It's the first step in many aviation careers, so we talk about it in depth this week on BTP. Becoming a flight instructor!
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00:01
Behing the Prop Intro
Clear prop SR73 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
Wall Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:28
Bobby Doss
And fantastic as always. Kind of a trend lately around the flight school and in my inbox have been a number of people asking me I want to be a flight instructor, what should I do? And it's an interesting conversation from my perspective as the guy who is still actively involved in every flight instructor that we hire. I normally do a first interview to figure out if their culture fit and if they are ready, which no one's ever really ready. It's a big task to take this on. So today we wanted to kind of break down really what you should be thinking about if flight instruction is part of your aviation journey and not everybody is it. Some people don't want to fly instruct, they want to fly pipeline or go do something cargo right off the bat.
01:12
Bobby Doss
Obviously going to be a slower path if you want to be an airline pilot at a regional airline or something. But we're going to talk through really what is your goal as being an instructor and kind of how you that your goal may change some of that what makes a good flight instructor. And then I think we're going to break down the processes, many options to become a flight instructor and then we're going to talk about really how to attract someone like me or a flight school to be interested in your resume when there's probably 100 resumes on their desk. So while you've been doing CFI add ons for quite some time now. What, what do you think about the journey to becoming a flight instructor in 2024?
01:57
Wall Mulhern
Well, I think it's very interesting. You know, I think most people who at some point say hey, I think I want to be a professional pilot for a living, I think they just think of the end result. But I don't think they think of or, and they may not even know the intermediate stops that go to becoming a professional pilot, whether it's an airline pilot or corporate or whatever, you know, if I want to be a professional baseball player, you know, I think I know that, yeah, okay, I probably need to play baseball in high school, maybe try to get a college scholarship and then somehow you sign a deal, you either get drafted into professional baseball, and you start out in.
02:44
Wall Mulhern
In the lower leagues, you start out in rookie ball, you move on to Double A, and then hopefully you move on to Triple A. And then finally you get that call and you go up to the big leagues. I think most people understand the process of doing all that, but I don't think a lot of people understand the process of becoming a professional pilot. And along the way, a lot of times we become flight instructors. And it's probably something that people don't think about. They don't. I can't think of anybody saying, oh, boy, yeah, I want to. I want to be a flight instructor. In fact, when I was coming up, it was really cool to say, oh, I hate being a flight instructor. I hate it. I just hate it. And I think it's still set today.
03:30
Bobby Doss
I think.
03:31
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, Yeah. I always kind of thought I was an outlier, because I thought, what? I kind of like it. I kind of like teaching. And I think there we. We kind of come to a fork in the road and we have to say, okay, now. Now I'm thinking of kind of a university situation. You know, a lot of, you know, you'll talk to somebody. Hey, what are you majoring in? Oh, I'm. I'm in elementary education. Okay, well, they want to be a teacher. Oh, I'm in aviation. Oh, you want to be a pilot. But. But along the way of becoming a pilot, you become a teacher. And first of all, I gotta say, the profound influences of the CFI are just incredible. I think everybody remembers their first cfi. I mean, I looked up to my first cfi.
04:23
Wall Mulhern
I can't even remember his last name. His first name was Wendell, and he was. Pardon my French, but he was an idiot. And, you know, we had about three or four lessons, and then he just disappeared. And I couldn't even get in touch with him. This is back in the days before texting and all this stuff. But there was a period of time that, man, he was just the greatest pilot in the world. I really looked up to him. Anything he told me to do, I was going to do it. He says, go buy this Poh. Take it home and read it and know everything. Okay, yes, sir. I will do it. I mean, the guy was only two years older than me, but I looked up to him.
05:03
Wall Mulhern
And I think as flight instructors, we have to understand that our students really look up to us. Just look at. By the type of headset you wear, the type of headset that a flight instructor uses, I guarantee 80% of your students are going to buy the same type of headset and just try it. Just change headsets, start wearing a green David Clark. One day, all of a sudden, all your new students are going to start wearing David Clark headsets. It's because they don't have anything to compare it to. So they just, they go with what their flight instructor says. And so that's why you are just a profound influence on your students. If I were ever in a position to hire, and I'm not, I have never hired a pilot in my life and I may not ever, but maybe I will.
05:58
Wall Mulhern
You never know. I was. I, and I tell people this because people ask me about career paths. Well, how do you think I should build time to get to the airlines? And what I say is, if I'm ever in a position to hire and I have two equal pilots, basically they have about the same amount of time. They seem to be the same temperament. And everything else, all, everything else seems to be equal. And one is an active flight instructor and the other one is not. I'm hiring the flight instructor. And the reason is I really believe you don't learn something until you're teaching it. I don't believe I became a decent instrument pilot and start. Until I started becoming an instrument instructor. Back in the day, we used to have to do NDB approaches.
06:48
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, I got through my instrument checkride, I got through my double eye CheckRide doing an NDB approach, but it was sitting in the right seat with students doing many, many NDB approaches where the light bulb finally came on in my head. I went, oh, now I understand it. So I really understood it by doing that. The other thing is, you know, a big part of being an airline pilot is being a fellow crew member, interacting with people and different personalities. I mean, you don't, you don't get to, you know, to an extent, you don't get to pick who you're flying with. So you, I mean, I'm on a trip right now. I'm flying with a guy I've never flown with. But, and that's kind of the way it is with students. You, it's practice on interacting with people in an aviation environment.
07:51
Wall Mulhern
And, and I think that's important because that's a huge factor in, in the flight deck of a, of an airliner is the interaction with your fellow crew members. So I, I think it's really important. I'm not even sure what the Question was that you started out with. But anyway, I just kind of went off on a tangent there.
08:13
Bobby Doss
Well, I asked what your thoughts were about becoming a flight instructor in 2024, and there are probably a number of different ways today, and today being the best time to be a flight student or own a flight school, it's one of those things that's a little different than it may have been in the past. But I think you hit on a lot of the things that I wanted to cover in the intro here. And that's what's the pilot's goal? And if your goal is to be a professional pilot at an airline or any operator, you probably need to be ready to be part of a crew. You probably need to have a big number of hours, and the best way to get to those hours are to be a flight instructor.
08:50
Bobby Doss
You know, if your goal is to be a pipeline pilot for the rest of your life, you're probably going to fly single pilot in vfr. And that's the way it's always going to be. So you might not need some of those other skills. But teaching is a pretty valuable tool to a professional pilot, and I think that's key. We, we talked about it before we got started. But if you were to ask a potential flight instructor, someone who's taking a checkride with you, what do you do for a living? Their answer is going to be one of two things. More than likely it's either going to be pilot or I'm a flight instructor. What do you think you're going to hear more of, Wally?
09:29
Wall Mulhern
Definitely going to hear more pilots.
09:32
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And so that's where Wally and I kind of agree that if you only see yourself as a pilot, not as a teacher, probably not the best path forward to become a flight instructor. It is a means to an end. I own a flight school. I know it's a means to the end. Every time I hire someone, I know they're going to leave me when they get their hours to move on to the airlines. But at the same time, be the best you can be at what you're doing right now and be a teacher, not a pilot. We know you can fly planes. It's about teaching stuff. And when I interview people, I ask questions to teachers. I don't ask pilot questions. I don't want to know if you can fly a 172. I want to know if you can teach in a 172.
10:13
Bobby Doss
Very different questions as far as I'm concerned. Concern?
10:16
Wall Mulhern
Yeah. I told this little story To Bobby a little while ago, I think most people know is I have a musical background. And, you know, I was in high school band in Louisiana, and my high school band director passed away of cancer. And he spent a lot of his. The end of his life at MD Anderson Cancer Hospital down in Houston. And so I went down and visited him quite a bit and spent a lot of time with him. And were sitting there one time, and he was. He was close to dying, probably within a month of passing away. And he looked at me, he said, I need to apologize to you. And I looked at him and I said, what? Why? He said, when I was your high school band director, it was all about the music.
11:10
Wall Mulhern
He says, and now I've realized that. That it's all about the kid. And I went, wow. I mean, it was kind of a profound statement. It's about the person, not about the thing. And so I've taken that and, you know, I taught music at a local high school here in Houston for a while. And, you know, I think about that with flight instructing, it's about the person more than it is about what you're teaching. And so I think as a flight instructor, to do it correctly, you. I mean, probably the top skill or one of the very top skills a good flight instructor has is the ability to listen, to know what the student needs. And. And maybe the student isn't very good at telling you what they need. So you've got to. You've got to ask some questions. You know.
12:14
Wall Mulhern
You know, how many instructors, when they. They, you know, maybe a flight school says, okay, you got a new student. This is. This is Joey. You know, do you. Do you sit down with Joey and say, joey, what. What are your objectives? Where do you want to be? Why. Why are you here? And I do that on checkrides. I ask the questions. I'll say to the applicant, why are you here? And, you know, what I want to know is, do they plan to get their private. And then just toodle around in the area in their little. Whatever airplane they might have or rent, and that's fine, or did they plan to take it to, you know, a higher level? And, you know, I kind of tailor the questions I'm going to ask them based on that. So, you know, I think.
13:08
Wall Mulhern
I think as flight instructors, again, we've got to listen the other. You know, and it's. It's just, it. It prepares you to deal with fellow pilots.
13:22
Bobby Doss
One of the things that I think really makes a great flight instructor, too, is. And you hear it, when you listen to people talk about their favorite flight instructor, it's. They really knew the mater, right? They were, they were a seeker of the information. They didn't just regurgitate what they heard from their flight instructors. They challenged. They had their own little documents. They shared tips and tricks that they came up with. And they were probably better than their previous flight instructors. I think one downside is if we don't have those people teaching that really know the material, we're just going to be watered down versions of the ones that came before us. And that's not going to make better pilots for sure. So if you're out there and you want to be a flight instructor, knowing the material is super important.
14:10
Bobby Doss
It seems obvious, but you would be shocked at what some of the people don't understand that sit in front of me. They want to teach to other pilots and sign them off for their ratings. It's kind of shocking how little some of them understand or know because they've just been going through those motions of flying maneuvers and all that stuff. I, I'm a. One of the new drums that I'm beating all the time is I had a student come in and wanted to learn how to fly. And he says, said something to the effect of, I want to be in the air, not on the ground. I'm here to be in the air, not on the ground. And I told him, that's great, but you're not going to become a better pilot by just flying that.
14:49
Bobby Doss
Just being in the air is not going to make you a better pilot. You really have to understand what, why you're going to get into the air and what you're going to do. And I think instructors that are focused on being on the ground, they can be much better pilots. So let's talk about some of the processes or some of the ways that you can earn that valuable certificate to hopefully stop paying for your flying and get paid to do some flying. I get calls often, Wally, that say, hey man, when are you all having another CFI Academy? Or when's your next CFI class start? And we just don't have those here at United Flight Systems. We've tried them and they're not very successful. There's probably successful operations out there.
15:34
Bobby Doss
But what I have learned is when you put two people in the room to teach them how to become flight instructors, you are always going to have to teach to the person that's less knowledgeable than the person that has the knowledge, and you immediately are creating A crutch for the other person that's farther along. If you put three people in the room, all three people are going to being taught to the same level that the lowest person in the room is. So we just haven't had a lot of success with the group type training for flight instructors because I'm a true believer that the CFI rating, the initial rating is truly a self journey. And I think if you broke down really what a lot of those accelerated camps or boot camps are doing, they're really making people study on their own.
16:18
Bobby Doss
They're just providing them some guidance. And if you're not where you need to be when that starts, you are going to fall way behind and struggle and you just wash out or retake it three times. I've heard many horror stories of that. But there's the option of going to an accelerated boot camp. There's the option of going to a longer standing part 141 type course. That's one one. There's the more like the self guided tour where I think some of our team members have latched onto the fact that they'll do an evaluation, they'll test your knowledge, they'll teach you how to become a better person that you need to be the. As a, as a certified flight instructor. So you go about that by making sure you're checkride ready for a commercial checkride is what I tell everyone.
17:07
Bobby Doss
If you can't pass a commercial checkride today with Wally, you probably don't need to start working on your flight instructor certificate just quite yet. And I think Wally changed my mind greatly last week when were recording and convinced me that you should be able to fly an IMC if you're a commercial pilot. So if you're not a proficient instrument pilot and could pass a commercial checkride today, not a lot of reason to start working on your flight instructor certificate because you're probably not going to be a great flight instructor. What are your thoughts on that, Wally?
17:38
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, I couldn't have said that any better. That's exactly right. You knowing the material that, you know, I actually just watched a documentary about. It's called Hired Guns and it's a music documentary. I keep going back to music in these podcasts, but it's a musical documentary and it's. Hired Guns are basically the backup band for these great artists and so, you know, they don't get much of the credit but they're, they're on stage with the, you know, the big Time, artists and. And one of the guys in. In the thing he was talking about, he says. He says, okay, there's three things that you've got to, you know, three criteria that the person has to. To. To meet to be a hired gun. And number one is they've got to be a great musician. They've got to be great at their craft.
18:39
Wall Mulhern
He said, but there's a million of those. He says, then you got to find a guy or a girl that has stage presence. Okay, now we've whittled it down to maybe 10%. And then you've got to find people that you can stand to be around with 24, 7 for however long these tours are. He says, now we're down to about 3% of the people and that, you know. You know, again, my point is being a great musician is just a given, but having the. The knowledge, knowing the material, you've. That's a given. That's the foundation. You've got to be able to do that. But from there, then, you know, the point is being able to communicate it to your student. I think a good flight instructor has the ability to change their approach. You know, if. If.
19:40
Wall Mulhern
If I'm going out and teaching stalls to my student and, you know, the last 10 students that I've had, I've taught it this way, and this student isn't getting it this way. Well, it's. It's my job as a flight instructor to figure out a different way. I've got to come at it a different way. And it's, you know, a little bit like being a parent. I mean, most flight instructors are younger. They're. They're usually not parents at this point. But, you know, as a parent, you may have different kids, and you. You do treat them differently based on their personalities.
20:16
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I'll throw out a musician one because you brought it up. I used to work with the wife at a technology company of the trumpet player and Billy Joel's band. And I was fascinated because she told me that he still practiced the scales every day. And there's only. I'm not a musician, but there's only three buttons on a trumpet. Right? Like, if he's already got that, like, why would he keep practicing? Right. And I do think that's something that. That maybe flight instructors don't do, is they don't keep reading, they don't keep learning. They don't keep getting better at their task. But it is very important that you keep doing the fundamentals and learning those fundamentals and being able to Teach those fundamentals, because that's the only way you're going to be really great.
21:00
Bobby Doss
And I think if you think about all those other instructors that you loved, they were really good at their task at hand because they worked really hard at it, for sure.
21:09
Wall Mulhern
Yeah. It's funny you should mention Billy Joel's band because a lot of the guys on this documentary were from Billy Joel's band, Hired Guns. It's a. It's a pretty. I think it may be a gun. Anyway, check it out.
21:22
Bobby Doss
The other options are doing it on your own. Maybe buying an online ground school. That's going to be pretty tough. I think you need to be around the facility. I think you need to be around other people. I think you need to have some community because you're going to be in a community when you become a flight instructor. But there is a lot of it that's on your own. You got to build lesson plans. I get asked all the time, should I buy lesson plans or should I write them all individually? I think many old school people like me and you, Wally, would probably think that writing lesson plans on your own from scratch is the right way to go. I don't necessarily buy into that.
21:57
Bobby Doss
I think there's so many good options out there where the lesson plans have been written, they're kept up with the changes. I've always had a membership. They're not a sponsor, but I've always had a membership to something called Backseat Pilot. And the second that the FAA announced the ACS changes coming, they announced when their PowerPoints and when their lesson plans were going to be updated. That's something that you probably wouldn't do if you just made your own lesson plan. But I do think you need to crack those lesson plans open and read them and know them and manipulate them to be your style of teaching. If not, you're just going to be teaching from someone else's material and not be that passionate about it.
22:36
Bobby Doss
So if you do buy canned lesson plans, manipulate them, mark them up, use them, make sure you've taught them all at least once before. You use them too often. I think people create their lesson plan so they can pass their CFI checkride and they never, ever use them again.
22:55
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
22:55
Bobby Doss
Which is a big disservice.
22:58
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. Those. Those lessons plan should be a. A living document. And what do I mean by living document? A document that changes. You know, as examiners, we are required to have a lesson plan. It's not. They don't. The FAA doesn't call it a lesson plan because it's not a lesson because we're not teaching, but we call it a plan of action. And for every checkride that you're eligible to administer, you have to have, you know. Well, for every checkride, you got to have a plan of action. And I'm actually, since the ACs are changing in just a few weeks, I'm in the process of redoing all my lesson plans. And as. I mean, plan of actions rather, and as I'm doing it, taking out all the typos that I've been dealing with for the last year, 18 months or so.
23:51
Wall Mulhern
But it's a lot of work, man. I. I have probably put. I'm. I'm about halfway through my private plan of action, and I probably have eight hours of. Of time into it. And so I got another eight hours to just finish my private. Then I got instrument, commercial, multi, engine, double. I, you know, and. And so it's. There's a lot. There's a lot of work to it.
24:16
Bobby Doss
So we know what makes a good cfi, which I'm sure everyone listening does know. They probably know what makes a bad cfi, don't do those things. And we know that there's many processes by which I can earn my certificate. Let's talk about what happens once you do earn the certificate. Many people in the greater Houston area right now have flight instructor certificates and they cannot find a job. I'm sure it's common around the country, and there's a bunch of different reasons. I think the airlines might have slowed down some hiring. There's some reasons why there's more captains that are needed than there are first officers, blah, blah. But jobs are out there. I'm leaving this recording session and walking in to onboard two new flight instructors that are starting at our. At our flight school.
25:02
Bobby Doss
And I have two more that I'm hiring in two weeks and doing the same thing with. And I would hire two more in two more weeks if the good two candidates showed up and were ready to go. The problem is the majority of the people that I meet are not even close to being ready to be flight instructors. And I'll tell you some stories and I'll give you some examples, and then I'm going to give you a bunch of great tips. So if you want to be a flight instructor, this is the chapter of this episode you want to be listening to. But many times I think of Wally because I get a text message that I'm assuming Wally gets all the time.
25:37
Bobby Doss
My cell phone is published so people can Call me or text me, and I'm going to do my best to help them. But somebody gets my business card. They come in the fly school, they give my business card. It says president on it. So they text me and they say, are you hiring flight instructors? So this is a 832 area code with seven other digits after it that says, are you hiring flight instructors?
25:59
Wall Mulhern
Sure.
26:00
Bobby Doss
Yes, we are. I'll be always looking for great talent. Great. How do I apply? Well, that's on our website. You could have looked. And it's just a spiraling notion like, this has got to be a life of a dpe. Wally. Hey, I need a checkride.
26:16
Wall Mulhern
Oh, yeah. I get all the time looking for an instrument checkride the next three weeks. And, you know, usually I don't even respond. I mean, because I've got 17 others of people who have provided me their name, the airport, they're out of the flight school, a little bit more information. So, I mean, there's. There's only 24 hours in a day. So, you know, and I just. I look at it and I. I mean. And as cruel as this sounds is, I don't need the business. I've got more business than I can handle. So, yeah, it's. It's like you. I mean, give me a little bit more information. Hello, my name is Suzy Q. I'm looking for an instrument check ride in the next three weeks. I'm flying out of XYZ flight school at ABC Airport. I am signed off and ready to go.
27:15
Wall Mulhern
Okay, now I got something to work with.
27:19
Bobby Doss
Yeah, so normally when I get that text message, we have a little dialogue, and often it comes from an email or a post on our website. They go fill out the form and say, are you. Are you hiring? It goes without saying, you would assume that a quality resume with quality information would go a long way. And a quality cover letter. If you don't add a cover letter that talks a little bit about your mission, your goal in life and what you want to be, you're really selling yourself short. Because I do get about 100 resumes a month from all over the world. Because people. There are people in the United States that you may or may not understand that send their resume to every flight school in the country. I get emails from all over.
28:04
Bobby Doss
I probably get 20 from Florida every month because they're pumping out pilots in Florida and telling their students to send their resumes everywhere in hopes that they get placement in a job. Well, if I get a resume and it looks exactly the same. Which Most resumes say 242 to 265 hours is what they have. And they've got a flight instructor certificate and they're gonna get their double I within the next 60 days or so. And they would like to add their multi engine and multi engine instructor ratings. Everything else looks the same. They've probably all had one or two jobs. And if you're listening and you want to be a flight instructor, you're saying, well, that's all I got. What else can I share? Well, what was your best hundred dollar hamburger run? Why do you want to be a professional pilot?
28:48
Bobby Doss
Who influenced you to be a professional pilot? That's going to set you apart in a cover letter to me to make me be interested in you a little bit more to where I might follow up. So if I follow up and you ultimately get the conversation with me, don't come in my office and not be ready to take notes. Don't be dressed in a T shirt. Bring me another copy of your resume. Be ready to speak to my chief. Know a little bit about me. You want me to know about you, but you need to know a little bit about me. Where's our fly school? Where is it at in relationship to your house? Sometimes people walk in and go, man, I had to drive an hour and a half to get here today.
29:25
Bobby Doss
Well, probably not going to want to work here for very long. And I know that too. Right? Be logical and thoughtful about what you say in that room and what your plan is to become a flight instructor. I probably ask and do a dialogue with people for the first 10 or 15 minutes to get to know them. And I normally start pretty early on and say, what kind of questions do you have for me? And the first question I get more often than not is how many aircraft do you have and what type do you have? Where do you think people could find that information at, Wally?
29:58
Wall Mulhern
I'm thinking it might be on your website. In fact, I know it's on your website.
30:03
Bobby Doss
Yeah, look at the website and put yourself in the bigger picture of if you've never flown a steam gauged aircraft and you can look at the cockpit of every one of my planes and I've got eight glass cockpits and 12 steam gauge cockpits. Do you think it's going to be important that you understand how steam gauges work? Of course it's going to be important to my students because that's what we have and you've got to be ready. So do your homework, come prepared Have a quality resume to send to fly schools. Don't just send them the email, are you hiring? Send them a cover letter and a little bit more information and you'll be shocked how easy it'll be to get the interview. But then I think you really need to come prepared for that interview.
30:46
Bobby Doss
If you don't have questions to ask or you just want to know, how many hours am I going to get every month, which is a really common question. That's probably a little selfish in the grand scheme of things. I'm not going to set you up for a lot of success as a flight instructor. If you come in, you know the material, you've had experience across a lot of different types of planes, and you present yourself with stage presence, as Wally called it. It's very likely that you're going to get a job at a flight school and you're probably going to get multiple offers and get to pick the flight school you want to work at. And hopefully I tell everybody that I interview, I hope you want to work here. I want great people to want to work here.
31:27
Bobby Doss
And the ones that get through the door and get that job, I hope they're great for our students. So if you want to become a flight instructor, know your stuff, know your mission, and know where CFI fits in that mission, right? Be great at those things that you want to do as a flight instructor and then do the right things to attract the flight school that you want to work at and impress them. It's not that difficult to do based on the hundreds of resumes that I get. And I would bet everybody else that's in my position of hiring flight instructor sees the same thing every day. And go get that flight instructor job. And once you do get that job, be great and don't stop learning, because being a pilot is not what any of us want you to be.
32:10
Wall Mulhern
Let me, let me just talk about being an employee. I was. My first real flying job was working for an FBO in Monroe, Louisiana. Tiger Air center was the name of it. And we did, you know, everything an FBO did. We do flight instruction, we did charter. And, and when I graduated from college, I took on the title of acting chief pilot. I couldn't technically be the chief pilot for the 135 operation because I didn't have the required flight time. So we had a guy who was our chief pilot who would show up occasionally, but I basically did all, all the other stuff. But I was. Oh, God, I was such an airplane geek. I'm still an airplane geek. And, and I was at the FBO one day and one of our charter airplanes, I just noticed that it was kind of dirty.
33:08
Wall Mulhern
So I went home, I changed clothes, I came back and I took it over and I was washing the airplane. And as I'm out there washing the airplane, the owner of the FBO came out with a gentleman with him, and he just came up, he says, hey, Wally, I want to int. So and so he works for such and such. He, you know, he's with such and such a bank. And I didn't know what was going on. I just, I shook hands with him, I said hello to him and that was the end of it. Well, as it turned out, I later found out that the owner was trying to get some financing for the fbo.
33:45
Wall Mulhern
And this was the president of the bank came out to see the operation and my boss told me that, he said, you know, he says, I think one of the reasons we got the money is because I came out and introduced you as our acting chief pilot. And here you are out there washing airplanes, you know, and he was impressed with that. And it's just, you know, I wasn't trying to impress anybody. It happened by accident that I happen to be out there in shorts and flip flops and washing an airplane. But his thought was, man, if you got your chief pilot or your acting chief pilot out here doing, you know, whatever work needs to be done, this is the kind of place I can invest in. So, you know, that's, that will go a long way, that kind of.
34:34
Bobby Doss
Attitude, man, if you could instill that in everybody that wants to be a flight instructor, be great. Because as a small business owner, no matter what you think of what it takes to run a flight school or buy these planes and keep this place operational, it is only as good as its employees are. It's only going to have the culture that the employees create. And that mindset of get it done, get her done for the students in the school is going to mean a lot, right? I still empty the trash. I still move planes. Everybody's gotten. Got to get involved and do those things. And I'm not against going outside and washing the plane off either, or cleaning the leading edge or whatever it takes. So do your part once you do get that job.
35:15
Wall Mulhern
For sure. Absolutely. And I will say this about CFIs. I mean, it is a, the certificate is a, it's a hard certificate to get once you get it. You know, unlike your private or your commercial. A CFI does expire. CFI has a 2 year, 24 calendar month shelf life. Don't let that thing expire. Okay, so what does it take to renew a cfi? Basically, it takes a. An eight hour online ground school that you can start doing a couple months before you expire. It's. It's online. And yeah, you do have to take a test, but it's good information. Don't let it expire. I can't tell you how many CFI reinstatement rides I do with. It's usually airline pilots who now have kids who want to fly and they go, oh, yeah, let this thing expire. I should have never done that.
36:11
Wall Mulhern
This is costing me a whole bunch of money to reinstate this thing. Because to reinstate it does involve a checkride and, you know, so just keep it up. Don't. Don't let the thing expire. It's easy enough to do. Again, you can do this stuff online. Back in the day, you actually had to go to a weekend ground school, but everything's online now, so it's easy enough to keep up.
36:37
Bobby Doss
I got a dozen little stories about people that have let it expire. And it's very painful, much more painful than the eight hour course. And many people always, I think everyone, 100% say, I wish I wouldn't have let it expire. So don't be one of them. I would also think that they've lost a lot of their knowledge and skill. So it's not just taking an online test. They got to relearn all the material again. VFR charts, blah, blah. So don't let it expire.
37:06
Wall Mulhern
Oh, I was gonna say I could renew mine on basis of experience. I could just have mine renewed, but I don't. I do. I do the online ground school because it's a great review. It's actually good. So I go old school.
37:22
Bobby Doss
So as Wally said, once you earn it, don't let it expire. And once you get it, be a great flight instructor and stay behind the prop. Thanks for listening.
37:33
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.