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Josh Flowers and Justin Seams reflect on their recent flight adventure to Olathe, Kansas, highlighting critical lessons learned from navigating challenging weather conditions. The main takeaway emphasizes that a good outcome does not equate to good decision-making, as they encountered severe turbulence and convective weather that tested their flying skills and judgment. As they delve into their pre-flight planning mistakes and the complexities of flying a small aircraft in a busy airspace, the discussion underscores the importance of humility and thorough preparation in aviation. The pair share their personal experiences, revealing the value of debriefing and learning from every flight, even the ones that don't go as planned. With humor and camaraderie, they reminisce about their time together, reinforcing the bond formed through shared challenges in the cockpit.
Takeaways:
Pilot to Pilot is the podcast for anyone who flies — or dreams about it. Host Justin Siems sits down with airline captains, bush pilots, CFIs, and everyone in between for honest conversations about the path to the cockpit, the grind of the career, and the love of flying that keeps us coming back. Whether you're a student pilot chasing your first solo or a captain with 20,000 hours, there's a seat for you here. New episodes weekly.
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sportys.com sxmoffer that's sporty.com
sxmoffer I'm Josh Flowers,
host of.
The aviation YouTube channel
Aviation 101 AV Nation.
Welcome back to the Pilot to
Pilot podcast.
My name is Justin Seams and I
am your host.
Now you might be wondering why
did my phone notify me of a Pilot
to Pilot podcast on a Sunday?
Well that is because, and
hopefully it is actually a Sunday
because I'm not going to re
record this if Josh changes his mind.
But that's because Josh has
released a video.
He released a 47 minute long
video and it's of me and him flying
to Olathe, Kansas.
Garmin invited both of us out.
You might remember a couple
months ago over the summertime we
we did some content around it
and Josh and I flew together and
he made an epic video.
We find ourselves in some
nasty, nasty weather.
If you haven't watched that
video yet, I highly recommend that
you stop what.
You'Re doing, go click on that video.
And watch it and then come
right back.
Because this podcast is just a
debrief of bad decisions, of things
we could have done better and
just a talk about that specific fight.
So go watch that Video.
It should be live on Josh's
channel right now.
And when this podcast is
released, we're going to sync it
up at the same exact time.
So go watch that video, then
come back and listen to this podcast
and let me know what you think.
I had a lot of fun meeting up
with Josh.
That's the first time we ever met.
First time we had on the
podcast was in the Garmin studio,
so it was nice to have him on again.
I always joke with him about
how he ignored me for six years,
and I do take it personally.
I'm just kidding.
But we have on the podcast,
hopefully many more to come, and
we can do some more flying
together in a less stressful situation.
So.
So let me know you think of
the video and let me know what you
think of the podcast.
So without any further ado,
here's Josh Flowers and our flight.
Josh, what's going on, man?
Welcome to the Pilot.
The Pilot podcast.
Happy to be on it again, man.
I appreciate the invite.
Look at this.
I mean, you ditched me for
five years.
Now I got it two times in,
like, six months.
It's amazing, right?
That's right.
That's right.
We're making it happen with
the content.
We're making it happen.
Yeah.
Now we're content buddies.
We have to be friends for life.
It's just.
That's how it works.
Yeah, that is how it works.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, man.
Well, we are here today.
We already recorded the main podcast.
Right, The Garmin podcast.
Kind of your podcast that has
been out for a while.
It's done great.
There's a lot of good
reception to that.
If anyone hasn't listened to
that, you should probably listen
to that first.
So I'll probably tag it below,
or you'll see it on Instagram.
Go listen to that, then come
back and listen to this.
Because today's podcast isn't
about a story of you.
Isn't about a story of Garmin, necessarily.
It is about our trip to Go Fly
to Garmin, which was awesome.
I haven't been in a 172in.
I think we talked about in the
video, like, 10 years, maybe more
than that.
So the ability to go fly was
really intriguing to me, and it was
really something I wanted to do.
Especially when I found out
you were flying there.
I was like, all right, Kyle,
Josh, how do I make this happen?
How do I get in the right seat
or the left seat of a 172 and go
fly?
Just.
I think it'd be so cool to do.
Oh, yeah.
And we got.
We made it work.
We were able to fly.
I flew.
It was a long day, man.
I flew southwest from Raleigh
to Nashville.
Nashville to Austin.
Oh, no, Austin national to Dallas.
Met up with you, and you flew
in the night before.
Uh, and you had your own
issues coming in where you hit a
bird, Right?
Was that on takeoff coming in?
Yeah, I had a.
It was on takeoff out of
Stephenville, just out of Dallas.
Yeah.
On take.
It was like 200ft off the ground.
Bird whacked the windshield,
which is another video you have as
well.
So if you haven't watched that
video, you got a lot of video.
You got a lot of first videos
you need to watch before you watch
this.
That's right.
A lot of prerequisites.
Exactly.
But met up and we kind of
debriefed, Right.
We kind of talked about what
the weather was looking like, what
the situation was like.
And it was really funny in my
mind, when I.
When I first saw the weather,
my instant reaction, because I was
paying attention to it online,
I was like, it's no problem.
Let's just fly west of it.
Because in my mind, I'm flying
a latitude right at that time, that's
what I was flying.
I was flying a jet.
And we're talking about.
It's like, yeah, but, like, it
could still build.
I'm like, I know, but we're
going to go, like, really fast and
we're going to go past it.
And you're like, no, we're in
a 172.
We're going to go really slow
and we're going to get stuck.
And I was like, oh.
Like, eventually it finally
dawned on me.
I was like, oh, wow, we're not
going fast anymore.
I'm in a small airplane, and
it's much different.
I think my mindset was still
tailored toward, like, jet life,
jet travel, and decisions you
make with weather, which can be a
little bit different.
Obviously, you always err on
the side of safety, but in a jet,
climb above it, go to the
west, go to the east of it, you usually
tack on an extra, like, 10
minutes max.
It's no big deal.
Just go around the weather and
you go in and land.
But in a 172, it's more.
And you can say more to this
as well.
It's more of, we need to wait.
We need to sit here and wait,
let it pass, go tomorrow.
A lot different options when
it comes to find general aviation.
Totally.
Yeah.
And.
And you also have to consider,
like, the amount of time that you're
going to eat up trying to go
around weather like that.
How much fuel you're going to
burn, how much cost is it going to
add to the overall trip?
It really changes the game
when you have a weather system like
that.
And of course, I like, showed
a bunch of screenshots and screen
recordings of Garmin pilot
with the radar, you know, with our
route in there and exactly
what this system looked like.
And it was, I mean, throwing
tornadoes all across Oklahoma, which
was dead center of our route
from Dallas up to Kansas City.
And if we would have gone to
the west, we probably would have
been in nice weather the whole
time, but we would have easily added
an hour and a half, maybe two
hours to the overall trip, maybe
even more, including fuel,
because we definitely would have
had to stop for fuel at that
point from Dallas to Kansas City.
We were already like kind of
right at that point where we're going
to be hitting our hour reserve
right about when we're landing, which
is about what I like to land
with, is an hour hour of fuel remaining.
Um, but it really changes how
you make decisions when you're going
a hundred knots or with my
luck, usually it's more like 85,
80 knots.
And, you know, looking at the
weather coming out of Dallas, we
had two options, and we talked
about all this in the fbo and I mentioned
this in the video.
We could either go.
Of course, the third option is
always to just wait till the next
day or really wait the weather
out entirely.
But if we were going to depart
at any point that afternoon, the
two options were we go way out
of our way to the west, we'll be
forced to for sure make
another fuel stop, and it's going
to probably make us drift into
the night.
We might even have to be
taking off from that fuel stop in
the dark, which I really don't
like in a single engine if I can
avoid it.
The other option was to go to
the east, and there were some big
gaps in between these cells,
but we would have quite literally
been flying ourselves into a corner.
We would have been flying
across the front of that system.
And maybe when you're going
400 knots, that's relatively doable.
You're going to be able to get
out of there really quickly.
You can get in and get out
real quick.
And a Skyhawk going 100 knots,
very different story.
You have to really think about
the weather differently when, when
your, your speed ratio
compared to the storm is much closer.
Yeah, and we'll kind of go
back and forth between like, timeline
of everything.
So we'll try to remind you of
where we are in the process of the
flight or the video.
But skipping forward a little bit.
I remember even walking out
like some of the warning signs of
like, wow, it's actually kind
of dark over there.
You know, it's like, right.
It doesn't look great over there.
It's like maybe the radar
itself didn't look awful when we're
getting ready to take off of
that tail end.
But you show a.
We kind of pan up to the, the
Garmin avionics and it's kind of
a B roll.
But you show the line and how
solidly red that line became.
And I in, I'm fully confident
that that happened as soon as we
were flying through it.
It's like all of it just kind
of built up at that moment and it
just kept building and
building and building.
And there were definitely some
mistakes that we made and decisions
that we could have made differently.
And I think some of the
thought processes of our mind.
You mentioned it in the video
where it's like you're.
One of your biggest rules of
not flying a single engine at night
unless you have to could have
put you in a position to push the
weather a little bit and.
Or make a decision between
both of those.
And you had to choose which
rule you wanted to either bend a
little bit per se, or to kind
of mess with and put you in a tight
spot in your decision making
or in our decision making.
Yeah, exactly.
And of course, you know, like,
when you say bend rules, we're talking
about our personal rules here,
like our personal minimums, you know.
So like, for me, single engine
at night is something I really try
to avoid whenever I can.
And I think my.
I sort of fixated on, on that
whole, like, well, our risk factor
really goes up.
Our.
The.
The amount of risk we're
accepting really goes up.
If we're taking a single
engine into the night on a long cross
country, unfamiliar areas,
we're not really following an interstate
at that point.
You know, we don't.
If we lose our engine, our one
and only power plant, we don't have
options.
And I've just read too many
NTSB reports about situations like
that.
So I really try to avoid that.
But that fixation of that risk
profile sort of pushed me.
I was about to say forced, but
that's not true because it was a
willful decision on my part.
By mitigating one risk, I put
myself into the face of another risk
and in this case I think a
more unpredictable risk.
And that is the Convective weather.
So for the sake of avoiding
night flight and then having the
remaining daylight hours to
complete the trip, I mentally accepted
the risk of getting too close
to convective weather and go ahead,
you know, go ahead and depart.
And there was another factor
about a flow change there that kind
of, kind of made the situation
worse for us.
I'm not going to say, you
know, made the situation bad, but
it definitely complicated it
even further.
Um, and we can go into that in
a little bit.
It was kind of a complicated
sequence of picking up the clearance,
and then we called clearance
back and they had a flow change happening
and gave us an option, and we
ultimately took the option.
But, yeah, yeah, you
definitely don't want mitigating
one risk to put you in the
face of an even worse risk.
So having that foresight,
which I think I sort of dropped the
ball on, on the decision
making is important.
That's a good lesson in my
logbook on that.
Yeah.
I mean, everything about
flying is learning from whether you
want to call it mistakes or
just stuff that made you feel uncomfortable.
And I remember, yeah, I
remember taxiing and I remember doing
a run up and they're like,
hey, if you can get out in five minutes,
you can take off of the
shorter taxi in the Runway.
And in my mind, I was like,
oh, my gosh, it's amazing because
the weather's going to be here
in like 10 minutes.
So if we can avoid the taxi,
if we can avoid them changing the
runways around where we'd have
to wait behind southwest or wait
behind a flow or do anything
like that, it's like, all right,
we just need to get in the air
and go west or south.
And, you know, we were just, we.
We were really banking on the
idea that we would have more control
of where we could go.
And for me, I think that goes
back to not being as familiar and
flying in that airspace in a 1 72.
And I'm more.
I'm used to being in the plane
that they're vectoring the one 72
away from, not necessarily the
plane that needs to get out of bad
weather and can't go in
certain areas.
Uh, in my mind, I'm like, we
can go anywhere.
Right?
Like, we're fast, we're high,
we kind of have priority.
I know that's not necessarily,
like, how it should work.
You know, when you look at who
has priority.
Slower.
Right.
But.
And right.
The slower airplanes aren't.
They're not going to put a 172
or 4,000ft in Dallas Fort Worth in
the flow of approaches or
arrivals or anything like that.
And even the video, he's like
they, they had, they had a 737 or
some airplane go closer than
they wanted to us and we're in solid
IMC getting rocked around.
So we had no idea that was
even going on.
And trying our best to
maintain altitude.
You trying your best to maintain.
The good news is I felt like
we weren't climbing, we were going
down.
So we definitely weren't
climbing into the traffic.
But yeah, it was a whole thing.
Yeah, that was, it was
definitely, it was an experience.
So the flow change really.
And I totally agree with what
you said.
Like in my mind when they said
well if you can get out in the next
five minutes, if you're ready
to taxi and you're going to be ready
at the end of the Runway, you
can get out on 13 left.
And that's, that's a way
shorter taxi from that fbo.
So I was thinking, well the
sooner we can get in the air the
faster we can get this process
moving and start getting out of this,
out of this airspace and out
of the way of this system.
Yeah.
But what I wasn't processing,
what I didn't have the foresight
to really like on the fly plan
out was the fact that if we would
have.
Originally the original plan
was to take off on 3:1.
It was going to be 3:1 right.
That was already going to put
us on a northwesterly heading which
is the direction we needed to
go to get behind the system.
When they changed it up and
said well if you'd like you can take
13 left.
And we accepted it.
I did not think about the fact
that now they're going to have to
vector us first.
First they gave us a heading
left 070.
Originally it was right 330
off Runway 31.
When they switched it around
to 1 3, we accepted a heading of
070.
So now we're going northeast.
Terrible direction for the
direction of this weather.
And of course like the
controllers are making it work.
They're doing their job and
we're doing our job at least I tried
to do my job in the co pilot
seat and we turned left 070.
Then they brought us to the north.
I think it was due north for a
few minutes and then we were kind
of getting close to the
Addison airport at that point and
the front was still, or the
squall line was still about 15 miles
ahead of us I believe.
But there were little embedded
cells that were starting to pop up
in that area.
And historically, over the
last several weeks preceding this
flight, Dallas had just been
getting absolutely rocked by almost
daily thunderstorms.
In fact, in the hotel that I
was staying in, while I was there,
before you got there, there
were utility crews like electrical
workers just filling all the rooms.
And the parking lot was full
of their big boom trucks because
of all these severe thunderstorms.
They had been repairing all
these electrical lines and stuff.
So this was an ongoing thing
at this point in the.
In the summer in Dallas.
So when we turned to the
north, those little pop up thunderstorms
ahead of the squall started to
really mess with us.
And I started to see them
populating on radar.
And we're starting to get into
imc and that's when we kind of started
to hound ATC about a westbound
turn as soon as you can.
And then it ended up being.
As we got closer to dfw, they
could continue us on that westbound
heading if we could go down.
And I think we ended up going
all the way down to 2500 while still
on an IFR flight plan.
Just anything we could do to
stay out of these clouds to smooth
out the ride for us so that
you could maintain control of the
airplane in imc.
It was getting really uncomfortable.
And we were not the only
aircraft experiencing that in the
airspace.
Yeah, I haven't heard anyone
in my.
I'm trying to think, in all
the years I've flown, I've never
heard anyone say extreme turbulence.
And I don't think personally
we were in extreme turbulence.
I don't like calling severe or moderate.
You know, I.
It's hard to know where that
line is.
Right.
Were we in severe?
I don't know.
Was it constant, heavy, as
close to severe, moderate as you
could get?
Maybe, you know, it's like,
it's really a toss up of what we
were in.
And I.
It was just, I think it was
just solid moderate that was very
uncomfortable.
With really good downdrafts.
And yeah, it was just very
uncomfortable and then here.
But it kind of was like, it
wasn't comforting to hear another
plane in a similar situation.
But I was like, all right, at
least we're not the only ones that
are getting beat around.
Yeah.
But going back to before we
took off, I.
I don't know why in my mind
for the day, I was kind of like,
I let my.
I want to say I let my guard
down, but I was so far removed from
the GA side of flying that I
didn't necessarily bring my experience
to help.
That makes Sense, like, if I
was flying the latitude or if I was
flying any other plane that I
was, like, normally in charge of
or flying for professionally,
I would have had a plan for what
we're going to do.
I would have called clearance.
Like, hey, I, uh, this is our route.
The weather's really bad here.
When we take off, we need to
go south.
Like, we need to set this up.
When can we take off to do this?
Fit us into a flow to go all
the way south outside of your approach,
out or outside of the Bravo,
and just go all the way south and
go as far west as possible.
Um, setting that up ahead of time.
So they knew what our plan was.
Because when we got up there,
the plan was to turn west when we
took off, and it was a very
slow turn to the west.
If you remember, they kept
pushing us farther to the northwest
and farther to northwest.
And we're like, we need west.
And like, we can't go any
farther west because we didn't prepare
or prepare them for what we wanted.
And we were in a bind where
they couldn't really do much with
us.
With us, because it's just
7:30, seven after 737, after 787,
after triple seven, like one
after the other.
There's really no breaks going
into DFW at any time of the day.
So we were just kind of up for it.
Another option, I think in my
head could have been flying over
DFW itself, telling them that
we just need to stay.
We want to stay over the airport.
That way we get out of all
their traffic and we can just continue
to fly west that way.
But those are kind of the two
things that really kind of stuck
out to me is just bring your
experience, whether I'm not.
I'm experienced in different
ways, your experience different ways,
and collaborate and kind of
just use the best of both worlds.
Just don't drop your guard if
it's not something you're a hundred
percent comfortable with or
not comfortable with, but you're
not a hundred percent in that
zone or in that type of aviating.
If that makes sense.
Totally.
No, and that's a really,
really good point.
Bring your experience to
whatever aircraft, to whatever crew
you're flying with, because
it's valuable no matter what.
Um, and it.
It can be kind of a delicate balance.
Like, you know, some people,
including myself, it can be uncomfortable
to assert your experience or
assert your opinion in a situation
where you kind of see this
potentially going sideways.
And you have the experience to
enable your foresight to see how
this could go wrong, whereas
the other person may not.
Like, for example, you have
way more experience flying out of
larger airspaces, Bravo
airspaces that have a lot of traffic
inside of a regimented flow
that can't be changed, that can't
be manipulated easily because
of one or two aircraft trying to
cut through.
So, you know, like you said,
that would have been super beneficial
and that would have sort of
reframed my perspective on how to
go about this.
And another thing too, that I
preach all the time and that I kind
of realized while editing this
video is the controllers are human
too.
You know, just talk to them
like a human, just like you said,
call ahead on clearance and be
like, hey, here's what's, here's
what we're looking at.
Here's where we need to go.
Here's what we filed.
As soon as we get off the
ground, whatever you guys can do
for us to get us south and
then get us west, that would be great.
And if we would have done that
like you said, I bet, I bet they
would have had totally
different vectors ready for us and
there would have been very,
very little conflict there.
And we would have taken off at
a time where they could accommodate
what we need and what we
wanted, essentially.
Right, so exactly.
Mistakes were definitely made.
I don't think either one of us
thought it was going to be that bad,
even with what the weather
showed on radar.
And that kind of goes to what
we talked about, about how we should
have realized, like, hey, it
looks a little darker than we thought
it would.
Or like that looks not as nice.
I don't even like feel like
sub self or subconsciously we like
looked at each other.
I don't know if that's true.
Maybe making it up.
We're just like who we find.
Yeah.
But yeah, it was, it was
definitely a ride.
And when you're talking about
controllers, I remember the watching
the one.
I watched the video and he
sent it to me.
He was talking about how
there's moderate rain for the foreseeable
future, like 30 miles on our path.
And to him, he's used to
dealing with airlines that have radar.
Even asked if we had radar.
Like, well, we got SiriusXM.
He's used to having planes
that have big radars on and can navigate
around and tell him exactly
what deviations that they need to
get around the bad stuff.
They have, they have good
radar too, but it's not as good as
having the idea of exactly
where that cell is.
So he.
We were all kind of at a
deficit there and we were probably
the only 172 flying at that time.
He's probably like, man, what
an idiot.
What are these people doing?
I know, I know.
I think the other one that
reported extreme turbulence is like
a Cherokee or something.
That's good.
Yeah, I know that like.
Like you said, you know, it's not.
Not necessarily comforting,
but almost like, reassuring that,
okay, we're not the only ones
that are in kind of a crappy situation
right now, you know?
But definitely, I think
planning mistakes were for sure made,
and ATC was doing everything
they could to just get us out of
the way of everybody else and
get us out of the way of the weather.
And took a lot of
communicating back and forth, and
ultimately we made it out of
it just fine.
And as soon as we really got
below the layer, kind of in the vicinity
of DFW or just past DFW, and
we came down to 2500, it was kind
of like, okay, we're kind of
out of the thick of it, and we can
actually see where we're going.
The turbulence has really
calmed down, and we can see that
we are trending away from the
bad weather.
So that's good.
And then that's.
From that point on, I think
for the rest of the flight, I was
silently debriefing this whole
thing to myself, writing the voiceovers
for the video in my head,
like, okay, I really need to debrief
this.
Preparing yourself for this edit.
I was probably put it off for,
like, another year.
Be like, I can't look at this yet.
I don't want to miss.
I can't look at it.
I've looked at enough of my mistakes.
I'm kind of numb to it now.
I think I just look at what
happened and debrief it.
And it's also really cool,
too, because editing these videos,
it's not just a, you know,
okay, yeah, I had a bad flight, or
I made a bad decision that got
me in a sticky situation.
You know, okay, yeah, I know
what I did wrong.
Learn from it.
Move on.
I have to go through this
footage and thoroughly debrief this
and explain it in the video to
the audience members who knew nothing
about this flight and knew
nothing about my thought processes.
They were not there.
So I basically have to explain
every detail of this situation and
how my decision making
contributed to making it bad so that
they can hopefully learn from
it, too.
And that has worked wonders
over the years for me to reinforce
these experiences.
And I will remember them in
very vivid detail because I had to
edit a 47 minute video about it.
You know what it reminded me
of is have you seen those Instagram
Reels or TikToks where they go.
Yep, that's me.
Let me explain how I got here.
Like, that's like.
Right, that's essentially what
I feel like this video is.
Yeah.
I bet you're wondering how I
got in this situation.
That's right.
When we were in the air and
got in the clouds and it started
getting rough, what was we,
like, what were your thought process
with options?
Like, were you thinking, all
right, should we go land somewhere,
should we declare an emergency?
Like, what was everything that
you were thinking of, what we should
do with all the tools we have
afforded to us to get out of that
situation?
Yeah, definitely.
The 180, 80 degree turn was
sort of already in the back of my
mind when it started to get
really rough in im.
The option was in my mind to
start either a left or right turn
to get out of it and like
basically come back around and enter
the pattern for Runway one
three at Love, if they would let
us, or three one.
So that was sort of option one.
Option two was to, if they
were not going to let us go to the
west as soon as we could or
get us down, basically, if we would
have kept asking for either
lower or take us west or take us
east, then declaring an
emergency was going to be the next
option.
Outside of 180 degree turn,
basically take us anywhere but north
was kind of.
Anywhere but where we went.
Anywhere but where we went.
Take us any direction other
than that.
And I think this is a really
great lesson too.
Just stepping back a little
bit to what you said about warning
the controllers about what
we're going to want and sort of briefing
them so that they can have the
tools at their disposal to give us
the vectors that we need.
You know, the controllers are,
and I mentioned this in the video
too, they're going to keep
piping people through on the, on
the arrivals or on the
departures until somebody complain.
In fact, I think this is, this
was you that said it.
In the airplane, they're going
to keep everybody on track until
somebody complains.
And at that point, I think we
were the pioneers.
We were the ones to complain,
aside from that other guy too that
reported the extreme turbulence.
So definitely the outs that
were in my mind were any vector other
than north.
Even if we could just go east
and let's just bail out and go land
at McKinney or maybe head out
toward Terrell and just get on the.
Ground, go back To San Marcos
and just go to bed.
Right.
Go home.
Go home.
Headquarters.
Yeah, yeah.
In my mind.
Mind it.
I don't necessarily.
I was always under the
impression when I was flying freight,
single pilot, freight, ifr,
whenever I got myself in a situation,
I always thought that a 180 was.
Was not the best move because
you're just going to go right back
through the bad weather so
that you just went through.
So my mind, I was like, all
right, we need to go south.
Like, we need to just go dead south.
Go as far south as we can
until it's VFR again and then cut
west or land.
I was worried about coming and
landing somewhere because obviously
there's some strong winds and
convective turbulence and just convection
in the area.
I was worried about downdrafts.
I was worried about just winds
being crazy in general.
So I was like, we.
In my mind is like, I don't
think necessarily landing in the
Dallas area is a good idea.
Let's keep demanding west and
south and south and south and south
and get out of here.
Thankfully, they were really.
They were willing to let us go.
When we started descending
down, I think we're already at 5,000,
I believe.
I think they did take us up to five.
I know we were at four.
At one point.
I'd have to pause it and look
at the G3X where we were.
But then we came down to three.
And we were like, in and out, right?
We got like in and out of
clouds, so we knew the bottom.
We were at three.
That's when we were in and out
of the clouds.
So we were at 4,000.
And that's when the controller
said, yeah, I can see you're getting
rocked around pretty hard.
And he kind of like paused inside.
And what do you want to do?
Right.
Yeah.
All right, what are we going
to do here?
And when he said that in
editing, I looked at the G3X and
I think we were assigned 4,000.
And we were.
We were like coming down to 3,700.
And you were, like, pitched
for a climb.
Yeah, you know, full, like,
full power, trying to maintain 4,000.
And it was just rocking us around.
And he could see that.
So that's when he was like,
okay, I'm going to let me help you
guys out.
Okay.
If you want, you can stay on
this heading and if you want to go
down to 3000.
And then eventually we
requested 2500 just to get out of
IMC.
And it really smoothed it out
at that point.
As soon as we got to the
clouds, I was just like, it's going
to be okay.
It's going to be.
I know it's crazy when you're
in IMC like that, in a situation
like that, how much just
getting a brief glimpse of the ground
can like really calm you down.
Yeah, it's, it's really crazy.
And you know, I'm sure it's,
it's a different sensation when you're
in a jet and you're going
super fast and you know, you know,
it's just a very different feeling.
But when you're hand flying a
little airplane, getting bounced
around and you're concerned
about the weather that you're in,
man, when you get that like
real quick ground contact out the
window and it's like you, you
realize that you're super close to
the bases of the clouds.
It's a, it's kind of a good
reassuring feeling out of the woods
yet, but it's reassuring
feeling that you're close.
Yeah, it was definitely
reassuring just knowing that there
was an out that we had that
wasn't declaring an emergency or
doing anything that would just
be a little bit more difficult.
Like the easiest way was to
get under and just keep going around
and go around the storms and
totally thank, I'm so thankful that
you had SiriusXM.
I think before you took off we
were talking about, you're like,
hey, like I just got the cards updated.
I just had all the SiriusXM
put in and I was like, thank the
Lord.
Because SiriusXM was amazing.
Like having all the weather
information that we had and being
able to even go back and look
at the nasty line that we went through
and see like our breadcrumbs.
Just having it right there.
Knowing the track of the
storms, where it was getting worse,
where it was building and just
continually knowing where our out
was was phenomenal.
So thank you, Sirius xm.
Totally.
I love you with all my heart.
You're the best.
I need an airplane.
Sirius XM is fantastic.
And yeah, having that, that
reliable data coming from satellites,
not ADS B and then that high
resolution next.
Rad.
Yeah, is.
It's so nice.
It's so fast and it's, it's
really, I mean not to be dramatic,
but a lifesaver, you know,
like, it's, it's super.
It'll really save your butt in
those situations, giving you that
reliable data.
Yeah.
Super grateful we had that.
Yeah.
It helped us really kind of
get a plan in a bad situation to
go around or not to go around,
but to go around the weather.
Right.
Let's Take a break from
today's episode.
To hear from our sponsor RAA
Justin here.
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And now back to today's episode.
But yeah, I mean it was, it
was interesting for sure.
What would you do?
What would you have done
different now that you have debriefed
the video?
All the memories are there.
You've had a couple months,
we've had a couple months to kind
of think about it.
Would you have gone the next morning?
Would we have just waited for
the weather to push out, not have
gone to Chick Fil A and wasted
an hour or sit on for three hours?
What, what should we have done?
So I think waiting wasn't a
bad thing at all.
So like I said, the two main
options that were kind of in my head
was, well, we can either leave
now and just go all the way out to,
you know, way, way west,
western Oklahoma, almost to the panhandle
of Oklahoma and get around
that system.
We'll have to stop and refuel
and then cut up to the northeast
to Kansas, and we probably
would have been pushing into the
evening.
It would have been a long day
of flying and it would have cost
more money.
We would burn more fuel.
But we, but it would have been
just fine.
And honestly, if we would have
left shortly after you landed on
your flight, you know, we
would have had time to grab lunch
and stuff, but then pretty
much just get in the plane and go.
We probably still would have
gotten to Olathe before dark.
Honestly, if I could do it all
over again, I think the decision,
if I could have a do over, the
decision I would make is to wait
out the system, let it
entirely pass over us, and we would
have probably been able to
depart with the weather to our southeast
at about 6:45pm and that's
already kind of what I was thinking
in the fbo.
But again, I was letting that
prospect, the possibility of flying
into the night stop me.
But that would have been
statistically a whole lot less risky
than going head to head with
Unpredictable convective weather,
a squall line that's also
throwing unpredictable little cells
out in front of it as soon as
it hits the dfw.
Bravo.
So if I could do it all over
again, I would have waited until,
you know, 6:37pm we would have
had about probably two and a half
hours of cruising before
sunset, and then after sunset we
would have had maybe an hour.
Yeah.
Landed with the Runway lights on.
But wasn't flying at night
kind of fresh in your mind too?
Wasn't there a video just
released or an experience you just
had in California?
I believe so.
I feel like if that that
happened so much more recent, that
that was even more like, all
right, I didn't like that.
I'm not going to do that again.
Yeah, a couple of experiences
where we kind of dipped into the
dark and of course, like where
we were flying in California, right
there, SoCal on the west coast.
Lots of mountains, very little
options to put a single engine down.
If you lose the engine, of
course, there's highways all over
the place, but especially once
you get up toward the Central coast,
it's just rolling hills and,
you know, the, the PCH is not a good
option.
So.
And then of course there are
no beaches or anything to, to really
speak of at that part of the coast.
So it certainly was fresh on
my mind.
And I had been preaching that
to myself and in the videos about,
hey, if you're flying a single
engine at night, I'm not saying don't
do it, but really think twice
about what you're risking and is
it worth it or should you wait
until the next day?
And there were a couple
situations that, you know, pushed
us into the dark, leaving our
interim stop a lot later than we
intended and all that kind of stuff.
So it certainly was fresh on
my mind and I think that certainly
contributed to me sort of
being like, ah, night, night bad,
you know.
Yeah.
But it would have been safer.
Yeah.
If we would have just waited
and contend with the night flying.
Did Chelsea watch the video or
have you shown any footage to her?
What did she think about
everything or even just like live,
like after we landed and you
talked to her, was she like, you're
an idiot, like, why did you do that?
Or was it what.
I guess, you know, what did
she think about everything?
She's, she's very thoughtful
about the way she delivers her feedback.
Of course we, you know, we
have our own opinions about and we
bounce off of each other all
the time because we've.
Her and I flew out fly as A
crew constantly.
Um, so we always bounce our,
our ideas off of how to do things
and our decision making.
What would I do?
What would she do?
And then we make a decision
from there.
Um, I did explain to her after
our flight.
I was like, that was
definitely some of the worst turbulence
I have felt in a light airplane.
And I, I already knew that
there were significant flight.
Flight planning mistakes on my part.
So I, I was, you know, we
talked on the phone about it and
I was like, yeah, I, if I
could do it over, I would have done
things very differently.
And I mean, she has a great
attitude about it.
She's like, well, that's.
You live to fly another day.
And that's the beauty of also
recording the flights too.
Um, and we're, we're both very
grateful that we have all this footage
of our flying adventures and
continue to record more and edit
more so that we can debrief
this stuff and also reminisce on
the cool flying memories too.
But she was a, she's not shy
about, you know, beating me up a
little bit about my, my dumb decisions.
But, but it's also.
We have a great working
relationship in terms of being able
to recognize when there are
things to learn from those situations
and whatnot.
So definitely when we're
looking back on this flight, obviously
it's going to be remembered
for the turbulence, the weather decisions
that we could have made better.
But what, what would you look
back on the flight of, like, is there
anything positive you look
back on the flight other than the
fact that you learned.
Learned a lot or.
Because I look back, I
remember when we passed, like, we
had good conversations, we had
some lighthearted laughs.
It was still very memorable on
that end, but it's definitely gonna
be overshadowed by the actual
event of flying itself through the
weather.
Yeah, I, I mean, the big
positive, though, I take from it,
like you said, to not choose
is a lesson was learned.
You know, that's, that's the
biggest takeaway I can take from
it.
The rest of the flight was
super uneventful.
It was calm, it was clear, we
had a tailwind.
Um, and then we, we did that
RNAV coupled approach down to the
Runway and played with the
autopilot and all that kind of stuff.
I think, you know, the real
positive part that comes out of it
is sort of the experience that
followed the flight.
You know, once we got to
Olathe and we hung out at Garmin
and got to pal around with
everybody and see the, see the amazing
facility there.
So that was kind of like the
meat and potatoes of the positive
part of the trip for me.
Um, but in terms of the
flight, the way I compartmentalize
this stuff over time, after I
edit videos and compile them, I sort
of like choose one takeaway.
It's just I do the same thing
when I read a book.
There's always like one
sentence or like one takeaway that
I have from that experience.
And that's just forever going
to be the flight.
Planning errors, what's going
to be leading up to it.
What I think is going to be
funny is this flight will probably
be your meter for bad turbulence.
You're going to be flowing no
matter who you're flying with.
Like, all right, was it as bad
as I fly with Justin?
No.
Okay.
Right.
So it's always gonna be right
up there at the top.
We're always going to be
bonded with the trauma.
I'll call it trauma bonding
over the flight.
It's a trauma bond.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
We'll be 80 years old to look
at each other bike.
Remember that?
I remember that.
Remember that.
Yeah, that was rough.
Eating cheese curds at Oshkosh.
That's right.
Still doing a podcast.
Anyways, I remnant.
Yeah, I go on, I go on.
But overall, yeah, no, it was
an awesome flight.
We did have great
conversations on it.
So the big positive was it was
a super nice flight.
After we got out of the Bravo.
For most of the flight, it was
just a crazy 25 minutes.
20 minutes?
Yeah, it was the first 25
minutes of a three and a half hour
flight that were.
Hell, yeah.
And then the rest.
The rest is pretty great.
Yeah.
I just.
I did a podcast with Jason Miller.
We're doing a series called
how to Be a Pilot.
So we started with Student
Pilot, Private Pilot.
We just did the instrument
rated one and I talked about the
idea or shooting where I
talked about our approach that we
shot in into Olathe.
And I reminded him and I
reminded myself about.
I think I even said in the
video is like, this takes forever
in a 1:72.
I was like, oh my gosh.
Like, we haven't.
We're still 20 miles away.
Like, it was just like that opened.
My mind so much up because it's.
It's not that I forgot about.
I mean, I clearly did forgot
about it.
Forget about it.
But when you start going and
flying faster airplanes, you just
think it's always going to be fast.
Right.
Like when.
When you haven't flown a slow
airplane in a while, you're just
so used to what your recent
experience is that I was just dumbfounded
at how much extra fuel, how
much longer it took.
And I just.
It's like we still haven't
even turned base yet and it's been
like 20 minutes on this approach.
That was crazy to me.
Uh, so rest assured, you're
still burning more fuel in the, in
the jet.
Oh, for sure, A hundred percent.
But yeah, I mean, it's like
you have, you have time to think.
That's why the 172 has been
such a popular trainer.
And honestly, for getting over
the years, getting so comfortable
with IFR.
Um, I got my instrument rating
in 2015, so it's almost been 10 years.
And I love flying IFR.
And a big benefit of flying a
slower airplane is it, especially
when you're learning for the
rating, it gives you time just like
you saw.
Like you, you have so much
time in between the intermediate
fixes and before you get to
the final approach fix.
Like we, we wait until we're a
dot below the glide path before we
start actually slowing down
and getting configured.
Because you have that much
time, you're not going fast.
That's very different.
Very different.
I'm looking for.
Even after that flight, I
still want to get into GA flying.
I'm starting to save more
money to buy an airplane one day.
I'm gonna hopefully.
There you go.
Run a bonanza soon, so maybe
see more aviation content.
And like I said, I'll, I'll
take you up and I'll.
I'll do some payback.
Like, Justin, you're not
flying into that storm, are you?
Like, I don't know.
Maybe.
Maybe Josh.
Maybe I am.
Let's see what we.
I jump out in a parachute.
See you.
That's right.
But yeah, lots, lots learned.
I think it's going to be a
great tool for everyone.
Another kind of way to think
about it is you might watch and be
like, wow, what idiots they
got themselves in the situation.
But we're, and there will be comments.
Saying that, but we're two
experienced pilots.
You could find yourself in a
similar situation.
Whether dumb luck, bad
planning, bad decision making, you
could find yourself in that situation.
So take the lessons from the
video to heart and really kind of
understand and focus on the
fact that you need to do as much
pre planning as possible to
try to avoid that and not put yourself
in that situation.
I think I even said in the
video, it's like we used our superior
flying skills in a situation
that we shouldn't have even been
in.
It's like you don't want to
have your.
You don't want to use your
flying skills.
You don't want it to use your
superior knowledge of airspace or
how to get out.
You want a boring flight as
easy as can be.
So do way more preparation on
the ground and kind of think about
every single out you have
before you even take off.
It's the famous saying that
you'd rather be in the ground than
being in the air wishing you
were on the ground, which I feel
like we thought we felt that
when we're in the air, so definitely
felt that.
Yeah.
So in IMC there, definitely
remember that and kind of take that
to heart, you know, it could
happen to anyone.
It happened to you, could
happen to us.
So.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
And that's, that's where the
whole hazardous attitude conundrum
comes in.
Like we all, we all have them
every now and then you just have
to have the wherewithal and
the, the self honesty and the humility
to recognize when you have
that mentality of invulnerability.
That's.
I would not make the decision
to put myself in that situation.
I probably would have thought
the same thing until I found myself
in that situation.
And then it takes that sort of
honest thinking and the real really
deep and well exercised
humility to debrief your own experiences
and be honest about it.
Don't blame external factors,
don't blame this or that.
You can use factors to explain
why you've got to that point.
But accepting responsibility
is a big piece of being a good and
responsible aviator, not just
a pilot.
I'm talking about a true aviator.
Be able to debrief your
mistakes and be honest with yourself.
When you screw up, it only
makes you safer, makes you a better
pilot.
And then you can live to tell
those, the stories of those experiences
about, you know, back in the
day, I got myself into that bad situation
and here's what I learned and,
and those are good experiences to
hang on to.
And I did think it was
interesting or how I think when we
were going through it, I
remember in my brain I actually,
I wasn't thinking you were
okay with it, obviously, because
no one was okay with it.
But you work on more on the
quiet side when we're actually flying
through it.
And then when we got out, I
feel like it was like 20 minutes,
like on the road.
You're like, all right, stop
what we're talking about.
I just want you to know that I
was not okay with that.
And I was like, yeah, I hope
you weren't okay with that.
But, yeah, right.
Well, that.
That was like a.
That was a big highlight of
the teaser and the intro of the video
because I feel like that was a
big pivotal point on that flight
where I was like, okay, I know
that I wasn't saying much when we
were in imc, and, you know, I.
That's why I kept talking
about it, and I was like, dang.
Like, I.
That we shouldn't have been in
that situation, blah, blah, blah.
And that's why I said, look, I
hope you know that I was not cool
with that because, I mean,
I've flown with some pilots that
they will.
And this is another big point
I wanted to make in the video.
I've flown with some pilots
that just because they got out of
the other side of a bad
situation and everything was fine.
The airplane was fine, pilot
and passengers were fine.
Everything was fine.
They think that because of
that, there was nothing to learn
from it.
Yeah.
Good outcome does not mean
good decisions were made.
Nope.
And so I wanted to make it
clear that, like, look, I was not
cool with that.
That's not something that I like.
That.
That was an outlying circumstance.
That was an outlier piece of data.
And my entire logbook of
flying, that was definitely a hairy
situation.
And I recognize that.
And I wanted to make that
clear because I didn't want you sitting
over there thinking, like,
this dude is, like, cool with flying
into this kind of stuff.
Like, no, not at all.
I did not like that situation.
I was like, did he do this for
the content?
Like, wow, I'm just kidding.
Right?
Right.
Is this what he does for content?
No.
Yeah, that's.
And that is something that I vow.
I vowed to myself a long time
ago to never, ever let the channel
become.
I will never, ever seek crappy
situations or unsafe situations for
the sake of rich content.
Yeah.
Never.
I will never do that.
I will hang up my headset and
quit flying if.
If I ever feel like I need to
get to that point to keep it going.
I think there are fantastic
teachable moments in everyday flights,
simple flights, even the
boring flights.
There are very teachable moments.
And that's what I try to
highlight on the channel.
So the.
And I.
The caption from this video was.
The biggest point from this
video was the whole.
Just because you had a good
outcome and you landed safely right
at sunset, beautiful ending to
the flight does not mean all the
decisions you made were good.
And that's where that true
pure humility comes in, to be able
to debrief those.
Totally agree.
I'm still waiting for the
caption when you actually publish
the video to be, I made an
airline pilot cry or airline pilot
flew me into this.
I'm just like, airline pilot
almost killed me.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I think it's.
It's a good, like, it's good
to talk about this.
It's good to have the debrief.
The video is great.
I think I said before, I think
it's the longest YouTube video I've
ever watched, and obviously
I'm in it, so it's easy for me to
watch it.
It's like, hey, it's cool.
I'm on YouTube.
Well, and, you know, I used to
try to keep them down to sub 20 minutes.
And, you know that there's
benefit in that, too.
There are plenty of videos
that I make that are shorter than
that, but this one, I just felt.
And I started doing this
pretty recently, trying out the format
of just keeping all the, like,
nitty gritty, technical stuff in
there, and that's what I did
in this video.
I kept all of the ATC
communications, I kept all the explanations,
and I kept a lot of the
personal stories in there that you
were telling after we were out
of the bad weather and everything.
And that's what ultimately
ended up making the video 47 minutes.
But I am just not willing to
sacrifice, you know, the stuff that
I think is really beneficial
to the story and to the lesson for
the sake of a time code on YouTube.
So.
Which is good.
47 minutes.
I'm glad you sat down to watch it.
I did.
I sat down fully intending to
not watch the whole thing, and I
did because it was really good.
There you go.
There you go.
But, yeah, I mean, is there
anything else you want to touch on
for that?
I feel like we kind of
debriefed it pretty well.
Yeah, no, I think.
I think that's pretty much it.
Like, you know, like I said,
humility and debriefing your own
mistakes, I think is just.
That's been a very common
mission in my.
In my flying, especially after
I became an instructor.
It's.
It's a very important part of
everyone's personal flying.
Absolutely.
And when I fly with different
pilots, you know, I usually try to
pay attention to how.
How humble they are, how.
How much humility they
exercise in their own debriefs and
in their own flying.
And.
And I think largely there.
There can be a big, stark contrast.
A stark contrast out there in
general aviation.
And I think that's what I try
to get across with my content.
I've made it my mission to
showcase safe practices while sharing
the beauty the world has to offer.
That's my mission statement.
That's what the YouTube
channel is all about.
So you said world, right?
So you're going to take that
172 all over the world now you're
going to do the world flight?
Maybe not the 172, but
something else.
Yeah.
Cool, dude.
Well, hey, even looking back
on it, I'm glad we got to finally
meet up.
I'm glad we got to go on a
flight together.
Like we said, we're trauma
bonded for life.
We always have it.
That's right.
Um, but we'll do it again
sometime, man.
Maybe we'll just have like a
chill flight in North Carolina.
We'll go to go see.
I can't remember the airports.
Go first in flight and we'll
go over there and hang out and do
something fun.
But I appreciate it.
Yeah, man, I appreciate you
taking more time to come on the podcast.
Two times in six months.
Like, we got Josh, guys.
We got Josh.
Aviation 101.
Probably won't be able to get
him on for another six years, but
he's here.
We did it.
All right, man.
You have my cell phone number
now, so.
That's true.
Wait, that is true.
I'm just going to call you all
the time.
Hey, buddy, that's.
That's cool.
That's cool.
Yeah, anytime.
Yeah, man.
Well, I appreciate you coming
on and I appreciate what you do for
the aviation community and the
YouTube videos you put out.
It's.
It's inspiring to see.
When I get an airplane, I'm
going to try to make videos just
like you.
You know, I'm going to be
Aviation 101 Junior.
Perfect.
Yeah, that works.
That works well, Likewise.
I appreciate the content that
you put out here, too, and, you know,
interviewing people with
awesome stories and also talking
about stuff like this and
talking to people like Jason Miller.
I love his content and it's
really great what you're doing to
bring it to your audience in a
really digestible format and.
And you run a great podcast.
You've been running it for a
long time and you're doing good stuff.
I appreciate it, man.
But yeah, that's enough of us
talking about each other, so.
That's right.
I appreciate coming on and
look forward to the video coming
out and then hopefully
everyone watches that video and then
comes here and listen to the
podcast because I think the two resources
will go really well together.
Absolutely.
Yep.
All right, man.
We'll have a good one.
You too.
Appreciate it.
We'll See you AV Nation.
That's a wrap on today's episode.
Thank you so much for
listening to the podcast.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If you haven't left a review
yet, please go to Spotify, please
go to itunes.
I want to try to get to a
thousand reviews on each individual
platform.
So go ahead and leave a five
star review.
I mean that'd be beneficial
and hopeful.
But if you like the podcast,
please leave a five star review on
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It helps more people find this podcast.
And that's the goal, right?
To get more aviators to find
more people in aviation.
If you already left a review,
grab your dad's phone, leave a review
on his end.
But AV Nation, I hope you're
having a great day.
And as always, happy flying
Pilot to.
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