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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.
Ben Todd (00:01)
With the proper amount of focus and effort, you can literally accomplish anything you want. Anything worth having, one is gonna be hard. Two is going to require a lot of effort. It's gonna require a lot of focus. You're gonna have to sacrifice. You're going to have to
Do things outside of what you've normally done to accomplish something worthwhile. It's just part of it. I'm not an internet guru. I'm not a big motivational speaker, but what I can tell you is that you guys can literally do anything you want. You can. You might think that you can't, you might have people in your corner tell you you can't, but you can literally do whatever you want. It's just gonna take some time, it's gonna take a plan.
And you're gonna have to work really freaking hard to do it.
Welcome to the Performance Pilot Podcast, where aviation meets athletic ambition. I'm your host, Ben Todd, private pilot, competitive bodybuilder, and lifelong learner, sharing my journey from the gym to the sky. Each episode will explore the habits, discipline, and mindset that it takes to perform at your best, both in and out of the cockpit. Let's get our board.
All right, welcome back to another episode of the podcast, I am so happy to be back here. The last time I hit record ⁓ to record a new episode was late January. It is now late May, so that's five months of not recording, not making new content. ⁓ I have been busy. as we'll kind of get into here throughout the episode,
three and a half weeks ago, I finally completed my lifelong goal of becoming a pilot. it was a it was a journey. It was a journey to say the least. And we're going to kind of get into how that went, what it looked like for me, what my experience was. And I want to share that. ⁓
Just to one, give y'all some insight as to what it takes to become a pilot. Two, I also want to detail what hard work will get you when you continuously commit to a process. So that's kind of the setup for the episode. I want to start by recapping just how I kind of got here to this whole flight training thing. And if y'all have been with me, follow me on social media for a little while.
⁓ you will remember or know that last February, so February 2025, is when I actually took my first flight lesson. ⁓ I was working full-time in the IT field as a network engineer. And I was trying to flight train on the side part-time, ⁓ evenings after work and weekends. And so I began that in
February 2025. I started with a private independent flight instructor here in Phoenix, ⁓ Colin Boone, who's a great friend of mine, still a great friend of mine. He's he's a mentor of mine, actually, as well. And we began training together. ⁓ again, after work on weekends. And I started that February of twenty twenty-five, and I found it to be a challenge. Both tasks, my job.
as you know an IT engineer and flight training are both really mentally taxing endeavors. It takes a lot ⁓ to learn how to fly. That's it might seem like it's a pretty mundane and routine kind of task, but I can assure you, after the last 16 months that I've been doing this, it is not. So that was challenging. Just flight training alone was challenging.
And then add in working in our eight hour workday, sitting at my desk, typing away on my keyboard, doing IT things. That was also mentally taxing. So I would go from an eight-hour mentally taxing day of work straight into a three-ish hour endeavor at the airport between pre-flighting, the actual flight lesson, the debrief afterwards. It's a long day. And then obviously, because I, you know.
still like working out, I would go to the gym after that. So very long days. And it was not sustainable for me to continue doing that. I didn't fully commit myself to flying and studying like I should have. And I can reflect on that now. And I realize that from the last three and a half months that I've actually committed to this full time, how much studying
And preparation is involved in that process. So I did not last year commit myself fully to studying or preparing like I probably should have. I also began to see some of my work performance start to take a hit just because I was just kind of mentally out of it. I wasn't as focused at work as I needed to be. I was trying to, you know, spend my free time at work studying for flying and
Learning different concepts and trying to do both at the same time was just unsustainable. So I made the decision last June, June 2025. So coming up on little on little under a year ago, I paused my flight training. One because I was had dwindling funds. I set aside a certain amount of money.
To do this, and I thought, based on the research I had done that I could get all of this accomplished within that certain amount of money. I did not. Again, due to just kind of spreading myself too thin. ⁓ if I were have if I had been able to focus on flying full time, I probably could have gotten it done, passed my check ride, and still had money left over, but that was not the case.
So one was financial related. Two was just I really wanted to take a step back and figure out if flying in aviation was really something that I wanted to do and pursue. And if it was, how was I going to do it? Because the way that I was doing it was not sustainable or not going to work. So paused in June of 2025, and I actually didn't step forward.
foot in an airplane again until mid-January of 2026. So it was a seven month hiatus and I missed it incredibly. ⁓ I I really loved flying. I love flying. And seven months away from it was challenging. Although I I looking back on it, I did need that time to again figure out what path I wanted to take to do this.
how I was gonna get it done and kind of just all of the details involved there. So
As I took this break last summer, I started researching, or I guess re-researching, because I initially did some research on flight schools here in Phoenix. So I started picking up this research again on flight schools. And what my thought process behind this research was was I need to find a school that I feel comfortable enough committing to this full time.
and what I realized that it was going to look like, was me quitting my job in the IT field, which was a huge risk, a huge leap of faith. Quitting my job in the IT field to pursue flight training full-time. I didn't know exactly what school I was going to go to. I didn't know exactly how I was going to make this work because that's it's a pretty big jump. But
I knew that if I wanted to get this done, that was gonna be what it took. So started researching some flight schools here in Phoenix.
There was one that I had heard a lot of really good things about, hadn't actually gone to tour there, hadn't really done much looking into their program. ⁓ but it is called UND Aerospace Foundation. And it is a, I guess, subsidy of the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota. They have arguably one of the
probably top three aviation programs in the country. And they created, I believe it was in the late nineties. I might have to fact check that, but I believe it was in the late nineties. They created a satellite campus out here in Phoenix ⁓ to bring in more students into the program. There's obviously not a huge demand for people to go live in Grand Forks, North Dakota. So
They decided they were going to open this satellite campus down here in Phoenix. Much nicer weather, much more enjoyable training experience, but still to the rigorous standards that the University of North Dakota and Grand Forks holds themselves to. So I had heard a lot about a lot of really good things about UND here in Phoenix. And I decided in October of this past year, 2025, that I was going to go tour the facility, just try to be open-minded about.
Their program, their facilities, what everything looked like, and see if it was going to be a good fit for me. So October went and toured the facility and immediately fell in love with it. Immediately I knew that that's where I wanted to conduct my training. The facilities, the ⁓ simulators, the maintenance of the aircraft, the fleet of aircraft.
And just the overall presentation of the school and what they had to offer was something that I really enjoyed and could see myself immersing myself in.
So that was in early October of 2025. And my birthday falls in mid October. And I took a trip back to Texas to visit my family for my birthday weekend. And I recall very vividly this conversation. I I hadn't brought this up to my parents yet at the at at this time about quitting my job or anything. And back home in in Texas for my birthday weekend. And I was like, hey, ⁓ I've got
something I wanna try to propose to you guys. And I so I pitched this idea of, hey, I just toured this flight school. I think it's gonna be a really good fit for me, but I have to quit my job. And my parents kind of like looked at me and they were like, You're gonna do what? Again? Say that one more time. ⁓ so they obviously were that was kind of a a big shock to them that I was actually like
Considering doing this. And looking back on it, they they obviously had my best interest in mind. They wanted to make sure that I was thought this through thoroughly and was making a good decision. And it all worked out for the for the best. ⁓ but it that first initial conversation, they were like, what are you doing?
Over time I I have built their support and and they have recognized how important this is to me and and how hard I've worked at it. So it all has worked out just fine. so the next private pilot class at UND began in late January. So I made the decision. This is what I was going to do. I started preparing myself for it. ⁓ a week before Christmas, I think.
Is when I gave my boss my resignation. I gave a four week notice at work. Again, just due like to holiday like Christmas, New Year's. People being out of the office for those couple weeks. I wanted to make sure that there was ample time for preparation to be done and whatnot. So I gave my boss my notice and he was super supportive. He knew I was doing this full flight training thing in the background and was really supportive of me going after this, which I have really appreciated because
That was that allowed me to get this done. So I I really appreciated that. And last day at work was the ninth of January, I believe. And took a week off and then started started school on January twentieth. So that was kind of my timeline as to how I got from trying to train part time into jumping fully into the deep end and training full time. So
I want to now kind of chronicle just briefly what my full training timeline has looked like from start to finish and just give a couple of highlights of some key dates. So my first ever, ever flight lesson with Colin was February thirteenth of twenty twenty five. So if my mental math is correct, that is about sixteen months ago.
15 months ago. So, first ever flight lesson, February 13th, 2025. My first solo. So, in in flight training, you build up all your flight lessons. There's a bunch of required training per the federal aviation regulations that has to be conducted. Your instructor has to sign you off to say, hey, this person has received all of this instruction. Before you can solo, all of that instruction has to be completed. So
All that instruction was completed for me last year. I completed my first solo on June 5th of 2025, which was an incredible experience. I did five laps in the pattern of Chandler Airport by myself. It was awesome. I think I was up there for 45 minutes by myself. And it was it was the coolest experience ever. And super grateful to have had that opportunity to do that. My last flight lesson.
part time before I paused was June twenty-third of last year and it was only a thirty minute lesson. The winds and the heat here in Phoenix are so great in the summertime that I was obviously training after work. And so three, four, five, six o'clock in the afternoon, the winds are strong. It's boiling outside. And so I remember it was only a 30-minute flight because
the winds were so strong. I think we had some pretty strong crosswinds that I just didn't feel comfortable landing in and it wasn't a productive time. So we just capped it at at a half hour and that was the last time I stepped foot in a plane until January. So I took this hiatus of seven months until my first flight lesson at UN D, which was January twentieth of this year. I had actually flown about a week before that with Colin.
He took me up in one of the planes that he is a partner on. It's a Diamond DA forty And it's a beautiful aircraft. Love flying it. So he took me up in that and we tooled around Phoenix for a little bit in that just to kind of get me kind of reacclimated with flight controls and all that stuff. So
First lesson at UND was January twentieth.
My first solo at UND, I guess it's technically my second first solo. Again, I had to go through all the pre that required flight training that I had to get signed off on before I could solo. Had to do that all over again going to UND. So my first solo at UND was on March sixth of this year. So it took me f three and a half months to solo last year when I was training part-time. It took me about a month and a half.
this time around. So very condensed. And then I took my check ride and passed my check ride two months later on May 6th, so a few weeks ago. So that was kind of my full training timeline from start to finish. It generally speaking does not ever take anybody that long. ⁓ fifteen months to get your private is that's pretty uncommon, ⁓ I would say, generally speaking.
it some situations are different, but generally I think it's usually a lot shorter than that. But because I had that seven month break where I didn't fly an airplane, that's that's kind of what contributed to it taking that long. So
I want to talk a little bit about what training at UND was like and kind of just get into some specifics on some of the lessons and and how like what that kind of looked like. So overall, I had an amazing experience at UND. I think the program is set up to really prepare you to be a a good, competent, smart pilot. And the program is hard.
people have asked me, a couple of different people have asked me about my experience and my opinion there. The program is is challenging, and I think they do that intentionally. One to weed out people who maybe aren't as serious about aviation and becoming a pilot, or also because they
The standards that they uphold or the standards that they have make you a really well-rounded pilot. But they also want people who are committed, who are driven, and who take this seriously. And so I think that's if I'm just thinking about this logically, I think that's probably the reasons that they have the program as set up as rigorous as it is. Also because
Generally, to complete your check ride, you have to have an examination and evaluation by what's called a designated pilot examiner. So it's an independent third-party ⁓ person who is signed off by the FAA to conduct certificate granting exams. So private instrument commercial, commercial multi-cFI, etc. At UND.
The program is so rigorous that the and the the syllabus and the curriculum is so specifically laid out that the FAA has actually granted examining authority to the UND stage check pilots. So at UND, we don't have to go out to these independent third party DPEs to have our check rides conducted. They're all conducted in-house.
With our stage pilots. And I'll get kind of get into the stage check process here in in a little bit. But that's another huge advantage of UND, is the program's been vetted by the FAA. And the FAA has signed off saying, Yes, like you guys have such a structured and and great program that we know you're training your students in the correct way. So we're going to give you guys the authority to grant certificates to your own students.
That's a huge huge plus and that's that was one of the driving forces behind why I decided to go there in the first place.
So UND is a part 141 school. Last year when I was training with ⁓ Colin, that is part 61. And so there's there's a lot of confusion about part 141 versus part 61. Which one's better? Which one's not better? What does this mean? What does that mean? And I wanna I've touched on this in previous episodes, and I want to kind of just dive down on this for a second. All these mean.
Are they the different parts of the federal aviation regulations? Part 61 of the FARS and part 141 of the FARS. They both talk about flight training. Part 61 of the actual FARS talks about all of the required training that students must have to be eligible to obtain a pilot certificate.
And part 141 of the FARS talks about schools and college programs and things that are approved by the FAA to conduct this flight training. So think of part sixty-one as more independent at your own pace. These are just the highlights of all of the training that needs to be conducted.
Part 141 is more structured, rigid. There's specific guidelines set by the FAA. There's oversight by the FAA.
So when I was training part sixty one last year, we I would get to the airport and it was basically I called the shots, or I guess it was a combination of me and my instructor kind of called the shots on hey, today we're going to focus on steep turns, we're going to focus on slow flight, maybe we're going to do some landing practice. Like it was just kind of very in the moment. Like this is what we're going to do.
In a Part 141 environment, that is not the case. You have a specific syllabus for each lesson. In each lesson, you have specific tasks that need to be completed. So you can't just wing it and say, Well, today I, you know, I my steep turns suck. So I want to practice steep turns. If steep turns are not on the lesson plan for the day, you won't be practicing steep turns unless.
You have extra time in your block of flight time where you can then take advantage of whatever extra time you have. Generally speaking, you don't have extra time. So one big difference between 61 and 141 is the rigidity and the structure and the fact that 61, you can kind of in a way kind of do what you want. In a 141, you are held to
The syllabus and the lesson plan for the day. And there's really no deviation from that. So that's one of the big differences. I personally, since I've done both, I personally feel that 141, that style of training, that specific rigidity and structure and syllabus, I felt that that was a good fit for me. It's not a good fit for everybody. I will say that. There is a specific kind of person that.
This kind of training is most beneficial for, I would say. And because of my military experience, because of my past just experience with structure and rigidity and routine and adhering to a program, I think that was a good fit for me because that's kind of how my brain works the best. That's kind of how I tend to operate just in in normal life. Not to say that 61 was bad because it wasn't.
But I just think for me personally, 141 was just a better fit. Again, it's very individualized. There is no that there's gonna be this eternal debate in all of flight training. What is better, 161 or 141? And then there's really no better, quote unquote better. There's really no better. It's all individualized, it's all based on the student. And I think there needs to be some.
Introspection on the students part to understand within themselves how do I learn best? What is my what is my learning technique? Do I am I a visual learner? Do I like structure? Do I like kind of being able to pick and choose what I want to do? Like there's all these different factors that go into it. And so it there's really no one right answer. It it really is independent for the each student.
So that's that's the differences between 61 and 141. I personally enjoy this the 141 environment. I thought that the rigidity and structure and the syllabus and knowing what I was going to be doing each lesson, ⁓ I would I would come into each lesson, obviously knowing okay, these tasks are on today's lesson. And so I would prepare as much as I could ahead of time, like, okay, if we're doing slow flight, steep turns, and some basic instrument maneuvers today.
I before the lesson, I would brush up on steep turns, like you know, setting up for the specific maneuver, brush up on slow flight, setting up for the specific maneuver, and basic instrument procedures, you know, things like that. So, whatever the lesson called for, I would try to ahead of time get ahead of and have an idea of how I was going to conduct these maneuvers because.
When you're sitting on the ground, when I'm sitting here at my desk, I am not being charged. I I this is free. This is free for me to sit here and study and read and watch YouTube videos. As soon as I get in that plane and that engine turns on, my wallet is being drained. So it's very advantageous, very advantageous for students while they're going through training to take advantage of.
All of the time that they are out of the airplane. Because when you're out of the airplane, you're not paying money. As soon as you get in that plane and the engine fires, then you start paying. So it's very it's a good habit to get into for students, at least in my opinion. This is what I did. To use your time wisely outside of the plane. Prepare, study, chair fly.
Chair flying is a great concept. It's exactly what it sounds like. You sit here, I'm sitting here in this chair, and I'm visualizing and pretending that I'm sitting inside the cockpit. Visualizing, you know, all the instrument panel in front of me, ⁓ all my flight controls, visualizing everything is here. And I will just run through all the flows. I'll run through all the checklists from my head, or I'll have the checklist sitting in front of me and I'll just call everything out loud. That was a great tool to use. Again, it's free.
I'm sitting here at my desk. It's a great tool to use to again learn some of the flows, learn some of the checklist procedures, just solidify your understanding of what you're doing for free. So highly recommend.
Now want to kind of get into before I take the next step into talking about what I've learned. I want to talk about exactly what training was like at UND. I'm not going to go through all the lessons, but I want to highlight some of the lessons. I want to highlight some of the characteristics of being in a 141 environment. And so we'll start with, I've got my syllabus pulled up here. We'll start with lesson one. Lesson one again was January 20th.
And this was a ground lesson. So in during flight training, you have as a student, you have a combination of ground lessons, flight lessons, ⁓ in 141 environment at UND. ⁓ we had simulator sessions, and we had stage checks. So
That all sounds like jargon if you don't really actually know what any of that is. So ground lessons, all that is, is you are sitting in a classroom or coffee shop or whatever with your instructor and you are talking about some process sitting on the ground, right? So it's whatever it might be. It could be ⁓ weather theory, it could be going over regulations, it could be whatever it might be.
all of the required ground knowledge because not only do you have to learn how to actually fly the airplane while you're going through training, but you have to learn all of the knowledge associated with being on the ground and what you have to do, what regulations are involved, what whether you have to become like a pseudo-meteorologist as a as a pilot. You have to learn all these different privileges and limitations of what you can do and what you can't do. And there's
So much knowledge that you have to learn that isn't taught in the sky. It's taught on the ground. And a lot of that was also self study. So a lot of that there were things that my instructor would briefly talk about, and then I have to go home and like dive down deeply into it to figure out what's going on. So, ground lessons. So, lesson one was a ground lesson. All we did was talk about UND ⁓ policies and procedures.
what expectations to expect from training, ⁓ what how this is all gonna work. There are there were 30 total lessons in the private pilot course. Now 30 does not sound like a lot. You think of 30, you're like, well, that doesn't sound that bad. You also have to think that each lesson was generally speaking, if it was a flight lesson, ⁓ those lessons usually from the time you got to the airport, you got there
Usually get there one hour before your launch time, before your flight. Do all your pre-flight planning, get your weight in balance, get the weather, f calculate all of your performance numbers. All that takes roughly an hour. So you get there an hour before your flight. Your block time for your flight is two and a half hours. So you have two and a half hours from the time the flight is supposed to start. That's when you get out to the airplane, you do all the pre-flighting, you get the fuel, taxi, take off.
Do the do the lesson. So you train, you go out to the practice area, you do whatever's on the specific lesson plan for the day. Then you come back, land, tie it down, and then you debrief. So all of that takes about three hours. So from the start of the from the time you get to the airport until the time you leave, it's about a four-ish hour endeavor. So it's a long time. So it's 30 lessons. Some were simulator sessions, some were ground lessons.
Most were flight lessons. Obviously, you're learning to be a pilot, so most of your time's gonna be spent in the air. So lesson one was a briefing just talking about UND SPMPs, which are the safety policies and procedures, and what to expect from training. Lesson two was in the simulator, and UND has some really, really neat simulators. They've got Frasca simulators.
And they're not full motion sims like the airlines have, but they are pretty darn close. they are you get in and you're looking at an exact instrument panel and setup for what the the actual aircraft looks like. So we flew we fly Piper Archers, which are low r low-wing aircraft, low-wing single-engine aircraft, and
We have, they are all outfitted with the Garmin G1000 avionic system, which is pretty state of the art for pilot training. ⁓ so all these aircraft are outfitted with these G1000, what they're called glass cockpit avionics. So they're, you know, all digital screens, no analog controls, nothing like that. So you get in the simulator and you're looking at the exact same panel as you look at when you're actually in the plane. And
Above you are all these there's I think there's three or four ⁓ large LED projectors.
And the instructor can choose any airport in the world to put you at, change all these weather conditions around, like do all these kinds of things ⁓ on the back end and on the projector, you will basically be in this simulated environment of whatever airport you're at and whatever weather condition you're in and and all these things. And it's pretty lifelike. I mean, obviously it's not like I said, it's not a full motion sim, so you're not feeling all of the the forces.
⁓ of actually flying you're kind of just sitting stationary but it's a pretty good training tool so that was one thing I really enjoyed so lesson two was a simulator session ⁓ basically just going through super basic flight maneuvers so taxi takeoff straight and level flight climbs turns descents super basic stuff
That you learn in your first couple lessons. So that was lesson two. It was done in the sim. And then lesson three was the actual first lesson in the airplane. And that lesson was an extension of the simulator session. So again, you're actually doing the pre flight of the plane. You're actually taxiing. You're actually talking to ATC. You're actually taking off, actually doing the basic flight maneuvers. ⁓
Straight and level flight, climbs, turns, ascents. I had an advantage ⁓ because I already had 55-ish flight hours coming in. Granted, it had been seven months, so I was a little rusty. those first couple lessons were a little rough. I was, you know, trying to reacclimate myself with how to actually fly a plane. But after I kind of knocked the rust off of those first couple lessons, ⁓ I kind of settled back in and was like, okay, like this is how we're doing this.
So lesson three was again taking what we learned in the sim and applying it to real life.
Then what UND has is they have this build-up process where your instructor introduces concepts to you. Let's say straight and level flight, climbs, turns, ascents, and ⁓ radio communications with ATC. Your instructor will introduce all of these concepts. And then as you kind of go forward and more lessons go by, the expectation is that you, as the student,
Begin to take these tasks on and do them without assistance, without guidance. and that is the it's the progression of your training, right? So it's you can introduce these concepts for maybe two to three lessons. You're in this learning stage. And then maybe the next two to three lessons after that, you're in the stage of.
You should be able to do these with little assistance from your instructor. You know, maybe some guidance prodding here there, but for the most part, you should be pretty good with doing them on your own. And then, you know, maybe another two to three lessons after that, you should be able to do this by yourself. and your instructor is only there just to make sure that you are doing it safely and doing it the the proper way.
So that's kind of the buildup of of how this progression in the in the syllabus works. The first 11 lessons were pretty just basic flight maneuvers. So it was climbs, turns, ascents, straight and level flight. There was slow flight that was introduced. Slow flight is a simulation of the landing environment and how the airplane is set up ⁓ to come in for landing.
⁓ and stall recovery.
So in the first 11 lessons, those are the kind of the I think those are the big things that we went over. And then
Lesson 12 was the first stage check. So stage checks, again, they are specific to a 141 environment. 61s don't have official stage checks. ⁓ they have kind of unofficial stage checks. In a 141 environment, at UND, I can only speak for UND, but the stage check process was is basically like a mock check ride. So it's there's a lot of
Pressure to perform and pass. They they do a really good job of preparing you for your eventual check ride and your eventual, like this is the final test to become a certificated pilot. So take it seriously. So stage checks do a really good job of putting you in that environment. There was on the stage checks at UND, you do an oral exam and you do a flight exam.
It's the same thing that happens on all check rides. You do an oral and a flight. So oral is gonna be all of your ground knowledge that I talked about previously. So regulations, weather, privileges and limitations, ⁓ aircraft performance, ⁓ systems knowledge, all that kind of stuff. Those are all gonna be on the oral exam, oral exam. And then the flight exam is obviously you're being evaluated how you fly. So the stage check, the first stage check, lesson 12. ⁓
Had an oral exam and then had a flight exam, passed that, those were fine. Again, those were pretty, they just want to see in that stage check that you are safe and proficient with basic flight maneuvers and basic knowledge about flying. So that was block one. Block two, ⁓ things ramped up a little bit. So
In block two, that's where we really started to kind of hammer down on more advanced flight maneuvers. We did ⁓ some we did our cross countries. So in a training environment, a cross-country, quote unquote cross-country is not flying from New York to LA or you know, DC to Seattle or anything like that. That's not that's not what that means in this context. A cross country is simply
A you going to an airport that is some specific distance away. And in a training environment that is ⁓ 50 nautical miles. So an airport that's 50 nautical miles away from your departure airport is considered a quote unquote cross-conference.
So we had to build up this cross-country time and there's certain times that the FAA requires that you have for completing your training. So you need, you know, a specific amount of time with your instructor. You need a specific amount of night hours, you need a specific amount of cross-country hours. So there's all these specifics that are tied to the regulations that tell you this is how much time you need. And then you can become, you know, you're eligible to take your check ride to become a pilot.
So it's a very involved process. So
Couple of the big hitters on block two. Lesson 14 was a another sim session. And this was going over basic instrument maneuvers. So the instrument training course is actually the next course that I have to take. It's flying only by reference to your instrument panel, nothing outside. Private pilot, you're looking outside for your entire training. You're using visual references on the ground to fly, essentially.
An instrument, you are not. It's simulating that you're in clouds, that you're in weather systems, that you can't see the ground, that you're just flying basically blindly with using your instrument panel. So in private, they teach you the it's the requirement that you have basic instrument skills in case you accidentally find yourself in a cloud, find yourself in some kind of weather system, and you can't see and you need to.
figure out how to get out. So they teach you these basic maneuvers on instrument flying. So in the sim, during lesson 14, it was introduced basic instrument maneuvers. And all that is is you wear these glasses, you as the pilot wear these glasses that shield your vision looking outside. The only it's like kind of like a bifocal. The top part is
shielded off or you can't see out of the top part. You can only see through the bottom part. And the bottom part only allows you to see your instrument panel. So lesson fourteen was a sim on basic instrument flying.
Lesson 15 was the actual application in the airplane of these basic instrument maneuvers. So we went on up and plane. I had my glasses on. It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day in here in Phoenix, but had my glasses on and pretended and simulated that we were, you know, in weather and there was different maneuvers I had to execute ⁓ to simulate that you're in weather system.
So lesson 18 was my first solo. There was it was three parts to the solo. There was a ground portion where my instructor and I kind of went over everything associated with being a solo pilot and flying solo. The second part was I actually went up on a flight, ⁓ on a short flight with my instructor. We did three laps, three or four laps in the pattern around the airport.
⁓ and landed just to make sure I felt comfortable. And then the final part was actually me going up by myself, doing these laps in the pattern and coming back and landing. It was a pretty busy day that day at the airport. I flew out of Mesa Gateway, and that's there's always traffic going on there. It's it's a very congested airport. So I only instead of doing five laps in the pattern like I did last year on my solo, I just did two again because it was busy. There's a lot going on.
And ⁓ I just didn't want to prolong the time. So I did two laps in the pattern, felt great. ⁓ it was again, it was nice to feel that I'm progressing in my training. So that was lesson 18. Lesson 19 was a solo that I had to do to the practice area. So I my instructor didn't even go up with me at all on this lesson. So I went up by myself, did I believe a two almost a two-hour flight.
by myself to the to the area that we go do practice maneuvering in. So I went out, I did a handful of maneuvers. ⁓ all again, all by myself. There's nobody sitting next to me. There's nobody telling me what to do, how to do it. It's all on me.
that felt good to to get that done and I knew that I had never done that last year in my training. So to kind of hit this milestone and actually do a solo into the practice area and like go out by myself, do everything by myself. it felt like I was progressing really well in my training.
Lesson 20 was a briefing on weather. So again, I briefly mentioned that as a pilot, you are kind of also a meteorologist. Your your weather is a especially as a private pilot, ⁓ without an instrument rating, as a private pilot, you can't fly in weather. ⁓ weather is very hazardous, very treacherous. So it's your job as the pilot in command to know weather, understand weather, and be able to read and interpret.
weather and weather maps and data. And so we had a lesson on weather. And that certainly was not enough because weather is a very deep topic. And so there was a lot of time I had to spend by myself to dive down deeper on weather and and learn more about it. But that was kind of an introduction. Lesson twenty two was our cross country, so our dual cross country that I had to do with my instructor. that was a lot of fun. That was
That was finally getting to apply all of the things that I've learned and starting to kind of wrap everything up. Cross country flying is fun. ⁓ it allows you to see and experience more. Although you are sitting for a prolonged period of time in the plane, you also have the ability to
Take in more things. You have the ability to, it's not so go, go, go, ⁓ especially when you're in cruise. When you're in cruise and you're kind of just like on your way to your destination, it gives you an opportunity to kind of sit back for a second and enjoy it, right? But there's obviously always something that you could be doing, but you have the ability to take a step step back and say, like, wow, this is really freaking cool. So we did our cross-country.
On lesson 22. Lesson 24 was our night cross-country that we had to do. So in the private pilot course, you have to do a dual day cross-country, a dual night cross-country, and then a solo cross-country during the day. So lesson twenty-four was our night cross-country. We went down to Tucson, landed at Tucson International, which was a lot of fun. getting to go into that airspace and actually land at a
Pretty large class C airport was ⁓ that was a cool experience. It was wasn't super busy that night. ⁓ I think we got down there at probably like nine thirty or ten o'clock at night. It wasn't super busy, but it was still a really good experience. And night flying is so much different than flying during the day. It's it's actually incredible how different it is.
Lesson 26 was my next stage check. And this one was basically a mock check ride. ⁓ this there was honestly really no difference between lesson 26's stage check and the check ride on lesson 30. They were both pretty much identical to the mo for the most part. I had different stage instructors for each, but each lesson was essentially the same. Like they tested you on pretty much the same.
knowledge and material. So the same ground oral knowledge and basically the same flight knowledge. ⁓ so if you the the thought is is that if if you could pass lesson twenty-six, which is supposedly quote unquote supposedly harder, but I I that wasn't my experience. But if you can pass lesson twenty-six, then you are pretty much good to pass your check ride. ⁓ and so lesson twenty-six was stressful. Like I was stressing hard for that. ⁓
Not so much the ground oral not portion because I felt throughout my whole training, I felt really solid on the oral part. my ground knowledge, I studied really freaking hard on the ground stuff. And so I felt really solid on that. And I I did feel good on the flying part, but I feel like there's again, in my opinion, there's more opportunity to mess up when you're flying as as opposed to like when you're in the oral. When you're in the oral, I mean you can just
memorize regulations and and all this stuff. That's you can just commit that to memory. But when you're flying, you actually have to physically perform and do things. And even though you might know how to do it, you might do something wrong while you're actually performing whatever you're doing. So there I fe in my opinion, there's more opportunity for failure on the flight. so I I stressed pretty hard about the stage check for lesson twenty six. I ended up passing it just fine.
And ⁓ I was super stoked about that. Lesson twenty-seven was the solo cross country I had to do. So that was again, I went up by myself. I did a cross country, I did the same cross country that my instructor and I did during the day, like a month prior. Same route, same everything, only I just did it by myself. And that was super cool. That was that was finally the time where I was like.
I when I was in cruise heading to ⁓ the destination, I was like, dang, like I'm actually a pilot. Like this is wild. I really can't believe this is actually happening. I'm flying a freaking plane all the way across the state of Arizona by myself. Like this is crazy. So lesson twenty-seven was a soul cross. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine were basically just practice and preparation for the check ride, and lesson thirty was the actual check ride. So ⁓ again, oral I felt.
Super comfortable and confident in ⁓ going into it and I freaking crushed it. my I think it ended up lasting like an hour and a half. And in the debrief, my instructor, my stage instructor said, Yeah, you passed like an hour ago, but we had to keep going. So it's you know, you crushed it. So that was that was really cool to hear. The flight, I was really nervous for the flight. ⁓ again, I knew what I was doing.
And I felt comfortable and confident in what I had to do, but it was just ensuring that I executed it properly and correctly. And the flight overall went pretty well. ⁓ there were some things I did really well on. There were some things I didn't do so well on, ⁓ but not bad enough to fail. ⁓ looking back on it, I
I definitely could have done better on a couple things, but as a pilot, there's never gonna be throughout your entire career, there's never gonna be a perfect flight. Like there's always gonna be something that you can do better on. There's always gonna be some area for growth and opportunity of for improvement. That's just kind of the reality of flying. So I'm kind of trying to take that perspective and apply it to this check ride that, yes, I passed it. ⁓ did I do
super fantastic. Some parts I did, some parts I didn't. ⁓ but again, I was competent enough, I was safe enough, and I made good decisions and I had a general understanding of what needed to happen. So ended up passing it. That was that was one of the coolest experiences ever. It was stressful as hell.
⁓ but finally reaching that end goal that I've been chasing for 15 months, like it it felt really, really cool. So that was kind of just a breakdown of what the training actually looked like for me and at UND. again, not all flight training is going to look that way. This is just how it looked because of having a syllabus, because of having a structured
rigid plan for every lesson and and what's going to happen on every lesson. But again, I really enjoyed that environment and I think I kind of thrived with all of that. So
What did I learn from the process? I learned a lot of things. I've got a couple notes here about some things that I've learned.
Becoming a pilot was the hardest thing I've ever done. I've done a lot of hard things. I obviously bodybuild, which is hard. I've had a lot of hard jobs in life, of engineering jobs, ⁓ IT jobs. I purposefully do hard stuff all the time. I put myself in hard situations all the time. But this was by far the hardest thing I've ever done. But it was also the most fulfilling as well.
This was a dream that I've had since I was six years old. My dad got me interested in aviation. He worked part-time for an airline that no longer exists. I got absorbed into American Airlines. He worked part-time there when I was a kid and just throwing bags into planes. He had his full-time job that he did, but he just really loved aviation and really loved airplanes. And I kind of caught the bug early on when I saw.
We would go the airport, this is before nine eleven happened and things were a lot more lenient than they are now. But we could go to the airport and hang out with him down by the gate and go into the cockpit and meet the pilots and do all these cool things. And so I I caught the bug early on.
And I've wanted to be a pilot since I was six years old. Guys, it took me twenty-eight years to actually do it. That's wild. That's three decades that I've wanted to do this and like had this desire and had this dream, didn't know how to do it, got sidetracked, pushed it off of the back of my head, thought I made all these excuses for why I couldn't do it or why I shouldn't do it, or I'm comfortable here in this IT job. I make good money, like.
I don't need to be a pilot. Like all these things. Took me 28 years. But you know what? I freaking did it.
So what did I learn? With the proper amount of focus and effort, you can literally accomplish anything you want. Anything worth having, one is gonna be hard. Two is going to require a lot of effort. It's gonna require a lot of focus. You're gonna have to sacrifice. You're going to have to
Do things outside of what you've normally done to accomplish something worthwhile. It's just part of it. I'm not an internet guru. I'm not a big motivational speaker, but what I can tell you is that you guys can literally do anything you want. You can. You might think that you can't, you might have people in your corner tell you you can't, but you can literally do whatever you want. It's just gonna take some time, it's gonna take a plan.
And you're gonna have to work really freaking hard to do it.
Sacrifice is going to be required for the things that you really want.
For anybody who's listened to two episodes before this, you'll know that I was supposed to compete in a bodybuilding show in about seven weeks from now. And I gave that up back in March because I was like, school's hard. This is like way too much. There is no possible way I can facilitate becoming a pilot, doing all this studying.
spending all this time chair flying and doing lessons and doing all this stuff while also doing a bodybuilding prop. It's just not gonna happen. I don't have that mental capacity. I don't have that brain power for it. So I pulled out of the show.
I've been wanting to do a bodybuilding show for the last five years, right? It's not 28 years, but it's five years. It's a lot of time. But I had to sacrifice doing this show because this whole pilot thing meant more to me than stepping on stage. I can always do a show. Like that's not a big deal. But I had to sacrifice, like I was all mentally prepared to do this show. I was like hyped up. I was super excited. Like I was starting to make plans for it.
But I had to sacrifice that because becoming a pilot meant more to me than but
Having people in your corner who support you is essential to completing any big goal.
There are going to be people when you are trying to do something great and outside the norm. There are going to be people who support you and there are going to be people who don't. And that's just the reality.
Surround yourself with those people who support you. They are going to they might they're probably not gonna understand. Like I would talk to my parents pretty regularly and they'd ask me how things are going and what's happening and whatever. And I would like chronicle all these things about like what I'm doing and what I'm training and like what I'm struggling with, maneuvers and ground knowledge, and they didn't have a freaking clue about any of this stuff. I'm just like talking gibberish. But
They were still there to listen to me and even though they had no idea what I talking about, they encouraged me and supported me and gave me like some positive affirmation and whatever, right?
That really helped me. I've also had there's a couple other people in my life who have really supported me and through the ups and the downs and good times and bad times, they've been there for me through this process. And that's been super helpful. It it really has been. It's been really nice to be able to lean on those people, even though again, none of them really understand what you're going through and what this is really like.
Just having them there.
to lean on and vent to and just kind of talk about things with is super helpful. So find people who support you and
Don't let go of them.
This last one is something I I struggle with. And I vividly recall a conversation that I had with my dad when I was home in Texas for Christmas. This is about a month before I started training. My dad and I were driving in the car. And I said, I know this is going to be hard. Like, I know this is gonna suck. Like the day-to-day grind of it is going to be hard. But I'm going to try my best to keep.
The perspective of one having fun, two, enjoying it, and three, appreciating what I'm doing and like the opportunity that I have to do this. I said I know it's gonna be hard to keep that perspective when I'm like in the shit and just like kind of just slogging along and going through it and like sucking at stuff and like trying to figure it out and trying to memorize all this ground knowledge and all these things. I know.
That is probably going to win in the day to day battle, but I'm going to try my best to take a step back and keep this all in perspective.
And looking back on it now that I'm done, I don't think I did a good enough job of that. I think I did an okay job. Like I I definitely tried to keep it in mind as I'm struggling through things, or as I as I was struggling through things. Like, hey, this is you know, flying a plane is pretty freaking cool. Like, chill out for a second. Stop stressing.
And just sit and appreciate for two seconds the fact that you get to fly a freaking plane. Like just so I tried my best to keep that perspective. It was hard. There were times where I was like, God, this sucks and like I suck and this is I all this kind of negative self talk.
But I really tried hard to keep that all in perspective and just know that as long as I continue to keep working hard and keep studying and keep practicing and keep chair flying and keep doing all these things that I know w were going to help me that I would make it through and I did.
But anything that you guys are trying to do.
One, we know it's gonna be hard, right? We've already established it's gonna be hard. But with it being hard, also try to have fun. Try to enjoy the process. Try to appreciate the journey because you're gonna look back on it when you're done and say, Man, that sucked, but I'm so glad I went through it. ⁓ looking back on the last three and a half months, like there were times it was easy and there were times that it was hard.
But looking back on it, I'm glad that I put myself through that process because now I know that if I work hard at something, if I study my ass off, if I really focus and commit myself to a process, I can do anything.
So what's next for me? So right now I'm still waiting for my temporary pilot certificate. Generally speaking, usually how this works is after you pass your check ride with a DPE, you get your temporary certificate right there. And then people usually take a picture of it and put it on Instagram. ⁓ UND does things slightly different. You since we don't test with DPEs, we don't get our
temporary certificates. So they're still processing it. So I'm still waiting for my temporary certificate at the time of this recording.
Once I receive it, I will absolutely be taking advantage of it. And so right now I can't fly a plane, right? Because you in order to be legal to fly, you need certain documents in your possession. One of them is your pilot certificate. I don't have one of those yet, so I can't go operate a plane.
So once I do receive it, then I will be renting planes, taking some friends up, going to fly some cross countries with some ⁓ friends of mine, fellow pilots, and actually enjoy the fruits of my labor for how hard I work to actually become a pilot. ⁓ training is training is this weird situation because it's like you're always working towards something.
another rating, another certificate, another whatever, right? And sometimes you don't allow yourself the opportunity to actually enjoy like, hey, I'm a pilot. Let's go fly for fun. ⁓ and so I'm gonna try to do that, because that is one of the reasons we became a pilot. So my plan was to begin instrument training in the fall. So I was talking a little bit before about basic instrument maneuvers in private. The next course I have to take, I have to get a ⁓
An additional rating on my license that gives you your instrument rating. So basically it allows you the ability to fly in clouds, fly in weather, fly with no reference to the ground. I was going to be starting that in the fall. However, I think that I will have to adjust that plan. And this is not something I've talked to a lot of people about. So this will be a new ⁓ revelation for a lot of people. But quitting my tech job in January was a huge leap financially. yeah.
Big bleep. and I have come to realize that it's not sustainable that I do this for the next one to two years. I'm working right now ⁓ at a restaurant serving, bartending, managing Texas Roadhouse, which is great. Like, don't get me wrong, it's great. I I enjoy it. I like the service industry. I've always liked the service industry. but in comparing the two, right? Tech versus
service, the salary comparison is not comparable. So
I think what my plan now is and needs to be is to go back into the tech industry for some period of time. I don't know how long of a period of time, but some period of time to save up more money to be able to accomplish the rest of my training. I am certainly not giving up on the rest of my training. I've got ⁓ instrument commercial, single commercial multi, CFI left to do. So I still have quite a bit of training left. ⁓ that's going to take some time. It's going to take a lot of money. And
I think what I want to do now that I have an actual cert, or will have a cert when I when I receive it.
Take some time, actually enjoy being a pilot, go fly around, go rent planes, go up with friends, go take some trips, go do some fun stuff, do some sightseeing, and go back and do some IT work for a little while. ⁓ get some money, save some money, some more money up, and then re-engage the rest of my training once that's done. I am super, super proud of myself for.
Taking this leap and jumping into training full time. I really gave myself no out. Like I was like, okay, well, on my last day of work in January, I was like, well, you gotta figure it out now because now you're done working. So you're you're you're done. So now you gotta, now it's on you to make sure you do this right. And so that really kind of put the pressure on me to succeed and
pass and actually make this whole endeavor worth it because ⁓ again it was a huge leap of faith to do this. So this was definitely not a failed effort by any stretch of the imagination. ⁓ I accomplished the task that I set out to accomplish. Now I just need to restabilize myself ⁓ in life for a minute to prepare to complete the rest of my training. one of the big perspective
shifts that I've tried to make ⁓ through this journey. I was in class with a lot of mostly, I'd say mostly younger people. I'm in my mid-30s. ⁓ most of the people in my class, generally speaking, were in their early to mid-20s. Even late teens, late teens, early mid-20s. ⁓ And
With if I take this time off, right, for the next whatever, one to two years, let's say.
All these people in my class are going to pass me up and they're going to be instructors and building their hours and doing all this stuff well before me.
Which is like kind of disappointing in in a way. It's kind of like, dang, like, I wanna get there. Like, I wanna do that. But in trying to shift my perspective on it, everyone's journey looks different. This is this applies to life too. This isn't just flight training. This is like life. Everyone's journey looks different. There's no one size fits all approach. There's no this thing is better than that thing. Like it's all individualized. And I think I've spoken about this before.
We I think we all need to do a better job of just focusing on the things that we can control and focusing on our own path and focusing on what is going to work best for us rather than comparing ourselves and worrying about what this person's doing, Because at the end of the day, like we're all gonna get to the end goal at some point. Like it as long as you keep working and keep going and like don't give up and
Everyone's gonna reach that point eventually. Some are gonna be faster than others, some be slower than others. But just don't give up. Just keep going. Just keep finding a way to make progress. And even if it's slowly, like just keep going because eventually it's all gonna pay off. So that is one of the perspective shifts that I've been trying to make ⁓ as I've kind of come to this realization that I might need to take a step back from training for a little bit. So
I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode. I I this is something that I had in mind to do for a while. ⁓ I was kind of, I think probably halfway-ish through my training, and I was like, I need to make once I'm done, I need to make an episode that talks about what this experience was like and then how it all went and what my thoughts and opinions and experiences were and just to kind of give people some insight as to what this really looks like.
Like if if you guys are interested in being a pilot, I would definitely say it is the go the it is going to be the most fulfilling thing that you do. It's going to be hard. There's a lot of knowledge. There's a lot to know. There's a lot to study. But it's so rewarding to know that I accomplished that. And to know that I put in the work necessary to get it done. So
Hopefully that gave you guys some insight and introspection into what it really takes to be a public.
Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. If today's episode brought you any value, please share it with someone who's chasing their own version of high performance. Or if you know somebody who might be interested in being a pilot, share it with them because they might find some value in hearing about my experience and how everything went for me. Also, don't forget to follow the show so you never miss a flight. Fly safe, everyone. We'll see you next time.