Fellow aviation podcaster and aviator Jim Schilling joins us for a great conversation about careers in aviation!
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00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final one trolley bravo makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:24
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:26
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This week we have a guest. It's been a, we've had one guest in the last two or three months and this is a second guest. Hopefully you guys have been enjoying the show this week. We have a fellow podcaster on the show with us. His name is Jim and he is the host of both the Flying Midwest podcast and Flying the Transition. And we're going to talk a lot about flying cool stuff today. So welcome to the show, Jim.
00:53
Jim
Hey guys, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
00:56
Bobby Doss
Of course. So Jim reached out to me via email a couple months ago. We've been trying to coordinate this and get it on the schedule, but Jim's a fellow podcaster and has interviewed a lot of cool people and wants to obviously make sure y' all know about his show. But Jim, tell us a little bit about yourself, your current career and kind of your aviation career for the listeners.
01:18
Jim
Yeah, absolutely. So. So as for my background with aviation, I first tried to actually get into aviation as a flight crew job in the Air Force when I enlisted and for whatever reason that didn't pan out for medical reasons. So I got a different job in the military and I was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base that has just about every aircraft in the Air Force inventory rolls through there. So my love of aviation goes all the way back to those times. But fast forward, I got into law enforcement as a career and I the itch just kept scratching and I got my pilot's license about 10 years ago. So with that I've worked through, you know, my instrument rating, commercial rating, and I'm working on my CFI rating right now.
02:07
Bobby Doss
Fantastic. Sounds like a. Sounds like we're both working on our CFI writing. Hopefully we both finish it. I think you have some aircraft ownership in your history as well.
02:17
Jim
I do. So I've been part owner of a Beachcraft Sundowner for about three years now. And we about a year and a half ago took on buying a hangar too, which is project in of itself. We took a. It's basically just a tin shed and we've remodeled the living daylights out of that thing to a Pretty nice little man cave. We call it the beach house because we parked a couple beach crafts in there.
02:38
Bobby Doss
So there you go. So we love having you on the show and you. You have two shows. We only have one show. We can barely keep up with our real jobs. Wally being a professional aviator and me being a flight school owner and recording one show every couple weeks, it's got to be a tall task to protect the streets and record two shows. Give us a little bit of the day in the life of how y' all get your content together or your shows together. Maybe we can learn something from you.
03:10
Jim
Yeah. So what I typically do is I take. Mondays are my day to record in the evenings with the Flying Midwest podcast. So that's a group of three of us that record together based on their schedules. That's the day that works best for us. And we, every other week we put out an episode of that. So we go back and forth with our Monday's recording between recording our intro, news and events, things like that. And then the next Monday would be a guest. So. And at times, we'll accelerate that based on people's schedules just so. I mean, like, right now we've got three or four episodes kind of just in the can with interviews that we just have to do interviews for. Or rather scratch that, we just have to do the intros for now. So that's how we're able to do that.
03:53
Jim
But with Fly the Transition, I had this period of time with my daughter who's. She's in competitive dance. So come, you know, springtime into the summer, she's pretty busy between running her back and forth, rehearsals and competitions and things like that. So I had this window of time in like, November, December of 23. And I just started stockpiling interviews for Fly the Transition. So there's some nights I'm doing two interviews a night, and some weeks I'm interviewing somebody for, you know, 45 minutes to an hour every night once things start to settle down at home. So having that kind of stockpile of interviews, I can then, as time goes on, kind of pick and choose which ones fit to have a good flow of the episode. So it's not all just, this guy went from a career to being airline pilot.
04:39
Jim
And this guy goes from a career, now he's an airline pilot. I try to mix it up a little bit between airlines. And I think another thing that's important is those jobs in aviation that don't actually involve flying, but it gets you that exposure to a career in Aviation still, for those people that maybe can't get a medical or what have you to go down that road of getting onto a flying job.
05:00
Bobby Doss
Very cool. So it's two shows, the transitions, your current show that you run individually. What can give us a little background on who should tune in and listen to Flying Midwest podcast.
05:15
Jim
Yeah. So that though that podcast is, it was built as a regional Midwest podcast because we, the three of us that came up with the concept, we thought that, you know, there's all these aviation podcasts out there, right. But none of them are really like Midwest specific, talking about the people in the Midwest, the programs that exist, and just the news and events. So we thought it'd be cool to share that. And at first it was more news events and then we would kind of talk and try to be educational. And then we kind of quickly transitioned that, no pun intended, to being more interview focused just because we kept interacting with cool people that had really cool stories that we wanted to share. And it turned into more of an interview based podcast.
05:56
Jim
So you don't necessarily have to be from the Midwest to listen to that podcast. We've talked to all kinds of people that might be on the outskirts of the Midwest. So we've expanded the borders, so to speak, in our favor to get someone from Texas or Colorado or wherever onto the podcast. But we've also had, you know, people that are on the national scene that I think we still find that relevant to aviators in the Midwest. Take, you know, the late Richard McSpadden for example, having him on the podcast, though he's not from the Midwest, he's not a Midwest aviator. The work he did with AOPA and the Air Safety Institute, that applies to all of us. So though it's Midwest and Midwest based and stories and things like that, it really can be for anybody.
06:37
Bobby Doss
Very cool. So transitioning to flying the transition again, no pun intended, tell us kind of what you've learned from talking to all these people. Obviously, I've been a fly school owner now for five years plus. I had no dream of owning a fly school. And here I am today where I see people really making that transition on a regular basis of all varying ages. Right. Our oldest student is an ex professional baseball player in his early 50s and working on the transition. So well, surely you have some similar stories that you've heard over and over again. And I think listeners all over the world to this show are wondering how do they turn their passion for flying into a career or a money maker for them.
07:25
Jim
Yeah, the biggest takeaways. I actually just did a solo episode on this a couple days ago. But the biggest takeaways that I've had so far is it comes down to one kind of if being prepared when an opportunity presents itself, and it may not be this zero to hero program that you hear a lot of times that people do, sometimes it's that slow burn to make that transition into that career where, you know, maybe you're starting off as, you know, a brand new pilot and you've got no experience. It's going to take time to get there. So how do you go about making the most of the opportunities that you have so you can better position yourself when that time does come? So that's been a big one.
08:04
Jim
The biggest one I hear though, because the last question I ask in every episode is if you had any advice to give someone looking to make a transition, what would it be? And I got to tell you about nine times out of ten, it's don't wait or something to that effect of, you know, go get after it. There's no sense in spending life sitting behind a desk or sitting in a cube somewhere. If you're not happy doing it and you've got a passion for aviation, now is the time to make that transition and start putting in the work to get there. But that's the other thing I hear too, is that it's going to be work. It's, it's going to take discipline, it's going to take some dedication and some sacrifice, but at the end of the day, it's worth it.
08:43
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I, you know, when I'm doing my checkrides, I, the vast majority of my applicants fit into one of three buckets, if you will. It's either the young person who wants to be a professional pilot, there's the 58 year old who now has. It's usually time more than money. They have time to do this. They've always wanted to do that. But a good 30% of my check ride candidates are the 32 year old, the 35 year old who. And it's interesting that both of you come from a background in law enforcement. I do a lot of checkrides with first responders and IT people. Those seem to be, I'd say a good 70% of my people that fit into that category come from one of those two backgrounds.
09:48
Wally Mulhern
And the thing that I find interesting is I feel like they're doing it for the right reason. There's a passion for flying. They probably took a Discovery flight and said, hey, I think I'll try to get my private pilot certificate. And then they got into it and they go, oh, man, this is really cool. And, you know, the.
10:07
Jim
That bug bites hard.
10:09
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, it is. And the joke that I say is, you know, I'll ask. I'll ask my applicants. I'll say, do you like the smell of ab gas? And, you know, that's kind of a, you know, a metaphor, I guess, you know, and. And my point is, are you passionate about flying? You know, are you looking at it from the standpoint, well, you can make a lot of money and get a lot of time off, or do you like airplanes? And, you know, when I talk to a lot of young people about career choices, you know, I. The first thing I say is, you do. You got to do something you're passionate about, whether it's. Regardless of what it is.
10:51
Jim
Yeah.
10:52
Wally Mulhern
You know, and then you'll never work a day in your life. And that's the way I feel. I don't feel like I've ever gone to work.
10:59
Bobby Doss
Is it all a lot of money and days off, Wally? Is that really the truth?
11:06
Wally Mulhern
Well, it's. It's.
11:09
Bobby Doss
The pay is good for 37 years. It is. But, you know, one of the things I see a lot of people that work really hard, spend a small fortune to become pilots, and they. A lot of these people are transitioning jobs, and you see them go to the airlines and you almost see the same pictures on Facebook. You see them go to training on first day. They kind of got their little name card on their desk. Then they finish training and they get their wings. Then they have their wings photo or the standing next to the fuselage and the wing of the aircraft. And then you see the picture of them on a bus complaining about a red eye or a commute flight, and they pout.
11:53
Bobby Doss
And it's so frustrating because they did get to their dream, and it's very similar for all of them. And I tell everybody that leaves this flight school, don't make it out to be bad because you have to commute. You chose the commute. I mean, move if you don't want to commute, but there's going to be a couple of rough years maybe, but if you got 37 years, it is going to be different. But don't make it out to be like everything you did is for not. I know you feel the same way, Wally. You've seen some of these posts.
12:26
Wally Mulhern
Oh, yeah, yeah, I do. I get very frustrated with it. I do feel like it's a lot of people kind of, I don't know, showing off a little bit to the.
12:39
Bobby Doss
You know, many people are at this flight school that have 1300 hours that would kill to be on a commute flight to go to their airline job. Right. And I think it's just a, it's almost just a, like a nanny, boo boo kind of thing more than it is that they're frustrated with the commute, in my opinion.
12:55
Wally Mulhern
But, you know, it's just like if we heard Justin Verlander complain about having to ride the buses when he was in double A baseball, you know, talking about the fleabag hotels they stayed in, I think we would all just laugh at them for sure.
13:11
Bobby Doss
So, Jim, tell us a little bit about some of the transitions that you do talk through on. I mean, it's not just always student pilot to airline pilot, I'm assuming. I'm sure you have other transitions in aviation that you talk about.
13:25
Jim
Yeah, there's been some really interesting ones, actually. I. And as I said, you know, in focusing a bit with some of the careers are not necessarily flight jobs. I mean, I talked to an airport manager. She had gone from being a school social worker to being a manager at a municipal airport. And hearing her transition and how she's able to mix aviation. She's a private pilot. Mixing aviation with a career was. Was really interesting to hear. But I've also heard, like Wally said, I mean, there when I first started getting requests from people, it's first responders and it were the biggest buckets of people that I'm hearing people wanting to make career changes from. But I've also talked to some folks that are in the middle of their transition.
14:08
Jim
I want to try to give that perspective as well of someone who maybe is kind of in that still really excited phase and what does that look like for them and where are they at so that down the road I can bring them back and they can tell some of those lessons learned that they wish that at the time they talked to me the first time, they would have known. So there's a lot of interesting transitions out there, I guess. There's one other one that I want to talk about, where a gentleman went from being a state trooper to being an employee with aopa. He's one of the regional managers and he now does advocacy for AOPA with all these different state legislatures after having been in law enforcement for a number of years.
14:47
Jim
So though a lot of the episodes do talk about making the career Change into the flight deck. There's more out there than that.
14:55
Bobby Doss
And I'm assuming it's. You talk about corporate flight decks, you talk about all kinds of different flight decks. What?
15:00
Jim
Yeah, yeah.
15:01
Bobby Doss
I would assume that the training process and some of the hardships that all these transitioning pilots have is similar. But what don't wait was really good advice. But what's some of the stuff that's difficult? Is there a common set of themes that you hear about that, hey, this was the hard part. The building time as a flight instructor was difficult, or working and doing X was difficult? Give us an idea what some of the transitional people tell you about that's a hardship.
15:31
Jim
Yeah, that's a great question. I think one of the ones I hear the most is be prepared to have to make those sacrifices. So working with your family, if that's in the picture for you, to determine how are we going to buckle down if we have to make this work financially and preparing yourselves to maybe take a cut for a couple years from where you were before. There's been a few people that have talked about the golden handcuffs that have made it difficult for them to want to make that transition in the first place because they're doing so well in their current job, especially some of these IT guys, they're making good money. But to go backwards and work for the airlines, even to chase a passion, they're going to take a pay cut.
16:10
Jim
So working with their family, building up their savings in advance has been a common theme. But there's also the ones that are just trying to be financially smart with how they're spending right now and just dedicating as much as they can to their journey through aviation, because we all know we have gas isn't cheap. And building those hours, and that's not cheap either. So just buckling down financially is one of the things I've heard a lot too. Another thing is making the time to get your study time in. Because as we're talking about career transitions, obviously we're talking about people a little bit later in life. You're not fresh out of college. And sometimes just adult learning is a little bit more difficult for people. So there's been quite a few people that have said, hey, taking that hour and a half each day.
16:54
Jim
This is my dedicated study time. You know, the kids go to bed at 8, 30, 8, 30 to 9, 38, 30, 10, what have you. That's. That's my study time. And that's when I'm going to really, you know, get into the Books, get into the material, make sure that I have a good comprehension of this and being disciplined about it so that they can keep moving as opposed to maybe hitting roadblocks because I'm too busy. Because it's so easy to come up with excuses.
17:18
Bobby Doss
No question.
17:20
Wally Mulhern
I actually find that kind of applicant is, you know, they have a different skill set. They have life experiences. Because so much of flying is nothing more than problem solving just the same, you know, And I use the analogy of a. Of a. You know, I'm in a briefing room, and a bad guy comes in and wants to hurt me, and I don't have a traditional weapon. Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna pick up that pen that's lying on the table, and I'm gonna use that as a weapon. Sometimes in the airplane, we may not have a procedure for the situation that we're in, and we have to improvise a little bit. And so we do that in life.
18:09
Wally Mulhern
And the person that has maybe 10, 12 years in the workforce doing whatever, probably has those skills, but a lot of times they haven't ever been told that they need to apply those IT lessons to flying.
18:30
Jim
Sure.
18:32
Bobby Doss
Yeah. Troubleshooting is a big part of it. No question. What. What is the. You mentioned, Richard? What. What would be your top three guests that you've had the opportunity to interview.
18:42
Jim
Jim, between both podcasts or.
18:44
Wally Mulhern
Sure.
18:45
Jim
Okay. Well, Richard McSpadden would be number one for me, and the reason for that is just because of my connection with him. He was the commander of the Thunderbirds while I was at Nellis. I was doing some sort of detail as a young airman, and he must have seen something he liked, and he presented me a coin. So I've had that coin. To be able to, you know, take that coin out and talk to him about it, like, 20 years later, was really something special. And then we met up with him at Oshkosh, and he introduced us to some other people, and we got some interviews out of that as well. So he was. He's just a really nice, genuine guy who really cares about aviation in general. And to.
19:25
Jim
To have the experience to be able to not only interview him, but interact at Oshkosh, too, was really special for me. So he's probably the top guest after him. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with Brian Turner from Just Plain Silly. We've had him on a couple Times. He's a YouTuber that does some satirical YouTube stuff, but he's also got a serious side to him sometimes where he did some vlogging of his commercial rating, and he's currently actually working on a transition himself from IT to try to get to the airlines. So. And he's special for me because he was one of the first, like, whether it be a YouTuber, podcaster, or something like that's in kind of the creative space that were able to have on flying Midwest.
20:07
Jim
And he's also the first one where we expanded the boundaries a little bit of the Midwest to include his part of Texas to get him on. So. But why he's special for us is because of the connection that I've been able to build with him beyond that. So he has been so helpful for us in just connecting with other people and in, you know, giving me some of the tips of being in this creative space. So I'd say that he's towards the top. And then I think the final one, I'd have to say Rob Rider, because we brought him on and not only do we talk to him about his experience with Sporties and doing all the. Those training videos that he's done, I watched all those through my instrument and through my private. I use Sporties as my guide.
20:53
Jim
So to have that experience of watching him for all those years and then being able to interview him was really special, too. But also, as I called him to set up that interview, we spent like 15, 20 minutes talking about podcasting. And there's some things he told me as far as how he does his process that. That I still use that I wouldn't have even thought of if it wouldn't be for that conversation. But he was so like, that Persona that you get when you see him on the Sporties videos is he's the same guy in person. So it was really special making that connection too, and being able to apply some of the things I've learned from him. So I'd say those are probably the top three. It's hard to narrow it to three, because, I mean, we've had.
21:32
Jim
We've had a Thunderbird pilot on. We've had some other stuff, though it's hard to kind of narrow it down to a top three. I'd say that those ones are definitely up there. But we've had a lot of great opportunities and interview some really great people. So that, I think, is probably what I'm most thankful for this experience. I mean, I. I couldn't have imagined two years ago when I started this, that this is where we would be with things, but I'm definitely really happy with the progression and the communities that we've built around this.
22:01
Bobby Doss
No doubt. We had a big download number this past week that was important for Wally and I. We never thought we'd have a global reach. And, you know, thousands of people listen to us. We have every. Every second there's somebody downloading our show now. It's crazy how much the reach has become, and we're both statistic junkies because of it. And it's the great listeners that fuel us to take whatever time sl we have, no matter what city he's in or I'm in, to. To pause and record the show to make sure we don't disappoint a bunch of people that are ready for that show come next Monday. For sure.
22:40
Jim
Yeah. And I love the feedback that I'm able to get from people, too, just to the people that take the time out to reach out and say, hey, I really enjoy what you're doing, or, hey, this episode spoke to me. I. I think that kind of fuels me, too. I mean, especially with fly the transition. I mean, I guess for me, personally, I'm not afraid to say it on my podcast. I won't say, be afraid to say it here either, but I know where my journey with aviation stops. And it's not. It's not going to be making it to a flight deck at this point just based on my personal medical situation, but I'm able to still kind of, as someone told me a couple weeks ago, you grow where you're planted.
23:17
Jim
So I've got these skill sets and abilities that I enjoy editing audio and talking with people. Just, you know, my investigative experience in law enforcement led me to a path where I'm good at talking with people and asking questions. So to be able to take those things and be planted in this space of aviation and be able to share these stories with others and have it resonate with people, I think that's. I can flourish where I'm planted in that space and I can help, you know, teach people as well, once I get my CFI rating. But I think this is my way to share aviation.
23:50
Bobby Doss
No doubt, no doubt. We get a lot of joy out of what we do, even though we're not getting paid or, you know, we don't have these sponsorship deals. And, you know, there is something fulfilling. I think I've learned a lot by researching and preparing and getting to know people like you that are passionate about the things that they're doing with their shows. And, you know, we've interviewed dozens of cool people from astronauts To Thunderbirds, to the chief pilot at Goodyear, which was one of our most interesting conversations. But was very early on when were trying to get some guests on the show. And again, it's more fun to have that feedback. And we took December off, first time we've ever taken time off from the show to spend time with family.
24:34
Bobby Doss
And I mean listeners were checking in on us, making sure were coming back and just continuing to apply pressure to make sure we don't give up on the show. And we obviously appreciate that and love the fan support as well. And Wally gets recognized more as a podcaster than he does the captain of an airliner anymore as well. So not too shabby for two. Two dudes from Spring, Texas for sure. So how do people find the shows? Where do they go look what's the Facebook pages, the X handles or whatever it is nowadays.
25:09
Jim
X handles. We're actually not on X. That's the only one I think we're not on. But I guess to start running down the list, everything you want to find about either podcast you can find on flying midwest.com it's where I've kind of dubbed it Flying Midwest Media. Both podcasts live there, so if you wanted to learn more about myself or the co hosts, you can certainly go to there and click on the tabs for either show. Both shows are also have feeds onto the website so you can listen right on the website too. But otherwise we're on all the major podcasting platforms. Spotify, Apple, what have you. But as for Facebook, you can just search either fly Midwest or fly the transition. Either way we'll get you to our pages and then you can check us out from there. So.
25:57
Bobby Doss
Well, generally take thank you for taking time to join us on our show. Hopefully you'll share our show with your listeners. I have a pretty cool transition if you ever want to interview me on your show. Ex police officer, IT guy who started a flight school. Well, bought a flight school but very awkward journey how I ended up in this seat today. And I'm very passionate about making my now short drive to work every day compared to my long IT drive to work. So thanks for listening and keep telling stories and interviewing people with their transitions, but make sure you stay behind the product. Thanks for coming.
26:32
Jim
Yeah, thanks for having me guys. Appreciate it.
26:36
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.