The focus of this episode revolves around the captivating journey of Steve, a former F15 pilot and now an accomplished airline pilot, who shares his remarkable experiences, including a harrowing incident involving a forced water landing that tested his mettle and resilience. Steve recounts his transition from military aviation to civilian flying, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and the invaluable lessons gleaned from both successes and failures throughout his career. He articulates the profound influence of early aviation experiences, particularly the initial inspiration garnered from a neighbor's airplane construction project, which ignited his passion for flight. The discussion further delves into the nuances of backcountry flying, underscoring the freedom it affords compared to the structured environment of commercial aviation. Ultimately, Steve's narrative serves as a testament to the spirit of adventure, the significance of continuous learning, and the enduring bonds formed within the aviation community.

Takeaways:

• The importance of utilizing advanced avionics and mobile applications for enhanced flight safety and efficiency cannot be overstated, particularly in today's aviation landscape.
• The conversation highlights the profound connection between athleticism and aviation, underscoring the necessity for rigorous training and practice in both domains to ensure peak performance and safety.
• The episode recounts a harrowing personal experience involving an emergency landing in a river, illustrating the critical nature of situational awareness and decision-making in aviation.
• Listeners are reminded of the significance of mentorship in aviation, as experienced pilots can profoundly influence the next generation by sharing knowledge and fostering passion for flying.
• The discussion emphasizes the need for humility, approachability, and credibility as essential traits for pilots, which contribute to a safer and more collaborative flying community.
• The narrative reveals the evolution of personal ambitions and the transformative nature of aviation experiences, advocating for pursuing one's passion even in the face of adversity.

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Episode 333 of the pilot to Pilot Podcast takes off now.

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Cox call sign Freak from the Air Force so that starts the the Aviation story.

AV Nation what is going on?

And welcome back to the Pilot the Pilot Podcast.

My name is Justin Seams and I am your host.

Today's episode's a great one.

It is with cleared direct on Instagram, on YouTube.

Had a lot of fun talking with him.

You know he was a F15 pilot, he flies for major airline, gets in the back country, tells an epic story about how he crashed a bonanza in a river and had to swim with a broken hand with his wife.

That's probably gonna be clipped.

You probably saw.

That's probably why you're here to be honest with you, because that story was just so wild.

It was great having Steve on.

Steve is a very humble, very impressive guy to talk to.

I had a lot of fun chatting with him.

Shout out to Steve for waking up early to do this with me as it was a great, great time.

AV Nation, I hope you're enjoying these podcasts.

We are getting back to doing weekly podcast this year has been a little bit more on the difficult side for everyone over here in the Seams household.

But you know, we're trying to get through more on that probably later possibly, but we are.

Yeah record as much as possible.

I appreciate you asking questions about what's going on or appreciate you just reaching out.

But yeah, we are getting some podcasts out.

We are making sure we are still doing the podcast as often as we can and it's been great.

It's been great to talk to you all until talk to Steve and feel like we're best friends now.

He probably doesn't feel it.

He's probably like God, I'm so glad the podcast over with but it was a good time.

It's a good time chatting with Hope you enjoy this podcast.

Without any further ado, here's Steve from Cleared Direct.

I want to kind of touch a little bit on I played football.

I was a D1 football player so it's nice to see another athlete enter aviation.

I always say that athleticism or not athleticism but athletes and pilots have a lot in common.

There's a lot of training.

There's a lot of kind of like put in practice, practice, practice.

Perfect your craft so you can be the safest pilot you can be, have the best flight you can have or win the competition that you're in if you're whether you're doing aerobatics or you're just competing in your sport in general.

But it's always great to talk to another athlete.

I think it'd be awesome if we can see more athletes come because there is some such a correlation.

But I want to talk a little bit about the mentality that you had going from, you know, swimming.

I'm guessing your goal was to be in the Olympics.

I'm guessing that's kind of like where the kind of the top end of being a swimmer is, right?

Well, I, I probably for most but as with everything, there's a little bit of a oddity oddity to me.

I I actually my, my main sport in high school is water polo and I actually was recruited to at the time PAC 10 schools for that thought about going to Stanford, UCLA or whatnot.

But I also really liked the idea of airplanes and being an aeronautical engineer and Bert Rutan was one of my kind of heroes growing up.

I know total nerd but myself but, but so I went to Cal Poly to follow in his footsteps.

He was an aeronautical engineer from from Cal Poly and and they didn't have a water polo team.

So I just kind of walked onto the swim team and and really knew that that wasn't gonna take me to the Olympics, since that was kind of my backup sport.

Just wanted to get that letter and stay in shape and get some sun, you know what I mean?

So.

Absolutely.

I love the west coast vibe.

I get the west coast vibe big time.

I love it, man.

It's.

I mean, just talking about water polo, like, I grew up in the East Coast.

Water polo is not a thing.

I don't think.

I can't even think of.

I don't know if schools have water polo.

I think.

Well, I think Princeton, a couple of Ivy leagues have it, but yeah, it's kind of, I should say southeast, snooty sport out there, but it' a kind of a badass sport in the.

On the west coast.

And I mean, yeah, my sister's a pro surfer her whole career, so definitely living the west coast vibe.

Yeah, I love it, dude.

Yeah, it's funny, the differences, you know, West Coast, Southeast, the East Coast, Northwest.

And now you're living in the Northwest, you probably see the differences there as well.

It's very much west.

West coast still, though.

Yeah.

That's awesome that you had.

You had someone that you kind of looked up to and you wanted to follow in their footsteps.

What was it about Burt Rutan that you really kind of wanted to end?

Gosh, dude.

He was just a groundbreaker, right?

He was kind of the first to lean into the whole composites world.

And my neighbor across, you know, so he was from Mojave in Southern California, and this really ties in the whole origin story together is my neighbor across the street in Agoura Hills, California, was building one of the first Lancaira kits.

If, you know, experimental, you'll know Lancair.

They're just the first, like super sleek, just beautiful lines.

He's building that in his garage.

And I was just.

I would probably annoy the hell out of him as an 8 year old, right?

But he was so great and showed me everything about this airplane and about flying.

Took me flying.

We actually flew to Mojave and kind of saw.

I didn't get the tour of Scaled Composites or whatever it was called back then, but.

But that was kind of the, you know, the whole origin story, especially tying in with experimental aviation, because that's always what I've wanted to do.

I think I turned nine and I asked for a Lance Air for my birth or a Long Easy, because I just love the looks of all the composite sleek, which is weird that I built a boxy aluminum riveted bush plane, but it's kind of all I could afford right now.

I'm sure the 9 year old didn't understand the cost of a Lance Air.

Yeah, absolutely.

And they were quite a bit cheaper.

Yeah, it's still expensive.

You look back in the day, people say the flight hours were $25 an hour, but $25 an hour was.

Or $25 is way more expensive back then.

You know, I mean, obviously it's more expensive now, but it's still comparative.

It's still not cheap to go fly your planes.

Totally.

Oh, my gosh.

So what was.

So you wanted to be a pilot?

You wanted to kind of get in aviation Athletics seems like something that always kept you busy.

Seems like you're a guy that, like you said, you're always on the go.

You always wanted to do something.

You know, competing is probably something you like.

You like testing yourself.

You like pushing yourself to the limits.

Was there any kind of progression from Bert Rutan the Lancer asking one when you're nine years old to actually flying kind of before you got to the Air Force, or is all the flying done in the Air Force?

No.

Good question.

I.

Let's see.

Okay, so.

Oh, God, I don't know if I should tell this.

Oh, you.

Whenever you start out with I don't know if I should tell this, you have to tell it.

That's the rule of a podcast.

All right.

No, this is good because nobody knows this.

I love it.

Except my buddy Mike.

That is not our freshman year.

I hadn't quite grown up into the athlete quite yet, and I played the bass drum in the marching band, and we went to this marching band performance thing in Camarillo, California.

He and I said, this is lame.

Was like my last thing with the marching band, clearly.

And we snuck off and we, like, went to the airport, and some guy pulls up in his brand new to him Stearman and said, hey, boys, want to go for a ride?

I think about this now and I go, oh, my God, what was I thinking?

But as a.

As a, I don't know, freshman in high school, I'm like, hell, yeah, let's do it.

Let's go.

Yeah, sure.

Baseball bat, stick in the front seat.

We hop in and blast out over the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

And I don't think we did any, like, barrel or loops or aileron rolls or anything, but it was magical open cockpit.

And, you know, I was pretty set on aviation at that point.

But after that, it was forget about it and forget about marching band athletics.

No offense to anyone in marching man.

All right.

It is no no, no, no, no.

I just.

Didn't suit me, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

Did your parents kind of understand this aviation?

Was there any aviation in their background or was this pretty formal?

They didn't quite.

They were both marriage and family therapists.

In fact, they were.

My dad was the therapist to the Menendez brothers.

Dad, Parents.

No.

Yeah, like, nice, nice job.

Dad failed on that one.

He was his fault.

Right.

But he tried to get the.

I'm not even going to go there.

But that's.

That was my.

My folks, they're kind of over educated, under socialized, if you will.

So I.

This is all on my own.

And they're supportive, but not financially and not really, you know, feeding into it, but they kind of got that I had a passion and are still to this day understand now what it's led to, but I'm appreciative for their support.

But, yeah, I think I just took out a student loan at Cal Poly, another student loan, and Cal Poly wasn't that expensive, but threw down on my pilot's license that I think 100 years ago cost like $2,500.

Sorry, guys.

Everyone's like, but what a great place.

To get your license.

Coastal California is awesome.

In the summer between my sophomore and junior year and.

Or maybe one year later because I got my license.

Two funny things about that.

I was.

I had like 40.2 hours.

I wanted to hardcore do it.

And like, in fact, I had to fly to Bakersfield.

I took off with like 39 hours, got my 40th hour on the way to the DPE to get my checkride.

And the other funny thing is, is that it was my 21st birthday, so we partied that night.

Yeah.

I mean, what better way to celebrate?

Hopefully there's no flying after the party, but, you know, better way to celebrate.

I got my license.

Yeah.

And I lost it.

Going back to kind of parents and.

And doing something that's so different, like aviation.

To someone that doesn't know aviation, it's just so foreign to them.

Right.

Like anytime your kid comes up to you and just like, I want to do something that's not kind of what the family has done or what, you know, it's just so foreign.

And it's up to the parent to find a way to support them.

As someone that is a parent, how do you think someone can do that right now?

Like, there's a lot of people that could be 13, 14, 15 listening to this podcast with their parents in the car, and the parents are like, I don't know how to Support my kid in aviation because I'm an accountant.

I'm a therapist to a family, whatever it may be.

How would you recommend or what you've seen with your parents and what you do with your kids to help support.

You know, I think here's.

This is.

This is going to be a hot take or a controversial thing.

I think you just have to support them and say, do it, go for it.

It's as long as it makes you happy and be there for them.

It is not your job as a parent.

I got three kids.

It's not my job as a parent to make it happen for them.

That's on them.

Right.

Their job is to go to school and to be contributing citizens and good people to support them for their ventures.

Yeah.

Maybe help them out with undergrad and college if that's what they want to do.

Help them out and give them pointers and recommendations and advice.

But it's not.

I don't look at it as my job as a parent to make it happen for them.

And maybe that's because my parents really didn't make it happen for me.

I had to figure it out.

So I guess I'm a bad dad.

No, no, not at all.

I got three kids.

My eldest.

Eldest is following a little bit in my footsteps.

She's off to University of Michigan.

Gonna go rotc.

I didn't do rotc, but she's gonna be.

She wants to be a doctor, so she wants to be a aerospace surgeon.

So flight doc we grew up with.

She grew up with.

You know, each squadron I was in had a flight doc assigned to us, and they were awesome people and took care of us.

And they only had, you know, their 25 pilots plus their families.

And so they had the time to be fricking awesome.

And she wants to do that.

So I'm super proud of her.

And.

And go blue.

Ah, that's painful for you to say, man.

I went to.

I bought Ohio State.

No, I didn't even know that.

Yeah, we're gonna hit stop right now.

Good day.

Wish you the best.

No, I'm just kidding.

That's cool, though.

It's fine.

Whatever.

We won the national championship.

It's.

I don't really care if we lose Michigan anymore.

It's all about national championships now.

All right.

But I just wanted to say my wife is a doctor.

One of her really good friends was a flight doctor and then is doing a civilian residency as well.

Very well rounded, great doctor, great person.

So it's a great route to go.

So.

Yeah, that'd be awesome for.

Yeah.

Couldn't be more proud of her.

That's great.

I mean, she has bad taste in schools and color.

Other than that, I hear Ann Arbor is great in the fall.

That's about all I know.

I can confirm.

That's cool though, man.

I.

I agree with everything that you've said about parenting and giving your kid the opportunities.

And it's up to them to figure it out because you can't hold a kid's hand forever.

Right?

Like, I mean, yeah, they have to pass a check, ride with the dp and you are not going to be able to help them or they're going to have to overcome adversity in the airplane.

As you know, things happen in cockpits and you can't call your dad at 37,000ft.

Hey, dad.

Hydraulic failure.

What do I do?

You know, you got to do it.

You just got to.

You got to eventually do it and bite the bullet and just go for it.

So.

Yeah, totally agree with you now.

Private pilot license, you said sophomore, junior.

Ish.

Year of high school.

No, of college.

Of college.

Okay.

Of college.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And were you kind of on a war path of, I'm gonna be a professional pilot, I'm gonna go to the Air Force, or were you kind of just seeing where it all took you?

Yeah.

So fresh.

I went to.

I.

I went to Cal Poly and got into aeronautical engineering, like.

Like Bert Rutan and then hit calculus and said, this ain't for me.

Much like Marching man, this ain't for me Deuces.

So I switched to a major called industrial technology, which was awesome.

And you know, it's a joke because it stands.

Industrial technology.

It actually stands for.

I tried engineering, so it had a lot of the engineering dropouts.

One of them.

So at that point I knew.

I'm like, okay, well, I'm not gonna be an engineer.

I wanna.

I wanna not design these things.

I wanna fly them.

I was singing airlines and I just, I.

I was intimidated about all the cost.

I didn't want to live on peanuts like a lot of you guys do out in the audience.

Good on you.

You know, with the drive to.

To get all those ratings.

And I just, I.

I decided, you know what?

Air Force is probably the best way to get my training paid for and.

Yeah, make a little bit of money doing it.

I'll do it for eight years or whatever the pilot training commitment was.

And I was the first guy to sign the 10 year.

Oh, my gosh, the pilot training contract.

And they had.

I get to MEPs, they're like, I'm enlisting or signing the paperwork to go to commissioning.

And I'm like, hey, what does that say?

My eyes weren't as bad as they are right now.

And they go.

And I actually said 10 years versus A.

I thought they said, well, what are you gonna do there, mister?

Like, took a bus, three hours to go, you know, join the air Force.

And I'm like, I'm not gonna.

I have two years, whatever.

But then I realized it's after pilot training, which is like two years.

So suddenly I'm at the 12 year point going, well, might as well try to get the.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Dang, that's.

That's a sneaky one right there, right?

Oh, we said eight, but yeah, it's ten now.

Oh, yeah.

Just kidding.

Kind of committed now.

No turning back.

All right, so you, you know, you signed the papers.

Did you have any regrets?

Did you have any kind of like sticker shock?

Like, oh, my gosh, what did I do?

Not really.

I.

Because, like, I expected the worst.

I was amazed at the people that did have regrets, especially the pilot candidates that were at officer training school that, like, dropped out because they didn't like it and yelled at.

I'm like, dude, this is a game.

Like, have you ever heard of this thing called the military?

Like, get through training and you're going to be a pilot.

It's going to be badass.

So.

But they, like, dropped out.

I'm like, okay, well, it's probably better that they dropped out now because, yeah, the yelling might stop, but it's not going to get any easier.

Yeah, so.

So no.

No buyer's remorse.

Especially when I, you know, got into the fighter.

I actually didn't even want fight.

I didn't know I wanted fighters.

Turns out I loved it.

Glad I did.

But I, you know, like I said, I was just like, okay, eight years, get my tickets, go off to the airline and got a fighter.

And it kind of sucks you into that culture and that environment.

And it's taken me a few years to kind of get out of it.

And this YouTube channel's.

My YouTube channel is part of the whole, you know, thing of.

I wanted to kind of share some of those amazing scenes and beautiful landscapes and some of the crazy, you know, just dog fights.

And unfortunately, a lot of that you can't share because of classification.

But towards the end, they're starting to let me bring a GoPro in the camera as long as they reviewed it.

So that kind of kickstarted my interest in, in YouTube.

Nice.

What was trading like for you?

Like, you mentioned the yelling, you mentioned the screaming, but that didn't really seem to be a problem for you.

No, I mean, it was 13 weeks.

Whatever.

Good.

Yeah.

And I liked how you mentioned it was a game.

Because, I mean, any kind of training scenario, it is a game.

The number one thing you need to think of is cooperate, graduate.

Right.

Like, just play the game, play into it.

The more you try to do something different, the more they're either going to make an example out of you or the worse it's going to be on yourself.

So try to make it easy for yourself.

Yep.

Yeah.

So as far as the, the officer's training, I, I kind of liked it.

I, I was the, let's see, what did they assign me?

The, the PT leader.

I was like the ot.

Captain Cox was the wing commander or wing.

Wing fitness guy.

So.

But then off to pilot training, I got like.

I got into this weird headspace of like, God, if I fail out of this, what are my parents gonna think and what am I gonna do with myself?

So I kind of got a little.

I went through a period where I was a little overly intense and like, just scared of failure and that it motivated me to a point.

But, you know, there's that whole, you know, stress versus performance scale.

I was kind of at that peak and then falling off the other side, the bad side of too much stress.

So we, you know, I kind of.

I had a, I had a German instructor pilot of all.

Of all nationalities, German guy sit me down and says, I think my, my call sign and pilot training was stubby.

Kind of natural with the last name.

Right.

Anyway, he goes, I can't do a German accent.

But he goes, stubby, you need to smoke some crack.

What?

And is an American or a Dutch guy came over, he said, what are you.

Oh, he means you need to like, smoke some weed and relax.

So I was just so uptight for the first few months of pilot training because I was at the show, right?

I was at Air Force pilot training.

Not only.

I was at njep, the Euro NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program.

So I was, I was like, I took that pressure serious, so which is good.

So I didn't take his advice and get into the, the drug.

The drugs.

But, but I, I just kind of started exercising more, which I think I stopped doing, which I think was a big problem.

I mean, imagine yourself just like after D1 and just dropping it all at the, at the drop of a hat.

I was doing half Iron Mans leading into the Air Force, and then I just dropped it for pilot training.

I'm like, okay, no, I need to go out for a run and just get those endorphins back.

But that.

That really helped.

Now, it's very healthy for you to mention that you're kind of on a dangerous path of.

For the pressure and putting it on yourself.

Is that something you realize?

Like, obviously, the German instructor helped you realize it too, but was it something you were able to overcome relatively easily once you figured it out, or was this kind of like a difficult spiral and something you.

Could you continue to struggle with throughout your training?

No, I.

It was a.

It was a poignant moment in that it kind of pulled me out of it, and I was open to it.

And I realized that, yeah, this.

This is.

This is not sustainable for me.

I'm.

I'm that SoCal kid, the laid back guy.

And if anything, it kind of went too far because in, you know, I did really well.

I got my F15.

And at the time, that was kind of the premier fighter before the F22 came online.

And.

And then in F15 school, I was a little bit too laid back.

But in.

In my own defense, I was the first active duty class to go through an Air National Guard training program at Klamath Falls.

They had flown F16s.

They just learned how to fly the F15, and now they're instructing the F15.

And the former schoolhouse at Tyndall was known to be just a ball buster.

Just like, eat your young, like, you will graduate, you know, really, really good, but also really, really scared of any instructor pilot.

And this was the opposite.

So I had this like, hey, you guys are the.

You're the first students that earned your F15 because we got guard babies.

Nothing against guard babies.

I would have gone that route if had I known about it.

That's a great way to go.

But they all got their F15 before they went to pilot training.

We had to compete for it, so we were all pretty decent.

And.

And they were like, they're like, asking us, hey, how was that brief?

Like, who you're asking me, how is that brief?

Because they just learned how to fly the F15s.

And so the training was.

I don't want to disparage the program, but they know it.

They needed to step up their game.

And so they produced a substandard F15 wingman at the time.

And when I heard about it, man, when I got to Alaska, that's how I earned my call sign.

I went to Alaska and I'm like, check in time.

Like, you start up your aircraft.

It's the time that you got to be on the right frequency with your jet all program ready to rock.

And I'm like, no, wait for me.

That wasn't exactly my mentality, but.

But that's, you know, that's just kind of a.

A basic, you know, recap of kind of what happened.

And so that's how I got.

I don't know if you care, but that's how I got the call sign freak, which is like sort of a frequency for eq because I wasn't on the right frequency as well as I'm a big.

I'm 6 foot 4 to 20.

I'm a big tall freak.

So, like, freaking out on someone.

Oh, no.

Well, there's.

There's another classified story that I can't get in to here.

But that's the basic, basic.

I like pilot after hours.

But yeah, hopefully.

I know.

I don't know.

I can't even remember what the initial question, I guess the whole, you know, spiraling.

Yeah, I shifted and kind of went too far the wrong way.

So that is a hazard too, is you could get too relaxed.

And so it's just finding that balance of like I was talking about earlier, that stress versus performance scale of keeping yourself kind of at that optimal, optimal place.

What was military flying like for you?

A lot of people say it's very fulfilling.

You know, you're training to do a mission, you go out, do the mission.

It's like a brotherhood, a sisterhood, talk about the actual flying itself.

I mean, obviously you liked it because you were in there past the 12 years that you were supposed to be there.

So it's not like you just did it because you had to.

Right?

21.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's.

After a while, it's kind of all, you know, I mean, at the time I could.

Take me back.

So I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I'm staying in, man.

I'm gonna go be a check of the month club kind of guy and.

But the flying is.

Is amazing.

And it is a culture, is absolutely a culture that I had to learn how to operate within.

As I mentioned earlier, I was, you know, overly laid back guy getting to my first squadron and I had to kind of buckle down and then.

And then I became somebody I wasn't again.

You know, it's just part of life and growing and figuring out who you are.

And so there was a time where I was miserable, honestly.

I was trying to figure out how to be a new husband living in the state of Alaska in a fighter squadron.

It was like the premier Eagle squadron because we had these new V2 radars.

We were first to get the Aim 9X and the JamX fancy helmet.

So you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting about five patch wearers, like essentially the Air Force equivalent of Top Gun guy.

So here I am, this brand new lieutenant, just getting his, you know, butt handed to him.

So, so I, I was kind of miserable trying to figure out things.

And it wasn't till, I'd say the second half of my career that I figured it out.

I mean, the flying was fantastic, don't get me wrong.

I mean, it was, that was amazing.

The, the, and then the Friday afternoon shenanigans at roll call was always super fun.

I was always making the videos and having a great time.

But, but as far as like, you know, getting myself in the books and studying the tactics, there's a lot to know.

And you got to be like not only an athlete to literally, to withstand the G forces, you've got to, you know, take care of yourself nutritionally.

And you know, you're a young guy at that point.

You can kind of get away with it drinking too much beer and having too much dip and popcorn and whatnot.

But, but, but athletically you got to keep somewhat shape to pull those GS and just to suffer through, you know, a 12 hour debrief.

I mean, the debriefs can be really, really long.

Like your days are sometimes pushing 20 hours long.

And so in that regard you got to be in good shape.

And then you got to essentially get yourself a law degree within the fighter squadron.

Like, because these, these AFTPs, the tactics, techniques and procedures manuals that you got to read are, are long and involved and sometimes they're not written super well and they're getting better and better.

And so you're trying to figure out what does this mean?

And then you don't want to bother an older fighter pilot because they're grouchy also.

And so you're just kind of figuring this out amongst all the lieutenants.

And then you're also reading about the threats.

You got to be not only the master of your own domain, you got to understand what the threat is offering to you.

So my point is it's busy and I didn't do the best job in time management.

And also I'm Divorced now is just the wrong person to be married to.

And so that added to the struggle and then living in Alaska.

I mean, the.

I'm not a.

I'm not like a dark weather person.

I think a seasonal affective disorder.

I'm painting this like, horrible picture.

I'll get to the good stuff here in a second.

But, but the dark was tough for me in the, in the wintertime, summertimes were great, although it was pretty cloudy all the time, but.

And then you can't sleep because it's, you know, like 21 hours a day.

Yeah, yeah.

But, but over to the flying man and then the camaraderie.

There's nothing like, you know, going to a red flag or actual deployment and just building the bonds with the bros and, and then, you know, being responsible for not only a $50 million jet with about $15 million worth of serious weapons on board, you're also potentially in charge of the folks you're trying to defend or the, the folks, you know, that whether it be wingman or high value airborne assets or folks on the ground and just understanding the different missions.

And once you start to kind of figure out where you belong in the whole Air Force world, there's a lot of F15 guys that think they're on the pointy spear.

You know, I'm sorry to break it to you fellas, but you're a support asset.

I can say that now.

I mean, we, you know, we're there to do offensive counter error or defensive counter error or high value airborne asset, which is essentially defensive.

So you're either offense or defensive for other guys.

Bomb droppers, we don't drop the bombs.

We just, you know, we are the mission in more of a defensive, but we're rarely defensive.

Right.

In a big picture thing sense.

So when it all starts clicking, especially when your relationship with the bros is good, with your boss is good, you know, you're bringing up some younger wingman as an instructor.

That's, that's when it all comes together.

And my best assignment by far was my operational test and evaluation where I was not deploying and I was putting.

Put in charge of developing or helping develop new missiles and test flying those missiles and radar systems and, and data and, and I got to shoot some pretty amazing missile shots.

So that was super rewarding.

And I think it, you know, I make, you know, I'm more of an athlete than geek, but I definitely have a big geek side too.

And I nerded out over some of the cool capabilities that these, these weapons could.

Yeah, Absolutely.

Especially when you start getting some data that other people don't have.

You're like, oh dang, that's sick.

That's pretty cool.

You mentioned that the second half of your career you kind of felt more confident.

You know, you felt like you fit in more.

Was that a confidence thing?

Was that just like, you know, other people could do it better, other people have been done it longer.

You mentioned the grouchiness of the older fighter pilot.

Was it kind of just a confidence thing of fitting in and just being, believing in yourself, would you say?

I think so, yeah.

I think a lot of it just, just does come with maturity and there was some, a divorce in the mix that kind of sets you aside both financially and just mentally for a few years.

And so that's really tough.

The biggest advice I'd give to the younger folks is just don't be in a rush to get married.

I mean, you definitely change.

You can tell my whole story is about how I've changed through my career.

Excuse me.

And to, to think that that person's gonna grow with you.

It absolutely happens.

But the, the odds get higher the older you get.

I'll just kind of say it like that.

So, so yeah, I definitely matured and, and, and grew with self confidence and just kind of been, became more okay in my own skin.

And there's a big part of me who doesn't fit in as a fighter pilot.

I mean, I kind of portray it a little bit, but, but I, you know, I know that there probably would have been more, more different careers that would have fit my exact personality better.

Like maybe social media influencer, just goofball on TV or something.

Or maybe I should have kept going with swimming or triathlon, I don't, I don't know.

But, but you know, I wasn't the, I wasn't the most naturally gifted bfmer dogfight, basic fighter maneuvers.

You know, I wasn't the best in the cockpit by, by any stretch.

I mean there's some seriously talented fighter there.

But I, I made it work and I, you know, fake faked it till.

I made it right, dude, that's the most important thing.

Fake it till you make it.

I preach that.

You know, just keep doing it.

You'll convince yourself one day that you're going to do it and eventually it's just going to click.

This is what you got to do.

I mean most people, I mean even, even the most cocky fighter pilot out there has some self doubt in there that, that drives them to be, to be better.

So just listen to that.

To a point.

But also, you know, take care of yourself, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

Especially when you are trying to be the best.

When you're in very high pressure situations, whether it's a fighter pilot, whether it's an athlete, whether it's a doctor, you can really neglect your personal care.

You can neglect the people around you.

You can just be so laser focused on what you need to achieve and kind of forget the whole thing that you're living life, that you need to try to enjoy these moments because this moment is temporary and it's fleeting.

And one day you're going to look back on it and be like, dang, I wish I would have smiled.

I wish I would have known these people better.

You're like that guy.

They're really good friends.

How come?

You know, it's just like, just enjoy where you are.

It's very hard.

There's like a decade in my life where I'm like, God, I wish I could have done that over again.

I know, right?

You know, everyone has that and it's okay.

That's the worst.

Yeah, it's okay.

If you're in the situation right now, it's just try to recognize it before it's too late.

Right?

Try to recognize what's important to yourself.

Yeah, exactly.

And be honest with yourself too.

In the, in that, hey, if something's not working, like, there's a.

My.

My wife is on this, like spouses of airline pilots Facebook group.

And, and there was this one post.

I'm.

Maybe I shouldn't say this, but this poor guy was like, kept failing checkrides and whatnot.

And his spouse was on there like, what.

Who could we talk to?

What could we do?

And my wife and I look, I look at each other like, maybe it's just not for you, man.

I mean, let's be honest, it's not for everybody.

And, and that's okay, you know, make it.

Find something that does make you happy.

And I didn't have the pressures of parents telling me that.

How to do this, right?

So I was free to do whatever I want.

And I feel lucky to have that passion.

So.

But if that passion.

Yeah, but I mean, to be fair, if I wasn't any good at what I do, and you know, I'm not the best, but if it just wasn't working out, that scares me.

Like, I don't know what else I would do, right?

Maybe go back to sports or something or just make goofy videos.

But, But I hear you.

It's.

There's some people who have A hard time giving up on the, on the dream.

That would suck.

So.

Especially when you get so close.

Right.

You made it to the airlines.

You know, you see this multi million dollar career ahead of you and you're just.

To walk away would be tough at that time.

Totally agree.

But you know, there's, there's the other.

I mean, there's pretty rich.

I think about this of like, if I lose my license or if I get sick or something, you know, lose my medical.

I mean, well, like our company is fantastic for the walking wounded.

And, and, and I realize that there's a lot of other good careers in the airline world that don't involve flying, that you're around aviation.

So that's something I really never thought of.

Absolutely a lot of options out there.

But yeah, it's, you know, flying the plane is what we want to do.

Flying the plane is what we like to do.

And you have mentioned that that's something that you love to do.

It's one of the reasons why you got involved into kind of backcountry flying.

The freedom you probably get doing that is probably unparalleled to what you've done.

Anything else, because airlines, you're following sops.

I'm not saying you're not following kind of your own SOPS that you've made, but being able to fly where you want, when you want, land on something that maybe hasn't been landed on before, you overfly it, inspect it, land, and just having that freedom, I'm sure is kind of just kind of changed your way you look at aviation.

Yeah.

Because believe it or not, flying the 15, there's a lot more freedom than flying an airliner.

121 is just, you know, it's, you know, my airline, we used to be able to fly certain routes VFR up in the state of Alaska.

And you know, this is why we can't have nice things.

Some people kind of abused it and so even that was taken away.

So this absolutely is just like you're saying, it's so free.

And it helps me also just share the beautiful perspective of out here on the west coast, flying through the mountains, landing on strips, going fly fishing and you know, shout out to, to Trent Palmer, who really kind of got so many people into this, including me.

Like I'm absolutely a.

I don't know, a Trent like effect.

Right.

Especially during COVID because he'd be putting out these gorgeous videos and we'd be kind of on lockdown and, and anyway, so.

So he's just kind of the Godfather, even though he's like 12 years younger than I am and become a friend, but he's like, he's like the godfather of backcountry aviation in the.

In the respect of cinematography.

Right?

Yeah.

There's plenty of people who have a lot more experience and.

And.

And he tells a great stories in the back country.

Yeah, that's.

And that's kind of what's inspired me.

And.

And it's kind of awkward now because we both like pointing cameras at.

At each other going, oh, we're gonna make the same video, or.

But I mean, he's just, what, like, 20 times as big as I am.

So it's all good.

He's like, that's adorable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My video will do better than yours, right?

Try it.

Yeah, no, he's told me he's like, rising tide floats all boats.

So he's definitely on board with.

With supporting small guys like me.

What's your kind of.

You mentioned Trent Palmer, you mentioned Covid.

Was this kind of like a covet idea?

Was this you watching YouTube and like, Ah, that sounds fun.

You can build your own airplane, or was this kind of more of a deeper kind of wish?

Since you saw the lance there, since you saw someone building an airplane, you always had this in the back of your mind.

Yeah, no, it definitely was always in the back of my mind.

It just provided the opportunity because I knew that once I.

My retirement paperwork was in.

Excuse me.

And I knew that I'd be going back to the airline, and I also scored a COVID leave from the airline.

So I was not only retiring from the Air Force, going to be collecting some money from the Air Force.

I was getting like a small paycheck also from Alaska Airlines and not working.

So I'm like, oh, this is perfect.

And it's supposedly going to be two years long.

We didn't know.

It ended up only being a few months, but that was the impetus I needed to do this lifelong dream.

Just.

Just which was which airplane?

Which was the biggest decision now and how quickly could I get it to take advantage of that period?

The lead times are like two years.

So it's like, yeah, you could decide you want to build something and then, oh, I'll.

I'll actually start building it in two years.

That was a bit of a change in two years too.

Yeah.

Oh, 100%.

And that's actually what helped me is I think somebody wasn't ready for their kit or was getting out of the kit world.

I can't remember.

And so they offered me their Kit.

So I got into it a lot earlier then I didn't have to wait the full two years.

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So is that a kind of deciding factor in what airplane you built or did you make the decision of what airplane you wanted before that opportunity came up?

I made that decision before that opportunity came up.

And you know one of my better performing videos was comparing the, the RANS S21 and the kit Fox.

Okay.

And a couple people out there going oh, he's that guy and you.

That's me.

I just have, I'm looking it up right now.

Just remind myself, so it's, it's a.

New, it's definitely not a Cub.

It's a new kind of higher perform well higher speed envelope, larger speed envelope, high wing tail dragger.

You can get in in a trike but it looks ugly so it's all metal and it's just a newer design.

Right.

So a little bit more engineering put into it which means less weight and more fairings.

And so this thing will do 150 miles an hour.

And, and also I call it light stole because it's not full curb landing at 20 miles an hour.

I'm, I just, Trent helped me put on VGs last week and I'm, I'm messing with that this week is getting, going out there and messing with the angle of the incidence of my horizontal stabilizer because I'm running out of elevator and trying to get the, the stall speed down.

I got it down down to about 36 miles an hour which is pretty dang good.

Yeah.

And I got 29 inch bush wheels so I'm, I'm, I'm playing with, with the bigger boys.

But I'm also a big part of my flying mentality as well as in my videos is, is the crawl, walk, run mental mentality or training process through learning backcountry Aviation, having, you know, all the experience I have, you could.

You could easily kind of over do it and have a little bit too much overconfidence.

And I have a huge amount of respect for these aviators and for the weather and for the terrain that I go, no, no, we need to take this slow.

And so I'm kind of doing a bunch of testing of certain things and working on my skills, part tr.

Part test training style before I put it all together.

But I've also already seen some pretty amazing things that have challenged me and have gotten me a little bit out ahead of my skis.

But luckily, all good outcomes so far.

So what's.

What's one.

Back it off for a little bit.

What's one scenario that has tested you and kind of pushed you to maybe where you didn't feel as comfortable as.

You should in the backcountry?

I'd say.

So I was down the Oahees, which is in southeastern Oregon, and a little bit in Idaho, which is beautiful, but it's more rollers, rolling hills.

They're not the serious jagged or steep mountains of the Cascades or the Sawtooth or the Alaska Range or whatnot.

They're just more roller.

So they're a little bit more tempting and I think insidiously dangerous in that, you know, the guys I was flying with wanted to land just on the top of a random hill, and he'd landed there before, so you knew there weren't any big rocks, but there wasn't a lot of room at the top of this hill, and there's already two Cubs parked at the top of the hill.

So I, My, my, my window was closing a little bit, and I.

And it's hard to tell the grade of a landing spot until you're like, right on it.

So you want to descend if you're shopping the strip a little bit.

So I flew over it, saw them land, so I think I could probably do it.

And there was a go around option, so I.

I had that in forefront of my mind, and my approach was looking good, so I definitely landed.

But as I was right about to touch down, I had to.

I had to go full throttle.

Not, not to go around, but to actually arrest my sink rate.

Pull the nose up 20 degrees, and it was still pretty hard landing.

It wasn't super hard, but.

And then.

And I.

I stopped in like 60ft and bloop.

I'm at the top of this hill with the two cups.

I'm like, my heart was just pounding.

I'm like, I shouldn't have done that, but I'm glad I did.

And there was a good outcome.

You know, you always got it's mitigated risk.

Right.

You know, you're taking this risk.

I wasn't with anybody.

Nobody else was with me in my airplane.

I had a helmet on, doing those things.

Right.

But, but you know, you gotta push yourself a little bit.

And, and so I don't really regret that.

But that's one thing.

To answer your question, that got.

Got my heart bumping quite a bit.

When you landed, were you able to keep your cool or were you kind of like, oh, boys, wow.

I was able.

I mean, shoot, I've, I've, I've, you know, flown fighters for 20 years.

I think I can keep my cool in tough situations.

But I definitely, I felt the adrenaline rush.

It was, it was exhilarating.

And the best part of that was the takeoff because you're just taking off the other side.

Yeah.

And just, you know, not a.

It wasn't a cliff, but it was off a steep hill.

And it's just.

That's so much fun.

What do you say?

One thing I've noticed, and I tell this to other people, it's like, you know, especially in your training, I always tell people, kind of what we talked about earlier is try to enjoy it because the chances of you flying GA again is very slim.

You know, we look at the people we fly with.

Maybe it's different in Alaska or I'll cut that out.

Maybe it's different at the airline you fly at.

But when not everyone flies GI GA ever again, some people think it's unsafe.

Some people think it's too much money.

Some people just think that, you know, I don't do that anymore.

I fly 121.

I fly private jets, whatever it may be.

I fly in the flight levels.

I fly ifr.

What do you say to kind of the skeptic?

That's the airline pilots like, oh, it's not safe.

I can't do that.

What do you say to them when you, when you start telling your cool stories?

Well, first off, I start with a anecdote as far as I had to ditch my first bonanza in the Columbia River.

So I've been there.

I've lost an engine and had to swim away from it.

Broke my hand in the process.

My wife and I were sore as hell, but we swam away from that incident.

And all your training of all your years and, you know, 135 and then 121 or however you get there, you're given this thing called airmanship, or you're developing this thing called airmanship, and it's going to kick in.

And.

Yeah, I mean, not every situation is going to be safe, but that situation in particular made me such a better pilot.

I didn't know if I was going to fly GA again after that incident.

For a few days of pure adrenaline and, you know, nursing a.

Some sore muscles and broken bone, I'm like, you know what?

I.

I can.

I can.

I can do better.

Right.

It was a problematic fuel system, and it ended up being my fault.

So that actually made it way easier to get back into an airplane.

Right.

If.

If we didn't know, dude, I wouldn't want to fly those death traps, but it was my fault.

Like, these things, the, you know, the safety record of, like, a continental engine well maintained and, you know, it's annual inspected.

I have full confidence in these things.

And yeah, there may be something that happens, but my wife actually said she's more comfortable flying in my bush plane I built myself than in the Bonanza.

Not because we crashed, because I replaced the Bonanza with a slightly newer model with the.

Not the problematic fuel system, but she.

But it's because she can see me land at 35, 40 miles an hour, which you can put down damn near anywhere.

And there are times, of course, in our terrain that we're flying over unforgiving territory.

And you.

You got to take that risk.

And you do kind of an ops check, as we call it in the Air Force.

You just scan your instruments and look at your gas and make sure, okay, this is a high risk area.

What are my outs?

Okay, there's not many outs right now, so I'm just gonna get as slow as I can and put it softly in the tops of the trees or.

But those are fairly rare because usually you're flying around rivers and lakes and.

And so.

So those offer opportunities, and some people just don't have the stomach for it.

And that's okay.

I'd say I'm better at.

Not better.

I'm willing to take a little bit more risk than the next guy.

And I don't look down at anybody for not being willing to take that risk.

That's what feeds me not exactly being at risk, but mitigating that risk and successfully navigating the challenges of it.

And then having a whiskey that night and talking about it with the.

With the boys at the fire, I mean, that's just like.

That's what feeds my soul.

All right, so you got to tell what happened with Obviously you said problematic fuel system, but you said it was your fault.

Was it.

Yeah.

Problematic in the way it was designed.

Or what was it?

Yeah, so it's.

It was.

So it was a J35V tail bonanza.

And the ox fuel tank was a straight and level fuel tank only.

Okay, so we're going up the.

I just gotten back from a deployment near the end of my Air Force career, and it was a beautiful day out on the.

In the Columbia Gorge.

Took off at a troutdale east of.

East of Portland.

And because I was supposed to go get my kiddos across the Cascades the next day.

So I want to do a confidence flight in it ironically.

So put some gas in it.

So I knew I had plenty of gas.

We just go up to Columbia, few miles, turn around at the Dalles and head back west towards.

I'm passing this little airport called Cascade Locks to my left.

It's beautiful airport right on the Columbia River.

Beautiful day.

In fact, gosh, next week it'll be five years.

And I do.

I'm like, hey, let's just do a low approach into this, into this airfield.

I consider it a VFR alternate, but I've never seen it.

And so nobody in the pattern.

So we just kind of keep going, same way, same day, downriver and do a low approach.

Making my radio calls, and I see a guy walking around on the Runway, and he kind of looks up at me and kind of realizes, oh, he's in the wrong space and kind of runs.

But I'm like, that's kind of weird.

I'm not gonna, like, do a low.

I'm not gonna land.

I'm not gonna put my landing gear down.

Trying to telegraph that, hey, dude, I'm not gonna land on you, but I'm also gonna see what the hell you're doing.

So I kind of slow down, put some flaps down.

Yeah.

Landing gears up.

And he's kind of like, hiding his face from me.

He's got a camera.

I think he's just like a plane watcher or whatnot.

Not supposed to be on the Runway, but anyway, it's kind of distracting.

I.

I don't do my full gumps check.

I don't put it on the.

The fullest tank.

Yeah.

Because I'm not gonna land right, so.

And I'm distracted by this guy and making excuse.

I'm not trying to make excuses.

This is just what's going through my brain.

And so I push up the throttle to Go around.

Meanwhile, I'm feet and 80 knots, right?

The bonanza glides okay at 105 knots.

So a lot faster than what I'm doing.

So essentially not a lot of time to react.

So I push up the throttle and essentially.

No kick in the pants.

No.

It pitches up initially, and then it.

And then the acceleration stops, and I'm like, okay, so I reach down, I switch fuel tanks immediately.

But I don't have time.

I'm looking out in front of me and I see sailboat masts, a big rock jetty off the left was like a ton more rocks and like railroads and bad thing out to the right.

Beautiful glassy water, no boats.

I'm like, easy.

So I'm starting to stall already.

And so I'm cleaning off the wing.

Put bunt a little bit or push forward on the yoke a little bit.

I only have enough energy to turn just about 15 degrees, right, and Ms.

The jetty.

And.

And it's time to flare like in.

And it happened quicker than that, right?

About probably six to eight seconds.

Had I had more time to troubleshoot or do it, if I had hit that boost pump now that I'd switched to a main tank, or even probably now that I'm not, you know, pitching up, I probably would have recovered.

So that's like that.

I lose sleep over that overnight.

But I can't really be too hard on myself because I had a handful of airplane and about six seconds to make a life or death decision and put it down in the water and make a survivable landing.

So that is what I try to focus on in that I didn't try to turn back to the airport and stall, spin it in.

Plenty of friends that have done that and not live to tell the story.

So I picked a crash site and I flew there.

And I think about this is you want to extend your deceleration over the longest period of time in a crash scenario, right?

It's the.

It's the rapid deceleration or rapid to zero things that'll kill you.

But if you can go to zero in three seconds, that will probably save your life.

And so you want to flare as much as you can.

There wasn't much of a flare because I was pretty much out of energy by the time I was able to turn the airplane around.

But I didn't.

Not around 15 degrees to the right, but I didn't.

But I got the wings as level as I could.

The right wing hit a little bit first, and then, you know, my.

The yoke Was buried in my belly.

And then that, with that rapid deceleration, the yoke slams forward, hits the stop, and my hand was on it.

And then it decelerates with the yoke and crack the bone right there.

It's very common, like, you know, driving injury when there's an accident of steering wheel breaking bones.

So that was the only structural damage to myself.

My wife reaches over and tries to open the door because we didn't have time to crack the door.

As they say, you're supposed to prep the door in a forced landing.

We didn't have time, but she always kind of struggles with that bonanza door.

I didn't know the sound was broken.

I just reached over and it popped right open.

Thank goodness, because it was filling up with water really quickly.

And I look for my phone, can't find it.

I'm like, well, we got to get out.

We stand on the wing.

There's a fisherman on the edge of the jetty who just caught a big old steelhead.

And he's, like, looking at me.

He goes, whoa.

And I'm like, hey, nice fish.

Like, I hadn't quite, you know, my brain hadn't quite caught up with what had just happened.

I think the PTSD was definitely coming and the adrenaline was still kicking in.

But he's like, dude, that was crazy.

Do you need me to throw you a line?

And I'm like, I don't think that's gonna help much, man.

We're going out pretty quick.

This is a, you know, 3,000 pound airplane.

So, yeah, I'm like, babe, time to start swimming.

Because that point we're standing on the wing and water's up to our thighs, and we hop in and we start approaching that jetty, and that was like our lifeline.

We were, you know, had we not got out of the jetty, it would have been a much longer swim.

And, you know, with my background, I was having really no problem swimming.

And again, I still know my hand is broken, but I'm like.

I'm like, babe, pick up the pace.

We're gonna have to swim faster to hit that jetty.

And she did, and she did a great job, but banged up our knees pretty good on the rocks underneath on the jetty.

But there's some good samaritans that met us with towels.

And I look down and my hands all swollen.

I'm like, oh, that doesn't look good.

So dang, man.

But anyway, yeah, lots of.

Lots of good lessons learned.

I haven't even debriefed that one on My on my channel yet.

So that's kind of.

You get the the exclusive on.

On what happened with with Steven has been bonanza, but I should probably attack that one.

What does what's the wife say after that?

Like, what does she say?

When you get off the jetty, you guys make eye contact for the first time.

She like, what you want to know?

The first thing she said.

She's.

She goes, that wasn't that bad.

Like, you are a badass.

She's like, I'd do that again.

I'm like, shut up.

She's like, no, I wouldn't do it again.

But like, that wasn't that bad.

Like, she is so rad and I'm lucky to have her.

Lucky that she flies with me again.

It took.

I did a video on like me flying her again in my new Bonanza.

And it was like a really bumpy day and it was just bad decision because she was a little bit anxious, a little bit nervous.

But now she's pretty good.

I mean she's not zero anxiety or zero nerves, but.

But she's just a badass.

So yeah, I'm thankful for.

What did it take for you?

You mentioned that you knew that it was something that you could have done different.

You kind of understood what you did wrong in the scenario.

But was there any kind of hesitation at all on your end?

You know, the first time you had to do a go around, the first time you had to kind of add power again really quickly.

Was there any kind of like, oh, oh crap or was there any kind like pucker factor essentially?

Or did it kind of smooth sailing getting back into ga?

Surprisingly very smooth sailing back in the ga.

And.

And so after.

After I was a test pilot, I went to the guard and became a safety.

Well, actually it was active duty.

I went through safety school in the Air Force and became an investigator.

And so they as well as being an instructor pilot, they really tell you how to peel an onion back and get to the root cause of something because a young instructor CFI will like correct an error, but they wouldn't get to the root cause of figure out was it a perception, a decision or execution or maybe a game plan error and get to the root cause and really help you fix to really help you prevent it from doing it in the future.

So I was able to really peel that onion back with the help of the faa.

It was a guy named Jason with the FAA who.

Who kind of discovered what really went wrong because I didn't want to think about it for about a month.

Three weeks later he calls me, he's like, hey, you had a J35 or a J35 bonanza, right?

With that ox fuel tank?

I'm like, immediately I knew what he was asking.

I'm like, yep, I think that's what happened.

And so and so.

But that does that, that's what happened.

But that doesn't answer the why.

Why didn't I know not to do a low approach on that tank?

Right.

I was deployed and I, it was, I misprioritized.

If I was going to go fly, I needed to get back in the books.

I need to review my emergency procedures, my systems knowledge.

So.

But why?

That still doesn't answer why.

Too busy just, just not prioritizing the importance of being a knowledgeable, credible pilot.

I didn't emphasize that I had the time, I just didn't.

And so that kind of appealed the onion back.

And it was obviously most things are human factors, so it was a human factor of just misprioritization of tasks and general knowledge, studying my general knowledge, studying the book.

So that made me a lot more confident getting back into GA because now I'm again more competent and have really taken that lesson and go through my, my bonanza poh pretty frequently and we'll practice on my own some, some of the maneuvers and whatnot, which I didn't really ever, ever do before that.

Right.

What, what was building your plane like?

You mentioned that your wife's like, I trust you building your own airplane.

But me personally, if I built my own airplane, I'd be like, ah, dude.

It was so rewarding for a while.

I ended up flying that.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, but then again, I don't know, but if you ever had that passion or that experience with a neighbor, that kind of introducing you in aviation, like that's how it came to be for me.

And so this was just like 8 year old Steve just being so giddy and I was such a nerd about this that I learned how to wire avionics and I designed my whole interconnect system.

I read the Garmin G3X installation manual cover to cover like 800 pages plus and nerded out on that too.

And it slowed down the, the build process.

And because I'm I guess, kind of cheap, I could save $10,000 by building my own wiring harness.

And dude, it worked.

I couldn't believe it.

That was, that honestly was probably the most rewarding thing is powering up the avionics that I like wired for the first time.

So it's for sure it's not for everybody.

I like fly fishing, which is to say I like focused but seemingly boring stuff to everybody else.

But the other fly fishers will know what I mean.

It's just like your focus.

It takes your mind off of everything else in the world and you're just focused on this one thing and there's a 0 or a 1 at the end of it.

A win or a loss.

You either catch that fish or you don't.

The avionics power up or they don't.

And they work or they don't.

So that's just the way I work.

And as far as getting in it and flying was a little bit nerve wracking.

But I did everything by the.

Yeah.

First time.

But I did everything by the book.

Yeah.

And torqued everything.

Right.

So I thought.

And had people check on it.

Multiple people check on.

On me doing kind of interim inspections.

Just friends of mine.

And.

And then the FAA's inspection pass pretty much flying colors.

And so yeah.

Yeah.

I have a ton of confidence in the airplane.

It's.

It's good design.

Credit to.

To Randy Schlitter, the Designer of the RANS S21 free plug for him.

What's the same?

A year later I reach out to him like, hey dude, guess what?

I'm building a Rans too.

Or I'm building whatever it is.

Give me kind of three tips that you would give to someone that's very new.

Kind of like what you wish that you would have known the very first time you bought a kit.

Good question.

I.

I would say in my case, I wasn't really.

I wanted a backcountry bush plane and this isn't a backcountry bush plane.

I'm kind of like turning it into one.

And you know, I'd say ask more people their opinions on the type of aircraft.

In my defense, this is pretty much a brand new kid at the time.

And.

But I didn't know backcountry aviation.

I really didn't know anybody in it.

I was just a viewer on YouTube.

And so I wish I would have reached out to a couple people to kind of get their opinions and they probably would have steered me away from this airplane.

I have no regrets building this airplane, but it's not the most capable.

Right.

It's light stole and I like, I like how it goes fast.

It's, it's, you know, I can push ahead of all my buddies and their cubs and go, you know, set up camp before they do see you dudes or Catch up to them if I'm lagging behind.

Because we're going to fly to Anchorage in all of our backcountry planes this June.

Cool.

With a bunch of Cubs, like nine aircraft.

So I can kind of push ahead.

Or if I want to sleep in one morning, you know, CFLs, I'll catch up with you and be caught up with them in no time.

So.

But I guess to answer your question.

Yeah.

Just, just familiarize yourself with the, the, the forums of that community.

I mean if you're a Vans guy, there's pretty rich RV forums.

The rans s21 forum is kind of on Facebook, so.

But those aren't going to get you what I'm talking about.

Those are going to get you even more hook, line and sinker into that aircraft.

It's people in the community that fly other airplanes.

What is their opinion of your chosen kit?

But then again, you pull 10 pilots and you're going to get 20 opinions.

So be careful with that.

And then just go for it and just own it.

Which I've done.

Done.

Cool.

Hopefully it answers the question.

No, it does.

It's probably something I'll never do, but I want to get back into ga.

I want to buy airplanes.

You know, it's just kind of like eventually like buying the airplane, the initial cost, you know, you just look at it, you're like, that is a ton of money.

It's like, why are 182s going for $180,000?

Like in my brain I just cannot think about why that makes a good financial decision.

But that's why you got to build one.

You're right.

But I can't build a 182.

I don't want.

I live in this.

I live in North Carolina and they like the Piedmont area.

Not even in the mountains area.

So it's like if I got a.

It doesn't make sense for me to have a bush plane.

Or like you have young kids.

Huh?

You have young kids.

I have a three year old.

Three year old boy.

Yeah.

It's not really the season for you for that.

Yeah.

Right.

You know, if you've got at least an interest right now, it'll probably creep back up and then have better.

Thing is just have buddies with airplanes.

Right.

I know.

I need more friends in North Carolina that have airplanes.

Come on guys, where you at?

Or girls, whatever.

I'm open to whatever.

Just give me the plane.

Yeah.

You always hear about these people that have like opportunities like these bonanzas or the serious.

It's like where's my opportunity?

Joking.

Don't really think that way.

But I want to wrap it up here soon.

We didn't really talk too much about your kind of transition from military to civilian flying, but I want to ask, you've done really fulfilling flying, right?

Military's fulfilling.

You know, I'm sure backcountry flying is fulfilling to you as well.

What are your thoughts on 121?

Like, would you just be happy being a major airline pilot?

Would that truly bring, like a fulfilling nature to you?

Or do you think you would always be searching for something else to do?

Well, I'll answer it like this.

I think it could make me happy if I decide if I decided like that I just, for whatever reason, I couldn't fly GA or whatnot because there's so much opportunity within the 121 world.

And here's what I mean.

We go to Tahiti, we go to Tokyo with my whole family.

Like, we love the travel.

And that's the part that I would really dive into more, right?

And if I needed more professionally, I would continue on with the instructor thing.

I got hired as a.

Early on as a FO instructor pilot for my airline.

Right, Right.

When the international Guard called up and said, hey, come back, we got orders for you.

So I had to.

Had to put that aside.

But if I had extra time in this world, which I don't, I would absolutely enjoy going back to the instructor thing in the 121 world.

So, yeah, no, I could absolutely be happy in just the 121 world.

But there's so much in the GA and experimental world and the YouTube world that I made such good friends in that world that it'd be hard to walk away from it voluntarily.

But if I had to, for whatever strange reason, like if I lost my medical and I could only maybe just be a sim instructor, I could be happy with that.

As long as they don't take away my non rev privileges, I'm all right.

I know, right?

I want to go to Tahiti.

All right.

Yeah, I hear that, dude.

Well, it's been a lot of fun chatting with you.

You know, it's really cool to kind of just share different experiences, hear people why, why they do this, why they do that, how they got in aviation?

And what's really cool to think about is like that neighbor that.

Does that neighbor have any idea what he influenced by just having an airplane build in his garage?

You know?

Like, does he know that, like, now you built your own airplane, you're flying for A major airline.

You flew in the Air Force all because you witnessed him building his plane.

I mean, there might be.

Burt Rutan obviously is in there as well.

But does that neighbor, that someone that's so close that probably has no idea what he did just by having that build and having you have the ability to ask questions?

Yeah, I mean, he, he.

I'll answer it like this.

He, he.

I don't know if that was a question, but he does know that I flew fighters in the Air Force.

I don't know if, you know, I moved to Bend, Oregon, which is where Lance Air moved to.

Oh, by the way.

And that's a whole nother story, which I won't get into.

But.

But I don't think he knew I built an airplane, which I'd love to follow up with him.

But the way I'll turn that around is think about yourself as that old person mentoring the kids.

And I take extreme pride in the fact that I'm mentoring three young pilots.

One's not young.

He's actually older than myself.

And he's just started the journey onto.

Into the airline world.

He's like, yeah, like, what did I say, 51.

Almost 51.

But I'm mentoring him and then two very young folks.

So take that opportunity if you can, to kind of pay it forward.

Because I am so appreciative of the folks that have inspired me, especially Ray across the street as a Ray modern, if anybody knows, shout out Ray man.

He was on the COVID of Kit Plains magazine with his beautiful Lance Air.

So last question I'll ask is you mentioned you mentor some people.

Just mentorship in general, how important it is.

But.

But what would you say are kind of like three truths or just like three things that you think every pilot needs to be successful, Whether you're ga pilot, whether you're an airline pilot.

Just kind of three common facts that are ways to fly airplanes that will keep you safe and keep you happy.

Humble, approachable, credible.

That was way easier than I thought that was going to be.

You didn't even like, stand like you were just like, all right, this is over.

See you later, man.

Thank you.

That's like the Air Force Force weapon school, like that expanded to most fighter pilots to try to.

Because there's an opinion that we're a bit cocky and not very approachable.

But.

So we're trying to change that.

But yeah, humility, being approachable and backing it up with being credible.

I love it.

I think it's great, great words to live by great things for anyone to listen.

If someone's watching this first time they ever heard of you, drop your socials, let them know what your channel is all about and give them a little hint or a little reason to follow you.

Yeah, thanks, Justin.

So my main thing is the YouTube thing.

So YouTube.com cleared direct.

It's all one word together.

Cleared direct.

So two Ds in the middle and then on Instagram that be secondary for me.

Instagram.com cleared_direct._youtube.

So I'm sure you'll have links in the.

In the show description there, but thanks for letting me drop those.

Yeah, YouTube's my goal is to kind of double my subscribers this year.

So give me a subscribe if you.

If you can.

Love it.

I'll do it right now as soon as I get off because I don't know if I subscribe.

I don't watch another country YouTube very much.

I'm sorry, you're just gonna have FOMO.

You're just gonna have FOMO.

That's fine.

I can deal with FOMO.

Maybe I won't follow you.

No, I'm just kidding.