In this episode, host Bobby Doss and co-host Wally Mulhern dive into the art of flight planning and weather preparation, showing how disciplined habits create safer, smoother flights. Wally shares how he begins planning up to 20 days ahead, choosing smarter fuel stops, evaluating weather systems, and always keeping alternates in mind. Bobby emphasizes organization and readiness, from updating ForeFlight to packing and charging gear the night before. Together, they stress that flexibility, preparation, and judgment matter more than luck or perfect forecasts. Whether you’re flying across Texas or across the country, this episode will help you plan like a pro and think like an airline pilot.
In this episode, Wally Mulhern and Bobby Doss take listeners deep into the mindset and methods behind effective flight planning. They break down how professional pilots think, plan, and prepare—long before the engine ever starts.
Wally explains why smart flight planning begins weeks in advance, sometimes as early as 20 days before departure, especially for longer trips. He shares how to select fuel stops just beyond the halfway point—around 280 to 320 miles—to maintain both efficiency and mental endurance. Past experiences taught him that chasing cheaper fuel can backfire through delays and limited services, making reliability and safety worth the extra cost.
Weather plays a defining role in every flight, and Wally emphasizes checking forecasts repeatedly—three weeks, two weeks, ten days, and again the night before. He outlines how to analyze broad surface charts, TAFs, and METARs to anticipate conditions, adjust routes, and account for winds that can change fuel burn by up to 20% in a Cessna 172. He also discusses planning around TFRs and keeping alternate airports ready, even when not required.
Bobby builds on that foundation with his focus on cockpit organization and readiness. His night-before checklist includes verifying oil levels, charging devices, updating ForeFlight, and packing flight materials. These habits reduce stress, save time, and make each preflight smoother. Wally echoes this with his own structured airline routine—packing the night before, updating iPads, and keeping notes on the yoke for future pilots. Both stress that good organization directly impacts performance and safety, especially during check rides.
Together, they underline a shared philosophy: prepare early, plan thoroughly, and stay flexible. Weather forecasts are only predictions, sound judgment and real-time decision-making matter most. Their combined airline and general aviation experience shows that professional-grade preparation leads to safer, more confident flying.
Whether you’re a new student pilot or seasoned aviator, this episode delivers actionable insights on fuel management, weather interpretation, and cockpit discipline—helping you fly smarter, safer, and more like a pro.
00:01
Behing the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final. Clear.
Touch one Charlie Bravo Raceford in Runway. Two five join four mile final.
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.
00:25
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
00:26
Wall Mulhern
Hey, Bobby, how are you?
00:28
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. This week we are going to talk about something that I am doing tonight. I have a Vision Jet trip tomorrow to go to the beautiful state of Colorado. It's nice and chilly up there. I'm looking forward to it. But this episode's title is going to be Flight planning the night before. Your key to a smoother cockpit. And I think part of this has become in my. More in my DNA as I have trips that go a lot further and bigger, I think. And you tell me, Wally, you meet a lot of applicants, a lot of students. We never really fly much more than 100 miles and most of us probably don't fly 300 miles. Until when?
01:11
Wall Mulhern
Raleigh, the commercial requirement.
01:14
Bobby Doss
And that's because 300 miles is very expensive and we only want to do it once if we can. And so that's the first time we probably all cross state lines and go to some airport we've never been to with our instructor. And that's a real challenge and that's why it's a requirement in the commercial. But you know, you get even a small jet, you can go a long way really quick. And in a small jet you're probably gonna have to have a fuel stop. So it's really interesting all the things that I've learned flying the Vision Jet, but it's made me think about my flights more and even a small trip.
01:51
Bobby Doss
My wife and I had a great opportunity recently to go take the top Hawk to Durant, which is about a two and a half hour flight in a Cessna 172 to see L.L. Langley. She was great in concert. And that trip, again, long trip, you want to plan for that a little bit more in advance. You want to think a little bit more. You probably think a little bit more about diversions and where am I going to go from an alternate perspective, what's the weather doing? TFRs, you know, a lot of times if you, if there's a TFR in your local area, you know about it. Either a president's going to be there or a vice president or there's a baseball game. So you kind of know those things.
02:35
Bobby Doss
But interestingly enough were impacted by the TFR for the Red River Showdown which happens once a year. Big, big deal. And here we are, we're going almost right across that. And I was like, whoa, I need to know about that. Like I might be able to go over it or around it or something. But that's a big deal. That's a big circle, right? There's a ex president that lives out there somewhere that there's a tfr. I'd hate to accidentally noodle around his property too much and get in trouble. Right. So interesting to think about the approaches that I take now and even piston aircraft, probably from my learning in the vision jet. But what are your thoughts when you take your Saratoga or your new Cessna? What are your thoughts on this planning?
03:27
Bobby Doss
Do you plan like a pro or are you more like an applicant who maybe doesn't. What's your thought process on planning the night before?
03:34
Wall Mulhern
Well, first of all, I'm such a geek about this stuff that I love doing this. So when we have flown up to Oshkosh, I start planning. Not the night before, but probably about 20 nights before. I mean I plug it in and you know, it. The first thing I, I, you know, I, I want to come up with a, you know, a, an option, a fuel stop option because I can't make it to Oshkosh non stop in my Saratoga. So we gotta make a fuel stop. So it's like okay, let's pick a fuel stop now. You know, I get a lot of applicants and the cross countries that I give most applicants for private and a commercial are about 500 miles. So unless they're in a very sporty airplane, it's probably going to require a fuel stop.
04:28
Wall Mulhern
Some applicants will do two or three fuel stops, which I can't call it wrong, but I do think it's a little bit over the top. I mean they're making you know, 120 mile legs and we're doing four legs on a 500 mile trip, you know. And I don't know that seems a little excessive but you know, and I always ask the applicant why did you pick this place as a fuel stop? And there's no wrong answer. It may be, well, they've got cheap fuel or you know, my grandmother lives in this or you know, whatever. I personally like to pick a fuel stop that is just beyond halfway because I think psychologically there's something to getting back in that airplane. To know that I'm more than halfway, I'm over the hump, you know, I'm coming down the back stretch.
05:30
Wall Mulhern
You know, if it's a 500 mile trip, I would be looking for 300 miles. Somewhere in the 300, you know, 280 to 320 mile range. I just, to me psychologically that helps rather than the other way around where, okay, we've gone 200 miles. Okay, we're about, you know, 38% of the way done. We've got, you know, a longer flight coming up than we just had. Especially when you have passengers. I think, I think to tell the passengers, all right, we're more than halfway. So I'm looking for that. But you know, I, again, I start plugging things in 20 days out and I'm looking at things and you know, I got, we got caught in a tough situation last year going Oshkosh where I picked a fuel stop based on the price of fuel. And we got there, they didn't have any fuel.
06:32
Wall Mulhern
So I had to hop in the airplane and fly another 20 minutes to a place that had higher priced fuel. And it cost me more fuel, it cost us more time and it was a hassle. So I'm kind of rethinking my philosophy on picking cheap fuel. Maybe a little bit bigger airport that has maybe more services, maybe more than one fueling option. You know, that's going to be my game plan moving forward.
07:02
Bobby Doss
Yeah, you make me, you tell that story. You made me think of my dad. I don't think he listens to the show, but he'll drive like 50 miles to sell. Save 3 cents on gas.
07:12
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
07:13
Bobby Doss
And I've tried to explain it to him my whole life that you did not save any money on gas because you burnt more than that to get there. But there's a psychological thing for him that he's winning the game somehow. But I don't think you won the game that year at Oshkosh on the cheap fuel for sure.
07:30
Wall Mulhern
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, another thing that, you know, kind of along those lines, I mean you may go to an airport that has self serve fuel and they have full service fuel and yeah, you may save 20 cents a gallon to get the self serve fuel, but at 50 gallons that's $10.
07:52
Bobby Doss
Yeah.
07:52
Wall Mulhern
Okay.
07:53
Bobby Doss
And you know, I think it might be worth it. Everybody sees it a little different, but not everyone's a captain at a major airline. So we might all Save a penny. That said, there's a lot more than just the fuel stop. There's a lot of things that you need to think about. And we're breaking this episode down into three segments like we normally do. And segment one's going to be gathering weather and notams the night before. And it, like you said, it doesn't have to be the night before, but it has to before the flight. Pat's been on the show four or five times now. Pat says when he plans a trip to sun and Fun or wherever he's going, it's the same thing. Two, three weeks out.
08:31
Bobby Doss
He kind of does three weeks out, two weeks out, and then about 10 days out, he's doing almost something every day just to check and check. Weather systems change. We never know what's coming. But we want to gather the weather in notam before and this is the night before. We also want to map our route and our alternates. Right. And in that case, it might have been nice to know a bunch of alternates for that fuel stop, all in a more geographically centralized area. And then I get joked with a lot as I fly with the Vision Jet guys, but they normally say you only pick a stop based on who's got better pieces. And I think there's a lot of pilots that probably do that. And I have learned to eat some pretty darn good pie.
09:18
Wall Mulhern
Oh, for sure.
09:19
Bobby Doss
By picking a good. By picking a good fuel stop. Not based on the price of fuel, but based on the slice of pie they're going to have that day.
09:27
Wall Mulhern
Well, and a crew car. Whether the place has a crew car, too.
09:31
Bobby Doss
Through that, the third segment, we're going to talk about organizing your materials for a smooth flight. And I do believe, I hate to admit it, but I've probably got in the cockpit and even planning the night before, looked down at my iPad, and that little circle on the more button had a, like a four red circle on it. You know what that means, Wally?
09:55
Wall Mulhern
That means you got some revisions to do.
09:57
Bobby Doss
See, I got some. I got some downloads I need to do. And now I can't do those downloads anymore. And they're, of course they're never going to be like one megabit. They're like 200 megabits. And I got to get out and go back inside and download the download. So it's always good to download, refresh, download, refresh, have all that stuff. Make sure your materials are ready. And we're going to talk through all this stuff and ask Wally a bunch of Questions on what the DPE wants you to do, not just for the checkride, but for real life and to be a really good, safe pilot. So let's talk through some of us through all these things. My chief, our chief worked there for a long time, super great guy, done millions of things in GA aircraft.
10:41
Bobby Doss
He tells the story very often if you're going to check the weather and notams, you need to think United States, Texas flight path. And I kind of like that. Right. And I think the more you learn about weather, you realize weather is not a 50 mile circle. Weather is created thousands of miles away. It just gets to you when it wants to get to you. Would you agree with that?
11:09
Wall Mulhern
Absolutely, absolutely.
11:10
Bobby Doss
So normally the weather we feel in Houston, Texas probably starts somewhere just north of Alaska and it comes from up there and it's in some sort of a frontal boundary moving from northwest to southeast. And depending on where the highs and lows are, it either gets here and crosses over us or it doesn't. And man, when I was a private pilot they told me that you needed to understand low and high weather systems. I was like, that's crazy. I'm never going to fly in the clouds, I'm never going to go out when it's bumpy. I just had this perception that it's never going to get to me. I would assume a lot of student pilots feel that way. But it's not necessarily about what the front's going to do to you today. Although that has impacted me drastically on some flights.
11:58
Bobby Doss
It's trying to help you plan. So if you're looking three weeks out and there's a really nasty storm in Alaska, it might be here in three weeks, it might change the day you get to leave to Oshkosh. And that takes time to plan. If you have a work schedule, you've got things, you got hotels, you got crew cars, you're trying to get, you need to know these things. So big broad picture first and then narrow it down. If I got out of the United States and I got into Texas and I know I'm going to Oklahoma for a concert, my mind starts thinking TAFs first, right? Like I want the big airports with good weather information giving me that term rental area forecast, but that only goes so far out, so I'm not going to see that three weeks out.
12:40
Bobby Doss
I'm not going to know what's coming that far out. But I know what the big weather front systems are going to do by the surface charts. Then I'm going to narrow this down further and further. Probably like three days before, I'm going to look at Taps, I'm going to look at the current Metars. If there's bad weather northwest, I'm going to look at the Metars up there. I'm not going up there. But I want to know what that weather system's doing at those airports. So if I look at a pretty low level airport, meaning sea level airport, with the front coming towards it and it's forecast, it's The Metar says 7,000ft broken. I can rationally think that when it gets to me, it's probably gonna be 7,000ft broken as well. Just ballpark figures.
13:27
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
13:27
Bobby Doss
And so I can kind of put that in my planning. Am I feeling comfortable? Am I feeling proficient enough to be 7,000 foot broken? Yeah, probably not gonna bother me. I'm a pretty proficient instrument pilot in a piston or vision jet. And then day before this night, tonight, I'm looking at every Metar on my track between here and trade winds tomorrow and then trade winds to Centennial. And that's going to tell me the story of the weather at this level. Even Durant winds mean a lot. I got to pick a thousand foot, well, 2,000ft different because I was flying westwardly. I got to pick a 2,000 foot difference. That gave me 10 knots of tailwind versus 10 knots of headwind. That's pretty impactful. In a Cessna 172.
14:16
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, that's 20%, you know, that's 20.
14:19
Bobby Doss
That's a lot.
14:20
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
14:20
Bobby Doss
And when you talk about $100 of fuel time, it makes a big difference. So that's the day before. Best thing to know is the day of did that change? Did pressure change? Right. So TAFs and Metars have got me narrowed down local, a little bit more local. And then I need to get really local. What do I care then? I really care about that tfr. Is it in? Is it going to be while I'm flying through it or in that area? What about the Metar when I leave? What about the notams at the airport I'm leaving? What about the notams at the airport that I'm arriving at? What about communication stuff in between? And then I had passengers when went to Durant. Probably my most precious package, it was my wife. Well, we're 50 plus. She might need to do something about halfway there.
15:09
Bobby Doss
I want to know where I'm going to stop if she says I drank too much water and we need to land. Right. So lots of really good options between here and Durant. But you don't want to mess with that tfr. You don't want to go to a military base on accident. Takes a little bit of forward thinking. You got to have that kind of planned out. So then you get more granular, more narrow. What resources are your go to resources for this weather and notams gathering, Wally?
15:39
Wall Mulhern
Well, you know, I'm a believer in foreflight. So, you know, that's basically what I use for my general aviation stuff. Now, the airline stuff, we have another system that's pretty involved that gives us all that. I mean, we get a typical, you know, eight hour long range flight. Our paperwork package is about 150 pages of paperwork. Yeah.
16:11
Bobby Doss
And so let's just assume everybody doesn't have foreflight and we are both fans. My daughter works at Foreflight, we love foreflight. But SkyVector is a good resource. Pretty cool little website that you can go into, put in the airport, see everything, put some layers on it. The chart supplement's gonna have some information at it. You can look at that. But again, it's too easy and too convenient nowadays for us to just click some stuff in foreflight. Aviationweather.gov is fantastic. Some major updates in the last 18 months that have made it more modern, but those of us that use the classic version can't find what we used to be able to find. And I am a huge fan and people don't use it enough. We don't always understand what computers are telling us.
16:59
Bobby Doss
But man, if you go to 1-800-WX Brief via phone or on the web, you're going to get some information. If you do it on the phone, you're going to get to talk to someone who's probably got a little bit more experience than you. And they're, I don't think they're going to give you guidance, but they're going to ask you some questions maybe or tell you something that you might not see on that chart that they might recognize as a problem. So please, please don't give up on the phone and definitely call for a weather briefing if you are unsure at all. And if they sound unsure, you should become unsure for sure. So section one, DP questions, Wally everyone likes to hear what a DP's got to say. I'm kind of jealous. They like probably hearing you talk more than me.
17:47
Bobby Doss
But what key weather insights do you want applicants to be able to explain during the check run?
17:56
Wall Mulhern
Well, I mean, the first thing I ask the applicant, I'll say, okay, so for instance, all right, we're going to Atlanta say, okay, where's our fuel stop? Or are we making a fuel stop today? I gave a check, right? And that's the destination I gave the applicant. And so it was, okay, where are we going? And he told me the airport were going to, and it was a airport out of Jackson, Mississippi. And I'd say, can we go? Will you go? And it's amazing that they may plan Houston to Jackson, Mississippi at 7,500ft. And we get in there, we realize we got a overcast layer at 6,500ft. And they'll say, well, no, we can't go. And I'll say, why not? He said, well, there's an overcast layer 6,500ft. And I had planned at 7,500ft. And I say, so.
19:01
Wall Mulhern
So we're going to cancel the flight? Yeah, we're going to have to. And I'm just. It's a head scratcher that, you know, it didn't occur to him that maybe we could go at 5,500ft and make this flight. But we get, sometimes we get tunnel vision and, you know, there's just no way to get around that. I mean, if I'm driving to your flight school tomorrow, Bobby, for check rides, and Interstate 45 is closed, I'm going to figure a way around it. And I'm not just going to call you and say, the interstate is closed. I can't be there. I'm going to figure a way around it. So that's my first thing is, okay, and if they're going to say, no, we can't make the flight, I'll say, why? Why? Tell me why.
19:54
Wall Mulhern
And the other thing is, you know, forecast weather sometimes doesn't turn into actual weather. I had. What's today? Today's yesterday. I had two checkrides scheduled and both applicants canceled on me. They, they were flying in. And that adds another element to it. They were flying in from a, a different airport. They both canceled on me. At the last minute, I reached out to another flight school and said, hey, I just got cancellations. I'm here. You got anything? And they said, yeah, we do. I said, okay, well, let's do it in the afternoon at 1pm and at 12:30 they called me and I said, no, the applicant wants to cancel based on forecast ceilings. The fact of the matter is that we could have very safely done all three checkrides, but all three got canceled.
20:59
Wall Mulhern
I mean, it wouldn't have been three, it would have been two. But, you know, there's three applicants that are sitting around not having a completed checkride that could have gotten done if they had just, you know that the forecast is a guess, it's an educated guess and it's usually pretty good, but it's, you know, it's not always true, it's not always accurate.
21:29
Bobby Doss
Yeah. And so that sounds like you want them to understand the weather and is it safe or unsafe to go, which perfectly makes sense and not a bunch of super granular stuff, but they need to be able to tell you those things. How do you incorporate thorough weather briefings into your own routine as an airline captain? And what tips would you share?
21:54
Wall Mulhern
Well, on the majority, anything over six hours. Anytime we have a flight over six hours, we're required to get a phone call briefing with our dispatcher. So usually if we're at an outstation, I'll meet with the crew as we're hopping on the van to go to the airport and I'll say, okay, how do you feel about the flight plan? Everybody happy with it? Yeah, we're landing with this much fuel, we've got this as an alternate. Here's our routing and that kind of stuff. So I mean, that's the first thing I do is talk to my other pilots, whether it be one or two of them, and then I'll, I'll make the call and usually on the van ride to the hotel, I mean to the airport, and I'll get a, a briefing from the dispatcher. And it's a lot more than just weather.
22:46
Wall Mulhern
I mean, we're over water considerations and a lot of places we go to are, have active volcanoes. So a lot of time volcanic ashes is a consideration. And then, you know, maintenance issues on the airplane, if we have something that's not working properly, we get all that, but we get a really good briefing. And you know, and the, probably the biggest thing that causes our routing and our altitude is trying to find smooth air. You know, there's some turbulence up to 32,000. So I've got you planned at 30, 35,000, you know, to be well above the forecast turbulence or, and that kind of stuff, or we've got you planned way south today going over Mexico to get out to Hawaii. We got a, you know, a big weather system over Southern California.
23:53
Wall Mulhern
So in that case, it is almost like talking to a weather briefer like w, you know, one 800 wx brief because our dispatchers are, you know, they're kind of weather whizzes Sometimes they start talking about stuff. I. I don't. It's like, okay, all right, well, I'm not sure what you're talking about, but it's not a concern on this flight. So if it's not a concern, I don't need to know what you're talking about.
24:21
Bobby Doss
Awesome. Moving to section two, mapping out your route and alternates again. Something I probably get a little lazy with when I do some local flying. Very familiar with all the airports, very familiar with where I can land, know what's un. Not public, know where. Soaring club grass strips are like, pretty confident. If I'm above 5,000ft, I'm going to find a pretty good place to land in the local area. And I'm not sure that's a strength. It's probably a weakness. I get a little lazy on planning those alternates. If I'm just going to go from here to Austin, I've been on that flight dozens and dozens of times. I know I'm going to kind of stay close to 290. I know every grass strip and every paved field between here and there. Probably don't put a whole lot of thought into it.
25:13
Bobby Doss
But tomorrow, going almost all the way across the country, I'm doing a lot more thinking. I've got mountains I'm going to fly to. I'm got a lot of different terrain and the weather systems might be dictating some of that. That may make me go to different airports. And I want to make sure I've got some services Right. So your trip to Oshkosh, I'm assuming it's out of your own pocket. You want it to be as straight as possible or as feasible as possible for you. What other things do you think about when you're planning that route on a long cross country in your Saratoga?
25:50
Wall Mulhern
The first thing I do is I put in my departure airport and my destination airport and I draw a line. And as you said, I want to stay as close to that straight line as possible, you know, and then I look at the distance like, okay, it's. We'll just make it easy math. It's. It's 800 miles, so I'm looking for that fuel stop that's a little bit over 400 miles. And you know, as far as planning alternates, you know, I say to people, you know, when do you know? On an instrument checkride? And it's a little tongue in cheek, but I'll say, when do we need an alternate? And they go into the well, one hour plus or minus our scheduled Our arrival time, the ceiling of 2,000ft and all that.
26:44
Wall Mulhern
They get into all that, and I say, okay, really, we ought to always have alternates. The answer you just gave me is when we have to file an alternate, okay, so we always want to have alternates. I tell people I've flown from Houston to New Orleans before on a VFR day when a cloud in the sky. And in my mind, I wasn't going Houston to New Orleans. I was going Houston to Beaumont, to Lake Charles, to Lafayette, to Baton Rouge to New Orleans. In my mind, that's what I was doing. And when I first took off, I'm thinking, I'm turning around. I'm turning around, okay, I'm going to Beaumont. I'm going to Beaumont, going to Beaumont, going to Lake Charles, Lake Charles. And in my mind, that's the way I'm thinking. Same thing. When I.
27:37
Bobby Doss
Well, one thing you said there is very important to me, but I think if they're listening in their car, they might have missed context slightly. You were thinking, I'm turning around. I'm turning around. I'm turning around. I'm going to Beaumont. I'm going to Beaumont. I'm going to Beaumont. I'm going back to Beaumont. I'm going back to Beaumont. I'm going back to Beaumont. I'm going to Lake Charles. I'm going to Lake Charles. I'm going to Lake Charles. I'm going back to Lake Charles. I'm going back to Lake Charles. I'm going to Lafayette. The key is that you are always thinking about going back until you're about halfway.
28:06
Wall Mulhern
Exactly.
28:06
Bobby Doss
Kind of a point of no return.
28:08
Wall Mulhern
Exactly.
28:09
Bobby Doss
That you'll have in your mindset, piston or big jet, doesn't matter. You've kind of got that mindset.
28:14
Wall Mulhern
And I will say this. If I'm. If I am not to that point of no return, and I know I'm going to turn around. If. If I have a. An issue, all of a sudden, boom. I got a. I'm losing oil pressure. I am just turning that airplane around right now and aiming in the sort of general direction of where I'm going again. You know, I do a lot of Hawaii stuff. We take off out of Hawaii, coming back to. To somewhere, whether it be Houston, Denver, west coast, whatever. We have a defined, what we call a critical point, and it's basically the point of no return. It's if something happens before that you're turning around. Well, if we have a situation that happens before that, I'm turning that Airplane around and I am aiming at the islands.
29:06
Wall Mulhern
I don't know if I'm going to Kona. I don't know if I'm going to Honolulu. I don't know if I'm going to Maui. But at least we're pointed in the right direction. We're aiming in the right direction. So I kind of use that with flying little airplanes. And as far as picking my alternates, it really depends on what my destination airport is. So if I am going to a fuel stop, I'm going to try to pick what I call a downline alternate. I'm going to try to pick an alternate on the other side. And, and I'm not, I'm never going to cut my fuel so tight that it's really an issue. But you know, if, let's say I've picked my fuel stop for. Let's, let's go back to the 800 mile trip. Let's say we just found one that's exactly halfway.
30:05
Wall Mulhern
I'm going to try to pick an alternate that's on the other side of that halfway point farther down line. And reason being is I don't want to have to backtrack if I'm going to have to go to an alternate. Let's at least be heading again in the same direction. Now going to my destination, it's almost just the opposite because this is, I want to land at this airport and this is where I'm staying for three or four days. Well, you know, I probably want to have an alternate on this side of it so that, you know, usually when you have to divert to an alternate, probably more times than not, it's, you know it before you get there.
30:56
Bobby Doss
Yeah.
30:57
Wall Mulhern
Hey, the weather is, there's a thunderstorm overhead. So let's stop here and save the fuel rather than go to it, then go past it and then have to backtrack.
31:09
Bobby Doss
Well, you've actually answered a few of my questions. I was going to ask you during this segment about alternates and fuel thinking. Let's, I will ask you one question from your experience, what's one piece of advice you'd give pilots about staying flexible with their route if the weather and other considerations change last minute?
31:28
Wall Mulhern
Oh, you got to be very, very flexible with your routing because, you know, on an instrument check ride, I'm going to give people a new routing from what they file for every time. And we've covered this before. But you know, I, I tell the applicant okay, you've got a significantly different routing than what you had expected. And I say, what are the five things that we need to consider? And you know what they are? It's fuel, fuel and fuel. You know, how is this going to affect all that? So from that standpoint, I mean, you don't want to, you know, pick your destination to where you're landing there with the bare minimums because you just never know. There could be all kinds of reasons for, you know, a different routing.
32:25
Bobby Doss
And that's true. Even, even tomorrow, you know, if the winds stay as forecasted and we have no issues, we can make it in one trip. It might, it's going to be a long trip. It might be uncomfortable. That might be a bladder problem. And there's just no reason to risk it. Like, no one gets a, A plus or a gold star for proving that they were right and they landed with 31 minutes of fuel on a clear day.
32:55
Wall Mulhern
Right, right.
32:56
Bobby Doss
It just doesn't make much sense to take that 30 minute break and make sure that the five most important things have been solved when you know you can solve it. When you get there and you can't solve it. That's a terrible thing.
33:11
Wall Mulhern
Yeah.
33:12
Bobby Doss
Let's wrap the third section up with what we're going to organize your materials for a smooth flight. And I think it's kind of crazy. I have on a checklist on my counter right now. Get my flight bag ready. It sounds silly. I got, I'm in a jet, we have plenty of room. But I want my materials ready. I want to know that my flashlight has got a good battery in it. I want to know that my mini flashlight that I'm going to use during pre flight to check the pitot static ports and the pitot tube, the static ports and all the other things. Oil. Oil is really critical on a vision jet. There's a little door. It's dark in there. You got to see that oil in there. I need a flashlight. I want to make sure all that's ready.
33:53
Bobby Doss
I want to make sure my documents are aligned. You know, I don't fly that regularly. Definitely not every day. You probably have your pilot certificates and medical in your wallet. Yeah, I don't have them in my wallet because I don't fly every day. But I better have them tomorrow because I don't want to not have them. So I got to get all that kind of organized. I think we should do a show on what's in your flight bag for everybody but my electronic Flight bag foreflight needs to be up to date. My iPad needs to be charged, my backup batteries need to be there, all my checklists, my quick reference. I've flown a bunch of piston planes since the last time I flew the Vision jet. I need to go through my minimums.
34:32
Wall Mulhern
And.
34:34
Bobby Doss
All the things that are going to be critical to my flight tomorrow need to be thought about and figured and configured tonight. I'll go through some vstepees, I'll go through some performance stuff tonight. I'll go through it again tomorrow. Obviously, I'll recheck all the weather and stuff. What are your thoughts around organizing the materials you're going to take with you for a smooth flight, Wally?
34:57
Wall Mulhern
Yeah, well, you know, and the real truth be told.
35:00
Bobby Doss
Do you take a sectional that's not expired?
35:04
Wall Mulhern
No.
35:05
Bobby Doss
Okay. You heard it here first, people.
35:08
Wall Mulhern
Yeah. Yeah. You know, one thing I could say is and to this day I, I still do this. And it, I am, you know, I've self proclaimed myself as a geek. But if it's a early morning walk out the door of my house for a flight, whether it's airline or or non airline, I packed the night before, my suitcase is out and it is packed and ready to go the night before. And I say early, I says if I'm leaving before 10 in the morning, my suitcase is packed. One thing I do especially with my airline iPad, because we have all the updates.
35:55
Wall Mulhern
We have our weather app that updates, we have our airline, all our manuals plus our Jepsen, our approach plates, that update, you know, so the night before that iPad comes out of my bag, gets plugged in to make sure it's charged, all the updates happened and it sits right on the breakfast table, right where I go and I drink my coffee. So the next morning I sit down and I have a cup of coffee. There's my United Airlines iPad, hopefully all updated. Now there are times where you update it and then the next morning you, oh well, here's another update. Well, the good news is that it's usually a smaller update, so it usually is not a big problem to go ahead and update that. But you know, my airline flight bag remains the same. I mean nothing ever gets taken out of there.
36:56
Wall Mulhern
I do have some behind the prop notepads that I keep on my yoke clip that I write all my notes on. And then when I get done with the flight, I tear away the sheet that I use and I leave it in the airplane for the next guy. So little advertisement there. Yeah. In fact the other day we got to, I don't even know where I think it was Hawaii. And my first officer came out of the flight deck and he goes, oh, hey, you left your notepad. And I go, no, that stays, that's marketing. So, but yeah, so my, my bag stays the same. And you know, I, I, this is kind of a little funny thing. I found something great that I just added to my flight bag.
37:40
Wall Mulhern
You know, you can buy these little bitty and I don't know even know how many ounces are in there, but it's like a half ounce bottle of hot sauce. And, and so I, I, I found them on Amazon. I bought like 50 of them. And so that goes in my flight bag now, so.
38:02
Bobby Doss
And I'm assuming that's to make your crew meal better.
38:05
Wall Mulhern
Oh, yeah. Well, not, you know, hot sauce is good on anything. Even if it's, you find a chick fil a, you know, it, it's, it's good on there.
38:14
Bobby Doss
Well, that you just took. My last tip was what's your one organizational tip to make your pilot experience better overall? I guess that'. Tip. What? This is my last question and then we'll wrap up the show. When you see a candidate preparing for a checkride, how important is it to you for them to have some organization in the cockpit?
38:38
Wall Mulhern
It's huge. You know, I, I can't tell you how many times we get in the airplane and they, we may be en route and they have to, they're crawling over things, trying to find maybe their navlog, maybe it is a paper sectional. They're trying to find something in the back. And this is a big part of my briefing now is that I explained to the applicant that I do not have a view limiting device, so it's on them to bring it. Occasionally. There's one flight school and the applicants always say to me, well, there should be one in the airplane. And I say, okay, I'm just letting you know, I do not have one. And if we get out there and it's time to put on the view limiting device and we can't find one, the checkride will not get finished.
39:41
Wall Mulhern
And oh, by the way, it's two months before I have another opening, which, that's a little stretch, so that's not really the case.
39:47
Bobby Doss
But yeah, that's a pretty important piece if you're gonna take a checkride for sure. I've heard horror stories of that and I, maybe I should just put one on the clipboard for every checkride. Just to make everybody for sure have it there.
40:00
Wall Mulhern
There are some examiners that will unset an applicant. They'll say, hey, you didn't come prepared.
40:07
Bobby Doss
Yeah. All right, everybody. Hopefully this episode of flight planning the night before your key to a smoother cockpit was valuable and you learn something and you take something away from it. My call to action for you is start planning the night before. Whether you're flying 30 miles or 300 miles or 3,000 miles, you are going to benefit from taking on the work the night before and really being prepared. We encourage every one of you to share your experiences and ask us questions and share your thoughts on new episodes on any of our social platforms. Please leave us a review if you think we're doing good work. And as always, stay behind the prop and fly safely.
40:50
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.