Darren Byrd, a dedicated airline pilot with nearly two decades of experience, recounts his inspirational journey into the aviation industry, highlighting the pivotal moments that shaped his career. Starting with a childhood fascination for flight simulators, Darren's desire to become a pilot was initially stifled by self-doubt regarding his math skills and eyesight. It wasn't until his wife pushed him to pursue his dream that he embarked on the rigorous training required to become a commercial pilot. The discussion covers the intricacies of his flight training experience, emphasizing the need for commitment and the sacrifices made along the way. Darren's candid reflections on the financial challenges of flight school and the emotional hurdles faced during training resonate with aspiring aviators, showcasing the importance of determination and support systems in achieving one’s goals.

The episode takes a deeper dive into the realities of working as a junior pilot during the economic downturn in the late 2000s, shedding light on the uncertainties and challenges that come with the profession. Darren shares his experiences of being furloughed and the emotional struggle of remaining hopeful in a tumultuous industry. He underscores the value of networking and proactive career management for pilots, advising that building relationships within the aviation community can significantly enhance opportunities for advancement. This narrative not only serves as a guide for new pilots but also offers a sobering reminder of the unpredictable nature of the aviation industry, encouraging listeners to be prepared for both the ups and downs of a flying career.

Darren's journey doesn't stop at flying; he also delves into the world of social media and its impact on aviation. He discusses the responsibility that comes with being an aviation influencer, emphasizing the need for professionalism and caution in how pilots represent themselves online. Through his engaging storytelling, Darren highlights the importance of transparency in sharing the realities of being a pilot, aiming to educate and inspire the next generation of aviators. His mission to demystify the aviation profession while providing authentic insights serves as a compelling call to action for those considering a career in flying, making this episode both informative and motivational.

My name is Darren Bird.

I am a pilot for a major airline currently on 777.

I've been flying as an airline pilot for 17 years, and I've been doing social media for quite a bit to help the next generation come into the field.

Darren, what's going on, man?

Welcome to the Pilot, the Pilot podcast.

Morning.

How you doing today?

Pretty good.

Sitting.

I short call reserve here in a couple hours, but it's an easy gig.

Yeah, well, short call is great when you live in base.

For me, I'm relatively junior and commuting to and from New York, and I had Long Call for two months and now I'm looking at Short Call for December.

It's just, man, it's like, dang it.

Especially for New York, covering three airports.

Yeah, yeah, covering three airports.

Hotels are just stupid expensive to start out with.

So.

Yeah, it is what it is though, right?

You know, eventually we'll have some seniority.

You'll be able to fly somewhere else other than London consistently, and I'll get back to Charlotte or I'll get to Charlotte, so it'll all be good.

Gotcha.

Well, cool, man.

Well, the first thing I always ask everyone, and this is kind of an interesting question for you because you have changed careers from what I've gathered, but the first thing I ask everyone is, why aviation?

What was it about aviation?

Was it early in life for you or was it something that truly happened later in life?

So it was really early in life for me.

It was back in, like, seventh grade.

This is in the 80s.

I'm old.

And we had one computer in our woodshop class and I had flight sim on there, and I was amazed by just not only the computer, but the whole flying aspect.

So that got me into computers in the early mid-80s, and I've been flying on the computer ever since.

And I never thought I could be an airline pilot because I was always told as a kid you had to be good in math and good math and have good eyesight to be an airline pilot.

Well, I was horrible in math and I have bad eyes, so I never even pursued it until later on in life when I've already entered a whole different career.

But I've always wanted to be a pilot, but I didn't know how to be a pilot.

So what was it from there that kind of led to it, or was it just truly like, that's not for me.

I can just play it on video games and I'm going to pursue a different career.

So I was in it for a long Time and I would come home from work and I would sit at my desk and fly on the computer every single day.

And my wife was like, hey, you come home from work mad and you fly the computer and you're happy.

So we need to fix something.

You need to go be a pilot or find a new career because this isn't working for us.

And so thankfully she has a great job and she was able to kind of bankroll and help me go through the whole pilot training thing.

But my wife pushed me to get into this career because she realized me being in it.

Although it was a white collar job and 8 to 5 Monday through Friday, I wasn't happy doing what I was doing then.

What did that look like?

What did it look like as a family?

As looking at how many, well, how expensive it's going to be, what flight schools to use.

What was that like in the transition from leaving your job?

Did you just flat out quit and go to training or was it kind of I'm going to work and train and get my ratings that way?

I live in the Dallas area and there's tons of flight schools around here and I was working a 40 hour a week job and so I tried to find a flight school that could be compatible with keeping a job because I have bills to pay.

So I would work 7 to 4 Monday through Friday and then I would drive down, I live in Arlington, drive down to the Arlington airport and I would train 4:30 to whatever I was done two days a week and then all day on Saturdays.

The flight school was, I went to ATP back then they had a self paced program where you could go when you wanted to.

And it sounds good except they had a high, high failure rate because people as you know would start off real strong and then say I'm taking a week off, I'm going to come once this week and then I'll come later on next week.

And they wouldn't.

Right.

And they fall behind.

But I was like, no, no, this is $60,000.

I'm going to go every week.

I went again twice a week minimum.

And then all day on Saturdays.

If I went On Tuesday at 4:30 it was storming.

I would still go, I would study and I go the next day.

So I would keep making up my days.

I would go sometimes five days in a row to make sure I got all my training in.

So for me it worked great.

They've since got rid of the program, unfortunately.

Probably because too many people failed.

I'm guessing they didn't.

Like, a lot of people had remedial training and they got mad that it cost more money.

But it's like you need the training because you didn't come often enough.

So.

Right.

It's called a self study program.

You just forgot the self study.

Yeah.

Because no one's calling you to come up to the airport.

So if you don't motivate yourself and it's not gonna work out for you very well.

Yeah.

And they don't mind.

They're like, hey, we'll take your money.

Hey, you gotta pay more.

Okay, cool.

Bring it on.

And, you know, a lot, a lot of, you know, on that whole flight school note, people also ask me, what flight school do I recommend?

And I don't ever recommend any certain flight school because we all learn differently.

And it's.

It's hard to understand.

It's hard.

I get.

When you're sitting at home looking at these websites and like, how do you find a fight school?

They have all these fancy ads.

And I tell people you need to actually drive to that location, Talk to the CFIs, talk to the students, look around it and see if could you learn there.

Because in my opinion, how fast you get trained is small, minuscule to if you get trained and learn anything.

Well, I mean, a lot of people are just so like.

I mean, I was even.

I can fall into this category.

Right.

You're just so focused on getting to the airlines.

You're so focused on getting to the regional that you will do.

You will want to do it as fast as possible.

But what you don't understand is you're setting yourself for failure and right then and there, because, I mean, for me, I took my instrument checkride too soon.

I wasn't ready for it.

I just needed to do it, or my instructor told me I needed to do it and I failed it.

Thankfully, it didn't hold me back from getting jobs.

And usually failing a checkride doesn't.

But that was purely on me for taking it too soon and trying to rush myself through training.

Because I was like, all right, I got to do this.

I got to do this.

I got to do this.

I got to get a thousand hours.

But if you can just slow down and kind of enjoy your training and really understand.

I always tell people this.

When you make it to the airlines, the chance of you actually flying the plane that you're flying now is probably.

Is almost zero.

Like you, you Fly with people.

We don't usually go fly ga ever again.

So enjoy it while you can.

And, and that, and you know when you're going to 1,500 hours, most of that, most of that time is spent time building, not training.

Right?

So if you take, I took a year to get all my ratings in, right?

A year.

This is a lot.

I mean compared to the fast track programs.

But if you could get all your ratings in a year and then haul butt through time building, you can beat the person that did the fast track program and then you know, doing their time building maybe a little slower.

So in my opinion, the time building portion is the bigger portion.

The Russian versus the getting your basic, especially your private and your instrument, the foundations of all your whole career.

You take your time, understand what you're doing and not just have rote knowledge, you know, up, down, left, right, no, yeah.

I mean, and that's a hard thing to do, right?

I mean especially when people are pushing Shepherd Air, it's like, hey, after your private juice, Shepherd Air for everything.

And there is something to it though too.

It's like you just got to pass the test.

But it's also important for you to have the fundamental knowledge because if it doesn't get you in the checkride, if it doesn't get you in your training, there's going to be a day where you're flying and they ask you to do something and the weather's bad, you got a malfunction and something happens and you're going to really wish you had the fundamental knowledge of why something's happening or what you need to do so you can focus on flying the airplane and you could be in the actual moment.

Correct?

Yeah, totally agree.

So why did you choose ATP?

Was it just, was there a bunch of choice?

I mean you live like you said, you lived in Arlington, you live in Dallas.

I mean there is probably every flight school in the world that one can imagine in the Dallas area.

So what was it about ATP that stood out to you?

There's a ton even at Arlington Airport back then it was an untowered field.

It was the third busiest airport in the metroplex.

It was DFW Love Field and then Arlington, there was like five flight schools at the airport.

Really busy, had lots of choices to pick from.

But for me they had a big fleet, they owned their fleet.

It wasn't like an owner lease back thing where sometimes you might be training on an airplane and then the owner says I'm going to sell my airplane and then you have to Learn on a whole new model.

Right.

They have a standardized fleet of airplane.

They had on site mechanics and they were, they're very well known.

I mean, they get a lot of flack, but they've been around for a long time because they know what they're doing.

Right now I endorse certain flight school, but when I did all my research, they had the best program for me, especially that I could keep my job and they could work around my schedule.

That was big for me versus having a very rigid schedule that didn't work for me or quit my job kind of thing.

That was an option for me.

Yeah.

Was there any moment where you were in your training and you're like, I think I'm making a mistake.

Like, this is like, I'm going to quit this good job.

I have.

I went to school for this my whole life.

Like, this is crazy.

Multiple times.

Because again, I've been flying since, on the computer since I was in sixth or seventh grade.

Right.

And here I am going to find the real thing and opening these books and all the terms and new concepts that I didn't know.

I didn't know.

And now I have to learn these things.

And that's like, you know, I thought, man, this is a huge hill to climb.

I'm not going to be able to do this.

I didn't think I was going to be able to do it.

Every.

Every rating.

Yeah.

Especially when I got to the end and my boss at the time, she knew I was going to quit because I was reading my books during my lunch break and she told me, how long do I have?

I said, probably till March.

This give me notice.

I gave her notice.

But even then I was like, I was nervous.

Quitting a guaranteed path.

I could still be the same company.

They're still down the street from where I live.

I could be there today versus leaving.

And at the time, ATP paid their instructors $1,000 a month plus $100 per checkride pass if they pass the first time your students.

Right.

So I was taking a giant pay cut to go be a CFI to maybe get an airline job.

Maybe.

It was a huge stressor.

Huge stressor.

But again, I'm glad I did it.

For me, it worked out fairly well.

Not necessarily the best time for training.

Right.

There might have been a little bit.

I don't, I can't.

Financials, everyone just does.

Bad airlines is going out and you people are getting furloughed and here you are probably at this time with a new commercial ticket and you are ready to enter the aviating world and no one's hiring.

And so when I got hired by my first airline In October of 07, I had a total of 540 hours total time for 420 multi because I only taught in a Seminole.

But here I am a new new first officer at a regional in October 07.

In May of 08 my regional was furloughing because again the economic downturn and I spent over a year as the most junior pilot in my status sitting airport ready reserve for eight hour shifts.

Almost one month.

I flew five hours.

Oh wow.

I thought, I thought I was going to be furloughed right away again.

I thought I made a horrible decision because I'm making half of what I made at my old.

It giggled as an airline pilot.

So here I was, I spent all this money on this loan, got the airlines, they're furloughing, I'm making no money and I'm not flying and no one's hiring.

I was.

Yeah.

A lot of my friends couldn't handle it and they actually went and left.

Left the industry.

Did they?

Like it was still a really bad time or what looked like a bad time to start training.

Like everyone.

Oh yeah.

People were just down on it.

Like what are you doing?

Pick anything else.

Like it's never going to get better.

This is just what it is.

And sure enough, it has gotten better.

Right.

Like, I mean obviously Covid happened and it got worse again, but it's just how aviation is and it's something you really need to hold on to.

Yeah.

That it's going to happen again.

I mean we are in a little bit of a hiring slowdown right now and I have some regional friends that are kind of freaking out and they're like, oh, they just stopped hiring.

I'm like, I mean I feel like they didn't necessarily stop.

They're more just going back to what they have hired, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

So it's more of what the industry norm was ten years ago or five years ago.

Uh, now will it get back to what it was?

I don't know.

It might be a little bit more competitive than what it was in the last two years.

But there's still.

You're still on a really good opportunity to make it to a major airline.

And seniority looks pretty good at most of them still.

I think Delta's hired a lot, but outside of that, most airlines are still need a lot of pilots, especially ones that are retiring.

Like, I think one airline's retiring like 2,000 people in the next three years.

That's just insane.

So you're still in the right spot.

It's going to get better.

Just keep your head down.

It's like you are.

You were able to afford an apartment.

A lot of people had welfare and.

A joke back when I first started flying.

And even in the late 90s, you know, what's the difference between a regional pilot and a large pizza?

A large pizza can feed a family of four.

A regional pilot couldn't.

A lot of regional pilots actually could afford.

Could qualify for food stamps.

And one regional airline, kind of the union of that airline made posters saying our pilots qualify for food stamps.

So what that regional airline do, they raise the pay just above the food stamp level so they couldn't qualify anymore.

They didn't have to do a decent pay wage.

Yeah, they just raised their level enough so they couldn't qualify food stamps anymore.

And it had the pettiness between an airline and a union when they get into negotiations is just wild.

Like the stuff that goes down in the tactics used, it's just so crazy.

But I want to go back a little bit to talking about struggling.

Not necessarily struggling, but thinking if this is a bad idea or why did I do this?

We talked about how you felt.

What about your wife?

Your wife was the one that kind of like pushed.

Not necessarily pushed you, but kind of gave you the push over the edge.

Like, hey, I can't take you being sad anymore.

I want you to be happy.

Let's do this.

Was she in this moment, even maybe in training when she saw how it took you away a little bit, maybe your life changed a little bit.

And then especially when you were the most junior person sitting airport reserve for a year, she's got to be like, this kind of sucks.

Can you call your boss back?

Yeah, she was concerned about me not flying, but maybe that she kind of nudged me into this career and here I am not doing the career.

Thankfully, she's been very supportive of this entire time.

Even when as a pilot, you know, sometimes you're going to miss events, family events and everything else.

Thankfully, she's been very supportive and it took a long time and I got hired in 07 and I went to a historically long upgrade regional.

I didn't upgrade to captain and for, good lord, eight years, eight and a half years.

So here I was eight years down and we had, at the time we had an eight year pay scale and said, oh, don't worry, you're never gonna get the top of the pay scale.

I did.

So I got no raise, finally upgraded to Captain and then it wasn't until eight and a half years where I actually made more money on paper than I did before I started flying.

Excluding inflation, just pure dollar value, it took eight and a half years to get to that level again.

So it was a struggle.

Thankfully, we've always lived under our means.

We've never been money, money, money kind of thing.

So we haven't always been extremely comfortable and fortunate financially.

We've struggled quite a bit to get to where we are now.

But thankfully, again, she supported me the entire time.

So I like how you bring up the struggles of the career changes because Instagram, you look at it, you know, you see 777 pilot, you see videos, you see everything.

I'm going to London again for the 15th time and people are like, oh my gosh, I would love to do that.

Right.

There's a lot of people sitting right now that are engineers that are in it, that are doing something else.

You know.

Now, if you could see a 10 year path, that would or what is it now?

How long has it been?

Almost 20 years.

18 years?

17 years?

Yeah.

So if you could see 17 years into the future from when you made that decision of what your career would look like, would you still do it again?

Has it been everything that you hoped it would be now or would you recommend someone to stay at your job, maybe just rent a 172 and go fly?

No, I would still do it, but I would make changes in my career path.

I tell the story often in that I learned to fly with three other gentlemen.

And I'm like, I'm good.

I'm just going to Fly for my regional.

I can't afford to do what you guys are doing.

Fast forward five, six years, they all left the regionals and they went to mainline.

And here I was still at my regional.

And so what I tell people nowadays is when you get to your regional past your first year of probation and then after that first year, your primary job is no longer flying with that regional.

If you don't want to stay, if you want to stay there, fine, stay there.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But if you want to go to mainline, your new job is getting to mainline, not flying for the regional by again, going to every single airline convention you can, shaking hands and taking notes at every speaking event, engagement.

Don't just go to the doctors and shake hands, listen to the speakers, improve yourself, improve your resume to get to where you want to be.

Because again, if I had followed what those three guys did, I would have been much further in my career.

Again, it is what it is.

But I, and I'm happy where I am, don't get me wrong.

But I would have done that differently.

I would have, if I could go back in time, I would have changed that course and take control of my career earlier in life.

Versus sit back in the right seat and just wait.

When you were looking at a major airline, was there anything that was very important to you?

Was there, I don't want to move, I don't want to commute.

Was there anything that kind of narrowed down certain ones?

Or would you recommend someone move if they had to or kind of explain the situation of finding your dream airline?

And did you apply to everyone or was it just like, I want one and that's it?

So initially when I saw my friends leave, I'm like, oh crap, they all left.

I did cast a wide net to everybody, but that was just out of frustration because in all, you know, keeping it real, most of the time I'm not at the airport, I'm not flying right, I'm at home.

So I say, where do you want to live is the most important thing.

And also where does your spouse want to live?

And if you, if you can move to a big city where your airline has a hub, that's going to be a win win if you can both be happy there.

For me and my wife, thankfully, I live 10 miles from the biggest hub we have in my airline.

So it was a no brainer to get to that airline.

But I tell people, listen, if you live in Des Moines, Iowa and your spouse is an accountant, they have an established career and an Established family network in Des Moines, Iowa.

And you want to do this career, then you need to have the talk and figure out how you're going to make it work as far as commuting for the rest of your career to make.

And what airline, major airline, would be the best for you and your family and your whole situation.

But for me, it was a no brainer to pick where I am now because It's.

I live 10 miles from the hub quite a lot.

For me, it's all quality of life.

Always quality of life over paycheck and everything else.

Yeah, for sure.

I would 100% agree with that.

Yeah.

Anything I can do to see my kid more.

Right.

And my wife.

Yep.

I can't just say my kid.

I got married one time and that's it.

Yeah, right.

That's the dream, man.

That is the dream.

So regional pilot for a while.

Like you said, you upgraded and you matched the eight years.

They said that no one will ever be on 8 year salary.

Was there ever a time where you thought, like, maybe I'm just going to be at a regional, like maybe this is where my career like kind of stops or this is like the prize.

I mean, I was really then just frustrated from like year five to year eight because at year four at my airline, it was a five year upgrade.

I'm seeing people a year ahead of me get captain.

Oh, it's one more year.

You know what, I'll be captain.

Just got one more year back to year five.

Okay.

Now it's a six year upgrade.

But hey, don't worry, it's almost there.

And it's a little carrot right in front of the horse like I'm almost there.

It was very, it was very frustrating, especially seeing my peers go to Mainline.

Right.

And here I am still at a regional and you know, it's, it is.

And it is what it is.

You never know in this career if you made the right career choices until you retire and look back at your whole life again.

Right.

My friends that went to Delta and JetBlue, who knows, maybe the airline I work for will get massive and eclipse them and I'll be way ahead of them one day.

You never really know.

But you have to play the hand you're dealt and make the best choice for you.

And for me.

I'm glad I didn't try to go sideways because then I had offers back in 20.

I could be double my pay right away.

I could be captain time right away, but I would be commuting.

And we ran the numbers and looked at our family and said, you know what, it wasn't worth the financial increase for the huge decrease in family time and home time.

So it's.

Yeah, you know, it was very frustrating.

It was a hard choice to make to not get in.

I had multiple offers because I played a game one day where I hit apply and I applied to three airlines at noon and had phone calls from two of them by one and another one by 5pm all offering direct entry captain positions.

Right then.

Yeah.

When you're in that state of mind where maybe frustration is taking over and, and maybe like a little bit of jealousy, right?

Like I want to be where they are, how do you keep that from entering your mind and just like fully taking over and becoming that bitter pilot that no one wants to fly with.

So for me, it's always, I've flown with people that again, is what it is.

But have had multiple ex wives are just unhappy to be where they are because of whatever is going on at home.

I rather can.

Most of my time I'm not flying an airplane.

I'm at home with my family.

Right.

So I'd rather be.

I have a happy home life and a decent work life now.

I'm not saying go work for a scummy airline and be treated horribly.

I was treated fine.

I was compensated okay.

I was flying.

By that point in my career, I was pretty senior as my first officer, so I was flying the chips.

I wanted to fly.

It was just a financial thing for me really.

You know what I'm flying, I'm getting weekends off, holidays off trips.

I want, I guess I work hard to where I get to where I want to be.

So was it.

It was frustrating, but yeah, yeah, I.

Mean it's extremely frustrating when you feel like you're just getting passed over because we all fly airplanes, right?

Like, I mean, it's just, you're like, what the heck?

Why?

Why him?

Like, I know, like, I've seen him fly.

Trust me, you don't want him.

And that's one thing with the industry that people, you know, people say, my upgraded captain, the first time saying, people say, oh, congratulations for upgrading the captain.

It's like, congratulations that I stuck around so long.

Right?

Because in the United States, on almost every airline you become captain not because you're an amazing pilot.

No, because your seniority got to the point where you could be captain.

Now you have to still check out as a captain with the FAA and the airline.

Right.

But by that point, we can all fly.

As you said, we can all fly airplanes.

So it is what it is.

I say that.

I say that a lot.

It is what it is.

Just is what it is.

Right?

Yeah.

I say smile and wave.

You know, Madagascar, the penguins.

Like, just smile and wave.

That's all you can do.

Was there a moment?

I feel like this moment is different for everyone.

For me, it really wasn't until I got hired at the job I'm at now.

But was there a moment where you finally felt like a real pilot?

Because, you know, when you.

When you're flying, whether you're flying a small plane or private jet, they're like, oh, what airline do you fly for?

And then you have to explain to them, and you're like, well, I actually fly this.

And then it's like, oh, you fly for regional.

Like, what airline do you fly for?

Well, technically, I fly for this one, which can also operate under this one, this one and this one.

But now they ask you the question, what airline do you fly for?

You're like, oh, I fly for this one.

Right.

You know, did.

Did you ever have a moment when you finally felt like, I'm an airline pilot or I'm a real pilot?

Yeah.

So I got lucky that the regional I flew for, originally the name on the side of the airplane was actually the name we flew for.

That was a good thing, but people kind of knew it.

I think why I became a real pilot was when I could say, I'm flying to la, then I have an overnight in New York when I'm flying, like, big cities, not I'm flying to Manhattan, Kansas, and Grand Island, Nebraska, you know, flying to a major city, and I fly for the actual mainline carrier.

I think that's when people kind of got it and then upgrade equipment to the Now.

I'm on a triple seven widebody now.

It's like, people get it.

You know, people say, oh, wow, what are you flying to now?

And I say, London.

Oh, London's amazing.

So, yeah, it's amazing.

But bigger cities and bigger airplanes, and if the actual name on the side of the airplane is the airline that people actually know.

Yeah, yeah.

So you, regional captain, you make it into, you know, the new mainline job that you have.

What was the training like for you?

What was getting to, like, the last job, knowing you never or should never have to apply to another job ever again.

So it was a little frustrating.

I interviewed at my mainline carrier in June of 17 and I interviewed with 10 people, four civilians, six military.

And the next week all six military got the call.

US four civilians had a radio silence until August.

It was a delay.

And then they said, oh, welcome aboard.

First class was in November.

So here I was hired in August and then had to go to November.

And I keep flying My little RJ, right.

Yeah.

@ the Main Line.

And then I had.

I was flying at 175 as a captain in my regional, got the Main Line and I had a choice between either Dallas, Super 80 or LA, New York, Airbus 73.

I'm like, do I want to fly this old Super 80 or do I want to fly a more modern plane?

And I picked the Super 80 because again, quality of life.

But here I was at mainline flying this old airplane to every city I flew to in my regional because at the time the Super 80 was on its way out.

So I was flying to Lubbock and Amarillo and Pensacola.

So here I am in mainline, flying to everywhere.

I flew at my regional over that whole year on that plane.

I flew to one new city, Tampa.

What was it?

Tampa.

Oh, wow.

Getting crazy, man.

Everywhere else we flew was an old RJ city.

But I mean, it was, it was very stressful, especially going, changing airlines, because when you go to a new airline, you.

You have to pass.

If you don't pass training, you're out.

And now you had no job to go back to.

Right.

So here I was going to mainline my last ever job and I'm learning on this archaic airplane.

It was extremely stressful.

Yeah, yeah, that was.

So I flew private.

I flew at NetJets previously and I flew the Citation Latitude and it had the nicest avionics.

You could pull the map out, you could go look at the weather in Russia.

You could, I mean, just like do anything with the avionics that you wanted to.

And one of my fears was moving down and going down in technology because I was so spoiled.

Like, I mean, LPV approaches, like all the fancy RNAV equipment.

Like, I was just like, I like this.

I don't want to go to the 73 and have to relearn new avionics and all that kind of stuff.

So I was actually worried about that when I did that.

Now I finally made the jump and I realized that they are not hard to learn at all and they're very simple and you have enough information you have plenty of information to know everything that you want to know.

Might not be able to check the weather in Russia as easily as you could.

My last job.

But you know who really needs to do that?

That was just when you're bored on like a six hour flight, you're like oh, what's the weather doing here?

Or where's a hurricane going?

And actually had like hurricane tracks.

Using Sirius xm I could like see what the hurricane's going to hit in like two days.

Like that's kind of cool.

Wow.

But yeah, it was, it was something that I was worried about.

But it turned out it did not need to worry about it.

Training was a non event like you said, it's, it's really stressful right when you're coming to the training just cause it's such a big moment, you're like I finally made it here.

Yeah, I can't fail out.

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

So you probably are putting way too much pressure on yourself to be honest with you.

And they're probably, the instructors are probably like you're fine.

Like you just need to calm down.

You know, it's like the Taylor Swift song, just calm down.

Because again you're, you're still, you're a pilot at your main line, but you still have a whole family.

Like you know, you have all this stuff at home to worry about too.

All the family and you, you know, you're in training thinking if I don't make this, can't pay bills and everything else going at home.

So it's a, it's a lot to going on in your whole, you know, you're, you're at your last carrier but you.

So if you don't pass then what are you gonna do?

And yeah, it was a lot.

Would you, would you say your Super 80 training was the hardest one that you had then with all that pressure you had?

Yeah, it wasn't.

Yeah, it wasn't.

Again, being new here, extremely old airplane, old fashioned way of teaching it.

And even the sim was so old at that point.

I had three type ratings and then so here, this is my fourth type range.

So I know how to fly a sim, but everything I've been in has been a modern Sim.

The Super 80 Sim was so old you could only see out of your window, meaning I couldn't see outside the captain's window at all.

So you're just looking at one portion of the field of view and all the old fashioned dials, lots of manual work.

It was very, very Different.

All right, so doesn't sound like too many fantastic things to say about your super radio.

Now, I might be wrong, but I want to hear at least two good things about the Super 80 that you.

That you either enjoyed or you reminisce on every once in a while.

It was extremely quiet up front.

Okay, it was extremely quiet up front.

And what else was fun about it?

It was.

It did require a higher level of attention from the pilot to turn on the wing and the tail.

Anti ice was seven steps and you were moving, man.

You had to move levers and switches in a particular order to turn on the wings and tail.

It was seven steps to do it.

So it was a little bit more meticulous.

And people say, oh, that's a real pilot.

But no, it's also a lot more workload and everything else.

So.

I appreciated the engineers who made the airplane because every time I pulled a lever, it was actually doing something.

Versus in a modern plane, it's just a button and some wiring behind it.

So.

But it was very quiet up front.

Yeah, I mean, that's how I feel with the shutdown.

With the shutdown flow on the 7 3M to something like.

Like flipping all these buttons and stuff.

It's like, what?

I was a brand new hire at my regional.

My wife and I went to D.C.

before we had kids, and we came back on a 7:3.

Yeah.

And she got this in the back.

I was in a jump seat.

First time ever in a jump seat was 737.

And Catherine was an awesome guy.

He said, darren, look at this.

This is all state of the art.

And so when I came to mainline, I'm like, okay, super ready.

This is my old airplane.

I'm never gonna fly 737.

Yeah.

So that taught me.

Yeah.

Bless your heart.

You guys have that seven three.

You guys do it.

I couldn't.

I couldn't do it.

You know what?

I've learned to love it.

I'm not gonna lie.

I don't know if it's.

Cause I'm too dumb to know anything else, but I'm sure if I got to the Airbus, you know, you sit down, you're like, oh, wow, it's so.

Narrow in that stuff.

It's so narrow.

And that wheel of death.

Yeah.

Watch out for your.

You know, if your knees spin it.

If your knee is a little bit out too Much.

And it just boom.

Yeah, it can get you, you know, put some hair in your chest, right?

It makes you unnecessarily.

Every time it moves.

I'm always like, all right, you're gonna stop, right?

Like, we're not running away.

Please stop.

Yeah, uh, yeah, it's.

It's fun.

You know, it.

I was worried about it, like I said earlier, but I mean, everything you can do is plenty enough for me.

Um, maybe one day I'll get the Airbus.

Um, I do want to go to Charlotte, so, I mean, that's a big base there for the Airbus and also has a 7, 3 base as well, so we'll see.

But the dream is to be a triple seven or 787 pilot.

Um, I want to talk a little bit about that for you too, so.

Okay.

Why did you.

You know they are paying an ungodly amount of money for captains for IR, early year captains upgrading in 2, 3, 4, whatever it might be.

Was it a hard decision for you?

Because, you know, this is kind of an opportunity for you to be like you said, you guys have always been living under your means.

You took out a loan.

Being a major airline captain can solve a lot of financial problems in a lot of people's lives.

Was it hard for you to say no to that?

Was it a big conversation with you and your wife?

Or was it something like, you know, we love quality life.

I think this triple seven will give me a better quality life.

So me, I've always been a quality of life person.

And so before I left the Airbus, I was bidding in the top 12%.

So I was getting the trips I wanted.

Weekends off, holidays off work.

I want to for the most part, right?

And I was playing the system where I was getting captain money flying as a first officer, I was crediting like 115amonth, flying 60 yards a month.

I didn't fly very much, but I was a high credit, low time fly guy.

So I told my wife, now listen, I'm either I'll go be captain when it makes sense for me, quality of life wise, or go be wide body first officer when it makes quiet makes sense, right?

And so I said, I'm going to bid wide body first officer two more times.

I kept bidding it, only in Dallas because I'm not going to commute for it.

And I said, well, I'm going to bid it one more time.

Can't get this.

Next time I'll stay first officer, talking to be a line holding captain on the Airbus and call it done.

Well, I finally Got awarded wide body first officer and it is a pay difference.

Right.

Even so, going from Airbus FO to Wide Body FO, it's about a $60 an hour raise, about 60 grand a year.

And then to be captain on the Airbus or 7:3 is another 60,000.

60 grand a year, $60 an hour.

So I'm like, you know, it's a lot more money being captain.

Absolutely.

But then we make a lot of money as it is.

Even a wide body first officer makes more than a quarter million dollars a year.

Um, we're totally fine.

I ran the numbers on it.

There's a website I went to and I ran the numbers and I'm fine.

I'm probably going to stay where I am until I can hold three day trips as a Airbus captain.

Because right now I do three day trips as a triple seven first officer.

I'm not, I'm not a four day trip kind of person.

This is not me.

What are you going to do when you got to fly like more than one leg a day though?

Are you spoiled now?

So I laugh at that because back in my regional days I used to buy five legs a day.

Yeah.

And so here I am in my main line I did three legs a day at most, plus maybe a dead head sometimes.

But nowadays it's just one leg and I'm like, man, this is kind of nice, just doing checklists one time.

Yeah, just once it'd be different.

But again, even my three day trips I used to do, I was a 2, 2, 2 guy or a 2, 1, 2 guy.

I'm not at 3, 4, 3.

No, no, no.

I'll wait till I can hold good trips because again, for me it's all quality of life.

I make plenty of money as it is.

I don't need to go be captain just for the money.

So no.

So that's one thing I appreciate about where I'm flying right now, New York.

It seems to be a lot of two legs with the occasional three legs.

But I have really grown to like just flying twice on one day.

My last job would be some three, five legs a day, mostly like four to five.

And it's like, ah, it's kind of nice just doing two, you know, one, one captain gets a landing, I get a landing, then we're done and then we have 16 hours off.

Like this is great.

But yeah, if I start seeing three and four, I might be like, I need to get some seniority.

And that was a weird thing for me going the landing thing you mentioned, because I used to Land, you know, on a three day trip, I would land three, four times.

Right now on a three day trip, I might land once, but I might not land at all because I might be relief pallet.

So that was a big mental thing for me initially was going to the airport in uniform and not taking off or landing.

That was weird for me especially going like two, three weeks sometimes and never landing or taking off.

That I've been on a plane now six months.

I have 19 landings in six months.

That's crazy.

I used to do 19 landings in a month.

So that was a big change for me.

When with that mentality, is it hard to stay fresh?

Is it hard?

I guess fresh in the right word.

Is it hard to keep your skills up?

Cause even if you take like a week off sometimes you can feel a little bit behind, right?

Like you gotta, you got to go.

I see that you post some sim stuff.

Do you do that to help you kind of stay in the flow of things and help keeping the flying kind of like relevant and new?

Or do you just do that for content?

Or I guess talk about just having not as many take off and landings as you've had.

So in the beginning I was doing it just to have an idea.

And I say, can you stay fresh and current, especially with the new, because where you fly the triple seven is very different.

How fly the Airbus?

So just to stay current, get my head into the new flows and profiles and everything else.

Now nowadays more it's mostly just for sim content.

But before I do a trip, if I know I'm gonna be an fo, I will crack open the iPad and just go through the profiles real quick in my head just to make sure I know what to do and what to do and when to do it.

The flows are pretty easy, but the profiles and everything else, just to make sure I'm saying the right thing at the right time.

And landing, yeah, landings are all over the place.

Sometimes they're really good.

But that's Triple seven is such a big airplane and so, so high that I've had really good wins and, and like either really good or yeah, I float and then land.

And I'm just thankful that they have great breaks in a triple seven.

Yeah, for good reason.

Cause it's so big.

Um, it, it's funny you talk about sitting up high.

Um, so coming from the private jet world, coming to the 7:3, you set up way higher in a 7:3 versus the plane I flew in.

So my first couple landings, trying to figure out where the gear was in Relation to the ground, it was just.

Oh man.

I had one landing in Dallas.

I was like, holy smokes.

Like, thank goodness for this gear being an absolute beast.

Yeah, that was a, that was a soul crushing one that will stick with me for rest of my life.

But I got it out of the system and now everything seems to be working better and doing well.

But yeah, the, the planes can humble you and especially the Triple seven.

Yeah, you need to keep that momentum going and I can imagine that it can get hairy pretty quick.

But I've always been told the Triple seven is just a great responding airplane and the way it flies is pretty fantastic.

It is, it's very, it's.

We had twos and threes and they fly differently.

But it's so big, it's such a small yoke.

But it's fly by wire so that you put in similar to Airbus, you put in what you want.

It's so you control it less than you do like on a 737, but coming in in a crosswind, you know, in a normal plane you can like kick it over and turn it and or even like let the wind push you onto center line.

If you do a little bit down one right, the Triple seven doesn't move.

So you can have it so bad crosswind, that thing ain't moving from centerline.

It's very different than the plane I've done previously.

Yeah.

What was the hardest thing moving into the Triple seven?

Was it just forgetting how Airbus works?

Was it figuring out how big the airplane was?

Was it truly just how much higher you're sitting above the ground?

It was for me, it was using my thumb again to trim because being on the Airbus for five years, I never had to trim.

It was auto trimming device and the Boeing ways of flying the plane as far as the autopilot and the control panel, like the whole V nav path thing was very different to me.

And then just the ways of controlling the plane.

Boeing and Airbus speak entirely differently on how things work.

So kind of forgetting the Airbus mentality and going to the 777 mentality, it was very different.

It's a very different way of doing things.

Yeah, that's what I've been told.

And just the theories behind how an Airbus works that you have to learn.

And then Boeing is just kind of pull back.

I mean.

Yeah, yeah.

For landing, the Airbus wants to know so much information that wants to know the barometric pressure, the wind, the temperature, all these things.

The Boeing knows what flaps do you want?

Yeah, it's like Land.

Good luck, dude.

That's your job, not my job.

Yeah, good luck.

All right, fly boy.

Fly.

Yeah.

You wanted to be a pilot.

Here you go.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Um, so looking back now on, well, I guess the question be, do you have any regrets in the path that you chosen?

I know that you kind of mentioned that earlier on you might have done things a little bit differently, but now that you're kind of at the end of the goal like that you're in the plane that people dream about flying.

Yeah.

Has there been any regrets about anything at all other than what we talked about earlier, about maybe maintaining the ability after your first year of just playing the game, going to the conferences and trying to get on with airline faster?

I would have.

I would have started my career earlier.

Right.

I mean, I started at 29, I'm 47 now.

Also would have started in my earlier 20s.

It been nicer to start a little, have a longer career.

I still have, by the time I retire, I'll have 35 years in industry.

But I wish I would have started a little earlier because getting so many people, it's easy to say, one day I'm going to do it, one day I'm going to do it.

One day I'm going to do it.

And to actually do it is a big thing.

And I wish I would done it earlier in my career.

Yeah.

And I think that's a big thing.

Right?

It's.

Some people think it's so hard to get into aviation, and I always say that it's almost like it seems like it's hard to get into, but once you just take that first phone call, it's like, we won't stop bothering.

It's like, come back, come back.

Like here, you're in the club now, like you just had to make that first move, essentially, and just make the call, go to the airport and then you realize that it's a very welcoming place and they will pretty much get you up on an airplane same day if it's what you want to do, you know.

And the biggest barriers are financial and health and, you know, we can't control our health and our genetics, so to speak.

And financial.

It's a big.

It's a big hill to climb.

But so many people just look at the price tag and say, oh, I can't do it.

Versus, again, there's so many grants and scholarships out there that won't pay for the whole thing, but they'll pay for part of your private.

Yeah.

Part of your instrument.

And you can piece it together that way.

But the health thing is the one that stops a lot of people.

But if you can get past the health thing, the financial thing can't be solved.

You know what I've learned about a lot of the grants and scholarships that a lot of them go unapplied to.

So you never know.

You might be the only person that applies to that.

And they will just give you the money.

And like you said, it might not.

It might be a thousand dollars, it might be $750, but if you apply to 10 of those, they start adding up.

And that's going to pay for a healthy chunk of your training, or at least.

I know people online that have had almost all their ratings for, paid for by, as you said, a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here.

And they piece it all together, apply.

To the scholarships and grants.

Just do it.

It might take your time, it might take some more time, but it's worth it because like we said, you never know.

It's free money and it could just be there for you.

So let's talk a little bit about social media.

You mentioned that you've been doing social media for a while.

Was this aviation social media?

Was this just social media in general?

Was the goal to like, did you want to be a social media creator or is it just an outlet for you?

And I picked up my phone, I picked up thing called TikTok.

I'm like, this is kind of silly.

I can make these videos.

You know, I'm a geeky guy.

I'm in it.

I have a degree in journalism, so I can put some words together.

So I started making silly videos that way.

Then I said, you know, I can do some like, aviation stuff to help people out, right?

So then I started making aviation content primarily on TikTok.

And then I kind of switched over to YouTube instead.

But by doing so, I got people interested in aviation.

And people were asking questions like, oh, how do you be a pilot?

And it was.

It's been really rewarding, especially in the beginning.

My claim to fame is one young lady up in Illinois, she messaged me saying, kept asking questions about how to be a pilot.

And she never even thought about being a pilot at the time.

She was 19, 20 years old.

And I'm like, oh, that's what you do.

That's what you do.

And I thought for sure she wasn't going to follow up and she following up and kept asking more and more questions and I was so proud of.

I got to meet her for the first time last year at sun and Fun and she got her first airline gig.

Cool.

And it was so rewarding knowing that.

And she said it wasn't for me.

She would never even gone down this path.

So when I first, when I first saw her start flying, I'm like, man, this is pretty cool.

And so I do it now just to help people understand about what it is to be an airline pilot.

Because it's so much fake media out there.

You know, some people glamorize the lifestyle, make it more than it really is.

I try to tell it how it really is and I try to answer questions verbatim, not sugarcoating it, and give people honest answers and as unbiased as I can so they can get the information they need to maybe hopefully pursue this career.

It's a great career that has so much mystery about it.

People don't really understand what it is, how did they do it?

And what it really means to be an airline pilot.

Yeah, there's a lot of mystery to it because there's a bunch of people that have always looked up in the air.

And what's crazy, the amount of respect pilots get.

My wife's a doctor.

My wife hangs out with doctor friends.

And as soon as they find out I'm a pilot, they're like, they literally get out of the conversation like, you're a pilot?

Oh, my gosh, that's so cool.

I wish I was a pilot.

I'm like, it's like, dude, your job is pretty cool too.

And he's like, yeah, but like pilot, man.

It's like, I can't.

They can't.

I can't stop talking to them about aviation.

You know, it's one of those things you're like, I don't want to talk.

Okay, talk planes again, let's do it.

But it's a very respected job and it's someone that a lot of people look up to it and just showing them that they have the ability to do it because almost anyone can do this job.

You can be trained to be a pilot.

And I really, like, push that.

I was similar to you thought, you know, you had to be really smart.

You thought there was so many barriers, you had to go to the military.

That's not the case.

That is not the case at all.

You can do this.

Anyone sitting at home.

I mean, obviously there are some restrictions that you need to get a first class medical to see if you can do this for a living before you invest way too much money.

But you can do this, which is really cool.

And that's really cool to hear that you're able to help someone out.

And I'm sure you've helped more people out than just that one person, but it's awesome.

Has.

Has there been any negatives to having social media?

Has there been, you know, how aviation influencers are kind of thought of by their peers now?

I don't know if it has something to do with a little bit of jealousy that they're not influencers, that could be completely wrong, or if they just like to hate on people that are trying to do the influencer thing.

But have you seen any negative, like, side or feedback from that or even had any bad interactions with anyone?

Yeah, there's.

So some of the older, I call it the older.

I mean, I'm 47.

People older than me say, why are you posting that online?

You shouldn't be posting anything about that.

It should be all secret.

I'm like, what is secret about being a pilot?

You know?

You know, flying, teaching people how to fly across the ocean or how to get into this career?

Well, they don't get it.

You know, they had their little jitterbug phone and they go to the hotel and they ever go away, that negative activity.

And then I've also had some interaction with an airline I work for, because you have to be very cautious doing social media.

When you work for any company, not even just an airline, but you work for Coca Cola.

If you ever attempt to be a spokesman for that company, that can get you in hot water.

So you have to have to kind of walk a very tight rope about what I put online, what I don't put online, and what I even say, even though I don't ever verbatim say who I work for, it's easy to figure out who I work for.

So it's a very tight line.

And I do see some people post online, especially the younger generation, and they're posting things.

I'm like, I can get you fired.

You got to be careful about what you put online.

I'm from.

Thankfully, I've been around a long time.

I kind of get it.

Some people don't understand that once it's online for a second, it's online forever.

So you have to be extremely cautious about what you put online for social media.

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, as you'll probably see a lot of the coolest photos or coolest videos that you may have are Ones that you cannot post.

And it could be crazy.

Amazing sunsets, sunrises, the northern lights.

A couple weeks ago, we had some amazing northern lights going to London.

The whole sky was enveloped in all these beautiful colors.

I'm like, and no one can ever see this sight.

And we turned all the lights down on the flight deck and.

And said, man, this is absolutely amazing, and no one will ever see it.

I used to fly to Tegucigapa, Honduras.

This crazy approach going in there, like diving down, not diving, but the guy was getting through this tight terrain, this tight turn.

Like, our airline chart had me looking for a Home Depot and a highway and a modern Airbus to get into this airport and hearing sink rate, sink rate, sink rate all the way around.

The pattern was amazing.

It'd be an awesome video.

No one ever know about.

No one ever see it, because we can't film that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

And when you mentioned kind of interacting with the airline, if the airline knows what you do, it's only a problem.

It's never a problem until it becomes a problem.

Right.

Like, I'm sure there's things that they'll let slide or things that, like, oh, this is great engagement for our airline.

But as soon, as soon as someone above them says, hey, we can't do that stuff, that's when the hammer drops.

But has there been any guidance from them at all?

Has there been any like, hey, we love this, or like, this, or they just kind of let you do your own thing?

No.

So I've reached out a few times, got nothing back.

I posted one video back in March, and they did.

I got a phone call saying, we'd appreciate it if you took that down.

And it's only because I happen to mention the exact fuel burn we had.

I mentioned too much specific data.

You can't mention how much the plane, how much fuel we carry, our cargo we carry, or that kind of thing.

So I said, all right.

So I took that down.

And I've just been very generic ever since then.

Who called you?

Was it the chief pilot or was it at, like, public relations?

No, the chief pilot.

Oh, wow.

And he's a super nice guy.

He's a super nice guy.

And I said, hey, can I talk to the people you're talking to?

No.

Oh, well, can you ask them this question for me?

I can ask them.

And I get back saying they can't answer that question.

I'm like, okay.

And it's unfortunate because I.

Yeah, the next generation of pilots, they are on TikTok.

They are on YouTube, they're on Instagram.

Right.

That's how they see things.

That's how they get some of their news and their data.

Right.

So if you don't have that out there for them, then.

But another airline does.

They're seeing airline X, Y and Z have all the social media and then the other airline has nothing.

So they would be gravitated toward them because again, that's where they are versus the old stalwarts.

You know, it's unfortunate.

I just interviewed Paul from my layover life and he works for United and it really seems like.

I don't want to say they've like dove like all the way in, but United has welcomed influencers.

Aviation influencers almost.

They've had social media days.

Yeah.

And it looks like, I mean, I think, I mean this is someone that creates some content as well.

So I'm a little bit biased toward what we do.

And there are people that don't do it the right way.

I will fully say that there's a right way in a certain way to protect a brand because you hold a lot in your hands and if you just have a bad day and post something dumb, it could really hurt your airline or hurt where you work.

But when it's done right, it is so much good press for who you work for.

And it really just goes in the mind of like, all right, well, I love Paul's videos.

Like, United looks awesome.

They do this.

I want to fly that.

I look at this layover and in their mind when they're applying for airlines, you know, I mean, they'll probably apply to all of them, but they might show some favoritism toward the one that they have seen a lot on Instagram or have been able to find someone they can relate to who works for that airline.

Absolutely.

So we'll see.

Yeah, it's unfortunate.

I wish my airline would be more social media conscious and opening to the.

Because there's tons of creators at this airline I work for.

Some of them are extremely.

They're great.

And I know one that was.

They've been on for a while and they posted something very so minor in All Pokemon, they got hand slapped hard by the airline.

So much so that they won't post anything at all with anything airline related anymore.

Like, and it's so for.

Because she makes great content.

She's an awesome woman.

And it's like, yeah.

And she posts stuff that now that you can't even tell who she works for.

People think she works for the airline now because she won't Even post anything related to who we work for.

Because she had her hand slapped hard, unfortunately.

Yeah.

I mean, I understand the hesitant or the hesitancy of an airline because, like we just talked about, you hold a lot of power in your hands, and they cannot 100% control what you do.

When you work for an airline, you're always representing that airline.

Someone can always come back and figure out who you work for and if you do something.

When I worked at NetJets, there was a guy in a car who started screaming obscenities at certain people, and they figured out who we worked for, tagged them on social media, and then the company's like, oh, yeah, we can't.

We can't have you here anymore.

And they fired them.

So.

Yep.

And I'm not saying no.

Like, when you're out in public, even walking through an airport hotel getting gas and you're in uniform, people are looking at you.

They're always looking at you.

So be very mindful, because again, at the same token, you can do something stupid in public with not even having your camera turned on, but someone's watching you.

And then.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

I guess it could be on the Internet.

And then seconds.

Yeah.

Yep.

Oh, yeah.

Even faster than that.

Yeah.

Post it before it'll be.

Live stream.

Before it's even over.

It's already.

You're already getting a call from your chief pilot, like, what are you doing?

Back when I first started flying into the airlines, we had a problem with back to the cabin.

Say, darren, go back and talk to the pastor in 17A.

And I go back and talk to him.

Right.

Just say, hey, what's going on Nowadays?

Ain't no way.

Because as soon as you walk back to the cabin, every iPhone is on you.

Yeah.

People ask me, how do you deal with upset passengers?

I don't.

We have people that are trained to do that.

You'll never, ever see me on any video ever, interacting with the passenger in any kind of negative way ever, ever, ever.

100% agree.

Fast way to lose your job, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As someone who has, I will say, successfully changed careers, especially now, you're looking back on it.

There's ups and downs on the changing of care.

And I'm sure there's moments that we talked about earlier where you're like, ah, this kind of sucks.

What did I do?

Yeah, but there's a lot of people in your shoes, and they might be in their 30s, they might be in their 40s, they may be in their 20s.

They could have just Graduated college and like I made a huge mistake.

I spent all my money to be an engineer and I hate it.

I should have flown my airplanes.

What are two or three tips that you would give someone in the situation that you found yourself in and what would you recommend them do?

So again, you know, many people are taught that you have to go high school, get a degree in college and go get a real job and say you went to college and you're an engineer, an accountant and you're hating it.

Hey, you have a degree and you have a highly sought after degree in skill.

So all right, you're in this current situation, go take a Discovery flight, Google Discovery flight near me and go up on an airplane and see what it's like.

See, you might hate it and say haha, not for me, no way.

Or you might love it.

Say if you love it.

Okay, well the person that's giving you that Discovery flight will be an instructor and they can tell you the path to be an airline pilot.

And then at worst, you can start taking that money from that degree you have.

Putting it aside and similar to me, you can go twice a week, every week and get your ratings done and you have all your ratings done.

Great.

You have to build time.

You have a great paying job, don't you?

At worst you can rent planes and fly your friends and family around and build your time.

And yeah, it might take you five years, but you have a job that you might not love, but you're pretty good at it.

And you can do this whole thing debt free or almost near debt free, but I say at least try.

It's easy to say one day, maybe again, that's every flight.

It's a couple hundred bucks, a couple hours of your day.

Just go see if you even like it or not.

Yep.

Yeah, I agree.

I think it's great, great advice.

And I feel like the earlier you can make that choice, the better.

Right?

You get a little older, you're like, well I'm going to retire in 10 years, I'm going to get this or meet this quota soon.

If you can make that decision as early as possible, it will probably be a little bit easier for you.

It's always going to be scary, it's always going to, but it's really worth it.

And I think it's something you should do as long as you know what you're getting yourself into, you know that the ups and the downs and you could hit it at the right time, you could hit this industry at the worst possible time.

And then I think it's also important, if you're not married already, to prepare the person you're going to marry, when or are dating of what it looks like to be in this career.

Because it is a very hard job to be married to.

It is very difficult to find someone that can put up with us.

And if you find someone that can, there's many days where it just absolutely sucks and it just is what it is.

Yeah, and it's hard.

There's so many times in my career where I've been stuck in a hotel because of weather and my wife is stuck at home with two kids.

I filled roads and here, or worse, I'm stuck in St.

Thomas on the beach.

She bark it.

She's like, don't you dare send me a picture of a drink on an island right now.

I've learned that when.

That if I'm somewhere exotic, I call my wife from the hotel room with a white wall behind me and say, hey, how's it going?

I don't dare call from the beach with a little Mai Tai in my hand.

I love it.

No, no, no, no.

I haven't learned on the whole spouse thing, you have to have a talk, right?

Because as a.

And people always assume I'm gone a lot.

When I, you know, I was on the Airbus, I was averaged eight to nine hotel nights a month, right?

I'm home quite a bit.

You know, even On I did 48 trips, if I had a late afternoon start and I got done midday, I'd be at home on day one.

Kids, school, breakfast, yada, yada, say goodbye to the wife, fly, come home mid afternoon, meet the kids for dinner and I'm home, right?

And then home for two or three more days, right.

So I can do morning and afternoon with the kids and everything else.

I'm home a lot more than people think I am.

And it helps.

I don't commute, but it is a different lifestyle, a very different lifestyle.

Absolutely.

Yeah, 100%.

And what's cool about aviation is you don't have to be an airline pilot.

If you think the fractional world work for you, if you think corporate work for you, if you want to fly freight in a caravan and just want to work like 6am to 6pm, there's a job for you to do it too.

You just got to be open to a lot of things.

And I highly recommend that you show up to the airport and you be a good person because people want to help you out in aviation.

They're looking for someone that they want to see succeed.

So the better you are, the better you treat people, the happier you look.

You're gonna get more opportunities than the person that is just has their head down and just looks like they're miserable.

I mean, I don't mean that to be mean.

I don't mean to be hard on anyone.

It's just the truth.

Yep.

But.

Yeah, but, Darren, those are all the questions I have for you, man.

I appreciate you coming on.

It's cool to watch your social media, to watch your YouTub videos.

I've never been a huge aviation YouTube guy, but I do want to fly the Triple 7 one day, so it's.

It's fun to follow along.

And one day, I hope to be flying to London for the 15th time again.

And never go anywhere else because you already speak Boeing.

Guys who speak Boeing.

My SIM partner with a 73 captain, he just walked into this plane and, like, it was.

He knew it all.

It's a big 7 3, but, yeah, it's easy for you.

Cool.

Well, sweet, man.

Well, maybe one day we'll be on the Triple seven together.

You can be the captain.

Be hanging out on the right side.

There you go.

All right, man.

Well, hey, appreciate your time, and I look forward to seeing this episode come out.

We'll debrief a little bit when we hang up, but I appreciate it, man.