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00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop S73 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final one trolley bravo makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with Unitedflight 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
Fantastic as always. So we've done a few interviews lately. We've done a few topics. This week we are taking on a number of listener questions around the fly school. We've asked a bunch of people for some thoughts and some show ideas and we put together a short list of some things that we think will excite anybody that's in training or becoming a pilot to kind of answer some questions that kind of resonated or had some common themes with them. One of those that came up, Wally, was about you. You always use the term on the show, supposedly from a partner and friend of mine, that what's best max forward speed? What's best forward speed mean to you?
01:09
Bobby Doss
And it was an interesting conversation with that person that I had because his response was, I guess that just means I push in the gas all the way and go as fast as I can. And my immediate answer was it depends. Which probably is not that good when I'm trying to teach somebody how to be a better pilot. But what are your thoughts on best forward speed and does it always mean full throttle?
01:33
Wally Mulhern
Your, your answer is perfectly right. It does depend. It's like, you know, I, I will say is an alternator failure in emergency. Well, it depends, you know, a lot of other factors. So where I use, I asked the applicant to fly maximum forward airspeed on a checkride. I, I do it probably more on instrument rides than anything else because what a typical day for me is two check rides, usually one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and sometime during the summer when it stays light, really light. Sometimes we, if we're flying around at 80 knots, a checkride may take 2.3 hours. And if we can push that speed up a little bit, we may get that checkride to two hours. And it makes your buddy who has the afternoon checkride able to get his checkride done.
02:38
Wally Mulhern
So what I think is happening is, you know, the CFIs, they're teaching and the attitude is, well, we're building time. You put time in your logbook, you don't put miles in your logbook. So it makes sense to fly slow. The problem is everybody flies slow all the time. And Sometimes, you know, if we're tootling over to another airport that's 20 miles away to do an approach, you know, we can go 80 knots or we can do 105 knots and 105, we're going to get there, you know, 25% quicker. And that I, it does a couple things. First of all, it helps me watch you fly the airplane and really not so much different configurations but you know, in different trim configurations if you will. But no, it doesn't mean push the throttle all the way in and fly 2700R. Absolutely not.
03:43
Wally Mulhern
It means fly as best you can, within reason, as fast as you can, within reason. Don't do anything unsafe. Don't, don't do anything that you're uncomfortable with. But if instead of flying around at 2000rpm and 85 knots, if we can push the power up to maybe 2,400 rpm and 105 knots, that's what it means, you know, air traffic control gives us to it us all the time. I know, I know going into Honolulu they're going to tell me 3,000 until the shoreline, 180 knots till a seven mile final. You know, I know that they do it every time. It's not on a chart or anything but just local knowledge tells me that. So it's always part of my briefing. This is what we're going to expect. We're going to expect 3,000 till the shoreline and 180 till a seven mile final.
04:42
Wally Mulhern
And you know, I'll put in the, our display, I'll put a mark where the seven miles is so we know exactly where that is.
04:51
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And I, my explanation, not as a flight instructor or as a dpe, when I said it depends, it really is kind of the stage of flight. And, and I've got a few things to think about that you mentioned. One, you said a checkride is 2.3 hours. You meant the flight. So whoever just finished their private checkride and it was four hours, don't feel like Wally's getting people done in 2.3. That's the flight portion of the checkride. And saving 0.4 on a checkride day for you times two, that's almost an hour. And that means a lot for sure.
05:25
Wally Mulhern
Right.
05:26
Bobby Doss
But for me talking to him, I've been working on a whole bunch of instrument proficiency. I've got my IPC done recently. I've flown like six times in the last 10 days trying to get ready for this type rating that I'm getting close to doing. And when I'm on a. When I was on final recently in imc, the controller told me best forward speed. And I made they know I'm in a sky lane, which is a 182,230 horsepower, true airspeed around 140 knots. But I had already crossed the final approach fix. I had captured the glide slope I was configured for 90 knots. I'm category A. I wasn't going to go a bunch faster and make a bunch of configuration changes because I was in a stable approach.
06:11
Wally Mulhern
Right.
06:11
Bobby Doss
And I just told the controller I'm doing the best I can do right now. Yeah, they want me to go faster but I need to tell them I'm going as fast as I'm able to go. And I told this person that asked this question, Randy, I hope you're listening. I told them it really depends and it depends on how you want to manage yourself. You can always say I'm unable and you're always piloting command but you have to partner with atc. You've got to partner with them as much as they need to partner with us. But when you're in a situation where you're not comfortable going faster, tell them and they're going to deal with it, they're going to find a way to manage it.
06:52
Wally Mulhern
Well, keep in mind when they give you a clearance like maximum forward airspeed, they're not assigning you anything. So you know, if you're doing 80 and you don't, you can't do more than 80. They tell you maximum forward airspeed and 80 is your maximum forward airspeed. Well, you're doing that. Now if they say, you know, give us 100 knots until a six mile final, well that's more of a specific clearance. So in general they want you to go faster. I mean the kind of airplanes that we're flying are kind of the bottom of the speed chain if you will. I mean they're, you know, other than maybe a Piper Cub or something like that, we're pretty much the slow guys out there flying around on 172s and warriors. So in general I, I think ATC would like us to go faster if we could.
07:51
Wally Mulhern
But sometimes you can.
07:53
Bobby Doss
And I, I think I've said this before on the show, but when I was doing my commercial multi engine stuff, my instructor, his name Jeff, said look, they want you to go fast and I think it's really the first time I'd ever heard that. But he, were descending into Austin Birdstrom, which is the big airport in Austin, and we had an Airbus A320 in front of us and we had an Airbus A320 behind us. Now I was in a twin, so were going a little faster than a Cessna. But when I got to the yellow arc in our descent, I pulled back the throttles and he's like, why are you slowing down? And I'm like, well, I just don't want to get in the yellow arc and stay there. He goes, why not? It's calm, they're expecting you to go.
08:36
Bobby Doss
And there's no reason that the plane can't handle 150 knots because just because we're in the yellow arc, if there's no bumps, let's go. They want us to go. And you've spent all that money to climb up high. Why would you give up that energy and not use it on the way down? And it just seemed to be such a learning moment for me in my flying career that I think about that a lot now. But again, talking to this person, if you're descending from 7,500ft going into Austin and it's a really bumpy day, your maximum forward airspeed would be whatever is right below the yellow arc. And maybe you're not comfortable there. So you get to, like Wally said, you get to decide what the real max is.
09:21
Bobby Doss
And it's, I would think it would be extremely rare for a piston plane to be giving an air given an airspeed. I think it's pretty common for a small jet or jets to be given a specific number to hold. And that's more about sequencing, that's not more about capability, that's more about sequencing.
09:39
Wally Mulhern
Right, right.
09:40
Bobby Doss
So unfortunately Randy, it does depend, but hopefully we've given you some insights into what would make your decision making be different and you make good smart decisions. Don't ever feel like a people pleaser in aviation. Feel free to use the word unable or have an adult conversation on the radios for what's best and safe for you.
10:00
Wally Mulhern
And I think it's important to fly the airplane different ways. You know, we're are as a private, you know, you don't get a whole lot of cross country time, but experiment, you know, try flying the airplane at, you know, 2100 RPM, 2400 RPM, you know, 65% power, 75% power, 55% power. I've got, I've Got detailed power charts for my Saratoga for every altitude from 4,500 all the way up to 14,500 that I made. And I, you know, I can look at it and I, I start at 55. I do 60, 65, 70, 75. So I have that power setting for every altitude. And basically I broke it down to miles per gallon.
11:00
Wally Mulhern
And there are times where I can look at and go, geez, for this given altitude, the one power setting that I don't want to be at is 60% because 65% actually gives me, or maybe it's like one 100 mile per gallon difference. You know, I'll take that all day. So basically the same miles per gallon. I mean, fuel flow is going to be different. Fuel flow is going to be higher, but you're in the air for longer. So the ultimate fuel burn is going to be maybe the same.
11:36
Bobby Doss
Yeah. It's funny, when it's your money, you think about those considerations for sure.
11:41
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. And it helps you make informed decisions. How, how bad do I need to get there by 1 o'? Clock? Yeah, I really need to get there because what I'm doing is, you know, is dependent on it. Okay, well, maybe it's a 75% power day.
11:58
Bobby Doss
So another one of our listeners, his name is Todd Steele. Thanks for listening. Todd asked a pretty good question that I think maybe not every DP is going to agree on, but hopefully your brain is not swelling too much. Todd, but he's struggling to get through an accelerated private course in his early 50s, wants to know, you know, the school. Sounds like the school or the group that he's training with might be keeping him from checkride until he has some stuff memorized. He's memorized out. I'm not so sure memorization is the key to all this, but the big question overall is I thought it was an open book test. What am I really allowed to look up? Because now I'm being told I have to memorize everything. I can't, I can't look anything up. And I thought it was open book.
12:48
Bobby Doss
We've talked about this a few times in the past and we've actually had someone else reach out and said, hey, I heard y' all say I could look stuff up. And the DP I'm going with says I can't look stuff up. We, we, there's going to be dps that have differing opinions, but the check ride, the oral component and the check ride is intended to be something where you have knowledge but not know everything. Would that be a fair statement, Wally?
13:13
Wally Mulhern
Absolutely. You know, there's an old saying, give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, you feed him for life. Well, we can memorize stuff. We can all memorize stuff. We can memorize the checklist. And so I say, you know, memorize a checklist, you can fly a given airplane, learn how to use a checklist, you can fly any airplane that to an extent, you know at least manage the checklist. I, I tell my applicants, my briefing is this is an open book test. And I say, now if you have to look up everything, we're going to run out of time. We are. If you're that morning checklist checkride, I'm not going to let the ground go four hours and impede on the afternoon person.
14:03
Wally Mulhern
So, you know, we may not make it to the airplane that day. But, but if you can, you really can look things up and quite frankly, you show me a skill set by being able to look things up. It's, you know, we can again, you can memorize things, but I like to dig around and find something that maybe you're not totally, that you don't know. But if you know where it is, what's the big deal? You know, one thing that comes out is oxygen requirements, okay? And you know, people will tell me, okay, from 12, 5 to 14, we got to have oxygen for all the time. We're up there for more than 30 minutes. And I go, is it 125 to 14 or is it above 12 5? So if we're 12, 5, do we need oxygen or is it 12,501?
15:05
Wally Mulhern
And most people will say, yeah, that's a good point. Let me look it up. And most people don't struggle with that one. That's a fairly easy one. We talk, we end up talking about aircraft call signs a lot. And that's back in the aim in the air traffic control section. That's one that people struggle finding where it is in the book. You know, when I say the book, we're not really talking about a book. We're just talking about, you know, what is the regulatory or the guidance on how we should do things. So I, I don't have an issue at all. Now should the applicant have some knowledge? Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of helps me get a good feeling for things. We're, we are always going to, you know, I'm going to ask about your weight.
16:03
Wally Mulhern
I'm going to say how much Are we going to weigh for takeoff? 2387 pounds. And I'll normally, I'll then say, what is our max takeoff weight? And that kind of tells me something right there. I really think we ought to know the max takeoff weight of our airplane. I think you ought to be able to just say £2,550. But a lot of people don't know that and they do have to look it up. But that's part of the open book test. If they look it up and can give me the answer, that's fine.
16:39
Bobby Doss
And what can you give an example to those listening on what might not be appropriate? Would it be?
16:47
Wally Mulhern
Well, yeah, I mean, I, one thing I ask, I say, okay, we're starting our engine and during engine start we see flames coming out from underneath the cowling. What are we going to do? And a lot of people say, I'm going to jump out of the airplane and run. That's, that's not really.
17:08
Bobby Doss
Please don't do that in my flight school.
17:10
Wally Mulhern
That's, that's not really the answer we want. And so at that point we'll get into, well, do we have a checklist for this? And they'll pull it out and most airplanes do have an engine fire on the ground checklist. Well, by now it usually takes, oh, maybe a minute or two to find this. And I say, okay, let's talk about practicality. Is it practical to pull out the engine fire on the ground checklist? It is absolutely not practical. That's one that you just really ought to know. You ought to know that it's probably some semblance of pull the mixture back and continue to crank to try to put the flames out, something like that. So, you know, even though things may not be technically memory items, in practicality they really are.
18:11
Bobby Doss
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a great conversation to have with students, for instructors and for students to have with themselves. Right. Do you know the material and do you have something that you've memorized, albeit small? Todd, we're not asking you to memorize the entire far the aim, but knowing where to get the information and then some of those top of mind things. For my type rating that's coming up, there's two sheets of paper of memory items that I have to have and I think 80% of them are super important. There's a few of them that I'm like, this is weird. More limitation wise. Right. Like temperature for how cold can the oil before you start the Engine get it? You're not. But if it's really that cold, I doubt I'm going to be starting the plane kind of thing. Right.
18:59
Bobby Doss
So some of that's like not so important. But they're.
19:02
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. In the entire world if it's that cold, you know, it's in the book. You look it up. Oh, it's bright, minus 18 or whatever.
19:10
Bobby Doss
Minus 40 is the oil temp and fuel temp minimums to start in that plane, which if it's minus 40 Celsius or 40 degrees Fahrenheit, I ain't going anywhere. But it is, it's, it is teaching me that there is a different view in the thought process of memory items compared to a single engine piston airplane. So hopefully that helps Todd. Hopefully you find the right DP and your school gets you off of the memorization tactic and you get to be more of the fisherman and more not the fisher eater, the fish person that's eating the fish. We're kind of in that time of year, Wally, now where the weather is getting colder in Houston. Some parts of the country are dealing with some really good winter blasts and storms right now.
20:02
Bobby Doss
The question came up about cold weather stuff, icing, what to do, how you think about it. And we had a safety meeting last week and in that safety meeting I reminded everyone that as cold weather comes through, we have some winter rules that changed some of our dispatch requirements at our flight school. And one of those rules that we came up with in the I'll say last two years was you. We will shut down dispatching altogether in Houston, Texas. If it's 6 degrees Fahrenheit on the ground and it's marginal VFR.
20:36
Wally Mulhern
So 6 degrees Celsius.
20:39
Bobby Doss
6 degrees Celsius. Yes, sorry. So 6 degrees Celsius and if it's marginal VFR. Now the reasoning for that in my weak brain is the standard lap rate slaps rate is 2 degrees for every thousand feet on a perfect day. Perfect standard day. And at 3,000ft it would be the freezing level again, all things being Equal and marginal VFR means there's visible moisture at 3,000ft or less. So we're not going to take any chances. And went round and round. Should be four, should be six. I think we're splitting hairs. I think that's still a really tight margin. Would you, would you go fly a single engine piston airplane six degrees at 2,000ft, Wally?
21:28
Wally Mulhern
I don't think so.
21:30
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I mean we're talking about the margin of error is that everything be stable and perfect in the atmosphere, which is extremely rare. We will be within 1,000ft of visible moisture. The forest forecast could change instantaneously, and the temperature could drop. I mean, that thousand feet could shrink almost instantaneously from a. From just the simplest of things. So I ain't flying in that. I think my personal minimums on icing levels is like 5,000ft. And the intent of that is I'm just not gonna go. I'm not going to take a chance. If the icing level is 10,000ft, I'm gonna fly at 5,000. I'm probably going to drive or take a commercial airliner or fly in something that is legal to fly into known icing.
22:17
Bobby Doss
But I think ice is something that we don't experience much in Houston and those listening all over the world that have colder environments. Maybe it's common knowledge, but I think we get caught thinking it's not going to get us. Wally. I'll never forget the first time I went to Unitedflight Systems as a student pilot, and I was going to solo an airplane, and the chief instructor asked me what the icing level was. I nearly choked on my esophagus thinking. Didn't even think about it.
22:48
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
22:49
Bobby Doss
And I think I made up my answer to just tell you how stupid I was. I think, yeah, I checked it. It's. I'm good. Then I probably went to the bathroom and checked it, made sure I was good. But you can't mess around with ice. There's. There's no way you're going to get it off the airframe. And I really think in this time of year, you have to become more proficient with weather and visible moisture and temperatures.
23:17
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. And you know that freezing level, I ask that on every check, right? I do. Whether it be winter, summer, whatever, and I'm. I'm amazed at how people struggle with it. It's 2 degrees per thousand feet. You know, if it's 17, temperature 17 degrees, it's 8,500ft AGL. Now, that's a standard atmosphere. And we may or may not have a standard atmosphere, but I just laugh at everybody that's pulling out calculators and coming up with all kinds of ways to figure that out. And I'll say, hey, look, if you and I go to a restaurant and we split a meal and it's $17, how much does each of us owe? And I'll say, 850. I go, yeah, that's the altitude. Oh, didn't think of it that way? Well, it really is pretty simple. And if it's an even number, it's really even easier.
24:20
Wally Mulhern
20 is 10.
24:23
Bobby Doss
So somebody asked me recently, like they said something to the effect of. That's a pretty tight margin, Bobby. Meaning we can still go in the pattern, come on, let us go kind of thing. What is, what does a jet say that the icing protection needs to be enabled for? Wally, you flown a lot more jets than me. What would you say the number is from a Celsius perspective?
24:46
Wally Mulhern
Well, I will say on a 737 and a 757, 67, it's 10 degrees Celsius. That's when invisible moisture. Invisible moisture?
24:56
Bobby Doss
Yeah.
24:57
Wally Mulhern
Okay.
24:58
Bobby Doss
And so there's lots of reasons to go into that number, but they're not taking any chances. I think that's the thing that I want to convey to people listening. Why would you take this chance? We had a pilot, a CFI and a student get into some ice. I want to say it was two or three years ago when we made this rule and they, the conversation that day was oh, the cold front surprised us. I don't believe that because we should be able to look at the forecast. And then the other part was, well, everyone said there was a temperature inversion. So you're gonna send it when someone else that's not flying told you that's warmer up there, don't just go for it. I ain't doing that.
25:38
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah, I'm not either. No way. Yeah, you don't want to be an icing in these little airplanes. They're not, they're not built for it.
25:50
Bobby Doss
Okay, two more topics for today, all good stuff. What would you do, Wally, if you had an emergency and there wasn't a good place to land?
26:04
Wally Mulhern
I would try to pick the least bad place.
26:08
Bobby Doss
And that's an interesting conversation. So how would we find the least bad place? Imagine the emotions that's already going through. Probably for sure, right? That's going to be scary. You're going to be scared. How would you deduce what the least worst spot is?
26:27
Wally Mulhern
Well, you know, obviously I'm concerned about hurting people on the ground. Okay. So I'm trying to pick a non populated area to put the airplane.
26:44
Bobby Doss
Down and however interject there real quick. Sorry. When I was flying really new, went through all these scenarios. Where can you land, how small of an area, blah, blah. And my instructor, this primacy so important to me lately. But my instructor said, look, you chose to fly the people Watching that football game did not choose to get hurt, and it's your responsibility to avoid them if you have a problem. And I, maybe everyone won't agree with that sentiment, but I've taken that sentiment to heart ever since I started flying. And I'm not going to land into something that's going to hurt a bunch of other people and maybe kill me, too. Right.
27:25
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
27:26
Bobby Doss
So I love that you said that first and foremost, because that's not. Maybe that's. Maybe you could have an easier, safer, better place for you. Might not be the worst place for you, but it'd be the worst place for a bunch of other people. So great call out. I think as pilots who we chose to go fly, we need to keep that thought process in mind a little bit.
27:46
Wally Mulhern
That's a great thought. I never heard that, but that's really good. Now, I will say this, and this is going to almost sound like I'm going the other way on this. If we're out in the middle of nowhere and I'm going to put the airplane down on a field and let's say wind is not a factor, I can either land to the east or to the west. I'm going to try to put it down to where my airplane comes to a stop near the house.
28:15
Bobby Doss
Yeah.
28:16
Wally Mulhern
You know, so if I'm hurt that, you know, the people who live there maybe can come out and get me. Yeah.
28:23
Bobby Doss
And I think that's a little different than landing in a. Into some soccer fields where a bunch of 8U kids are playing soccer, because you're going to clip one of them and probably get them hurt or killed. But to land in the field next to a busy park might be really good for you and them because you kind of save them and you got some help pretty close by. So that's pretty logical. I like that scenario as well.
28:50
Wally Mulhern
The other thing is, you know, I'll use the example of, okay, do you. Back when Justin Verlander played for the Astros, I would say to my applicant, I said, look, if I'm going to throw a fastball and hit you in the chest, would you rather me throw it or would you rather Justin Verlander throw it? And everybody wants me to throw the ball at them. And I say, why? They say, well, you probably don't throw as fast as Justin Verlander. And I go, you're absolutely right. So it's going to hurt less. So if we do want to, if we do have to put the airplane down, we want to get it as slow as we can. Now, we don't want to get it so slow that we stall and we fall 15ft and crunch the airplane.
29:40
Wally Mulhern
But the slower we can get that airplane touch the ground, the better. There's just less energy that needs to be dissipated. So, you know, I think probably every airplane really suggests, you know, I may say flaps as necessary or something like that, but we really want to land with full flaps if we can.
30:03
Bobby Doss
No question. And then comes the conversation around, okay, let's say there's a few different landscapes, right? I would think mountains are always going to be bad because even if you land on something that's fairly smooth, you're still going to go down more and more. That's my guess. I've never landed on the side of a mountain, but really rough terrain, probably still going to keep going down. My instructor told me, if you have the option between water and trees, what are you going to do? Bobby and I, I chose water. He wasn't very fond of the water idea. Water is very bad in the tricycle fixed gear aircraft because you're probably going to get flipped upside down. You're probably going to do that at 40, 45 knots.
30:52
Bobby Doss
You're going to be disoriented, you might get hurt, and then you got to get out of an airplane that's upside down in the water. His thought process was, look, go into some trees, try to stay at the top of those trees as long as you can, meaning slow, and let the energy dissipate, let the trees eat up some of that speed and energy, and maybe you hit the ground fairly hard after you dissipate. But it's probably more likely that you might survive than being flipped upside down at 40 knots in the water. Is that always going to be the case? I have no idea. I've watched a lot of YouTube videos of planes hitting the water. They all flip over. It is one almost 100% for sure that if you're in a tricycle airplane, you hit the water, you're flipping over.
31:35
Bobby Doss
I don't know how well I'd handle that. Do I want to go in the trees? Probably not. I still love to find that perfect Runway in the middle of the practice area. But when that's not going to happen. To the person that asked this question, I think Wally said it best. You need to pick your best worst case scenario and do your best to get as slow as you can without stalling the aircraft until right before you hit the ground.
32:00
Wally Mulhern
Well, and you know what I see a lot on emergency landings is Overshooting. We come in and we had a nice field picked out and we're not using the flaps, and now we're going to go land in the trees. And, you know, that's a debrief thing. That's a discussion thing. I always say to the applicant, I'll say, which conversation is going to go better when you have to call Bobby and tell him that you landed his airplane in a bunch of trees, or would you rather tell him, hey, I landed it safely on a field, I may have oversped the flaps a little bit. I had to get the flaps in at 122, and the white arc starts at 120, which conversation is probably going to go better?
32:52
Bobby Doss
I think we all know the answer to that one. But let's don't overspeed the flaps during the week when there's nothing else going on. But let's save you and the aircraft if possible, but you first, no matter what. All right, last one for this topic, this set of listener comments and questions is when to divert for weather. And this question came from a pretty seasoned flight instructor. I think that the thought process is, let's teach people how to divert for weather. Wally, you're flying to Honolulu tomorrow, making this up, of course, and there's a hurricane. Are you going to wait till you get within 26 miles of that hurricane to divert around the hurricane, or will you have a much better plan to divert before you get there?
33:41
Wally Mulhern
Oh, yeah, certainly a much better plan. And with the technology that we have today, even general aviation, you know, it's not the weather doesn't sneak us up on us the way it used to 40 years ago. Sure. You know, we have a really good idea. We're looking at trends, we're looking at forecasts. You know, I want to know what the weather is at hooks. You know, I'm looking at the current, I'm looking at the forecast, and I'm also looking at the weather in College Station in Brenham, because that's going to be here a little bit later, for the most part.
34:26
Bobby Doss
Yep.
34:27
Wally Mulhern
So that is a great question, and I think it's kind of like the very first question is it depends. But I will say this. You, you have to have an idea of. There's a term, and it's a military term. We actually use it in the airline, but it's nowhere in the fars or any kind of anything like that, but it's called Bingo. Fuel. And it's basically if we're in a holding pattern, what is the amount of fuel that I'm going to be down to before I decide to divert to my alternate rather than continue to hold and try to get into my original destination? And you know, that's all stuff that in the airlines we calculate, okay, we're going to go over here. The burn from here to our alternate is X, I want to land at the alternate with Y.
35:29
Wally Mulhern
And then you start doing the math, you start putting it together and you might say, okay, we're gonna hold until we're down to, you know, 22,000 pounds of fuel and then we're heading over to Maui or Kona or someplace, whatever, wherever your, your alternate is. But it's, you know, again, nowadays, now you may have to divert due to maybe not a weather situation, but maybe you're going into a single airport, a single Runway airport and there's a disabled airplane, you know, someone collapses a gear or something like that and the Runway is closed. Well now that could be a last minute thing. I mean you could be on final and that happens. And now you've got to make a decision.
36:20
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I think it's a great comment or a great question. And there's a million what ifs. But I can remember flying to Austin a lot when my daughter was going to UT and I would look at the weather and I was pretty conservative. Still am super conservative. And then I would see a cell, I would go way around it. It's probably only going to add about 10 minutes. Houston and Austin's a 55 minute flight, but I would want to stay really far away from it. And we know trends, as you said, we know which way that sells moving. I probably don't want to try and cut in front of it because that's going to be silly. I'm going to get caught at least once in my lifetime. So you probably want to go on the backside of it. Right?
37:02
Bobby Doss
And it's those sorts of things where it's not so much when, but how do I divert around weather that makes more sense to me. And that's because I'm super conservative commercial pilot who's got to get somewhere, get, you know, someone's paying them to get them from A to B. It's probably different, but you don't have to make bad decisions. But your approach to diverting might be a little different. But my decision is does the flight mean my personal minimums and then what's the safest route for me to do it. And if I'm flying visual conditions and I see a tower of rain in front of me, I'm going to ask to divert the second that I see the water in the air. Right. I'm not going to.
37:43
Bobby Doss
I'm not going to get right up to it and try and skirt around it because you never know what could behind that as well.
37:49
Wally Mulhern
Right.
37:50
Bobby Doss
When you don't have radar, you don't have other stuff. So I think the answer to the real question is when to divert as soon as you possibly can, as long as it makes reasonable sense for your fuel consumption, your time to destination, and everything else. Diverting left might be into the clouds, and you may or may not be instrument proficient. Right might be vfr, but right in front of a thunderstorm that's moving to. Moving from left to right, which would be a really bad decision, too. And sometimes diverting might not mean continuing. It might mean turn around and go back.
38:26
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, now I will say this. I mean, when I hear the word divert, it means we're going to go to a different airport. When I'm going around weather, I think of that as the word deviating. We're going to deviate. So, you know, on most of the check on commercials and privates, we're gonna have a diversion. We're gonna end up somewhere else. And it's, you know, for various reasons. Sometimes I give a mechanical reason, sometimes I give a weather reason, sometimes I give a medical reason. But, you know, when I flew over to New Orleans during the summer and went over there just for the day, and it was vfr, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and so we just went vfr.
39:19
Wally Mulhern
But the way I looked at going from Houston to New Orleans, in my mind, I went from Houston to Beaumont, to Lake Charles, to Lafayette, to Baton Rouge, to New Orleans. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to Beaumont. I'm going to Beaumont. All right, we just passed Beaumont. I'm still going to Beaumont. Still going. Okay, I'm closer to Lake Charles. I'm going to Lake Charles. Lake Charles. Lake Charles. And in my mind, that's the way it works when I fly, you know, to Honolulu. Maybe we're going out via la. You know, we're going out to San Antonio, and then we're going out to El Paso, and then we're, you know, we're going out to Phoenix and Palm Springs and so forth. So that's what's in my mind.
40:07
Bobby Doss
Yeah, that's a good point. And I, I think I read it more as diversion. I think I know this person and think they were thinking more diversion because it's the teaching moment about where do you, when do you turn and how do you get away from the weather. But if it meant total divert, I think your story about each little hop between is really where you're going. And once you're clear past that, keep continuing and make your next decision. All right. Thanks for all the questions and all of the topics. We're always open to those. Don't hesitate to send them our way. And as always, thanks for listening and stay behind the Prop.
40:46
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.