This episode (part 2 of 2) features one of our favorite frequent guests, local DPE and general aviation wizard Pat Brown! Pat also works with AOPA and is an expert in helping rusty pilots return to the sky. We talk to Pat about what exactly constitutes a "rusty pilot" and how you can get back up if you've been out of the game for a while!
So many pilots have let their currency lapse, and are really intimidated about what is takes to get current (and proficient) again. Many pilots who have been on the ground for a long time may find themselves faced with new technology that was not even around when they got their certificate (GPS, ADSB... etc). This podcast is a great place to start if you're looking to get back in the air. Please feel free to SHARE this episode with a fellow pilot who you know wants to get current again!
Clear prop! Number two following twin traffic on 3 mile final. JB using runway 25 on a 4-mile final.
This is Behind the Prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot, Bobby Doss. and it's co-host: major airline captain Designated Pilot Examiner, Wally Mulhearn. Now let's go behind the prop!
What’s up Wally. Hey Bobby how are you good. This is part two of a two-part rusty pilot. Podcast with our friend now. Four-time visitor to the show pat brown yeah four times so we talked on the last episode about all the things that may get you back into the plane that you might want to go review or listen to or look at or learn lots about technology and the things that have changed in the past ten or fifteen years Around devices and things that are in the cockpit that you might not be familiar with this episode. We want to kind of give some more prescriptive guidance on exactly the steps. So I’ve gone to the flight school. I've talked to someone. I want to go through it. What would we recommend as a team to these listeners. If they wanted to get flight review and or just explore the rusty pilots stuff AOPA has to offer. I think the first thing if you've been out of flying for a while and you don't have a current medical then at some point you're going to have to decide How you want to proceed there a lot of different ways if you want to exercise light sport. Privileges only Which you can do you can simply decide. I'm going to fly under light sport rules. You don't have to Get another certificate. There's no check ride for it. You don't need a medical. You can do it on a driver's license Has to be a driver's license. Not just a photo of government issued photo. Id but that comes with some limitations in the in the types of airplanes you can fly. They have to be limited to a light sport category. And you know that's probably another podcast entirely so I'll just say to anybody. That's interested in that just Do some research on a as website. Or just google light sport and you'll get the horse power limitations and that kind of stuff on that but let's just assume that that that's not the route that someone wants to go want to go ahead and get a medical If they if they have ever held third class medical They may be eligible for something called basic med There's actually a date It's in the FAR’s. And I did not think to look that up before. I came but if you held a third-class medical at or after an I think it's July the fifteenth two thousand. Let me think a second year. Two thousand seven I think and you might be able to google it while we're talking here. Look it up I but July fifteenth. Two thousand seven or somewhere around two thousand five anyway You may be eligible. Find your basic med. And essentially that's taking a form that you can download from your doctor of from your from AOPA website take it to you. Dr any state licensed can Do this physical for you When you're done with that the doctor signs it off you take it back home log on to AOPA website. There's a about an hour. Maybe an hour and a half's worth of a of a self-evaluation medical tutorial that you have to take and pass a short quiz When you do all of that paperwork you'll get a certificate back that says that Basically that you're flying under basic med It's still requires a driver's license You do not have to carry the basic med paperwork with you. When you fly has to be available if you get ramp check for example you'll ultimately have to send that to the to the local FISDO But you can fly VFR, IFR, day, night. Airplanes up to sixty a six thousand pounds up to Basically up to the flight levels Up to but not including the flight levels so essentially. That's most of the airplanes and the general aviation fleet If you had a basic if you had a special issuance under your third class. Medical that carries through and If you for example. Let's say you had to have a special issuance redone every year. For example. If you decide to fly under basic med. That's a one time that especially issuance becomes a onetime lifetime special issuance and unless you have another event of some sort that would ordinarily require another Special issuance you're done with those things. So again we could. That could probably be a program all on it all on its own but did you find the date is July fourteenth. Two thousand six okay. So I was close so if you held at third class medical on or after that date you are eligible for a basic med And it would be worth having a conversation again if you're not sure. Call the pilot information center as we talked about the last show at AOPA and those folks up there can walk. You walk right through it. Otherwise a third class medical One of the questions. I get is well. I the last time. I had a third a third class. Medical was twenty-five years ago. Well basically it's not going to work. You're actually going to have to go get a third class medical. You can let it expire and then decide that you want to fly under a basic med if you want at some point down the road but you're going to have to get another Third-class medical if you hadn't had one since prior to that date.
And if I never had a medically amendments while searching for never had a medical I still have to get at least one medical there's a baseline Philosophy there and No matter no matter no matter what the case if you've if you've never had a medical all you're going to have to get one third classes fine very. Yeah maybe we do need to show them basic med because. Every time I talk about seem to learn something new or figuring out some other feature that. I wasn't aware of So medical probably the first best step in this rusty pilot thought process. Yeah I mean obviously you want to find a flight school If you if you decide that you want to go ahead or that you need to get the third class medical. If there's any reason and I can't emphasize strongly enough if there's any reason whatsoever that you feel like you can't pass a third-class medical couple of different things that you could do and again I just. I cannot recommend strongly enough one again. I would start with AOPA in the pilot. Information center If it really oftentimes they'll just they'll answer a quick question for you without any problems at all. If it's something that they really have to get into the weeds on they may ask you to up your membership to the To the level that allows you really unlimited consultation with the medical people but So that would be. That would be one If you really don't want to do that then. I would strongly recommend that you make an appointment with an AME. An airman medical examiner. And they're all over the place with a consultation. Don't take him any paperwork. Don't give him any access numbers to your med express. Which is the online method of applying for a medical now Some people have been out long. Enough may not realize the that it is all done online now Don't give them any of the access numbers and just tell them that you want to consultation. I want a third class medical. And to see if I can pass and assuming that you do then you can make another appointment. Come back tomorrow or the next or next week. Do it officially give them the paperwork some. AME’s may allow you to go out to their office and fill out a med express. Right there on the spot in and process the paperwork. That's going to be an AME-by-AME decision but I would not go in cold without having some idea of whether or not. I've got a chance to pass this. There are a lot of medications. now that are That are on the FAA’s acceptable list. That didn't used to be. There are a number of conditions that are on the FAA’s list That are acceptable. That didn't used to be There are conditions. Now call CACI conditions and AME can issue that Did not used to be the case where you can actually walk out with a medical in your pocket that were used to be in the old days. Some of those conditions required a deferral to the FAA office in oak city. And then god knows how long that would be before you would get that so anyway.
Fortunately around here. I've heard some horror stories. And I think this is the right advice for sure to get in touch with that phone number. Asked them some questions. The things that I’ve seen really set people back when they started to learn how to fly or have tried to come back. hadn't flown in twenty-five years. And let's say twenty years ago they got a DWI. That's a huge setback. This big deal. I don't think people are thinking that's going to prevent me from getting my pilot's certificate but it does prevent you from getting medical. You have to go through a lot of process. Yeah a DUI is a big deal a DUI you. I in and of itself is unlikely to keep you from being able to become a pilot or get back in the left seat if you have become a rusty pilot but you absolutely have to Declare that that you had that or it's going to open up a huge can of worms yet so there's a process that if you work through that process before going to get a medical in in bringing that up likewise I see a lot of young men and women who were diagnosed with ADHD taking some pills of some sort and that is pretty much a showstopper right off the bat. Many of them ultimately get a medical. It's the time that it takes so if you if you were I would highly recommend calling that phone number and getting some help from those. It's area code. 301-695-2000 or 1800-USAAOPA again learning something learning something so with you. We did a seminar together. You did it. I just sort of seminar hosted it with you. what how often those occur. How if someone was sitting at home in Iowa right now. They want to take one. How do they go by doing that. Yeah you're referring to. I rusty pilots seminar which up until COVID of it we did on alive in person basis and we had Contract Seminar presenters around the country as well as my fellow ambassadors. A few folks from the headquarters that would that would go out and do these. Things live Post COVID it or during covid. We pivoted to a webinar And that's going to be the case for the next several months before we start doing them live again. But if your listeners are interested in something like that we've got one coming up on June the seventeenth That's just what next week. Week After next I guess at three Pm central time and they can register by going to rusty pilots plural rustypilots.org. And if that's not convenient they can search through all of the calendar listings. Because we're doing them really about every other about every other week. We're doing them at various times during the day. So if just not convenient three o'clock on a on a Thursday afternoon then Seven o'clock on a Monday night might be And they're typically about two and a half hours long. we do take a break in between but as we talked about in the earlier show the previous show It's about two and a half hours long the sixty-one dot fifty-six. Which is a FAR that talks about flight. Reviews requires one hour minimum on the ground. One hour minimum the air or two and a half hours we exceed them when our minimum and we cover a lot of the things that are in fact we cover everything required in the ground portion of the fight review. But as I told you in the earlier show if I were CFI who saw the endorsement by the way we provide them all logbook endorsement them with my name on it If they if they showed me as a CFI, if they showed me that log book entry. I would think man this is great. These people have come prepared. But because I have to still put my name in the logbook as testing that I’ve given them a flight review which requires one hour of ground one hour in the air. I'm still going to want to sit down with them at least for a little while and make sure that they've accomplished what we're supposed to have accomplished. Because my name is going in that logbook no doubt no doubt and sometimes I might be accomplished in the classroom that might be accomplished in the cockpit. Could be flying around. That could be accomplished. While you're walking out to the plane. Lots of different ways. That might be one of the things that I do. Yeah when I’m doing flight reviews even today what I’ll do is I’ll send the applicant Or the customer actually really in this case I’ll send the customer five or six links. AOPA’s website on the air safety institute side of things. And I’ll say pick two. Maybe three of these courses go through these and then go to the website and select two. Maybe three more of your choice. Bring the graduation certificates too because those are good for wings credit. We were talking about that off air those are good for wings credit and we'll use that as the basis of the oral and they've already spent if they do four or five of those things. They've spent an hour and a half or two hours doing ground. School related things and then we can sit down and we can talk and review through some of these things and we easily cover that requirement for apart Sixty-one fifty-six. Will you mentioned wings. Let's talk a little bit more about that. It's a FAA website. FAAsafety.gov, right and there's a lot of courses out there but the overall theme is a program called wings right and it is a proficiency program through the FAA where they've tried to get creative with rusty pilots, pilots in general, and general aviation enthusiasts in provide a means by which you can keep current. Meaning you would eliminate the need for a flight review. Had you been doing these things correct and it really is I. I refer to more as a mission-based plan if you no longer taking flight training in our world at a flight school here. We're doing a private and then probably a high-performance endorsement and then an instrument rating in a commercial rating and the thing and people always have a path forward and they're taking check rides. They don't need those. Why reviews but people that want an instrument rating and they don't really have any other ratings to go after this program. The wings program provides a means by which they can have mission-based tasks to work on with. CFI is and if they do that kind of resets the clock for them as it relates to flight review requirements Keeping it proficient. So if you are familiar with the wings program checkout FAAsafety.gov you can log in and take a lot of courses out there but Watch the air institute videos. Fly with an instructor. You do a number of tasks they will give you some credit which will give you your basic advanced and master wings. I'm looking at their own pace now. And there's forty-five thousand pilots that have earned at least one phase of wings since the program started so. That's a pretty good chunk. That's pretty good. Does it. mention the advisory circular on that page. That was one that I did not write down before I came here. Because there is actually an advisory circular that the FAA has put out explaining the wings program and the various phases. There's the basic Advanced master you can start with basic and if you want you can advance up to advanced and then up to master You can stay at any one of those levels once you get there. Everybody starts at basic if you want to come back down to basic after you've attained master. You can do that If you if you complete a phase of wings. It's good for flight review with the proper endorsement. Your book So there are a lot of benefits to that and I'm sure google search will yield the me. But I have seen that yeah. circular 61.91(j) as in Juliet 61.91(j). I knew Wally would know it; he knows everything. That's the thing about Wally. I sit here. And I just I look at him for validation because he knows everything me one more time. We said advisory circular 61.91(j). Yeah and that came from google if it's wrong Wally he's not yeah disclaimer. So we have talked about finding a flight school finding an instructor. All these things come together to where ultimately you can get comfortable get proficient. Get current get back in the airplane. So what are you going to do with it now that we're current again. What are my options. Just rent from a flight. School Pat you literally are the. You can fly ambassador. Tell us what can we do with this. Newly refreshed positively the first thing absolutely the very first thing is one-hundred-dollar hamburger. No doubt that is the absolute first thing priorities priorities. One thing I’ll say is that they actually sell a hundred-dollar hamburger here close by us. It's at the Conroe airport.
Got a little restaurant called black walnut and you can buy one-hundred-dollar hamburger which you might say. Why hundred-hundred-dollar hamburger. They will give you one-hundred-dollar gift card so you actually get a free hamburger a hundred-dollar gift card. I know. I’m pretty cute. Little gimmick of their that. If you buy a hundred-dollar hamburger you get one hundred dollars gift cards so the hamburgers actually. That's very cool. Well there's actually there's a number of things We get asked this question. All the time Once you're back active again if you haven't got your instrument rating for by all means get your instrument rating. It will make you such a better pilot even if you never use it. You'll be so much more comfortable operating in the system so an instrument rating to me would be the next natural step if you already have an instrument rating get current with it And not just current but get proficient again with it because again. That's going to take your chances of fulfilling your mission. From maybe forty to fifty percent best to depending on the airplane on the airplane maybe ninety to ninety five percent again it depends on the airplane. And obviously you're listening to this show two weeks ago. We did a show on seeking out flight instructors, flying in marginal weather challenging that that brainpower that you may or may not have had yet but go get some won't see if you don't want that instrument rating after I’ll tell you what it because it's way different than just putting on the fogles you know. Get your tail will endorsement. I made a couple of notes. Here gets your tail will endorsement. If you really want to learn what. Those things are on the floor of the airplane. Those foot rests down there. Get your tailwheel endorsement. Because those things are called rudder pedals and they're there for a reason in a tailwheel endorsement or a glider rating as. Well you really want to know how to use the rudder pedals. a glider endorsement glider rating. It's a check. Ride or tailwheel. Endorsement would be a good thing. If you just are in it for fun go get a seaplane rating the first time. I think I told you this Bobby. The first time. I lined up on short final with a with a windscreen full of water. You know my first thought was. This isn’t right. I've been told forever. Don't do this and here we go doing in. Boy I’ll tell you what the what fun rating that is. Get your multi engine rating You know my brother is a former airline pilot. And when I got my multi years ago. He told me he was really proud of me for doing it. he said. But if you if you're not going to find multi all the time he said don't fly them at all and I took getting my multi engine rating to really understand that. Because that's something you really do have to stay on top of something goes wrong Wally he's nodding his head. Yes but Because you know in in our little airplanes we don't have these cushy big jets like you automatically dial in the rudder of the you know if the engine goes out and can take off on a single engine in so that's something but And then just to continue along those lines. Look into a flying club You know you. And I The three of us were talking off line here about most flight schools. Certainly perhaps not all of them but most flight schools are not in the business of renting their airplanes out for three or four- or five-day trips. And that's exactly what flying clubs are there for. You know if you lose an airplane for four or five days on a trip if you don't charge them a three or four minimum each day you're losing money and so and you need those airplanes for training will flying clubs are built exactly for that reason so You know we talked about AOPA a little bit but one of the benefits there is. You can go to AOPA.org in the search window you can type in a flying club finder. And we've got an entire section on not only finding flying clubs but how to start one if there's not one in your area it's not difficult to start a flying club. There's three of them here on the field and hooks two or three of them on the field at Conroe There's they're all over. There's about they're pretty full too so they're all starting another one. Here would be the end of the world. I would not be the end of the world. It could handle it. Yeah there's thirteen. Fine clubs in the greater Dallas area there's including the glider clubs. There's ten or eleven in the greater Houston area So starting a flying club is not hard and it's not terribly expensive especially if you can find a leaseback airplane so those would be pretty much the the first things I would say that you could do to stay involved in in it. Keep that interest level up. What if I’m passionate about pets. I want to I want to put my policy used for pets with what might do. They're I went up for you. Yeah pilots paws for example And this is well. This is not for pets. Angel flight All of these are 501(C3) corporations so everything was a rental airplane that you own all of this tax deductible from an expense standpoint the experimental aircraft association has an awesome program called young eagles And you can fly a rental airplane flying a young eagles Event if you want again 501(C3) tax deductible donations to have a commercial certificate. You don't have to have an instrument rating you can be a private pilot. You can fly an experimental airplane and fly young eagles so a lot of a lot of opportunities any anything that I’m missing there Wally? No I will just jump on the angel flight bandwagon. I fly for organization call pilots for patients. Probably the most one of the most rewarding things I do in my flying is flying some of these patients. It's flying people to different places for medical treatment that they're not in a position you know. Maybe an eight-hour car ride is not feasible for them. Maybe the cost of an airline ticket is not feasible for them. So it's just it's extremely rewarding and I’ll tell you the Yeah I may give half my day in the use of. My airplane and I’m paying for the fuel but what I get is a whole lot more than what I give. I'm going to say. I'd do it selfishly. I do it for me and It's extremely rewarding. And if you are worried about the money that you would spend to get back into all this that is a good way to re-apply some dollars to something that's important to you and then hopefully take the tax benefits that come along with that and be able to write some of that stuff you know in and when you're doing one of these things typically you'll have a custom call sign. Atc recognizes those things oftentimes. We'll give you preferred handling and there are an awful lot of FBOs around the country that will give you a fuel discount if they know that you're coming in under angel flight pilots for patients or one of these other charitable type organizations. Well the thing. While those are great. And I look forward to my first pilots patients. One day soon. I still just love introducing aviation to people I've probably flown the corridor. Here in town through downtown more than just about anybody else because I love to take people show them. The buildings turn around the monument comeback. Introduce a young man or woman to aviation that maybe didn't think it was a possibility to be a pilot and pass that forward. That's rewarding for me and the joy sometimes fingerprints in my yoke because they're squeezing it so hard but the joy of passing. That aviation is a lot of fun for me. And I think anybody who gets back in the aircraft should make a mission of their own to go. Share it with people. I shall we had. Actually we had an event Not this past Saturday but Saturday before last we had an event scheduled down at Pearland to fly About twenty or so At-risk kids it was canceled because of Because of the weather forecast it actually turned out to be wrong but we cancelled it the day before. Because you know how goes to rescheduled for June twenty six but I had Twelve volunteer pilots including myself lined up for this event. Hopefully most of them were able to. You know to come participate again but It there's nothing like seeing the look particularly the kids’ faces when we first lift off if they've ever flown before and then just to be able to look outside and just see all the little ants the ant size cars and things like that. It's an amazing opportunity. Well I try to say all the flight instructors and people around here the fly on regular basis. We take it a little bit for granted. Sometimes this isn't this is something less than one percent of the population does on a regular basis. And the people get the chance to do it. Normally in those circumstances where it's free and someone's donating their time and their fuel. It's really a joy with no stress to get to do to do a little opportunity for sure years ago this is. This is a little off topic. But perhaps not at years and years ago. When I was in a different profession I had a business meeting up in Dallas and I had a couple of my work colleagues with me that we're going to go and we decided I said let me just fly ask because it'll be much easier. There were nervous because it's a little airplane in and neither one we've flown with me before but we took off from an airport here in the west side of town. We landed at Gosh I think it. I don't remember what airport up in Dallas at any rate and they brought the car out to us. It was GA airport. They brought the car out to his parked. It at the wingtip. We got out of the airplane got into the car went to our business meeting and by the time we were done. You know my colleagues were saying. What can we do this again sometime. Because it was just so much easier Pat’s Cirrus becomes the corporate jet in that case. Yeah so speaking of jets one last thing. We wanted to make sure we covered before we wrapped these two parts. Podcast up was really not all rusty. Pilots haven't flown in a long time. We talked about before recording. There's a lot of jet pilots out there. United delta American all these big airlines that they probably all came up the same way we have right through GA and learn how to fly that way and probably haven't touched a single engine aircraft four-cylinder aircraft in a long time Wally, you fly those types of planes. You probably meet some of those pilots. What would you recommend. They do to get back into the world. Well I you know. I'll just just tell a personal story but you know I was. I was. I still am an airline pilot and Enjoying life as an airline pilot ten years ago Not having any intention of getting a general aviation airplane and through circumstances to my daughter in high school saying that can. I take flying lessons. I I was shocked. I didn't push to do it but she wanted to do it. And lo behold next thing we know we are. She is taking flying lessons and I’m back in. I'm thinking well. I'm going to get checked out in an airplane to I went. I got checked out in archer local flight school. And then I was. I needed to fly across. Houston one day in this little airplane and I was petrified. I didn't know how to do well. I shouldn't say they know how to do it. But it was way out of my comfort zone. I think I’m going to fly VFR. I I got to get clearance into the bravo airspace. I think what I do. Who do I call. What do I say and very different than your day job. Yeah the day job you just get in the in the airplane and it's got a dispatcher taking care of for you and Yeah you go fly the airplane four thousand miles you can go land actually sort of simple so This was totally different to me. And I you know.
I do a lot of research. I'm walking around the flight. School the FBO. Asking people what do I do what I do and they were just giggling at me behind my back. I heard him back there. This guy can fly me to Munich and a seven sixty-seven but he can't fly to over to Ellington and land. And that was the case. So I think. AOPA has something on the horizon. Just for that right pat. Yeah boy talk about teeing it up. Yeah we actually have just completed Something called back to your roots and This is a seminar that is aimed just at get guys just like you Wally who spend most of their time up in the flight levels We is. It's a VFR flight. But we do touch on IFR things as well but we talk about getting weather briefings for example whereas not just handed to us in the form of some sort of however you get it and where you actually have to call flight service or you have to actually look at one of the apps for example foreflight in in analyze some of the stuff. That's happening we talk about flight following we talk about how out a deal with non-towered airports because for people. That have really don't do that. On a regular basis and non-towered airport could be like the wild wild west and anything goes well in a sense. That's true but if you follow the rules it isn't anything goes so and we talk about those kinds of things. We talk about Know on the IFR side of things. We talk about things like LPV approaches. Because I don't think you guys have those in in in your airplanes and so It's that kind of stuff. I mean. It really is going back to the very basics. Not in a condescending way whatsoever because this was actually developed in conjunction with several of my good buddies that are that are corporate or airline pilots and my primary concern was. I don't want to come across sounding like we're condescending and to a person they said no man he's we love this kind of minutia you've got to get into the into the weeds on this stuff so we talk a lot about how to pick up a clearance that a non-towered field for example Again I’m making it sound like it's more IFR than it is. It's really very VFR centric again. Let's well that's true with a few airline pilots that is true a single engine plane that that's true in the webinar really doesn't get into to that so much because that's a mechanical mechanical thing. But we talked about airspace. You know be you guys operating class. Bravo all the time. But but see to some extent C and D but they certainly Echo and golf Maybe some new concept there so anyway back to your roots and If anybody wants to Information on that they can mike. My email address is pat.patbrown.org. And you can email me on that. And I’ll give you that information awesome. Well pat. thanks for being on here. Four times now and being a friend and a co cohort in the aviation community are in the market and as always Wally thanks for participating in. And thanks for listening to the show. If you would let your friends know about show pass it along. This hopefully will be a rusty pilot. Podcast will be heard many times over as always thanks for listening and stay behind the prop.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for checking out the Behind The Prop podcast. be sure to click subscribe and check us out online at BehindTheProp.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Show creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co-host is Wally Mulhearn. This show is for entertainment purposes Only. and not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember: fly safe!