Cabin Pressure with Shawn and "G"
Every Monday, listeners are invited to join seasoned flight attendants Shawn and G for an exciting journey behind the scenes and into the galley of their favorite airlines with the podcast, "Cabin Pressure!" This show promises to bring the thrilling in-flight experience directly to the listeners' ears.
Shawn and G, with their wealth of knowledge and affable personalities, create an atmosphere akin to sharing a drink and captivating stories with friends at 30,000 feet. "Cabin Pressure!" seeks to entertain a wide audience—whether listeners are aviation enthusiasts, frequent flyers, or simply fans of a good story.
The podcast provides entertainment for anyone traveling, enduring the daily commute, or seeking an amusing escape at any time. With "Cabin Pressure," listeners are encouraged to fasten their seatbelts, stow their tray tables, and prepare for takeoff into an engaging adventure.
Cabin Pressure with Shawn and "G"
From Childhood Dreams to Cockpit Reality: A Pilot's Perspective
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Take flight with us as we explore the fascinating world of commercial aviation through the eyes of a veteran pilot. In this captivating conversation, our guest John shares his remarkable journey from a wide-eyed four-year-old experiencing his first helicopter ride at a county fair to becoming an accomplished airline captain.
What truly sets this episode apart is John's candid breakdown of what it actually takes to earn your wings. Far from an overnight achievement, he details the seven-year path of intense training, certification challenges, and the methodical building of flight hours through instruction and charter work before landing professional flying positions. His story powerfully illustrates that aviation careers, while accessible, demand extraordinary dedication and perseverance.
Beyond career pathways, John pulls back the curtain on pilots' daily realities that passengers never see. From the extensive pre-flight planning and weather analysis that happens hours before departure to the surprisingly intense simulator training sessions every nine months where pilots face worst-case scenarios under intense scrutiny. We explore the misconception about glamorous layovers (spoiler: most involve simply resting for the next demanding day) and the crucial importance of crew familiarity and coordination.
Whether you're an aviation enthusiast, considering a pilot career, or simply curious about what's happening in the cockpit during your next flight, this episode delivers fascinating insights into one of the world's most demanding yet rewarding professions. Listen now for a first-class journey into the pilot's perspective!
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What's it like to be a pilot? How do you become a pilot? What is your circadian rhythm? All this next on Cabin Pressure.
Speaker 2:What up, what up, what up.
Speaker 1:I was waiting for that one man, you know I had to come in with another one. Oh my God, what is going on? That one man, you know I had to come in with that one.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, what is going on this week, man? The weather is absolutely freaking. Gorgeous outside.
Speaker 1:The weather right now in Northeast Ohio is amazing, and I am just loving it.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely man.
Speaker 1:I'm doing that photography class right now and I got this like doing this thing on sustainability and it's just been great to be out there taking pictures and you know, I just drive around the countryside taking these pictures and stuff and put all the shit together. But we're not gonna get into that. But it's gonna be beautiful weather, beautiful weather, but uh, hey, you know, um, I was talking the other day um to the wife and to uh the one, uh the one of our friends and stuff, and we were talking about sleeping and and how important um sleeping is, and we got into this like conversation. I was just like you know what? You know, a lot of people don't take sleeping seriously. You know, like I mean, they don't, they don't think that sleeping is important in their life. They just buy these like little, uh, you know a hundred dollar beds and sleep on these boards and I'm thinking like a one third of your life you're spending sleeping. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:A lot more people sleep than than, than uh, than anything else. Seriously, you talk about a lot of these flight attendants. They, a lot of them, uh, they. All they do is talk about the sleep that they don't get right on the layovers. But you know what I found out with that, sean? Truly is this for me, because you know I don't sleep that much anyway.
Speaker 1:Right, you like three, four hours a night. Some of that.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a deep sleeper. You better talk to me before I get my ass in that bed, because as soon as I get in bed, I'm out. I'm checked out, I'm I'm checked out.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:But the big thing, what I found out with that is a long time ago. This is what I, this is what I started doing. I don't think about how many hours of sleep I get I never do. And what I found is, when I don't think about it, I just go to bed, and it doesn't matter what time I go to bed or what time that I get up. I do not think about how many hours of sleep I get, and I sleep so much better because I don't think about it.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, I'm a huge sleeper, like I'm a bear, like I can knock out 10 hours, like there's no problem.
Speaker 2:A lot of people can't stay in bed that long, but a lot of times, though, do you think that you think about how many hours of sleep you need?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I don't. I don't normally do that, but you know, in the airline business is like. I started thinking about this, like it is super important, like our sleep, cause we're always in these different time zones and flying around the world different places and you this, the circadian rhythm of your body is just like it's wild. So I pulled up this like a little chart and you can't see this chart, but it was like just an example of the circadian rhythm, of of, uh, everything, and and one of the things that said it was like oh, there's these like highlights to everything, and the one thing that kind of jumped out to me is like like at um nine o'clock in the morning is the highest testosterone level you know, and I'm disagreeing with that at 8 30, you have a bowel movement likely.
Speaker 2:So I mean that might be true, but the nine o'clock part, uh, no, I'm saying disagree with that one.
Speaker 1:It's like circadian, like I, I got a rhythm to me. Like I got a rhythm as well. Like we all have our body rhythm as far as like sleep and and in how we function and all that stuff. And you know, I don't normally take a shit at 8 30 it's probably earlier than that but every time I get home off a trip it's like clockwork right and that testosterone depends on what you're thinking right, exactly right, but is it?
Speaker 1:but you know, hey, hey, it was interesting. But I got to thinking I'm like you. People spend like hundreds of thousands of dollars on their car you know a car. You're going to be spending, like you know, 1% of your life in this car, you know, and they'll spend tons and tons of money, but they won't spend any money on their bed. Nope, they're going to spend a third of their life in there sitting on a bed and, uh, you know, I, I invest in like a major bed. I got sitting on a bed and, uh, you know, I, I invest in like a major bed. I got one of those temperputics, adjustable beds, all this stuff does all this crazy stuff. But I highly recommend people think about, like you know, your sleep is super important and to your health and your, uh, lifespan. So, uh, it was just something that kind of gave me. And then the other thing that came up is I was like what the hell happened to waterbeds?
Speaker 2:Anybody, yeah. But you know something? Go back. I know I had a waterbed, you had a waterbed, oh, I did. I did Now the waterbed. It was great initially and then I had all kinds of back problems. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean it kind of sucked and then it got cold too. Yeah, you get cold. Those things have you ever? Did you ever wake up in your waterbed and you're like you were wet and I'm not? I'm not saying like a wet testosterone thing?
Speaker 2:again, because I don't know. I don't know where you're going with this. We went from uh rhythms to waterbeds to motion this is all centered around this sleep thing.
Speaker 1:It was just like it got me thinking.
Speaker 2:Kind of reeling it back in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're reeling it back in, but anyways, you know that's what I've been doing. You know, normal, normal.
Speaker 2:But you know, touch on that. One more thing with that too, is when you lay over and you go into hotel rooms sucky beds, sucky sleep, right, I mean, you know cause you? You'll sink in the middle of it. You don't have a good bed, it's not, it's not firm and it just sucks. And you go on the other one and it's just as bad as that one.
Speaker 1:And that's why it's so important, like, when we get home, we need a good bed. Yeah, you know, spend some money on your bed.
Speaker 2:Exactly Cause you want your testosterone level going up at nine o'clock because at eight, 30, you know, know, this is 8 30, but your testosterone is at nine. It's kind of jacked up.
Speaker 1:I don't know. This is just an example. Everyone's different. You know everyone had. This is an example but okay. Example that you went to the bathroom at 8 30, your testosterone level was at nine yeah, and then at like at um, what does it say here at about nine o'clock at night? It says that bowel movement is suppressed.
Speaker 2:We're starting off the show talking about shit.
Speaker 1:Right, well, this is what we talk about. Shit on this show we do. Yes.
Speaker 2:Anyways what you been up to, panama City, man. Okay, listen. First of all, you know, three-day trip again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're such a junior puke now. No, you know it was worth a lot of money If I'm doing it. It was worth a lot of money. But let me tell you I paid for that shit because flying down there, flying down to Panama City, man, sean, I'm telling you it's like a whole different world on board that airplane. Dude, it's a third world country, it's a freaking whole different world. Man, I mean, you get on the plane. Nobody listens to shit. No, nobody listens to a damn thing that you're saying. I don't care, I don't care when you say it, how you say it language speaker, not language speaker. They don't listen to shit.
Speaker 1:It's like there's like zero respect for authority down there. I mean, that's how I kind of feel you get down like anything goes in Panama.
Speaker 2:You get off the plane that part of the country, though Not just there, that part of the country.
Speaker 1:Well, central America is a little loose, that's one way to say it, right.
Speaker 2:Just a little bit. But you know the other thing that was crazy down there all the high-rises, skyscrapers, all that stuff, just that skyline. When you're driving downtown panama city, man, oh man, it is freaking crazy. Those buildings, some of those buildings are so freaking close. I swear to god you could reach out and you could touch somebody's balcony hey, not to mention there's some cool ass architecture there.
Speaker 1:They do. They got some of those buildings and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they got like a corkscrew one yeah, the Architectural stuff, but then okay, they have those really cool buildings. And then if you were like on floor one or floor two and you're looking out, then all of a sudden there's like all this shit. I mean it's just poverty. It's just poverty.
Speaker 1:It's a city like embedded in filth.
Speaker 2:It's unbelievable. And then you're looking at the bay.
Speaker 1:You're like, okay, I got this beautiful uh water, uh view, right, not so, not so beautiful no, yeah, because there's about a hundred thousand freaking container ships out there waiting to go through the canal and some of them.
Speaker 2:Some of them are just literally broken down out there right they're upside down, right, I mean it's. It's absolutely crazy, but what I did find find, though, is that the buildings are actually really cool. Yeah, they are cool. I mean they have some really cool buildings there, but yeah, I mean it was Panama City, and no, my ass will not be going back for a while. I mean, it cured me, I mean seriously that flight. It cured me.
Speaker 1:The one beautiful thing about being a flight attendant is this we get to see the world, and we get to see all different levels of the world, and what it does for me is it makes it more respective. You know, full of what I have here in America.
Speaker 2:Got to say one more thing too. When I came back through Sean, I'm not shitting you Through security, not even here, I swear to God I thought, thought I was gonna be in my boxers, real, real, right, they. I mean belt, that what. I'm like, what do you need my wallet out for? And I was like belt wallet, take your sweater off. I'm like next thing you know, I'm gonna be taking this whole damn uniform off standing there in my boxers yes, well, they maybe wanted you to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's been a lot of naked people running through airports lately yeah, well, they, they gave.
Speaker 2:they gave the other guy a pat down. He had a bad hip yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the life of a flight attendant, but anyways, yeah, hey, you know we wanted to welcome on our show our guest. This week we got a guest. We brought in a pilot, a very close friend of ours, john. He's been a pilot for some time and we just wanted to welcome him.
Speaker 2:This is one of the coolest freaking dudes flying. It was flying, I mean straight out man and loved flying with him many, many years and I'm so glad that he's here today.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, thanks guys. I was just listening to your whole intro there and thinking this is so cool. Yeah, I've never been on a podcast. Actually, not very many people find what I have to say very interesting, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think you're underestimating yourself. You know what? One of the things about a podcast is that people think you know this is like super high tech and you know you have to be. You know there's all this like important shit happening. There really isn't. This is just bullshit.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's what we're going to do. It's like me and you in the cockpit.
Speaker 3:Yeah Right, it's nice, I mean it's. But, you guys make everybody feel at home, oh good.
Speaker 1:Good, oh, good, good, good, good, yeah, hey, so you know. One of our first questions, john, is this how'd you become a pilot and how'd you get started in aviation?
Speaker 3:Well, I think you and I had discussed it at one time. For sure, gary and I have discussed it, but when I was four years old, four or five was born in Charlotte, north Carolina, okay, and I remember my dad took me to the county fair and they were given helicopter rides and it was a Bell 47, which is like a mash style. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Is that like a what they used to call a? What's the Vietnam paracopter they're talking about?
Speaker 3:A Huey, yeah, a Huey oh no, it's the precursor to all this stuff. Oh, okay, gotcha, I didn't get no damn credit for known as a Huey.
Speaker 2:What's that? I didn't get any credit for known as a Huey, but go ahead, John. Well, that was good. Star for G.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's more like did you ever see the TV show MASH? Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, the bubble. The beginning one, the bubble one, oh yeah, paid for a ride and we went for a ride in it and I just remember looking down and seeing all the little roads and little cars and all that stuff and I thought this is so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know and then I had an uncle who was a world war two vet, who flew for the Navy, and he would come into town every once in a while with his reserve stuff and I'd get to go out to the airport and walk through the airplanes, and so I always thought you know something I want to do, and through the airplanes.
Speaker 1:And so I always thought you know something I want to do, and it got got real nerdy too, I mean when I was, uh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm just going to like stop right there because, um, I haven't met too many non nerd pilots.
Speaker 3:Oh, good, good, so I fit into your my pre-conception of pilots Like it's it's, it's right, but you're a cool man. I appreciate that and thanks for letting me hang with the cool kids.
Speaker 2:He's like sitting in the front of the bus Actually, he's always in the front of the bus.
Speaker 1:He's always been driving the bus. That's good.
Speaker 3:So I mean I can remember as a kid, even being sick at home, my parents had a box fan. You know one of those things that had the wheels and I would put it at the end of the bed, turn it on and pretend I was flying.
Speaker 1:Oh sweet.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's when you're like blowing and then they go no, oh yeah, oh yeah, I had to do that too.
Speaker 1:Use the force. The force is with you, right.
Speaker 2:But you know something I love about the helicopter story though Could you imagine a kid today getting put on a helicopter at a state fair? Yeah, getting put on a helicopter.
Speaker 1:And and at a state fair yeah, that freaking that that parent would be dead, that mom would kill that dad. Yeah, I mean as far as like, like the, the concern level I'm like, you know, is this safe? And blah, blah, blah today, you know I love that part of your shit we did back when we were kids.
Speaker 1:You know like, oh yeah, all the stuff and and I listen I totally can relate because I've been on a helicopter many times and I just like it is amazing. And the first time, like you know, my wife's a pilot and the first time she went on a helicopter we were together and we were actually out in Hawaii and she took off in that thing and at first she was like, oh, this is terrible, we're going to. You know, this is bad safety records. They crashed, blah, blah, blah and all this stuff. And she got done with the ride and she's like I think I'm going to get want to get typed for a helicopter.
Speaker 3:Did she.
Speaker 1:No, she did not, but she was. But I mean, that's the feeling like the euphoria of the whole situation. And it's not totally different than the fixed week, right?
Speaker 3:No, not, not at all. I mean, there's different facets to it, obviously, but I took lessons and I soloed in it and I ran out of money, so lessons kind of went on. Yeah, it was pretty expensive at the time.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of pilot stories, right, yeah.
Speaker 3:They run out of money when they're young. Oh man, it can be a very expensive hobby, especially when you're getting into it right. It really is.
Speaker 1:So go on from there.
Speaker 3:So then, how did you become a pilot after like so then I had a little lawn mowing business and one of the houses that I got to do the guy was the father of two daughters at the time. They didn't show an interest in aviation, but he flew on the weekends and he found out that I was interested in flying. So he took me to the airport and I would get to kind of pre-plan the night before the flights. He kind of explained it to me and I got the books and I would get to kind of pre-plan the night before the flights. He kind of explained it to me and I got the books and read and then we go out and he would uh, uh, let me fly with them. And it was like that kind of spurred the interest on.
Speaker 3:So then I uh took it from there, I saved my money up and I rode my bike out to the local airport and signed up for ground school, cause that was all you know it was even expensive back then. Now you know, comparatively speaking it's not, but back then it was for a kid making two bucks an hour. Oh, heck, yeah. So I went ahead and signed up for the ground school and I would spend every day I could that I could get out there do the ground school. And then I started bothering the owner of the airport and I just said, hey, is there any work you need done? Could I? I do the ground school? And then I started bothering the owner of the airport and I just said, hey, is there any work you need done?
Speaker 2:Could I help out or do this?
Speaker 3:and that Sure Nice guy. I'm a big believer that everybody needs a break in life and he was one of my first breaks, you know that's cool. And so he watched me, but he was waiting until I was turning 16. Cause it was like 15, 15 and a half, okay, yeah. So as soon as, as soon as I got of age where he could do it, he hired me and I was a lion boy where you basically did everything. You mowed the grass, you're a gopher, exactly Right, exactly Right. But you learned a lot, right. Most people were very nice about passing on knowledge and things and all aspects of it.
Speaker 1:Especially in the aviation industry. I will tell you like in my 35 years, like I was enamored about me and being a pilot and all this stuff, like I grew up in very similar story not like not identical, of course, but I was had the enthusiasm to do it too, but I just didn't do it. That was that's my story, but. But at the same time it's like you think about all the people I've crossed and every time I've ever brought a story up to say, hey, I'm interested in aviation, pilots are always like hey.
Speaker 3:You know, because I think it's a love. I mean, we all love aviation, we do what we do, and so I think it's the love of aviation first that gets you into it. I think if you're motivated by other things, it can be a really long career. If you have that deep down love for it, it makes up for a lot of the frustrating nights like you guys were talking about in your last podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when was your actually first flight that?
Speaker 3:you took when I was taking a lesson? Yeah, it would have been. Let's see 1975. 75.
Speaker 2:So how old were you?
Speaker 3:15, 15, 15, 15 and three quarters when I started the lessons.
Speaker 2:Now, what did a lesson cost back then?
Speaker 3:It'll make it, it'll laugh. I was trying to think of that the other night, you know, I think it was $13 an hour, but you were working for $2, right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:John, what's today's price? You know I've checked with people and it's like $100.5 an hour. But don't quote me on those prices.
Speaker 1:You're in the range because you know, right down the street here I've investigated myself because I'm thinking about bucket list, I got to get my privates, you know so. But, buckle, it depends on the plane and the size and all that stuff, what you want to do it in, um, but I'd say somewhere in that that 150 range is, you know that's right center and you figure like, uh, what is it?
Speaker 3:35 hours, uh, minimum for a an approved school, right 40 if you're an unapproved school. But everybody runs up into the 60-hour range probably on average to get a license.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to get you to that point where the instructor is ready for you to be checked off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I went out. I started when I was 15. That would have been about 75, somewhere in there, and I remember waiting to actually solo because you had to be 16 to solo the airplane, you know, and my parents took me on. We went on a vacation once in a lifetime vacation and the whole time we're in Hawaii. I'm like I want to get back because I'm turning 16. I want to solo. You know, that's awesome. We did come back and I soloed a couple of days after my 16th birthday and I guess still remember the day. It was right at the local airfield here and it's something you'll always remember, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so most 16-year-olds are looking for the driver's license right. Yeah true, You're one to get on a plane, yeah right.
Speaker 2:I'm still sitting there thinking damn at 15, his parents took him to Hawaii. That's pretty damn good too.
Speaker 3:Full disclosure. I had an uncle living on the West Coast and he flew our family out there.
Speaker 1:I have a sister. Oh, you had the rich uncle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well to do that's awesome, so he took us out there. But I just laugh now thinking about oh here, I want to cut that short so I can get home.
Speaker 3:Right, right, that's awesome, yeah, and so then from there I just built up, you know, as you know, probably from your wife's perspective, Sure, and you've looked into it too. So you just go up from there, you get a private license and then you work on your instrument, your commercial CFI typically is the next route, so that now you have people paying you to go out and really learn about aviation, yeah, and, and then, you know, flew charter.
Speaker 3:And then I got my first, another nice break from the airport, because I was, I was working every, every day, basically, and I'd come back from school when I went off to college. I would come back on the weekends and still work there and flight instruct. And there was a guy that owned a local company and I had heard that they had purchased an airplane, a big airplane, cool. And so I said, hey, are you ever going to hire any co-pilots, first officers, for that? Sure, he was like, oh, is that something you want to do? And he was just a great guy, an old world war two guy, you know, and stuff, and uh, and he said, oh, okay, well the next day I got a call from their chief pilot and they were just kind of starting up their flight department and so that was my break and I got to go there.
Speaker 3:I was the young punk kid, you know, and got to fly with some amazing, um, older guys, you know that's great, and it just went from there. So I flight instructed, you know, and as anything, it's building time Right, you know you go from single-engine airplanes, then you want to fly multi-engine airplanes and so I was fortunate from the standpoint, in my instructing I was a multi-engine instructor so I was able to build some time there, okay, and then I got this job corporately and then I went full time with them and it was just a great adventure.
Speaker 3:I didn't get laid off just like the airline industry.
Speaker 1:But while I think we've all been laid off at some point in our life, or to me, mine was fired, but I mean that's a nice word. You never never got laid off? No, I don't know Adolph. You never got named Adolph. No, hell, no, I feel like I've had so many jobs in this, you know, in my lifetime and stuff I've definitely been asked to leave.
Speaker 2:Well, sitting here with you long enough, I can understand. Oh, yeah, yeah you're right, right, right. No, but you know something, john. Hey question for you Back then, being a young first officer was it different in the cockpit? I mean, were they pretty regiment?
Speaker 3:I mean you know are you talking when I finally went with the airlines?
Speaker 2:yeah, corporate, well even corporate, but was it? Was it pretty regiment? Because you know when, when they looked at pilots back then, I mean they're they really really looked high with you know, upon them and and and it seemed like they did things a little different back then.
Speaker 3:They did and I think it was more. You know, the captain was the captain and you were just basically what was your term about when I said a jack of all trades, Whatever, but you kind of were under his tuttlage, oh gotcha that could be good or bad. If he was a good guy, it could be a great learning experience.
Speaker 1:You were like a gopher pilot.
Speaker 3:Right, that was the word. That's the word, and if he wasn't a good guy it could be not that good. I've been fortunate in my career. Mostly everybody's been pretty good, oh good.
Speaker 1:So here's my question what was the time span so from that 15, three-quarter-age kid to the time that you actually got your first pilot job? What was that time span?
Speaker 3:Let's see, because I'm still in high school on this net, so that would have been 80-ish. Let's see, Probably yeah, Seven years, Seven years Of beating around doing the flight instructing charter you know stuff to get to an entry-level position with a good company where you'd consider it actually a good job, Right?
Speaker 2:And Now, did that time fly? I mean, did it go quick? You know well, you know how it is when you're a young person. Right.
Speaker 3:You know, you kind of wish life away a little bit, unfortunately, but it's. It seemed to just be slow because I knew what my goal was, you know, which is I wanted to work for the airlines. But as I look back on it, no, it was a really enjoyable time. I don't think it was particularly right, cause everything it was an adventure everything you did you know each, each milestone was.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I think when, when that happens, so right it. It does go by kind of fast, right yeah? I mean because it just in life I I notice, even with our job, is is in the airlines. It kind of flies by.
Speaker 1:You know the days kind of fly by what I find fascinating about the pilot um the job is that there's no one path.
Speaker 3:True.
Speaker 1:You know, there's no one like this isn't like if I want to be a doctor. This is why these are the things I have to do and the steps I have to get to do there. And yeah, they might have some different experiences in their training, varying a little, but they're all learning the same exact thing and the pilots are doing the same thing, but the paths are so different.
Speaker 3:I mean very true, you know, I mean when I, when I came up the two, the two routes were military or civilian, right, civilian required a lot of just stick to itiveness where you go out and kind of put yourself out there. And I mean there was a time in my career when I got furloughed for, laid off from the corporate job for a little bit. I was flying for everybody. You know people would call you up and go hey, you ever flown this kind of airplane? And I would just go. Well, sure, you know, go out. And the night before you'd look through the manual and there were a lot of markings and placardings on the airspeed indicator and on the panel where you could pretty much figure everything out.
Speaker 2:Sure, you Decatur, and on the panel where you could pretty much figure everything out, you know and, uh, John's version of air America.
Speaker 3:A lot, a lot of truth in that. So you got that, you got that kind of route and then you get the military route. You know you're giving up years. You know, seven years, I guess, is the commitment at first, and you got to go to flight training and do that. Well, I had 2025 vision, so at the time it's now gone back the other way, so I'm happy about that, but, uh, so that was not a route for me, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that wasn't one of my uh like as a kid. So I was the grow up military brat and uh fantasize about being a pilot and I had like terrible vision and when I could only think or envision military.
Speaker 1:So as soon as that dream like got crushed by uh, you can't be a pilot with that eyes, those eyes would like I just like literally gave it up and it's too bad and yeah, and there's so many people out there that you know, I think it's important for people to understand that, like in today's world military and uh, the commercial and the civilian way to get become a pilot you can do it with a lot of different um, uh, not past like inabilities. Like, if you have bad vision, you don't have to necessarily be, um, you know, maverick, you're not out there being like, you're not going to be top gun and all this stuff. Yeah, because you don't have the perfect body.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're talking about with the military. Yeah, okay, I got you.
Speaker 1:For any flying really, I mean. So there's requirements with the FAA that you have to get a medical. You know, it doesn't matter if you go military or not.
Speaker 3:But colorblind you still can't be right. I don't know, you know what I I honestly have to look into it because I never have, but I think that they have a waiver for that right and that's yeah and that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Like there's some, some so for for people that are out there that are inspiring to want to be a pilot, don't let those things discourage you. It's really my point, absolutely not like he's right, exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, no, keep going. You know, an airline captain to fly a captain on a 121 carrier, you have to have a first class medical certificate. Right, you don't have to have perfect vision for a first class medical certificate, exactly.
Speaker 3:I think it's like correctable to that Correct. So I would never let anything stop you from if it's something that you want to do, just go do it. That's the best part of this country. You can be whatever you want to be and uh, uh, granted, there's probably, you know, higher hurdles for some, some people, than others, but I had no my parents didn't pay a dime towards my flying.
Speaker 3:I just worked it out and, like I said, I was fortunate enough to have people come along that gave me the opportunity to earn what I did.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome. You know what I mean. That's a like to put this in perspective for, like the younger listeners that are, you know that's networking. He was networking when we were hustling out there and trying to get it Do what you actually earned it. I know he was hustling, I know that.
Speaker 2:But I'm saying is that he, when you were saying about the young people, this is what I'm saying Sean said he was hustling. I'm saying he earned the shit. He earned it. He went out and he worked his ass off and he earned it Because so many kids in the world today they don't earn their stuff, they want it free. But you stuff and they earned that and even if it was $2, it didn't matter for his $2. He was earning $2, paying $13.50, but he still earned the $13.50 for the hour. I mean and today that's what these kids need that you can still do this, but you're still going to have to go earn it.
Speaker 2:You can't just have it given to you I think, another term for that is pay your dues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to pay your dues and we all had to do that, no matter what the career choice you make.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing's going to be given to you in this world. I mean, there's very few people that I'd like, even with the younger generation thing that you know, I can become a millionaire sitting at home, working from home and things like that. You know, all these get rich quick schemes We've all. Everyone you know everyone here that we're sitting right here talking has been through that. You know. Hey, I want to be. You know, I want to make a lot of money quick, right, I mean we've all done that, but it's like you have to. The bottom line is you have to work for it. So, john, what are some myths about pilots that you, you think that uh are out there that you might want to debunk?
Speaker 3:well, I, I guess one of them is particularly in the airline industry. Is that, like, like gary alluded to it flying down to panama? You know that you get down there, it's late, you're tired, all this, everybody has the opinion that like we go places and it's one big party.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And I would say that's the furthest thing from the truth. I mean, I'm sure there are people that are more outgoing than I am, like on a layover type basis, but I don't know if there was like a site you wanted to see, like the Winchester Mansion is an off the wall thing out in Sacramento. Yeah, I'd take the time on one trip to do that.
Speaker 2:But then when you're doing it month after month, you know one hotel room becomes a lot like the other hotel room. Wow, I think that's a myth with the whole airline industry, that we're that, we we have this big vacation life and and all we do is go to our layovers. We go to these fancy dinners, go go layovers. We go to these fancy dinners, go go, uh, drink, go, party. No, that ain't it right. We're looking for. We're looking maybe for uh, something to eat. We're looking for the? Or is our room clean, right?
Speaker 2:right and yeah, and, and heading to bed that's pretty much what I mean, like we're because our ass is tired most of the time right, we're trying're trying to get that sleep.
Speaker 1:We're right back to that whole conversation. We want to get the rest to be able to get because we got another long day ahead of us. Because on average I mean in an airline career, you know our average workday, I feel like, is like a 12-hour workday Easily. Yeah, I mean they don't really tell you that because we're really focused on like flight hour and all that stuff. But when you look at the real big picture of like an airline, it doesn't matter flight attendant, pilot, whatever we have 12 hour days, 10, 12 hour days average. That's the normal day, we know. Eight hour day is definitely the exception. Right, because they push you as much as they can push you Right Until they can't break any more rules, right.
Speaker 3:That's basically how it works. Undoubtedly, yeah. And then you sit there and you tell people, well, how much do you fly? And you tell them, say, 80 hours a month. You know, I know certain people do a lot more than that.
Speaker 2:He's talking about me.
Speaker 1:G's a whole other animal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but what they don't understand is that's flight hours. That's actually from when we get off the gate to, you know, get back into the gate and there's all that other stuff we have to do.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest though it's for a pilot, though and this is where I'm going to give you the props there's a shit load more to it than it is. I mean, no, we have a tough job back in the back, no kidding. But man, when you're flying into that shit and that weather is really bad and you earn your money, you earn your money. I mean, you guys, you earn your money because sometimes the stress level is pretty high, because you not only got to watch what you do, you also got to watch that person over you, because you are a captain too. So John.
Speaker 1:That leads me to another question. Is it like tell me, like, walk me through, like what's a life, a day in a pilot's life, like how do you start and end?
Speaker 3:the day, typically like the night before. You know you're going to go out on a pairing the next day, so you kind of get an idea of what the weather system's affecting, what your route's going to be. So you've got an idea when you go to bed what you're probably going to face in the morning. And then you get up. You know it's just like you guys, all those flight crew people, we all just get up what? Probably three hours before our departure time, because we live fairly close. Some people commute, which even adds more to the day, but for us it was probably three hours before. And then, right away, first thing I do is open the iPad and see well, what does the weather look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the iPad, your manual.
Speaker 3:Right. And then a couple hours before the company, we have a dispatch department, which is the folks that have all the really high-tech equipment to look at weather forecasts, everything they've been talking to flight shift to shift. So they've got a perspective of the other crews that have gone through the routes. Well, they formulate a, a flight plan for you, okay, and then as the crew, we look at it, we'll meet in ops an hour, typically an hour before the flight, meet up and then go over it together. You know, in our case, obviously two, two or two people on the airplane. We were on Right. Some of the international flights have three to four crew members on board, but they'll all meet together. They'll discuss the flight, look at the weather, they'll discuss possible problems in the back which you guys might alert us to. You know things like that.
Speaker 3:And then, once everybody's comfortable from the standpoint of, they think that all right, this is our best course of action. Today it's good to go the airplane's good, you know, we sign it off and we're on our way.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then it's the variables, as you guys all know, the variables that you guys have to deal with right right.
Speaker 1:So so that's super interesting for people that are listening. Like it's like, you know, people don't realize that, like pilots, like every flight and we've been talking about this many times on our show and stuff you know, every flight there's, you know, all these people going through this, this uh stages, these work plans and stuff like that, and each, each uh person has a plan and, from the pilot's perspective, like you have that brief before you, that hour before and all that stuff that's super interesting for people to understand. That we get, basically you get a snapshot of everything that's getting ready to happen and you got to approve that or not approve it, right.
Speaker 3:Right, and and we're fortunate because the latter part of my career here was in a small base and usually, like inbound airplanes, if it's not the first thing out in the morning, you'll get an update from them, particularly if we're all flying the same kind of route you know. And that was very helpful too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so. So like we get to talk to each other in the cruise, like and and I know as flight attendants we do the same thing in the back, Like we're, we're, you know, hey, is this a good plane back or no, we got a shitty coffee maker in bag. And then you know, yeah, this, this doesn't work that great.
Speaker 3:but it's there, and you alluded to the fact. I mean it's always. It seems like it just comes down to the flight crew when it, you know. And when I say flight crew, I'm saying you guys, us, everybody, that's the flight crew Right, right, right and so it's, the people only see us as the flight crew.
Speaker 3:Of course they see customer service too, but you know, we're the, we're the bottom line people. But what it takes to get that airplane off the gate, the amount of people that are in the background doing things to make that work, is phenomenal. Yeah, think about it yeah.
Speaker 2:What I think is is is amazing, though and you just alluded to all of this is people had no idea that these guys start this the night before. You started the night before you, not the day of the night before then, and what John just told you is this they haven't even got on the plane yet. Right, they're not even been on the plane, so john tell them what. Okay, so you got to the point now that, um, you, you did all this, so you're going to the plane. Tell me a little bit about what.
Speaker 3:What goes on, then, because that there's a lot there yeah, so you walk to the gate and typically the first people you see, uh, are the customer service reps or the rest of the crew when we all meet up there. And so most of the time customer service will just update us on any people that we need to know special things about, and then you'll meet the crew. We go down and then we all brief. You know you guys have certain needs that I have no idea about unless you clue me in on it. Sure, and vice versa, and you know, it became old hat for us because, once again, small base we have.
Speaker 1:We're family, we are, we started working together and we're like we know each other.
Speaker 3:Everybody knows what to expect from each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of our idiosyncrasies and different shit.
Speaker 3:And so then we go down. Typically, maintenance will be there and they'll kind of update us on the airplane because they've either worked on it at night if there was any kind of issue. It goes through their checks and things. They'll stop by and say, hi, let us know if there's anything of issue that we need to know about. If we have a problem, we can call them. They come right out, you know, and we all have the goal of getting those folks out on time, get them down to their destination safely and there's just a lot of stuff going on and people just and this is to me is the checks that go on in that cockpit.
Speaker 2:People you have no idea.
Speaker 3:There's an extensive checklist that goes on and then and you guys know this, but maybe other people don't but as a crew up front in the cockpit, we alternate every other leg. So it just depends on you know, it depends on how the captain wants to run it. But I would typically just ask the first officer, hey, what leg do you want, you know, and he'd start or I'd start and based upon that I would go out and do the walk around on the airplane to recheck what has already been checked by maintenance. But we would just do a cursory check to make sure everything's as it should be, and the other guy would be in the cockpit loading the flight computers and getting the airplane basically ready to go.
Speaker 2:Now here's a little shout out, because John has flown with the same person for a long time. So a little shout out to Chris, you out there. Yeah, a little shout out to him. Now John tell me exactly. It's funny because I know Chris really well. But what is it like to know that person is next to you, right as well as you had known him?
Speaker 3:It just makes it work. It's the same thing I'm sure you guys deal with. You know, when my door's closed, sure, in the back, it's just all the difference in the world when you know what to expect. I mean, every airline has SOPs, right, sure? And SOPs make it so that if a crew member comes from a West Coast base and comes to our base and he's paired next to me or paired next to you, we know what the basics are. That should be expected.
Speaker 1:The standard operating procedures of the airline that we're working with.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, but to go beyond that when you have somebody that you're just well in tune with, it just makes it work so much better.
Speaker 1:I've always been a firm believer in. You know, over our career we've merged with airlines and all that stuff and you know we all each have our own history think that has been so important that I hope and wish more airlines will do this. Is that that camaraderie and that experience of working together is so important to the safety level of your aircraft? I mean, and, and sometimes I feel like, uh, the bigger the airlines get, the sometimes I like kind of dissipates, but we always have the SOPs to fall back. That keeps us all safe, right, right.
Speaker 2:You just don't find this anymore. I mean what you guys had, I mean as far as flying together because, trust me, we've known these guys for a while, but you just don't have that anymore. You don't have that same feeling when you hit the airplane, because we have the faith in you guys and you guys have the faith in us and it works right. It really works, and that's the amazing part, and for you it's got to be so nice that you already know that guy next to you, how good he is.
Speaker 1:You know how good he is, but it's the same in the back too. I mean, uh, like g and I working together is is the same as you and uh, chris, right? Uh, you know, I don't have to verbally say things to him because he's we've known each other so long and our body language and reaction and just a look we know how to react.
Speaker 3:That's a much better way of saying what I was trying to say I'm mesmerized over here, but that's true.
Speaker 1:That is the dynamic of, you know, having that crew coordination that I just you know I so love. When I'm with those people and I know you like as flight and plane, your confidence level goes up too, oh, absolutely. Because you feel like somebody's got my back.
Speaker 3:Right, I mean being pilot in command is a heavy weight and, like you said, you know what to expect.
Speaker 2:Right, it's not an unexpected thing.
Speaker 3:I mean, even when you fly like in my case, with people I haven't flown with before, I mean you're always kind of giving benefit of the doubt and all that. Every once in a while, even guys you've flown with will catch you off guard because you get pretty comfortable with them, Sure, so it's.
Speaker 2:But that's the same thing for you, right, as a pilot, even with your flight attendants, what Sean was saying. If there was a problem going on in the back of the aircraft and you knew that we were back in the in the back of the aircraft, did you ever worry about it? Not at all. See see, that's a, that's a difference right now.
Speaker 3:And it's, and it's great because, with that camaraderie of us and I, you know what to expect. You know what to expect from me, I know what to expect from you guys. Uh, you guys just handle it and it's just like makes life so easier yeah, because uh yeah you just said it well right.
Speaker 1:It's just a well-oiled machine. Anybody that's in any type of work in industry, it doesn't matter where you're at and I. You have a crew that you're working with. You have to uh you know, it's always easier to work in that environment when you have experience and a camaraderie and a connection so I gotta, I gotta go ahead.
Speaker 3:No, I was going to say funny story on. That aspect of it is good. Well, you guys know that occasionally, like a training center guy will come out and they want to do yeah, bump your coat, your, your, your guy you're flying with, and then you get to fly with them and right, and so I'm unaware of it until it pops up on my screen and I'm like, wait a minute, where's Chris?
Speaker 3:And uh, and so I I was like, all right, I got to find something out about this guy. You know, maybe I don't want to fly with this guy.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And you know the only thing that you missed in your, in your day, when you said how your day was Chris did not bring your coffee and all that stuff that you say. Chris brings John's coffee.
Speaker 3:I forgot about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He does. He brings his coffee to him.
Speaker 2:Chris brings coffee to him in the morning, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's how close? They are Remember.
Speaker 1:Sean used to bring papers Exactly I used to bring a newspaper every day, until papers faded away.
Speaker 2:But that's what you do, though, when you're family and you think that way, that's what you do. You take care of each other, and that's that is what we do, you know, in our small base, because, um, you know, we are family, that's what. That's how we look at each other now, but I do have a question. Okay, what do passengers do to pilots?
Speaker 3:That's just, it's annoying to you, you know it it's funny because sean gave me a heads up on this stuff and so I was kind of cursory, running them through my, through my mind, and I was like, ah, let's see, that's a tough one, um oh, there's got to be some annoying things out there I mean, I could well.
Speaker 3:I tell you that right away, and it more is, uh, from your guys's aspect, I I just like, come on, people, it's simple seatbelt signs. It's not for the fact we want to tell you what to do, it's because if you get flopped around back there, not only are you going to get hurt, but you're going to get hurt when you get thrown on somebody, and that person will get hurt even though they're obeying the rules. So it's simple things like that that I would get annoyed by.
Speaker 2:All right, you know what mine is. I'm going to straight tell you Uh, I thought I've seen the pilot in the bar. That's the stupidest damn thing you could ever see. You want to see a pilot? Listen, folks, when you pop in and you say something dumb like that. Let me tell you what happened one time. I'm just going to tell you on this, john John, because you know that that is a dumb comment. I seen a captain get his bag and he walked his ass right off that airplane and he said he just accused me of being in the bar and I'm going to get alcohol tested. I said congratulations, flight just canceled.
Speaker 3:You don't have a pilot. You know that's good, had you guys given me that notion, but that's so true because we get that a lot and typically if there's an incident in the industry then they all want to be jokesters and say something.
Speaker 1:Dumb comments, yeah, words has consequences and and it's uh, people don't. People don't get that like certain things that you say trigger certain things in industry. My favorite annoying thing for people to say is like oh, my seat's broken as we're taxiing out. Well, I could spin this whole aircraft around and we can go back and get your seat corrected or quit lying to me and bring up your seat and when you bring up the lying aspect.
Speaker 3:I guess that brings me down to the one when you gave me that thought. What your question was going to be is that when we have a mechanical problem, people think we're lying to them and we're not. I mean, there may be critical things we don't tell, but for the most part we're being upfront about it. It's not that we wanted to delay the flight or do this on purpose, for whatever unknown reason. People conjure up, but it amazes me people get mad at us over a mechanical delay because my thought is you want us to go with something that you're flying on, something that's about a quarter inch thick right, that's pressurized at 40,000 feet.
Speaker 2:Are you freaking, kidding me? I know that's a stupid comments.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Stupid comments. I mean, I don't care how long I do this job. The one thing I hate is those dumb, stupid comments.
Speaker 1:Right, they make no sense. You take them with a grain of salt because we have the experience of, like you know, we can work this out through our experience of dealing with this over and over and over and realize when people are just being idiots.
Speaker 2:Well, some of them are funny, sean, but some of them are just straight stupid. You know that I mean, it is and I get it. But, man, some of them, they just need to not say it.
Speaker 3:Just come on board, sit down, sure, and props to you guys, because I could never do your job. I have to be honest. I mean, I like the fact that you insulate me from stuff.
Speaker 2:We close the door and it's lined up, yeah, exactly Between me and Sean there's a lot of insulation anyway.
Speaker 3:No, but you guys have seen it too. I mean, there are people in the ranks none that I can cite example of. Recently, particularly not out of here, but in my earlier days, there were people that could antagonize passengers too.
Speaker 1:They had hot buttons, yeah, and it's like come on, people yeah well, I mean, that's kind of like it was back to us, like how we we know each other and work. You know, we know the people that we work with. Certain you know, I've had the captains that are. You know they're the hot heads. You know all you have to do is say blink to them and they're just explode, you know, or, and then we had to fly to do the same thing. You know, like it's, it's that knowing and all that. That's that experience level of us being, especially when you're in a small community like we are, uh, that is so awesome to work in Cause.
Speaker 3:Let's face it, people, it's very un-American, un-freedom-ish to put people into a tube and then they have to follow a bunch of rules. You know, but it's not. We wrote the rules, we just have to abide by them too.
Speaker 2:You know, the funny thing about it, too, is that we, we inform and we don't enforce. That's what really people don't even understand we don't. We don't enforce the rules, we, we inform them right. Because I mean if, if you're going to push it to that, that extent, you're going to get taken off an aircraft, Right?
Speaker 1:I mean the enforcing coming to people, people that are listening to the thinking no, enforcing is a removal from the aircraft, right, but I mean in actuality, like we inform you many a times it's we treat everybody like a two year old, like we're going to tell you we're going to tell you 10 times before you're going to be pulled off that aircraft Unless you do something absolutely out of control. You know you're going to be violent or something like that. That's understandable, but most of the time I mean it's just you know you keep pushing until you get to our breaking point.
Speaker 2:There's a good reason. If you're taking off a plane, man, there's a good reason. You know that, right, I mean there's a good reason.
Speaker 3:But big question that we always have from passengers and I love this one Turbulence. How do you feel about it? You know, I guess you become I'm assuming just like you guys. You come basically immune to and used to it. Obviously, if it gets really bad, I think it's very worthwhile to for the you know, the cockpit to make an announcement to the back end. I'm sorry, I should have said flight deck, but it's my.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, you can say cockpit on the show. You can say assholes up front or whatever.
Speaker 3:That works too.
Speaker 1:The office in the sky, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's important because we all believe it or not. There's probably people that are on a flight for a first time. They've never been to the airport, never done anything, and so it's quite the sensation for them. Right, I've been up to, I've only had severe turbulence a couple of times and it's pretty concerning, but you're so busy at that point in the cockpit that you know it just kind of goes by. Sure, you know. Not to sound cowboy is sure, whatever it. Just I don't know, it's just one of those things you live with.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. You know. So, john, quickly, what exactly is turbulence, though? I mean, for people that are listening, they, they really don't. We hear we say turbulence, but what's turbulence explain?
Speaker 3:Well, most of his jet stream caused. You know, when you get up, particularly during the winter, you have winds coming that can reach 120, at times, 120 knots Right. And so, if you think about it, I always you know, we, we tend to look at these numbers and just rationalize them. Sure, but then I always thought to myself man, can you imagine standing outside our home right now with 120?
Speaker 1:I don't want to win. That's called a tornado Right man. Can you imagine standing outside our home right now with 120 wind going by?
Speaker 3:That's called a tornado Right and so you get sheer levels as you go up and down, and that's usually what causes the worst part. And then when you're down low, it's convective heating of the ground of you know, like a parking lot's going to have more rising heat than like a ground you know a forest or a lake or things like that. So as you get close to the ground, a lot of it's that. And then, of course, you have the clouds you know that are billowing up and things that you're going to hit.
Speaker 2:So you're actually I mean you take a lot of that into consideration in airports you're flying to, though, right? Yes, I mean as far as with the turbulence that's known for those airports, particularly.
Speaker 3:You know like Denver comes to mind. You know you can. Just I have a sister that doesn't like to fly.
Speaker 2:She will avoid Denver because it's always bumpy coming in and out.
Speaker 3:You got the winds coming off the mountains and mountain rave and you know a lot of heat, convective heating.
Speaker 2:So it can be, you know, disconcerting for somebody. That's not so for for those, for those worried passengers, should they be worried?
Speaker 3:No, no yeah.
Speaker 1:So so what have you ever like in your, in your career? Did you ever have a like, a I mean that's this is the normal question everybody's going to ask you Like did you ever have a scary situation where you actually was like it puts?
Speaker 3:you on a little edge. Somebody else asked me that recently, cause you always, like you said, you get that a lot. Right, we get that, and so I. I. I've reflected on it a minute, I've come with age, I don't snap an answer Right. And I would say and this is not to sound to minimize it, but every situation I ever dealt with with the airline I felt properly trained to handle and I always had somebody there, the input that you know, we handled it and it was just kind of all right, we're in the sim and we're doing it and let's just handle it. Yeah and uh.
Speaker 3:For the most part, I think, uh, pilots are pilots first you know, Sure, and so we all have the inner feeling of just flying the airplane Right. And so, no, I, you know, there was really I mean, I've had, I've had in my corporate career I had an engine failure. That was probably the most exciting, coming out of Detroit, you know. And then, as a flight engineer, we shut an engine down, went into DC one day and the rest of it's all been just like hydraulics or control problems and things like that.
Speaker 1:But nothing that, nothing major that you had to like. You know, we had to do an evacuation on a plane or anything, no, right?
Speaker 2:Okay, john, explain to the people, because you brought something up and they, they, they really don't understand this. I know the SIM right. So when you guys go to training, you go into these SIM training, right, and you spend how many hours in there.
Speaker 3:So we do it every nine months and it's usually with our company. It's a three-day event on one of them, a two-day event on the other, and you basically run through the worst case scenarios. They have things that they call their first look, which is they kind of are collecting data to throw a problem at a flight crew and see just off the cuff how they handle it, without any practice or trying and stuff. So they collect that data and then the rest of the time is really spent with either what the flavor of the moment is. You know, if there's an incident in the industry and they try to learn from everything, they'll run us through exercises based on that incident and then we just have the standard stuff where engine failures and control problems and all that.
Speaker 2:Now that sim training let people know, is that stressful?
Speaker 3:It's probably in my case. I know different people handle it a different way. That was probably my least favorite part of the job was going out there and I never had a problem.
Speaker 2:I never had a problem. I think that's the majority. I'm not saying that I never had a problem.
Speaker 3:I'm saying that more of it as an example, saying that I never had a problem, I'm saying that more of it as an example. I would get worked up over it to the point that, you know, I just in my latter years said this is ridiculous. Go, do your, do your best and let them critique you and learn from it. Move on.
Speaker 1:It takes time to get there, though I mean, and this is the same thing for flight attendants as well. I mean, uh, for those that are listening, you know, you know, a flight attendant is typically once a year. We go to this sim training as well, where we do the whole evacuations, all this stuff. But so for pilots it's different for the position you're in, right. So for first officers in the airline that we worked for, there, are they every how many? How many months do they have to go? No, they, for first officers in in the airline that we worked for, um, there are they every how many? How many months do they have to?
Speaker 3:go. No, they're the same. They're the same. Okay, we do the exact same.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 3:And it's actually treated as a crew event. So we work together as a crew, so it's always the same training for whether you're FO, captain, right, and so, like Chris, shout out to Chris. If I ever was lucky enough to go out with Chris, I would know exactly what to expect from Chris and stuff, and but, to his detriment, if I had a bad day, it reflects on the two of us. You know, right, right.
Speaker 2:So you know, the thing is I just want to tell people this is that you guys really don't understand this. Sim training actually, for these guys is very stressful. They they have to go every nine months, like john said, but they're evaluated and and they're sitting there watching some of the most serious situations that that could happen on an airplane and and you know, and they're constantly being watched and and this is done every nine months yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2:I mean that they don't really don't understand how stressful that is. We do, because we know you guys and we know you know when it's that time you get the amount of time you have to study, right, right, you put a lot of time. How many, how many hours would you say that you put in studying before your sim?
Speaker 3:Well, typically for me and you know, once again, I'll just speak for me about a month before the event a month. I'll just speak for me about a month before the event a month.
Speaker 2:I'll start. I'll start gearing up. Think about that.
Speaker 3:I'll start looking back through the manual and a lot of people might go well, don't you know it already? Well, I don't know. Have you seen those books?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 3:There's a lot. There's a lot of nuanced stuff that you go. Oh man, you know, and you just are trying to do it, right I mean most most guys want to do sure, you know, uh, and so yeah.
Speaker 2:And then the week before.
Speaker 3:I would always call my PMS week just.
Speaker 1:My wife would just like look at me like yeah, I was just about to tell you, like most, most men in the world, they're looking at their wives and they have the. You know we have that monthly uh cycle, whatever, right, but but, um, my wife's a pilot and, uh, when she goes to this training thing, it's the, the one and a half month cycle every nine months. I have to go through this like major build-up to stress that she's like almost in tears where she's not thinking that she's gonna lose her jobs. But here's my point to the thing that's really important that the reason why you guys are getting so nervous is because you care and you really want to do well, I mean, that's the, that's why that level of anxiety is up there, is because the, the care level is so up high.
Speaker 3:Yes, agreed and it's you're doing it amongst your peers. You know not only the guy you're working with, but the guy that's evaluating you. Yeah, nobody likes check rides and nobody likes a newness feeling in anything.
Speaker 2:But this isn't like 20 minutes though, john, right, I mean, this is like two hour sims.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's four hours. Four hours, okay, could you?
Speaker 2:imagine sitting in a simulator for four hours, throwing everything at you that it could possibly throw at you and being evaluated on it. That's crazy. I mean that's absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:And each time they do current event things too. So if things happen in the industry they put those situations into those Sims.
Speaker 3:So, for instance, the max issue, right when the max issues came out, boy, that completely got into our training.
Speaker 1:Sure, Obviously Sure, and uh so um, we're going to kind of move this long here because, uh, we are running out of time. Before we wrap this whole thing up, I want to do this like rapid fire questions and all you got to do is just answer it, okay, so, I didn't give you these notes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I understand that. I understand that, and when I kick Gary, I'm going to expect him to take you out at the end of the. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So here it is, I'm just going to throw them out to you. Turbulence or delays.
Speaker 3:Annoying.
Speaker 1:Annoying. Which one would you prefer? Turbulence or delays, turbulence, turbulence, early morning flights or red eyes, early morning Window. Seat or aisle? As a passenger, kyle.
Speaker 2:That's me too. I love that one Right.
Speaker 1:Night flying or daytime flying.
Speaker 3:Do you mean the whole flight?
Speaker 1:Either way night or day, flying in the night or night, and flying in the night, I mean, we have flights that do both. Right yeah.
Speaker 3:I guess I'm indifferent, as long as you take the all-night segment thing out. Oh, the overnight, the red-eye type of thing, right Gotcha? Worst pasture a crying baby or a guy clapping his hands when he land.
Speaker 1:Sorry, grandkids crying baby crying baby, you got it. Uh, what? What's more dangerous? Uh, turbulence. Or someone reclining their seats into your knees and into the knee, climbing their seats into your knees and into the knee, into the knees? Kill him. What about this? This is your captain speaking, or? Hey y'all, it's me again, which which is your vibe. I never worked for Piedmont so and more, most, most stressful or more stressful emergency, uh, emergency landing or airport security line. Airport security line Right.
Speaker 3:Unlike, unlike. Unlike G, who probably everybody would want to see him in his boxers.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's just the opposite. Over here, I'm with you too. Nobody wants to see you, uh and uh. Have you ever pretended to look busy? So, uh, you didn't have the pastor talk to you that's a good question.
Speaker 3:Uh, no, no, because typically it's uh when you're the busiest that people want to come up and talk, you know the times where you got a lull.
Speaker 1:We're in like a crunch situation.
Speaker 3:We're trying to get to playing out or whatever, and they want to come up and hey no, but you know, you know in my case too, once again, that's working amongst us, sure, our guys, because you know, in my case, the guys I was working with, I could always get away from what I was doing and I knew they'd cover me.
Speaker 1:So you know, here it was just a little different. Okay, um and uh, Um and uh that, and one and one, one last one most powerful pilot move Okay, Aviator sunglasses, or walking slow to the gate.
Speaker 3:Well, I never uh. Being an ex commuter, I never uh walk walk slow. So, I would have no, uh have no opinion on that one. You could have thrown in Big Watch. It wasn't a Big Watch.
Speaker 1:John, it was awesome having you on board on this podcast with us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:I really enjoyed it. You guys do a great job, and I wanted to give you a shout out too, Sean. The other week we got the privilege of attending an event with you. Right, I just I never knew you did the volunteer work you were doing. Not that I didn't think you were that type of guy, but it was like I had never heard of that organization. Dba, DBA, yeah.
Speaker 1:Friends of DBA.
Speaker 3:And boy, what a worthwhile cause. Good for you, man. Yeah, I mean, I don't know where you get the time.
Speaker 1:I'm retired and I can't even come up with time. I don't know where sometimes I get the time either, because I always have to. I got friends that push me into doing crazy stuff like this podcast. I got people that are asking me to help them out in the foundations and stuff, but I still manage to do my own thing as well, and I'm always hustling doing something.
Speaker 3:Well, you guys are awesome. For anybody that listens to this, these two guys are just two of the greatest guys they've ever got the privilege to work with, so I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know how I feel about you, man. So I mean, like I said, this guy sitting next to me is one of the best pilots I've ever flown with. Chris is still out there, is still out there. I'm still flying with your ass here soon and you're going to be coming in here next, chrissy, so you're up next, buddy.
Speaker 1:Hey, just before we leave, we're going to touch on a couple of current event things that happened and John, please ring into this. But just the other day there was an airline that had to divert because they were going from LA to Shanghai and one of the pilots forgot their passport. Uh, all I got to say is like you, stupid ass would you divert?
Speaker 3:well, uh, you know, I it's one of those things we'd probably obviously they got in contact with the company and it's kind of at that point if I had a choice, because the cost of that conversion, that diversity is incredible.
Speaker 2:And I would just look for a bench in custom somewhere. Yeah Right, just sit there.
Speaker 3:Now wait till tomorrow. I mean worst case. The guy just stays on the plane and is sent home, right?
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, that's what I would think that would happen. I've never even heard of this. You're like self-deported. But I will tell you. Um, that happened to me, this happened to me. They didn't turn the plane around but I, I did a cancun turn and out of here, out of cleveland, and uh, I flew all the way there and flew back and you know, I never got up to plane because we're just doing a turn right. And I got coming back through customs, like right before we land I was like, do you have my passport?
Speaker 1:with me and literally had no, I didn't't have with me. It was like, I mean, it was an oh shit moment that you were just like your heart jumps out of your chest and you're like what's going to happen to me? And all you can feel here, you know, in your head it's like I'm going to be locked up in chains.
Speaker 2:Rubber gloves coming for him, John.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he's trying to figure out. In my case you go. Well, who would bail me?
Speaker 2:out, figure out. In my case you go. Well, who would bail me out? It's like some big dude, some big guy with rubber gloves is coming after sean.
Speaker 1:But you know what? This? This is right back to that whole thing about family and little base and everything, because I knew the agent that met the plane. Um, my wife was close. Uh, she brought my passport. It was, it was, it was so non-big event, you know. But yeah, anyways. But uh, other things is in the news too. Was uh, um, uh, trump man is talking about banning 43 countries from travel. I don't know if you guys saw that did you guys see it no yeah, like he's, he's had this new list.
Speaker 1:Now some of them were like no-brainers, like you know, like iran, you know there's a tough ban showing right but they're doing this whole thing with this.
Speaker 1:Uh, there you know, there's he's talking about 41 countries that are going to be the flight band. So I mean impact on airlines and stuff and all the different places that, like I'm our, our company does go to some of these places, and it's going to be wild. I just thought it was like very interesting, uh, something to bring out. Yeah, I didn't see that one. Yeah, and then a couple of things. Did you see the couple that was arrested in Cancun?
Speaker 2:Nope, no, you didn't see that.
Speaker 1:So so they had a dispute. So this is a learning lesson for everybody If you charge something on your credit card and you think there's some type of you know wrong, you you think there's some type of you know wrong, you can dispute it, right? Well, this couple had charged their timeshare onto a credit card and they disputed it through American Express, and American Express sided with them and they gave them their money back. So they were traveling back and forth to Cancun. They had done it a couple times. Well, this last time they went, authorities met them when they landed, put them in prison, and so now the timeshare company has gotten with the local authorities and said that they owe them $250,000, when it was only like $141,000. And so these two Americans are locked up down there.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Not the place to be in right. Right, you do not want to be in a freaking foreign prison. We've talked about that many, many times.
Speaker 2:Okay, one that just came off the wire I just seen, and this one was off the chain man. So they had a new, a new hire flight attendant. All right, two hour delay. You know the delay was for no, supposedly this new hire was traveling. You know how we non-rev travel? And uh, he was on a plane and uh, he was, uh, he was playing with himself. Sean the flight attendant. Well, he wasn't working it, but he was no, he was working in it. That sounded like he was working, he was working something. That was it, that was something. But could you I'm seriously reading this. I was like are you kidding me? So you're one month in one month.
Speaker 1:Dude.
Speaker 2:What the hell were you thinking? Yeah, I mean to do that anyway, but the two-hour delay posted because he was doing that on the airplane.
Speaker 1:He was playing with himself on the airplane, on the airplane, and so some pastor saw him, or something like that.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Yeah, I didn't want to get that deep into it, sean.
Speaker 1:I literally you know this goes to. I you know tick tock and all that stuff. I just saw this picture where they had this, the post of this flight attendant standing in the galley with the other flight attendant and this flight attendant had this gal had reached back and put her hands down her pants that was nasty.
Speaker 2:I was like straight out nasty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was nasty, that is nasty'm like, and somebody was able to take a picture of her picking her ass.
Speaker 2:In first class, could you imagine? No, I'm not taking nothing to drink, nothing to eat. Nope, I'm good. I just take something that is like a thing of pretzels. That's closed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's some crazy shit right there.
Speaker 2:There was so much that went on this week, though we don't have enough time to cover it though, folks. Seriously, man, there was all kinds of crazy stuff that happened this week, but we'll have to wait until next week.
Speaker 1:Next week. Anyway, let's wrap this up here with our famous quote. Here, and the quote is, the only validation you need is your own belief in yourself. Stop waiting for the right time. It's now. Your dreams are worth pursuing.
Speaker 2:I like that one, especially because we were talking about from John and his career with flying.
Speaker 1:I thought this was apropos for the interview. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:Hey Sean. Hey, you did forget one thing, man. We forgot it last week and we've got to cover it this week. What was that? We had a big download.
Speaker 1:Oh we had our first download. 53rd country, 53rd countries. Yeah, we are 53 country people. Do you realize that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know which one it was. Who Uzbekistan, where Uzbekistan when? Uzbekistan, shout out to Uzbekistan. Where is Uzbekistan, Sean?
Speaker 1:Hey, whoever's out there, drop us a line, let us reach out, say hi If you're paying attention in Uzbekistan.
Speaker 2:I would really like you to reach out. Be that one person that downloaded us. Reach out.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, listen Again. John, it was great having you, man, I hope you come back. Thanks, I mean we'll just sit around and bullshit sometime.
Speaker 3:I'd love to come back with Chris.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, we're going to so do that.
Speaker 1:We will have to plan that out for sure. Thanks everybody for listening to cabin pressure with sean and g. We would like to ask any flight attendant that has crazy crew stories to contact us with your story so we can talk about it on Cabin Pressure and if you'd like to be a guest on Cabin Pressure email us at cpwithsg at gmailcom.
