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Join Ben Todd, student pilot and competitive bodybuilder, as he documents the journey from flight training to professional aviation, while pursuing peak physical and mental performance.
Each episode of The Performance Pilot dives into the parallels between flying and fitness: discipline, precision, mindset, and continuous improvement. Through personal stories and conversations with industry professionals, Ben explores what it really takes to perform at the highest level — in the cockpit, in the gym, and in life.
Colin Boone (00:00)
Study really hard on your own because if you actually take what your instructor tells you to do and what he tells you to study,
and you show up and you know all that material, now it's less time you have to spend on ground. If you chair fly at home or you fly in your simulator at home, it's less time you have to spend in the real airplane. So if you can shave off hours of ground time and hours of flight instruction and hours of time in the airplane, then you're saving yourself thousands of dollars. For every hour you shave off, you're saving 250 to 300 bucks an hour, depending on where you go. So massive savings just on being diligent by yourself.
Ben Todd (00:45)
Welcome to the Performance Pilot Podcast, where aviation meets athletic ambition. I'm your host, Ben Todd, student pilot, competitive bodybuilder, and lifelong learner, sharing my journey from the gym to the sky. Each episode, we'll explore the habits, discipline, and mindset that it takes to perform at your best, both in and out of the cockpit. Let's get airborne.
All right. Episode number two of the performance pilot podcast. I'm happy to have you guys along. Today is my first interview episode that I'm doing and I'm really excited to interview this individual. He is not only a great pilot, he's also my friend, my mentor, and I think he has a lot of really great information to share in terms of flight training and flying in general. So today's guest is a professional pilot flying a Gulfstream G 150. He's also a gold seal rated flight instructor.
Having obtained both his CFI, CFI double I CF double I and MEI ratings and also just launched his new flight instructional teaching platform called Flight Sim University. Please welcome my first flight instructor and my current mentor, Mr. Colin Boone. Colin, how are you doing man? Welcome to the show.
Colin Boone (02:05)
Hey, thanks, Ben. Good to be here.
Ben Todd (02:07)
Uh, super excited to have you, man. I remember, I remember reaching out to you on Instagram, um, later on, I think it was like December of 2024. So a little over a year ago, I reached out to you on Instagram, interested in flight training. I know that you had a, you have a really large social media following in terms of just all of your flight training content that you put out. And I had reached out to you because I was interested in training with you.
And at the time that I messaged you, I think you had quite a lot, quite a long backlog of students that were also interested in training with you. ⁓ but for, you know, we talked a little bit, we met for coffee one day and I think we just kind of started to form like a great friendship, great relationship. And you actually took me on as a student. ⁓ even though you still had a backlog of, of students at the time. So I really appreciated you doing that. And I really enjoyed the hours that we spent together.
Colin Boone (03:07)
Yeah, Yeah, like I told you before, ⁓ it's when you get to like a certain point, it's more about the people that you work with than it is about the work itself. So I was happy to work with you, someone as driven as yourself rather than somebody else who wasn't going to take the processes seriously.
Ben Todd (03:23)
And I think, I think when you pay for it yourself, ⁓ I know that my training came out of my pocket. So I think when you pay for it yourself, you have more of a personal investment in the training because it is your money ⁓ as opposed to somebody else's money.
Colin Boone (03:41)
Yeah, totally. I experienced that firsthand right out of high school. I had started my training when I was 16. My parents helped me out and got through the first solo and cross country and stuff, but hit a couple snags in the training, transferred to a new program. And when I got to this new program, I was doing a lot of retraining and stuff. I was working at the airport making $14.50 an hour, I think it was, doing line service work. those paychecks went bye-bye really fast when I was sort of giving them to the flight school.
and I really learned the value of a dollar as a young person and it really didn't take you anywhere. So you notice that a lot with younger students is their parents are paying for it. They don't take it as seriously. It's a fun little hobby, but they don't really buckle down and study. And I don't think I ever took that for granted when my parents were helping me pay for everything. But I certainly realized the value of the dollar once I started paying for it myself. So ⁓ I always give that advice to parents with young students that the students should take some out their paycheck and pay for the flight training because they're like, holy crap, it's
really expensive and then they start studying. It's a miracle.
Ben Todd (04:39)
I think
there's a lot more personal ownership involved when you pay for it yourself because you really realize, I remember you and I would go fly and I think at the end of one lesson, ⁓ I think I was paying like, was like $400. Like when everything's all said and done between the airplane, renting the airplane and then paying your fees for your actual instruction. think, mean, one lesson costs you three, 400 bucks. So it goes by quick.
Colin Boone (04:57)
Yeah.
Yeah, sure does. Yeah, flight training is nothing to mess around with.
Ben Todd (05:13)
Absolutely. So let's get into this. Let's talk about your background a little bit. I want to kind of dig into kind of how you got started in aviation. Was being a pilot always something that you wanted to do? And how did you personally go about accomplishing your flight training?
Colin Boone (05:29)
So flying wasn't something that I, you when I was very little that I wasn't like, I was five years old and I want to be a pilot. I got the bug when I was 11 years old from playing video games with my brother, just flying around helicopters and stuff. And I just thought, this is incredibly unrealistic. I can't move a helicopter in the way that I want. And you're playing the shooter games and stuff and that they're reloading in the air. I'm like, that makes no sense. So went down to Google rabbit hole and a plane like battlefield and stuff. And they got a flight simulator and it just kind of was this natural progression of, I just wanted to learn how, how they worked. I always liked.
race cars and trains and then the natural next step was helicopters and airplanes. So at first I liked the helicopters. At some point I transitioned to airplanes and then was doing a flight sim for a long time. And then at some point in that process when I was probably 11, 12, 13 years old, my dad revealed to me that he was a private pilot and got his license when he was in college in 1989. And then my great uncle was a legendary test pilot for Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas back in the day and had 30,000 flight hours.
had no idea about any of that before I got the interest, but I guess it runs in the family. So it just kind of happened. And I started my training when I was 16 and a soloed before I drove a car by myself. It's kind of wild. And then hit some snags in the training when I transferred from a club to a school. And that formed that negative experience. The flight school formed a lot of the opinions that have now that I'm sure we'll talk about today. And then ended up finishing doing about one rating a year until I
was all through and done with my MEI stuff. See, about a year and a half ago now, I think in July 24, is when I got the MEI done and then got my SIC type on the G150 a few months after that. from 2019 to 2024, it was just about one rating a year and I paid as I went, never took out a loan or anything like that. So little summary of the journey so far.
Ben Todd (07:15)
I ⁓ think
that's really unique because you hear all the time online, all the gurus, the quote unquote gurus who talk about, need to get your flight training done fast. You need to get it done fast. You need to get done fast. I think you identifying that going the fast route wasn't going to be sustainable for you in terms of the financing part of things. And so I think you kind of figuring out your own route and what worked best for you.
⁓ I think that was really kind of admirable that you kind of bucked the trend and just kind of did it how you felt you needed to get it done.
Colin Boone (07:56)
Well, I had a very nice advantage in that I figured out what I wanted to do with my life when I was very young. you know, I wasn't when I was young, I really wanted to fly for the airlines. You know, we'll talk about the corporate stuff today, too. But there was no real rush because restricted ATP or ATP was 21 or 23. And when I started my training at 16, it's like, you know, I'm not going to fly an airliner when I'm out of high school. So it's going to be a little while and
Ben Todd (08:17)
I think, yeah.
Colin Boone (08:26)
I didn't have to do an accelerated program or anything. And I was paying as I went, didn't want to take on the debt. So spacing everything out, you know, was a flight instructor and making money flying airplanes when I was 21 going on 22, really close to turning 22. And I was still in college. So being a new freelance instructor was a great gig to have, go fly for a couple hours and go to school and then go back to the airport. And so once I got the CFI out of the way before I was was out of college and really released into the real world, I already had a
somewhat of a stable income and had my feet under me. So I didn't have to make a career change and buckle down after college and say, I need to choose something to do with my life right now. So that was a very unique advantage I think that I had and maybe changed my perspective on things but definitely learned a lot along the way. And going back there definitely things I would change but you know, it's part of the learning process is you don't know what you don't know.
Ben Todd (09:18)
Exactly. I can completely empathize with that one for sure. But that was cool. Thank you. Thanks for kind of sharing that. And we'll kind of get into a little bit more as we go through here. So I want to kind of transition into something you mentioned briefly, and that was the G150. So you're a corporate pilot right now flying a Gulfstream G150. And I think you actually, a couple of months ago, you finished your PIC type rating in that jet. So congrats on that. That's awesome.
Colin Boone (09:46)
That's right.
Ben Todd (09:48)
Can you
Colin Boone (09:48)
Thank you.
Ben Todd (09:49)
kind of walk me through how you got into corporate flying? Like what attracted you to being a corporate pilot and what I guess dissuade you from just trying to slam through all your hours, get to 1500 and then try to go find a regional job.
Colin Boone (10:06)
Yeah, so growing up before I'd even started my training and then through a lot of my private pilot training, I was convinced I wanted to be an airline pilot. That's all I wanted to do. But after high school, I started working at the airport doing line service work and fuel and airplanes. And I didn't work on the airline side. I worked at ACI Jet at John Wayne. And that was my first job out of high school and great place to meet some very valuable people and make a lot of connections. But I was talking to people that were flying 172s like myself, people that own the airplanes, flight schools, and then
people that were hopping on Global 6000s and G550s and stuff like that. So everything in between, I never really had thought about corporate until I was on the ramp working in that environment. And I've told this story before, but I made little business cards with my phone number and my email on it, but no experience whatsoever, fresh out of high school, not even a private pilot license. I would give these out to the different flight crews and just, hey, if there's ever an opportunity or there's something I can do or...
you know, none of those really panned out, none of those connections did, but I shook a lot of hands and everything, but one connection stuck. And that led me to almost three years later, flying right seat in a PC 12 right after I got my commercial license. I wasn't being paid initially, but it's getting turbine time while I was teaching people to fly Cessnas. You know, it was a great way to kind of get into that more professional environment. And that was my first real taste of corporate aviation. I never really thought, Hey, I'm absolutely going to go the corporate route.
but it just kind of didn't fall into my lap. It was just by being in that environment for so long that something opened up in that realm of the industry. And I still work for that same flight department now, but on the G150 instead of the PC12. the other half of that is once I kind of realized that the corporate stuff is pretty cool, I thought it would be neat to do the corporate thing and build my hours. I think the major airlines are still
a factor that I have to consider in the future. In the long run, you can't beat the pay, can't beat the benefits or the schedule and flying big airplanes like that is just awesome. the regional route is just kind of like the go to a big flight school accelerated, everything in nine months is done, get the 1500 go to a regional be there for two years jump up to United. I want to have a little bit of a different story than that and you fly into small airports part 91 or part 135 and little international experience fly with different crews and just
learn about flying in a broader sense. I think it's a path less taken, but it's still a very good path. I think it's very interesting. You never know where you're end up in the corporate world. It's pretty cool.
Ben Todd (12:41)
One question I want to ask you, think that's really neat that you took the initiative to hand out business cards to all these different flight crews and just people that you met. what kind of, inspired you to do that? Is that something that you just decided you were going to do yourself or did somebody like suggest that you do that? Like how did you get the idea to start doing that? Cause I think that's a really unique idea.
Colin Boone (13:04)
I had an amazing teacher in high school. think ⁓ it was an engineering program I had at my high school. And we did a bunch of cool stuff in that class. But the teacher, Mr. Hernandez, mean, God bless him. He was a real hard ass and just on everybody. And people would say, yeah, I want to go to Berkeley or UCLA or whatever. And he'd say, well, why do you want to go there instead of a community college? he had all these.
just very common sense questions he would ask people, but he'd be like, how much is Berkeley? ⁓ I don't know. How much is community college to get your general education done? I don't know. All right, so it was I don't know or I don't know. Just stuff like that. we had to make business cards for that class and just like advertise ourselves and just network with one another and other people in the school. you just kind of jump forward if you... Other people on the ramp weren't doing that. And I just...
that would be a good idea to start talking to people, shake some hands, but also put a phone number and an email to the face. And that was really it. I don't know if I was allowed to do that or not, but I never got in trouble for it. And it led me down a terrific path. So it's just, something memorable. know, everybody on the ramp, every guy that's, know, 18 to 30 years old, working on a ramp wants to be a pilot. You know, it's, that's not the end all be all for, for guys like us. So if I could do a little something to stand out and be remembered next time a crew comes in, that's great, you know, and it definitely worked.
even though most of those didn't pan out into anything. Still, I think it was totally worth it.
Ben Todd (14:32)
But it only takes one and that one came through for you and and now you've made a career out of that one connection that you made. So I think that's I think that's awesome. And I think that's a really cool nugget for people to kind of take with them. we'll later on as we go through, we'll get into some kind of more advice topics for people trying to get into the corporate side of aviation. But ⁓ I think that's a really cool thing that you did there. So. ⁓
Colin Boone (14:35)
That's right.
Ben Todd (15:01)
Awesome, man. So now I wanna move on. So we've talked about your journey. We've talked about you fly in professionally a little bit. Your main area of focus right now ⁓ for you as a professional is flight instruction. ⁓ Like I said in the intro, you've built a really strong social media following, Instagram, YouTube, just with all of your instructional videos that you have to offer for free.
And what I want to talk about is right now, like in terms of your current Flight Instruction, right now you teach mostly multi-engine on the DA42. But you also just launched this new platform called Flight Sim University. I know that you spent most of 2025 working on it. I know it was a long, long process for you to...
Colin Boone (15:54)
Yeah, too much time, man.
Ben Todd (15:57)
long process for you to create this, but now you just launched it ⁓ last week. And so I want to talk about your journey as a flight instructor and what inspired you to create this platform. ⁓ So we'll kind of start there.
Colin Boone (16:18)
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a, I could answer this in a ton of different ways, but you remember last year we were flying together and yeah, I was just getting my feet wet with the corporate stuff and there were trips that I couldn't say no to and also I was trying to balance ⁓ you as well as a couple of other students and ultimately I started doing mostly multi-work because somebody could be in and out at the door in less than a week and have a check ride done and everything, whereas single-engine students, whether it's...
private instrument commercial CFI, it's a much longer process. the time commitment with all these things bouncing around, I was definitely spreading myself too thin and learned by doing, I learned that the hard way definitely. But I've always wanted to uphold a good reputation as providing an excellent service as a flight instructor. And as I was spreading myself very thinly between all these different things, I realized that the time factor was the most limiting thing.
I thought that that combined with my bad flight school experiences, how astronomical flight training prices are, I there's a good way to benefit myself and there's a great way to benefit the student where if I could use my flight simulator, which I learned to fly on when I was a teenager, by the way, and it kind of goes back to the beginning of my journey. I flew on FlightSims for three years before I took my first training flight. And I don't know how many hours I had on the simulator, but I was flying everything from Cessna 172s to 757s and.
talking on the virtual air traffic control networks, doing all the private pilot maneuvers, short field takeoffs and landings. I you name it, I was doing it. So my first flight lesson in a Cessna 150, I did all the taxiing takeoffs, landings myself, steep turns, Dutch rolls, and everything was within the standards. It was pretty incredible. A lot of people don't believe it. Sorry, they don't believe it. But I soloed in six hours of flight time because I had all that simulator experience. And I know if I could do that at 16, then other people with guided instruction from a Gold Sea of Flight instructor that has done it themselves.
that they could do something similar. They could take off 10, 15 hours off their total flight training, then they save a few thousand dollars. The average training cost right now is like 280 bucks an hour for playing an instructor based off a poll from my own audience. And I wanted to provide a platform online where people could use a $60 simulator on their desktop computer, learn every single task that a private pilot would have to do or a private pilot applicant would have to do in a real airplane, but learn it from the comfort of their own home.
do things more in depth like emergency procedures, actually land off field, actually go through engine fires, touch everything and do everything the way that you're supposed to do it rather than just simulating it. You're actually doing it in a simulator. So you can actually take training a little bit further in some of these scenarios on the simulator, but you learn it all for a very low cost and you get out of it what you put into it. yeah, if you take or learn all of these tasks, you're gonna show up to the ⁓ real airplane and know exactly what to do. You just have to adjust to the real feeling of the actual airplane.
And then the benefit for me is, you know, give this out to people for a low cost. They save thousands of dollars on their training. But for me as a flight instructor, me wanting to stay as a flight instructor as I go throughout this corporate journey is that's not going to take me 60 to 80 hours of flight time. It's not going to take me all this additional ground time with a student anymore. I'm hoping I can slice that in about half because people are going to show up and they're going to know how to fly the airplane already. And they're being taught by me. So whether somebody goes to a different flight training provider, they come to me.
they're going to show up and be pretty darn well prepared and know how to perform everything within the confines of the private pilot ACS. So long-winded answer, sorry. But it's an idea that's been brewing for a couple of years and it's finally here and there's a lot of things I have to do to improve it. But that's the idea, saving people money by saving them time, teaching them lessons before they fly, also saving me time on the instructor end by having them show up more prepared.
Ben Todd (20:02)
You know, thinking about my own journey and just kind of relating this back to my experience, when I first started with you, that was my first experience in an airplane. I hadn't used a simulator prior to that. ⁓ So when I showed up on day one for our first lesson, that was my first real taste of what flying is actually like. And reflecting back on my journey, I think it would have been so much more beneficial.
so much more helpful for me to have even had, let's say 10 hours on a simulator, just to get the foundation built, just to kind of figure out like how the flow of things work. I heard a quote one time that the airplane is the worst classroom. Like when you're actually in the airplane, that is the worst time for you to actually be like trying to figure things out.
And I also think I also think I would have saved myself a lot of money ⁓ and avoided my problem of running out of money had I done this prior to starting with you. So I think the there's there's an immense benefit both directions for not only the students but for yourself as an instructor and your reputation and the service that you're providing. And I think the students will really benefit because I know for me personally if I had
Colin Boone (21:02)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Todd (21:27)
the opportunity to sit in front of my computer, do some maneuvers, practice takeoffs, practice talking on the radios, that would have set me up so much better for when I actually got in the airplane and started flying.
Colin Boone (21:41)
Yeah, it's just the neat thing too is you can isolate everything in a simulator. So like the way that the course is constructed is I take you from your very first flight lesson, learning what the instruments are, how to maintain straight level flight, climbs, turns and descents, all the barebone basic stuff, all the way through all the private pilot maneuvers and then you get to your first solo and I'm recording stuff after that right now. So the whole course isn't even complete yet, but there's still like over 100 videos there and
The thing I'm recording right now is the radio communication. So you can learn to fly the airplane from zero to first solo without having to talk on the radios. And now you know how to fly the airplane confidently. We can layer the radios on top of it. We've just completely isolated those tasks. So now it's just constant building blocks. It's not this huge mush of I have to learn the radios, I have to learn how to fly, I have to do this exact maneuver, watch out for traffic, all this stuff into one $300 an hour bundle.
which is very confusing and you get brain fog after like 45 minutes because there's just so much stuff going on, especially out here. It's so darn busy. So it's very neat that we can isolate things like that in the simulator and really focus on one thing at a time, change the wind and the weather, the clouds and everything exactly how we want it. If you want to practice crosswinds, give yourself a 15 knot crosswind practice an emergency procedure, land on a highway. If you crash into a car or a bridge, who cares? Cause you don't die in the simulator, but you know what? You got the valuable experience of learning how the airplane glides and how it reacts, you know,
So it's just super beneficial, but you don't want to cause bad habits to form in the simulator. So that's why with guided instruction, I think it's a terrific training tool.
Ben Todd (23:15)
It's funny you mentioned that because I remember relating that back to my experience I remember the first time that you know, I was actually get starting to get comfortable with everything and you Gave me all of the PIC duties. I remember this flight specifically you really okay your PIC today you're taking out everything and We hadn't even we hadn't even like gotten out of the local airspace of Chandler and I was already overloaded I I just felt so much tax saturation
Colin Boone (23:29)
Yeah.
Ben Todd (23:44)
⁓ and it was like really stressful. And so I think for you to be able to isolate all of the different components, you know, you focus on just these, you know, you're focusing on just the flying or you're focusing on just the radios. I think being able to build from a student perspective, I think being able to build those skills individually. And then once you're proficient in them individually, then start to bring them in together. I think that's going to be super beneficial because
Again, I remember just that specific flight where I was so overwhelmed trying to take on all of the tasks and all of the things that are required. And so I think trying, if I were to have been able to hone those skills individually, that would have been a lot better.
Colin Boone (24:28)
Yeah, and it's one thing for any other students watching is, it's a very common thing where you learn one thing very well, you do all the maneuvers super well, and you're doing great, then you got to layer the radios on top of it. And while you try to learn this new skill, the existing skills diminish because you're so focused on the new skill. And you don't have that like muscle memory and that experience that to just fly the airplane by, you know, on autopilot, essentially your human autopilot. So
you're still new with all the basic stuff you've learned, but now you're layering the stuff on top of it and you get behind the airplane very quickly. And what we see a lot, even in the multi-engine environment too, where people already have 250 hours in their commercial rate, is the first flight, I help them out with the radios and everything and help them with the maneuver profiles and I transfer all the duties onto them to make them the PIC and train like the PIC. And then the quality of how they fly and how they operate just degrades massively because
it's not just flying the airplane, it's all the other stuff that comes with it is, you know, flying the airplane is probably only half of what you have to do, but staying 10 steps ahead of it. Yeah, get in the weather 10 miles in advance so you're not cramming everything as you come back into the airport, clearing traffic. I mean, it's just, it's a lot of work. So it's, it's common to have a performance drop off when you start layering all these tasks together, it's completely normal. So don't get, discouraged if you have a bad flight because you're practicing something new on top of the stuff you already know.
Ben Todd (25:50)
Yeah, I can completely understand and agree with that. do remember, and I'm sure as I get back into my own training, you know, coming the next few weeks, I'm sure I'm going to experience those performance drops again, as I am starting to get reacclimated ⁓ with all of the maneuvers and everything that's involved ⁓ and required of me to be a private pilot.
So let's dig into the actual ⁓ interworkings of FSU. So you had mentioned you built out the videos right now ⁓ through the first solo. What's kind of the long-term plan for the course? What do you see or what do you want it to become in the long term? Is this going to be just private pilot or are you going to be building an instrument or commercial component? And talk to me about
kind of what you see for how you want this to grow and kind of what you want it to become.
Colin Boone (26:50)
I need to finish the whole private pilot course and then I've already been just wrenching on version two stuff. The version one that's out right now is like my version four, very critical of the stuff that I edit and the audio and how I appear on the camera and just the quality of the teaching and everything. So I try to produce the best stuff, but without any feedback, it took me a long time to realize what I needed to do and what not to do. So I'm already getting a lot more feedback just by releasing something. So hopefully things will accelerate a little faster now, but
It's a one man show right now. It's just recording, editing, posting and everything and try to build a website. So eventually I'd like to move over to website instead of Patreon. I'm going to finish the private in the next few months here. That's the whole course. And then I'd like to start on an instrument. I don't know if I'm going to start the instrument or do private pilot version two yet. We'll see like what the demand is like then. But I think it's going to take at least halfway through this year to really pick up some momentum. I've got a couple of students that are interested in taking the whole course.
and then coming and flying with me and letting me record the whole process and kind of make it a documentary just as a proof of concept. Okay, they did this course before they came to fly with me and they soloed in less than 10 hours or less than 15 hours and compared to the average person, they save this many thousand dollars before this point in their training. And so I think once there's more proof and credibility behind the concept that it'll grow.
exponentially faster based on that right now it's just it's very slow. It's in its infant stages and I'm just trying to develop it. I don't know exactly what the super long term is, at least private an instrument and to make training more accessible for people. That's the whole reason why it started because training is just ridiculously ridiculously expensive. I could take a $30,000 license and cut it down five grand or 10 grand or you know, whatever, that would be awesome whether they train with me or not. So yeah, I don't know what
the super long term of this is if it the demand is there, then make a commercial CFI or multi engine stuff. think that multi engine stuff would be easy. But private instrument I think is the bread and butter because that's when students are new. They're you're putting all of your faith into your instructors and into your flight school to have your best interests in mind to guide you through this training process. But if you can have some guidance online for very cheap.
and then go into the training process and then learn those nuances of being in the real training environment while already being educated beforehand, then you can save yourself a lot of the financial heartache and then also the time setbacks of the real life training. So not a direct answer, sorry, but I really don't know what the end goal is. Just want to make aviation training more accessible to people. And also as an instructor, it's going to save me a lot of time if people use the course as is intended.
Ben Todd (29:36)
Well, I think I think you've covered, you know, both of those different avenues, both from a student side and from you as an instructor. ⁓ And hopefully other instructors will also benefit from this. If a student decides to, you not fly with you after completing the course, I think it'll just make flight training just more as it becomes more popular and people start actually taking the course and using it to its full advantage. I think it's going to make flight training for both the student and instructor.
just a much more enjoyable experience ⁓ because of those foundational skills that those students have already built.
Colin Boone (30:12)
Yeah, and I think if I can really prove the concept over the next six months or so here and get a student in here and document the process and show how it works, if there is a larger partner that I could attract, like, I don't know, like Sporties or something like that, that would be interested in partnering on something like this and give me the budget to help with the editing and so I could just record and work with a team of people to accelerate this process, that would be awesome. Or if I could license it out to somebody to...
help the reach of selling it to people and just getting it into the hands of more people. It's difficult as a one-man show amidst all the other stuff going on. So I think that's something in the future too, but ultimately I think it's cheesy as it might sound. think this is part of the legacy that I'm trying to build. Even if I move on, it's not super successful. I leave this behind. The people that do use it, I know are going to benefit greatly from it. So it's there.
it's going to be developed right now. It's more of like a passion project because it's making no money. But I think it really, it's going to change flight training dramatically for those that use it. And I think some people are going to buy into it and then everybody else is going to hop on the bandwagon afterwards. we're hoping for, yeah.
Ben Todd (31:14)
you
Well, and again, speaking from my own experience, and if I could go back seven, eight months before I step foot in airplane, and if I were to have done this, even through like, let's say the first solo stage, I think that would have been extremely beneficial for me personally in my own training. I think you're going to have, once it kind of gets off the ground, I think you're going to have some buy-in and especially once you can get some real world.
experience and validation behind it. think it's going to take off.
Colin Boone (32:01)
Can I add one more thing on that real quick?
Ben Todd (32:03)
Yeah, of course.
Colin Boone (32:05)
of just for I think another kind of person that would benefit from a course like this is somebody that wants to fly but they they've never flown and they don't know if they'd actually like it and they don't want to spend a few grand figuring out if it's for them or not. So if they can take this for right now it's like $14.99 a month and they can go through all of the videos in less than a month and or as far as they want to and see
Okay, well, this is what training is actually like. These are the maneuvers. These are the standards. This is what it's like to be in the cockpit with somebody that's teaching me everything. Is it something that I can adapt to and that I'm actually enjoying or a skill that I can take on? Or is it just like it seems fun and I don't I'm not really up for it. So that's another money saver there is it's gonna say people that either want to do it and the people that don't want to do it. And they're not taking the risk of actually going to the cockpit. And then people that have
wanted to fly all their life, but they you know, had a family or a big work promotion, they just kind of put on the sidelines for a while. And now they're coming to it and they get a head start on taking a dive into the training. So the other groups of people that would really benefit from it, not just people that are definitely going to start their flight training, people are just interested and just want to see you too.
Ben Todd (33:17)
Yeah. And I mean, you hear all the time, you know, you'd in a group of people, you're out at a bar or something, and you bring up that you're a pilot. And there's always that one guy in the group that's like, man, you know, I, I thought about being a pilot one day. I thought about, you know, starting flight training at some point. And so I think it's like, it's, it's very accessible for anybody who would want to explore what it's actually like. And for 15 bucks a month, mean, people spend more on coffee per month than, than that. So I think, you know,
Colin Boone (33:33)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Ben Todd (33:47)
I think that's a very affordable price ⁓ for the value that you get out of
Colin Boone (33:52)
Yeah, I would definitely agree.
Ben Todd (33:55)
So I want to kind of dovetail a little bit. You got started. And so I think this this probably your start in the social media realm, I think that that may have given you some inspiration for creating the course. But you've got a very large following on your social media platform, specifically Instagram. I know you've done you have hundreds and hundreds of videos for free on your Instagram that showcase
Colin Boone (34:07)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Todd (34:26)
different flight training maneuvers. You have GoPros set up with actual students. You have GoPros set up with just yourself. And you do voiceovers talking about things. You have actual in cockpit audio that you've recorded. Can you kind of talk a little bit about what got you started in trying or in wanting to do some social media promotion for your flight training business and how that kind of came to be and what
if that gave you any inspiration to start the course.
Colin Boone (34:58)
Yeah, this is a this is this is a pretty loaded topic for me for sure. I was already freelancing. And this is probably gosh, I forget the year I got the CFI, I think 22 November of 22. So it's probably early 2023. I think February of 23, I really started freelancing got my first student or two. And then things just kind of snowballed from there. And I had a consistent stream of students before sort of the social media, but I was inspired by Toby Rice.
may have seen him on Instagram. He's master CFI, lives in Tennessee. And he started this platform called the CFI Roadmap. And he was taking CFIs like myself that were freelancers and they wanted to scale their income. And I thought, well, if I could do the same work and make more money than, whatever, that'd be awesome. And so I talked to him and I just took a gamble. I had no idea if his program worked or not. And I just invested in myself and I gave him some money to teach me his business model and talk about marketing myself and
He's the one that told me, I got to start an Instagram and do this and do that. And the content that I made was really like my own style, but his whole emphasis was just put yourself out there, give people in your area, someone that they can access that provides excellent flight training at whatever the cost, whatever your niche is. And his niche is different than mine, but he helped me find mine. And that was the baseline for when I, and the reason why I started making content.
And that really helped me expand my reach and helped me get a waitlist of students. So I don't think I was ever unfair with pricing. But yeah, if you got to line out the door for the next year, you got to raise the prices a little bit. So that helped me. I was doing the same amount of work still at the airport 10 to 12 hours a day. But I was making more while I was there. So it was a win win for everybody. And the kind of content that I was making, I experimented I didn't know what worked and what didn't work before I started making content. And my first videos, they're still there, you can go way back, but they
They're terrible compared to the ones that I produced more recently. But I didn't know. I had no idea. So I should take that same advice about just posting things to get feedback about the course stuff. Unfortunately, I didn't. That's why it's so late. But back on track is I made some cockpit videos. made a series like Question of the Day for student pilots, try to get people involved and talking in the comments section and things like that really seemed to work. So
I started on Instagram. didn't do anything else. I don't know why I didn't do anything else. It would have been very minimal work to transfer to other platforms as well, but it worked. And ⁓ I did it based off the advice from a mentor of mine, Toby, who's still my mentor to this day. what was the second half of the question? about the course. Yeah, how it inspired the course.
Ben Todd (37:39)
Did that inspire you to
create the course or at least the videos that you've created to post on Instagram, did that give you kind of an inspiration to kind of make this course and kind of put it all into a consolidated platform?
Colin Boone (37:56)
Yeah, I think having the Instagram platform and now I'm starting on all the other platforms that are similar to Instagram and YouTube and stuff. And I think having those or Instagram primarily, but now the other platforms to funnel people towards a course is just an efficient way to use social media. You know, I've never made a cent off of Instagram. It's all been it was all to funnel people into my messages and then to get them to come fly with me. So it was at first just.
I guess raise awareness for myself and promote myself as an instructor, but also just to so I can get more business. So I made money based off the inquiries I got but not on views or anything like that. So I never made a cent off of Instagram. But I thought as the line kept building up, when we started training there, I had like a six or seven month waitlist ⁓ of students. And I saw I'm one guy, I can't help all of these people. And it would be unfair to charge them absurd amounts of money to
to do this. So if I just had a platform where I could send people to before they start training me for the next two or three months, they could work on this. And then they come train with me and then the training would be more accelerated because they'd be educated. Yeah, I didn't know what would fill that gap. But now it's here and it materialized into Flight Sim University. I had the idea I needed something to fill that gap to give to people that wanted to fly with me but I just couldn't fly with them yet.
but I didn't know what it was. then, but I figured it out, Flight Sim University. Now I don't really have a wait list or anything. I've worked so long on the course and I was doing the corporate stuff last year. So everything has kind of fizzled out and I'm really kind of starting to fresh again as a ⁓ single engine instructor. haven't done much single engine work since I started working on Flight Sim University. So it's very exciting. It's kind of starting from scratch, but already got the platforms up and we'll see how Flight Sim University integrates into everything. So take a couple of months to get rolling and get...
students full time again, but no big deal. Yeah, I think hopefully that answers the question.
Ben Todd (39:56)
That's awesome,
Yeah, I'm really excited to see where this goes for you because I know that this is something that you are really passionate about and you've invested a lot of time into. ⁓ And so I'm just really excited to see how like what the positive return on your investment is going to be from this. So I think it'll be really cool. And I think it'll be extremely beneficial for ⁓ the next generation of flight students.
Colin Boone (40:24)
Yeah, it's definitely going to take some time, but it's going to be there. Yeah.
Ben Todd (40:28)
It'll
definitely be there. Well, cool, man. Well, I want to before we wrap up, I want to talk about ⁓ you. You are my biggest mentor, right? Or one of my biggest mentors right now. You have I text you all the time ⁓ asking for advice or hey, man, like I've got the situation, you know, what should I do? How should I approach it? So you even though you've only been in the industry for
you know, five years or so, I think you have a lot of advice just that you've learned through your career so far. And I know you're still pretty fresh in your career, but I want to spend some time talking about just some advice that you have to student pilots or to somebody who is kind of looking to get into aviation. And the first one I want to, to kind of get into is your corporate flying experience. What advice
would you give to somebody who is looking to break into corporate flying? ⁓ How important is networking? ⁓ What networking tips do you have for people ⁓ to try to build those connections like you built ⁓ that got you your first job? So you talk a little bit about just the corporate side of any kind of advice that you may have to offer.
Colin Boone (41:51)
Yeah, 100%. I know it doesn't sound like anything new. really, the whole saying of your network is your net worth is totally true, especially with corporate aviation. Yeah, when I got interviewed for the flight department I work for currently on the G150, the first question in my interview was, with all the other pilots there was,
we go somewhere for an overnight. Do you want to stay in the hotel? You want to go out on the town and see what the local place has to offer? like, well, I became a corporate pilot to visit places like that's, it's kind of cool. Let's go out in the town. Okay, you want to see the airplane? Like that was it. I was there's no flying questions. It's all it's a very people based industry and most industries are whether people realize it or not. You know, but I, you I only know aviation, but it's really all about who you know, you're going to get a job interview over
somebody who's more qualified because the people interviewing you or somebody who has an in with the people interviewing you that they know you and or they've made some sort of connection with you or they got a good referral or something. So if you can be more than just a number or a resume and a stack of resumes, if you hand deliver your resume to the chief pilot and whatever flight department you want to go work for his office, you got to do something to stand out. It goes back to like me handing out business cards when I was working on the ramp. Nothing came of it. One thing came of it.
But when people came back and those pilots came back, they recognized me when I was waving them in and I was getting them their coffee, ice and papers and everything over all the other people. And they'd ask me how I was doing, how my training was going. just something to stand out. then, you know, like for someone like yourself, who is really just starting at the beginning with private stuff, you're talking to these people at the the AZBAA events that we go to. And for people that don't know, it's a local business organization that we have.
business aviation organization, we have meetings a couple times a year, everybody networks, and it's a great time. But as you work your way up, and you you tell people I want to be a corporate pilot, then you see him six months from now, hey, I'm instrument rated, working on the commercial, you see him another six months from now, hey, I'm a flight instructor, I've got 500 hours. And then they're like, this guy's doing exactly what he said he was going to do. And eventually, they see your grind, you know, from a third person perspective, and see that you're you're working on everything and you're developing, you already have that connection there, they know how hard you're working.
they're gonna give you an interview before some guy from Delaware that just sent his resume in, you know? So it's all about who you know is breaking into the corporate world.
Ben Todd (44:16)
Yeah, I have seen that firsthand already. ⁓ Just from, again, you mentioned the AZBA events, just from the couple events that I've started to go to already, I've met and started to network with some of the folks there who have some influence, who are in the career field, they have some influence on hiring, ⁓ and just trying to build those personal connections and really make them personal. Don't have ulterior motives. Don't be like,
Colin Boone (44:36)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Todd (44:44)
trying to swing your way into a job. Just be a normal person, be humble, and just be yourself. And I think, at least from my perspective, just building genuine relationships with people, whether something comes of it or not, you've built a friendship, you've built a connection, and just kind of see where it goes, but don't expect anything out of
Colin Boone (45:10)
Well then always doing what you say you're going to do just gives you credibility before you have the qualifications. So if you say, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna get my commercial license by Christmas or whatever, and then you get it done, it looks a lot better when you go to the next meeting and you talk with everybody, like, oh no, I got delayed for whatever this reason is. If you set your mind to something, you tell people you're gonna do it and you accomplish it, they're like, hey, this guy's reliable, before you even qualify to interview. And the thing is, that it doesn't matter if you're gunning for a corporate job, an airline job or...
you're working on your private pilot license, there are things at every stage of your journey that you can do to stand out from the rest of the pack and to accelerate that that process of your career. So like, for instance, when I moved out to Arizona, and I got involved with the ACBAA, I talked with the guys, I didn't even know they ran the scholarship committee or anything. But I talked to those guys at a local event that was organized between ACBAA and my school. And we went to the maintenance hanger at Mesa Gateway. And I just talked to everybody and I put a face to the name and show them how
eager I was to get to flying and how passionate I was about everything. And then that helped me win a scholarship and then won it again. And that helped me pay for my CFI and for my multi training, both of those scholarships did. So if you are able to network your way into a position that helps you get a scholarship and shows an organization how serious you are about this transition in your career, then you could get yourself like five grand off of your private pilot training or your flight program because you just took that extra step. People don't want to go spend
three hours on a Thursday going to network at these things. And to me, I love it because that's, there's always an opportunity somewhere in that room, you know? So doesn't matter if you have no qualifications or all of them. Sorry, go ahead.
Ben Todd (46:43)
Absolutely. And I think from
And I think
for, no, you're good. think for me or just, just student pilots in general, or people at the beginning of their journeys, I think it's really cool to go to these events because you see what's out there. You see what's possible. You talk to all these guys who are like, you know, two or three steps ahead of you, you know, they've got, you know, 500 hours, they've got a thousand hours. They're in a right seat of a jet. Like it kind of gives you motivation and inspiration to keep going because you see
Colin Boone (47:09)
Mm-hmm.
Ben Todd (47:16)
what's directly in front of you in the next step, as long as you just keep going and keep putting one foot in front of the other. So that's, that's why I like going to those events because it, makes everything seem a lot more accessible and attainable because you're sitting and having a conversation with somebody who's doing exactly what you want to do.
Colin Boone (47:34)
Yeah, and they've been through it. That's why I had no problem. Well, it was scary at the time because it wasn't proven. But I talked about earlier paying my mentor Toby to teach me his business model and stuff that I was entirely betting on, putting my faith in him that it would work and betting on myself. But I wasn't going to waste the resources that I invested in myself to get the most out of that program. And when you go to one of these events, you're not getting paid to be there. There's no incentive for you to be there other than to make connections.
But you could be at home playing video games with your boys or going out to the bars or doing whatever else. But you choose to be there just by showing up. You're ahead of the people that aren't showing up. And that's most people. yeah, you get out what you put into it for sure. Absolutely.
Ben Todd (48:17)
Absolutely.
Yeah, I 100 % agree with that. So, ⁓ final question for you is, you you talk a lot about flight training and being an instructor. What's some advice that you would offer to student pilots to get the most out of their training, ⁓ make a successful career for themselves, regardless of whether they choose corporate, whether they choose
Colin Boone (48:31)
Yeah.
Ben Todd (48:44)
the airlines, whether they choose a different avenue of flying. What's some advice that you'd offer to students ⁓ or I guess CFIs to really maximize on their careers?
Colin Boone (48:58)
Again, a loaded question and I could go so many different ways with this one. One is people are your best resource. Just kind of going back to the networking stuff we're just talking about. But when you introduce yourself to people and you're either going to be seeking advice or you're just trying to establish that connection, whether it's online or in person, don't just give them your name and say, hey, I have a question for you. Can you help me with this? Give them something tangible about yourself.
put a name to the face that you see on the social media profile, give a little background about yourself and you know, why they why you're coming to them for advice. And I know that if somebody's taking the time to tell me about themselves that the time that I put into helping them is going to be more worth it for me because they're actually going to take the advice that I give them and run with it, rather than somebody just asking me for any random advice, which happens a lot. But like when you talk to me, initially when we first met,
you're super motivated, and I could see that right out the gate. know, so it's just about how you present yourself and how you approach people that are in a position to help you. So that would be one. The second part or second thing I would offer to students is going through your training. You know, you can worry about the career stuff later, and definitely enjoy the journey now. But your journey, it does not have to be the same as everybody else's. You're an individual, you learn differently from all of your peers next to you, whether you're at
you and D like you're going to and you have a big class of people or if it's you one on one and you got a buddy that's training with you. And you guys all learn differently. So your journey does not have to be as fast or as slow or, know, whatever as anybody else next to you. So do a lot of research before you take out a big loan and you go to a big flight school and you you throw a bunch of money at something, do some proper research about how you learn, talk to people that have been through these programs, talk to
freelance CFIs and freelance students that have been through it and to see how everything went and then form your opinions off of that. I wouldn't go into any one program blindly. And if you feel like you're being screwed at one of these programs or by a freelancer, then stop giving them your money. to save money, even if it's a good or a bad program, it doesn't matter. Study really hard on your own because if you actually take what your instructor tells you to do and what he tells you to study,
and you show up and you know all that material, now it's less time you have to spend on ground. If you chair fly at home or you fly in your simulator at home, it's less time you have to spend in the real airplane. So if you can shave off hours of ground time and hours of flight instruction and hours of time in the airplane, then you're saving yourself thousands of dollars. For every hour you shave off, you're saving 250 to 300 bucks an hour, depending on where you go. So massive savings just on being diligent by yourself. So do your research, study on your own, take it seriously. If you're young,
pay for some of your training yourself so you see the value of the dollar. I know we're running out of time, but I could keep going for a very long time. Is there something specific you'd like to ask in terms of advice, like a very specific subject?
Ben Todd (51:59)
I don't think so. think it was more just you have you've built a lot of knowledge just throughout your career so far. And so I think it was more just general knowledge, general advice for somebody who's either a current flight student or somebody looking to get into flight training that's kind of on the fence about it. But I think you did a really good job of kind of articulating, ⁓ you know, what your thoughts are on that.
Is there anything else that you wanted to add or any other nuggets that you think would be beneficial to share?
Colin Boone (52:31)
There were there been a number of things that have gone through my head and I've forgotten them as I was talking about something else. So I'm sorry. I'm sure I'll think of them like right when we right when we end here. But yeah, I there's plenty of stuff. I mean, for people watching, I'm sure we'll have like our socials linked and everything. But feel free to reach out with any questions and stuff. I've got a ton of advice and you're happy to provide guidance for anybody who comes my way. But definitely take the advice of introducing yourself and presenting yourself well.
when you do reach out for advice to whoever it is. ⁓ yeah, flight training can be very intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Just be informed and don't be in a rush to start something, because it could be a mistake. If you take the extra couple months to shop around and weigh your options, you could save yourself a lot of money and a lot of heartache and a lot of time. So no rush to start the training, but once you're in it, go for it.
Ben Todd (53:23)
I completely agree with that. Do you have the course available yet? I know you said you're still kind of building out the post solo video series. Do you have the course available for the pre solo videos that if people are interested, how can they get a link to the course?
Colin Boone (53:45)
So in my Instagram and like TikTok and all that stuff, there's a link in my bio to the Patreon page. So I'm using Patreon right now. I think probably about halfway through this year, I'll probably swap over to a website when the whole course is complete. So try to do those together. But for now, everything's on Patreon. if you go on Patreon, you make an account, you can join for free. A number of the videos are free just to show you what the learning process is like and what the teaching style is before you spend the 15 bucks a month.
But if you go on Patreon, you just type in Flight Sim University, it'll pop up. Yeah.
Ben Todd (54:19)
And I'll have a link to your Instagram in the show notes. So if anybody's interested, ⁓ I can refer them over to your Instagram and get them set up that way.
Colin Boone (54:29)
Yeah, that'd be awesome. Tons of free stuff is going to be on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube shorts. then the plan is to do one simulator lesson for free to YouTube every week. It'll be 10 to 15 minute video and just throw one of those up per week. That's nicely edited and everything. then shout out my own course at the end, of course, but you you got to do what you got to do.
Ben Todd (54:50)
Gotta
do that, of course. Well, hey, Colin, this has been a really great conversation. I was really excited to do this interview. I know that we had talked about doing this for six months. I know I had kind of shared my thoughts with you on getting a podcast started once I kind of got into my training and to kind of chronicle my journey. So I know we've really talked about...
Colin Boone (55:04)
Yeah.
Ben Todd (55:16)
doing this interview and sitting down with each other for a long time. And so I'm really glad that we were able to carve out some time. I know your schedule is busy. ⁓ My schedule is about to be busy. So it was really great to sit down with you today. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up?
Colin Boone (55:31)
Right now, no. Again, I'm sure I'll think of a bunch of stuff right after we get off this call here, but a perfect excuse to do this again. So yeah, I'm sure you'll be busy with this stuff and you can definitely leverage some of this throughout your own training and make a ton of content out of it. You know, happy to come back and do things more specific or something more specific if you'd like.
Ben Todd (55:57)
I would definitely love a part two and we're actually getting ready to go fly later on this week. We're gonna be doing a flight in new FlightStars DA40. FlightStars, how many 42s are at FlightStars right now? Is there three or four?
Colin Boone (56:03)
That's right. That's right.
There are four there's one ng for time building only and there's three 42s that are dedicated to training those have the continental engines and then the da 40 is Kind of an experiment, but there's always single engine demand. So I'm a partner on that airplane actually and I'm excited to make it fly so it'll be pretty neat to see how that goes and
Ben Todd (56:37)
Awesome, man. Yeah, I'm super
excited to getting back up. And do you want to touch a little bit on, for anybody who might be here in the local area in Phoenix, kind of where you train out of? And in case anybody's interested here in Phoenix who might be interested in flying with you, can you talk a little bit about what you offer in person?
Colin Boone (56:55)
Yeah, so I mean, of course, if you're looking for private training, I'm very soon going to be requiring all of my students to do the course first to save us both time and money in that whole process. But in terms of training, I am a part owner on the DA 40 out of Falcon. I've got a couple 172s and stuff to use there as well. And then I'll fly anywhere in the valley really Chandler and Scottsdale and Falcon are the closest for me. So once you go Deer Valley and like West, it's a little out of the way for me. But if the
people are right and the price is right and of course I'll fly anything anywhere so but do any rating and pretty much fly anything so the DA40 is now available at Falcon and we're trying to see if that thing can fly all the time so it's very exciting.
Ben Todd (57:40)
That's awesome. I'm super excited to get back up, especially in the DA40. know Diamond aircraft just in general are awesome. Diamond's a really great company. And so I think it's going to be a lot of fun to get back up and fly the 40 around this week. So I'm really looking forward to that.
Colin Boone (57:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, man, it's going to be super fun. It's new engine, new prop. mean, God, that thing's awesome. So yeah, it's going be great.
Ben Todd (58:04)
I'm excited.
I'm looking forward to it. Well, thanks everyone for tuning into this week's episode. If this episode brought you any value, please share it with somebody who's chasing their own version of high performance. Don't forget to follow the show so you never miss a flight. And I will have Collins information linked in the show notes. ⁓ Fly safe, everyone. We'll see you next time.