Today we reflect on some recent tragedies in the general aviation community. Here's a link to the video referenced in today's show -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-PDjwT97_s
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00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following. In Runway two five going four miles.
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?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. The past almost three months now, since Oshkosh, the end of Oshkosh, and till the last week, we've had a number of what I will call disasters. Loss of life. In the world of general aviation, that's caught the media's attention. We've had some stuff close to home where a pretty famous aviator from New Braunsville lost her life at Oshkosh or just after Oshkosh there. And Richard mcsfadden, the Air Safety Institute AOPA representative, recently lost his life and has caught a lot of attention. The reason we are bringing it up and talking about it today is we had a listener reach out who sent really a heartfelt message to both of us that said, hey, I'm a student pilot. I'm sitting at the airport. I'm not gonna fly my solo flight today. I just don't know what to do.
01:27
Bobby Doss
I feel like if someone so good or so safe can get hurt, what makes me not be able to get hurt? And it made us both reflect. So today's show is gonna be about how to get back in the air. I've dealt with some stuff. I've seen a number of instructors and friends and other people deal with stuff after. After. Maybe not even something that bad's happened, but it's not easy to get back in the plane. Wally, I know you've talked about your daughters being scared. Are you wanting them to be scared so that they would maybe give it the attention that it needs at times? I know you've had people in your life that have lost their life. What are your thoughts on the overall sentiment of aviation, general aviation, and unfortunately, we're gonna get. Some people are gonna get hurt.
02:15
Bobby Doss
And it's not easy always to deal with.
02:18
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I, you know, we have chosen to do something that can be dangerous. Is it inherently dangerous? I, I don't believe it is. But. Or maybe I wouldn't do it, but there can be some consequences. You know, I, A lot of times talking checkrides to the applicant, I talk about, you know, a flight is nothing more than risk management. You know, we're analyzing the risks. And at the End of the day, we're, you know, we're managing the risks. Is the risk worth the reward? Well, maybe it's not. So maybe we don't go, but maybe it is. You know, unfortunately, in this profession or this hobby, whatever you want to call it, this activity, if something goes wrong, the consequences could be life threatening.
03:17
Wally Mulhern
You know, I joke that if an accountant messes up your taxes, probably the worst thing that's going to happen is a letter from the irs, which is not pleasant because I've gotten those letters, but it usually says, hey, you got to pay us some more money. It's nothing that money can't fix. You know, in this activity of flying airplanes, you know, an unfortunate occurrence. And I'm not even going to say a mistake, because it may not really be a mistake, could cause the loss of life. And what I think I want to say to people is that everybody is different. You know, everybody reacts emotionally to different activities. You know, I've recently had two daughters get married and had to stand up and give a speech at both their weddings or their receptions.
04:25
Wally Mulhern
And I just prayed all day long that I would hold it together and not get too emotional. Some people don't get emotional, but that really doesn't mean anything. So if you're not ready to get back in the air, it's kind of simple. Don't get back in the air. At some point you are going to have to face your demons, if you will. I mean, if you want to continue with it, you may have to. You know, the old saying, jump back on the horse if the horse throws you off. You know, one thing that is familiar to most of us that are, you know, older than 30 years old or so was 9 11. I remember when 911 happened. You know, the air traffic ceased in the United States for several days.
05:15
Wally Mulhern
And I even know some airline pilots who were, you know, a little reluctant to go back to work. And I, and I'm not saying this to pump me up as some, you know, superhero or anything like that, but I could not wait to get back in the air. I wanted to get back in the air and start moving airplanes around the country. I remember my first flight was to LA and back. And it was just, it was something I needed. I needed emotionally. I needed to get back in the airplane and fly people around, because that's what I did. I mean, that was my job.
05:55
Bobby Doss
Well, that's an interesting story because I, I actually flew the first day that the airports opened up I, I was in business, had a reason to be in Chicago from Houston. And I never will forget. I got on United flight and might have been Continental way back then, but I got one of those two planes and a guy got on with a hard hat and I just thought that was the stupidest thing ever. But I think he might have just been a construction guy who brought his hard hat. But I thought of all the days in the world to fly, that was probably the safest day ever to get in an airplane in the United States. And I had no nerves and my wife was like, are you sure this is safe?
06:36
Bobby Doss
And I do think there are different mindsets or different ways people deal with that stuff, but I was like under the impression that, man, it was the best day ever to fly in the United States because they were gonna. And it probably took three hours to get through security that day, don't get me wrong. But it was probably the safest day to fly. Now I had, and we've talked about in the past, I don't know, maybe episode two of this show, I had a near miss where helicopter landed right in front of me while I was rotating the aircraft at about 55 knots. And in all intents and purposes I should have hit that helicopter and there probably should have been four people dead at the end of that Runway.
07:17
Bobby Doss
And it took me, I want to say a month probably to feel confident to get back in the plane. I don't think, I don't think I made a mistake. I don't think the helicopter made a mistake. I think it was combination of things that happened. But at the end of the day, I don't think we should have been as close as were by any counts. But we didn't hit each other. And I think my training did that. And I was right in the middle of that killing zone that we've talked about many times too. I was in that 150 hour range. I don't think I was overly confident. I actually think I was talking about looking for traffic in that takeoff roll or as we prepared to do the takeoff roll.
08:01
Bobby Doss
It just, I wasn't thinking of straight down, I was thinking clear left and right, but I didn't hit. But it took me a long time to overcome the anxiety of how close that was to me not being alive anymore. And I think I've talked to a lot of people about that over time, that it was just my time and now it doesn't bother me anymore. We'll put in the show notes, but there was a Tribute made by the AOPA for Richard McSpadden. And it talks a lot about early preliminary reports on what may or may not have happened. It sounded like they tried to turn back because they were having engine trouble. I won't speculate, but the one thing that the president of the AOPA says is a lot of people are calling them and asking them, what would Richard want us to do?
08:52
Bobby Doss
What would he have us do? And the short answer is one word. Fly. He would want us all to go fly. I didn't know him personally, but I could suspect that a guy like that who was a Thunderbird lead, you know, Thunderbird 1 for a number of years would want us to go fly. And I think that's one way we may be able to pay him some respect is to go fly. But don't do it if you don't feel safe. Don't do it if you don't feel confident, your equipment or your skills. Maybe go with an instructor. Maybe go with somebody who can make you feel comfortable.
09:27
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, absolutely. I. One of our previous guests was Rusty Keen, and he was Thunderbird number two. This is probably, oh, I don't know how many shows ago, but he was one of our guests. And I just happened to fly with Rusty just three or four days ago, and I asked him if he knew Richard and he said, yeah, he's the one who hired me to be a Thunderbird. So it hit home a little bit with that. We had an accident here in Houston, north of Houston here, about six weeks ago. Two people lost their lives in a 150. And 18 hours prior to that crash, I got a text from the cfi, who happened to be the father of the other pilot, asking him, asking me about doing a checkride for his son. And you know, that was about 6pm on a.
10:28
Wally Mulhern
Whatever night it was and about noon the next day is when they crashed and they both perished in the crash. So that, you know, that. Yeah. Boy, that shook me. I thought, you know, we had a dialogue via text. I still had the text message messages in my phone. I just, I, I can't delete them at this point. And I, I look back at that and I, you know, I realize how precious life is. I'm, I'm just glad that I responded to him. And we had a positive, you know, positive dialogue for just a little while, albeit via text, but, you know, just another unfortunate situation. And then the thing with the Richard from AOPA happened.
11:20
Bobby Doss
Yeah, we, I guess it's been almost a year and a half now. Maybe it's been just short of a year since the B17 incident in Dallas. And I think that shook a lot of people up around the country. I had a million questions from friends and family like how could that happen? And again, I'll never speculate. I haven't even read any preliminary reports or what. I go to the air show every year. I've seen that display. I saw that display a week before it happened because they come to Houston and go to Dallas. I've actually flown on that B17. It shook me to the core a little bit that what if I would have been on the plane in my demo flight and something like that would have happened.
12:02
Bobby Doss
But those guys all on those planes were professionals, they didn't intend to have that incident happen. And I'm sure it was a freak accident of some sort. But it's not something that maybe everybody feels comfortable about jumping in back into a plane. A story that I wanted to tell on this show, that was one. Early on in my flight school ownership days, I had a twin engine aircraft that I'll never forget on a Saturday afternoon looking at my phone and I had just looked at it a few minutes earlier and I looked at it again and I had 14 text messages. That's never a good sign. And it was clear something was going on. The twin was on the ground probably 65 miles away and they said they had a bird strike and they weren't going to be able to fly the plane home.
13:00
Bobby Doss
Ultimately I got some pictures and the bird had came through the windshield on the CFI side. And if you've never flown a Travelaire or a Baron, you know, or any plane for that matter, the plexiglass is not thin. It's a good half inch thick, if not thicker. And so it caused a lot of harm to the aircraft. It caused a lot of harm to the bird, and ultimately it caused a lot of harm to the cfi. But they did an amazing job of getting that plane back on the ground without incident. And they were both shook up and the plane was down almost six months. There was a little bit of bent metal right at the door frame.
13:40
Bobby Doss
And so it took a long time to get all the approvals from the FAA and all the people that needed to be involved to get that metal fixed. And when it came back, the instructor still worked for us. And I was ignorant to the fact that he might not want to fly that airplane. I don't know why I was, but I was. And lo and behold, the plane gets fixed. We Test flew it with a different pilot. And he had a reservation the next day, and we talked, and he was excited that the plane was back. But I think that morning he had some physical reactions to. To the idea of flying that airplane again. And I was surprised, but he had some. What he called PTSD about that airplane. Vomited, could not get in that plane.
14:27
Bobby Doss
I think when that moment came, he was overwhelmed and. And I think he felt really bad. But I tried to reassure. Reassure him that it's not his fault. I mean, that's just how we react to those sorts of things. And, and that it was no big deal. We would do whatever it took. If he ever wanted to fly the plane again, we would do whatever it took to get him comfortable on the plane. And we did ultimately get him comfortable on the plane. I want to say it was a couple of flights and he said he was good to go, and he probably did another 50, if not 100 hours of duel on that aircraft before he went on to his professional gig post flight training.
15:02
Bobby Doss
But I was ignorant to the fact that someone might have a little bit of remorse, ptsd, fear, whatever you want to call it, but he just could not stomach, no pun intended, could not stomach getting back in that aircraft. And if you have any feeling like that, it's one of those I'm safe things where you shouldn't go fly. We've talked about personal minimums, we've talked about things that you should do before you get in a plane to qualify yourself, and I'm safe's the checklist. But you really need to make sure that you're ready to go when it comes time to start flying again after something like that. For sure.
15:40
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, definitely. And everybody is different. You know, if you're not ready to go, just say you're not ready to go. You know, the listener that wrote us about this situation, you know, as Bobby said, the first day they. They were talking about sitting at the flight school, looking outside in a beautiful weather, and they decided not to fly. But the next day, they did go out and fly, and guess what they did. They. They practiced emergency situations. So, you know, we don't want to.
16:17
Wally Mulhern
We don't want to trade off a loss of life or reason to go out and practice, but maybe, you know, if Tom Brady has a game and he throws three interceptions, I'll bet the next day he's the first one at the practice field facility, throwing the ball through the tire or whatever professional quarterbacks do to help eliminate interceptions, you know, so if we can use this as an excuse to practice and get better. Oh. I mean, I think that would be the ultimate tribute to Richard, no question.
16:57
Bobby Doss
And I think that video is worth. I think it was 18 minutes. It's a really good, almost a historical look at his time at the opa, and it's a really good video to watch. Your. Your story about Tom Brady made me think. I don't know how many cowboy fans listen, but that Dak had a really bad Sunday. He did. He threw three interceptions last week. And I was sitting, eating lunch today, and I saw on the TV that they said, should Dallas give up on Dak? And I'm thinking one bad day. Like, if I was getting fired after one bad day, that would be. That would not be good, because I've had my own share of bad days.
17:33
Bobby Doss
But like you said, I'm sure he was back on that horse throwing balls first thing Monday and getting ready for the next game, because that's probably his mindset as a professional athlete. And whether you're a hobbyist, a professional, or what you do with general aviation, I think it's always got to be your call. You're the pilot in command. You'll only know when the time is right to get back in there and fly again. But I'm sure that you have in your area plenty of people that are willing to help. And if you don't feel free to reach out to us, we'd be happy to talk, happy to try and do whatever we can to help you feel confident and comfortable in your skills again before you get back in that aircraft and fly. We want you to be safe.
18:22
Bobby Doss
Wally, what stories do you have beyond 911 in your professional career? I know you've had scares with your family. I know you've had emergencies as an individual pilot, but are there any other stories that you can share where maybe there was a catastrophe that made you have paws? I think people would like to hear that. You're not invincible. I've seen you cry. I'm an emotional guy. I know the GA incidents have torn you up in the past. What's a story you can share with our listeners?
18:58
Wally Mulhern
I had a student back in the day who. Who was more than just a student. He became a good friend. And he. He was a really good pilot. And he was. He was what we would call a good stick. He was just a natural pilot. A lot of times when you hear the. With the word good stick, that means that they're not very good on the books. But that wasn't the case with this Young man and he, he crashed, he crashed in a barren, got in an icing situation. He had another young man with him, he was flying some freight and they both died and took, this is back in the, maybe the late 80s, early 90s. It took them a couple days to find the wreckage. And yeah, within, you know, later that week I went to two funerals.
20:04
Wally Mulhern
I went to one funeral one day and drove about 150 miles and went to a different funeral, both men or young men that I knew, you know, and it made me think, made me reflect, you know, okay, as an acfi, what did I miss? What did I miss? Did I miss anything? And I think we all reflect a little bit like that because we, you know, we, you know, I touched his flying career. I was his instructor for his private, his commercial, his instrument. I don't remember if I was his multi engine instructor, but probably was. And you know, hindsight's 20, you know, maybe his risk analysis that day. I mean it was an icing condition in an airplane that wasn't supposed to be an icing. But I got to think that he didn't think he was going to get an icing that day.
21:07
Wally Mulhern
So yeah, that one kind of shook me. Going to two funerals in two days, that's not something that most people have the opportunity to do in their lives unless some kind of tragedy like this happens. And both of these young men were less than 25. You know, one was probably 20, one was 24, something like that. So yeah, that shook me to the core a little bit. But you know, at the time I was a professional airline pilot and I went back to work and you know, did my job. You know, my father was a World War II veteran, he flew gliders on D Day. And, and we, you know, I, I regret this, that I didn't talk to him more about this, but when I would ask him about it, he would just say, well, I did my job. That was my job.
22:02
Wally Mulhern
And so that, that is how I deal with it now. Everybody deals with things differently, you know, and I'm sure if I would have told my airline, hey, I just had this tragedy happen with people close to me, I, I need some time off. I'm sure they would have given it to me with no questions asked. But my way of dealing with it is to just get back in the air.
22:26
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I think that I've heard people worry about what others might think if they took that pause. I Think. I think that's not what we should be worried about at all. I think if you don't feel comfortable, you shouldn't worry about what other people think because you could get hurt. And having a mindset that might not make you feel comfortable is only going to make it more difficult for you to be on your A game as a pilot for sure. So by all means, don't let that happen. Last story. Probably one of the first flight instructors I hired as a rookie flight school owner was an older female and she was passionate gold seal.
23:08
Bobby Doss
She was in her early 70s, I think she was 73 and probably outworked a lot of the young men and women that worked at the school early on and was very well thought of around Hooks Airport. And anybody from that area that already knows who I'm talking about and was on a training flight and they were shooting some practice approaches, they had some engine trouble and unknown reasons why they spun to the ground and all three perished. And I just, I say it all the time because I don't know and I don't want to be involved in an incident ever. But it could happen in the blink of an eye. So you got to have your A game. I know she was a great pilot and doesn't seem to make sense why that would happen. So it's never easy.
23:59
Bobby Doss
And I flew that day and I was shocked that she had an accident, an incident, and ultimately perished. But I went to her funeral and it was like you said, Wally, it was no fun to hire her and then have to go to her funeral. She did not work for us at the time. Time was on an independent deal, but doesn't change the outcome. And it was a tough pill to swallow for sure. So if you're dealing with anything like that, reach out, talk to anyone in your network. Talk to us if you need to. It's, it's the only way. And I think, Wally, you've said this many times, the only way we can ensure that we're not going to be in an aircraft incident or an accident is to not get an airplane.
24:42
Bobby Doss
And that's unfortunately the only way that we can make sure that it's not going to happen.
24:46
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
24:47
Bobby Doss
And so if you're going to get in an airplane, be safe, make sure you're qualified, make sure you're safe, you're. You've gone through that checklist and that you're ready to go. If you're not, stay on the ground. That's the only way you're going to insure it. Sad topic, but as I think the AOPA would say, the one way we can pay it forward is to just go fly. So when you're ready, just go fly and stay behind the prop.
25:13
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@bravetheprop.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.