Midlife Pilot Podcast

Midlife Pilot Podcast
  • 4.9 (178)
  • Aviation
  • Weekly

Welcome to the Midlife Pilot Podcast, where we share the experiences and the challenges of flying in midlife. Whether you're a seasoned pilot, training for private or instrument ratings, or just thinking about getting started in aviation, we like to think of the podcast as your aviation companion, and your weekly dose of aviation inspiration. Hosted by the dynamic trio of Ben, Brian, and Ted - the show is not instruction - it's all about sharing real stories, personal insights, and the pure joy of spreading your wings in midlife.

  1. 11h ago

    EP205 - Glutton for Punishment

    Mark is back ("Thanks, Mark. Glad to be back") with Sparker transition-training dispatches: two seats, retractable, bubble canopy, Rotax 916, "about 165 knots at 10,000 feet," pending "a whole bunch of marketing inflation that I think might be going on there." Meanwhile a Phenom on frequency earned the highest honor this show can bestow: "the green machine of airplanes." And if they made an adult size Green Machine? "I would buy it a thousand percent." Ted is deep in the instrument written, armed with Sheppard Air and Erica's class ("You're doing all the right things") while the questions do their job, which is making you feel dumb. Brian's advice from the far side of the test: be a glutton for punishment and take the IGI a day or two later. "Send it. If I fail the IGI test, like, who cares." On the tape machine, Drew prescribes the Jacobson flare for landing consistency in anything from a Cub to a 747, and Sir Elliot gave the family a tour of a G650. Say "narrow runway" five times fast. "Well, I've started drinking, so I'm not going to do that." Tonight's wisdom: "a go-around isn't an admission of defeat. It's a pilot refusing to let pride fly the airplane." Mentioned on the show: Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com The Green Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB2T8dnbhhw Opposing Bases: https://www.opposingbases.com/ Erica's Instrument Pilot course: https://www.gilbertaviation.com/ifr-course Sheppard Air: https://www.sheppardair.com/instrument-rating.htm Gulfstream G650: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfstream_G650/G700/G800 The Jacobson Flare: https://www.jacobsonflare.com/ Mark's TL Sparker: https://tlsportaircraft.com/sparker/

  2. Oct 27

    EP204 - What Is Landings?

    Ted did the math: episodes 83, 108, 116, 119, 128, 155, 188, and 201 were all more or less about landings, and tonight makes it nine, because you filled the tape machine and we have no self-control. The eternal question of this show, asked out loud tonight: "Oh man, how does this even work? What is landings?" Ted's official position: "I don't want to be the landing podcast. I do want to be the emotional rollercoaster podcast." Exhibit A, Micael: two weeks ago, six attempts, five go-arounds, and "I walked away in tears." This morning, six for six. That's the ride, folks. The panel's collected landing science: it takes "100 landings more or less" to figure it out, the whole business is the Magic Eye poster of aviation (everybody else could see it, and Brian couldn't), and the real breakthrough is to "just start loving how bad you're doing." Or, as a bar mitzvah kid with a cracking voice once told rabbi Ben Stiller: embrace the suck. Welcome to new Land-o-matic members Ben H. and Hector R., and a salute to Elliot's first instructor: "You have eight hours. I can't believe you're not perfect yet." Tonight's wisdom: a flight review is where you discover which bad habits have become traditions. Mentioned on the show: Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com Houlme, Orcas Island, Washington: https://www.houlme.com/ EAT, Pangborn Memorial, Wenatchee, Washington: https://www.flywenatchee.com/fbo-services/ RMG, Rome, Georgia: https://www.airnav.com/airport/RMG SISKIND, Learning to Land: The Magic Eye Poster for Student Pilots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_UDm4n7zxs "Embrace the suck" in Keeping the Faith (2000, Ed Norton/Ben Stiller): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_the_Faith

  3. Oct 20

    EP203 - Pause Not Included

    Last week's emergency deserves a sequel about the thing you reach for in the later phases of one: the checklist. Enter returning special friend of the show Checkmate Barry, two years to the day (October 1st) from taking over CheckMate Aviation, the premier checklist company. His origin story is extremely midlife pilot: he redid his 182 panel, his trusty checklist no longer matched anything, so he designed his own, laminated it himself, watched it fall apart twice, and concluded "they make a better product than what I can do at home." He sent them the file. He now owns the company. Around the group: the Beast will be unleashed Wednesday (two and a half weeks in the avionics shop, plus one buffer day, "that's what you do"), Ben is inbound to Phenom indoc where a single-engine approach go-around is allegedly the single hardest thing you can do in that jet, and hold entries are being practiced the honest way, drawn in a notebook, no navigator, no pause button. Tonight's wisdom, from the old-school book: the aircraft may fly poorly, but it will always crash well. Mentioned on the show: Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com Checkmate Barry's CheckMate Aviation: https://www.checkmateaviation.com/ QuarkXPress (Barry's design roots): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuarkXPress

  4. Oct 13

    EP202 - Declared Mercy

    Ryan and Jackie flew the beautiful RV-10 down for the EP200 hangar show. On the way home, the airplane had other plans: autopilot master fault, attitude indicator misbehaving in IMC, showing level while the airplane turned left, a wall of clouds ahead, and one analog instrument left in the panel: the compass. Ryan keyed up center and, per his own post-landing text, "declared mercy." So tonight is the rarest kind of debrief, one with the pilot in the room: round-robin questions, every decision second-guessed with love, and the sobering inventory afterward: "all the backup to the backup, that would not have worked." For the record, as established on air: Ted did not fly into a Bravo. Tonight's wisdom, pulled from the show's earliest days and never more fitting: remember, you fly an airplane with your head, not your hands and your feet. Mentioned on the show: Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com Anderson, Indiana (KAID), home of unleaded fuel: https://www.airnav.com/airport/KAID Garmin Axis: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/aviation/axis/overview/ Picking up an IFR clearance on the ground: https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/regulations/how-to-pick-up-an-ifr-clearance/ Rensselaer, Indiana (KRZL): https://www.airnav.com/airport/KRZL Purdue University Airport, Lafayette (KLAF): https://www.airnav.com/airport/KLAF Garmin GSU 25: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/532062/ East End Grill, Lafayette: https://www.eastendmain.com/

  5. Oct 6

    EP201 - The Last Five Seconds of a Landing

    The Discord kept circling one subject, and it happens to be printed on our favorite t-shirt: I forget how to land (or have never learned in the first place). So this one's all landings: the plateau, the last five seconds, and the sight pictures we grade ourselves against "a little less forgiving than they need to be." Just don't ask the internet, where landing advice is "one of the most painful exposés in human behavior" and somebody always soloed in 0.6 hours and wants you to man up. Field reports: seven hours in and "squirrely around the pattern" (that's the hardest part and the most fun part, hang in there), a Cherokee pilot whose new ride lands "like I'm flying straight into the ground," and Hammack600's accidental greaser followed by the cardinal error: one more touch and go. Plopped it right in. Put the greaser in the bank, people. Then leave us a tape machine message at midlifepilotpodcast.com: under two minutes, the moment landing finally clicked for you. Tonight's wisdom: checklists are what smart pilots use when memory starts feeling confident. Mentioned on the show:Leave us a tape machine message (and everything else): https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.comThe "I Forget How to Land" shirt and other merch: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.comVan's RV-12 (Ted's squirrely trainer): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van%27s_Aircraft_RV-12

  6. Sep 29

    EP200 - It Took You Long Enough

    Two hundred episodes, and this one comes with a studio audience: live from a hangar at McCollum Field, at a non-event event. "Come if you want, come as you are," and people came anyway, some from very long distances. Ben opened the show with engines running in the background and Lucy parked directly behind the crowd, and the staffing was deep: AJ, Lord Alpha Juliet of the Airline Pilot Guy show ("you shouldn't call him Substitute Mark"), Luke of Luke's Landings on production, and Evan, Brian's third-born, running the FBO shuttle. Brian's arrival got the full KRYY treatment. AJ knows "pretty much everybody in the tower," so the welcome came over the actual frequency, preserved by LiveATC and played on the show: "AJ called and told me to tell you it took you long enough." Then Brian turned his microphone around, unplanned, and pointed it at Dev Cannon of the Music City CAF: Navion owner, based at M54 in Lebanon, active in the Commemorative Air Force, and the volunteer on the ad hoc committee helping shape the coming Bachelorette Bravo. The job "pays exactly zero dollars," and Dev is the one synthesizing everyone's concerns within the FAA's framework. Happy 200! Mentioned on the show:Dev Cannon and the Music City CAF: https://www.cafmusiccity.org/LiveATC.net: https://www.liveatc.net/Airline Pilot Guy show: https://airlinepilotguy.com/Luke's Landings on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lukeslanding2230Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (KRYY): https://www.airnav.com/airport/KRYY

  7. Sep 22

    EP199 - No Longer Sport Pilot Extraordinaire

    Eleven minutes of "we're keeping it a mystery," and then out with it: our friend Timestamp Tedder went and passed his private pilot checkride. "No longer sport pilot extraordinaire." Theoretically he can still hold the title, he just kind of added some more. A hard-won medical, a pile of hours in the Egg, and now a private pilot certificate sitting on top of all of it. So tonight is the full checkride debrief, from a guy who did it the midlife way: over-prepared, slightly terrified, and delighted. The flight portion opened with a gift from the aviation gods: two lane faults on the Rotax during the run-up, in front of a DPE who is also an A&P. "Oh no, this is not a good sign." Flip the lanes, they reset, never came back, and if you also just said "lanes?", the 912iS explainer is linked below. Ted's adrenaline on boarding "just went nuts," at which point he discovered the top note on the DPE's own checklist: relax. "And he keeps pointing to it in the flight. It's like, wow sir, that's not helping." He did, however, collect planning points for knowing Redmond's Flight Following Lite: squawk 1237, tune the frequency, say nothing, and "they'll call you out if they need you to move." Around the patch, the wins keep coming. Gary in Colorado passed his private and asked the question of the week: is it normal to feel numb the day after? Gita's ruling: "totally normal to feel dumb or to feel numb the day after. Both sort of feel normal." Gita also shared a pattern with a police helicopter fresh off studying rotor wash, and received a comment from the helicopter pilot "best left unanswered." Ray B. in Australia passed his sport pilot nav ride, "but most importantly it was done in a Piston Peasant t-shirt." Skip L. passed his private after life got in the way for two and a half years, which is the most midlife pilot sentence there is. Sierra Squared logged 1.5 of floats, seven takeoffs and landings, and retired from float flying at "almost 700 bucks an hour." Tonight's wisdom: nothing improves your crosswind technique like an audience at the FBO. Mentioned on the show:Gita Brown and the Calm Cockpit Podcast: https://calmcockpit.com/Description of the Rotax 912iS electrical system and lanes: https://www.rotax-owner.com/en/912is-technical-questions/11220-basic-description-of-generator-and-lane-system-operation"Flight Following Lite" in Redmond Oregon: https://notams.aim.faa.gov/lta/main/viewlta?lookupid=2667888510941271769

  8. Sep 15

    EP198 - How Dare You Try to Minimize My Suffering

    Ted has a private pilot checkride on the calendar, so naturally the crew dedicated the evening to helping him prepare. And by helping, we mean: "You may not be nervous at all for the checkride. But you will be by the end of this conversation. It's our job to make you nervous." The chat piled on until it got so deep into aerodynamics that Erica announced, "if a DPE asks about dynamic stability on a private pilot checkride, I'm quitting." The actual best advice of the night came via Nathan B., quoting Barry: slow down and think, doesn't matter if it's an egg, a 182, or a jet. Wind your watch. Midlifters will get that reference. CFI Sam lobbied hard for Ted to combine private and instrument into one checkride, a suggestion Ted received with grace: "How dare you try to minimize my suffering. I want to suffer as much as everybody else." One over-prepared checkride at a time. And when he passes, the assignment stands: bait r/flying with "I passed my private pilot checkride at 1,200 hours." (It was 1,005 hours last episode. The creeper bot confirms he's been flying.) The mailbag delivered the ultimate "I will never" correction: a listener who got his PPL in 1998 as a band teacher retired in 2022 and was promptly offered a charter job in a King Air 200. Then came type ratings in a BE-40 Beechjet and King Air 250 and 90, sims at RVR 800 and 200-foot ceilings at night, "pretty much like drinking from a fire hose." His own verdict: "So much for, I will never." Ted's medical saga got a postscript: Xyla Foxlin's video on her FAA medical fight. "It made me cry. Seriously, like tears." (The dusty plane in the hangar will get you.) Standing disclaimer, in his words: don't take from what you hear from me that anybody can get a medical. Know the risk before you apply. Also aboard: the beast (Ben's 182) is in the avionics shop losing the Cuisinart, an old Narco audio panel riding on 1968 wiring, in favor of two GI-275s. Congrats to Gary, our newest private pilot. Welcome, Hammack from HSV. And the cheeseburger that made Erica tear up has a name: Bare Bones Butcher, burgers 11 to 3 only, new potatoes deep-fried in beef fat, dipped in mayonnaise. She didn't want anything too heavy. "I don't care. We're going to go get this burger." Tonight's wisdom: airplanes convert fuel into noise and money into memories. Mentioned on the show:King Air 200/250: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Super_King_AirBE40 Beechjet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_400King Air 90: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_King_AirXyla Foxlin's medical story, "The FAA Has a Mental Health Problem": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj0H8oVS7qgBare Bones Butcher, Erica's best burger ever: https://www.barebonesbutcher.com/

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4.9
out of 5
178 Ratings

About

Welcome to the Midlife Pilot Podcast, where we share the experiences and the challenges of flying in midlife. Whether you're a seasoned pilot, training for private or instrument ratings, or just thinking about getting started in aviation, we like to think of the podcast as your aviation companion, and your weekly dose of aviation inspiration. Hosted by the dynamic trio of Ben, Brian, and Ted - the show is not instruction - it's all about sharing real stories, personal insights, and the pure joy of spreading your wings in midlife.

Information

  • Creator
    Midlife Pilot Podcast
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    204
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Midlife Pilot Podcast
  • Show Website
    Midlife Pilot Podcast

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