EP185 - Flying the Long Way
About this episode
The episode discusses the challenges and considerations for VFR pilots after obtaining their certificate, focusing on cross-country flying and real-world scenarios.
You earned the ticket. Now what? Most VFR pilots get their certificate and then spend the next few years doing pattern laps and $100 hamburger runs, never quite working up the nerve for the big trip. There's no checkride for cross-country confidence, so nobody teaches it. This week, Brian, Ben, and Ted dig into everything that happens after your training ends and the open country begins. The guys get into the gap in pilot training nobody talks about: en route weather reality versus departure-and-arrival thinking, why personal minimums need a methodology for ratcheting (not just a number on a card), and how to think about your airplane as your responsibility for three days on the ground, not two hours in the air. Plus the stuff that bites you in the real world: dead iPads in one-million-degree Texas heat, self-serve fuel pumps that put a $3,000 hold on your only credit card, progressive taxi at unfamiliar fields with crossing runways, and knowing where you're going to put it down when the engine quits on departure from an airport you've never seen. Ben finally lands on the right runway at New Smyrna Beach, Brian watches his commercial rating show up in the airman registry, and a…
More episodes of Midlife Pilot Podcast
- EP190 - Nothing Like the Real Thing
- EP189 - Sport Pilot Extraordinaire
- EP188 - Go/No-Go: Honoring Your Minimums When Everyone Else Is Leaving
- EP187 - Information Whiskey: Super Scoopers, Springer Mountain & the Bachelorette Bravo
- EP186 - Risk It for the Biscuit: The $300 Hamburger
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