This week Bobby & Wally hit the road to do the show live from East Kentucky University's "Safety Standdown". Enjoy this very special live episode recorded in front of more than 250 college students!
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00:00
Nick Alan
Hey, y', all, it's Nick Alan, the voice and producer of the behind the Prop podcast. Just popping in here real quick to say this is a very special episode of the show. Bobby and Wally went out to Eastern Kentucky University to record this one live in front of a college student audience. EKU asked behind the Prop to come out and speak to their campus of over 250 aviation students at their spring safety stand down. This is that recording of the show and it was presented live on March 24, 2023. So we took the audio from it. It's a little spotty at times. You'll hear the audio quality isn't necessarily the best, but bear with us. There's some really good. You'll learn a lot and have some fun, too.
00:33
Nick Alan
And by the way, before I do start this show for you, if you ever have any interest in having Bobby or Wally out for an event, don't hesitate to shoot Bobby an email. That's Bobby Behindtheprop.com all right, thanks for listening. Let's roll.
00:46
Wally Mulhern
Clear prop service seven three.
Turnkey number two following twin traffic.
Three mile final Runway two five going four mile final.
00:56
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 design pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
01:11
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
01:12
Wally Mulhern
Hey, Bobby, how are you?
01:13
Bobby Doss
Fantastic as always. Hopefully you guys have heard the show and heard that intro many times. I got ripped off all of a sudden, which is interesting. But how many of you have listened to the show? You're not getting in trouble. You've got to raise your hand.
01:26
Wally Mulhern
Awesome.
01:27
Bobby Doss
We love to see the people listening to the show and we started the show to give back to aviation and are humbled that it's listened to worldwide every day. It's just two guys that sit in my office and record a show and we don't even know who's listening. So thanks for listening to the show. I'm Bobby Goss, this is Wally Baller, and we are humbled to be asked to come here and talk to you. It was Jamie reached out via LinkedIn, probably not over. And her message either got cut off or it was short. It said something like, hey, I was wondering. And I said, well, what were you wondering? And she said, y' all would like to come to Eastern Kentucky University. And of course we said yes. And here we are today, five months later.
02:10
Bobby Doss
So hopefully we put together some good content to share with you. And at the end, midway through we're gonna start asking questions. You guys get involved, you girls get involved. We got a lot of T shirts, stickers, mugs, other things to give away for those that participate. And we'll try touch on almost all the topics that we got in your spreadsheet. But to start, let's talk a little bit more about the intro that Wayne gave, and I'll let Wally a little bit more about history.
02:41
Wally Mulhern
I just realized that it was 40.
02:43
Bobby Doss
Years ago this month.
02:44
Wally Mulhern
I got my fire structure Certificate, March of 1983. And I was telling Bobby this morning over breakfast, I. I worked at a pizza place, Johnny's Pizza in Monroe, Louisiana. Best pizza ever. If you're ever in Monroe, go to Johnny's Pizza. They got to sweep the kitchen. It's got everything on it. And being in Louisiana, they also have to sweep the swamp. Crawfish, shrimp, all kinds of stuff. Anyway, I went off. Sorry about that. But anyway, I quit my job at Johnny's Pizza to become a flight instructor. And I realized that was 40 years ago. I haven't had a job since. I have not had a job. You know, I get to talk to a lot of young people. When I say young, I mean as young as kindergarten. And what I say to these people is, you got to go where your heart is.
03:40
Wally Mulhern
If your heart is numbers, I don't know. Be an accountant. If your heart is kids, be a teacher. I knew very early on that airplanes were my thing. I actually started out in college as a music major. And I'm kind of hanging out doing my music stuff and my university aviation program. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm taking private pilot ground school. And I did. It was Aviation 111. It was in room 240 at Stumps hall at the University of Louisiana, Monroe. It was 9am Monday, Wednesday, Friday. When I left that class that first day, I walked to the registrar's office and I changed my major to aviation. I was scared to go home and tell my parents that I lived at home. And so finally, about two or three weeks later over dinner, I mustered up the courage.
04:45
Wally Mulhern
I said, I got something I need to tell you. And they both looked up and I said, I changed my major. And they said, to what? And I said, aviation. And my father said, well, beats working. Just went on. And I thought, wow, that went pretty well. Both my daughters got into it and I did not push them. I did not push them. I hadn't been in a little airplane in forever. And my oldest daughter one day said, dad, do you think I can take flying lessons? And were driving and I almost, my car almost went off the road. You want to do what? And she said, yeah, you think I can take flying lessons? So she started taking flying lessons and I got back into general aviation.
05:36
Wally Mulhern
And the day that I knew that it was going to be good for her, were flying a 172. And she's pre flighting, she's up on the wing, she opens up the gas cap and she's looking down in there and she turns around and she looks at me and she goes, bad, Is it bad that I like the smell of that gas? And I just got this big grin and I said, that's my girl. So, you know, that's my story. So I've been back into general aviation, I don't know, eight, ten something years ago. Became a designated examiner by Houston standards. I'm still one of the new guys. I've only been doing about seven years or so. I've given about 800 checkrides. And again, I still feel like I'm one of the new guys as far as doing that.
06:26
Wally Mulhern
But I have, you know, teaching has been a passion of mine. Every airplane I've flown at Continental, United Airlines, I've been a jet pilot on from the 727, 37, 57, 67 and now triple seven. My last trip was with a new hire from Houston, Honolulu. And there's just something that is so cool to be able to take someone in triple seven with 378 people in the back and they've never landed it before. We're gonna go fly eight hours and go in Honolulu. That's, that is just. To me, I still think, man, that's cool. That is so cool. So to say I get to go to work and I get to fly airplanes and you know what, twice a month they put money in my bank account. And that's kind of cool too. So anyway, so I'll let Bobby. I probably talk too much.
07:20
Bobby Doss
So anyway, so what I like to tell people is between the two of us, we have about 28,500 hours of flight time. I only have about 480 of those hours. So he's definitely a professional pilot. But how many of you in this room have more than 400 hours of flight time? They're instructors. It's still a pretty big number in general aviation to have 400 plus hours of flight time as a guy who started when he was 42 years old. So between us, we have a lot of flight time. Wally has all that experience. But at the flight school that I own, it's similar in size to y' all school. I have 20 airplanes. We have about 18 instructors and probably about 200 students that fly on a regular basis. And I did a little math coming up here. I probably.
08:10
Bobby Doss
Since I bought the flight school, I've overseen about 60,000 hours of flight time at my flight school, which is a lot to deal with people coming and going. You guys will come and go here and move on to your next thing, and the flight school and the operations will continue. And you need to thank the people that make that happen for you, from Dennis to everybody that does anything to help those planes stay in the air for you guys. But I did always want to fly, and my wife was absolutely against it. She didn't want to ever let me fly. It was expensive if she thought you were going to crashed a plane. And she flew and never wanted me to do it.
08:47
Bobby Doss
And then one day, I guess 20 something years into our marriage, I broke her down and she let me go take that first lesson, and it changed my life. Hopefully you guys are passionate about what you're doing. Hopefully you want to pursue a career in aviation, but it is the best time in the world to become a pilot. Absolutely there.
09:08
Wally Mulhern
You know, when I got into aviation, there were no jobs. I just got in it because I like the smell of avgas and I like flying airplanes. And I tell people when I give them a check, ride, don't go sniff afghan.
09:27
Bobby Doss
That's okay.
09:28
Wally Mulhern
All right, stop holding that. Good. It does smell good. Anyway, I think someone makes a candle. It smells like cav gas, if I'm not mistaken, or jet fuel.
09:39
Bobby Doss
Somebody.
09:40
Wally Mulhern
I think that's kind of cool. But, you know, I tell. Especially a private pilot candidate, okay, they just, I'm issuing a private pilot certificate. And I'll. I'll say to them, what next? And so many times they will say, I start instrument training tomorrow. And I say, okay, that's cool, but don't forget to have some fun. You know, I think. I think. I don't know who called everybody and said, why are you doing this? I would hope you're doing this because you like airplanes. I hope you're not looking at it and saying, well, I saw that airline pilots make this much money and they have this many days off a month, and it's, you know, there are jobs. That's true. But I hope you're doing it because you like airplanes. I never envisioned being an airline pilot.
10:47
Wally Mulhern
I thought, man, flying a fleeman flying center Flying charter in a baron. And maybe if I grew up, I'd get to fly something that earn jet fuel, like a. Something like that. That was my career. That was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. And then, just through circumstances, the commuters started hiring. I went and flew for Royal airlines, flying embryo120. This was January of 1986. $12 an hour. $12 an hour and 65 hours was our pay guarantee. Do the math at $780 a month. And back in 1986, even $780 a month was not very much money. So me and my 16 roommates, not really. There were four of us that had an apartment together. We made it work. And then after a year, I moved to the right seat of a G1 which held 24 passengers.
11:45
Wally Mulhern
And I went from $12 an hour to $18. Now I got 50% pay rent. But the really cool thing was that the G1 had a flight attendant. So we didn't. I didn't have to do the welcome aboard safety, the little speech that we had to get. So, so that was kind of cool. I'm rambling.
12:05
Bobby Doss
That's all right. So the way Wally and I met was actually Wally gave me my instrument check wrap in April of 2020. I guess it was 17, 2017. So I took my instrument check out with Wally, scared to death of this man, right? He had all the control, he had all the ability to pass or failing. Hello, is that working? Anyway, I think my mic went.
12:34
Wally Mulhern
Can you.
12:36
Bobby Doss
Hello? So I was scared. That's a longing. And then I did a really good second. I was the luckiest instrument pilot in the world. The winds were calm and all set in airports that I was worried we might go to was crystal clear day. There was not a link of wind, not a cloud in the sky. And I think he said it was a boring tech ride, which I've learned is a very good instrument tech ride. If it's boring, it's a very good check ride. So I really just knew o' Bali as a dpe.
13:07
Wally Mulhern
I kept flying.
13:08
Bobby Doss
I kept learning how to fly, kept getting better. And then ultimately I did. I didn't want to lease back an airplane to the flight school and maybe become a commercial pilot. I was working for Dell Technologies at the time, selling hardware to big companies, big oil and gas companies in Houston, and never thought I would do much more than just piddle in aviation. And I made the mistake of asking the previous owner how much he wanted for the whole thing. And the Next day, we had a letter of intent drafted up and I bought the flight school. And I think that's one of those things where everybody says, hey, buy a flight school can be really fun. And it's not really fun. Every day we've been some metal. Luckily no one's been hurt.
13:47
Bobby Doss
But the one thing that I care the most about and people hear it every day at the flight school is safety. And this is a safety stand down. And you guys are girls, are all young. Hopefully you haven't seen anything devastating yet. But if you're around aviation long enough, you're going to. And a lot of you ask questions about things that pilots have done, mistakes that they've made, and how do we prevent those? And that's really what Wally and I want to talk about today. And we want to share some lessons and share some stories from behind the prop, and then hopefully you'll continue to tune in and hear more about what we do to get back to general aviation.
14:28
Bobby Doss
And if you are a fan of aviation, I would say people like Wally who have come back to general aviation really hate that they left it. So step, stay involved some way, somehow give back, no matter what your job is in the future. I fly very rarely anymore on commercial airlines, but I have two or three times in the past couple weeks, and everybody's sitting up front in those Embraer 170s and 145s that I've flown in. They went to the flight school just like this. They got their chops just like you have, and they probably want to give back to aviation in some way. I also saw a lot of first officers sitting at restaurants in airports the last couple of weeks waiting to be called to go do that flight that they've been waiting on for days. So get back to aviation.
15:14
Bobby Doss
So safety is the message today, based on all the stuff we saw on the spreadsheet of the questions that we got asked. We're going to start with talking about external pressures. Kentucky appears to be a pretty gloomy place. It looks like Seattle right now, but I know it's not like that all the time. I was actually born in Huntington, West Virginia, so I'm not too far from my hometown. And the only thing I can think of is it's got to be a lot colder here than it is in Houston. But as a flight school owner, I see a lot of external pressures that are unnecessary. I got a text message this morning from someone who's dying to take their checkride, and I know that I'm ready to Take their checkride, and they asked me if there's a checkride spot available, and they're not ready.
15:59
Bobby Doss
How many of you have, by show of hands, how many of you have had external pressures to get done with a private pilot certificate in a certain number of hours? Anybody put pressure on you to get done early? Save money, maybe? How about solo? What's the solo number on it? What's the average? Just scream it out. What's the average solo? 15, 20. 15, 20. I was like. I was like, 33 hours because I kept telling the CFI, you're not allowed to get out of the aircraft. I wasn't ready.
16:29
Wally Mulhern
I was scared.
16:32
Bobby Doss
25 or 30. All right. While I lived.
16:35
Wally Mulhern
I'm almost ashamed to say it, but. But where. Where I was learning to fly, I mean, it was usually like seven. I think my. I think I was 8.6, but I. I know I didn't know a lot of stuff. There was a lot of stuff I.
16:51
Bobby Doss
Didn'T know how to do. There was no written test.
16:54
Wally Mulhern
You know, it was just kind of.
16:55
Nick Alan
A.
16:58
Wally Mulhern
I don't know.
16:59
Bobby Doss
I think a lot of people hear that in my flight school, and they like, wow, I should be able to solo at 8, 20, 25. At our airport, we're in class Delta airspace. We have three runways. We have a short Runway. We have a water Runway, which actually gets quite a bit of traffic on it, and then we have a big Runway that probably has, I'm gonna guess, somewhere between 50 and 70 jet landings a day.
17:24
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
17:25
Bobby Doss
So very high throughput of activity. And then you think, I have 20 planes to get at least five lessons. So we have 100 flights a day that probably land four or five times. So my school does 500 landings a day at that airport. It's very, very busy. And I'm one of four flight schools at that airport. So for someone to realistically believe that they're going to solo there in eight hours, it's just unrealistic because of the number of things that can be thrown at them. But we hear it and we feel it all the time. The external pressures of wanting to go to get their itis. It's almost embarrassing sometimes, the things that I hear outside my office of what people are trying to accomplish to get something done, that's really not a requirement.
18:13
Wally Mulhern
Right.
18:14
Bobby Doss
We joke on the podcast that if you were going to get engaged in the other city and your girlfriend or boyfriend were waiting out there, that would be a big deal. That would be something that might drive.
18:25
Wally Mulhern
You to take some chances.
18:26
Bobby Doss
But to just get a less involved isn't worth it. And to get engaged can wait another day as well. The most that I hear about though really is the pressure to get done with a rating. We joke about the solo in the private all the time. But how many of you or how many of you got your commercial rating in less than 200 hours? Very, very few. And that's because they did it at 141 and they probably flew ascent quite a bit. It's really rare. And the one thing that I try to level set everyone on is that you're probably going to get your commercial no matter when you solo, no matter when you got your private between 200 and 250, that's when we don't get it. And you're probably not going to go to the airlines until when, a thousand to fifteen hundred.
19:12
Bobby Doss
There are these de facto things that are going to happen. Hopefully as you guys girls become instructors, you can try to slow the roll a little bit because we don't want those accidents to happen. Well, what are some of the external pressures you feel as a DPE or that people tell you in checkrides that.
19:33
Wally Mulhern
Make you have pause? You know, I see we have two major airline bases in Houston. So I give a lot of check rides to airline kids whether their parents are United Airlines. It's kind of the north side of Houston where we are. And then Southwest Airlines has a base down in Hobby. So, you know, there are a lot of airline kids that come in and some of them are really into it, but some of them are not. And you can tell that it's maybe mom or dad who's kind of driving this ship here. And maybe they really don't want to do that. Young man, just last week he told me his father was a United pilot. Oh, okay. Why does he fly? He goes 747. And I said, well, you don't fly to 747 because we don't have 747s at United.
20:42
Wally Mulhern
I thought that was kind of weird. I mean, this kid is telling me his father flies for United, but he doesn't know what airplane he flies. And at the end of the day, it didn't go very successful. At the end of the day, I had a real hard time with you, man. I said, is this really, I mean, are you following your heart here? And I don't know where this is going to go with this young man. He had some, you know, he didn't meet the standard. Okay. He Failed. All right? And I feel like the pressure was coming from home. I mean, there were tears. He was begging me, and he was afraid to go home. But at the end of the day, if he would have gone out and flew, flown, I mean, he may have killed people. All right?
21:37
Wally Mulhern
And then, you know, that's not good. What is our goal when we get in an airplane? Land it safely. Okay, Land it safely. Anything else? You guys know what WWW stands for? Have you ever seen that? Oh, come on.
22:01
Bobby Doss
Www?
22:02
Wally Mulhern
You've never seen that? That's what everybody thinks it stands for is World Wide Web. What it really stands for is Wally's Words of Wisdom. Okay, so I'm gonna give you some Wally's Words of Wisdom. Someone said to land it safely. That's kind of the.
22:20
Bobby Doss
The book answer.
22:21
Wally Mulhern
Our goal is to not die, okay? To not die. When we get in an airplane, we don't want to die. Are we taking a risk by getting in an airplane? Yeah, absolutely. So do we take risks in life? Okay, went to Starbucks this morning, and I got a venti latte, one of those foo drinks. He shows up right behind me of black pipes with no room. I'm like, man, I wish I could drink black coffee. My life would be so much easier if I could do that. Anyway, am I taking a risk by going to Starbucks and getting a latte? I am. I mean, what if that. That Starbucks person, you know, went off the rails and put a little bit of cyanide in there? I could be dead right now.
23:13
Wally Mulhern
So it is a risk, is it not going to a restaurant and buying food is a risk?
23:20
Bobby Doss
Would that be crazy?
23:23
Wally Mulhern
Okay, a little bourbon.
23:24
Nick Alan
How's that?
23:25
Wally Mulhern
It's a risk that we're willing to accept. So, coffee story. Well, I'll tell you just a little funny coffee story. So this is fat ass 7:37, leaving San Francisco one morning, flying to Houston. And a flight attendant comes up, first day on the job. Male flight attendant. I'm not gonna. I'm just gonna tell you. It was a young man, was an Asian flight attendant. And I used to say, I heard a flight attendant say this. I thought it was kind of cool. We stopped a little. Little, Little things to cream, you know, the mini moose. And so I used to order my coffee. I'd say, coffee, two moose and a blue. It was too many moves and a. You know, blue, whatever that stuff is. And so he comes up and he.
24:22
Bobby Doss
Says.
24:24
Wally Mulhern
Can I get you anything? And so first officer orders something. I say, yeah, coffee tubes or blue? And he goes back.
24:34
Bobby Doss
And then this.
24:35
Wally Mulhern
Female flight attendant comes up and says, what did you say to him? I said, well, I just told her. She says, he's in the galley crying. And I went, oh, man. I said. I told him two moves and a blue, and he didn't understand it. And I think his culture was that not to. I don't know. He didn't feel comfortable saying, what the hell do you mean? He didn't say that. He just went back, and she was telling me, she said, so he came on this airplane, and he'll do everything I tell him to. And the first job I gave him to do was go ask the cockpit what they want to drink. And he feels like he failed. I mean, his first day out of training, and he failed. So I had to go back and say, it's all right.
25:34
Wally Mulhern
If you ever don't understand what we mean, just ask. So I just. I got one off on a tangent.
25:43
Bobby Doss
You drink water, you get to the left.
25:46
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. So we're talking about safety. So, you know, our goal in the airplane is to not die. Okay, so what do we do on every flight? We want to stack the deck. We want to stack the deck in our favor. At the end of the day, we are taking a chance by getting in that airplane. Okay? Something bad could happen. But, you know, we do everything I can. You have checklists, you have procedures, you have dispatch procedures, and, you know, that's kind of what we're going to talk about.
26:21
Bobby Doss
Wayne talked a little bit about y' all's procedures last night, about the. There's a risk portfolio or risk checklist that you use. There's really not enough that you can do every flight, every time to be as safe as you can possibly be. And we have a couple stories I'm going to share from my flight school that hopefully will never happen here. But they're real people that had no idea that they were going to make the mistakes they made. And it's amazing that you guys asked a lot of the questions that apply to this first story. You know, what mistakes did these pilots make that really could have cost them their lives? And I hope and pray every day that I'm not gonna have to call anybody's parents or anybody's family and let them know that we've had a major incident.
27:09
Bobby Doss
But this was the day that almost was that day. So it was about a year ago right now. And CFI, tons of time, probably had 800 hours of Google, had a restricted ATP, much like many of you will probably leave here with, and was looking at going to the airlines. The funny thing was he had that student, and hopefully none of y' all are that student, but it was that student that was always wanting to go no matter what. Thunderstorm outside. We'll wait, we'll go. We're gonna get there, forecast thunderstorms for three days straight. We're going to wait, we'll go. I want to see what it's like to fly.
27:46
Wally Mulhern
Just take me up.
27:47
Bobby Doss
Let's go. Very anxious. His wife was actually a flight attendant for United, and he hoped to be in the cockpit one day. And he was doing everything he could to create external pressures for everyone else. He just wanted to hurt. So this young man that was a flag striker on my team was susceptible to his pressures. And that day was a day where in Houston, if you've never been there, we joke often that you can see all four seasons in one day. And this was one of those days. Woke up in the morning, I think I was wearing shorts in a Columbia like I am now. And I got to the flight school and it was 70 degrees outside.
28:28
Wally Mulhern
But we all knew it was going.
28:29
Bobby Doss
To get colder that day. And there was a cold front coming through the state. And by probably 9am it was 60 degrees. By 10am it was 40 degrees. And no one was flying because in Texas, that's a really windy day. We all know that's going to be a windy day. And the clouds were coming in and they said they were going to try. They said they were going to fly this instrument flight and they were going to get some approaches done. So they get dispatched. They followed all the procedures. They didn't break any rules. My dispatch team didn't break any rules. But there's a certain level of common sense that starts saying, do the rules cover every possibility that could happen? And they just can't. You can't make enough rules. And if you made enough rules, no one would ever leave, right?
29:16
Bobby Doss
No one would ever get this fast. So the temperature at the time that they left was 8 degrees Celsius. And the cloud cover was. It was marginal VFR, I think it was 24, 2500ft.
29:29
Wally Mulhern
And they were.
29:29
Bobby Doss
They followed a flight plan at 3000ft. By the time they got done pre flighting the. We didn't know until afterwards, but by the time they got done pre flooding, they were dispatched or they were being leaving my tarmac at about 7 degrees Celsius. So the post flight, the examination of all this is where would known icing be? If it was 7 degrees Celsius and it was overcast at 2400ft, they found a floodplain for 3000ft. So the ice is going to be really close. Right. The first question I ask everybody when I tell this story is, what's your personal minimum for ice? And most people tell me a few thousand feet. Well, what's a few thousand feet? Is it a few thousand feet from where you're going to fly? Is it a few thousand feet from the ground? What does that mean?
30:29
Bobby Doss
And when you say a few thousand feet, that tells me that there's a big swath of space between really what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do. Right. And a personal minimum should be a hard deck. And so they didn't have a hard deck that day, and they definitely weren't paying. And the story really goes well, there was a temperature inversion. Anybody willing to risk your life on a potential temperature inversion? Like, let's jump in an aluminum plane and fly within a few hundred feet of where venom icy could be? Because somebody told me there was a temperature inversion. It's really warmer up there. If God's not the one telling me that I ain't getting in that plane, I don't have to fly. I'm not going to be a professional pilot.
31:14
Bobby Doss
My icing rule is 10,000ft from me, which means I'm never going to fly. If there's visible moisture and any freezing possibility below 10,000ft, I can drive around the wall. Now, that may be my luxury. I'm not being asked to go fly, but I'm never going to fly a plane that doesn't have icing equipment. If I'm within 10,000ft of it's a hard death for me. Those guys didn't have it, so they took off. They said it was warm enough, and they got to 3,000ft, and they were literally flying to an Airport that's 33 miles away. 33 nautical miles away. And they picked up icing about halfway there. They chose to continue, and they talked to atc. They got lower. They thought getting lower would help them.
32:02
Bobby Doss
The ice continued to build, and they got really lucky in Atlanta, and they had to make that infamous phone call they didn't want to make. And they called me and said, hey, we picked up icing. We don't know how we're going to get back. And I said, we'll just stay there. This is not good weather. We'll figure out how to do well. I get another phone call about two hours later. Guess what? They tried to come back Any reason to try to come back? Like, this isn't not. This isn't anymore. Like, maybe there's a temperature inversion. I flew through ice and I think I'm going to try and get the plane back. Right? And that's a young, scared, unfortunately immature young man who I guess was worried that I was going to be mad at.
32:45
Bobby Doss
I would have been really mad at him if he would have crashed and died. Right. They tried again about an hour later. What happens when a cold front comes through even Kentucky? Does it get warmer later in the day or does it get colder later in the day? It just kept getting colder and colder. So they made three attempts to fly another icing that day. Ultimately, uber called from 35 miles away and left my plane there covered in ice. And that was the right. That was the only right decision we made that day. And it actually took us three more days for all the ice to leave the area so we can go back and get that aircraft. But the story goes that they, because of the temperature inversion, they made that decision to go.
33:30
Bobby Doss
And I'm strongly certain that the reason they made that decision to go was because that student convinced that flight instructor to take that flight. Everything else is working against them.
33:42
Wally Mulhern
Right.
33:42
Bobby Doss
And as you think back, whoever asked the questions, there was many of you that asked the questions, hey, talk about or tell us about pilots, decisions that caused an accident that they shouldn't have made. That's the one you all need to reflect on, no matter what. Whether it's storm, whether it's ice, whether it's winds, beyond your personal minimums, whether it's wind, seeing your minimums, but not their minimums, because they're going to want to be like you. And if you can fly in 15 knots across landing, they can't. But they go rent a plane from flight school abc, they're going to have to land. And you said, land safely. But we want to make sure they live. Right.
34:23
Bobby Doss
So those external pressures that day for this flight instructor and the student were so on the borderline of dangerous that they couldn't see past the goal of getting that fight done. I have one more story. You have a story that you want to tell?
34:37
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. Back in my 727 days, we used to have quarterly standard meetings, standards meetings, and, you know, we would talk about procedures. Do we need to change this procedure, this kind of stuff. And were discussing something and we, you know, somebody said, well, we can change the checklist to do this and this. And our fleet manager on that airplane, Steve Williams, was his Name had just the greatest quote. He just said, guys, you can't checklist common sense, okay? So common sense needs to come in this. The speed limit on the interstate might be 65, but if it's a driving rainstorm, maybe 65 is not the right speed to be going. Maybe we ought to be going 55. And I know in Houston, if you're driving 65 one of the major roads, you're in danger too, because everybody else is doing 80.
35:36
Wally Mulhern
You better fit in with the flow of traffic. What percentage of general aviation accidents do you think have fuel as one of the causal effects? Okay.
35:56
Bobby Doss
30, 46%.
35:59
Wally Mulhern
Okay, so can we. Fuel is important, you know? Will an airplane fly overweight?
36:07
Nick Alan
Well, you're.
36:09
Wally Mulhern
Sorry, guys, but your airplanes, your 172s, they'll fly 100 pounds overweight. They will. I've never done it, but I've been told that they will. They won't fly without fuel, okay? And I'm not saying don't fly, I'm overweight, but I'm saying fuel is really important. I'm going to tell you a quick story. This is me, okay? This would have been about 1982. I have an instrument rating. I don't know if I have my commercial, but a friend's brother asked me if I could fly him out to Midland, Odessa, Texas with his girlfriend because she needed to go. It was a divorce, child custody thing. She need to go pick up her kid. And I said, yeah, we can do that. So we're going to go from Monroe, Louisiana to Midland, Odessa, Texas.
37:05
Wally Mulhern
I happen to work at the FBO and flight school as a lineman fueling airplanes. I wasn't in the CFI area and this is back before foreflight, and you actually have to call someone up on the phone and get a weather briefing and get winds aloft and get the C6B and figure out how long it's going to take you and all this stuff. The airplane that were going to go was IFR equipped. And back in the day, IFR equipped, I mean, we had two VORs, that was it. And an ADF. Two VORs and an ADF didn't even have DMEs. Certainly GPS didn't even exist in the day. So anyway, no idea what our ground speed was. I mean, there was no ground speed readout.
37:52
Wally Mulhern
Anyway, I get out to the airport, it was on a Sunday morning, well ahead of the other people, and I go and I look in the fuel tank and it's a Warrior, Piper Warrior, which has 48 usable gallons of fuel. And I look in the tank, and one side was completely full. The other one wasn't quite full. It was almost full. I mean, it was real close. And I'm looking at this and I'm going, it was so early that the FBO hadn't even opened up yet. I'm thinking, well, I mean, I had keys because I worked there. I can go inside. I can go get the key to the fuel truck. I can start the fuel truck up. It was cold, let it warm up, and I can drive over and I can put fuel in this airplane.
38:36
Wally Mulhern
But it's going to take me 30 minutes to do all that. And I thought, well, I got the time. Let me go do it. So I go, I get in the truck. I come around the airplane. I put fuel in this. I took two gallons. Two gallons of fuel. Okay? We put the truck back. People show up. We get an airplane, we go. We go to Midland, Odessa. I don't know where my head was. I was stupid. I was really stupid. We landed in Midland, Odessa. The guy comes up to fuel us. He puts in 46.4 gallons of fuel. Do the math. 48. Minus 46.4, 1.6. I put 2 gallons in before we left the lineman. The lineman there goes, holy crap, how much fuel is this here? Playing hole and being pretty witty and on top of things, I go, I've got Austin.
39:41
Wally Mulhern
He said, well, 74. And you go, oh, okay. All right. So I'm thinking, oh, my God. I mean, had I not put them two gallons in, we would have crashed or we would have landed short of the row up. Okay? I think of those 46% of those.
39:59
Nick Alan
People.
40:01
Wally Mulhern
How many of those people you think wake up in the morning and say, yeah, I think I'll go run an airplane out of fuel today.
40:10
Bobby Doss
Zero.
40:11
Wally Mulhern
Zero. Yeah. Okay. What percentage of those people you think are probably pretty good people? They made a bad mistake. Okay? I was stupid. I was young and dumb, and by the grace of God, I'm here to tell that story to you. I. I'm getting chills telling that story. Dead. You don't come back from dead. And I don't know, maybe best case, we land in a field and I'm probably. I'm a high school band director somewhere right now rather than an airline pilot. So I asked people on instrument checkrides one of the questions. I'll pose a question, and I will.
40:58
Bobby Doss
I'll put.
40:59
Wally Mulhern
I'll get on the whiteboard and I'll go, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And I'll say I'm going to ask you a question and I need all five of these answers. I'm going to give you the first answer and I'm going to give you the second answer and you're going to give me three, four and five. And if you don't get them, we are done. You fail, you can see the anxiety go up and it's okay. If ATC gives you a reroute or ATC gives you holding or ATC gives you a lower than expected altitude, what are the five things that you're going to think about? What are the five things you got to think about? Number one is fuel. Number two is fuel. Number three is. Number four is. Number five is. You guys passed me a check, right?
42:04
Bobby Doss
Well, you got past that question.
42:05
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:08
Bobby Doss
That's a scary story. And my personal indictment is I took my family to New Brills from Houston. It's probably an hour and 30 minute flight, you know, 182. I had to take fuel out of the plane so that we could bring all of the school clothes were going to shop for and bring them back. So I took some fuel out. My kids are small, my wife's small, I'm the fat family member and they. I wanted to show my son how he took fuel out. So we had this nice little siphoning tool and took 5 gallons out of the right side, took 5 gallons out of the left side. And my son was struggling to get this five gallon jug of fuel off his ladder and I helped him and we finished the pre flight, we do our walk around, my family gets the plane.
42:56
Bobby Doss
You're the only people that ever heard the story by the way. But I get the plane, G1000 take off. Flying there in the left tank is like almost empty. About halfway there and I panicked because I knew exactly what had happened. Anybody know what had happened? My damn son left the gas cap off. Not me, my son. But it wasn't my son, it was me.
43:24
Wally Mulhern
And I panicked.
43:25
Bobby Doss
I'm halfway there. What would I do? How would I solve this problem? I'm definitely not going to tell anyone. I gotta be a man about this, right? So I flipped it to the right tank to make sure I only use the right tank and that it wouldn't siphon out from the right tank to the left tank and all blow away. I've been to New Braunsville's maybe four times and never been able to have a fuel truck help me there. For whatever reason, I pull up this time. Guess what happens? There's three fuel trucks and six young men there gave me gas, and I couldn't get out of the plane fast enough to jump up there, put that gas cap on quick enough to try and save face. But it's very dangerous, right?
44:06
Bobby Doss
Fuel, as Wally said, are the first five things that you need to worry about. And it's. I'm not perfect, but I shouldn't let that happen for sure. And you got to make sure you make. You don't. You don't intentionally make these mistakes, and you got to make sure you're doing the right things. The last story I'll tell you about external pressures was I hired a new flight instructor, and this was about seven months ago. And this is a. A guy who was changing careers. I don't know exactly how old he was, but I'll say he was in his early 30s. Mature man, had gone through an accelerated program, wanted to be an airline pilot, and was in this speed mindset, right? And it. It was weird. When I interviewed him, the question I asked him, I said, have you ever flown for fun?
44:54
Bobby Doss
And I now ask every flight trucker that I interviewed, and his answer was, no, I've never, ever rented a plane. Every hour that he'd ever come was for training purposes only. And that's a red flag for me now because it tells me you've never had to really think through external pressures. If it was a training exercise. Someone's been thinking through that for you. In most of those cases, either a school or a cfis, but thinking through it for you. And so I kind of had him on a short leash. I had a lot of people watching him. We had a safety meeting where all we talked about similar to this. We meet once a month and we do two hours. And the guy who had just phoned a nun icing presented his nun icing.
45:38
Bobby Doss
We talked about making right decisions and not making bad decisions and thinking through all the information possible. And this guy is sitting in the room listening to everything we say. I knew he had a flight after that taking me with a student, and he was excited. This was his maybe second, third week of flying at the flight school. Lots of pressure to make money and start supporting himself, right? I could sense it. They went flu, and I went home. I'm laying in bed. I was either watching Facebook or something on my phone, laying in bed, trying to doze off. And my phone rang, and I didn't know the number, so I hit end. Phone rang again, same number. I hit in. I got a text message, hey, I Need you to call me back. Everything's okay, nothing got hurt.
46:30
Bobby Doss
And I knew who it was, so I called him back and he said, hey, we missed the Runway. And I said, what? He goes, we came back, we missed the Runway. And I told you this is a tower airport Delta airspace. But now it's 11:30, the tower closes at 10 o'. Clock. I'm like, how do you miss the Runway? I said, are you okay? Yes. Plane okay?
46:53
Wally Mulhern
Yes.
46:54
Bobby Doss
The taxi's back. And if you know anything about hooks airport to miss that Runway, you've got to crash this plane. There's nowhere to land. I mean, there's a water Runway, so you missed another Runway. You're either in the water or you're in the woods. So I was very perplexed. Get to the bicycle, inspect the plan. I literally find like one blade of grass and it breaks. My chief's there with me now, where it's like 12:30 at night. This guy walks me through the scenario and he tells me almost immediately when I walk in the building, he goes, look, I've never landed here at night before. And I'm thinking, man, Wally, you can't check those common sense, right? But a flight instructor took one of my planes, took off.
47:39
Bobby Doss
I also by the way, have a full motion simulator where he could have landed there and simulated 50 times the week before. But he chose to take off, fly to College Station, land there, come back and land at our airport to teach a student all of the things that make you a bad pilot at night, all the tricks that the your eyes played on you, right? And guess what? He was susceptible to all those things. How many months do you think it was since that flight shook her at flight night? Six? Many more than that. Many more than that. 19 months since he had flown tonight. And he thought it was the best decision after sitting through that safety meeting to go take a flight and land. He thought that the Runway lights at my airport, my home airport, had three lines, three lights.
48:39
Bobby Doss
We do not have a three light system. Where could you find the lights at an airport? And what. Can you hear him?
48:49
Wally Mulhern
Can you hear them? It's not that early.
48:52
Bobby Doss
Where would you find it turns up over, so see if I can even look at the charts. He thought the taxiway lights were the right ex lights. And as we debriefed this young man, mid-30s, I said, talk me through it. He said, I came through, I had four white lights and I kept trying to stay close to the right edge. I said, well, what does Four white lights mean he goes, well, I had four white lights. I wanted to be a little high at night. That's a little safer. That's what my instructors taught me. How high are you with four white lights? Anybody know two high? How high? What if I have three white lights and one red light? Anybody know how high I am, what percentage I am? I think it's 1 1/2% per light. I'm not a thousand percent sure.
49:42
Bobby Doss
Somebody checked me on that. But if four white lights are you 3%, you can be 3 or 50%. You don't know how high you are. So you should go around, right? But he kept trying that knee, that external pressure to get on the ground that I got away. Why not go around?
50:02
Nick Alan
Why not?
50:02
Bobby Doss
You never landed there. At least make one low pass, something, right? And he tried and tried. He kept trying and he came with the defeat of a barricade between the two runways and about 20 signs. The fact that they didn't die is just unbelievable. They landed at the perfect 20ft of space between two taxiways and a Runway and a whole bunch of signage and just happened to kind of come up on the taxiway. That was his last flight at our flight school, unfortunately. But he made it wasn't like he went out there. You think he went out there and said I want to try and crash this plane tonight with his students? Of course not.
50:45
Bobby Doss
But when you're in the air and you haven't done everything to prepare and he told me, I don't know if any of you feel this way, but I'm a staunch non believer that there's some regulation. We'll talk to the chief. There's some regulation that says that a student really isn't a passenger flight instructor and so you're technically legal flying as a flight instructor with a suit in a knife, that's garbage. Be proficient, be current. Don't take no chances like that. The young man was flying with him ultimately finished his private pilots for 30 years. I see him flying his family all the time now. And it's humbling for me to sit there and watch him come into school and think how close he was to dying. But that's a mistake you just can't make to gather all the information you gather.
51:33
Bobby Doss
Don't fill those external pressures and don't go fly if you're on a current proficient.
51:39
Wally Mulhern
Let me tell you a story about Mark Hennan. How many of you are either CFIs or CFIs in your future? Like probably most of the people, most people in this room Okay. I was a young dumb CFI and working at a flight school. One of our linemen, who's now a United States 737 captains came up to me, says, hey, I got this really good friend named Mark, and he wants to learn how to fly. He's a cop at a town just about 15 miles away. And so Mark comes in and he. Really good guy, Mark Hen was his name. And we hit it off. I mean, were really. We were buddies, kind of, the three of us, Jeff, Alana and Martin. And so he. He was flying a lot and he wanted, you know, he. All he wanted to do was fly, fly.
52:41
Wally Mulhern
And he was. He was. You know, we sometimes use the phrase a good stick. And usually that means that's somebody who doesn't really like to get into the books. And that was hard. But he was a good pilot. He was just really a good pilot. Anyway, he got into the books. He passed all the stuff. He took his checkride. He's now a private pilot. We had two 150s at this flight school. And Mark would take one of the 150s and he would go fly, and then he would come back, you know, where you go? I don't know. But anyway, so one day he comes back and Jeff, he goes, he says.
53:26
Bobby Doss
Man, look at the.
53:28
Wally Mulhern
Look at the wheel pants on four lane A Zulu. And I go over and look at them, and they were. There were lots of grass stains on them. And Mark had just formed the airplane. I go. And I went up to him and said, mark, I said, well, what are you doing? He goes, well, hey. He goes, my girlfriend April, she's got like six acres. And I go in. In the front yard and get him lunch. And me as the cfi, again, that was my opportunity to say, you're doing what? That's stupid. But me being his friend, what I said is, well, Mark, look, if you're going to do that before you come back here, fly over to the Bastrop airport. This is the Bastrop airport, right by the fuel tank, they have a hose and all kinds of washing.
54:23
Wally Mulhern
Wash the oil pants off before you come back here. And he goes, oh, that's a good idea. Okay. So that's what Mark would do. He would take off in the airplane. He'd be gone for three hours, and you'd look at the hubs, and he flew point a. Well, he went and did whatever he did with his girlfriend over lunchtime, right? So anyway, Mark ended up marrying April and they had a little boy named Derek And Mark got his instrument. He got his commercial start flying parade at night. Flying a Baron at night. Back in the day, there used to be this industry where you had the Federal Reserve banks. It wasn't digitized. So these canceled jets were flying all around the country at night. And they had to go from Federal Reserve bank to Federal Reserve Bank.
55:14
Wally Mulhern
And a lot of us cut our teeth doing that. Anyway, I was the new hire pilot at Continental Airlines. Would have been like January of 1988. This is before cell phones. I'm on the light over in New York City, staying at the Milford Plaza in Times Square. I'm out Times Square, eating pizza. Come back to the room. The light on my phone is leaking, and I pick it up and it's Jeff. He says, hey, Wally.
55:42
Bobby Doss
Kids that don't know that means you have a message.
55:47
Wally Mulhern
He says, hey, Wallace. His Japanese calling. And I could tell by his voice this was not going to be a good call. I called him, he said, mark's missing. He's supposed to be back 12 hours ago. And the weather here in Monroe was bad. We got icy. About two and a half days later, I found Mark.
56:26
Bobby Doss
He was dead.
56:28
Wally Mulhern
A post widow. And Derek doesn't have a father. That was a long time ago, 35 years ago.
56:44
Bobby Doss
I think about it a lot.
56:47
Wally Mulhern
And I think about when I was the cfi. Did I plant the seed that, hey, breaking the rule is fine, just don't get caught? That's what I taught him. That's what I told him. Do I blame myself or Mark? Getting into icing conditions in an airplane that wasn't equipped for it?
57:11
Bobby Doss
I don't know.
57:12
Wally Mulhern
I don't blame myself for that. But could I have made a difference? And, you know, I live my life. I live a really good life. But I think about that, I don't know, two or three times a week I think about Mark, and he's not with us anymore. And, you know, I don't know about his kid. I don't know about Derek. I don't know about April. I've looked for him on social media. I don't see him anywhere but as CFIs. CFIs. The pecking order to a student. Probably this. I know this way was with me. Okay? God. And then right below. God, Nathan, parents. And then right below that is your CFI. So CFIs. By you doing so, by you not doing so, you're saying to them, it's okay.
58:18
Wally Mulhern
We at United Airlines as check pilots, we have a red stripe on our id, okay? It says checkpoint so as you know, you're walking through the terminal, people see, huh, he's a checkpoint. And they always tell us, you're wearing the hat.
58:38
Bobby Doss
You're wearing the checkpilot hat.
58:40
Wally Mulhern
You're, you're kind of people look up to you. You know, you gotta do things right. You gotta do things right. You gotta not just follow the rules, but you gotta use common sense. So, you know, I get emotional when I talk about Mark, okay, He's dead. You don't come back from that. And I wonder, could I have made a difference? And because I was a stupid, you know, cfi, you know, I taught him how not to get caught. I didn't teach, you know, my message was.
59:24
Bobby Doss
So sad story. We'll try to change gears a little bit. Number of you ask questions about check rides, dealing with past check rides, tips and tricks. You have a DPD that sitting up here that you're probably never going to take a check ride with. We have a couple of microphones up here. If you guys. Somebody wants to walk around and have people ask questions. This is a DPV who's given over 800 check drives sitting up here. And you can ask him anything. And you're not going to get in trouble for it and you're not going to be held accountable to it on your check drive. I have one question that I want to ask before that. Is Wayne an Easy DPD or is Wayne a not Easy dpd? Depends on the day. Depends on the day.
01:00:12
Nick Alan
I like it.
01:00:14
Bobby Doss
So they're walking around with microphones. If you ask questions, I'm sure we'll find a way to throw you a T shirt or something. But what kind of questions? And who wants to use this yellow? Would you ask Wally if you could.
01:00:28
Wally Mulhern
Let me say this before this, not only am I a checkpien, but I'm also on the hiring team, the interview team. Now, having said that, I haven't been trained to be interviewed because they can't release me from being a triple seven check pilot to go to do interviews. But I'm privy to all the emails and all the correspondence that goes on. And so I will tell you this. 86% of interviewees at United Airlines get a job, okay?
01:01:01
Bobby Doss
86%.
01:01:03
Wally Mulhern
So if you get the interview, it's kind of your job to lose, okay? And I've asked people, I say, well, what causes people to not get the job? We know about your checkrids, okay? We know if you got failed checkrides. We don't have a problem with failed checkrides. Not at all. What we have a problem with is we'll ask, say, hey, what happened on this instrument checklard? And this is, this happened. And the applicant said, well, the CheckRide was on December 22nd and the instructors just wanted to get out of town, so I wasn't ready and they signed me off and I went in and busted the checkride. Guess what? He was in the 14%. No job offers accountability. The next person comes in, hey, what happened on this commercial check arm. Oh, man, I blew. Was a bad day for me.
01:02:12
Wally Mulhern
I went out and I couldn't do a steep turn. I was plus or minus 1,900ft on my steeper turns. And I think spender's a little bit tighter than that. I just, I just blew it that day. Okay, we all have bad days here. When would you like to start class? Okay, so take accountability. Busking check ride is not career ended. Now four or five, six. Maybe, maybe, maybe I'll be an accountant.
01:02:46
Bobby Doss
I don't know.
01:02:48
Wally Mulhern
Any questions? Going back to what you were saying.
01:03:06
Bobby Doss
About working for the airline?
01:03:08
Wally Mulhern
What's the biggest challenge for current airline pilots? You know, someone once said to me, oh man, that's gotta be stressful. And I said, it is stressful. It is really stressful because when I get to the hotel in Maui and I'm walking out to figure out where I want to go to dinner, to the left is the sports page, sports bar I really like. And to the right is this Italian restaurant that's really good. And as I'm looking at the Pacific Ocean and the sunset, I sit there and go, burger and fries, chicken parmesan, burger and fries. And I have found myself doing this. So, you know, I make, I have fun with it, what's requested, the biggest challenge. There is no challenge. I mean, I get to go to work and I get to fly this really big jet. And it's really cool.
01:04:25
Wally Mulhern
Maybe managing your rest.
01:04:27
Bobby Doss
Maybe.
01:04:29
Wally Mulhern
You know, I spent a lot of time sleeping on my layovers. You know, we have long layovers. I, I mean I apply to mostly international stuff, so it's not easy to go get to Hawaii. And you know, I have 29 hours, so I've got plenty of time to.
01:04:54
Bobby Doss
Get some good rest.
01:04:56
Wally Mulhern
And you know, by coming back to Denver, it's only a six hour flight, so we're unauthorized. In other words, we don't have a relief pilot. And it's in the middle of the night.
01:05:07
Bobby Doss
So that's a little bit of a challenge.
01:05:11
Wally Mulhern
And you know, you just gotta, you Gotta be aware of it. And if you're flying with a flying buddy, you know, that will talk. It really helps. And of course, most of the time we're doing oe, we're doing training with pilots. So we're, you know, we're talking a lot. So we're staying engaged.
01:05:32
Bobby Doss
Not everybody has 36 years seniority, so not everyone's only making decisions about food. A lot of the flight chargers that I see leave. I think what I hear as they come back, their challenges are, do I continue to stay in this, maybe this type aircraft or this role where now I kind of have some seniority or do I keep trying to upgrade? I have seen in the last five years as the owner of a flight school, a number of people get stuck in different levels that they wish they wouldn't have got stuck in. Right. You're gonna have to make those decisions yourself with your family. But I think as young pilots I hear those things the most.
01:06:11
Wally Mulhern
Right.
01:06:11
Bobby Doss
I'm commuting and in Chicago I can pick a line, but I'm gone six days a week instead of four days a week. They really struggle with those type of decisions because not everybody has the flexibility that maybe a wally has with seniority and bidding so well.
01:06:30
Wally Mulhern
And I think you got to look at the goal down the road. I mean, you want to have a successful career and let's say you have a ten o' clock showtime tomorrow morning. You need to commute and there's one flight that'll get you there tomorrow morning. Do you go up the night before and pay $120 for a hotel room or do you put all your eggs in one basket and take that flight tomorrow morning? I'm always very conservative. I'm going the night before. You know, is it worth jeopardizing a very nice career to save $120? Probably not.
01:07:16
Bobby Doss
Next question.
01:07:27
Wally Mulhern
That's a good question. I am not authorized to do initial CFI checkrides. So I can't really answer that. And as of yesterday, I am finally authorized to do add ons. So I don't do CFI checkrides. So I'm not even gonna try. I would say the ability to communicate as a. I watched my daughters as CFIs. Neither one of my daughters will be. I wouldn't call them technical experts, but I think both of them have pretty good interpersonal skills. And I watched my oldest daughter one time debriefing a student. I was sitting in the corner and she did a debriefing and did the logbook. And at the end of the flight.
01:08:21
Bobby Doss
She said to the students, she said.
01:08:23
Wally Mulhern
Did you have fun today? And I thought.
01:08:28
Nick Alan
Brilliant.
01:08:30
Wally Mulhern
That's brilliant. Of course you do want to have fun. I think, going back to what we started said at the very beginning, why do we get into this? I think because we think airplanes fun. Airplanes is fun.
01:08:43
Bobby Doss
I sit in a lot of debriefs with DPs that do initials. And I would say the common theme that I hear from people that don't pass on their first attempt is that they probably haven't challenged us. They haven't been challenged enough. They go read the books, they've been instructed by an instructor. So they've gotten. They've got the knowledge, but they haven't taught it enough times or they haven't shared it enough times with people that are actually asking them questions about what do you really mean? So when you get into the checkride with a guy who's got 25,000 hours and asks you questions and knows how the wing works better than you would probably ever know how the wing works, and they say, explain how the wing works.
01:09:24
Bobby Doss
And you teach it exactly like you've been taught it, and they ask you two or three things to explain you haven't ever explained before. That's where the CFI initial checkride start to go off the rails. So the encouragement that I've heard many times in the past few months is make sure that the groups that are working on flight structure certificates are teaching each other or asking each other questions or challenging each other. What do you mean by that? How does that really work? Does the prop really take a bigger bite, or is the relative wind different when the props on the downstroke? Those sorts of things will make you a much better instructor than just being able to have the book knowledge and repeating what's in the pdac.
01:10:05
Wally Mulhern
And I think as a good instructor, I think a good instructor has the ability to adjust their teaching style based on their student. You know, we've all seen the look. You know, you're talking to someone and they just don't get it. Okay, well, that's now my job. I got to figure out another angle to come at this person. I mean, because my. Maybe my standard presentation isn't working, I got. I got to figure out another way to teach them how to do this. So I think a good CFI can do that.
01:10:44
Bobby Doss
Those two guys ask questions, come get a shirt or a coffee cup or something, while others are Asking questions. Yes sir.
01:10:57
Wally Mulhern
What is one thing you would either want to do better or change your approach in order to be more successful?
01:11:04
Bobby Doss
That's a great question. I do, I do say this a lot and I, I think the biggest mistake I made was I didn't care about the book work. When I was a super pilot, I, I wanted to fly for fun. I wanted to, I wanted to take my family to Austin. That was, I got this one singular goal, I think take my family to Austin, go eat dinner with my daughter when she was a UT student. And I didn't think about the future in any other capacity than can I get to Austin back safely. And then what happened right after my private pilot certificate was I got stuck where I couldn't take a trip because of a 2,000 foot ceiling. So I signed up on my instrument the next day. And I never did enough studying to really know what I needed to know.
01:11:49
Bobby Doss
Fast forward five years, I'm on a flight school and I'm challenged in many different ways by many different students. I'm on a podcast where I get asked a lot of questions and I don't know the book work like well in most of the books. And I really regret not spending more time knowing the knowledge component of flying because I know what made me a better pilot. And I now that I'm trying to get my flight instructor certificates, I fight every day to learn some things that I probably should have known better early on. And I don't know how to encourage students about that. Cause it's the one thing we all hate. I see everybody come in every day and go fly.
01:12:24
Bobby Doss
I don't see too much studying being done in my flight school, but you should really try and tell them that the book work is what makes a great pilot. A good Stig pilot is obviously good, but they're not really great pilots if they don't know the books.
01:12:39
Wally Mulhern
I remember discovering a book. I distinctly remember this was a Friday night and I was stuck at home. I didn't have anybody to go do anything with, I didn't have a date or whatever. I was in college and I picked up this book that was sitting on my desk called the Far Aim. I started reading the AIM part and it was like, man, there's some really good stuff in here. I was well into my instrument tray and I'm going, geez, this is, it's actually easy reading and just some really good stuff. I mean, I don't know if you're going to read it cover to cover, but as a reference and there's good stuff in there.
01:13:22
Nick Alan
Good question.
01:13:23
Wally Mulhern
Come get some. This guy right here. So usbp, what characteristic or like quality can an applicant do you recognize that makes you think or helps you decide whether this person, he or she is going to do well today in this checkride? You know, right off the bat just, well, first of all, when you do a checkride with me, going to get an email from and there's about a page long email and it says things in there like make sure you sign all your pages in your logbook.
01:14:02
Bobby Doss
Okay?
01:14:02
Wally Mulhern
So first thing I do is get the logbook. We got 27 pages and not one page of Sunday. So that tells me right now, hey, you didn't read my letter. I took the time to compose the letter. You didn't, you didn't read it. So you know, I'm not going to say it, excuse things, but right off the bat I'm kind of thinking, well, this person can't follow simple directions. I like, I like. You know, I'm going to put you in situations, scenarios that are out of your comfort zone. You know, I'm going to say what's our takeoff weight? What's our max takeoff weight? And I'd say, okay, I want to bring my dog lufus. He weighs 77 pounds. Can he go with us? And we're going to be 24 pounds over gross weights.
01:14:52
Wally Mulhern
And you know, most of people will say no, he can't go, uncle. I mean, I really want him to go. Well, we're landing at our fuel stop with 24 gallons. You know, I want him to think, well, hey, we don't need to land those 24. We can land with 20 gallons and take 4 gallons off and that's 24 pounds.
01:15:15
Bobby Doss
And we'll fix the.
01:15:16
Wally Mulhern
Go with us. So, you know, I want, I just wanted to, to be able to think. I mean, whatever it is, I'm going to try to push you out of your comfort zone. And okay, you know what? We're not going there. We're going there. What do you think about that? And you know, we're going to look at that.
01:15:34
Bobby Doss
So it is preparation a thousand percent. People that come prepared for a check r. People that have gone through maintenance logs and really understand them and know them. People who have taken pictures of the registration card and your worthiness certificate and had them printed out ready to go. Those people always do really good in checkride. So I'm sure the school, I know the ACS has a checklist. You use that checklist to prepare for a checkride. If you're really prepared, you're going to be a lot better off than the people that come in and they haven't done that due diligence before they arrive.
01:16:07
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, it's a morning check. Right. Breakfast tacos are always long. What's the worst part about being a dpe? The paperwork that we have to do pre and post flight. I mean, you know, most of the time it's not that big a deal.
01:16:29
Bobby Doss
We have to.
01:16:30
Wally Mulhern
We got this other computer system other than IAC or etc. We have to go in and we gotta put your name and all this stuff. And we basically have to get approval, you know, and I think most DPs are not an approval. As soon as you hit submit, you get approved. But then when the checkride is over, you gotta go back in. And sometimes a lot of these numbers match. We might be in a. You. You said that we're gonna be in a 172N, but then we end up in a 172S. And I forgot to change that on pre approval. So now I gotta deal with my FAA guys. Say, Ben. Yeah, it was a 172N. It ended up being, it ended up being. It's, it's. It's just that stuff. Nothing, nothing horrible.
01:17:16
Wally Mulhern
I mean, just a gentleman the other day says, do you enjoy being a dpd? And I said, well, it's not slavery. I mean, I'm not, you know, they're not making me do this. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. I mean, if I want to stop being a DTE today, all I gotta do is quit. So, you know, I love it. I like working with people like you guys. And I don't know, maybe, you know, I want to make a difference. I want to head off the next mark. Okay.
01:17:52
Nick Alan
If I can.
01:17:53
Wally Mulhern
Okay.
01:17:56
Bobby Doss
If you ask, keep coming till we run out of stuff. Yes, sir.
01:18:08
Wally Mulhern
I don't really feel any pressure. You know, we have the ACS airman certification standards, which basically is the test Kingpin PACS is the test. You know, it has the standards in there. So I don't. I can't say I feel any pressure. Green flags. I flew for a guy that said you need to be mission oriented. Okay. And, and I want, you know, again, we want a hundred percent safety. We're not going to go. We're not going to fly at all. So I want us, you know, I want, especially at the higher level when we start talking about commercial applicants, you know, I Want you to, you know, we're sitting in a room, in a very sterile room during the ground portion.
01:19:26
Wally Mulhern
And, you know, I might give you reasons not to go, but, you know, I want you to try to be, you know, someone's going to pay you to fly their airplane. You, you need to have a let's go mindset. And that's where it gets great. I mean, is it safe? Well, if it's not safe, then don't go. But, you know, like, just with the dog, we're 24 pounds overweight. We can't go. Well, we can go. We just have to make some adjustments. So I want, you know, I'm looking for the applicant to find read. You know, we go out, we do a run up one of the mags, the engine's running rough. What are we going to. Oh, we're going to take back in now. Maintenance.
01:20:16
Bobby Doss
Look at it.
01:20:17
Wally Mulhern
Okay, well, suppose maintenance is not there today. Oh, we're going to cancel the flight. Okay. Does our airplane have a spark plug cleaning procedure? Oh, yeah. Forgot about that, huh? Let's do it. So I, I'm new. I'm working on private pilot right now, but I got a gig working in Lexington trying to do my ap. You hit on some system stuff. It's really important to understand what you're flying. But my question is, like, I have the opportunity while I'm in the store right now to go work on, you know, 172s and 182s, whatever rolls into the shop. It's usually like, you know, the fancy stuff we get is, you know, an SR, not a serious SR22, you know, but it's still, you know, we get a turbo pump that rolls in, you know, every month.
01:21:19
Bobby Doss
And that's as much.
01:21:23
Wally Mulhern
Exposure as you get to with the big airline that you use. My question is, how do you. It's around here, if you're just a college student, how do you get out of the, you know, you get to start somewhere. I understand, but if you want to elaborate.
01:21:43
Bobby Doss
Sorry, I'm kind of struggling.
01:21:46
Wally Mulhern
You want to gain experience, right? And around here it's, you know, it's, you're putting after a life on the engines and old Pipers or Cessna. So you're working with piston engines when, you know, if you want to work with the big rigs, then you're not gonna be messing with this. Yeah, well, that's true. I mean, the systems are totally different. And one disadvantage that this generation has is Most of you have probably never worked on a car. And it's not your fault, okay? I mean, I drive a Jeep and I had it for 18 months before one day I said, hey, I'm. Open up the hood, I'm going to look underneath it. You know, I take it in for an oil change, get my tires rotated, and that's about it.
01:22:32
Wally Mulhern
I mean, back in the day when we came up, I mean, you'd work on your car. And so when you talk about spark plugs, you know, what it looks like, I mean, a lot of applicants, I'll, you know, we'll talk about sparkles and I'll say, and I don't mean this demeaning at all. I said, well, have you ever seen a sparkle? You know, it's washing pictures. Okay, well, you know, that might be something to go out in the hangar and someday find the mechanics that, hey, can I see a spark plug? The systems are, yeah, totally different. I mean, we don't have a vacuum.
01:23:05
Bobby Doss
System on a triple seven.
01:23:06
Wally Mulhern
I don't think we have one. We don't have. We don't have spark plugs. We got two. Two really big engines. But it's a mindset. It's a mindset of how it works. I mean, you know, we get a. We see life coming on. Okay, what we got? Eec, Electronic engine Control. Okay, is that, is that a major concern? Well, no, it's not a major concern. There's some things that we have to be cognizant of. But, you know, and it all starts with our airplane. I mean, we're flying along and all of a sudden we got zero on the suction gauge. Well, what does that mean? What are we going to lose?
01:23:51
Bobby Doss
What.
01:23:52
Wally Mulhern
What instruments are we going to lose? And are they just gonna die immediately or is it going to be a slow death? So, you know, I do see systems as being probably a weak point, especially at the private level. You know, young man, the other day I said, Asked how the heater worked, and all I want is, well, it's. There's a pipe around the exhaust, and we take that hot air that gets warmed up by the exhaust and we vent that into the cabin. That's all I want. I mean, you don't have to use the fancy word shroud, just we, you know, it's a pipe around a pipe. But what he told me is he says we vent exhaust air into the cabin. I said, oh, so we're breathing exhaust there? And he goes, yeah, but it's filtered, like, oh.
01:24:51
Bobby Doss
And if you're if you ask me, I think I heard you say too, is like, how do you get the experience? You know, there's this. I was a technology sales guy for many years. People that really knew technology, really knew the fundamentals of old technology.
01:25:03
Wally Mulhern
Right.
01:25:04
Bobby Doss
Because everything built new is still based on what we did 20 years ago. And I think that's very similar in the systems that we have today. Why is there a vacuum system on these planes? Because it worked in the 40s, it worked in the 50s, it worked in the 60s, and it's still really reliable today. And that's why we use that vacuum system and all those instruments work, because those gyros are going to always work and there's always going to be gyros and things, right? So I think, I don't think it's a bad thing. You might be working on old aircraft because you're going to gain that experience when you get to jets. They're going to put you through the right training.
01:25:39
Bobby Doss
If you want to be a mechanic on jets, you don't have to get your foot in the door there to be really good at what you need to do. And I would say general aviation needs mechanics, and it's dwindling every day. And you probably have a long career in GA if you wanted to. Working on gas. Lycoming engines aren't going anywhere, trust me.
01:25:58
Wally Mulhern
I'm looking at buying a 1946 airplane right now. 1946. I mean, that's older than me.
01:26:05
Bobby Doss
It'll have a light coming. Engine.
01:26:07
Wally Mulhern
Yes. How important?
01:26:20
Bobby Doss
First impressions? I would say they're very important. I don't see anybody in this room wearing an AirPod, but I pick up my son, who's 18 right now. Every time we walk into a public place and the kid's wearing an AirPod, it tells me a really quick story about how much they care or don't care about what I'm about to spend my money on. Right. You go into Walmart and the person checking you out is wearing an AirPod. Makes me sick to my stomach. That's terrible depression, Right? I think we just did a you want to be a CFI event in my flight school not too long ago to try and help people understand how. How to approach a flight school owner, whether it's me or someone else. You know, I get a resume almost every day for a flight instructor job.
01:27:09
Bobby Doss
Every resume says I have 250 hours. I know you have 250 hours if you're going to apply to be a flight charger at my flight school. I would like to know something else about you. I would like to see more about why you love aviation. You know, tell a little bit different story because that first impression is going to make a difference. If it's the same black and white piece of paper, 250 hours, I got my CFIA, you don't look any different.
01:27:34
Wally Mulhern
Right.
01:27:34
Bobby Doss
I think that impression is going to make a big difference. I would also say that to the students that you're going to meet, right. Are you, are you excited to be their flight instructor? I think instructors go through these four phases that I talk about when I onboard my instructors. I won't belabor it, but it goes from really hungry to not hungry. On going and leaving your school, Right. There's gotta be a balance there. Those students are why you're going to the airlines. They paid you to build all that time, right. Be excited and make a good first impression on all the students when you meet them too.
01:28:09
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, first impressions. You know, you know, I'm old and I guess I'm old school, but, you know, I was taught that you don't ever shake someone's hand while sitting down. And I can't help remember my father just telling me, you don't ever shake someone's hand without standing up. And I walk in and check, right. All the time and say, hey, I'm all in. And the applicant just sits there and I think about my dad and I'm trying now, is it going to make a difference? No, it's not going to make a difference. As they meet the standard, they're going to pass. If they don't, they're not. But, you know, are we kind of starting off like, yeah, maybe we are. And maybe I shouldn't say that, maybe I shouldn't admit that, but how I feel.
01:29:07
Bobby Doss
We just got a 10 minute warning, so. Yes, ma'.
01:29:09
Nick Alan
Am.
01:29:09
Bobby Doss
On the side.
01:29:17
Wally Mulhern
Well, the ACS says that you can exceed a parameter if in a timely manner, you get back to it. And I tell people right off the bat that this is not going to be the perfect spike. By you managing your mistakes, you probably, maybe even show me more. So when my oldest daughter got her private pilot certificate, I was not a DP at the time and I can't give my kids checkrides anyway. But were driving home from her checkride and just through circumstances, she had three different flight instructors. Counting me, she had four because we had flown together and we, you know, I signed it off as dual gimba, but I didn't really count myself as A flight instructor. And. But I said to her, I don't.
01:30:09
Bobby Doss
Know why I said this, but I.
01:30:09
Wally Mulhern
Said, michelle, who was your favorite flight instructor? And I was talking about Michael, Clay, and Dave. And she said, you. And I said, what? Me? Why me? And she said, because you let me screw up. She said, I used to get so mad at you because I would be sitting there and I'd look over at you and say, what should I do? And she said, you would do this? And she said, I got so mad at you, I would go home just seething because you wouldn't tell me what to do. She says, but I learned two things. She said, I learned, A, if I made a mistake, kind of fixed it, and then B, just don't make a mistake, okay? It's the easiest way to do it.
01:30:53
Wally Mulhern
She said, my other instructors would, you know, if I was about to do something wrong, they would go, whoa. She said, you would just let me screw up. And so I think you learn more by your mistakes. It used to scare me with both my daughters. They would come home complying, and I would say. I would always say, have you scared yourself yet? And for a long time, they come home and they go, nope. And I used to go, oh, God. And then when they finally came, I scared myself. This happened.
01:31:25
Bobby Doss
And this happened.
01:31:26
Wally Mulhern
Well, what'd you do? I did this and this. I go, great. All right, so now we scared ourselves and we managed it.
01:31:38
Bobby Doss
Okay, so to your question, a lot of times, too, when I talk to students after they've left the beam brief with Wally, the conversation is always, I hear his side and then I hear their side, right? And it's his side is always. They just lost it. They went completely berserko. They tried to do things that weren't even part of the flight anymore. And I think the key is Wally's just a normal guy. People don't believe that because they're spending a lot of money and take a check ride. It's a big day. Wally puts on his shoes and socks just like we put them on, and he's a real human being, and he knows you're not gonna be perfect.
01:32:17
Bobby Doss
So I think when you make a mistake on a checkride, whether you're a CFI checkride or a private pilot checkride, recognizing it and then doing what would be the best thing to overcome that and owning it, much like he said earlier, I think that's what's gonna be the best outcome for the flight.
01:32:34
Wally Mulhern
And don't tell the DP you made a mistake. Because half the time I'm not even gonna know. Like, oh, I just did that. Oh, okay. Well, I'll make a note of that. I won't talk about that.
01:32:43
Bobby Doss
Don't tell me. Yes, sir.
01:32:56
Wally Mulhern
Oh, that's Scott. What a great question. That is one reason why I am so anal with my applicants about proper phraseology. Just about a month ago, were going into Frankfurt and our flight number had a zero in it. And, you know, it's. I guess I was flying because he was talking and he was calling us United States 307. And the Frankfurt. The German controller says, so that's three zero, seven. Look at my scoundrel. I guess he told you so. Yeah, it is a problem. What you got to understand is a lot of times the person that you're talking to on the other end isn't even a controller. They are not an air traffic controller. They may be a clerk. And you're talking to a clerk who is now relaying that information to an air traffic controller.
01:34:06
Wally Mulhern
That clerk is doing nothing more than filling out a spreadsheet. So, like, you're given a position report. Okay, so. And a lot of times, well, you know, English is the aviation standard. Worldwide aviation standard. But you may be over, you know, the middle of Africa in the middle of the night. And this guy's. Our girl's native language is Swahili or something. And so you're going off and you're using, you know, English language. I give, I give the example of, you know, hobby supply school. They do some foreign students. They do a lot of Koreans. And so if I walked up to just a normal Kentucky guy wearing a bucky sat and said, sup, bro? You know, or sup, bro? You know, I, I don't really talk like that, but I think he would understand that I'm saying hello, sort of.
01:35:02
Wally Mulhern
If I went up to one of the Korean guys and did that, they. They would fall out and see, sup, bro? Where was that? So, you know, you gotta. You gotta stay very square. And, you know, again, you get to the foreign countries and it's big mountains, middle of the night, and you're talking to a controller, if it's even a controller. The radio reception maybe isn't bad. So you've got to stay within the box of the standard phraseology. You know, squawk 1200. No, don't squawk 1200. 1200. Runway 32. No, Runway three two. Okay, so that's kind of.
01:35:43
Bobby Doss
We're taking one more question before we do we got to take a selfie?
01:35:48
Wally Mulhern
Because if this doesn't get posted on social media, it doesn't count, right?
01:35:52
Nick Alan
Yeah.
01:35:55
Wally Mulhern
Do a silence.
01:35:58
Bobby Doss
He's never used Snapchat.
01:35:59
Wally Mulhern
Hang on, all Snapchat.
01:36:04
Bobby Doss
I'll use a real camera for Wally.
01:36:15
Wally Mulhern
All right.
01:36:16
Bobby Doss
The only ask that I have is that you go subscribe to our podcast. We appreciate you guys having us. We already take one more question, but go subscribe to the podcast. Please download and share with your aviation friends and family members. Man, so many hands. Do a big problem. Yellow shirt, the color behind the promo.
01:36:39
Nick Alan
So.
01:37:02
Bobby Doss
Great question. As I. I don't think as. Do you mind sharing how old you are?
01:37:10
Nick Alan
19.
01:37:10
Bobby Doss
19. At 19, you have no clue how much life you have left. And it seems so busy. It seems like it's such a. It's all right here, right now. I gotta get this done today.
01:37:24
Wally Mulhern
Tomorrow.
01:37:25
Bobby Doss
Just to give you an example, when I was 19, I had no future, no plans, nothing going on in my life. I went to Avalon Christian University. Couldn't afford it, quit. It was literally deep. Bitches had no idea what I was going to do. Then I became a dispatcher. Then I was a police officer in Houston for seven years. Then I became a tech guy and I installed software. Then I became a sales guy, and now I'm a flexible. Like whatever you're worried about or whatever you're trying to stay motivated by, there's plenty of Runway punctuation intended for you to accomplish those goals. At 19, people would kill to go to my flight school. At 30, they would kill to be 19, working on their ratings, to be able to be an airline pilot. At 21, 22, 23, 24. Right? So I think the.
01:38:13
Bobby Doss
The thing is safe, motivated because you have so much time. And it might be discouraging because it's the grind that you're going through. But if it wasn't this grind, it would be some other grind. You'd be the other building trying to memorize the entire Kentucky penal code and trying to do the same thing. They would be taking domestic violence classes and dealing with all the other stuff. Whatever the crime is, there could be another crime. Just know that you guys and girls are so freaking lucky. My wife wouldn't let me fly. You guys are your parents. Whoever is letting you do this. You have the opportunity to fly Triple 7s around the world and make a lot of money deciding whether you want to have a hamburger or chicken parmesan, right? The opportunities are endless. So while the grind might Be tough now.
01:39:04
Bobby Doss
I think you just don't know how short a window of time this is. Even my flight school complain all the time about the weather. I can't sew. I can't get my solo. Cross country's not. I'm sure everybody at Eastern Kentucky University hears that all the time. It's such a short time. I don't remember that, but I know I will do it. But it's a short time in your aviation career, and this is going to be a really short time, too.
01:39:26
Wally Mulhern
And enjoy this. Embrace the time at eku. You know, when you get back, give them money, okay? Because they need money. I mean, you're going to remember. You're going to remember your classmates. I mean, you may not remember everything from the books, but you're going to remember when you were sitting in a seminar next to Fred and you farted. And if you know, remember that. And 20 years from now, you're going to remember that. So, so just stop and look around. It's just like in the airplanes, you know, look out the window. I'm out of this 1946 airplane. I'm, I'm about, maybe about to buy. I. I doubt I'll ever go higher than 2,000ft in it and certainly not over 100 knots. So it's low and slow, and I'm so looking forward to just looking out the window.
01:40:18
Bobby Doss
Last thing, another lot of questions. We both have email addresses. We're welcome to help you. We're welcome to answer your questions. We're welcome to have you on future shows. My email address is Bobby B O b u y behindtheprock.com easy enough. His is Wally W A l l y behindtheprove.com don't hesitate to send us your questions. We'll turn them into future shows. We'll do everything we can to support Eastern Kentucky University for many years to come. We hope that you support our show as well. Thank you so much to the faculty and all of you for having us out.
01:40:56
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.