, that was crazy to get an airplane that was empty.
24:47
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. And you know, you can't just fly airplanes around with nobody paying the bills. So. Yeah, I mean our, I think our airline got creative and we didn't furlough anybody. We, some people were paid depending on your seniority, you know, without getting into it. Some people took some pay cuts or shouldn't say pay cuts. We didn't, we didn't cut the pay rate, but we flew less.
25:16
Bobby Doss
Right.
25:17
Wally Mulhern
So you did have more time off and then there was the opportunity to not fly at all and just take a smaller pay amount, which I did a couple of months of that. So. But yeah, I think everybody was just looking around just thinking, when's this craziness gonna end?
25:34
David Wright
Yeah, they were different. Like our company had voluntary time offs or early retirements.
25:40
Wally Mulhern
Right, right.
25:41
David Wright
All those things to cut the number and without that I would have been furloughed.
25:46
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I just, I can remember, you know, I was a flight school owner and you saw the airlines diminishing, thinking, oh my gosh, what's the future going to hold here? Right. I think all of us. I can, and I can remember people saying this. We were, we're not going to recover from this. And then now you fast forward three or four years later and it's.
26:03
David Wright
But it was like a life crazy. It wasn't gradual cutoff or gradual increase. It was. Someone turned the spigot completely off and then turned the spigot right back on.
26:13
Bobby Doss
It's crazy.
26:14
David Wright
It was, it was crazy signing.
26:17
Bobby Doss
I would have thought three years ago there would never be another signing bonus for a regional pilot. And I think all of them are doing something right now to help fill the gap that we have in the regionals. Right.
26:29
David Wright
So interesting thing about my slot was I was junior, obviously, and there was no one got. There was one class underneath me and then there was no hiring. So I've been at the bottom of the seniority list for two and a half years before the hiring started picking up again. Typically low seniority is going to get reserve. Reserve went senior because the senior guys knew they wasn't, they weren't get paid to not fly. So I actually did a lot of flying potentially because I got lines instead of sitting reserve. And then when things kind of got going again, I started getting reserve again. So.
27:05
Bobby Doss
Well, I guess that's interesting because they knew they weren't gonna fly more than their minimum. Why, why go out and try to work hard for my minimum if I can get my minimum And Stay home and grow a beard for the first time in 10 years. Right. I do remember there was a lot of facial hair in those days, for sure. So very interesting story. Now you're a Part 141 chief instructor. I'm the owner of that school. We work together closely on all things regulatory. You wrote a book on the regs one time, didn't you?
27:36
David Wright
I did and I haven't updated it in a year, but I did far is made easy.
27:42
Bobby Doss
So do you still sell that book? Is it still purchasable?
27:45
David Wright
It is if you contact me directly. I do need to do my annual revision of it to get it up to the 2022 standard. But yeah, I did. I took part 61 and part 91 and turned it into just common English. And I know there's other books out there, but mine took a little different direction with it. It's really common English and it's pretty fun.
28:11
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I read it. It's a good book. It's something that does break down some complexity into some pretty simple terms for sure. And today, I mean, we still, you and I recently, I won't say debated, but discussed the best way forward.
28:27
David Wright
I think debate was a good word. Yeah. Debate sometimes is helpful.
28:31
Bobby Doss
Interpretation is not always in the eye of one beholder.
28:35
David Wright
That's right.
28:36
Bobby Doss
It's many people. But we got to a good solution and I think that's what good teams do. And I think that I've definitely leaned on you for that for many years. And as a chief, as somebody who's been around a long time instructing a lot of people, you've had to see your share of stuff. Let's talk about when was the time you were most afraid inside of an aircraft?
28:59
David Wright
Well, it wasn't in a training world. It was actually in the corporate flying world, in the flying the pressurized twin and were coming out of a. Coming out of Pearsall, Texas. And this was before we had cell phones that had NEXRAD radar on them. And you actually had to run into a building and talk to flight service station and get them to interpret the radar and say this was December and the passengers were running late. And I off in the west, I could see that line of thunderstorms moving my direction, skies lighting up, running back and forth. Hey, far. How far out? How far out is that? For me they're like, okay, well you're going to be good. If you leave now, you're going to be good.
29:36
David Wright
Well, they were a little bit later and we took off and by the time we took off into it. The lightning wasn't right on top of, but the thunderstorm was right over us. And I got tossed around by the worst turbulence I've ever had. And my first officer, who was not even paid, he was just sitting there building some time with me, was one of my ex students and thankfully he was there because all we could do is just open these binders up with approach plates. This was before foreflight. We actually had to open a book up and look at approach plates and paper maps and all that. And we're just getting tossed over. The pastures in the back are screaming and throwing up and I'm doing the best I can just to stay alive. And I.
30:16
David Wright
That was the night I literally thought, so this is what it's like to die. Lightning is hitting the plane, going across the plane and we're asking for diversions around it. And we asked them for San Antonio and this was the answer from them. That's a good idea. So we made the turn and we popped out of this wall of thunderstorms and there was San Antonio below us and we made it. But I was pretty sure weren't going to make it that night.
30:41
Bobby Doss
Wow.
30:42
David Wright
But you know, there was external pressures on here. If I go back and I look at, you know, I do a review of what happened. We had external pressures, late passengers, technology that wasn't on our side. I could have actually looked at that weather that was off to the west and saying, no, we're not going to go. But I didn't do that. So the lesson is when you, when your gut says things don't look.
31:07
Bobby Doss
Good, trust your gut and young and old today that are out there, corporate pilots, they maybe not just, they're just flying for pay, they feel that pressure and they got to be strong. They don't want to be the one that they have.
31:19
David Wright
You have to be strong because that external pressure is going to come from the person who's paying your paycheck. And you're going to have to say, not tonight, we're not going to. Or wait because. And if you don't and you take off into it. We got lucky. But it could have very well killed us.
31:39
Bobby Doss
Right? Yeah. Well, crazy stuff. So what about ga? You've, you've declared an emergency, I assume ever scared.
31:49
David Wright
I've declared plenty of emergencies. Yeah. I'm not one. I don't worry about the word emergency. If I don't like what's going on and I want priority, I'll use The word emergency. I know there's plenty of pilots. I don't want to deal with the paperwork. I've never filled out one report in all the emergencies I've ever filled.
32:07
Bobby Doss
Wow.
32:07
David Wright
Never requested so and so.
32:10
Bobby Doss
They obviously ended without too much of an incident.
32:13
David Wright
But I'll tell you, in the training world, it typically was when were flying the twins and we'd feather an engine. And some of the twins I had didn't have unfeathering accumulators. So to get the prop out of feather, you had to get it started. Well, sometimes you couldn't get it started. So that prop was windmilling, or not windmilling was feathered. And I don't want anyone in front of me. I'm like, so I call the tower and come in and declare the emergency and come in and land. No, no problem.
32:38
Bobby Doss
Yeah, that's. I've seen that happen once. And it's not. It's a non incident in the grand scheme of things. The FAA does call and check and make sure you did something to right the problem. And then it's. That's it's over. No report, nothing.
32:51
David Wright
I think the one training emergency that I remember was one of the magnetos went haywire on us in the middle of a shondell. And the engine was trying to beat itself to death because it was mistimed. We had one. One magneto sparking and the other one not because it wasn't time. So when went through the. We got our heads together, we got the airplane going in the right direction and went through the procedures, the flow checks, and found out that when we clicked the magneto to one, it ran great. It's like, leave it. Let's go home.
33:24
Bobby Doss
Yeah.
33:25
David Wright
Came home one magneto, but, you know, I thought it was gonna quit. So we climbed up and declared our emergency and came home.
33:31
Bobby Doss
Yeah, you can't fly a plane with no magneto. Yeah, well, maybe, but you can fly.
33:36
David Wright
It all the way to the. Until you land.
33:38
Bobby Doss
Until you land for sure. And I've known you for a long time and I know you love to teach people how to fly aircraft. What's the one thing you like to teach more than anything else?
33:48
Wally Mulhern
You meet.
33:49
Bobby Doss
And I don't mean flight instructor, and I don't mean private. I mean, is there a topic, is there a chapter in the P hack? Is there a far.
33:56
David Wright
I like to teach. I like dead reckoning navigation, pure and simple. In this day and age of having a tablet with foreflight and whatever software you're using, I think we're losing the skills of looking outside the window and just learning how to fly the airplane and keep it on a pink line. I know the pink lines there. You're gonna. You have to have the pink line because you don't have paper. But you got to learn how to navigate that airplane and keep it on the pink line by looking outside, making adjustments, looking at. So how far? Oh, that town looks about right. The tlar method works good. Tlar, which is. That looks about right. That's a skill set that you have to practice. And I think dead reckoning is where I talk a lot about just knowing how to do it.
34:41
David Wright
And I had one student who called me after her first solo cross country and she's like, david, I'm so glad that you made me do that. Because right after takeoff, my ADS B receiver, my GPS failed and she was in a non glass cockpit aircraft. So she had a compass and a DG and a pink line. And she completed her long cross country with nothing telling her how to go from point A to point B other than her Mark 2 eyeballs.
35:13
Bobby Doss
Yeah. I still recommend people don't buy that foreflight subscription until after they solo. I feel like there is something still special about being able to get the job done without that. Right. Maybe if you have it, use it as a backup. I did do all my cross country stuff without foreflight, but I was the last of the few people that did that, I'm sure. Right. Everybody has a new.
35:34
David Wright
And then I think the second area is standardized IFR procedures. I think that we need to teach. You need. Every instructor has to come up with a standardized process from the time they get to the airplane to the time they chalk it down. And they need to standardize and do that dance step the same way every time.
35:54
Bobby Doss
Yeah.
35:54
David Wright
Because when you get to the airlines, I just think of the airline job as a big dance. It's intricate, it's the same thing every time. But you've got to do the steps exactly the way we're taught to do it. Flow checks, checklists. There's no deviation from that. There's no coming up with your own dance step. It's learn the dance, do the dance, and do it the same way every time.
36:17
Bobby Doss
Well, and we talked a little bit about that last week. Right. I mean, Wally doesn't know every first officer that's going to sit with him in that cockpit. And every first officer hasn't flown with Wally. So there's got to be an effort that the companies are putting in to make sure that you have an unlimited amount of training so that when you meet you know exactly what each other is expecting to happen and get done.
36:39
Wally Mulhern
You know, we. We would. I mean, what we're talking about is. Is kind of instrument flying, I think. And a lot of times I will talk to students. If I'm instructing or maybe on a check ride, I'll say, are you a sock, shoe, tie? Or use sock, shoe, shoe, tie. Or are you sock, shoe, sock, shoe, tie? And then they'll look at me like I'm crazy.
37:04
Bobby Doss
And I said, well, I'm a sock, shoe, sock, shoe.
37:06
Wally Mulhern
Okay, okay. Well, you don't. And I'm looking at David's shoes. He's not a Thai guy. He's. So my point is, how do you put your socks and shoes on in the morning? I'm a sock, shoe, tie, sock, shoe, tie guy. Some people may be sock, shoe, shoe, tie. But I'll bet you do it the same way every time. I go left to right, some people.
37:26
Bobby Doss
Go right to left, I go right to left.
37:28
Wally Mulhern
Okay, but think about it. I mean, everybody's going to be analyzing how they put their shoes on. That's listening to this the next day. I'll bet you do it the same way. And so when you get in an airplane, you want to do it the same way. And. And David talking about standardization, I just. We were going into Frankfurt just a couple weeks ago, and my first officer was referring to the altitudes, you know, he would say 15,000. And the. The German controller says, that's 1 5,000. You know, they want you to say 1 5,000. They don't want you to say 15,000. So it.
38:09
Bobby Doss
Well, that's real world. That's called problems in the past. Right. So, yeah, that is the real world for sure.
38:14
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
38:14
Bobby Doss
And we create bad habits. And I was going to make a joke when you were talking, David, that you don't have a captain that has his own way of you doing things. But even if they did, it wouldn't last long in today's world.
38:23
David Wright
Right there, obviously, every human we have are slight, but in the airline world, you can't have those. Yeah. My captain is expecting me to do my job exactly the way he's expecting it. And guess what? I have the same. Look at him. If. If he does things out of. Out of sequence, I'm gonna know it. It's gonna throw me off. So it throws the whole thing off for sure. But, you know, at the end of a good fly, if you got A captain. We get a debrief at the end. We're not perfect. I got debriefed the other day on a trip, and I was doing something out of sequence, just. And he was right. So I had to look at that going, absolutely right, Cap. You're, you know, I accept that critique, and I will change. So.
39:07
Wally Mulhern
And, and it comes the other way, too. I mean, I've had first officers saying, hey, you're doing this. But the book says to do it that way. And I look at. Golly, I, I, you're absolutely right. Thank you. Yeah. So, I mean, we want to do it. I mean, it's, it's down to the minor thing. I mean, at my airline, I mean, the, when we set the parking brake, the call is parking brake set, not brake set.
39:34
David Wright
Parking brakes in our landing gear in Southwest. I remember in training a gear up gear. No, it is not. That is landing gear up. And I'm like, are you. And they're like, yes, we're serious.
39:46
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
39:47
David Wright
And so you just have to say, okay, that here's the thing. We get paid to do exactly what they tell us to do.
39:53
Wally Mulhern
Right? Right.
39:54
David Wright
I don't get paid to change up what south. Southwest has already figured out what I'm supposed to do. I get paid to do what Southwest tells me to do.
40:01
Wally Mulhern
I joke all time. If they say tomorrow we're start wearing pink pants, I would say, okay.
40:09
Bobby Doss
Okay. Well, I'm sure there's some feedback loop, but I'm sure that they've been so many feedback items given that they're going to not change their SOPs anytime soon because we want to take a word out of something, and it's probably been retro tested so that it's the most safe for everybody as well. So very interesting conversation. David, thanks for being a great chief to our flight school and to our CFIs and all of our students. As always, keep flying safely and stay behind the prop.
40:41
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.