AviatorCast 59: Jason Schappert of MzeroA: CFII | Flying Again | Training Videos | Private Pilot Blueprint

AviatorCast: Flight Training | Flight Simulation | Human Factors | Aviation Passion

Today’s Flight Plan

Jason Schappert of M0A (MzeroA) joins us to talk about all things flight training. Find out more about the flying moped, becoming a pilot, the Flying Again documentary, and so much more.

Mostly, Jason is an inspirational instructor that does really great videos. A star among aviation Youtubers, Jason is enthusiastic about flight training. You get the feeling that he really believes in his students and wants them to succeed.

During this episode we talk a lot about his initiatives to help out pilots.

Useful Links

MzeroA.com
MzeroA Youtube
Flying Again Documentary
Private Pilot Blueprint

Flight Sim News

Cessna 207 Skywagon for Xplane
DA-42 for FSX/P3D
PMDG Updates
Flight1 Software GTN750 & GTN 650

Flight Training News

Pilots Bill of Rights 2
AOPA Offers Loan Program

Credits

Jason Schappert

Huge thanks to Jason for joining us on the show. Check out his stuff. Thanks for taking the time with us, Jason!

Crew

Major thanks to the amazing Angle of Attack Crew for all their hard work over the years. Our team works incredibly hard, and they’re very passionate about what they do.

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Transcript

View transcript

Punching holes in clouds, this is AviatorCast episode 59!

Calling all aviators, pilots, flight sim enthusiasts and aviation lovers, you’ve landed at AviatorCast! Join us weekly in our efforts to become better masters of the air through interviews, refreshers, lessons, training topics, simulator set-up, hangar talk, news and more! Buckle up and prepare yourself for this week’s episode of AviatorCast! Preflight complete, fuel on board and flight plan filed. Let’s kick the tires and light the fires!

Here’s your humble host, Chris Palmer!

Chris: Welcome, welcome, welcome aviators. You’ve landed at AviatorCast. My name is Chris Palmer. I feel honored to be among an elite form of humans called aviators. Flight for me is a profession and an obsession. Welcome to AviatorCast, it is absolutely great to have you here. This podcast is truly all about you the listener, the aviator, the flight simmer out there that is passionate about aviation and needs that weekly dose of inspiration. So, here we are, we have another great interview today, we’re going to get into that. First, AviatorCast is a weekly podcast if this is your first time here, it’s a weekly podcast where we talk to some inspirational figures in the aviation community.

Many many different subjects and different parts of the industry that we try to pull from, from airline pilots, flight instructors, people that own certain businesses, authors, bloggers, other podcasters, fighter pilots, all sorts of different type of aviators and people involved in aviation or flight simulation. So, we try to touch on those topics and bring a little bit of variety to it each and every week and you will see that this week as well. Now, the last week or so, or actually the last 10 days, I was in the Pacific North West so I spent some time in Seattle and then I spent some time down in Oregon and during my time there I was able to go and be part of the aviation community in that area. That’s generally what I do when I travel, I make some business of it as well.

So, I went to the Aviation Geek Fest, 2015 which was at Paine Field and Boeing Field and even at Renton’s, we got some VIP tours of all those facilities and some really cool experiences happen there. I was also fortunate enough to be able to get a VIP tour of the Alaska Airlines Flight Training Center and that in and of itself was an amazing experience that I definitely want to share with you guys. Now, I’m not going to share that on this episode, all these experiences. I’m going to share that on the next episode because I just so happened to, I’ve already recorded this episode with a very very cool guest, a friend of mine. So, we’re not going to talk about that until next week so you’ll just have to stand by and be patient and tune in until we speak next.

But, look forward to that because there’re a lot of cool little nuggets and cool experiences that happened there that I think you guys will be interested in. Met a lot of great and wonderful people and it just gave me more passion for what I do and more passion for aviation.

So, on today’s episode of AviatorCast we have a very special guest, we have Jason Schappert of MzeroA. Now, MzeroA is a flight training business. Jason is a very cool and personable guy. He’s one of those people that just wants to see more pilots get out there and learn to fly. He and I are very alike in that sense because I too want to see that for as many people out there as want to learn to fly. I want them to find a way or be able to fly.

So, Jason does a great job with that with many initiatives that he does. He has an awesome YouTube channel, a great website, we’re going to get into that with him and talk more about what he’s currently doing and how you can get involved there. Then I’ll make sure to tell you guys more about where you can learn more about him in the end.

Show notes for this stuff you guys are going to hear here on AviatorCast is on aviatorcast.com, very simple. Just go there, you can listen every episode, you can download it, you can share it, you can review, you can get the full transcripts and you can get all the links to certain things that we mention.

Alright, so before we get into the Flight Simulation News and the Flight Training News, we have a review that comes from iTunes, this is the #1 place where you can go and review the show. It really helps the show out if you go and review us on iTunes. It helps others learn about AviatorCast and it pushes us up in the ranks so this great and wonderful podcast can kind of move up there in visibility on iTunes. So, it’s very helpful.

Also, if you do leave a review you get a free AviatorCast t-shirt, I will send it to you wherever you are in the world. You know, that’s a big commitment and that’s something that we’re going to be sending out here soon. I’m in the process of getting those t-shire designed, I want to make sure that they’re absolutely awesome. They got to be t-shirts that I want to wear every single day so I’m going to make sure that they’re awesome for you guys too.

Without further ado, we have a review that comes from Braincrush in the United Kingdom, he says, outstanding 5 stars. He says, I spend hours flying planes and flight sims, however I’m not a real life pilot and Chris’ podcast gives me a peak into everyday life of pilots. The interviews are incredibly interesting and informative and the whole podcast is well planned and executed. From the first minute of every episode you can feel Chris’s great passion for flying and contagious enthusiasm. A must listen podcast for every passionate aviator, virtual or real life.

Thanks so much Braincrush for the wonderful review. I’m going to be sending you a t-shirt all the way to the United Kingdom so again thanks, you can also review the show if you love it you can go to iTunes and review it there. Just search AviatorCast, you should be able to find it and leave a review very simple and I will send you a t-shirt. This one this week is going all the way to the United Kingdom from Alaska.

Alright guys, so let’s get into the flight sim news and the flight training news. Then we’re going to get into hangar talk with Jason Schappert.

Now, flight simulation industry news…

Chris: Now for a few short news items with flight simulation. We have a couple of releases from Alabeo and Carenado. We have the Cessna 207 Skywagon for X-plane. It looks absolutely fantastic. Comes in at about $30, looks amazing very very cool and that’s for X-Plane and then we have the Diamond 42, the DA42 for FSX and Prepar3D and that also looks really really cool. It has a G1000 really really nice simulation so if you fly either of those aircraft, those are now available for those respective flight simulators. There’s also an update from[07:25][inaudible] quite an extensive update.

They talk about the compatibility of the 737 base package for FSX Steam edition, also they talk a little bit about the 747 for Prepar3D, and some other platforms. Really it’s not Prepar3D, maybe it’s just an update for the 747 version 2.0 in general. Then they talk about X-Plane compatibility, they talk about Prepar3D compatibility for the 737. So, lots and lots of news there, you can find the link to that on AviatorCast.com and the show notes. Definitely worth looking into if you’re interested in those airline or aircraft from [08:05][inaudible] and then we have Flight One software, has updated their GTN 750 and GTN 650. I find these to be really useful pieces of software for those of you that are trying to get familiar with those GPS devices.

You can actually put the realistic GPS in basically in any aircraft that you have in flight simulator and you can use that and manipulate it and it can even control the autopilot depending on the model and all sorts of things. So, a very very cool package. It’s not that that is new, it’s just been updated so that’s definitely worth looking into if you guys haven’t heard about that yet. Again, the link for that is in the show notes. Alright, so that’s it for the flight sim news. Let’s get into the flight training news.

Now, flight training news…

Chris: Now for some flight training news. This week we actually have some pretty exciting news or at least some great developments happening in the flight training world. First is the Pilots Bill of Rights. Now, this is the biggest thing here. Now, in the United States this Bill of Rights has just been introduced to Congress. So, this is a Bill of Rights that is essentially going to allow for an extension of the third class medical, basically you’d be able to get a third class medical with just a drivers’ license rather than having to go through the entire process of finding a medical examiner and going through the FAA and all that. As long as you can qualify for a drivers’ license you’d essentially be able to get a third class medical.

It also introduces a lot other kind of auxiliary things to that. So it is quite extensive as you can imagine with any sort of legislation. There’s a lot of fine print and it’s not just about the third class medical but for pilots for us on this show, you know, trying to get more people in the aviation, medical issues are one of those things that really prevents people from getting into flying and they can be pretty silly things at the end of the day. So, again, this is third class medical, this means private pilot only sort of stuff.

We’re not talking about commercial operations , you wouldn’t be able to be a certified flight instructor or a commercial pilot with this sort of thing. But, it would allow you to be a bonafide private pilot and get all the opportunities that come with that. So, this Bill of Rights is actually a pretty big deal, it’s been going on for a while now. They’ve been working to this point where they actually introduce this legislation. So, for you people out there in the United States, go to your Congressman, make sure you do everything you can as a citizen to make sure that your voice is heard and that this is pushed forward. So, a very cool development here and something that really helps pilots out there, helps pilots out especially those that have kind of fallen out because of medical reasons.

And the second and kind of a smaller thing, but a cool thing, AOPA, A-O-P-A, is now offering a loan program for flight training. So, I came across this and it seemed like the terms were pretty reasonable and with the financial crisis that kind of happened in 2008 until now, there’s been this slump in the ability to secure money for flight training because it is an expensive endeavor. You’re getting in an aircraft and you’re burning very expensive fuel and you’re burning a lot of it per hour. So, it costs a lot of money.

So, you can go there and you can kind of see the terms of it but this is one of the first times, and I’m sure it’s not the only time, it’s just the first time it’s come in front of me, where I’ve seen that stress kind of relaxing in the financial industry where we’re starting to see it kind of benefit pilots again. Where you can get all the money you need for your flight training. So, yeah, definitely a positive there if you’re looking into going for an airline career or something like that. You know, we talk a lot on this show about ways to fly cheaply, ways to fly more effectively or learn to fly rather.

I’m not saying just go out and borrow a ton of money and go and fly an airplane. I would say, still be frugal, still be smart but this is maybe for you an opportunity to secure that loan that maybe you couldn’t secure before to pay for the airplane that you inevitably have to get into after you done all you can with simulation and with being frugal and finding the right school and finding the right deal and all that stuff. So, I’m not saying just go out and drop a $100,000 on flight training. Be smart, shop around, but this is definitely one of those things that may relieve some load for some of you guys.

Alright, so that’s it for the flight training news. Some cool developments in both flight sim and flight training in the last few weeks. So, now without further ado, let’s get into our hangar talk with Jason Schappert. This is a great interview and I hope you guys enjoy it, I’ll talk to you on the other end.

Now, a special hangar talk segment…

Chris: Alright everybody, we are honored to have a very special guest and a friend of mine on the show today, Jason Schappert from MzeroA. How are you doing Jason?

Jason: Man I’m doing wonderful Chris. Great to chat with you again. I really appreciate you putting all this together.

Chris: Absolutely, it’s great to have you on the show. You are what you call the instructor extraordinaire, is that the tight term? I think that’s what you say on all your videos.

Jason: I mean, I guess so, I like to think that I’m extraordinary but you know that’s not being very humble sometimes. But, we’ll let the, we’ll let the viewers ultimately make that distinction for sure.

Chris: We do like humble pilots which I think you are at the end of the day. So, Jason first off, before we get into who you are and where you came from as a pilot, tell us what it is you do for a profession.

Jason: Sure, so we run MzeroA.com which is a full online ground school, online written test prep. Chances are you hopefully you’ve seen some of our videos or some of our work on YouTube. We are currently shooting a feature length documentary, just a lot of really cool stuff going on. Our real thing is we want to bring flight training to you on the mediums you’re learning now. I mean YouTube is a search engine…

Chris: Right.

Jason: You know, nowadays. And you find us there. Go and scroll on your iPad, everything else. We want to kind of bring flight training up to web 2.0, is our real goal.

Chris: Great, perfect and you do a great job with that. I really like your YouTube channel. I mean you’ve been around for a long time, I remember, gosh probably 5 years ago now. You and I had just a Skype conversation, kind of a business conversation, when I was flying in Bozeman, Montana and we just hooked up and talked in. So, you know, it’s really kind of come a long way since then, your products have really evolved. I mean, I saw you at Oshkosh this last year, you guys had a fantastic booth, things are really happening so it’s great to see all this stuff kind of coming together.

Jason: Absolutely, we’re very very blessed to do what we do. It doesn’t even feel like we have a job sometimes you know.

Chris: But of course, it is a ton of work. So, okay, so we start off all in the same vein right? All of us have the same fall in love with this at some point. So, how did you fall in love with aviation, Jason Schappert?

Jason: So, the story is, and I don’t remember this unfortunately but it obviously was ingrained in me at some point, is my grandma used to take me out to the airport and we’d pack a little lunch and we would sit out there. And this is back when you could hang on an airport fence and nobody would take you away in handcuffs and we would sit out there. We would just watch airplanes take off and land and that was, you know, my field trips, when she was babysitting me and again I was, you know, 3, 4 years old and it just doesn’t stick me but obviously it did somehow because we had just such a passion for aviation.

I was that kid, you know, always begging to go to the airport, I was that kid always talking to this pilot going, hey Mister, I heard you have an airplane, you think I can go flying? I was that, you know they say the squeaky wheel gets the oil, I was that kid always bugging. Anybody I knew that had an airplane or a pilot license to just take me out to somewhere. That’s kind of how it all got started for me at a real real young age.

Chris: Great, and how did it evolve from there?

Jason: Wow, from there I started, my first flight lesson in my log book I was 12 years old…

Chris: No way…

Jason: Believe it or not.

Chris: Right on.

Jason: Which is crazy to think about and obviously it wasn’t anything too serious but just…

Chris: Sure.

Jason: Start logging time, you know. We would do a lesson every other month, something like that and nothing major. But, my goal was I wanted to solo on my 16th birthday like a lot of kids growing up that are in aviation. Have that as a goal, accomplish that goal and kind of continued working through it. You know, I was a commercial pilot by 18…

Chris: Wow!

Jason: An instructor by 18, 19-ish and really just work through it. I was a good student in aviation but I was a bad student in high school. It was really funny, our high school is within walking distance of the airport so I used to skip school and head over to the airport and take flight lessons instead of going to high school. So, I wasn’t the greatest high school student but I would like to think I was at least a half way decent flight student.

Chris: That awesome! You know what? Honestly, it was the same way for me but unfortunately, mine was in a more official capacity when I was in college. I was the guy that was skipping classes, going out and flying at the airport because those were the times that were open you know.

Jason: Sure.

Chris: I was on it you know. I was a great flight student, I’m not saying I was a great pilot. I was a great flight student but man, my grades could have been better for sure.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Chris: So, you said you got your commercial at 18, your CFI at 18, 19, and I mean, really that’s where you are now right? I mean, how I envision you, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you are a lifelong aviation educator, that’s what you’ve chosen for your profession.

Jason: Absolutely, full time flight instructor. I have no airline aspirations, charter aspirations. I love being able to share aviation with people and bring, you know, grow that pilot population. That is the goal. I end, when I do webinars with my online ground school members, I always use this line that you know, every day we wake up trying to create safer smaller pilots. I say if there’s anything we can do to make you safer smarter pilot let us know. But, I mean, truthfully, we live by that more than you heard us just say a good pilot’s always learning. It’s grown even beyond that.

Chris: Right.

Jason: So, absolutely, you hit the nail right on the head.

Chris: Great and I love that. I kind of feel that I am in the same vein where I have had the times where I really wanted to be an airline pilot, you know. I still have those dreams of getting a 737 type rating or something like that I think it’d be just great. Just yesterday I met this guy here on the Keen Eye Peninsula in Alaska and he flies fuel to the bush in Alaska in this big old 1941 tail dragger airplane, 2,200 gallons of fuel. Anyway, supercool. Anyway, there are those things that would be cool to do but at the end of the day I’m a lot like you.

I want to educate people how to be better, safer pilots, how to live their aviation careers with more passion. You know, and even if they are going to become those airline pilots too, I’ll share what I can to get them to that level and just kind of do my part I guess. It’s not self-serving in any way, I’m not trying to become a celebrity or anything, it’s just, I get a lot of value out of it I suppose.

Jason: No, you’re right and you know I’ve tried that sort of stuff too, I was a traffic pilot for 2-3,000 hours.

Chris: Wow!

Jason: I was a banner tow pilot for about a half an hour, so. I’ve tried a lot of those odd jobs and some were awesome and some like my banner towing experience, I have a new respect for people who tow banners.

Chris: Right.

Jason: You know, because I’m not cut out to be a banner tow pilot.

Chris: Okay, so now you got to tell us what happened so what happened at the banner tow?

Jason: Sure, so I don’t know how much, I’m sure you know, but I don’t know how much the people listening might know about banner towing. So, obviously you don’t take off with a banner, you swoop down and you pick it up. I’m sure there’s plenty of videos you can see on YouTube. So, what happened was we were in the aircraft, I was with the gentleman who owned the business and was teaching me to be a banner tow pilot. He had this batman style grappling hook and it’s tied to the tail of the plane but you can’t take off with the grappling hook, you know, dinging down the runway.

So, the grappling hook sits on your lap and then as soon as you take off, you’re going to take that grappling hook
and throw it out the window so then it’s behind you. Then you go around the pattern, you swoop down, you swing the grappling hook through this like gold post type thing and pick up the banner. So, first day, first flight, I take that grappling hook and I throw it out as hard as I can and it swings out, goes around the rudder and latches itself, you know, back to itself.

Chris: Oh no!

Jason: Now I’ve thrown it like full right rudder because of how it wrapped around, I got no control over the rudder so we can’t cut the rope or anything like that. We went all the way back around, landed without any rudder so I’m like, you know, I’m like really, I don’t know about us this banner towing thing. So, the gentleman said, okay Jason, no big deal, we can put you on the ground crew. So, I’m thinking, rent’s due this month so I got to figure out how am I going to pay these bills or something.

Chris: Right.

Jason: I’m probably 18 at this point, just working on my CFI actually. So, I said okay, no big deal, I’ll be the ground crew. So, the ground crew, you’re in charge of the spelling things correctly, you know, on those banners which I, again I told you how good in high school, so that wasn’t that great. We made sure everything was spelt correctly and we drive like these four-wheelers, or like a scooter or golf cart whatever out there, set up the banner, set up the little gold post and we’re out there waiting.

And I’m out there with another gentleman who’s helping me out and the pilot comes around and he goes to swing the grappling hook through again. Picture a football style goal post with a rope in between it. And he goes and swings the hook on through. It’s too high, he misses. Goes around the second time, we’re telling him on the radio, you’re too high, you need to come in a little bit lower. So, a third time he’s getting so frustrated, he comes in too low, the grappling hook hits the ground, bounces over the little goal post and hitches on to the handle bars of the little scooter that the friend I was out there with…

Chris: Oh no.

Jason: The pilot feels the weight of something behind and think it’s the banner, goes full power and picks up the scooter and we’re on the radio screaming, drop, drop, drop! He drops it and literally it fell in an intersection, I won’t name the intersection because everyone will know the airport it’s at, but literally thank goodness it was a red light at the traffic intersection. And a lady was quoted in the newspaper saying, “the scooter just fell from the sky”.

Chris: Oh my gosh!

Jason: And that’s why I decided I was done being a banner tow pilot or ground crew pilot or anything to do with banner towing…

Chris: Oh my gosh.

Jason: At that point. So, I went the other way, I said I just better start working on my CFI a little bit harder because this banner towing thing is just not for me.

Chris: That is funny.

Jason: Absolutely.

Chris: I did not see that coming, picking up a scooter.

Jason: Yeah, banner tow life.

Chris: Wow! That’s going to be a new hash tag.

Jason: Absolutely.

Chris: My hash tag banner for life or something like that.

Jason: Absolutely, absolutely.

Chris: Great. Alright, so who are some of your aviation mentors? People who you can pick out as having been particularly helpful to you through your career?

Jason: Gosh, early on…

Chris: Or maybe inspirational, maybe you never met them, I don’t know.

Jason: No, absolutely. I’m a big fan and friend of Rod Machado. Rod is a very very cool guy, a
very very funny guy. If you’ve ever had a chance to see him speak, very very kind guy. As far as actual individuals I’ve flown with, I’ve had some great flight instructors and I’ve had some really bummer flight instructors in my day. I always tell people that’s how I think I learned to become a halfway decent flight instructor. You take the good from the good and the bad, you go, Jeez, I’m going to do the exact opposite…

Chris: Right.

Jason: Of what this guy did. In college I had some really great instructors who are now very very successful airline pilots and I’ve had, some of those bummer instructors are still bagging groceries at Piggly Wiggly’s or whatever your respective local grocery store is.

Chris: Is that really a grocery store near you?

Jason: No, we have Publix but I’ve seen a Piggly Wiggly’s once before and it stuck with me so I think it’s funny. But…

Chris: That is weird.

Jason: You know, and you know a good instructor when you find them sometimes too. They’re the ones that spend the extra time with you on the ground. They’re the ones that aren’t there just to log the time and make a paycheck. I bet you can probably attest to this because you’ve had instructors that are just, I call them time builders. You know what? I understand being a CFI is a time-building activity for people to move on to the airlines but sometimes it’s at what cost?

Chris: Right.

Jason: Is it a cost to the education of your student? That’s how I really gage a great flight instructor. Yes your goal, yes you may be sitting in the Delta hiring pool but in the mean time you could be the best instructor possible to your student.

Chris: Right.

Jason: And that person should be a role model to any flight student.

Chris: I think that’s definitely true. It’s interesting that when you kind of went that direction with the role model question because really my biggest role model, and I’ve had some great people in my life that kind of helped me. But, my, I wouldn’t even say my greatest but my top three are all instructors. People that are kind of insignificant in the grand scheme of things you know.

They’re not Chuck Yeagers, or really they’re not even the Rod Machados, they’re not even name you would recognize but these are guys that were those quality instructors that just taught me lessons that I took throughout all my training you know. They taught me things that I am still doing today, those very base things. Especially, when you’re talking about ab initio, you know those initial moments as a pilot, it’s so important to have a good instructor. It just can’t be overstated.

Jason: No, you’re absolutely right. You make such an imprint in those first few hours and you know we deal with this all the time. I was just talking with the team about this the other day that sometimes we get some crazy support ticket questions that come through you know via email to us. Questions where you are like, Jeez, shouldn’t you be asking your instructor this? But, you know, they come to us because they know they can trust us from watching our videos or be an online ground school member. And they’re really just not that confident maybe in their instructor’s ability to either answer the question or even feel comfortable asking their instructor this question.

Chris: Right.

Jason: It’s crazy some of the stuff that comes in sometimes that you see and you realize there’s just such a need for quality flight instruction out there sometimes.

Chris: Yeah. You just got to, I almost feel like the students have to put the instructor in the pressure cooker just as much as the instructor puts the student in the pressure cooker, you know.

Jason: Absolutely.

Chris: You should be stretching your instructor’s boundaries, you should be asking all sorts of questions.

Jason: Well, and that’s something I talk about when I deal with a lot of these new private pilots because this is the problem I have and I had a very good private instrument pilot instructor. She was very very hard on me you know to the point where like I remember going home, you know I’m kind of a softie. But, I remember going home like crying after some flight lessons, I’m just not meant to be a pilot. I got yelled at pretty good.

Chris: Good.

Jason: You know and you have an instructor like that but the reason I had that instructor was because I walked into the flight school and they said oh great Jason you want to learn to fly? Well, so and so is available, why don’t you guys start flying? There was nothing else, what I teach students now is, you need to interview flight instructors.

Chris: Right.

Jason: Flight instructors should be working for your business. Do we mesh on a personality level? Because we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Do our schedules match up? For example, I like to take the weekends off and relax with my family. If you’re a 9 to 5-er and you only have weekends off I wouldn’t be a very good instructor for you. I mean you got to realize these sort of things and figure out, do we match as individuals? Because, in a weird way, you need to be your instructor’s friend.

Chris: Right.

Jason: You know, I know that that sounds crazy to have that dynamic but this has to be the kind of person that you would invite over to your house for dinner.

Chris: Yep.

Jason: As well as spend 40 hours plus of your life with.

Chris: Yeah, definitely, yeah I totally agree. You got to have that camaraderie because a lot of important things happen there, a lot of big important conversations. You feel comfortable in sharing your deepest darkest fears as a learning pilot and it does take a level of trust that you really get on a friendship level so I definitely agree. So, what happens when you’re in the middle of your training and you realize you need to make a switch, what do you do?

Jason: Yeah, it’s one of those things that do you stop the bleeding or do you just finish it up? I’ll give you an example. A very good friend of mine, his name is Will, was working at a flight school, obviously we won’t name any other name other than his name was Will my friend. He was on full VA benefits.

Chris: Okay.

Jason: And the school was really really, I think they are just truly kind of milking, the instructor was really kind of just milking these VA benefits. They pay out, Jeez, I think it was like twenty grand for a private pilot certificate.

Chris: Goodness.

Jason: Which is just completely unreasonable. He should be an instrument pilot working on his commercial for as much as, you know, spent just on his private pilot certificate. But, he had an instructor who just wasn’t ready to let him solo. You know he had an instructor that really didn’t have him take a ground school. He had an instructor that goes, you know, oh yeah, I forgot, you need to start prepping for that written test.

He’s thinking, I want to be a prepping for my check ride, I didn’t even know there was a FAA written test I had to do. There’s just so many gaps and eventually we were talking on the phone one day and I said, Will you need to, I think it’s time to cut ties with this guy and he did. Stayed in the same flight school, just moved to a different instructor and he was a private pilot 2 weeks later after making that switch.

Chris: No way!

Jason: Sometimes just these, you know, and I don’t know if that person was a bad instructor. Maybe that instructor just didn’t have a lot of confidence in himself. It was so interesting, Will came down to fly with me because Jason, he’s not letting me solo, can I come fly with you just to see if I’m that bad of a pilot? He came down here and in 2 days I had Will soloed. I sent him back up to Virginia, I said Will you’re soloed now, great, let’s go knock out that written test, let’s get all this stuff done and by the way, you know, from talking with check write examiners lately, they’ve been really cracking down on turning stalls on a check ride.

He said, okay great, I’m going to get back to my instructor where we work on turning stalls. Well, his instructor refused to do turning stalls with him because, oh those are way too dangerous. There is no way we can do those. So, unfortunately Will listened to that same instructor, goes out for his check ride and the check ride examiner says, okay Will, show me a turning stall. And the first turning stall Will ever did was on his check ride but thankfully everything went okay. But, you as someone who’s done turning stalls know that it’s not exactly a maneuver for the weary of heart on a check ride when you’re nervous as it is.

Chris: Right.

Jason: So, the problem is, you don’t know what you don’t know sometimes. You might just think your training’s completely normal but you’re missing so much so I’m sorry that it takes so long to answer your question but…

Chris: That was great.

Jason: You need to seek some other advice and whether you go to MzeroA.com and just shoot us an email to say, hey listen, is this normal? You know it’s 50 hours I haven’t soloed yet. I’ll answer that now, I’ll tell you that’s not normal unless you’re training you know, one lesson every two months.

Chris: Right.

Jason: You need to seek some sort of outside coaching, consulting, something to get some better advice possible or second opinion certainly.

Chris: Sure and variety too. You know it doesn’t hurt that, to the fly with different instructors. I think this is actually one great benefit of a 141 Program and what you know, some good things came out of it for me is that they have stage checks. During those stage checks you would fly with a different, completely different instructor and they would be able to observe you from a different perspective. You know, having not spent all that time with you and you know just as a personal example, one of those instructors for me outside of my primary instructor, he determined and this was stage 3.

I was preparing for my check ride, this will blow your mind. I was preparing for my check ride and he found out that I was not correcting for my landings with rudder on a cross wind to correct and line up with the runway with my rudder. I was basically side loading the landing gears what was happening and that went throughout my entire training, nobody caught it. It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t.

Jason: Sure.

Chris: It was just part of the training but it was really cool and this is what I’m getting at is the variety of having different people you fly with to be able to teach you those different things and see those different things. So, even that helps you know, you don’t necessarily have to fly just one instructor. It’s definitely important to stick with basically one guy if you can throughout all your training, it’s much more efficient that way. But, to go out and fly with friends and other instructors if you have to here and there, it’s helpful you know because they can point out some good things too.

Jason: Just a second opinion sometimes and so so important.

Chris: And it changes everything you know, just little tidbits like that.

Jason: Absolutely.

Chris: Alright, so tell us about, tell us, let’s start with the young, okay. So, I am a young pilot, I’m looking into getting into flying. What is it I have to prepare for? What are the best things I can do to put myself ahead of the game? And you’re the perfect example of this because you did it so at a very young age.

Jason: Sure and just a little bit more background on that though. I made a terrible mistake and again, we just released, it’s been out almost 9 months now, released a book called the Private Pilot Blueprint and it’s geared towards the premise of, if I could do my flight training over, what I wish I would have done, what I wish I would have known, what I wish someone could have told me. Because I wasted money here, I wasted time here, I could fly that airplane, at least I like to think so otherwise they wouldn’t have soloed me in such a short amount of time and anything else.

However, I had no clue that there was like, this oral exam of a check ride and I had no clue I was supposed to take
the shrink wrap off of my fairing and actually open it up and know what, you know, know what applied to me as a private pilot but I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I loved flying the airplane, I didn’t love, well Jeez, it’s not that I didn’t love it, I just didn’t know what I should be doing on the ground. So, let me answer your question by telling you now, knowing all this, what my dream student is.

Chris: Okay, perfect.

Jason: A dream student for me is somebody that comes to me, medical in hand, ground school completed and written test in hand because we get to do the fun part now…

Chris: Right, right.

Jason: Which is fly, but, that takes some leg work on the part of the student pilot and it takes some discipline to go, Jeez, I really want to get flying. It’s kind of like in college, you get all your prerequisites out of the and in the last two years of college when you’re really focused on your major and you’re doing all of the fun stuff that you wanted to do anyway. But you got to do that leg work and build that base first. Flight training is the same way, let’s get the kinks knocked out if there’s anything medical wise. And if you’re young, chances are there isn’t but you never know. Let’s get that medical done assuming there, you know, there still is going to be a third class medical here as of this recording there is sort of.

Chris: Right.

Jason: Let’s knock out the written test, let’s get a great score on it and then let’s go choose a great flight school. Then let’s go choose a great flight instructor and these are the kind of things we talk about in the Private Pilot Blueprint. But, you’ve got to take that action and I’m not saying you can’t go flying at all. I want you to go take a discovery flight, I want you to make sure aviation is something you want to do. But once you know it and you have that commitment, you need to make, you know, take a month, take two months and make that commitment to the ground studies. I mean, you will save so much money if you go about it that way I promise you, we’re talking about thousands of dollars…

Chris: Great.

Jason: If you go about it that way.

Chris: Great. So, that initial get there, get in the books and be ready to hit the ground running with your instructor which by the way, you choose carefully.

Jason: Absolutely and again it’s interview your flight instructors. Every instructor should know their pass rate because as an instructor you got to keep track of it because if you fall below 85% of your students pass in a check ride, the FAA comes knocking and they’re going to wonder, hey are you the issue why only 80% of your students have passed? When you fall below the 85% par you start getting letters in mail.

Chris: Right.

Jason: So, every instructor knows their pass rate so don’t be afraid to ask that sort of stuff.

Chris: So, basically a low pass rate would be around 85 or below 85 hopefully.

Jason: Yeah, high standards you know and Jeez it’s tough but you’ve got to ask these important questions.

Chris: And you also know that if you ask your instructor and he has a 100% pass rate, you know he’s going to be a tough guy to deal with but he’s going to teach you right too.

Jason: Sure.

Chris: And if you’re willing to subject yourself to that then you could be a very good guy, he or she to go with.

Jason: That brings up another wonderful point too that you know, don’t be afraid to drive a little bit to another airport to check out some flight schools and some flight instructors. I mean, I know people that have driven, you know, 45 minutes to an hour, even though it’s the airport across town just to get a great instructor. Although it costs them a little bit of time, it saves them a ton of money because they had that much of a better flight instructor. A great flight instructor is worth the drive.

Chris: Yes.

Jason: So, be willing to find one.

Chris: And you know in that same vein you can find better rates for flying too. You know, you can find a cheaper airplane to fly. Cheaper not in the sense of safety but cheaper in the sense of pocket book which is always, that’s just always a concern for people. Okay, so the young pilot, they’re diligent, they get all their ground work done, they come you, they’re ready to go, what’s the training process like, now that they have all that knowledge behind them, how do they buzz all through this?

Jason: Absolutely so I not only want that person to come with medical in hand, written test in hand, ground school complete, but I want you to come with some sort of financial plan. Because the two greatest things that limit the pilot population are time and money. Usually it’s one or the other, if it’s both it can be really bad sometimes. But, if you don’t properly budget for your flight training, you’re going to be a pilot who soloed, maybe done a cross country or two and has to stop flying.

If you look at the stats of people who have applied for their medical, it’s about 1,200 people a month apply for a first time third class medical. However, we’re only doing a cross United States, about a couple hundred check rides each month. Where is the fallout? The fallout is you can only put aside $4-$5,000 and you run out of money. Or, life happens and work gets in the way. You’ve got to have the time commitment and you got to have the financial means of doing it. So, I’d like you to come with six, seven, eight grand set aside for this or whatever the actual quote is to make this happen. And one thing a lot of flight schools are moving towards now is flat rate flight instruction.

Hey, it’s $8,000 out the door, you’re going to get a pilot certificate. Sometimes, that’s a good way to do it
because you’re guaranteeing yourself a certificate at a certain rate. Then after that, after you’ve set the money aside, you’ve got to schedule regular lessons. I am a minimum of a twice a week lesson kind of guy and you might say Jason, I can’t afford to do lessons twice a week. But I’ll tell you, you’ll spend more money if you space your lessons out to once a week or once every other week because of the principle of disuse. Just sneaks in, you spend one lesson going over what you did last lesson and when you’re flying more frequently everything just moves that much faster. And think about it too, you experience this with the crazy weather you get in Alaska and we do the same thing in Florida, you schedule on a Monday and you schedule on a Thursday.

Well, you know, Monday the weather is beautiful but Thursday the weather is just absolutely stinks and you only end up getting in one lesson anyway. So, I schedule two lessons sometimes three lessons in a week, knowing that the weather’s going to happen, maintenance issues is going to happen, kids are going to get sick and life’s going to happen. You’re going to have to cancel the lesson.

Chris: Right.

Jason: So, be more generous to yourself when it comes to scheduling lessons. What I like to do with students is I like to commit a day. Every Monday at 12:00 p.m. is yours, no matter what. I’ll be here, you’ll be here regardless. Until you’re a private pilot, every Monday at 12 is yours, you know and just have that time and dedicate it to yourself, that’s one of the best ways to go about it.

Chris: Yeah, that’s a really great idea because then it’s, you get in this rhythm with things too and you’re studying correctly and you’re getting geared up emotionally and physically and all that stuff to actually go and take the flight lesson. Yeah, that rhythm and the flying, there are a lot of Rs involved here. There’s rhythm there’s recency, what are some off the other Rs that we have in here? You know what I’m talking about?

Jason: No, I know exactly.

Chris: Repetition…

Jason: Yes.

Chris: Is another one.

Jason: No, I know exactly what you’re talking about and it’s just so important that you can’t just have one of those though.

Chris: Right no so yeah, it’s a culmination and a balance of all of them.

Jason: Absolutely and when they all get working together you end up saving time and money and that’s what people ultimately want to do. Yes, we want to be safe pilots but can we save some money and save some time while we do it and still be a safe pilot? Absolutely. I don’t cut corners in aviation but I’ve you know, worked through enough students to know that this works and this doesn’t type stuff.

Chris: Right which is what you get from a very high quality instructor where they know too in how they teach, their methods of teaching how to get things done the quickest. I think one of the best ways that’s happening these days and I don’t know how much you’ve gotten into this but it’s scenario based training and practically applying a lot of those lessons that we’re supposed to be learning as pilots.

Jason: Oh, and you have to and the FAA’s onboard with that again. I don’t know how much you’ve followed with the a, we’ve been talking about it a lot with the PTSCO in a way and moving to an ACS.

Chris: Right.

Jason: It’s moving towards some more scenario based type stuff and what they’re doing more so, and you remember this from your training days, in the PTS they give you these special emphasis areas. Why are strike avoidance? Runway incursions avoidance? And you go okay, cool, what do I do with that? Well, you know, private pilots 13 for instruments, it’s 11 of them and you just think they’re just these big broad topics.

Now they’re taking those special emphasis areas and they’re putting them in context. Okay, Chris, you know you’re flying down to go visit your family and such and such happens. They put you in these scenarios where runway incursion like happen and these sort of things like the check ride. Even our written test is actually starting to become slightly more real world. I used to have a disdain for the written test because it’s…

Chris: Yeah, me too.

Jason: It is so rote memorization…

Chris: That’s great news recently with how they changed all those questions or really just getting rid of them.

Jason: Up until a few months ago, you would go take an instrument written test and you would be quizzed on microwave landing systems. A technology that you know, that hasn’t been around since 1994. Yet, I would have to know it for my written test.

Chris: And even then, from what I understand, and that was before my time, they weren’t even widely used right?

Jason: No.

Chris: In my, yeah, it was just this form of rare navigation.

Jason: I mean even other questions like, how many GPS satellites must your Garmin 430 acquire? And like, it doesn’t get, my 430 works, I need to know about low rame and other things like that but I don’t care if there’s 3 or 4 or however many satellites my Garmin 430 is hooked up to right now. It’s not pertinent to me as a pilot so, and I appreciate what they’re doing. The cool thing is the FAA, it’s not that they’re doing this too, this is an industry effort. They’re coming to the instructors, they’re coming to the aviation instructors and saying what do you want? And that’s kind of, this is not your mom and dad’s FAA anymore.

Chris: Yeah, it’s definitely evolving a little bit albeit slower than all of us want but it’s definitely going in the right direction there.

Jason: Sure, absolutely.

Chris: I’ll be the first to admit that on those written test when they came up with NDB and ADF stuff, I just checked the box. I did not even care.

Jason: If you ask me right now behold magnetic heading, relative bearing little formula, I would have to go look it up…

Chris: Right.

Jason: I just, you wouldn’t, I just you know, not just recently, it was a while ago, doing my ATP written test. Again I never, I guess I don’t plan on being an airline pilot, it’s just one of those cool, I have my ATP type.

Chris: Sure, that’s smart.

Jason: One of the questions though on there was, what is the minimum glycol content of type 2 deicing fluid? And you think like, I fly a 172 first off, so that doesn’t help me any. But, why do I need to know the minimum glycol, I’m not the guy spraying the deice fluid out there. Shouldn’t he be quizzed on this sort of stuff?

Chris: Right.

Jason: It’s just, it’s coming a long way and I hope it continues to get better and better. I know every day we’re continuing to reshoot and evolve our written test prep and it’s getting better and better. It’s moving to ACS standards and I appreciate it.

Chris: Yeah.

Jason: So, it’s all good stuff in my book.

Chris: This is something that we all need. You know I’ve always been of the mindset that training needs to be more practical, it needs to be more applicable to what actually happens in the real world and there’s so much stuff that is in there that just doesn’t make sense to me. Just as an example and I’m still going back and forth on this one but I’m even of the mindset now where I’m not sure I’m not sure I’m a believer in having a written flight plan. Even in the private pilot because here’s how I view it.

When you become a private pilot on your own, when you can take passengers and go somewhere and do something, you are going to be using Foreflight. You’re basically going to be using a GPS, you definitely should know VOR navigation is a backup and ILS and all that stuff. You should know all those things of course but those are the things you’re going to be using and having to do all that other stuff is just odd to me.

You know, I guess it depends on, it kind of depends on your check ride guy. I had a check ride guy, obviously because of just a timeframe of me being a pilot. My private check ride was a written flight plan, that’s what I did so I basically stayed up till 4 in the morning doing that before I actually went and did my check ride.

Jason: Oh yeah, been there before, yeah.

Chris: But, on my instrument check ride, I basically, I kind of dictated what was going to happen right because this is actually my second instrument check ride. I said okay, I’m actually going to use my instrument ticket, I’ve prepared for this I’m going to fly in instrument conditions and I’m well prepared for that. I’m way beyond the hours for what I need because I am going to be competent and confident in instrument conditions.

So, I told the check ride guy, I have a digital flight planner, I do all my flight plans digital. I do have a paper backup of it that I print off but I don’t run the numbers myself, I have a computer program do it and it does it much better than I can. He was totally cool with it and then we sat down and we ran through different scenarios on losscomms and what I do, and done. You know, perfect.

Jason: Sure.

Chris: So, it just kind of depends.

Jason: No, and I completely, you know I agree to that on some levels. I still think you need to have some raw skill to fall back on.

Chris: Yeah.

Jason: You know, iPad batteries die, apps crash, I still keep some paper. I keep a paper sectional chart, it may not exactly be current and I keep some an old approach plate book, it may not exactly be current. But, in a pinch if the iPad does die, it helps me out and I still do remember pilotage, I still know how to do dead reckoning and I teach those skills to my private pilots. My private pilot guys, I do make them do a hand written one and then I double check it on Foreflight or FlyQ or WingX or whatever it may be.

But, my beef with it is this and you hit the nail on the head again is that you are up at 4 in the morning to make this happen because you’re check ride’s at 8:00 a.m. or whatever so you’re using winds from 4 in the morning when the winds are basically calm. By the time you get out there to fly at 8, you’re flight plan is out the window. How many times Chris have you as an instrument rated pilot planned out this beautiful IFR route just to call up clearance and have them scrub everything and send you…

Chris: Yep.

Jason: Just totally to this intersection you’ve never even heard of and you scrambling and you’re thinking, good, it’s so nice to have my iPad right now because it’s just drag and drop type plug in and play so…

Chris: Yep exactly.

Jason: I see exactly what you’re talking about but I do believe we need some raw skill to fall back on still.

Chris: Right, you know along those lines I had an interview here on AviatorCast with a guy, Mariano Ripple and in the training he did, they did it completely different. So, he is actually of the mindset that he could get a map and know exactly where he is at all times and I can honestly say that I can’t do that. So, definitely there are those other skills that I think you can gain and I think they are very valuable and that’s why I said, I’m kind of going back and forth on it right now.

At least, in the private pilot sense doing it at some point for the first time and knowing how it works and all that. But, when rubber meets the road and you’re actually an instrument pilot especially a commercial pilot and you’re going from point A to point B like 5 times a day, you’re not doing those written flight plans. Generally they’re done for you by dispatch.

Jason: Sure.

Chris: It’s a completely different real world situation where you’re just doing it differently.

Jason: Absolutely.

Chris: Okay, so we talked about the process of going through and getting your license. You know I think largely what you shared is actually applicable to both young and old. I mean, both the preparation to get ready for the check ride and then having that financial, not the check ride, but for your training, and then having that financial commitment for the training as well. So we kind of got into that, let’s shift gears a little bit here because we’re going to be running up against time here.

You are doing this documentary and I want to talk about that because there are a lot of pilots out there, or people that want to become pilots that they become you know, 35 to 50 age range, maybe a little more than that. They come up with the means to actually get their private pilot, they’ve always wanted it, it’s time to go. So, let’s talk about that because I think yours is more shaking off the dust, right? Getting back into it.

Jason: Absolutely.

Chris: It’s kind of the same vein.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely. The film is called Flying Again and it’s geared towards the you know, the rusty pilot demographic. What we’re doing is the film is not only motivational but it’s certainly educational and we want to sort of showcase pilots who some who haven’t flown in you know, a year and some who haven’t flown in 27, 28 years and really capture that process of getting these pilots current again. Because, there’s two ways to grown the pilot population. There’s to sell as many private pilot blueprints as we can and grow the pilot population that way.

Or, let’s go for the low hanging fruit of people who are already pilots but just need to shake the dust off, you know. In business that’s the easiest person to convert back to being a pilot. If you look at the popul