This episode of Behind the Prop explores how safety culture and decision-making directly impact accident prevention in aviation. Bobby Doss, Wally Mulhern, and Paul Craig discuss why complacency, especially as experience grows, remains one of the most dangerous threats to pilots. They break down accident data showing that most accidents are survivable, reinforcing the need to prevent all accidents—not just fatal ones. The conversation also highlights the evolution of The Killing Zone and why practical understanding matters more than rote memorization in real-world flying. Ultimately, this episode reinforces that vigilance, humility, and applied knowledge are essential at every stage of a pilot’s career.
Buy the 3rd edition here: https://asa2fly.com/the-killing-zone/
This episode of Behind the Prop takes a deep, practical look at aviation safety culture, pilot decision-making, and the human factors that continue to drive accidents across all experience levels. Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhern are joined by Paul Craig, author of The Killing Zone, to discuss why judgment—not just skill or legal minimums—is the foundation of safe flying.
The conversation begins with real-world examples of pilots choosing to delay or cancel flights despite external pressure, reinforcing that many of the best safety decisions never show up in accident statistics because nothing went wrong. Paul Craig shares data showing that from 2012 to 2023, approximately 82% of aviation accidents were survivable, shifting the focus toward preventing all accidents, not just fatal ones. Survivable accidents still represent breakdowns in judgment, awareness, or risk management, and often occur when pilots adopt an “it won’t happen to me” mindset.
A major theme of the episode is complacency, particularly as pilots gain experience. Wally and Bobby discuss how overconfidence can peak around key experience milestones, such as the first several hundred flight hours for pilots and around 1,000 hours for instructors. This complacency can quietly erode discipline in areas like preflight planning, fuel management, and risk assessment. The hosts emphasize that vigilance must be continuous, regardless of total time or aircraft type.
The discussion also explores the evolution of The Killing Zone and the decision to move its third edition to an aviation-focused publisher. The book’s continued relevance lies in its ability to wake pilots up to the statistically dangerous transition periods in their flying careers and encourage humility, preparation, and sound decision-making.
Throughout the episode, the group stresses the importance of practical understanding over memorization. Real safety comes from applying knowledge in dynamic, imperfect situations—whether navigating unusual airspace, managing fatigue, or making conservative go/no-go decisions. The episode closes with a strong reminder that aviation safety is a shared responsibility built through mentorship, education, and a commitment to putting life ahead of ego, schedule, or expectation.
00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three-mile final race straight in Runway two five join four mile final.
00:10
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with unitedflight com 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?
00:27
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:28
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. We have one of our favorite guests joining us again. We have Paul Craig on the show, the author of the Killing Zone, most recent, the third edition just launched on shelves and on the web. Welcome back to the show, Paul.
00:44
Paul Craig
Oh, gentlemen, thank you so much for having me back. It just, I can't tell you how happy I am to visit with you guys again tonight.
00:53
Bobby Doss
So Paul, I'm going to make a couple social media posts in the next 24 hours just to ring in some things about you and the book and my name in your new book. I'm humbled. Wally and I are both named in your new book. I wouldn't have an ego if I didn't have you talk about me first. Can you tell me what the book says about me and Wally? And why the hell would you put me and Wally's name in a book?
01:18
Paul Craig
I don't get it. Well, because you've earned it. I'll be honest with you. When I wrote this, I have some friends, some mentors, some companions, some people who know to knock me in the head sometimes and tell me when I'm going the wrong direction. And those are all people that we kind of share one thing in common and that is that we are in this aviation business and we have a passion for making it the best thing you can do, the funnest thing, the most adventuresome thing. But it has to be safe for those things to be true. So, so there's a bunch of folks that have worked in this area of aviation and aviation safety for many years.
02:03
Paul Craig
And I, and I wrote it up and I called them the Zone busters because we're talking about the killing zone and we can talk about what the killing zone is. But these are the people that are trying to knock down the killing zone and make it someday there won't be a killing zone. And the idea was to highlight that group. Well, I sent it to the publisher, and it came back in the proofs and it didn't say zone busters, it said acknowledgements. So I called up the publisher, and I said acknowledgement sells these people short. And acknowledgement is what somebody did to help with this particular project. But this is a list of people who've dedicated their very lives to making aviation fun, adventurous, but also safe. And so that's what this is really about.
02:47
Paul Craig
It's recognizing people who in big and small ways, most times unsung heroes. And so you know, Bobby, the attitudes that you portray and that you exude to your staff, to your flight instructors, to your students, the responsibility, it's the safety culture that you have developed that is something that really should be celebrated. And there's no question that you're a zone buster. And let's take Captain Mulhern over there. He's transitioning to the Dreamliner to be captain of a 787. Okay, that would be enough life for most people, but what does he do? He comes home and this week he's going to climb into a single engine piston airplane, for goodness sake, and do a teaching examination with the newest upcoming pilots. It's just such a think about it. And that's not even including this podcast that you guys do.
03:49
Paul Craig
It's such a gift to, to aviation and what you guys have been doing now for many years and it should be recognized. So, so, you know, it was no problem. It was, it was a no brainer. You guys are zone busters. Well, that's, I guess, yeah.
04:11
Wally Mulhern
Wow, that's pretty humbling, boy.
04:14
Paul Craig
Well, I didn't mean to embarrass anybody, but just think about it. How many 787 captains are also going to fly in single engine piston airplanes this week? I know several 787 captains and they don't do that. They take their days off, they put their feet up and they travel to somewhere else. But you're in there every day, Wally, making this happen.
04:35
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, well, I'm a geek when it comes to this stuff. I love it. And you know, going back to what we're, why we do this, I tell a lot of people on my check rides, I'll say when we get ready to go fly. I said we have three goals today. Number one goal, don't die. Number two goal, complete the checkride. Number three goal, have some fun. And if we get all three, it's a great day. If we get two, it's a good day. If we get one, at least we live to live another day. So far, all my flights, I've achieved at least one.
05:10
Paul Craig
Well, I don't think I have any check rides in my immediate future. But if, when I do, I'm coming to Houston, I'm going to schedule with you. All right, there you go.
05:21
Wally Mulhern
That sounds good.
05:22
Bobby Doss
You got to go through me first, Paul. I'm just kidding.
05:24
Paul Craig
Well, that goes without saying.
05:27
Bobby Doss
I get to control his day every blue moon, but that's about it. I'm lucky enough to. Well, I gotta say, I told you the story offline when you sent the email and the proof of the zone buster list. I was literally teared up, telling my wife I'm a guy who didn't even fly a plane nine and a half years ago, never touched a yoke, and here. Yeah, I think I work hard. Yes, safety is important. I'm trying hard. But just to be recognized by someone that literally I've never met outside of Zoom or teams, thinks that my work product and this podcast and my relationship to aviation is worth calling me out in the book, that's pretty freaking humbling.
06:14
Paul Craig
Your contribution goes way beyond zoom, Bobby.
06:17
Bobby Doss
Well, I appreciate that, but it is something that I say on this podcast to hopefully thousands and tens of thousands of people listening all over the world. You can make a positive impact, and you don't have to be literally in everybody's ear. You just gotta try to make people be safer pilots. Share your mistakes, share the things that you shouldn't have done so you can tell that story and maybe prevent someone else from learning launching it in imc. I. I know I told this story recently, Paul. You might not have heard it, but I was in Dothan, Alabama, which is a long way from my house, and was needing to get home. And I was in my 182 with two other people I care greatly about. And I had the get home itis like you wouldn't believe. And the ceilings were about 600ft.
07:09
Bobby Doss
It was dark. I just didn't feel it. And I think a lot of people would have gone. The get home itis was really bad. We stayed one more night in a hotel and we came home the next day. You know what? I just gotta think there's one of me somewhere that didn't make it home. And I will continue to tell this story forever because it might have been within my skill set to make it home, but I didn't have to. And I did make it home. And that's kind of what we'll never hear. Those stories. Those will never be in your statistics. But it could have just as easily gone the other way if I would have forced it. And the ego in that room, in that FBO was so freaking big. Like, I wanted to go. Somebody landed in a Saratoga.
07:52
Bobby Doss
I don't know if I told you this, Wally. Someone landed in a Saratoga. You own one of those? And then he had his wife and a three or four year old kid. They landed and then he got right back in the plane and took off in 600. Overcast. And I thought, man, if he can do it, why can't I do it? But he might have 10,000 hours in a Saratoga. I don't know. That Saratoga might have three autopilots. But I just didn't feel it. So I told the passengers we're not going home. And no one complained. And here we are to talk about it another day.
08:25
Paul Craig
Well, the thing that we talk about when we try to analyze aviation numbers and statistics is you can't count the accident that never happened. Right? Okay, so there you go. You, you made an accident not happen by being wise enough and courageous enough. Sometimes it does take some courage to just say no, especially in that situation where you're already at the fbo. Other people are going, the pressure's on. There's expectations. I'm sure there you had, you came home late, which means you didn't do what you were going to do at home that next day because you weren't home yet. So that was an expectation that you had to postpone or whatever. And those are sometimes very difficult decisions to make.
09:15
Paul Craig
You know, most people, you know, when we're just talking about it and we're sitting in, you know, a room with, you know, in a big chair with no turbulence, you know, it's easy to say, well, I wouldn't do that. And, and the fact of the matter is, you, when pressures mount up, sometimes we don't have the wherewithal to say no.
09:39
Bobby Doss
And, or a boss that's saying, let's go.
09:42
Paul Craig
Oh, I've been in that situation. I bought this airplane. And now you can't, you're saying I can't get home. There's sometimes. I used to fly the university president around a lot when he was in, when he was new in his office, he flew with me for the first time. And I said, when we're outside this airplane, you're the university president and you're my boss. About seven levels up the chime for me. But once we close this airplane door, I'm the boss. I'm going to make the decisions. There's no meeting, there's no game, there's no recruiting, there's no fundraising meeting that is more important than our safety. And he said, that's a deal. We're going to make. And he always honored that deal as far as so. So the accidents that never happen are hard. You know, we never know because they didn't happen.
10:26
Paul Craig
But you know, in the most recent version of the Killing Zone, I did two things, a couple of things that I didn't do in previous editions. One, the previous editions really focused on fatal accidents only. That's a small percentage. This time I wanted to focus on the non fatal accidents just as much. And it turns out that of the accidents that took place in the time frame from about 2012 to 2023, only I say only 17.5% were fatal accidents. Okay? Which means like 82%, somewhere in that range were survivable. And of those 72%, according to the NTSB, there was no injuries or only minor injuries, which means the vast majority of the accidents that took place in those years were survivable. Now what, how do you, what do you, how do you process that? Well, number one, 17% is too high.
11:27
Paul Craig
You know, if it's 1% too high, so it means we still have work to do. You can't just say, well, since 82% of accidents are survivable, I guess I'm not, shouldn't be too worried about it. No, no, you still need to be worried about it. But, but the point is that means that's that 82% that were survived. That's about 8,000 pilots. And you gotta figure some of those 8,000 pilots are listening to us right now. And I would say to them, you know, that I think that they're actually better pilots. Now some people will say, well, if you've been in an accident, I guess that means you're not a very good pilot. I would argue, think about it. Those 8,000 pilots can tell you firsthand that it can happen to you.
12:16
Paul Craig
There's a lot of pilots, while when you were making that decision to fly or not, there would be some who made the decision to go because they think they're smart, they're meticulous, they do great pre flights, they do great planning. It can't happen to us. Accidents are for those sloppy pilots, those careless guys. They happen and feel bad for those guys, but that's not me, right? And that's, we've learned that's an attitude, that invulnerable attitude is just not healthy. And, and so those 8,000 pilots who have survived an accident in the last 10 years, those are the ones that can tell us. Those are the guys that say, yeah, When I was driving to the airport that day, I had no idea I was going to be in an accident. I thought that I had done everything I thought I had planned.
13:04
Paul Craig
Well, I never thought this was going to happen. But it did happen. It does. It can happen to anyone. And that's a really important thing, because if you think that, you know, you'll just outsmart the situation and you'll be fine, you might, 8 out of 10 times. But those other 17% is what we're worried about a lot. So no question.
13:25
Bobby Doss
Yeah, and you're right about everything as it relates to these two guys. Close friends, spent a lot of time with them. They were saying all along, look, you're piloting command, whatever you do. We're not worried about it. But the pressure that I was putting on myself, it wasn't even them. It was me saying, I got to get these guys home. I know they have other things to do. One of them canceled a commercial flight or he'd be already on his way home. And I'm like, gosh, I gotta go. I gotta go. And it was. It was my own little devil inside. And luckily enough, I was able to squish it. Would I get home? Maybe? Did I get home the next day? I did.
14:00
Bobby Doss
And I just couldn't stop thinking about you and the books and all the listening I've done to the Killing Zone version, or first edition and second edition. And I just. I just want people to hear that, you know, one more day is not the end of the world.
14:14
Paul Craig
Right.
14:15
Bobby Doss
It's just one more day.
14:17
Paul Craig
I've also. I've also learned that the decision you're talking about is tougher, closer to the time you're supposed to leave. Right? Right. You said you were at the fbo. Other people were walking out and taking off. Okay? So making a no go decision right then has more pressure than doing it previous to that. And sometimes you just can't. The circumstances are just the way they are. But, like, say I've got tickets to a ball game on, you know, on Friday night, and it's Tuesday, and I'm looking at the weather from Tuesday. You know, if I wait until Friday, you know, two hours before kickoff, then I gotta go because I got people going, see the game, right? But if I can back up to Wednesday and say we need to have a backup plan, right. We can still get there by driving on Thursday.
15:05
Paul Craig
And we're going to have to make a call here. It's easier to make a go, no to go decision when you got Time and options. But when you get to the point where you have to go now to make it, you got no options. It's either go or no go. And like, it can be a lot of pressure. I mean, if you're going to go to, you know, your parents 50th wedding anniversary party and you're not going to be there, you're going to be social outcast on the family from now on, but you'd rather be there for their 51st wedding anniversary.
15:36
Bobby Doss
Amen.
15:36
Paul Craig
Right.
15:37
Bobby Doss
And what happened to me on that one? Honestly, now that you say that out loud, I'm sitting here thinking, you know, we didn't just wait to make that. We were rushing to make the decision to get out of there. This was one of those days where it was a little overcast, the skies burn off and broke out, and we just were doing everything we could to get to the airport as fast as we could so that we could make the decision with more pressure that we put on ourselves instead of taking a deep breath and like analyzing the whole situation.
16:05
Paul Craig
Well, let's all agree, the three of us and anybody within the sound of our voice, that anytime you're having to rush to do something, that's got to be a red flag at some point you got to say, wait a minute, hold on, why are we. Why am I doing this way? And even that's tough to ask that question of yourself sometimes.
16:21
Bobby Doss
But, well, again, I don't fault me and I don't fault anybody listening because it's truly what we do to ourselves every day. But as I hear you say that, I'm thinking, man, I actually was hurrying to try to get out of there, which just piles onto the Swiss cheese model for that one, which is crazy.
16:41
Paul Craig
Let me tell you a little bit about.
16:43
Bobby Doss
We talked almost six months ago maybe, and we thought the book would be out and it took a lot longer. The listeners, an update where we can buy it now. That's great. It's out on the web. We'll put the links in the show notes. Tell us a little bit about your experience with ASA and where we've come with the third edition.
17:01
Paul Craig
Sure. Thanks for the question that, for asking that question. Because the first two editions were published by McGraw Hill and I had great, I did 10 books with McGraw Hill, had great editors, great experience with them. But over time, they kind of got out of the aviation book business. And so they were not really interested in a third edition or marketing a third edition yet they had the rights to it. Right. If there was Gonna be a third edition. They had the rights to be the publisher. So I asked them to release me from that agreement. And it took a little while, a lot of attorneys, but they did and they didn't have to, but they did. And so I was eager to be a free agent, I guess and move to an aviation oriented publishing organization. So aviation supplies and academics.
17:52
Paul Craig
ASA and ASA2Fly.com is a company that I've worked with for a long time. I know their ownership. I'm still, maybe this is old fashioned, but I still like to be able to, you know, talk to somebody one to one, shake their hand, make an agreement without five lawyers getting in the way. And so that's the kind of atmosphere that I had with them. So I was very excited to switch to a new publisher even though there's no hard feelings with McGraw Hill. Like I said, I had a great experience with him. So that's part of the reason it's taken a while the. Bobby, it was you really that helped me understand the issue with the title the Killing Zone.
18:41
Paul Craig
You said it's very difficult to put that on the counter at the FBO next to the take a discovery flight and then buy this book called the Killing Zone. And I understand that my original title was the Danger Zone, but the original book came out at the end of the 90s. You might remember there was a song called the Danger Zone and a very famous aviation oriented movie.
19:04
Bobby Doss
Yeah, imagine that.
19:05
Paul Craig
So the pump is here. Decided we didn't want to flirt with the possible issues dealing with copyright infringement or whatever. So that's how it arrived at this title. And so of course I had the chance over the years, since we're in the third edition, to change it. But the idea is not to scare anybody, but to just wake them up. I think I say if you read that title and if I'm shaking you by the shoulder and saying, you know, this can be, this can happen to you. This is something that we all have to pay attention to. And if that jarring title does that then, and we get their attention, then I guess that is successful. I don't know that I'm going to give it out on their first flight.
19:53
Paul Craig
This is really the target audience is people who are in training new private pilots and pilots that have been building flight time. The Killing Zone is based on some numbers calculated from accident statistics that show that between 50 and 350 flight hours, that's when the rate of accidents is higher than in other times of a person's Flying career. And I said rate because it's important to know that you can't just count the number of accidents. There's obviously more private pilots than there are, say commercial pilots. So you'd think because of that there'd be more accidents among private pilots just because there's more of them. So you can't go at it that way. You gotta introduce the idea of exposure to risk. You know, how much risk do we take on?
20:41
Paul Craig
And the risk that usually is calculated in the industry is accidents per hundred thousand flight hours. So that's how we've done it and tried to break down and doing a statistical analysis of aircraft accidents. I'm not a statistician, I'm a flight instructor. And, and so it's tricky because, you know, a statistician would take a look at 100,000 flights and notice that there's only one accident out of 100,000 and say, well, that one is such an outlier, is such a non representative of the group, they would just toss it out, right? And they would, you know, if we had, we gave 100 students the private pilot written exam and average their scores. But one guy made a 27 because he was catching the flu that day and he just couldn't answer the questions, we would throw that 27 out.
21:33
Paul Craig
We wouldn't let that 27 drag down the bulk of the other test scores. But when you, but when you analyze accidents, you are focusing on just the outliers, which is not really a statistically sound thing to do, but that's all you have. Like I said, you can't count the accidents that never happen. So you've got to only focus on the ones that are there. So, so I make the case that you know, there, this is not perfect. And you have to at some point say, well either if it's not perfect, then do you do it at all? And I'm a flight instructor, so I say yes, if I can get close to understanding what's really going on. Even if it's not. I can't let perfect be the enemy of excellence. Right?
22:16
Paul Craig
So, so the statistics do show that the rate does have indications that there are more accidents, both non fatal and fatal accidents when pilots are between that 50 and 350 range. Now that's just not to say that a pilot with 349 hours is dangerous and a pilot with 351 hours is automatically safe. That's not what we're saying. And we're just looking at Past events. So anybody that might look at accident statistics or go through the book, remember that these accidents that have already happened can't hurt us anymore. They've already happened. They don't predict our future. They don't. Because something happened in the past doesn't mean it's going to happen to me. Just because I'm at the same flight hours as somebody who was. Every flight depends on the safety that pilot brings to it.
23:08
Paul Craig
Just like the decision you made to fly in that weather or not. That decision created a scenario where there was not going to be an accident. And so a small portion of the book is devoted to that accident work. It's not a statistics book. It's a lesson book on how to make this the flying fantastic and not dangerous. So, so yeah, there's where it all came from. The first edition brought, bought accident numbers from 1983. And I started, I used 1983 as my starting point because that was the first year I was a flight instructor. So that's 40 years now of trends and accident and lessons learned. The emphasis on lessons learned.
24:04
Bobby Doss
Wow. And that's a ton of data, a ton of information. It's, it's always reflective for me to just these conversations, I think of a thousand things that I could do different or better to make my own decisions. And the show that we have in the future is about solos and being ready for solos and how prepared really are solo students. And it's more about that mindset and that decision making which I think we spend. So maybe I'm talking myself into saying maybe I am a zone buster. But, but I would say today I onboarded four new flight instructors. You got to think these are young men and women. I, it was a great. I have a great group coming on board right now.
24:48
Bobby Doss
And I always, in my day of onboarding with them, I talk about the four phases that a flight instructor goes through. I think all flight instructors go through a phase where they get stumped in the first few hundred hours.
24:59
Paul Craig
Right?
25:00
Bobby Doss
They, some students might know more than them. They might be. They might train a commercial student that knows more about P Factor than they do. Who cares? It's part of the learning. The second phase that they go through is a little bit of a confident phase. They, you know, they kind of get. That's the 600,000 hours phase. I think they get really confident that they don't have any questions they're getting asked daily that they don't really know the answers. To at a thousand hours, I think they get a little cocky. And I jokingly say they think they own the flight school. Everything's just in op, nothing's, they can't describe a squawk anymore. It's just broken. But I tell them, and I told these four people today about you.
25:44
Bobby Doss
I pulled your signed book out of my work office and I said, look, Paul's become a friend of mine and the CFI killing zone is a thousand hours. I don't know if you believe that, but I made it up. And, and it is to me it's a thousand hours. It's where they kind of like the pilots who get a little cocky and a little bit more in skill and a little bit more ego. It's where they could miss the mark. It's where they could get just a little lazy, a little complacent. And I drive it home that a thousand hours is your killing zone. Now we gotta be diligent, we gotta be ready. And I beat that into every new flight instructor that I have.
26:22
Bobby Doss
Sorry if I infringed on your copyright, but man, I think it makes them open their eyes and say, look, I'm not going to get lazy and hopefully they don't.
26:31
Paul Craig
That's fantastic. Bobby. I, that is a great way to transition and explain these things to new flight instructors and the new, I mean you can't, we won't have future aviation without flight instructors, so we got to bring them up. Right? And sounds like to me you're doing it trying.
26:52
Bobby Doss
Wally. What about story time?
26:56
Wally Mulhern
Well, you know, as I listen to all this, you know, I, I, I reflect on me and I go, okay, you know, as an airline pilot, have I gotten complacent? And I, I would like to say that I'm over the hump, but I there, I, Complacency creeps in every day. Every day. You know, I'm in a highly automated airplane with multiple crew members. So it is something that we have to fight every day. And you know, even at the airline level, we do something called threat forward. I flew from Honolulu to Houston last night on a red eye. And you know, we sit before we leave, we talk about potential threats on the flight. You know, the first one is, this is a red eye.
27:46
Wally Mulhern
We're leaving at 8 o' clock at night and we're going to be flying during our window of circadian low, right? Wackles. We call those wocls. You know, it's, it's not normal. We Want to be at sleep at 2 in the morning, but at least two of us are going to be awake. One guy's going to be back asleep, but two of us are going to be awake. So I, this is something that I don't care how much flight time you have, I don't care how much experience you have. This, it's, it is a little bit of awakening. You know, I'll bet you Tom Brady's last few years, he still worked really hard. He was probably the first one there and the last one to leave practice. So this is something we can't ever let down. I, I talk to applicants a lot of times.
28:41
Wally Mulhern
I said, if, is there some way that we can guarantee that we're not going to be in an airplane accident today? And they always say, oh well, we can pre flight better. We can do this and this and we can do all this. And I say, but does that guarantee us? And the answer is no, it doesn't guarantee us. It helps stack the deck. I mean, we're improving the odds by doing all that. But the only way to guarantee it is to not go fly. And we've already accepted the fact that's not acceptable. We've accepted some sort of risk. So we are just trying to mitigate risks. And I think the second, you know, the day that we say, well, this couldn't happen to me, that's a huge, huge red flag.
29:33
Paul Craig
Yeah, well, 100 for sure.
29:36
Bobby Doss
Paul. What I know you came locked and loaded with one of your favorite stories to tell that you haven't told before on the show.
29:43
Paul Craig
Well, it came to me because I was listening to you guys a couple of shows back, and one of the things that is so in our forefront of our mind and so important for us to be able to do as aviation leaders and educators is to try to help our students and current pilots go from a stage where they're just trying to memorize a bunch of stuff rote learning to a point where they can actually understand and then even correlate their knowledge to different things. And that really kind of was eaten at me after listening to the show for a couple hours. And it was one of your steps, and your last step was to be able to take this into the real world and do an application. So this kind of came to me because it's exactly what you were saying.
30:34
Paul Craig
Can we make the move? Can we jump the gap between just memorizing a bunch of stuff and really understanding it? And before I tell you the story, it has to do with airspace. And as a flight instructor, I thought that teaching airspace was maybe one of the more difficult things to do because you were asking people to understand something that they could not see. You know, the upper level of a class D airspace is not really marked in the sky. It's invisible. It's not there. You can't see it, you can't put your hands on it. But you're supposed to be able to picture it in your mind's eye. And so that's hard to know. If I teach you something, it's hard for me to know what's in your mind's eye.
31:18
Paul Craig
And so since it's difficult, it seems like that the teaching of airspace kind of boils down, kind of devolves into just memorizing a bunch of stuff, right? How wide is a sea? How tall is the sea? What's the clouds? And so it's all things that you could probably answer a question on a multiple choice test, or maybe even a point blank question on an oral exam when it comes time to actually applying it. Okay. So the memory came to me, was the time that I thought I needed to go. I did go up to meet Chuck Yeager. Now, Chuck Yeager was the individual who, in the Bell X1, was the first person to fly faster than Mach 1 and became known as the fastest man alive.
32:03
Paul Craig
And at the time of this story, I was actually living in eastern North Carolina and about an hour's flight time from Kitty Hawk. And every year, on the anniversary of the Wright Brothers com, December 17, the Society up there would induct somebody new into their hall of fame and the year in question. They were going to invite Chuck Yeager to come, put him in the hall of fame, and have him come to the ceremony and make a speech. So I'm thinking, this is great. I need to fly up there to meet Chuck Yeager when he goes into the hall of fame. And so I made plans to do that. The problem was that year, the 17th, was on a weekday. And, you know, I do have a job, and I needed to do that job.
32:43
Paul Craig
And so I've learned that if you're trying to skip out of work, one of the best ways to do that and not get in trouble is just invite your boss along. And he was a former Air Force pilot, so he was more than happy to go meet Chuck Yeager. But then he was worried that he was going to get in trouble, so he invited his boss, and we brought the college president along. So the three of us got up real early, and we Flew toward Kitty Hawk early in the morning. And to get out to the North Carolina banks, you got to go down an airway that goes between two restricted areas. And it's actually narrower there than most airways because you got to kind of slip through, and we're on our way.
33:20
Paul Craig
And I had already checked the notams and found out that particular day, the FAA was expecting a large number of people to fly in to see Chuck Yeager. And so they had driven their portable or their. Their movable control tower, which actually is a truck. They've got a truck, and the bed of the truck is built up on three sides with windows, so it looks like a control tower, but it's not on the top of a tower. It's the truck. And they use this sometimes to. To go to large events like an air show or maybe a natural disaster, where there's not a tower, but they need one for. For a short period of time. So they'd set up this temporary tower at First com airport. And I had the frequency and all.
34:06
Paul Craig
Now, it's important to remember, and this is the part where airspace understanding kind of is. Kind of got a little murky when you. When you have a control tower. The job of control tower controllers, basically, they do other things, but basically their job is to issue landing and takeoff clearances. All right? The airspace that was at First com that day hadn't changed airspace, is based on federal law, and Congress hadn't acted that morning to change the airspace. So the airspace at Kitty Hawk was the same as it always was. It just had this temporary tower. So we had this unusual circumstance where we had a controlled airport sitting inside uncontrolled airspace. Now, that's not typical, because if you have enough traffic to warrant a tower, you'd usually bring this partition to get the airspace brought down to the surface. The controlled airspace.
35:03
Paul Craig
There are places where class E touches the ground, right? There are places where class D, C, and B touches the ground. But here in my house, I'm actually sitting in uncontrolled airspace. I'm up here on the second floor. So I'm above the surface, and I'm in an area where it's class G, where I live, at least down here, low. Okay? So I'm flying into Kitty Hawk. I know all this stuff, and I hear a guy in front of me. He's flying a Piper. I think maybe he's 10 miles in front of me. He had read the notam, too. So I overheard this conversation. He calls up and says, first com Tower, this is Piper 1.223Alpha, inbound from the west to land at First com.
35:46
Paul Craig
The guy in the truck, the control tower, he says, three four Alpha, the weather at Kitty Hawk is two miles and fog. Enter and report left downwind for Runway three. Okay, now let that sink in a second. There was a long pause and the guy came back. The other pilot came back and said, first flight tower, request special VFR to land at first flight. Now, when he said that, the tower guy and I knew he didn't really understand the circumstances. The only time you need a special VFR is to fly into controlled airspace when the visibility is less than three miles. But Kitty Hawk Airport was not in controlled airspace. It was still in uncontrolled airspace. And that uncontrolled airspace went from the surface up to 700ft above the surface. Okay, so a special VFR was not needed.
36:45
Paul Craig
Now, I always thought the controller could have been a little bit more forthcoming by saying, instead of saying, when this request was made, the controllers came back and said, 34 Alpha, unable, special VFR entering report left downwind on wave three. He might have said, you know, it's not necessary to have a special vfr. But he didn't. He said, unable. Well, this kind of threw the pilot off. And he asked again, this time a little bit more forcefully and very frustrated. No requesting special VFR land at first flight. And the controller said the same thing. Unable, special vfr. It wasn't necessary. So he wasn't able to give it to him. Right. So then the pilot just was, I guess, baffled. At some point I didn't hear from him again. And then in about three minutes, I see a Piper going the other way past me.
37:39
Paul Craig
The guy didn't know what to do, turned around and flew home. Okay, so when I got to where he was, I did the same thing. You know, three nine Bravo, I'm inbound for landing, and I got the same report whether Kitty Hawk is two miles in fog. And we're going to report left downwind, Runway three. Okay, so now I'm trying to figure out, how would I do that? It's 2 miles visibility. I can't fly in controlled airspace VFR with that. So I'm going to have to only fly in uncontrolled airspace. At the time, I was in the clear, but when I got closer to the coast, the fog was coming in off the water. Right.
38:12
Paul Craig
And so if you look at the chart, and I know we're not looking at it, but there's that magenta shaded line circle around the airport and that's the symbol that tells you that the controlled airspace comes down but stops 700ft above the surface. Right? So if you get below 700ft within the surface, you'd be in uncontrolled airspace. And in the daytime, you only need one mile in clear clouds, and I had two miles. So the controller was telling me this indirectly. So the far aim, by the way, doesn't give us a hard and fast pattern altitude. It says, you know, the typical amount is a thousand, but it can be anywhere for piston driven airplanes between 600 and 1500. So I'm flying out over the water, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean.
39:03
Paul Craig
So it's one of those rare times when my altimeter, which reads msl, was also reading AGL because I was over the ocean, right? So I picked 600ft to be my downwind, which would be 100ft lower than the boundary line between class G below and controlled airspace, class E above. So I entered and reported downwind for Runway three at 600 AGL, which was 600 MSL at that moment, and flew my normal pattern. Okay. At some point, I got clearance to land. When I was getting ready to turn base, I hear another airplane come on and say, I can't remember the number inbound from the west landing, Kitty Hawk. It was Chuck Yeager. He was on the radio and he was behind me.
39:51
Paul Craig
Now, I forgot to mention that Jaeger was coming to the induction into the hall of fame with a little bit of a flare. He didn't just drive up and walk in. No, he decided he would set a world speed record while he attended this induction ceremony. So he had taken off from Edwards Air Force Base in California and flew across the country in the middle of the night to arrive at Kitty Hawk. He had the National Aeronautics association representatives standing by to mark his landing and make it, you know, official that it was a world record. I should point out that nobody had ever actually flown from Edwards Air Force to Kitty Hawk. So he didn't have a time to beat any. Any number he landed with. That was the world record, okay? He was going to have another world record under his belt.
40:41
Paul Craig
All right? So as I'm turning base, Jaeger speaks to me and says, you're going to get out of my way. Right? He's. I don't want to hold up a world record here. Looking back on it sounds like to me, I think he was telling me to go around. I think he was telling me to just to get out of it completely out of the way. Now, the at Kitty Hawk, there's at First com Airport. It's a very narrow and short Runway. And the turnoff to the very small area where the. Where the parking is within maybe 200ft of the end of the Runway. If you miss that turnoff, you got to go all the way to the other end and turn around, like in a half circle at the far end.
41:18
Paul Craig
So kind of I knew that if I missed that turnoff, I'd be at the other end. Jaeger would land behind me, and then I wouldn't be there when he got off the plane because I'd be still tracks and in behind it. So I tried to employ my. My short field landing skills. All those things we practiced all those times. Maybe this is a good time to let that pay off. So you're not supposed to land with the brakes held. And I don't know that I did, but it was really close because I did make the turnoff. Jaeger's now on base. I make the turnoff, and that's when I realized the place is filled with airplanes.
41:55
Paul Craig
Everybody has come to see Jaeger, and the only place left to put an airplane is on that little extension between the Runway and the ramp because it was so full. And that's when I realized I pulled into the space that was reserved for Jaeger. So I shut off the engine and unceremoniously, these five guys come over, take hold of my airplane, and roll me off into the grass and over into a shallow ditch. At which point, now, while that was happening, Jaeger did miss the turnoff. He was in a bigger airplane. And by the time he came back and taxed into the position where I was, had just been before I got thrown off into the ditch. So we jumped out, ran over.
42:38
Paul Craig
So were there when he came down the back steps of the plane and were there to greet him as he came in. And then I always thought that other pilot, if that other pilot had understood the airspace, he would have been there before me and he would have taken the OS. I don't know where I would have parked. I would have missed the whole Jaeger thing altogether. So this was the only time I can think of that another pilot not really understanding the airspace was a benefit to me. But really, that's what we shouldn't hang our hate on. I was able to have Chuck Yeager autograph my copy of his autobiography that day and got a chance to talk to him a little bit.
43:13
Paul Craig
So I was having to take my airspace knowledge that if I had only just memorized a bunch of facts and figures, I don't know, that I would have been able to figure out that gap and that turn that downwind and what the controller was really telling me, all that would have been something I probably just would have missed. And that one pilot, I guess, did, because he left. He just gave up and flew away. So, I don't know, to me, that's an example of how just the book knowledge is not enough. You got to be able to really apply this, and you got to be able to come up with situations. I've had students say, well, can you, like, go over all the stuff that I'll have to deal with?
43:53
Paul Craig
And I said, well, no, there'll be hundreds of things that you'll face as a pilot that I don't, that I can't think of and give you a remedy. You got to think for yourself. You got to be able to understand these things on your own. That's what piloted command is. Right. So anyway, that was just one example I thought of how maybe we got away from the book and into the real world.
44:15
Wally Mulhern
Well, you know, I find that my checkrides, obviously, they evolve and they're. My oral is probably totally different now than it was three years ago. But I will ask every private commercial, I'll say, tell me, what is once, what is density? Altitude. They all give me the book answer, pressure altitude corrector for non standard temperature.
44:38
Paul Craig
Okay, great.
44:38
Wally Mulhern
What does that mean? Well, how do we get pressure altitude, right? And most of them don't know it. And I'll go out and I'll say, well, let's go out in an airplane and hop in it. Tell me, tell me how we get pressure altitude. And they're doing these mathematical formulas. We're using calculus, we're using trigonometry and everything. I'm going, you know, you just want to say, well, why not just dial your altimeter down to 2992 and read it? Yeah, yeah.
45:06
Paul Craig
That didn't take a trigonometry right, exactly. Well, they were just trying to impress you with your calculus skills.
45:13
Wally Mulhern
Oh, I, I get, I, I, I'm sure they were.
45:16
Paul Craig
At that moment, though, your calculus skills had little to do with the answer to your question.
45:21
Bobby Doss
Yeah, yeah, well, and these new instructors today, they didn't want to answer any of my questions. You thought, you would have thought they were all deer in headlights. They were like, you go, no, you go.
45:31
Paul Craig
The only reason you thought that was because they were deer in the headlights.
45:34
Bobby Doss
They, they were deer in the headlights. Great story. Being a west Virginia boy, Chuck Yeager is a name I've always known and been fond of. I have a signed picture of him in my office. And I hear he did a lot of cool things and he was a great aviator. But I do also, I have also heard stories he was a little cocky and wanted people to get out of his way more than.
46:00
Paul Craig
Well, that's if I have firsthand experience with that.
46:05
Wally Mulhern
What kind of airplane was he in, by the way?
46:06
Paul Craig
You know. You know, I knew you're going to ask that, Wally. I don't remember. It was a plane that a company had donated for the flight as a promotional thing. It might have been a Piper Meridian, but don't, I don't know. Okay. But it was a turboprop. I know that for sure. And yeah, they were using the airplane and the world record to tie into. Maybe they were bringing this to playing to the market, I don't know. So we got Chuck Egger to do it. So I, I, I'll. That's a great question. I'll see what I can do to figure it out.
46:40
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. Okay.
46:43
Bobby Doss
Well, as always, Paul, it's great to have you on the show. I'm sure you'll be back for a fourth or fifth or sixth visit with us and maybe a fourth edition and maybe other books in your future. One of the coolest things too, for me, I never will forget. Wally and I were trying to come up with a name for this podcast five, six years ago. Captain was in it for a while. I don't remember all the other versions that we had, but somehow some way behind the prop came to me. It wasn't being used on social media. The URL was available, meaning the domain name, and I jumped all over it. And you're wearing a hat right now with our logo I made in my living room on a laptop. Wally's wearing the hat. I've got it on my sleeve.
47:30
Bobby Doss
Here we are, a global podcast with amazing authors like you supporting the show and supporting aviation. I can't stress enough how humbled I am to be a part of this crew on this show right now. And want to thank you for all your contributions and the recognition in your book. Can't wait to meet you in person, get my signed copy of this version of the book. And I'm humbled that on your Amazon page, you're wearing my hat.
48:00
Paul Craig
That's true.
48:00
Bobby Doss
Wally's hat. Wally. Wally bought those hats.
48:03
Paul Craig
Well, yeah, I need to order me another one. I wear it all the time, so I'm kind of wore it out and people always ask me about it.
48:09
Bobby Doss
It's an amazing accomplishment that I'm even able to talk to you, Paul. And I know that's probably humbling for you, but it's true.
48:15
Paul Craig
You're overstating. You're overstating it.
48:17
Bobby Doss
Me and Wally love what we do or we wouldn't be doing it because we're not making enough money because we don't make any money doing it. And I just want to thank all the listeners for listen share the show. Go buy the book from ASA show Paul some love. Learn a little bit more about The Killing Zone 3rd Edition always fly safely and stay behind the prop.
48:43
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.
Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/