The Pilot the Pilot podcast welcomes Cheese Pilot, an aviation enthusiast and simulator instructor, who shares his unique journey into aviation and the challenges he has faced along the way. The conversation dives into Cheese Pilot's early fascination with flying, sparked by a memorable air show event during his childhood. Despite the initial setback of financial barriers that deterred him from pursuing a pilot's license, Cheese Pilot's path took a dramatic turn when he enlisted in the Army. After serving, a serendipitous discovery of using his GI Bill for flight training led him to a successful career in aviation. However, his journey is not without challenges. The discussion highlights the complexities and frustrations of navigating the FAA’s medical certification process, particularly regarding mental health evaluations, which have affected his ability to work as a pilot. Cheese Pilot emphasizes the importance of mental health in aviation and advocates for a more supportive system that prioritizes pilots’ well-being, reflecting on how lack of understanding can lead to significant career disruptions.

Takeaways:

• The FAA's mental health evaluation process needs significant reform to be more efficient and supportive.
• Pilots often face daunting challenges when seeking help for mental health issues due to stigma and bureaucratic hurdles.
• Cheese Pilot emphasizes the importance of open conversations about mental health among aviation professionals.
• The transition from general aviation to commercial flying can be overwhelming without proper guidance and training.
• The experiences of individuals like Cheese Pilot highlight the need for greater awareness of mental health in aviation.
• Building a successful online presence can provide valuable resources and support for aspiring pilots.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Garmin
• Sirius XM Aviation
• Learn the Finer Points
• Sporty's
• Air Wisconsin
• ATP
• University of North Dakota
• Arizona State University
• Chandler Gilbert Community College
• Aeromed Legal
• Harvey Watt
• Pilots Mental Health Campaign
• RAA
• Allworth Airline Advisors

Episode 319 of the pilot the Pilot Podcast takes off now.

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To learn more, visit sporties.com sxmoffer that's sportys.com sxmoffer hey, it's a cheese pilot.

I'm a simulator instructor, but also in my free time I try to generate content and do, you know, mock checkrides for any students that are trying to make that they're prepped for their check rides.

AV Nation welcome back to the Pilot the Pilot podcast.

My name is Justin Seams and I am your host.

Today's episode is with Adrian, but everyone should know him as Cheese Pilot.

And it took me a couple minutes to kind of compose myself to say Cheese Pilot.

Welcome to the podcast.

But it was a great conversation.

You know, it took a turn that I wasn't expecting.

I, I didn't know what he was dealing with personally and what he's going through with the FAA and, and getting his medical back.

So we, we have a good long discussion and I'm not one that's qualified to make any decisions or to talk about the current status of, of the FAA and how they handle the situation that he's going through.

But I think it's a topic of conversation that needs to be brought up.

Having these conversations is very important and I think it's something that we need to continue to do.

So listen to this please and let me know what you think.

If you want to keep following along and you want to see how his fight is going to get his medical back, you can follow Cheese Pile on Instagram, train with cheese.com as well and support his channel and what he is doing.

If you don't know who Cheese Pilot is, follow him at Cheese Pile on Instagram.

He does mock orals, he does some training, he does some other stuff.

So it's really cool info to see.

And just learning about his path to where he is today and how he even got to becoming a pilot was pretty interesting.

So I think everyone should enjoy this podcast.

And without any further ado, here's Cheese Pilot.

Cheese Pilot.

What's going on, man?

Welcome to the Pilot the Pilot podcast.

How's it going?

Good, man.

You know, we were just laughing about saying Cheese Pilot versus your actual name, which you said your name was Adrian.

But you know, we're keeping an ig, we're keeping it social media so everyone can, like you said earlier, know who I'm talking to because everyone knows you as Cheese Pilot.

Yeah, the.

The name definitely stuck.

I know.

I picked it back when I was at Air Wisconsin and, you know, the name kind of made sense when I was at Air Wisconsin.

Now I just happen to be a pilot in Wisconsin.

That makes a lot of sense now.

So the chi.

I thought it was like Swiss cheese bottle, you know, falling through the cracks and I was just.

You love cheese and you live in Wisconsin, huh?

Yeah, that.

That was.

That was really it.

And I love that you bring up the Swiss cheese model because the FAA has actually like dropped that out of their aeronautical decision making.

They said it was too simple.

Yeah.

Oh, so let's make it more difficult.

Yeah.

Is that.

Well, pretty much the idea from what I've heard, the reason they kind of got rid of the Swiss cheese model was that people could make excuses like, oh, I did this tiny little thing to try and block this, but now they're changed it to the threat and error management model, which, don't get me wrong, it's extremely complicated, but once you understand it, you're like, oh, okay, so these are the things that are already in place.

And either way, yeah, when I was doing my training, they had the threat and error management model, but they also seem to include the Swiss cheese model in that.

It's like one of the parts of the threat and error management.

So it's still there, I feel like, but it's just not the sole reasoning that they fall back on.

Yep, cool.

Interesting.

Well, we never know what the FAA does for.

For why they do it.

But hey, if you're listening to this faa, we love you.

Don't do anything to me or cheese pilot.

You're the best.

Don't do anything more.

Yeah, don't hurt me, please.

Anyways, we're not here to talk about the faa.

We're not here to talk about solely the Swiss cheese model.

We're here to talk about you.

We're here to talk about your aviation journey.

So we'll go ahead and kick it off.

Why were you interested.

Interested in aviation at all?

You know, as far back as I can remember, I remember I was going to some air show with the Boy Scouts when I was like, I don't know, six or so, and some biplane did, you know, some upside down blowing smoke pass over the line of cars trying to get in to the parking lot for the air show.

And once I saw that, I was like, I want to.

I want to do those things.

And then living with my grandma in the backyard of her house, they.

It was right in the departure path from Salt Lake City.

And, you know, I hate being this old, but I'm old enough that when airplanes took off, even if you didn't live right in the departure path, if you lived, you know, a couple miles away from the airport, you could still hear them.

So, you know, I remember hearing Those loud like, MD 80s and whatnot back when those things were still in operation and running out into the backyard so I could watch airplanes take off.

But, you know, when I was a teenager and I went to my parents saying, you know, hey, I want to be a pilot, they pretty much laughed at me saying, yeah, we ain't got that kind of money.

Good luck, kid.

Yeah, yeah, good luck.

No, go find something else.

So, yeah, I mean, that's really why I wanted to be a pilot.

Just because I.

That one little air show event and then running into the backyard looking at airplanes.

You know, I always wanted to do it from then.

Yeah, well, how did you go from the kid that's looking up at the planes that has parents that are like, you know, maybe we can't afford this to actually becoming a pilot.

So if I'm going to be frank about it, I had pretty much given up at that point when my parents were like, yeah, we're poor, we're not.

That's not happening.

So I.

I went to go learn how to be a mechanic.

I was actually building race cars.

You know, I built A couple Beetles that could do less than 10 seconds down the quarter mile, believe it or not.

So I was kind of out of a job and I said, screw it, I'll go join the Army.

You know, my mom was in the army, my, all of my stepdads were in the army.

So I'm like, ah, it's always my, you know, screw it, let's go be a stripper move.

Really, it was, it was, it was kind of like a last ditch effort, like, hey, I, you know, I need to do something to keep the bills paid.

So I went and did that, went to Afghanistan, came back without a scratch on me, you know, not for their lack of trying, and then tore my acl and they pretty much told me, well, you can't be infantry anymore, so bye Felicia.

So I ended up leaving the, the army because you know, again, tear your ACL, you can't really do 12 mile, 14 mile ruck marches with an 80 pound backpack anymore.

So I was looking around for know something, anything to do.

I, you know, when I was in Afghanistan, my brother sold all my mechanic tools for meth.

So I couldn't, I couldn't go back to turning wrenches.

So I, I ended up working at Geek Squad for a while until I dropped somebody off for, I think it was a Frontier flight was what they were getting on.

So, you know, anybody who doesn't know Frontier sometimes flies out of some strange airports, not necessarily like the O'Hares, the Atlanta and stuff like that.

So I saw a sign that said use your GI Bill here to become a pilot.

And I'm like, that's, that's an option.

I did, I didn't even realize that you could use your GI Bill to become a pilot.

And for those of you who don't know that aren't, you know, veteran affiliated, military affiliated, GI Bill is pretty much a benefit that, you know, service members get that pays for 36 months of school.

You get like a little housing stipend, but it pretty much pays for you to go get a bachelor's degree after you get out.

So I was sitting on my GI Bill going, what do I do with this thing?

It's a lot of money that's going to pay for whatever education I decide that I want to go for.

And then I find out that money's not a barrier to entry for being a pilot anymore.

So I believe it or not, was looking at a couple different schools at that point.

I realized that that flight school that I saw that sign at, I don't even remember the name of it, but it was a part 61 school.

And if you use your GI bill for a part 61 school, they pay like 20 grand a year.

And for anybody who's gone through flight training knows that 20 grand a year is not going to get you to a professional pilot level.

Not at all.

Not at all.

With how long it took me to get private pilot, it would have pretty much taken my entire GI bill to go part 61.

So I started looking at other flight schools and I was settled on University of North Dakota initially.

And not being in aviation, not not having friends or family in aviation.

I didn't know anything about the University of North Dakota.

I didn't know that it was one of the most renowned flight schools in the world, let alone the country.

So, you know, I was looking at it, trying to do research, trying to dig into it, until I found a website that.

The website's been taken down since now, but I found a website that called undsucks.com and it was a bunch of reviews about how bad their flight training program is and how much it's going to cost you and how you're not going to make it through.

You're going to end up using, you know, all your resources.

So I thought me, as a fresh student pilot that doesn't know anything about aviation, if someone's willing to pay to keep a website up that calls called undsucks.com, it must suck.

Critical thinking right there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like, given all the available resources I have, if someone's willing to spend the money that it takes to keep this website up, there must be some validity to it as opposed to it just being somebody that was salty that didn't make it through private pilot.

So I went to Arizona State University for two reasons, really.

Because they had a big flight training program.

It had a bachelor's degree.

They were taking the GI Bill.

But also at that time, apparently the VA was cutting them blank checks for their flight training.

Like they never even had to go instruct because the VA was cutting a blank check and veterans were able to just rent the plane and go fly.

I show up and three days before the semester starts, they call all the veterans in and tell us that the VA isn't paying them anymore because they're tired of how much it's costing.

They want us to meet.

Believe it or not, und's Model.

No way.

Yes, because they.

Apparently there was a flight school up in Southern Utah that did private pilot for helicopter in a turbine helicopter.

Oh, dang.

That was so lots of money.

Yeah, it was about half a million dollars for private pilot.

Yeah.

So when the VA cut that check, they were like, all right, we gotta.

We got.

Why is UND's private pilot program 20 grand, 30 grand.

But this one's 50 and ASU is 80.

Like, what's going on?

We need to figure out some way to like, standardize these payment structures.

I mean, it makes sense, right?

Like, you don't want your tax money going to something in their private and freaking turbine for 500 grand.

Exactly, exactly.

So the VA went to ASU and said, hey, like, we need you to meet UND's payment style.

UND they.

They release the average.

Like it.

How.

How many hours on average it takes somebody to go through each course, and then they charge that to the.

To Veterans Fair.

That seems fair.

Outside looking.

Seems fair.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I mean, exactly.

They're paying for the average, they're not paying for the minimum.

Right, right.

And they.

The VA went to asu, and ASU says, hahaha, we're asu, you're not going to tell us how to run our program.

And the VA said, haha, we let people die on waiting lists.

And then they cut them off and they didn't tell the veterans until like three days before the semester started that they had to go find new funding.

So a bunch of veterans went to the news, and ASU pretty much said, hey, hey, hey, hey, we'll cover you for a semester.

This is our bad.

Our bad.

We'll cover you for one semester for your flight training.

But beyond that, you got to go find your own funding if we haven't solved our problem with the VA.

So I did one semester at ASU, where I ended up getting something like 70, 80 hours, and ASU partnered with ATP.

So all of my flight training was technically with ATP, but all of my ground training was with ASU for private pilot.

Okay.

Yeah, it was a really weird program because if you got ahead on your flight training, you ended up, like, recovering stuff in ground school or your instructor was having to kind of like fill the gaps since you hadn't gotten there in ground school.

Either way, interesting.

Their program has changed.

Now, this is just my experience, but after that one semester, ASU hadn't solved their kerfuffle with the VA.

But right next door to ASU's aviation campus was Chandler Gilbert Community College in partnership with und.

Why is UND just following you around like a black cloud?

They're like, oh, you think we suck, huh?

We'll watch this.

We're gonna get you.

And they eventually did.

They eventually did.

I ended up, you know, because I didn't know what to do.

I had sold all of my stuff.

But before this, you know, I was.

I was, as I said, I was working at Geek Squad up in New York.

I was racing drones in New York making okay money.

And I ended up selling all of my drones so I could go be a real pilot.

And, you know, couldn't go back to that.

Couldn't.

You know, I.

I didn't have the money to go back to where I was, to get the job back, so I had to figure something out.

So I.

I hopped on next door to Chandler Gilbert Community College in partnership with und and went through their entire program.

And it was.

To be honest, it was an absolutely wonderful program.

It was a lot more structured than my experience with ASU partnering with ATP.

The.

The.

I don't know.

What.

What else could I really say?

It was a better program, at least compared to.

To what I was experiencing at ASU at the time.

You know, I'm not trying to badmouth asu.

No.

In their flight training or anything.

I just had a better time at Chandler Gilbert Community College.

I made a lot of friends.

Yeah.

And then I instructed there.

I became a check pilot for their private pilot and instrument stage checks.

I wanted to become a spin pilot, but they said no.

I don't know why.

We don't like your beard.

You can't do it.

That might have been it.

I know.

When I went and did my spin training, I had an absolute blast.

I thought it was the most fun in the world.

But, yeah, after that, I instructed for a little over a year and decided I'm gonna go be a big boy pilot and I'm gonna go fly the airlines.

And I got a job at Air Wisconsin.

It was between Mesa and Air Wisconsin.

And I mean, anybody who's kind of been perusing the regional market right now knows, well, right now they're pretty much willing to take what they can get.

But back when I was looking at regionals, you know, instructors kind of had options.

I mean, don't get me wrong, my options were Air Wisconsin and Mesa.

So they weren't great options, but options nonetheless.

But I.

There were.

There were options.

And Air Wisconsin, for me, at least, wasn't.

It wasn't as bad of an option as Mesa.

Mesa would have kept me in Arizona.

My significant other had just gotten a job at a different regional which based them in Chicago.

So I was like, okay, well, if I get Air Wisconsin.

Air Wisconsin's based in Chicago and Milwaukee.

And I think at the time it was Dulles was.

Was their.

Their other base.

So I took the job at Air Wisconsin and spent three years on reserve.

It.

It wasn't great, but I learned a lot.

The CRJ200 is a fun airplane to fly.

Let it retire the lawn dart.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.

It is tired.

But after the three years there, Wisconsin, my wife had gotten captain at the regional she was working at.

So I was like, ah, I'm done here at Air Wisconsin.

I'm not making progress.

My wife's captain at that other regional.

Let me throw my app in and I can just be her first officer, and we can just pick up a bunch of trips and make good money.

Because at the time, our schedules were so mismatched and never lining up.

We ended up getting, like.

There was one month where we got like 36 hours together.

Solid, dude.

Life of a pilot, man.

It's glamorous, right?

Yeah.

Yep.

Some of the stuff they don't tell you when you're going through training and you just see, hey, this first officer is making 100 grand.

I could do that.

Exactly.

The only problem is they're getting eight days off a month and they're living in a crash pad, and they've had their base changed four times in the last two years.

It's not personal, though.

It's not personal.

No, no.

None of it's personal.

And I mean, that.

That's.

Yeah.

But as I was in training for.

Or Right.

As when I picked the jet that she was on because she was on the 145, she called me and told me she got a job at a major airlines.

Now I'm stuck on the 145.

I mean, one.

Good for you guys.

All right.

Like, that actually shows progress.

We're making it.

We're doing it.

But like, hey, I came here for you.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, it's.

It's.

It's not a bad deal.

You know, she got at one of the highest paying major airlines, so we're doing fine.

So I decided after a little over a year at.

At that regional, the one that I moved over to for her, they were trying to displace me.

They were.

What a displacement is, is they're.

They're trying to force you from where you are like what seat you're in into a different seat.

And they were trying to displace me from fairly senior 145 fo to as junior as you can get 175 captain.

There would have been 99.9% of the seniority list above me.

And I pretty much told him, I was like, I can't, I can't do that.

I'll have, hey, your pay is going to be great.

You're like, yeah, but I'm never going to get a day off.

Exactly.

And that's kind of what they told me is they're like, the pay is great.

You know, you're going to make 175 grand a year.

And me and my wife talked about it.

I was like, yeah, I'll make 175 grand a year.

They're also paying something like a, like a $75,000 bonus.

You know, we'll be able to pay off the airplane and you know, put avionics in it.

And then she responded, what for you to never fly it because you're never home?

And I'm like, checks, checks.

So I told Envoy, I was like, hey, I'm, I'm not willing to, I'm not willing to be displaced.

You know, I, I came here for this base, I came here for this jet.

For me to be displaced, it's gonna absolutely decimate any semblance of quality of life that I've got.

Can you at the very least guarantee me the fact that I'll be in Dallas for more than six months?

And they were like, no, we can't.

I was like, okay, well I can't sign a six month lease, so I quit.

They're like, wait, wait, yeah, we've never had anyone quit before.

Don't you know what you're giving up?

And that's kind of the conversation.

They were like, this is a lot of money.

Like what, what do we need to do to like, like.

Because at that point they were losing a bunch of their pilots to the majors.

Nobody was wanting to upgrade.

That's why I was getting displaced to captain because nobody wanted to lose their quality of life.

And that's pretty much what I told him.

I was like, sorry, I enjoyed the quality of life that I had.

I, I had a decent amount of days off.

The amount of money that you're going to be pay isn't worth the fact that I will maybe get 48 hours home a month for the next five years.

So after that I went and flew for the Department of Natural Resources.

Actually, that was an absolute blast.

I flew a Cessna 185 as a 300, 350 horsepower tail dragger.

That's awesome.

Sounds like.

Get a lot of trouble in that thing.

Oh, it was.

It was an absolute blast.

A lot of it was just going out looking for evidence of a fire to prevent it from, you know, burning down an entire forest.

But also it was like counting beaver dams, counting eagle nests, trying to see how many eggs you can see in the eagle nest to see if eagles are, you know, repopulating, see if they're endangered and whatnot.

Would you.

Absolutely.

Would you have someone in the plane with you from there to help you spot?

Okay.

Because when I was flying freight, we had a contract with.

With.

I flew freight Northeast Ohio.

We had a contract with Pennsylvania with their kind of wild.

And they would use our caravans.

We'd have a firefighter in the back.

We'd fly around, like, our certain sections.

They would see smoke, we'd go circle it.

They'd put a TFR in and they'd call the cops, they'd call the fire department, they call everyone, and then boom, they're there to put it out immediately.

So I didn't know if it was something similar to that.

Oh, well.

So when it came to fire, that was all on us.

You know, we didn't have the.

We didn't have the equipment to put out the fire.

We would end up calling the air bosses from Minnesota.

Yeah.

I think either way, we'd end up calling air bosses or the National Guard if we needed it, if the local fire department couldn't handle it.

But when it came to, like, the wildlife stuff.

Yeah, we'd have somebody that could actually identify the difference between an eagle and a duck.

Because, I mean, I'm flying an airplane, I'm like, that's a flappy thing.

Eagle.

It's got wings.

It's got wings.

Yeah.

Well, there was one time we took out the 337, the Cessna 337.

And they were like, we're going to go count skulls.

And I'm like, okay, well, there's one.

They're like, no, that's a duck.

It was like, what?

How can you tell?

What's what?

Like, how can you tell?

Yeah, like.

Yeah, there's like 20 of them right there.

I'm like, ah, it looks like 15 to me.

How do you know?

Yeah, I count 17, boss.

Sorry.

Yeah, so that one was.

That one was interesting.

But, you know, we.

When it came to the wildlife stuff, a lot of times we would have Like a biologist or you know, somebody specialized in that animal in the back or even in the front, depending on, you know, if they got motion sick or whatnot.

It always blows my mind the different types of ways you can either build time, make money or actually fly in aviation.

It's like you never thought that was an option, right?

Especially someone coming from the airlines, like, oh, what am I going to do next?

So I'm going to go spot wildlife.

You know, it's just like never comes through your mind that that's an option.

It's really like how, how did that job even come to?

Was it recommended?

Were you just like on Google?

Like obscure pilot jobs that no one has ever thought of and boom.

Wildlife.

You know, when I got the displacement order, I started looking on like USAjobs.com or.gov which is, it's, it's a website for again like veterans or military affiliates, for lack of a better way to put it, to get preferential hiring.

Because a lot of these jobs, they get, they get put out into like the government sector first before they get put out to the public.

So I'm literally just sitting in the right seat of the 145 waiting to depart, you know, after all my pre flight stuff is all done.

Scrolling through USAjobs.gov and they're like, Wildlife Pilot, DNR Pilot.

And I'm like, what's that?

So I tap it and they're just like, these are your tasks.

You're gonna go count ducks, you're gonna go look for fires, you're gonna go search and rescue.

You know, I think they even described it as like a bush pilot position, you know.

And I went and did the interview and don't get me wrong, the interview, you know, I'm over here on the east side of Wisconsin.

The interview was literally as far west in Wisconsin as you can go.

So it was something like a five hour drive for me to get to this interview.

And yeah, they showed me all about what the job is.

You know, they had like antennas and stuff to track animals that had, you know, trackers on them for, to try and keep track of like wolf packs and moose and all this other jazz.

And I'm just like, so I get to fly around and protect endangered species and, and help with the park systems and when we're not flying, I get to go and volunteer to help clean up at the parks.

I, I mean I already do that in my free time, so I might as well get paid to do it.

So.

Yeah.

And then eventually the money just ran out.

Typical government jobs.

Yep, yep.

They, the money ran out.

When I was working there.

They had me working on a, a drone program because, you know, I had the experience with drones and I think that's the way that they decided to go because they were just spending so much money keeping that aviation program up.

Right before I left, they, they had just bought a 182 and they spent, I think they spent like 210 grand on a 182 that needed an overhaul and a new prop.

I'm like, should ask me first.

I'm like, that's a, like that.

I'm genuinely surprised that the FAA gave you the ferry permit to get that home.

Did you get a ferry permit?

Like, is this.

I was like, so after that I, you know, got picked up or, you know, I got picked up by an ultra low cost carrier that has a base near me that has their pilots home every night.

I went through the training with them.

And you know, for those of you who might been, you know, who might have been following what I'm kind of going through right now, I got picked up by them.

And then when I went to go renew my medical, there was some stuff from Afghanistan that I guess got brought up that doesn't correlate to anything in my VA record.

So I've been spending about the last two years working through the FAA's process of a deferral denial and then, you know, reapply for medical certificate and all my paperwork's in.

We're just waiting about another from the FAA's estimate, four to seven months.

So two years.

Another two years.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's rough.

But that's, that's kind of what's gotten me to, to here to this point where, you know, I'm making content, doing mock check rides, trying to make it so that, trying, trying to put out approachable, reasonable content to help people through, whether it be private pilot, instrument, commercial, CFI, et cetera.

It sounds like in the 27 minutes we've been talking, it's like you're open.

You, it seems like you have a good attitude toward what's coming.

Like you try to look at the bright side of it.

I may be wrong, but some of the things that you're talking about, especially being displaced and going from kind of like you're on your dream track, right?

You're at the regional.

The regional has a flow.

The flows to a major, like, you see your life kind of playing out and then you, you make the tough decision to say it's not worth the money and you, and you, and you drop it.

Then you find a job flying wildlife.

But that itself is kind of an ego hit.

It hurts, you know, because you're on the track and then you go back away from the track.

Can you talk a little bit about facing that and talking about was it harder than it made it sound?

Was it, was it an easy decision?

Kind of talk a little bit about that.

So if I'm going to be honest, if I didn't have a reason to come home, I'd have been more than happy to get displaced.

I eventually got a reason to come home kind of thing.

So when I was offered a way to continue flying, my significant others, making plenty of money.

When I got offered a position to continue flying and protect the environment, the parks that I love and enjoy up here in Wisconsin, it wasn't an ego hit.

It was more of a.

It kind of gave purpose to flying again.

Because as a regional pilot, you know, there's times like, where are you going today?

And I'm like, I don't know.

I put the letters in the box and we go, you know, there, there was times where I would do, you know, six legs a day.

And it was back and forth.

Chicago, Milwaukee.

It's rough, dude, especially, it's like, that's.

Yeah.

And, you know, I don't get me wrong, I know it gets better.

I know you eventually start going to cool, interesting places.

You know, my, my wife, she flies to Anchorage a couple times a month, you know, now that she's at the major.

But if we were both on that track, we'd never see each other.

Right.

So now on the, you know, what we're currently doing, you know, even when I do get my medical back, like, I don't, I don't even really know if I'm honestly going to go back to it.

I enjoy what I'm doing.

I enjoy going out and flying with Dirtbag and making videos.

I enjoy teaching.

I know when I was an instructor, you know, I kind of talked down on it.

I was like, this sucks.

I'm going to go be a big boy pilot.

I'm going to go fly jets.

But now, you know, every time I get the opportunity to teach, every time I see that kind of light bulb moment with a student, I'm just like, yes, there it is.

Let's go.

You know, and, and I'm one of those weirdos that actually enjoys teaching.

One of those weirdos that actually enjoys instructing.

It's not a, it's not a Means to an end.

It's not to get my hours.

It's not.

I actually enjoy teaching, and I.

And I hope that comes across in, like, all the videos and whatnot that I do.

Teaching students, do you think you would.

Ever come back to teaching if it wasn't for kind of your tracks?

So let's say you take the displacement, you're now at a major airline, you're doing your thing.

Do you think you would eventually be where you are today, either making content or even instructing?

I feel like I would, given that, you know, once you get on that track, you end up getting that quality of life back.

It just takes years to get there.

And, you know, it's kind of a dice roll on whether you ever get there, you know, my significant other, she was lucky she got hired.

I mean, don't get me wrong, she wasn't necessarily lucky.

She was qualified.

But the point in which she got hired, that, yes, exactly.

The timing made it so that within the next year, she ended up with 50% of the company underneath her on the seniority list.

If I was to try and jump back in today, I would have 98% of the company above me, especially now that hiring is slowing, is slowing down.

You know, in the next few years, we're going to see a lot of.

A lot of, you know, 65s drop off.

But at least from what I've seen, you know, reading Arrow Crew news and all those, you know, looking through the forums and whatnot, they've gotten the backfill, they have the pipeline.

Sure.

If I eventually want to go back and fly big jets, it's an option, but I think I'd rather go back and teach how to fly big jets like I'm doing right now teaching in the Airbus 320 SIM.

And then they figure it out.

You know, you.

You bridge that gap between what they were doing and what they want to do.

I think that's more rewarding than flying to Paris in a wide body any day.

Yeah, rewarding.

I could see that.

But then you go to Paris, you know, you get your.

You get your coffee, you have your place you want to go to, you have your wine bar that you always go to.

You know, there's perks to it, too.

They're definitely there.

Definitely is.

Yeah.

But I don't know.

I enjoy my little fluffy cats more than Paris.

I think it's awesome.

I mean, I think it's really cool.

Because that's what aviation is, right?

Aviation is a way for you.

And I think a lot of airline pilots, myself included, especially when I flew at my last job, I was a fractional pilot.

So similar ish to a regional pilot with some days that are much better than a regional pilot, but have the days that you feel like a regional pilot, if that makes sense.

But it kind of wears you out.

Right.

Like, you have this goal.

You see someone that's 60, 55, living your dream, flying to Paris on a wide body, making ungodly amounts of money.

But there's such a disconnect in how long that's going to take for you to get there.

Right.

So you think when you get to the airlines, life's good.

They beat you down, they work you hard, they.

They get their money out of you.

Right.

You're paying your dues and you kind of lose the love of flying.

And a lot of people come to the situation or come to the moment that you're at.

Where is it worth me getting displaced when I have a life at home that I like and I'm not going to be there?

And you got to make the choice, you know, you're going to be miserable and just say, hey, this is the path that I'm going to go down.

This is what I signed up for.

It's going to get better, which it might get better.

Right.

Very well.

Two years, three years could get better.

But you have to make that choice.

And I think it's really commendable that you made that choice.

And you're like, my quality life, my sanity and my wife is worth it to kind of step back and figure it out.

And it sounds like you found kind of your love for flying again and your love for teaching, which it really worked out for you.

Exactly.

And I mean, don't get me wrong, you know, if my, if my spouse or my wife hadn't gotten that job at the major airline.

Yeah.

No, that wouldn't have been an option.

Right.

It had been like, oh, I'm getting displaced.

Well, that sucks.

Yeah.

Guess we won't see each other anymore.

I guess I'm going to Dallas.

Yeah.

But, you know, the fact that she, you know, worked hard and got from zero to major airline in seven years.

Yeah.

The fact that she was able to accomplish that is.

Is what gave me the opportunity to go, to take a step back to fall back in love with aviation.

To fall back in love with flying, you know, small airplanes.

To go back to teaching because, I mean, I prefer teaching over swinging gear and sitting in cruise for four hours any day.

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely something to it.

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And now back to today's episode.

Uh, I want to go back to flight training for you, especially now.

Kind of give advice of what you would say to young Cheese pilot when you probably didn't go by Cheese pilot back then, but we're just going to say you always went by Cheese Pilot since that's your name.

What would you, what did you learn from that?

With like your initial, I'm going to go to North Dakota.

Oh, wait, North Dakota sucks.

I'm going to go to Arizona State.

Oh, crap.

The G or the VA isn't going to pay for this anymore.

Then you find another program.

What would you recommend to someone that maybe has a GI bill is in your position?

How could they?

Is it possible to avoid what you went through with choosing one, then getting the VA kind of saying, hey, we're not funding this anymore.

Kind of just talk about what you learned and what you'd recommend someone in that situation to go through her to.

Decide, try and what I, what I would definitely recommend is go to your local airport and hang out.

A lot of times the FBOs are more than happy.

Now, of course, I'm not saying go to Chicago O'Hare, you know, or even Midway and just hang out.

That's how you get put on a list.

But, you know, find that local regional airport that's got a flight school, go take a Discovery flight, talk to people about it, get on, you know, Facebook, reach out to people like me.

I respond to every single message that shows up on my Instagram, my TikTok, my YouTube.

I do my best to respond to.

Every single one responded to me.

So I'd had fun with the AI for a little bit.

I recently turned that off because of it.

It just wasn't working.

But so I personally, you know, I don't do the AI thing anymore, but I personally try to respond to every single message I get.

So if you've got questions about the GI Bill, about going through your flight training, reach out, ask.

The worst they can do is ignore you.

Yeah.

So I definitely say do your best to find firsthand experiences, firsthand advice, as opposed to trusting a random person with a WIX website.

And, I mean, if.

I'm just going to be frank about it, just go to.

Go to und.

If you've got your GI Bill and you're looking for a place to go get your flight training done, go to und.

It's.

It's a great program.

You'll.

You'll finish the program and most likely get a position there.

I'm not gonna, obviously not going to guarantee a position at und.

That's not something I can do.

But, you know, if you're a good instructor, if you pass all your check rides, or if you're a good student, you pass all your check rides on the first try and all that other jazz.

They have a program that they call preferential hiring.

I'm not entirely sure how it works, but what I'm getting at is that if you have a GI Bill, just go to UND and go through their program and take a job as an instructor with them and make your decision on.

On your quality of life.

You know, how much money do you really want slash need?

You know, because I got a buddy who stayed at UND and became a.

Oh, he became an assistant chief.

And when I was slogging it at Air Wisconsin going, is this worth it?

Oh, my God, this sucks.

He was flying a King Air with students making 75 grand a year.

Yeah.

And he was home every night.

This isn't how it was supposed to work out.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And the only reason he didn't go to the airlines is he wasn't old enough for an ATP.

Oh, geez.

He wasn't old enough for an ATP certificate, so he just stayed at UND down in Arizona and eventually became an assistant chief and started teaching in the King Air and teaching at ground school.

He was home every night.

He made his own schedule.

Sure.

He's not.

If he was to stay, he wouldn't eventually make the 4 or 500 grand a year that, you know, Delta, FedEx and UPS pilots make.

But he's home every night.

Yeah.

Especially when you have kids.

You realize how important that is.

You know me pre kids, even when my wife's a doctor, so she works all the time, she's finishing up a residency.

But it was just weird as grinding, right?

It's like, oh, it doesn't matter if I work blah x amount of times because we're both working on a shared goal.

But then you have a kid and you're like, you know, I would rather make less and be home as much as possible.

It's like, especially for the young part of his life, it's like, I do not want to miss a single thing why I'm this kid's hero.

It's one of the reasons why I came to the airlines.

Counterintuitive.

I went, I left my last job where I was getting some seniority and came here just so I have the ability to.

Eventually, when I get more senior and hopefully they start hiring again more, hopefully I'll have the ability to create my own schedule essentially.

You know, obviously I'm not going to get everything I want, but it gives me more time at home.

So that was the goal.

And that's what I'm hoping will happen.

Maybe one day I'll be working for Cheese Pie.

I'd be like, dude, I want to be what you're doing.

So, yeah, it's.

Yeah.

Oh, you know, believe.

It's hilarious that you bring that up.

I actually did just bring someone on board to help me kind of fill out a backlog or fill in a backlog of, you know, so many students wanting, you know, mock check rides and tutoring and whatnot.

And, you know, it's, it's, it's been great actually having somebody to help, I bet.

So that's not outside the realm of possibility.

You know what's funny is when I was kind of not necessarily making money with the podcast, just like having my roadmap thinking where I wanted to be.

I always thought it'd be really cool to have a website where I have vetted instructors and you could sign up for an instructor and book off a 45 minute mock oral or even just a lesson.

Because, you know, when you're training, your instructor learns your weaknesses and learns your strengths.

So the questions they ask could kind of push you in a way that how they know to get the right answer when you go in for your check ride, they don't.

That's not going to happen.

They're just going to ask you the question or they're going to ask you questions in different order and be completely different.

Talking with someone that you don't have a Relationship with that.

You don't know if your jokes will make them laugh.

You feel very uncomfortable.

Is that overcoming that is almost one of the hardest parts of the checkride.

Right.

There's trying to be calm in that moment.

So I always thought that was going to be super beneficial.

So it's cool that you're doing that.

It's cool that you're doing the mock check rides.

I watch them.

I.

It's funny how much you forget when, you know, you're at the airline part.

I'm like, you asked a question.

I was like.

And the guy's like, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, oh, wow.

If I fly small planes, I need to read a lot of stuff again, which I don't think a lot of airline pilots realize.

They probably still think it's just in the brain, but it's like, dude, I don't remember much about being a private pilot, but I think it's cool, especially since my only resource was a video that was made on YouTube.

You probably watched it too, but it's like this really old stuffy guy with big glasses, but in like a mock world check ride.

And I'd watch that thing religiously.

So having the opportunity to watch the check rides, I think is pretty cool.

Yep.

And.

And that's.

That's kind of why I started doing them, because I realized that there was.

There was that huge gap in the content.

Right.

There was that huge gap in studying material that there was, you know, that one ancient video that was probably recorded on a VHS tape that was then digitized, that was then, you know, uploaded to YouTube, you know, two days after YouTube started.

It's the second video ever made.

Exactly.

But, you know, so.

So I realized that it could be used as a great tool for.

For other people, you know, to watch these.

And that's what a lot of the comments are, is.

I put.

I put this playlist on repeat and just listen for any kind of question.

Listen for anything.

I don't understand.

Pause it for when I need to, you know, think about it.

But on that, that note of, you know, you being an airline pilot and then, you know, hearing some of these questions and not knowing it.

That was when I taught my wife how to fly our seaplane.

I.

I definitely.

That was.

That was when I really recognized that airline pilots do get out of the habit of all those things that you learn and study and whatnot.

Going through private pilot.

Because this is such a huge gap between flying that Cessna 150 or flying a Lake 200 and flying a 737, 100.

Yeah.

And it's, It's.

It's interesting to see because, you know, when I still had my medical before I was, you know, dealing with this, with the faa, I did teach a couple, you know, retired airline pilots that spent 40 years flying a wide body or what have you, and now they want to go back to general aviation, and they all want to flare at 75ft, and none of them know what a tomato flames is.

So it's.

It's interesting to see how you spend all this time and effort and money studying and learning all of these things, and then when you finally make it, you just brain dump it.

Yep.

Because it doesn't really apply to that wide body or that 7:3 or that 320 that you end up getting in.

Not as much.

Damn.

When you.

We're talking about the medical a little bit.

How would you.

Are you.

Are you frustrated with the process?

Do you understand why it's taking so long?

Is it something that is.

Is affecting you more than maybe you let on?

Or has it been like a.

Are you not as worried about it because you have found something that you love to do?

So initially, you know, when the.

The AME was like, hey, you know, X, Y, and Z, we're gonna have to defer this.

Yeah, that was a rough couple days.

Like, I can't.

I can't really argue or even try to, you know, play that off, that it sucked.

You know, I'm.

I'm looking at my bills.

I'm looking at, you know, my mortgage, my airplane payment, my insurance for my airplane.

You know, I'm looking at all of these bills that I've got in front of me that, that, you know, I had budgeted for.

Yeah.

And now I'm being told like, hey, because of something from a decade ago that you weren't aware of, your career's in jeopardy.

I'm like, okay, what?

And it sucked.

You know, I did everything I could to try and those first few days, few weeks, I did everything I could to try and track down where those records even came from, because I still haven't been able to find them.

They're their Department of Defense records that I don't have access to.

So I'm really confused how the FAA does.

Not saying that they shouldn't.

I'm just saying that, you know, if I would have known they existed, it would have been a reported event 10 years ago.

As opposed to yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

As opposed, you know, it would have been a self report as opposed to finding out about it.

A decade into my career now, as I've continued to go through the process, it's.

It's incredibly frustrating.

It's.

It's incredibly arduous.

You know, I went to therapy in Afghanistan, or I talked to somebody in Afghanistan because my platoon sergeant abandoned me in Kabul.

Like, that was it.

I talked to somebody about difficult experiences in my life.

And now you can't have a medical.

To go fly an airplane.

And I'm like, that's.

That's really odd.

And because of that, the FAA made me go and get checked for, what was it?

Parkinson's?

I'm like, what?

Yeah.

Where's the correlation between talking to someone in Parkinson's?

Exactly.

And that's kind of been.

The frustrating thing is because, like, they.

They stamp this.

You got to go get a neurocog on anybody that's had, you know, some kind of mental health treatment, whether it be therapy, et cetera, medication.

They.

They just like, not Neurocog.

And that neurocog is.

It's expensive, and there's a personality test in it, which, you know, sure, we're checking you to make sure that you don't have, you know, some kind of weird deviancy or whatnot that's going to be a detriment to the national airspace system or passengers or whatnot.

I get that.

But then they're also checking, like, IQ like, one of the questions they asked me was like, who wrote Alice in Wonderland?

I'm like, jeff, I have no idea who wrote Alice in Wonderland.

I know Johnny Depp was in the movie, right?

That.

Like, Johnny Depp in the movie.

Yeah, but, like.

And that's just the weird thing is because, yeah, they want to make sure that, you know, I'm.

I'm.

I don't have any men, you know, mental handicaps or, you know, reduced mental faculties, but I'd be willing to bet that 80% of pilots over 62 wouldn't have passed that test.

You know, and.

And that's kind of the frustrating part.

And it's.

It really gets frustrating when you've got.

Because at this point, I've got something like 11 or 12 doctors that have all written letters to the FAA saying, put him in the game, coach.

He is not a risk to the national airspace system.

And I'm still going to be waiting.

You know, the original.

The original wait time was six to nine months.

Now it's been two months since then.

So it's just.

I just wish that the system was a little bit more streamlined and that they would.

When it comes to mental health, they would trust the treating physician.

Yeah, that, that's all it would take is the treating physician to say, yeah, we've checked this guy.

Here's the, the record of care showing that there is no evidence of concern over X, Y and Z time period.

Even the FAA can set the time period.

You know, if the FAA wants you to be clear from X, Y and z symptoms for 2 years, 5 years, 4 years, etc.

And then you trust the treating physician to make that determination, we could really streamline this process because at this point, like, I, I'm going to an AME in Seattle once a year, you know, or I'm meeting with them every six months.

I actually have to fly out to them once every other appointment for them to go.

We're waiting on the faa.

It's really frustrating and I get it.

It's, you know, it's a government agency.

They're, they're working with government budgets.

They're, they're, they have, they have a pretty large task at hand to verify that pilots are fit and safe.

But if we can trust a treating physician to clear a pilot from a broken arm or even cancer, I, I don't understand why therapy has to be treated so much differently.

Are there any resources that are out there for, for help with you?

Like, I know AOPA has some stuff, but I don't know how far they go.

You know, I just know that they have, like, hey, this is the process.

Do I help you with?

Like, is there any resource that you have?

Is it.

Do you reach out to an aviation lawyer?

What are you kind of going through?

How are you navigating through this?

Just personal research or what are you doing?

So my, the airline that I was with, the ultra low cost carrier that I was with, I'm technically still on the seniority list for them, believe it or not.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah.

I've got amazing seniority now, but I'm, I'm technically on the seniority list for them.

And they use a company called Harvey Watt.

Yeah.

And Harvey Watt is, I guess, a bunch of retired doctors from Cami, from the Civil Aeronautical Medical Institute that know the process because they were the ones doing the process.

So they've helped me through a lot of this.

Who then?

For people who aren't necessarily.

I'm gonna do a little plug real quick.

For those who aren't necessarily affiliated with an airline that has, you know, something like Harvey Watt or Amass or even alpa, I think, has their own little thing.

There's a group that I was working with, not as them helping me, but as in me trying to, you know, help them get notoriety and whatnot.

Aeromed Legal, it's, it's free.

I hate to, to explain them like this way, but it's free.

Harvey Watt for those who can't afford Harvey Watt.

There you go.

They, that's their entire deal is you call them and you explain your situation and they say, hey, you don't need us to like do X, Y and Z, but here's these links for you to, to fill out these forms.

These are the, the pre, filled out forms that the FAA is expecting you to provide them, even though they don't tell you that they want those forms.

You know, it's, it's, it's things like at one point the FAA wanted me to, to go to the VA and, and get something, but they gave me something like 90 days to do it.

And any veteran knows you're not going to get an appointment with the VA within 90 days.

If you didn't have Harvey Watt, you would go, well, what the hell am I supposed to do?

And then you'd pass that 90 days.

The FAA would send you a denial letter saying you didn't comply with our instructions, have a nice day, try to reapply.

And it would turn into a whole, whole slew.

It could end up in an NTSB hearing and whatnot.

But really what Harvey Watt explained to me was, oh, we just need to send him a letter asking for an extension.

And it was that simple.

It was a one page form saying, hey, we can't get an appointment within this time frame.

This is the appointment.

Can we get an extension for 30 days?

And the FAA responded, of course, yeah, it's super simple.

Why wouldn't we do that?

Yeah, but they don't tell you that.

It's weird.

And that's really what Aeromed Legal is there for, so that you don't end up in that whole slew of possible NTSB hearing and all this other jazz from that denial, all because all you needed to do was send them a letter for a 30 day extension.

You sound like the type of person that thinks about how to fix things, how to fix processes.

Have you theorized, thought about what you would do to change the faa, to change this process?

Or are you pretty much just so done with this, you just want the medical back and you're gonna just go back and just never talk to him again?

Never talk about him again?

You know, I kind of have to caveat this with the faa actually diagnosed Me as well.

I don't know if I want to say diagnosed.

If you look at the paperwork the FAA sent me, their reason for denial was narcissistic personality traits, believe it or not.

So I try not to say, hey, I know how to fix this, because that sounds like a narcissist.

But what I do know is that there's a group called Pilots Mental Health Campaign that is partnering with.

Was it representative cast in.

Okay, yeah.

Representative cast in.

To try and get a bill forward to.

To try and do things like get rid of the neurocog for.

For therapy, to.

To allow treatment of basic symptoms, to.

To get the.

To get the FAA's mental health framework more in line with ICAO is really what the end goal is.

Because when you look at things like Australia and you get their.

Their medical thing, if you.

You can get on certain antidepressants in pretty much 30 days without symptoms, go back to work.

Because it's pretty straightforward.

You know, the FAA is something like six months.

You know, when you look at the ADHD thing, they're like, you need to be off medication and no symptoms for, like, two or four years.

That's crazy.

And it's like, okay, so you've told someone that they need to drop off all their medication and then mask for four years to convince you that they're safe.

Yeah.

And is that right?

Is that wrong?

I don't know.

Not a mental health professional.

I don't work for Cami.

They never offered me the job, so I could very well be wrong.

But dumb, dumb pilot.

I'm sitting here thinking, wouldn't I rather somebody have their condition treated and under control instead of just hiding it?

You would think that, you know, if.

Somebody walked into the flight deck with their middle finger bent backwards and say, hey, you need to go get that checked out before we go hop in this airplane.

And then they'd get a splint, they'd get all the health care that they need, and their primary care physician would clear them back to work.

I feel as if that treating therapy and mental health treatment the same way wouldn't.

Isn't that far of a reach.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's like you said, you.

You want to be able to.

To trust them.

Right?

Like, maybe they know what they're doing, but it just seems like there's been so many instances where how they treat mental health has negatively impacted so many people.

They're leading them to suicide or leading them to other crazy things.

And it's just you.

You really want to think like, isn't it better, like you said, to figure out what's going on, to treat them and then maybe you monitor the progress.

Right.

You, you have them do check ins every, every month.

You have them do certain stuff to, to, to figure it out and to work with them and make it work.

And for some people, maybe it just won't work.

Right.

For some people, unfortunately, there might be something going on that you cannot be a pilot anymore.

But I would be willing to bet the majority of people can overcome it with medicine, with treatment, whatever it is that is safe to fly.

But like you said, I'm not a pilot.

Or I'm a pilot.

Wow.

I'm not a doctor, I'm not a mental health professional.

I'm not in the faa.

I'm there.

It's a very tough situation to be in.

I don't know how to fix it.

You mentioned some groups that are really working hard to try to fix it.

And should it line up with Iko?

Most likely.

There are other caveats lining up with Iko.

I know their, their medicals itself are much more rigorous and much more intense.

So maybe we lose more pilots that way.

You know, it's like, I don't know.

So it's just an interesting side and something we all need to kind of advocate for for the person, you know.

Right.

We got to remember the pilots are people.

What they're going through, it's very well, very possibly just temporary.

Some people just have some shitty situations and I try not to cuss, but there's no other really better way to put it other than it's just not a great situation and they need to deal with it and then a couple months later they're okay.

Yeah, exactly.

Nobody's.

Nobody's career should be put in jeopardy because their kids in the ICU and they want to talk to a therapist.

Yeah, exactly.

Nobody, nobody should be.

Nobody's career should be at risk if they're going through a divorce and the court mandates therapy.

Yeah.

If you're trying to get therapy paid for by insurance, you're going to get a diagnosis.

Because I know a lot of people, they'll be like, oh, well, it's not reportable if you don't get a diagnosis.

Yeah.

Therapy is like $250 an hour.

Yeah.

So a two hour session is 500 bucks.

Congratulations, you're paying for that while you're not working.

Oh.

But if you want to get insurance to pay for it, you need a diagnosis.

So nobody's career should be at risk just because they got A diagnosis of adjustment disorder with depressed mood.

Yeah.

And, you know, everyone's.

Anybody who's going to watch this later is obviously going to bring up Andrew Lubitz with the German wings incident.

The German wings incident.

That pilot's primary care.

That pilot's treating physician told that pilot not to go to work.

They even provided them a note to excuse them from work.

They chose to not disclose that to the governing body and their airline and went to work anyway.

If we had a system where the treating physician had access to, like, Cass or the chief pilot's phone number or somebody at Cami for them to, you know, pull their medical, German wings wouldn't have happened.

But instead we had a system that allowed treatment but still allowed the pilots to lie about it.

Yeah.

When you.

When you look at Joseph Emerson, you know, trying to pull the fire handles on the 175 on that horizon flight, that was a preventable event.

The guy was distraught because he went and took care of his buddy that got absolutely creamed by, I think, a semi while on a run or a bike ride.

And it just bothered him for years until it got to a point where he was trying to medicate with illicit substances because he was too afraid of the FAA standards around mental health.

What wouldn't.

Is it right?

I.

I don't know.

Maybe if the FAA went the other way, we'd have a lot more fire handles getting pulled.

I don't know.

But what I do see is that somebody that wanted to go get help, that wanted to talk to somebody and wasn't able to and ended up in a.

In a.

In a pretty, Pretty terrible situation.

Yeah.

I mean, that's when we kind of talk about how it's tough.

The FAA is in a tough spot.

They are there to protect the general public.

Right.

If they have one mistake, it.

It just changed.

They can't afford to have one mistake.

So I can understand why they hold the position.

They do in holding people out.

Does it make sense?

No.

But when you look at it in a grand scheme of things, they think pulling just one.

What they think is a bad egg out to protect the general public is okay in their mind.

Now, like we said, is it okay?

I don't know.

That's not me to judge.

I mean, it's just how it is, and it's.

It's a really bad system.

And unfortunately, and the IQ part, whether you're talking about German wings, like.

Well, they had, like, a hodgepodge system, which obviously doesn't work in that situation.

And protecting that, making sure.

It doesn't happen.

Has to be everyone's top priority, because that's just something that should never happen in an airplane.

So, yeah, I don't know how it gets changed.

If anyone's listening to this, knows how it gets changed as everyone's working on this to get it changed.

Reach out to me, because I would love to talk about that and get the word out, because there's been a lot of people that have gone through, whether it's medical, whether it's depression, whether it's taking Ritalin or whatever ADHD medicine you took at.

When you're six years old, you know, there's so many things that just get caught up in the system, and then you're just waiting for the fa, which seems to be the most frustrating part.

It's like, all right, I understand that maybe something like this you want to, like you kind of said, like, you understand there's processes to go through to prove that I'm okay, but why am I just waiting on you to read my report for an extra six months or two years?

It's like, we need to speed this up.

We need an exaggerated timeline here to make this work so I can go back to work or so I can just do whatever, just get this done with and have it out of my life.

Exactly.

And I mean, that's probably the biggest hurdle or biggest barrier that a lot of pilots see is that when you read it on paperwork, because when you read what the FAA puts out, when you read the AME guidance, when you read the pilot guidance, it looks like you go to therapy, you'll be out of work for six months at the most.

And that's just not the case.

It's.

You know, when you look at Troy Merritt, a United Airlines pilot that was just suffering from symptoms, mild depression and mild anxiety, he went and talked to an FAA neuropsych.

Like, you can't go to a more qualified aviation mental health physician.

And he was out of work for two.

Over two years, even though all symptoms were dealt with within 90 days.

And he went to the most qualified mental health professional available to him.

Yeah.

If you can do everything right and still be out of work for two years, all because you're waiting on paperwork, you're not going to convince pilots to go to the doctor.

Exactly.

You know, I wasn't expecting this conversation to go this way, but it did.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

And I think these are important conversations.

They're hard conversations.

I'm obviously not someone that's qualified to talk smart about it to be the one that comes up with the plan.

But it's amazing to get these conversations out there because 80% of pilots, 90% of pilots will never have to deal with this.

And it's not something that's ever brought up to their mind.

You know, they hear about their friend's friend who's going through this and like, ah, that kind of sucks.

And they're like, all right, well, I'm going to go fly my plane and make 400 grand.

You know, and it's just.

Exactly, you can't blame them for it.

It's just not a part, it doesn't affect them personally.

And when more people are brought of awareness of what's going on or how this is impacting people, the more kind of advocation you get for what's going on and the more people that can kind of rise to the cause and just put some more pressure.

There's a lot of pressure on the FAA right now.

I mean, you look, whenever they post anything about mental health, thousands of hundreds of comments just like, you don't support mental health.

And so, so they know and they, I think recently they, they've stated they're making changes.

What are the changes?

I don't know.

I haven't read them.

You probably have, but I, I don't know how they go about it.

And I think that's kind of, I don't, I don't know.

Yeah, it's just, it's just, it's really unfortunate for how it's set up.

Like we kind of talked about, we understand they're protecting the general public, but it just stinks for the one out of 10 pilots that have to go through this or the 10 out of a hundred, you know, and I love.

That they're, what I will say is that they do a.

When it comes to mental health, they do a pretty good job of, you know, putting up the barriers to, to prevent those who shouldn't be at the controls from being at the controls.

You know, somebody who's, who's got a history of.

I, you know, I'm not going to quote any specific mental health because I don't.

I.

The FAA puts an etc at the end of their list of mental health things that they would view as disqualifying conditions.

But you know, they, when somebody isn't qualified to fly when it comes to mental health, they do a pretty good job of ensuring that they don't end up at the controls of an aircraft.

The problem is they don't do the same when it comes to physical health.

Everybody knows that.

Good, Ame.

You know, everybody knows that they can go to that one, Ame, that'll just.

You're good.

You're good.

All right.

And send you on your way.

It's like fog, this mirror real quick.

Yeah.

But so obviously that there's something that needs to be done better.

We need a system that actually verifies on whether or not pilots are fit to fly.

I'd say that what the Coast Guard does to verify that captains are ship captains are good is a really good system because they force you to go to your primary care with a form from the Coast Guard saying, hey, we need to verify that all of these things are fit.

If they're not, give us the reasons why and give us your medical opinion on whether or not these are disqualifying.

It's not that unreasonable to have the treating physician or the primary care be the deciding factor of a cruise ship.

Why is it so, you know, would it be that.

Was it that far of a reach for a pilot?

Yeah, but as I said, you know, I could very well be wrong.

We're all wrong, right?

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Well, let's.

Let's talk about.

Let's finish up and let's talk about how you got into being an Airbus instructor, I do believe, correct?

Yes.

So we are talking about.

I'm guessing this is going back to displaced, leaving, being done with the wildlife flying job, ultra low cost carrier, found out the news, then you became an instructor.

Or is it.

Okay, cool.

So that's the timeline.

Yeah.

Yep.

So figured out the medical news, and believe it or not, you know, I was making that series of, you know, how to navigate a medical deferral on TikTok, and somebody reached out and they were like, hey, we're looking for instructor.

Somebody just put a comment and they were like, hey, we're looking for instructors in the Airbus sim.

You know, shoot me an email or, you know, shoot me a dm.

So I shot.

I was just like, what do I have to lose?

You know, So I shot up a dm and they were like, hey, you know, here's my email.

Send me your resume.

All this jazz.

So I sent him my resume.

We had a, you know, phone interview where I explained like, hey, you know, I.

I've been teaching general aviation for, you know, the entire time I've been an instructor.

Yeah.

You know, I don't think I've gone more than three months without a student, except for now because, you know, no medical.

But.

So they were like, well, let's let's get you in the sim.

Let's see what you can do.

And you know, just make sure you're not ridiculous.

And you know, I got in the sim and kind of talked through and taught through what I was doing.

And they were like, yeah, you know, here's our training curriculum.

This is how we're going to teach it.

And now I am teaching with.

I guess I'm teaching with Gulf Coast Aeronautics Services.

So it's.

We rent our sims from afg.

So we're not affiliated with afg.

We just rent our sims from there.

And yeah, we teach seven three type ratings.

I think technically there's instructors that will teach DC 10 type ratings.

A just got our 320 type rating course approved by the FAA.

That took.

They started on that around the same time my medical got deferred.

So yeah, took about two years to get their 320 type rating course approved.

And you know, it's, it's.

We try to keep the classes small.

I think the most, most I do for a single class, like in person class is four students.

The goal is to learn, not to check a box.

At least that's how I teach.

The goal is definitely to learn how to safely operate an airliner.

I'm teaching the ATP CTP course.

So I'm, I'm the one that's bridging that gap between what you've been doing and where you're going.

Yeah.

Because as we were saying earlier, there, there is a pretty big gap between the Cessna 172 that you've been flying and now you're hopping in a 320 or CRJ 200 or 175 or what have you.

And believe it or not, airline instructors aren't flight instructors.

They're not CFIs.

Right.

So they never learned how to teach.

The amount of times I heard the phrase, you know, again, I try not to cuss, but this is a quote.

Just fly the plane.

Don't you know how to fly the plane?

While going through one of my, you know, any of my three type ratings.

It's kind of alarming.

Um, but that's kind of what the ATP CTP course is supposed to be, is to bridge that gap so that you have just that little grasp of experience so that you don't end up going, what's.

What's mock?

What do you mean?

What, what's mean?

Aerodynamic cord.

Yeah.

What's mock?

Yeah.

TUR turbine.

Isn't that that weird thing that people put on their head?

Wind turbine.

But no.

So That's.

I know a lot of people look at the ATP CTP course as this box that they just have to check, but it's not what it should be.

It should be bridging the gap between where you're currently at and the airlines, or at very least a jet.

I will say my ATPCT course was an absolute joke.

I watched air disaster movies and we did the, we checked the boxes, we made sure we checked every FAA box and we had to do what we had to do.

But a lot of time was filled with watching air disasters from an old DC9 guy that was just telling us about the glory days.

No, no, I do my best to just, to, as I keep saying, bridge that gap.

You know, when we do see an incident like, you know, we bring up the Colgan incident because that's kind of what the whole point, the kind of the springboard where the ATP CTP course kind of came from.

But, you know, we bring up that Colgan incident and a lot of people look at it, they're like, how did that happen?

What happened?

You know, they released the back pressure.

Why didn't it recover from the stall?

And then we end up having a conversation that explains, like, hey, you know, this is what you've been doing in your 172 or your archer or what have you.

This is the differences between what they were in and what you're in.

And these are the things that you're going to need to change to ensure that you don't end up like them.

Then we go in the sim and we do full stalls in a 320.

It's, it's, it's violent, you know, and then we.

What I try to do is try to recreate a lot of these incidents that they see so that they can get that hands on experience.

You know, I, I put the sim in the Air France incident where they were getting ice on their pitot tubes in a thunderstorm over the ocean in the middle of the night.

And there's definitely, there's more aha moments from the students than when I went through my ATP CTP course because I, when I went through, I did it in a Dreamliner sim.

No way.

I don't, I don't think I've ever been in a Dreamliner as a passenger.

Yeah, right.

You know, I got to look at a hud.

I didn't know any of the stuff.

I was just like, ooh, pretty green lights.

Yeah, I like that.

But no, I mean, it's, it's, it's a good job I build my own schedule.

Good.

You know, and I show up and I teach a couple students how to bridge the gap between what they've been doing and what they, what they're wanting to do.

And a lot of the students are actually military guys too, so there's a, that there's.

Yeah.

Love it, man.

Is there.

Well, I guess I'll ask what's next for, for CHEESE pilot?

Whether that's the Persona you have on Instagram.

You personally kind of, what's next in your path?

I mean, obviously we're talking about the medical.

Let's say you get that back.

You had the decision go back to the ultra low cost carrier.

You kind of mentioned that you might not do that.

Are you trying to build a successful business off CHEESE pilot?

Kind of talk about what you got planned and what, what's going on.

So the, I get my medical back, I, I could, you know, the, the base that I'm based at, it's pretty close and I could, you know, at this point I could bid reserve.

And this reserve doesn't suck given that, you know, there's no airport standby and whatnot.

Big difference.

Yeah, it's a big difference.

But I guess like, you know, super short term goal, get my Lake 200 IFR capable again.

You know, I have a GPS sitting on the shelf back there to go throw in that.

But then, you know, a little bit more long term.

I, I think I'm gonna go back and give it a year at the ultra low cost carrier to see how it is.

You know, when I talked to my buddies, I went through the type rating with, they're like, this is the easiest flying job I've ever had.

I absolutely love this.

They're gonna send me back to the sim next month because I haven't had enough landings in the last 90 days to carry passengers.

Goals.

Yeah, absolute goals.

Yeah.

You know, so I'll give it a year if it goes the way I want, you know, then I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll hang out.

You know, it's, it's, there's nothing stopping me from continuing to, to make content as an Airbus pilot at an ultra low cost carrier.

You know, especially since I'm home every night.

This carrier, you know, gets you home or at least back in base every night.

You know, you look at geek on the flight deck, you know, he's an Airbus pilot or I guess technically he's a, Is he a triple seven pilot now?

Seven now, yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, he still makes content, you know, you got flying for a living.

There's nothing really stopping there.

If I go the other way, you know where I continue to try this cheese pilot thing.

I mean, I'll still do the cheese pilot thing, but if I continue with trainingwithcheese.com I'm hoping to just finish out the video series I'm working on.

I'm working on an IFR training series right now where we're covering all the nav aids and you know, resources and flight planning and all that jazz for ifr because I am seeing a huge gap again in the content that's available in the videos, the study material that's available.

There's a lot of private pilot stuff.

There's a lot of how to do steep turns, there's a lot of how to do stalls and turns around a point and whatnot.

Not a whole lot of ifr.

So definitely going to finish that IFR series this Wednesday or I guess I don't know when this is going to come out, but a Wednesday, whether it be in the past or the future.

Yeah, there's an RNAV and GPS video that's coming out.

So I think I'm going to continue down that path whether or not I go back to the ultra low cost carrier or not.

I'm going to continue to pump out educational videos in the gaps that I see.

You know, I'm not going to recreate steep turns.

I'm not going to recreate a stalls or short field landing video.

There's a bunch of people out there that have already done amazing coverage on those.

I'm going to focus on the gaps and go from there.

As one of the last question I'll ask, but as someone who is entering a space where they're, there's some pretty good options, right?

Like, I mean I, I, Jason Miller, I work with Jason Miller.

Chris Palmer is another really good friend up in angle of attack up in Alaska, you know, everyone knows who Jason Shepard is.

With M0A for people that make content, is there anyone that you kind of look up to?

Is anyone you model it after?

Obviously you have your own spin to it.

CHEESE pilots, your own person, you're doing your own thing.

But I guess even when you were training, was there anyone that you watched that kind of inspired you to be like, you know, this is an option eventually down the road, you know, I.

Actually used to watch Roger Victor's videos all the time.

That's hilarious.

The puppet.

What's up?

Yeah, the puppet, the puppet.

And it was, it was, it was so funny.

We did A, I actually did a live with the puppet before I knew who the puppet was and straight up fangirled over the puppet, but I know the puppet's not educational.

Yeah, I don't care about you.

I want the puppet.

Yeah.

But to be honest, you know, I watched a lot of Jason Shepard stuff.

I liked the, how approachable the Kings were, even, you know, with how dated some of their, their videos might seem.

They're super friendly and I always try to keep that in the back of my mind.

You know, these people are successful because they're approachable, because they're friendly, because they want, because they genuinely seem like they want to help you through your experience, through your training.

And I feel like that's where I, I really, I feel like I definitely try to take a lot from them because again, they, they just seem like the nicest dang people in the world and that they genuinely care on whether or not the material that they're providing you is going to set you up for success.

So, yeah, it probably just be them.

Yeah.

Well, cool, man.

Well, I appreciate your time.

Like I said, I wasn't expecting, I had no idea about any of that that's going on.

So one, I'm sorry that's happening like just as a person to person, that sucks.

Like, dealing with that is tough and I, I hope that everything goes the way that you want it to go and I hope the outcome is great and I hope that in six months or hopefully sooner, you know, you'll DM me and be like, hey, dude, I got it back.

Like I'm going back and I'm going to be so pumped for you, dude.

I don't know what I can do to help, but if there's ever anything that I can do to help, please reach out, let me know.

I'm sure other people that listen to this as well are going to feel the same way and we'll be following along and hoping for a swift and quick decision and hopefully seeing you flying whatever it is you want to fly, whether it's the Lake 200 or whether it's ultra low cost carrier or just doing your thing, you know, you've carved out a cool little niche for yourself and what you're doing and I think it's great.

Uh, keep it up, man.

It's inspiring.

And I know that there's student pilots that are watching your content like a hawk and, and watching those orals and I like watching, I like when, when they get stumped a little bit and you're just.

Your face, you're like yeah, no, that's not right.

But so keep it up man.

It's been cool to see.

So don't give up.

And you're killing it, dude.

I know some days will be tougher than others.

Just remember you're doing pretty cool stuff.

So.

So I'm happy for you.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

And I mean anybody who is, you know, interested in helping pilots mental health campaign, that, that's really where I've been steering people towards.

They are the ones that are spearheading the, the.

The attempt at change.

So definitely reach out to them, see what they need, see what kind of resources they need.

If you are interested in being kind of a resource for pilots to, to reach out and talk to and whatnot.

Aeromed Legal is a.

Is another good nonprofit to volunteer for.

Perfect.

Well cheese pie.

Thanks for coming on man.

I appreciate it.

Hope you have a good day.

You too.

See you, man.

AV Nation thank you so much for listening to today's video.

I appreciate you taking the time.

A lot of people ask how they can support the channel.

The number one thing is take your dad's phone, subscribe to the Pilot the Pilot podcast, take your mom's phone, your sisters, who knows?

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So Avnation.

I hope you're having a great day.

And as always, happy flying.

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