This episode of Behind the Prop breaks down the myths surrounding Part 61 vs. Part 141 flight training. Bobby, Wally, and Jay explain that neither path is inherently better, faster, or cheaper—it all depends on the student and the school. They clarify that structure doesn’t guarantee quality, stage checks are valuable (not harmful), and failures don’t impact long-term careers. The key takeaway: success in flight training comes from choosing a well-run school with strong instructors and support—not from the regulation you train under.
In this episode of Behind the Prop, Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhern are joined by United Flight Systems Vice President Jay Robinson to break down one of the most debated topics in flight training: Part 61 vs. Part 141. If you’ve spent any time researching flight schools, you’ve likely heard strong opinions—141 is faster, cheaper, more structured… or maybe rigid and bureaucratic. So what’s actually true?
The answer: it depends on the student, not just the regulation.
This episode dives deep into the biggest misconceptions surrounding both training paths. The team explains that while Part 141 offers structure and FAA oversight, that structure doesn’t automatically mean better outcomes. Likewise, Part 61 isn’t inherently more flexible, faster, or cheaper. What really drives success is the quality of the school, the instructors, and how well the program supports each individual student.
They also tackle common myths like:
Along the way, Wally brings an airline pilot’s perspective, reinforcing that hiring departments don’t care whether you trained under Part 61 or 141—they care about your skills, consistency, and professionalism.
Whether you’re just getting started or evaluating your next rating, this episode will help you cut through the noise and make a smarter, more confident training decision.
Bottom line: It’s not about the regulation—it’s about the people and the process behind your training.
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 the 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.
00:23
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
00:24
Wally Mulhearn
Hey, Bobby, how are you?
00:26
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. Something that we deal with regularly are the differences in the debate between part 61 and part 141. Tonight is all about busting the myths and debunking the mysteries which we tried to do in an early episode. Wally, it was episode 20. We went through a lot of details around part 61 and part 141. I remember the prep for that show was like ridiculous. I think I spent 20 hours preparing for that show for a 30 minute episode. But I think it was very helpful and if it's still very valuable. But today we've got our guest on the show, Jay Robinson, my vice president at United Flight Systems and a good friend. Almost 15 years of flight school experience working at Part 141, Part 61 schools. Jay, thanks for joining us tonight.
01:18
Jay Robinson
Absolutely. Bobby, thank you for having me. And Wally, always good to work with you as well.
01:22
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah.
01:23
Bobby Doss
So I hate the Internet when it comes to this kind of stuff because I don't think the information is always good. And you, if you're listening to this show and you have anything to do with flight training at all, you probably have heard a lot of pros and cons, this and that from par 61, 141. And you've probably heard strong opinions that part 141 is faster, part 141 is cheaper, part 141 is better. Or maybe you've heard part 141 is more rigid, bureaucratic. It's a nightmare. Don't do it. You got to pay in adv. Is that all true or is that hanger talk? And we're going to dive deep with that in this episode with Mr. Robinson, who's going to tell us what he thinks. Jay, you've worked at a bunch of different schools and primarily two really big flight schools in Houston, Texas.
02:10
Bobby Doss
What is your feeling around par 141 versus par 61 and is the Internet actually correct?
02:19
Jay Robinson
I think the core of 141 and 61, I think we hear a lot of things about why one or the other is better. What really matters, the end of the day, is what's better for that individual student in their individual situation. And I think some of the questions that we've got lined up tonight we'll dive into that. But I say the short version of the answer to that is it depends.
02:40
Bobby Doss
It does depend. And today's goal is not to sell you one idea or another. The school that Jay and I both work for is a part 141 flight school. But we do a large majority of our training par 61. And I think our philosophy between Jay and Bobby is we're going to do what's best for the student. And there's many caveats. If you go back and listen to episode 20 you'll understand why there's some benefits to a par 61 student for private. Why? I think the resounding feedback is that instrument par 141 is the best for the student and then commercial is just going to really depend on a lot of things. But today we really want to clear up misconceptions and help students make a better, more informed decision.
03:20
Bobby Doss
Before you get started, we had, I don't know how many people you had last weekend, Jay, at the orientation, but we host these orientations and there's people are coming in from all variations of interest and history with aviation or flight training. Most people have no idea the difference between part 141 and part 61 when they show up to those orientations and they're so confused. They've read something, they've heard something, they have feelings. But it's very misinformed. Today we're going to break all that structure versus reality down in this part. One of misconceptions with part 141 training, is it really better than part 61? So what do you think, Jay?
04:02
Jay Robinson
So ultimately I think, you know, if we say the first statement that we hear from a lot of people is that just flat out part 141 training is better than part 61 training. I want to clear that up. Part 141 is not inherently better. The key is it's a more structured and more standardized way to conduct flight training. And let's dive a little bit into what that means. Ultimately that means to be a 141 school, you have to go through a process to become approved by the faa. You have to have what's called a training course outline that's approved by the FAA that specifies exactly what training at a minimum is to be provided. You have to have a training syllabus that is either denoted in that training course outline or a pre approved syllabus. That you specify in that training course outline.
04:53
Jay Robinson
And then really the biggest part of it is that the FAA actually starts to have some formal oversight, some audits, compliance, checking. All of these things happen. And all of these are great things about working with a Part 141 school. But I think the real key is that structure and standardization don't necessarily inherently equal quality. I think it's all about how all of that is applied for each student. And I think really quality of a school comes down to a few factors. I would say instructional quality is probably the number one factor. The quality and the consistency of the instruction that's being given. What's their aircraft availability like? What's their instructor availability like? How's the customer service experience? How is the school supporting their students and really trying to provide them with all the tools they need along the way on their aviation journey?
05:46
Jay Robinson
And then how does the school actually manage the training? You know, you can have a very well organized school that's not part 141, deliver a great experience, and you can have a disorganized 141 school with a terrible experience.
06:01
Bobby Doss
So Wally said it a thousand times, plus maybe that you given me my instrument check ride. That was probably in 2017 at the same flight school that Jay and I both work at today. You've seen a lot, and this wasn't teed up. What changes have you seen in the way our fly school conducts stuff? And we're the same school. We were par 141, par 61 back then. I happened to take my instrument checkride under par 61 because I already had a lot of cross country done. What is it that you've seen? The evolution of good or bad. Knocking on my feelings at United Flight Systems in the past almost seven, eight years.
06:48
Wally Mulhearn
One word, and that's standardization amongst the instructors, I should say, you know, you have a wide variety of airplanes, so you know, all your airplanes aren't the same, so we can't really do anything about that. But as far as the standardization from the instructors, there was a time where at your flight school I could tell who an applicant's instructor was by the way they recovered from a stall, if it was one particular instructor, because this particular instructor was afraid of stalls, I think. And so I would get the applicant and we would clear the area, we would slow the airplane down, and we get within about 10 knots of stall speed, and they would recover. And I would say, okay, let's, let's take it to a full stall, like the acs. So. But anyway, that's not happening anymore. The, the. Everybody is pretty standard.
08:00
Wally Mulhearn
And one thing that tells me that you are standard is sometimes I hear some of the instructors in the hallway whining a little bit about having to be standardized. And that's a good thing when I say that.
08:15
Jay Robinson
Agreed.
08:16
Wally Mulhearn
That's a very good thing when I hear that. And I usually, if I have the opportunity will take, pull them in and say, let me explain to you why this is a good thing. My day job, my other job, I work at an airline that has 17,500 pilots. Just, just wrap your head around that. 17,500 pilots. And most of the time when I go fly, I have. Well, I won't say most time, but maybe half the time I go fly a trip, I've never met the person I'm about to go fly halfway across the world with. And because of standardization, it's safe.
08:59
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I would say it's really been about a two year journey that we've really tried to focus on standardization. And my question is you do par 141 checkrides with us. You do part 61 checkrides. Is the standardization for either of those checkrides any different?
09:18
Wally Mulhearn
No, no. From an examiner standpoint, there are just some very minor things that we do differently. We don't. If It's a part 141 student, one of the documents we're required to see is the graduation certificate and it has to be within 60 days. And if we see that, we basically don't have to do the logbook audit. That's basically the onus of that is on you, the flight school. So from that standpoint, it's actually a little bit easier to do a 141 checkride because I may save. If you got a good logbook. I saved two minutes.
10:05
Bobby Doss
There you go. And is it a fair statement to say that a really good par 61 flight school could outperform a par 141 flight school?
10:16
Wally Mulhearn
Absolutely. Yeah.
10:17
Jay Robinson
Yeah.
10:17
Bobby Doss
And so it really has nothing to do with the parts. And I think that's when I get emails or questions from listeners on the show or people come into the flight school and they say, hey, we're going to go to this college program. And the college program, they're part 141. I. I assume we should do part 141 for private before we go. I'm like, no, it's really no different. It's a variation.
10:41
Wally Mulhearn
Right.
10:42
Bobby Doss
I can go to home School and elementary school. I can go to part 61 for my junior high school and I can go to part 141 from my high school. Each rating is that as an example. Each rating can be a different type of part based on the regulations. And I do think it's all up to the school how they operate, how they work, and are they standard in the ways they do things. So a second misconception is that it's faster to be a par 141 flight school. I am a sales and marketing guy prior to owning a flight school. This is a marketing statement by people's websites where those schools want to hook you in that faster equals cheaper. I don't think those two things apply. Jay, you've worked at both. Is it always faster to train part 140?
11:33
Jay Robinson
Absolutely not. And I think a lot of the misconception around that comes from kind of the providers of a lot of those programs versus it inherently being any faster. I mean, I think where a lot of this comes from, where the ability to put down on paper that a 141 program is faster, is that yes, part 141 absolutely has lower hour minimums, but the reality is the minimum is not the average. I mean, again, Wally, we asked this, is your 141CheckRide any easier or harder than your part 61CheckRide for any given certification?
12:06
Wally Mulhearn
No, absolutely not. And in fact, once we get past the qualification phase of it, I probably totally forget if we're under 141 or 61. It's all the same from my standpoint.
12:20
Jay Robinson
Absolutely. The point being is that the applicant, at the end of the day, regardless of which program they go through, has to have the same skill set, the same knowledge, the same level of proficiency. So while the minimums on paper are lower, that doesn't necessarily mean that for any individual student that's really going to come out. Now, I think there's a lot of organizational habits that more 141 schools tend to have than 61 schools. But that's certainly correlation, not causation there. Again, I think how quickly you get through the program, I mean, if we talk about from a logistics perspective on the flight school side, I think aircraft and instructor availability are the big ones there. And then just how the school takes care of those students and guides those students on the student side.
13:05
Jay Robinson
I mean, if you're super available and can train at a frequency that makes sense for you. Again, we'll talk about why the maximum pace you can do is not always the right thing, but the combination of that and your study habits and then how prepared you show up for each lesson. I think the reality is, you know, if we kind of break it down in the different courses that most of our students go through for private, honestly, we end up well within the margin of error when we compare our 61 students and our 141 students. And I think most schools that offer both types of program would probably be in the same boat. Instrument is where 141 is really going to shine.
13:45
Jay Robinson
Ultimately the minimum actual training, again slightly lower minimums, but we lose that requirement for the student to go out and build all of that pic cross country time that they would have to under part 61. So you know, if you conduct your training, let's say you get your private and then you go fly for fun for a couple years, you do those trips to Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, New Orleans and you have all that cross country time, then more power to you. Let's look at part 61 instrument. But for most students who come straight out of private, taking away that time building burden is going to get them through significantly faster. And then when we get to commercial, very different.
14:26
Jay Robinson
It's either 2:50 total time as your top billing line item for a 61 commercial, or it's about 120 hours of training under a part 141 syllabus. At the end of the day we're going to do the math. And again, that's a reason that we're really committed to offering both types of training. We want to look at your logbook and see which of those two methods is going to get you there the fastest. So saying they're inherently faster is definitely a no. They absolutely can be faster, especially in the case of instrument training for somebody who's just finished a private. But again, the individual school matters much more than being part 141 or part 61.
15:03
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I always said this. I say it all the time. Speed is marketing, it's not reality. Everybody's availability is different. Everybody's wallet is probably sized a little differently. And those two things mean the most about success. And then the third thing is always going to be motivation and coming prepared. And if you can't do all three of those things, it doesn't matter if you train par 61 or 141, it's going to take a long time for you to be successful. And the only people that I see finishing really faster, if that's the word we're going to use, is a par 141 student who trains at a well structured par 141 flight school, who gets someone with a lot of availability, who comes prepared every day through that rating and then takes their check ride.
15:52
Bobby Doss
Everything else is really just paperwork and marketing as far as I'm concerned. I don't even know if UFS would be a Part 141 flight school if the previous owner wouldn't have done it. It's a lot of time and effort and money. Jay and I as executives at our company still spend a ton of time working with the FAA to stay approved. Is it a great benefit? Yes. I think every student should feel comfortable at a par 141 flight school. Doesn't mean you should feel uncomfortable at a par 61 flight school. But a par 141 flight school that's regulated and approved by the FAA, you know, there's some inspections and there's some other things happening at that flight school that aren't happening as a requirement at those part 61 flight schools. Misconception number three. Does part 141 mean more red tape and less flexibility?
16:44
Bobby Doss
Jay, go ahead.
16:45
Jay Robinson
Yeah, absolutely. So that's another one. I hear a lot. I hear the common misconception that oh, training under part 141 is so much more work, there's so much more that we have to do. There's so many more compliance tasks. There is more documentation. I mean there's no question there. But that documentation is really, in terms of how it impacts you as a student, has a lot more to do with how that documentation is handled. Ultimately as a Part 141 student at our flight school, the only real difference you're going to feel in terms of kind of having to go through some red tape and deal with some additional documentation requirements is when you and your instructor complete a lesson and they log that lesson into the system, you have to sign it with a four digit PIN that you create in our training system.
17:31
Jay Robinson
And then as Wally mentioned earlier talking about the checkrides, at the very end of your training, we have to generate a graduation certificate for you based on our part 141 approval. But on the day to day for you as a student, it's not going to feel significantly different. You know, I hear people say all the time, oh, 141 is completely inflexible. Like we can't apply any level of creativity. We have to do things in sequence, in order. We can't skip anything. And while I'll say that you can't skip Anything. Again, I think that's a little bit of an overstatement. Like, even if you go and look, you know, letter of the law, by the syllabus that we use, it says it's recommended that we do all the training scenarios in order.
18:13
Jay Robinson
But if you get approval from a chief or assistant chief instructor, you can complete scenarios out of order or out of phase. Now you can't have somebody start doing solo flights out of phase. That wouldn't make any sense. But there is some level of flexibility. We just have a little bit more of a burden of doing things by the book.
18:32
Bobby Doss
And for us, we built a team probably two years ago, now that we call student success. It's really that team that kind of nurtures people through the system. And I think one big misconception that's not really on this list that we're talking about is syllabus versus tco. Lots of people don't understand TCO because it's an acronym and it's not even aviation. But it stands for training course outline. Me and Jay wrote our training course outline. It's obviously modified from 20 plus years of being at our flight school. But the training course outline dictates the framework by which we train a part 141 student. That training course outline defines the syllab going to follow. Yes, we stay in track with that.
19:16
Bobby Doss
But one thing that's really cool about our training course outline is we've got the FAA approval that if you take the Cessna training kit or a King school training kit, the online course, that IT foregoes the FAA federal regulation requirement of 35 hours of one one ground school being delivered if you complete that course. And that's a huge benefit for our students. And, and it's one of those things that my predecessor thought of, not me, that we continue to rely on today because it's one of those factors that makes it more economical for students to go to United Flight Systems and complete their training. The syllabus we use is the Cessna syllabus. Not every school uses the Cessna syllabus. Is it required, Wally, for every school to follow the exact same syllabus if they're part 141?
20:10
Wally Mulhearn
No, absolutely not.
20:12
Bobby Doss
And so, I mean, big schools like Emory Riddle and the college programs, they have written their own training course outline. In many cases, they might follow the Cessna syllabus. For years, we did both the Jeppesen syllabus and the Cessna syllabus. And as the owner of the company, it was extremely painful to deal with that, because you couldn't just get halfway with a Jeppesen student and then move over to the King Tool syllabus. And I think that is one of those just disnomers, misconceptions that people don't understand. It's just flat out false. The FAA does not provide the syllabus. The FAA provides you guidance in the regulations. They require you to create a tco. Your TCO names the syllabus, or it could be a custom syllabus, as long as the FAA approves it.
21:04
Jay Robinson
Agreed.
21:06
Bobby Doss
Sorry, sorry. I was just wondering, Jay, from your perspective, how different you worked one big school in the south, one big school in the north of Houston. How different, at the end of the day is the program of a par 141 training program between those two schools?
21:23
Jay Robinson
I'd say ultimately, from the perspective of a student, it's generally not going to feel significantly different in terms of how much training you have to do, I think is what we tend to be focused on. So every flight school that's approved under part 141, if they wanted to, could write their own syllabus, but it has to, at a minimum, provide the training that's laid out in what's called the 141 appendix. You have these 141 appendices for each certificate or rating, and they give you the minimum framework that you have to build your syllabus on. But really, where I would define a lot of the quality and the benefits of any individual syllabus, what are the minimum training times?
22:03
Jay Robinson
It's what are all the materials and techniques and know how and just experience of providing training that syllabus provides both to the students and to the instructors. That's really where you're going to feel the difference. And I've worked with organizations that use the Cessna syllabus, the Jeppesen syllabus, and I've worked with organizations that wrote their own, and they all function very well, but in very different ways in terms of what they provide the student in terms of resources and what they provide the instructor in terms of resources.
22:33
Bobby Doss
Well, one thing I keep coming back to, and it's kind of relevant in the timeframe that we're in that this mosaic rules changed a bunch. And people can fly a Cessna 172 and a Piper Warrior in most cases as a sport pilot, but is it any easier to land the plane as a sport pilot that only requires 25 hours of flight training to come in and out of Hook's Airport and do all the things in the very complicated airspace, just because the regulations say that it's. It requires a whole lot less time doesn't mean that the human doing the work is going to be able to get done in that short window of time.
23:11
Jay Robinson
Agreed. And don't get me wrong, I think Mosaic is a great thing for general aviation, but the reality being, no, for all of the reasons you said, most sport pilots are not going to finish significantly faster than any pilot, I'll say, at the same airport. You know, if we say somebody got their sport rating at a relatively small rural airport with very little traffic and that your practice area was just getting outside the downwind, then, yes, they could probably get done in less hours. But it has a lot more to do with those factors than really going through the sport pilot syllabus.
23:45
Jay Robinson
And I think, again, for all those reasons, pre Mosaic rule, the organization that we both work for now, and one of the organizations that I formerly worked for had sport airplanes for a little while and chose to part ways with those because we realized the benefit wasn't really there unless that was going to be the only way that you could participate in flight training. Which is why I still think that sport and Mosaic is a great thing, but for a very different reason than I think it's typically perceived.
24:13
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I think everybody thinks it's gonna be the cheap way in, but it's. It's really no different. Misconception number five. Stage checks are just redundant tests. What do you think about that?
24:27
Jay Robinson
Yeah, I think. I think we all have some pretty strong feelings about that, for sure, because that's one that we hear all the time, that there's a big resistance to stage checks and progress checks or perhaps some anxiety or trepidation surrounding those. But ultimately, stage checks and progress checks, whether they're conducted under Part 141 or Part 61 as optional things, are really there more for us to just catch those weak areas early in training and fix them before the law of primacy sets in. And we have a huge burden to overcome. Trying to help someone unlearn something, they're really a quality control function. Like, I hear people talk about them like a mini checkride all the time. That's not what they are. I hear people say a lot of things, but ultimately we're just.
25:13
Jay Robinson
We want to fix those gaps in knowledge and maybe things that weren't taught perfectly much earlier versus waiting until we get all the way to the end of your training to try to fix these things that you've now been doing for the last 30, 40, 50, 60 hours. So I'm very passionate that stage checks absolutely benefit the student more than anyone else in the equation because we can make fixes early and help you get done without getting a kind of rude awakening at the very end of your training.
25:46
Wally Mulhearn
Well, it's quality, you know, it's quality control, the stage checks, you know, it's letting, in most cases, it's probably letting someone else take a look at the student, another instructor who might have a different perspective, and maybe the first instructor, they're overlooking something, but they don't realize they're overlooking it. And the other thing is that from you as a school, I mean, if you see Fred's students are all struggling with this, well, maybe it's worth having a talk with Fred. But you know, like on the airline level, we do it too. I'm about to start training just in a couple days on a new airplane. And we basically have gates that we go through at the airline level as well. The first one is called a systems validation, which is basically the oral. The next we have a procedures validation.
26:44
Wally Mulhearn
And that's, you know, just what it says. The procedures of getting the airplane in the air. After that we have a maneuvers validation. That's where we go up and we do the engine out stuff, the engine out approach, engine out, missed approach, you know, emergency procedures. And then it all comes together with a line oriented evaluation or loe. So, you know, it's the same thing, a stage check. Basically we call them validations at the airline level.
27:15
Bobby Doss
Well, and you do em in the airlines on your current airframe, do you sometimes spot something that was missed?
27:25
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, absolutely.
27:27
Bobby Doss
And that's what they're there for. I think the people that think flight schools are milking them for money when they're doing stage checks or something is just a big disnomer. Wally, you and I have done so many in person events and podcast episodes and just conversations in general about checkride anxiety. Do you sense sometimes when someone's been through a number of stage checks and had some of that comfort taken from them before they meet you?
27:54
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, absolutely. And you can tell they're just, you know, I just came up with this idea, you know, I'm thinking about a car being built going down the assembly line. I would assume that there aren't. I don't know, I've never been in a car factory in my life, but I would assume that there are inspections that are done before that car is being put on the truck to go to the dealer.
28:18
Bobby Doss
You know, assuming that and then see if there's an engine in it.
28:22
Wally Mulhearn
Right, Exactly. You know. Okay, we kind of got the frame put together. Well, let's check and make sure all the bolts are tightened. All right. Now we, you know, put the transmission and I don't know, but it would make sense that there are inspections done, you know, same with your house and any item. You could say this more.
28:43
Bobby Doss
It's real world.
28:45
Wally Mulhearn
You're.
28:46
Bobby Doss
You're listening to a podcast with three guys who have probably taken 200 plus check rides. Of those, I gotta give Wally like 180 of them. And me and Jay have only done 20. But out of those 200 check rides, there becomes a little bit of familiarity. But we're still all nervous. My last check ride was about a year ago. I was nervous. Today we had a young man show up for a checkride with a different designated pilot examiner who called it as the meeting started. Wally. And it was all about. I was so anxious last night. I didn't sleep, I was tired, I was scared. And I hate that for that person. They've been through some stage checks, but this is the first one. This was the private checkride. And being that overwhelmed is not what this is about.
29:37
Bobby Doss
So anybody out there, shake it off, Wally, and every other DP wants you to be successful. The stage check should warm you up to that. But let's jump to misconception number six. Failing a part 141 stage check hurts my pilot records. Jay, we've spent a lot of time on this recently because of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Give us the right information and share with the Internet.
30:02
Jay Robinson
Yeah, I mean, short answer, that's just not true. I think that comes from a misconception about certain Part 141 schools that have something called self examining authority, where your final end of course flight, which is distinctly different from a stage check, actually is your checkride for that certificate or rating. And so if you are unsuccessful, then that does go on your record as a failed check ride, but only in that very specific circumstance. Your normal part 141 stage checks that you do as part of our 141 program or any 141 program that doesn't have self examining. Don't go beyond our training records. It's internal information. It's what we use to help improve the training experience for you, for all of our students, help make our instructors better. It's not something that goes on your record.
30:57
Jay Robinson
And, you know, we can talk about all this more in depth. But Wally, from an Airline perspective. Is that something that you and the hiring crew over there even asking about, is that something that comes up very often is failed stage checks?
31:11
Wally Mulhearn
No, I've never heard of that. And again, I'm not involved in hiring. But the failed checkrides will come up and it's not a deal breaker either. But I've never heard of them asking about failed stage checks.
31:28
Jay Robinson
No. Yeah, yeah.
31:29
Bobby Doss
I think we talked about this a whole bunch. But at the end of the day, there's probably more people that have failed a checkride than those that have been perfect through every checkride. If you fail a checkride, it's not the end of the world. But if you tell someone, any other pilot that I didn't learn anything from failing this checkride, that's probably going to hurt you more than the failed checkride. Like, there's got to be something that you take away from it and you've got to be accountable to it. We've all seen it or heard it. It wasn't my fault. When you're piloting command, it's your fault. Like, own it. Just own up to it. It's your responsibility.
32:11
Jay Robinson
Agreed.
32:13
Bobby Doss
That being said, this does not get mailed in by Bobby Doss, the owner of the flight school. When you get a flight, when you go to an airline and they say, hey, can you give us all the pilot records for this pilot? I do not send them something that says you failed a stage check number. Flight number seven of your private pilot training was failure. They're never going to know that. Should you talk about it with the person that's hiring you if you fail to stage check, and they said, have you ever failed a stage check? I think honesty is a really important thing, but I don't think there's anybody out there that's hiring pilots that hasn't heard a good story about a failure that didn't make them feel more confident about that pilot.
32:53
Wally Mulhearn
Right?
32:55
Jay Robinson
Absolutely.
32:56
Bobby Doss
A couple bonus ones, then we're gonna have some rapid fire questions. Bonus one. Par 61's always cheaper. Jay, you're a little bit around the money. You're a little bit around the flight school. Is it always cheaper to be a par 61 student?
33:08
Jay Robinson
Absolutely not. Again, our easy example is the part 61 instrument student right after they finish their private. You're gonna have a huge burden on time building. And then in most of our other courses is going to depend on your individual situation as a private student. Generally, we're going to lean towards part 61 more for having a little bit of Flexibility in the way that we can help you if you come up against some challenges that really versus really thinking that you're going to finish inherently cheaper and faster from the get go again instrument, we're probably going to lean towards 141. Unless you think that you just have a ton of cross country time because that's going to be a significant savings. And then when we get to commercial again, we'll do the math.
33:53
Jay Robinson
The short answer is if you have significantly more than 130 hours when you start trying to become a commercial pilot, then part 61 is going to get you there in less hours. If you have significantly less, you really blew through your private and your instrument, then that 120 hours of training for part 141 is going to be less. And I think a lot of times we hear part 61 is cheaper. Again, I think that has to do with the training organizations that we're looking into. You know, if a school just happens to inherently have lower hourly rates, which that in and of itself certainly is not the whole story, but that can make it seem cheaper. But if that school's really inefficient, doesn't have any structure, you know, doesn't have a way to make sure that you're on track and help you recover.
34:40
Jay Robinson
If you're not, then you might have a cheaper hourly rate and a theoretically cheaper program. But in reality that could really come back and bite you if there's not the organization there and you don't just absolutely nail everything the first time. So I'd say a well run 141 program and a well run 61 program can really save you money more by helping you not have to repeat lessons a bunch of times, helping you understand how to be prepared. You know, and especially when we conduct these stage checks that we've been talking about, we can suss out any issues in your performance before you go and do that with the DPE and write them a nice healthy check and then be told that there's something that's not quite up to standard.
35:24
Jay Robinson
So there's a lot of ways that a well organized school can save you money. But it's not really about 61 being cheaper or 141 being cheaper. It's about the organization.
35:35
Bobby Doss
Wally, is your par 61 checkride cheaper than your part 141 checkride? No, no. Okay. I mean people's time is valuable and Wally's time is valuable. So it's not going to be cheaper. And I think it's important that we don't correlate those two things. Money, it's, this is a very expensive thing. I'm around it all the time, but the money doesn't constitute it. And the one thing that I tell students, parents, people that always talk, if you have to, if somebody's charging you $20 an hour less for the plane that you're renting, but you have to fly four proficiency flights before your checkride because the wait for that checkride is so far in advance that $2,000 for those four flights is going to way outrun. That's an extra hundred hours at $20 an hour. People get so fixated on that hourly rate.
36:34
Bobby Doss
But it is smoke and mirrors. If you're working with a good school that's well organized and is working for your success. And yes, I'm a little biased, I've tried to build all these things for us. You are going to get done more economically, not always cheaper, but more economically than you will if you have to fly a whole bunch of proficiency flights and that school's not trying to help you be successful. And it is a slippery, slippery slope. Last bonus one is switching back and forth between par 61 and 141 ruins progress. Jay, I'm not sure progress is the right word, but what are your thoughts on switching back and forth between ratings?
37:14
Jay Robinson
Yeah, in the same rating. Yeah. Okay, if we're. Those are again two very different questions between ratings. You can do it all you want. Like you can get your private one way instrument, a different way commercial a different way after that does not make a difference when you are midstream. We'll say in a training course we can absolutely transition you from 61 to 141 or vice versa. It's just really about understanding the inherent rules that surround that. So let's say you are a part 141 student and for whatever reason you want to switch to part 61 during the course of your training. Well, all of your 141 hours count 100% towards meeting the 61 minimum. So you don't have lose any training, quote unquote, but you are now subject to the part 61 minimum.
38:03
Jay Robinson
So if you're a private pilot, it's not really going to feel that much different. There's theoretically a little bit more solo time, you have to do a little bit more total time. You have to do another few different things. But again, you're not losing any hours. I would say like a worst case scenario would be if you're an Instrument 141 student and you were forced to switch to Part 61 for some reason. Again, you don't lose any credit for the training that you've done, but you are now subject to having to have all of that cross country time that we talked about before. If we're switching the other way around, if we're going from part 61 to part 141, we have the ability as a school by regulation to evaluate the training that you've done.
38:48
Jay Robinson
And we can give you credit if you're going from 61 to 141 for up to 25% of our syllabus minimums. So it depends if you're right at the very end of your training, that could potentially be very painful. But if you're pretty early in your training, it's not going to make that much of a difference. And then finally, let's say you're switching 141 schools. Let's say something happens, you have to relocate, you find another 141 school, that school that you go into can give you credit for up to 50% of their syllabus minimum. So long story short, there is a process. You know, a good school is going to do everything they can to try to soften the blow that you might incur when changing.
39:31
Jay Robinson
But just know it's going to depend on where you are in that process, how impactful that's going to be for you.
39:38
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I don't think it's so much about picking the reg and then picking the school. It's about picking your goals and your what your desires as a pilot or future pilot and then picking the right place for you to go or if the school's well run, whether they're par 61 or 141, you should have a very similar experience. And I pride myself on how hard we've worked to make our par 61 school and par 141 school feel very similar. They're the same school, but the syllabus and the way we teach is exactly the same. We work behind the scenes, probably not even really involving you too terribly much on making sure we meet all the requirements before we present you to Wally. It's our job as a flight school to present you to Wally.
40:23
Bobby Doss
And I think some people lose sight of that are running flight schools and they make it your responsibility as the student. If you have any questions, you ain't never have to worry about reaching out to me. I'll all know my email address. Bobby behindtheprov.com or bobbynighted flight.com and we will help you answer those questions. But before we wrap up the entire day, let's do a little speed round rapid fire questions. Wally or Jay can answer any of these. Let's start with the first one. Is part 141 always faster? Jay?
40:53
Jay Robinson
I'm going to say no. It's really only faster if the student is training consistently showing up prepared for the lessons. And really, if the school executes well on that, do they have the instructor and aircraft resources available to that student?
41:06
Bobby Doss
Is part 61 automatically cheaper?
41:11
Jay Robinson
I'd say again, no. It really depends on how well organized the system school is. It is not going to make that big a difference if a well organized school trains you under part 61 or 141 or if a poorly organized school trains you. Either way, either. That's what's going to make the difference.
41:28
Bobby Doss
Are stage checks something that students should be afraid of?
41:33
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, absolutely not.
41:36
Jay Robinson
I'll let you take this one, Wally.
41:38
Bobby Doss
Failing stage check hurt my pilot career. Wally?
41:42
Wally Mulhearn
No, no, absolutely not yet. It's probably not going to come up.
41:48
Bobby Doss
Now, Wally, you are an airline pilot and this one's a really important question. Is part 141 the only way that an airline bound student can complete their training?
41:57
Wally Mulhearn
No, no. Military pilots, for instance, are not part 141. And we have a lot of military pilots at my airline. At any airline.
42:09
Bobby Doss
If a student can only fly once a week, does that pigeonhole them into part 61 or part 141?
42:17
Jay Robinson
I would say no.
42:18
Wally Mulhearn
Really.
42:18
Jay Robinson
Again, it's. I think that misconception comes from a lot of 141 schools being collegiate programs. But that doesn't have anything inherently to do with part 141. That's that school structure. We're happy to work with you in either program. Once a week, twice a week, three times a week. You know, we're happy to help you, whatever your pace is.
42:40
Bobby Doss
All right, Wally, this one's for you. What do you think matters most, the federal regulations or the flight school?
42:47
Wally Mulhearn
Flight school by far, every time.
42:50
Bobby Doss
And I'll give a big shout out to all those flight instructors that have come and worked at United Flight Systems and moved on hopefully to bigger, better job. It is about the individual people that are doing the training. I think we've tried to do everything we can to standardize that and make them great and make them well armed to do their job. But it's the people inside of a flight school. And if that's not good, it won't be a good training experience for you. What is the biggest misconception, Jay, that students bring into the door when they think they know best? Part 141, part 61.
43:24
Jay Robinson
Absolutely. And I mean, I'll piggyback right off of what you said. The biggest misconception is that just being part 61 or being part 141 is going to make their experience better or faster. It's the school and the individual people within the school that create these results.
43:41
Bobby Doss
All right, Wally, you don't own a flight school yet, but retirement's in your future. Maybe, maybe reality someday. One question every student should ask a flight school before enrollment.
43:57
Wally Mulhearn
Let's see, how do you manage students who fall behind?
44:03
Bobby Doss
That's a great question. We all know of a big school that has some students that fall behind. And the sentiment on the Internet and around the world is that maybe they push their students out. That's not a good experience, right? I don't think that's a good experience for anybody. I think at UFS and I think at many other flight schools around the world, they have a team of people or they want to have a team of people that do everything they can to help you be successful. You may need some more ground. You may need one more flight. If they're, if they are tempting to you to make one more flight 10 times, that's not one more flight. But it is really about the people in the school that help you be successful.
44:46
Bobby Doss
Help you be successful by being there for you and helping understand your situation, because your situation is different. Jay, one last final rapid fire question. If you had to boil it down 61 versus 141 in one sentence.
45:02
Jay Robinson
If I had to boil it down to one sentence, I'd say the right choice between 61 and 141 is what is the right choice for you as an individual student? That's why we talk it through with every student, talk through their situation and help them figure out for their journey, for their situation what the right fit is. We execute on it as well as we possibly can, and that's what's going to get the results. Again, not the regulation last thing I'll.
45:26
Bobby Doss
Throw out there because I get this question all the time from people that are reaching out to our flight school wanting to be a great pilot. What's the real difference? Is there an asterisk on my pilot certificate? Wally, you make a lot of pilot certificates, you sign a lot of pilot certificates or you watch a lot of people sign their pilot certificates. What actually looks different on a private pilot certificate, part 61 versus a private pilot certificate, part 141.
45:53
Wally Mulhearn
Not a thing. And as I said, once we are beyond the qualification phase, which is before the checkride even begins, I'm not even thinking. I did two check rides today. I'm trying to think. I think I did a 61 and a 141 today. I mean, I had to think about.
46:16
Bobby Doss
It because they were that similar to one another.
46:20
Wally Mulhearn
Were they different? Were they different ratings? They were. They were okay.
46:25
Bobby Doss
So that made them a little different. But, you know, we had, we've had a number of people on our shows. On our show, we had a guy who runs a consulting company called Ready, Set, Check that talked about his hiring experiences at United. I think he said on that show he's never asked someone, did you complete your training, part 141 or part 61? It's just really not something that I believe comes up in the recruiting mechanism and doesn't provide the airline or the pilot a whole lot of value. It's really about you and what's best for you as a student pilot and through your training. Whether you train once a week or five times a week, you can train part 61 or part 141. Ask your school smart questions. Pay attention to how they take care of students that are falling behind.
47:15
Bobby Doss
As always, thanks for joining us, Jay. Fly safely and stay behind the Prop.
47:22
Behind the Prop OUTRO
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.