Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn explore the pilot's journey from student training through the first 100 hours and into cross-country weather decisions. They discuss red flags like poor preparation and overconfidence, share personal weather stories, and offer practical advice on real-world go/no-go choices for icing and convective activity.
In this episode of Behind the Prop, Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn dive into the full pilot journey, starting with the critical early lessons for student pilots and moving all the way through those pivotal first hundred hours after earning your certificate. They break down common red flags like poor preparation, attitude issues, and lack of consistency that can derail training, while sharing practical tips like using checklists and setting mini milestones to stay on track. The conversation also tackles real-world decision-making around weather, especially during cross-country flights, drawing from personal stories and listener questions about icing, convective activity, and the pressure to get there.
Wally and Bobby emphasize how the digital age has changed how pilots study and prepare, often leading to gaps in knowledge that only show up when things go wrong. They stress the dangers of overconfidence and complacency in those early post-certification hours, recounting close calls with weather that highlight why self-reflection and proper planning are essential. From checkride scenarios to actual flights in marginal conditions, the hosts offer honest insights into what separates safe pilots from those who take unnecessary risks.
Whether you're a brand-new student, a fresh private pilot, or someone planning longer cross-country trips, this episode is packed with actionable advice on building good habits, evaluating forecasts, and knowing when to say no. Listeners will walk away with a clearer understanding of how to navigate the challenges of flight training and beyond, all while staying safe behind the prop. Thanks to listener Brad for inspiring this deep dive into these important topics.
00:00
Behind the Prop Intro
Behind the Prop Podcast intro
00:00
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally? Hey, Bobby, how are you? I am fantastic as always. We've had a pretty good few weeks of shows, and I think this is gonna add to that list. This, today, we're gonna talk about Early lessons to cross-country weather, a pilot's journey. I think, I've been ingrained in the enrollment and early day process at United Flight Systems for the past few months Trying to help all of our students get off with some really good primacy of how
00:30
Bobby Doss
to study and come prepared, and, there's three parts to this show today it starts with those early pilots and ends with those cross country pilots, but part one is gonna be about student pilot red flags, part two is gonna be about really the first hundred hours after you get that piece of paper from Wally and you get to sign it, and part three is all about cross country weather decisions. And this comes from a listener named Brad, thanks for the tip, Brad. And, we're gonna dive into all your
01:00
Bobby Doss
questions in your email and, hopefully help you out. But we really- I want to guide the pilot path in this case, right? I think when I was a student, I didn't know how to study, I didn't know how to come prepared, I didn't know what to expect, I didn't- I don't even think I knew there was a checkride. I, I don't even know what I knew back in those days. Through that phase of being a rated pilot and really not knowing what to do, we, we talk about this a lot, but we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into some thoughts and things to think about more in that first hundred hours of flight
01:30
Bobby Doss
time after you get your first rating? And then answer some of Brad's thoughts and questions around really how do you make some of these decisions in the real world? It's kinda easy when your instructor's guiding you or helping you or maybe nudging you in the right direction on your navlog on which way to go based on the weather. And I think he asked a lot of good questions, and we'll dive into all that. And kind of describe the pilot's journey from beginning to end as it relates to the training phases and becoming that family pilot
02:01
Bobby Doss
like Brad and making those good decisions. Wally, you've been doing this a lot longer than me, Have you, have you ever seen any red flags with student pilots?
02:01
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you, you, you see 'em a lot and, it, it You know, you talk about first impressions. We talked a couple shows ago about, being an APE, A P E, and, and I always used to ask my students for three things. I'd ask 'em
02:31
Wally Mulhearn
for a good attitude, that's what the A stand for. P was preparation come prepared, and E was when you're here, let's put forth some effort. So attitude, preparation, effort, 'cause those, those are three things that you have very much influence over you, you know, you, you can't control certain things like the weather, but you can, or, or you can't even influence the weather, for that matter. But those, those
03:01
Wally Mulhearn
are the three things that you can have influence over. you know, when I walk, when, when a, when we're starting a, a check ride and, you know, I say to the applicant, "Okay, I need to see a government-issued photo ID, a pilot certificate, a medical cert-certificate, knowledge test results, and logbook endorsements." when, when they struggle with some of that stuff, it's, it's a huge
03:32
Wally Mulhearn
red flag. I had a, a young man, well, this was years ago, gave me a driver's license that had expired about a year before that, and, and I said I, I forgot what the year was, but I says, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's, it's 2021 and this expired in 2020, Oh yeah, I just haven't had time to, renew it. And I said, "Well, it, it needs to be a
04:02
Wally Mulhearn
valid government-issued, photo ID, and this isn't valid." Oh, I, I, I thought you'd be okay with it. I said, "Well, you know, I said even if I wanted to, i-if I went into IACRA or, yeah, IACRA and, and 'cause I have to enter the driver's license number, I have to put the expiration date. If I put an expiration date from a year ago, it, it would just, it wouldn't even accept it." So, I mean, there, there's an example of a red flag, you know, you
04:33
Wally Mulhearn
know, and we could go on and on and on. That's a very basic example, though. So you, back to your ape, and I, I stole that, and I've used it since then, right? Preparation is the thing that we talk about the most, early on. In our early first few lessons, it's all about trying to get the student to learn how to learn how to fly. It's, it's unique, and you-- I can pretty much tell early in the first phase or two of training how
05:03
Wally Mulhearn
good a student's going to be at coming prepared and how what, what I think their numbers are gonna be at the end of their private pilot certificate. If you don't come prepared and you go fly in the practice area and you don't know what- You're doing, you're wasting all that time. You're gonna have a lot of hours come the end of your private pilot. There's just so much that the school or an independent flight instructor can do if you're not putting in the effort. The flying is the smallest component of what we're trying to do.
05:33
Wally Mulhearn
And so when someone comes and they haven't studied, they haven't done their online ground school, they haven't read the chapters they're supposed to read, they're way behind the curve. And I know you've trained a lot of people in your day, how different is it when someone comes and they're prepared? They've done all their homework, they know, you know, they're on the first lesson and they've already watched the preflight ten times online and they know the checklist for that aircraft and they've read the POH. I mean, it's
06:04
Bobby Doss
It's gotta be night and day. Oh, it is, it is. And, you know, back in my, when I was instructing at the airline, I used to tell, my, my, pilots, my students that I, I, I used this statement. Hundreds of times, I've, I always said the first time you read a given checklist should not be in this briefing room, and for sure it shouldn't be in that simulator. I mean, you've got the syllabus, you know,
06:34
Bobby Doss
tomorrow we're doing a, a system, a hy-- a system hydraulic failure, so, you, you should Be familiar with this procedure tonight. And, and I say familiar, we, we certainly don't wanna memorize stuff, but, you know, if it talks about, pulling a circuit breaker, maybe, researching where that particular circuit breaker is located, that, that kind of, th-those kind of things. And I, I, you know, I think in this
07:04
Bobby Doss
digital world that we're in, H-has hurt our, our students, our pilots a little bit just because I, I don't feel like, I don't know, I, I, I feel like we don't maybe read the book the way we used to when we had a hard copy of the book. And, and I'm not, I'm not saying that, you know, having digital, books on
07:34
Bobby Doss
your iPad or whatever is, is a bad thing. I mean, that's what I do. I, I just bought a book today, you know, and it was really, a simple process to, to buy the book on my iPad. but- I remember my first flight, it was August 31st, 1981, and, walking back into the, the FBO, my instructor said, "You need to buy two things. You need to buy the POH, and you need to buy the-- you need to buy a logbook." And
08:06
Bobby Doss
I bought both of those, and he, he- He handed me the POH and he said, "You need to go home and read this and know everything in here. Not just read it, but you need to know what's in here." And, and I, I was such a geek that I said, "Okay." And I went home and, and started reading the book, and I probably learned a whole bunch of stuff that I probably didn't re-need to know. and I don't know, with a, with a digital- Book,
08:36
Bobby Doss
I don't see people doing that as much, being familiar with it. One thing I will, I, I'll, I'll occasionally on the ground portion of a check ride, and I'm giving something away here, so if you're gonna take a check ride with me, you're getting, some, some bonus footage here. I'll, I'll give a scenario where We're on a cross country and we divert, we go into a, another airport that we weren't planning on going into, and that gives me an opportunity to ask the applicant all about this
09:06
Bobby Doss
other airport that they probably weren't prepared to go into. And I'll say, okay, we go in there, we go use the restroom, we go get fuel, we jump in the crew car, we go get some, lunch, and we come back, and we hop in the airplane, and, we can't, we, we realize that we'd left the, the batteries or Switch on. So we got a dead battery. So what are we gonna do? And, it's just amazing how many people don't know that
09:37
Bobby Doss
in pretty much all of our POHs, we have a procedure for starting the engine using external power. And they have no idea it's there. and it's, it's, it's, it's in the book, but nobody knows. It's called Jumping an Airplane. We'd probably all jump the car, or maybe we'd jump the car, but- Yeah, yeah. I think to your point about the digital age Everything has become a reference piece of material nowadays for, for the kids that I know and see. I have two kids that are
10:07
Bobby Doss
probably in this age group and bucket, right, that- I don't even, why would I read it when I have a question, I'm just gonna ask for the answer to be given to me and it's gonna give me the answer. Right. I think the gap there is what you, what you advertised is If you don't know it's even there to ask for it, then you don't know that you can ask for it. Like, how do-- what do I do when the plane won't turn over? That's probably not gonna be something that the-- your keywords are gonna find in the POH. But if you knew- How
10:38
Bobby Doss
do I start on external power? You might be able to find that answer, but I think the gap is so big, you don't even know what question to ask in some of these cases that makes it really difficult. So preparation is really up to you, and if you struggle with prep, I would strongly suggest some sort of a checklist, right? Make it A checklist of what you're gonna do. I've, I've oversold it or given it away here, but if you wanna see what I've created for our students, you can go to hangerhandbook dot com and download it, and
11:09
Bobby Doss
it's a, it's a per-lesson checklist, everything they need to study and come prepared for. It's lightweight, I call it Cliff Notes. It's not the syllabus, it's a very lightweight version of the syllabus that we've tried to make it so simple that, it would be the lowest common denominator for our students To come prepared for their private lessons, and give them something to be prepared to do and kind of hold the CFIs accountable at the same time. The second student red flag that I
11:40
Bobby Doss
see more often than I wish I did is the attitude and mindset. probably the younger kids, when I say younger kids, I'll say twenty-six to seventeen, they have an overconfidence that nothing's gonna go wrong. A lot of people nowadays, I think we know this too, Wally, they kinda just, it's not me, something else is the problem. Like, the plane won't start, clearly it's the starter or-
12:10
Bobby Doss
The gas guy put the wrong, you know, can't be the, can't be me not following the right procedure in the POH or resistance to feedback. I've sat in on a number of your debriefs and Pat's debriefs and many other debriefs. And it's, it's almost excuse ridden of, well, and you said it a couple weeks ago, I've never done that before, and you said, "Well, you did it eight times today." It's kinda weird that, that is a new habit that you created on my check
12:41
Bobby Doss
ride, huh? Yeah. So it's that Attitude, mindset, it's not me, it's something else. Do you ever hear stuff like that on your check rides or in your debriefs?
12:41
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, I, I hear it all the time, and, and, you know, I, I, I think maybe I've, I've told this story on here, but I'll try to condense it down. we were doing a I believe it wasn't a private, it was either a commercial or an instrument check ride, and the young man called
13:13
Wally Mulhearn
ground and he got no answer. So he called them again. He got no answer, and he called them again, and then he complained about the, the, lack of Maintenance at the particular flight school, and of course, after every call to ground control, this little RX on the radio lit up, so, you know, he had the volume turned completely
13:44
Wally Mulhearn
down. And, they were, they were calling him, and, and he was talking all over them, and he was kind of causing some havoc on the ground control frequency. We ended up- Shutting the airplane down, going in and getting someone from the flight school, they came out and turned the volume up, and then we got back in and got ready to go, and I just said to him, I said, "You do realize that, when you do call ground, you're gonna get yelled at." And
14:14
Wally Mulhearn
maybe I didn't use that exact phrase, yelled at, and he, he, he, he kinda said, "Uh, yeah, I know that," and, so sure enough, he called ground and- They let him have it. They said, "You, you interrupted, three IFR clearances, and, you know, it, it--" But it was him! It was him! And, and during the debrief, I told him, "I said, look at the-- in the airline world, I learned it very quickly because, you know, I, I was the same way. Hey, this doesn't work,
14:44
Wally Mulhearn
it must be something wrong with it. You call maintenance, the maintenance guy comes out and says, "Well, you, you-- piece of equipment work, you have to flip this switch on up here. You have to turn it on, and 'cause it's-- it would be a switch that maybe that is usually left on, but, but, but and in thirty-eight years as an airline pilot, now And, you know, when something's not working, the first thing all, all of us in the flight deck do is
15:14
Wally Mulhearn
we look at each other and we say, "What are we missing?" before we make that call. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, that, that, that switch isn't on, let's turn that switch on. So I've learned that more time, more times it is pilot error, and I'm the pilot, it's my error. Yeah, I find that so funny because I, I can't tell how many audio panels I've gone out and flipped the switch or how many intercoms I've turned on when they said all the, all the radios are broken, Bobby. That's
15:45
Bobby Doss
extremely rare. Mo- all of our planes have two radios. When two radios go out, I can assure you, it's not the radios, it's something else. it might be a problem, but it's probably not The radios. so I, I would say in that respect, self-reflect. You know, what could you do better? What could you do to improve? What can you self-reflect on? What's, what's in front of you, as Wally said, ask you and yourself. What, what can I possibly do different to make this work better? Starting a plane, ninety-nine point
16:16
Bobby Doss
nine percent of the time, if you open the POH and try cold, hot, flooded starts, one of those three are gonna work in Houston, Texas. and then the last thing from a student red flag to me is, is consistency. And some of it's within your influence or within your control, and some of it's not. there's no question that this is expensive and, and very costly. And sometimes people don't have the money to go as consistently as they want. I, I think it's really three things that make you a good flight student. It's
16:46
Bobby Doss
your motivation, it's your wallet or your ability to pay, and it's your availability. I, I have many, many students that- Are wealthy, that have unlimited money and not unlimited free time. They're obviously busy, busy businessmen, and they don't have that free time, so the money doesn't really help them, 'cause they don't have free time. I would say more of those probably wash out, in my experience, than the ones who don't have the money. They find a way to hang on and keep going. But you, you've gotta find that right balance. And
17:17
Bobby Doss
if you have no motivation, you're not gonna have that same level of consistency. Anything's gonna give you a reason to cancel and not show up. And if you don't, this is tactile skill, if you don't come pretty regularly, you're gonna have a real problem. So only tip there is, set realistic schedules, balance your work life balance, and create some training goals. Lately, I've been talking a lot about a mini milestone and a major milestone with our students. You know, have something small you're trying to do, maybe it's
17:47
Bobby Doss
get through this stage check, and then the major milestone might be to complete my solo hours. And then once those things- Get done, set new mini milestones and major milestones to be working towards. It doesn't have to be, oh, I gotta get my private pilot certificate by the end of summer The end of summer isn't really a real date. Your summer might be a real date, but everybody else's is different. So the mini milestone is, you know, get twelve flights in in the month of
18:18
Bobby Doss
May, and then the major milestone is probably accomplishing something, my, my three supervised solos or whatever that might be. Work with your team, but, Setting goals and staying, staying somewhat consistent will really change the way you go about your training. Anything to add on the pilot reference?
18:18
Wally Mulhearn
I, I remember my, my mini-milestone was filling up a page in my logbook. I mean, I was, I was so excited, I, I don't know how many blank, you know, lines there were in the logbook, probably about eight,
18:48
Wally Mulhearn
but I remember, you know, when I, when I got to the end of a page, I mean, going to home and adding it all up, and of course, I'd add each column up twice just to make sure that my math was right, and, yeah, and then transferring it to the next page, that was, was a big deal for me. Did, did you have an abacus that helps you with that math or something else? Yeah, well, no, no, but I, I had, I would have to take my shoes off so I'd have ten digits. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I bet half our listeners
19:19
Bobby Doss
don't even know what an abacus is. Yeah. It might be trending on Google right about now. Part two, the first hundred hours, and, and I think we've talked about some of this in the past. We've had a great friend guest on the show many times named Paul Craig. The first hundred hours is somewhat related to his books called The Killing Zone. If you haven't had an opportunity to read those books or listen to those books, man, I can't stress enough how good they are. At the end of the day This hundred hours
19:49
Bobby Doss
is pivotal in your flight training career. I don't think I ever had an overabundance of confidence, Wally. I still don't think I do. I never feel like I've flown enough lately to take my wife on a trip or whatever, but- At the end of the day, it's a real-- I think it's a real problem. some of the incidents and accidents we've seen in Houston over the last five years were young student pilots And young private pilots that are flying into weather they shouldn't be flying in, we've,
20:21
Bobby Doss
we've, we probably all know someone who's passed because something really bad happened. It, it's Overconfidence is the thing that scares me the most, man. When someone says, "Ah, that storm's not coming this direction, I'm gonna send it," I get real nervous real quick. Yeah. What's your weather story that did scare you, Wally? Do you have a weather story that did scare you?
20:21
Wally Mulhearn
yeah, yeah, I do. I, I was in college and, my,
20:52
Wally Mulhearn
my college, you know, I was a music major in college, my college band director, Was needed to go down to South Louisiana to judge a marching band contest, and, it was, it was on a Saturday, it was, it's a weekend where our, our football team was playing out of town. And, he asked me if I'd fly him down to, South Louisiana, around
21:23
Wally Mulhearn
Thibodaux, Louisiana, I believe. And I said, "Yeah, yeah, I can do that." and so, I, I got an airplane, I got a six-place airplane, and, invited a couple of friends, and, I think there were five of us got in the airplane, and, we went down to, Tibet, Louisiana, to take my high school band-- I mean, my college band director down. He was gonna judge this contest, then w-- after that, we were gonna fly over
21:53
Wally Mulhearn
to Hammond, Louisiana, and go to, our Our college, our team was playing down in Hammond, Louisiana. We're gonna go to the football game, and then, we're gonna fly home late at night. And, it was gonna be a great day, and I just remember getting down there and, the weather was bad, and when I say bad, it was ceilings, there wasn't any kind of thunderstorms or anything, and, we tried The approach
22:24
Wally Mulhearn
and, didn't get in, tried it again, didn't get in, and I finally said, "Okay, we're gonna try it a third time." And, and I mean, the pressure, I mean, I was feeling the pressure 'cause, you know, he, he was supposed to be at this High school marching band contest, you know, that was gonna start in two hours, and, you know, I told 'em I, I would take 'em there. We did get in the third time, but it was, we probably shouldn't
22:54
Wally Mulhearn
have tried three times. We prob- after the second miss, we probably should have gone to our alternate and come to a, you know, a, a plan B. I'm not even sure I had a plan B, this was a long time ago. So, i-it's funny, I- I just had, had, met a friend of mine, over in San Antonio just a few weeks ago, and he was one of the guys that was in the airplane, and, and he brought up that story, and I had kind of forgotten about it. But,
23:25
Wally Mulhearn
he just, he just talked about being scared in an airplane, and, but for the grace of God, you know, we, we walked away from it, we got on the ground, and everything worked out. Yeah, I think that when you don't have thousands of hours like you do, that we all just kinda think nothing bad's gonna happen, maybe, or we've not experienced anything that was close to bad. luckily at my five hundred-ish hours, I've- I've had some weather and some things that kept me
23:55
Bobby Doss
on the ground, some things that, many a handful of those times where I wish I was down there instead of up here, hundreds of the times where I was glad I was down there and not up there, but the overconfidence hasn't been something that's really pushed me, except one time, and that was a time where a friend of mine wanted me to take his wife to Galveston, him and his wife to Galveston, and the ceilings were dropping all day, and I just- I think I had a floor, I think I had a personal minimum, but
24:25
Bobby Doss
it got, it probably changed like three times that day. We ended up going, probably scud running the whole way down there. And it wasn't the best decision, I can assure you. And so I think that, not necessarily overconfidence, but that I gotta do this for them kind of thing, like you felt that same pressure, it's very real and can make us do really stupid things that, Can turn into really bad outcomes really, really quick. Yeah. I think the complacency is the, is
24:56
Bobby Doss
the risk in these first hundred hours, right? Like, I've told this story a bunch, I jumped in a plane, started flying to Brenham, which is only sixty-five miles away, and lo and behold, hit a brick wall of clouds and couldn't go, and that was just stupid poor planning on my part. And you, you gotta be better than that. That was definitely in my first hundred hours, and I guess I was complacent. I walked out here, things looked good, didn't even think to pull up a map and look anything. And
25:27
Bobby Doss
just sent the plane in the air and made a huge mistake. It wasn't a bad outcome 'cause I got to turn around and come home, but, not the smartest of decision making for a pilot. What are some of those decision traps that you think hurt? Those first hundred hour pilots, Wally.
25:27
Wally Mulhearn
Well, I, I think like mine, I mean, the, the got to, yeah, they call it the got to get there it is, and, You know, it's, again, I, I had really
25:58
Wally Mulhearn
kind of totally forgotten about this, this whole trip. I mean, maybe it was by design that my, my, my brain said, "Hey, just, just put this out of your mind, 'cause you almost died and killed four peop- four extra people with you." I, I just go back and I think, "What? How stupid was I? What was I thinking?" And, you know, I wasn't thinking. and again, this was-- this, you know, this was back when you had to call the
26:28
Wally Mulhearn
weather briefer, you didn't, you know, we didn't have, obviously, didn't have foreflight and all this kind of stuff that, that we have now that makes, makes things so much safer. I mean, you have instant weather at your fingertips all the time, So, I don't know, I, you know, that, that was, that was my, my personal thing, and, you know, I think it was good that, that Rob did bring
26:58
Wally Mulhearn
it up to me and remind me of that. Let's move on to part three and talk about cross country weather decisions. Again, one of our listeners named Brad asked us a few questions and it was kind of real world decision making, like, "What do you really do? " Like I think we all give the, while he's gonna do a check ride to us kind of conversation in the hallway 'cause it's a check ride, but we have this little devil on our shoulder that says, "Well, that's how I do it for check rides, but
27:29
Bobby Doss
I do it this way for the real world." I think that's kind of what undertone of Brad's conversation was, like, what is the real world? And, I picture he lives much more north than I ever will in my life 'cause he asked about questions and some mountains and stuff. I don't see those in my future unless I'm on vacation, but, Icing is, is a big one for me that I don't mess around with. even in the jet, I don't mess around with it. But my, my hard ceiling is
27:59
Bobby Doss
ten thousand feet from ice, which is kind of me saying I'm never gonna fly when icing's a potential risk for me. A Cessna 172 has got no chance if, there's a temperature inversion and I fly into visible moisture, I'm in trouble really quick. So, just ain't gonna do it. Don't have to do it, ain't gonna do it. Do it. Icing is something that we can't control from inside of a 172. We have no equipment, nothing's gonna make it go away. We gotta get out of it, and that
28:29
Bobby Doss
can be really dangerous based on towers and all kinds of other stuff. So What are your thoughts on decision making around icing if you're in your, one of your single engine piston airplanes, Willie?
28:29
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, I, I actually, got into a, a situation probably a couple years ago in, in our Saratoga, we're flying up to Denver And, you look out on the wingtips and guess what? We
29:00
Wally Mulhearn
got some ice building out there. I mean, it was just, very light rime, and, you know, the airplane isn't designed for that, and we were, we were coming in, and I told approach we needed lower. 'cause I mean, we were, we were, we were coming into land, so, you know, going higher probably wasn't the right thing to do 'cause you're gonna have to come right back down through it. And, Guess what approach said? Appro- approach
29:30
Wally Mulhearn
said unable, unable. And, so there was a little time where the, the heart rate went up just a little bit, and, everything was, was fine. I mean, it was just, just a little bit icy, but, you know, it, it, it was a lesson for me. I mean- I'm an experienced pilot, this was just a couple years ago. So, you know, smart people, a-and I'm not saying I'm a smart person, but smart people do stupid things. And that was a day that,
30:01
Wally Mulhearn
you know, and I did, I, I, I, it, it was, it was unforecast, it wasn't forecast, but still, I, I, I could have done better, I could have done better. I mean, I had the outside air temperature displayed right there in front of me, and when it said minus two And we're in the clouds, you know, maybe something should've processed in my brain that says, "Hey, this isn't going the way we want it to go." Yeah, you know, it's, it's not, not
30:31
Bobby Doss
realistic, but the math is true. Like right now in Houston, Texas, it's 20 degrees Celsius. If I took the plane to its service ceiling and there's any possibility of moisture up there, it's very realistic that it could be freezing. I keep, I probably have some freezing stuff happen a couple thousand feet below that. So it, it's just something that you can't take for granted. And I, I know I remember it when I first got asked, "Did you check the icing levels?" And I was like, "Of course I did." "No, you didn't." In
31:01
Bobby Doss
my brain, I'm going, "No, I didn't, but I will now." It's, it's one of those things that can sneak up on you. Right. That trip to Galveston with those ceilings that were crushing down on us, that's the real risk in Houston, Texas. Brad, I don't remember exactly what city you lived in, but, you know, you know your weather patterns wherever you live, you probably know the weather, weather patterns where you're gonna go on a regular basis, For me, I know if I'm gonna go towards the coast, for sure I'm gonna look
31:32
Bobby Doss
at the weather a little bit closer in ceilings because that moisture down there is gonna create a lot more clouds, I didn't do it when I went west, unfortunately, to Brenham, but that was my bad. I think it's, I kinda know where weather, weather kinda comes from College Station to Houston, and the moisture comes from Galveston to Houston, so I, I kinda have those two, two barriers in my brain on what's coming and going, but- I know this area, I just have to do my due diligence and check the weather. We've
32:02
Bobby Doss
told a million weather stories, but is there a tip that you have for evaluating ceilings on your departure and what might be happening enroute? Do you have special tools? Do you just use ForeFlight? Do you use aviationweather.gov? What, what are you doing to plan a flight to Oshkosh or Denver and you're Saratoga?
32:02
Wally Mulhearn
Yeah, well, in the, you know, when I go to Oshkosh and the Saratoga about a week out, I'm beginning to look at weather, you know, I'm looking, first of all, I'm, I'm pulling up the Apple app on my iPhone
32:33
Wally Mulhearn
and I'm just looking at the weather app, you know, and that, that's my, my week out. weather planning thing, believe it or not, and, you know, and I, I will pick, you know, we're, we're usually gonna make a fuel stop on the way up there, so I'll pick Houston, I'll pick the fuel stop, and I'll pick Oshkosh or wherever we're flying into, and I'll just, just keep an eye on, on those things. I'll also just, just be looking at the big trends. I mean, you
33:04
Wally Mulhearn
know, Oshkosh happens in late July, that's, you know, I, I'm not sure when hurricane season officially starts, I don't know if it's August 1st, but, you know, we may start to get some tropical disturbances down here around that time of year, so you're looking at that kind of stuff. Because that stuff, you know, the, the hurricanes, the big stuff, they don't sneak up on you, you know they're coming. exactly when they hit you don't know, but, you know,
33:34
Wally Mulhearn
we, we know a That hey, we might have something going on next week. you know, a-and, a-and the, the, the standard that I put on my applicants are, are different for a private pilot versus a commercial pilot. You know, a commercial pilot, a-and this is a slippery slope to, to kind of go where I'm gonna go with this, but a commercial pilot needs to try to make the flight. now
34:05
Wally Mulhearn
you are now working for somebody that's paying you money to take people or- Stuff or whatever, they're paying you money to get there. So, I, I, what I get a lot with people, I'll say, "Okay, how's our cross country look?" And I'll say, you know, they might start to recite weather. I say, "Well, could we go?" And they says, "And they may say, "No, we, we couldn't go today because the weather at our destination is
34:36
Wally Mulhearn
gonna be this." And I, I will say, "Oh, really? It's gonna be that? " I said, "How do you know? " And they'll say, "Well, it's, it's forecast. " I said, "Well, a forecast is nothing more than an educated guess. " So I think we gotta look at a forecast and then say, "Is it really gonna be that? Do I really think it's gonna be that way?" And I'm not saying go against the forecast, because it's, it's really all we have. I
35:06
Wally Mulhearn
com- I compare it to a, a, a Sporting event, you can say, "Well, hey, these two football teams are playing each other next weekend, and football team A is a fourteen point favorite over football team B." Okay, so the oddsmakers say that Team A is gonna win. Guess what? They still play the game. They still play the game. So my point is I, I, I mentioned this to you earlier in, in my
35:36
Wally Mulhearn
many thousands of hours of flying time, I have never flown into a thunderstorm. I have flown into airports where thunderstorms were in the forecast. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. So what I'm, a-a-and a-again, it sounds like I'm, I'm going backwards on everything that we're saying. We're talking about safety, and I'm saying, "Uh, go for it." I'm not saying that, but I'm saying that we- We need to apply some
36:07
Wally Mulhearn
logic, you know, if I'm flying from here to Mobile, Alabama, and the-- there's a chance of low ceilings in Mobile, Alabama. But I have 18 potential alternates between here and Mobile, Alabama, where the forecast is pretty good. I'm more inclined to try to make the trip. Knowing that I have outs, but
36:38
Wally Mulhearn
I have to take those outs. Yeah, and I'd also say that the reality is, is veering off course even in a single engine piston plane is not the end of the world. You're just adding a little bit of time, right? And if you wanna stay twenty five plus miles away from that thunderstorm, getting off course forty miles isn't the end of the world. you don't wanna put yourself in harm's way, but- No. There's a lot of times you can go just 'cause there's a little red, yellow, and green out there, that doesn't mean it's the-- it's
37:09
Bobby Doss
an absolute hard no, in my opinion. Directly in your route maybe, but you, you can't deviate. And I think that leads us to our last point that the Brad asked us about, and that's like go/no-go decisions around convective activity, right? and I think they are forecasts. I, I do think the colors on the screen sometimes look scarier than reality. daytime is very different for me than nighttime. Daytime, you can, you can see the
37:39
Bobby Doss
clouds, you can see the formation from, sometimes hundreds of miles away. I can remember one of my first jet trips, there was a- Big cumulus cloud that looked like it went to forty-five thousand feet, right? Like, we're all just saying like, we ain't going that direction, but we're probably two hundred miles away from that thing too, so, You have, you have some visual cues during the day that you don't necessarily have at night. Maybe the lightning helps you at night, but that makes it kind of scarier. what-- and
38:10
Bobby Doss
we've had We've had an instructor and student in the last couple of years think they could squeeze in some, pattern work and that quickly became one lap, and I think they both were a little white, white-faced when they got in the building 'cause they were so scared how quick and close that a thunderstorm got to the airport. that stuff in Houston, Texas, that stuff can build almost instantaneously. So you have to know where you're at, know some of the, the, the environment that you're in, but, what
38:42
Bobby Doss
is a cautionary tale that you can share with- Students or first hundred hour or maybe the two hundred and fifty hour pilot about what to think about when it comes to convective and, and convective sigmats and stuff like that?
38:42
Wally Mulhearn
Don't do it, don't do it. you know, thunderstorm versus a Cessna 172 is gonna, thunderstorm's gonna win. you don't wanna be in it, you don't, you know, you, you don't wanna get close. it,
39:13
Wally Mulhearn
it will, It, it, it will more than ruin your day or potentially, potentially can. I, I do believe, you know, during the learning process, I think instructors, you know, I think it's very important that if, if you have a, a situation where there is some r- or some rain showers out there, and I'm not talking about convective
39:44
Wally Mulhearn
activity but there are-- if there are some rain showers out there, I think it's a very valuable thing to go out and, let your students fly into some rain, because it, it, it sounds different. I remember the first time flying in rain in, in a, a Cherokee 140, I just heard this crackling noise. I-- it, it sounded to me like the, the airplane was cracking. And, the, the guy I was flying with was a little bit more experienced.
40:14
Wally Mulhearn
He go- Oh, we're getting a little bit of rain, and I just said, "Yeah, we're in a little rain," and I'm thinking, "Okay, that's what that is. That's what rain sounds like." I'd never been in rain, so I didn't know. so I, I think if, if you can do that with your students, just like I, I, you know, actual flying in actual, IMC conditions, that's, that's liquid gold. I mean, that is just so valuable to your students and, So they really know
40:45
Wally Mulhearn
what it feels like. I mean, under the hood is under the hood, it's, it's simulated. So if you can get 'em in, in the real situation, that's so much better. Yeah, I can remember my first rain and, and many rain situations thereafter. It is valuable. I, I don't think I thought a plane could fly in rain before I started flying, right? So everything makes us better pilots, everything makes us safer pilots, You have to be a smart pilot.
40:45
Bobby Doss
A few weeks back, we talked to Brandon Cooks. He said, "If there's any bad weather in the forecast, they're not flying, he's not flying, and, he's, he's, he's in a situation where that's his choice and that's his decision." do, do something to make sure you're gonna get to see tomorrow for sure, and don't take any uncalculated risks for sure. Whether you're a student, a fresh pilot, or planning that cross country, your safety is all about preparation. And hopefully we've done something today to help you prepare a little bit around
41:46
Bobby Doss
that. Remember, every flight is a chance to be a sharper pilot. Do your homework, come prepared, whether you're a brand new student or a cross country student or a pilot with three hundred fifty hours in your logbook, do everything you can to fly safely and stay behind the prop.
41:46
Behind the Prop Outro
Behind the Prop Podcast outro