Midlife Pilot Podcast

EP198 - How Dare You Try to Minimize My Suffering

Ted has a private pilot checkride on the calendar, so naturally the crew dedicated the evening to helping him prepare. And by helping, we mean: "You may not be nervous at

EP197 - I Just Passed My PPL at 1,005 Hours

A listener comment set the agenda this week: as the hosts stack ratings and turbine job offers, do the 20-to-200-hour faithful still see themselves in the show? Ben answ

EP196 - BasicTed: Luck Favors the Prepared

The gag order is lifted. For ten months Ted answered "what have you been flying lately?" with a cheerful bunch of nothing, because he had quietly bet everything, sport pi

EP195 - I'm Temporarily Delayed, Not Canceled

Ben, Brian, and Ted declare this one Oops All Feedback (or, as Ben coins it, "oopsitizers"): five tape machine clips plus reviews and community wins. Ben's avionics go

EP194 - "That's Why I Wear the Propeller Hat" - PropHatCat!

Marcus is a magician, an off-Broadway producer, and an en route controller at Houston Center, which is either an unusual resume or a perfectly logical one. To thousands o

EP193 - Getting in the Way of Our A&Ps

Owner-assisted maintenance, with all four hosts aboard: Ben, Brian, Ted, and Mark (1DullGeek), the show's resident expert, currently apprenticing in his mechanic's shop.

EP192 - I Can't Believe Someone Pays Me to Do This

Flying, and actually having someone else pay for it. The crew sits down with James Onieal of Raven Career Development: pilot, instructor, type-rated in the King Air, Cita

EP191 - I'm Just Going Where He's Going

Ben is back from AirVenture and still hearing the Fisk arrival in his sleep. Two holds around the lakes, a push all the way back to Puckaway, and made it in on the third

EP190 - Nothing Like the Real Thing

This week Ben, Brian, and Ted get into IFR currency: what it actually takes to stay instrument current and ready. Six approaches, holds, tracking and intercepting nav aid

EP189 - Sport Pilot Extraordinaire

Sport pilots get treated as lesser pilots. This week the crew takes apart why, and why it does not hold up. The restrictions are real. The skill gap is not. After MOSAIC

EP188 - Go/No-Go: Honoring Your Minimums When Everyone Else Is Leaving

Ben's coming back to McCollum with his wife in the right seat and the winds at 340, 18 gusting 28, basically direct crosswind, and he's already named the two north-south

EP187 - Information Whiskey: Super Scoopers, Springer Mountain & the Bachelorette Bravo

A whiskey episode, the non-format format where we catch up, work the live chat, and let it fly. Ted spots a pair of Canadair Super Scoopers fighting fires over Utah and I

EP186 - Risk It for the Biscuit: The $300 Hamburger

Avgas hit 8.85 a gallon, so the $100 hamburger is now a $300 hamburger, and if you're renting, congratulations, it's a $1,000 hamburger. Brian, Ben, and Ted dig into how

EP185 - Flying the Long Way

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 u

EP184 - Information Whiskey: Event Events vs. Non-Event Events

Brian is hiding from CMA Fest, Ben is back from the British Virgin Islands, and Ted has finally sprung the Egg from a two-month annual. Time for an Information Whiskey ep

EP183 - "What's Time to a Hog?" — Ron Horton, DPE (Part 2 of 2)

If you haven't listened to Episode 182 yet, go back — this conversation picks up about five minutes later. Ron Horton, DPE extraordinaire, returns with the crew to finish

EP182 - "What's Time to a Hog?" with DPE Ron Horton (Pt. 1 of 2)

The crew is joined by Charlotte-based Designated Pilot Examiner Ron Horton — 60 years of flying, Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, AOPA Regional Instructor of the Year,

EP181 - Fly Like It's Your Job. Because It Kind Of Is.

Brian's got a shiny new commercial certificate, Ben just logged 25 hours in three days in a flying potato over Florida, and somehow nobody declared an emergency — so natu

EP180 - Getting Back in the Training Saddle

Ben is about to climb into a Piper Apache, which our own blog has definitively declared the official airplane of twin-engine Russian roulette, and he's doing the responsi

EP179 - Information Whiskey: Pimp the Plane or the Pilot, But You Can't Pimp Both

It's Information Whiskey time, and we're only one episode late — which, as Brian would say, is basically on time. Brian's commercial checkride is less than two weeks out,