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with the Weather I count on

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for every flight to learn more

1:24

visit sportys.com/sxm offer So I'm Marco

1:27

bow Major in my pilot do

1:29

aerobatics air shows Applying since I

1:31

was 14 15 years old aviation

1:33

What is going on and welcome

1:35

back to another episode of the

1:37

pilot pilot podcast? My name is

1:39

Justin seems and I am your

1:41

host today's episode is my

1:43

good friend Marco bow our

1:45

Tracks in our career is

1:47

somewhat similar now. We've done

1:49

some different flying to get

1:51

to where we are He

1:53

was a previous 121 regional

1:55

pilot then he found his

1:57

way to the fractional and

1:59

now he's had a major

2:01

with a lot of other

2:03

cool flying in between And

2:05

there's also some aerobatic flying

2:07

in there and a pretty gnarly story about pretty much

2:09

a flat spin they needed to jump out of over

2:11

water and guess what he's here to talk about it

2:13

so he survived. Wild story, that's at the end. You're

2:15

not going to want to miss that one, but Mark

2:17

and I kind of talked about our experiences in the

2:19

121 major world, our previous experiences in the 91K 135

2:21

world. So it's pretty much got at everything you could

2:23

ever want in one episode. I hope you enjoy. I

2:25

really do. If you do or you know anyone that's

2:28

thinking about what route they should go, please send this

2:30

to them. I think it could be some some help.

2:32

Now there's no shade in any former companies. with our

2:34

family, we both agreed that we could have stayed at

2:36

any job for a whole career if we really needed

2:38

to do it. But we just thought that this would

2:40

be the best option for us. But aviation, I hope

2:42

we're having a great day and I hope you enjoy

2:44

this episode. It is a really solid one. I've been

2:46

trying to get Marko to come on for a long,

2:48

I've been trying to get Marco to come on for

2:50

a long time, so I'm pumped, I've been trying to

2:52

get Marco to come on for a long time, to

2:54

come on for a long, I'm, I'm, I'm, I've been

2:56

trying to get Marco, to get Marco, to, to, to,

2:58

to, to, to get Marco, to come, to come, to

3:00

come, to get Marco, to come, to come, to come,

3:02

to come, to get Marco, to come, to come, to

3:04

come, to get Marco, to come, to come, to come,

3:06

to come, to come, to get Marco, to come, to

3:08

Further due, here's Marco Bao. Marco, what's going on

3:10

dude? Welcome to the Pilot to Pilot

3:12

podcast. You know, finally, it's about time.

3:14

My last episode was with a buddy

3:17

of mine as well, so it's fun

3:19

interviewing two people that I have known

3:21

for a while, who I call friends.

3:24

A lot of times it's the first

3:26

time I'm ever talking to someone, it's

3:28

the first time I'm ever talking to

3:30

someone, which is always sometimes interesting, because

3:33

I don't know if we're going to

3:35

get along at all, this is going

3:37

to go well. It's nice, it's comforting.

3:39

But we'll see, you know, we'll let

3:42

the people decide if it's good that

3:44

I interview my friends or if I

3:46

should just keep interviewing complete internet randoms.

3:49

Yeah, well we can bash some people.

3:51

That's what's great about knowing each other.

3:53

True, yeah, let's talk about Neil. We

3:55

both phone, Neil. There's a reason why.

3:58

Open it right on the table. This

4:00

will probably be the first episode Neil

4:02

ever listens to and he's gonna be

4:04

so sad that we started talking crap

4:07

about him. Wow, what, 25 seconds in?

4:09

So Neil. Yeah, listen to the rest

4:11

of it though. Yeah, Neil, at minute

4:14

45 we say something nice about you

4:16

in the last, it's nice. You gotta

4:18

listen to the rest of it though.

4:20

Yeah, Neil, at minute 45 we say

4:23

something nice about you and the last.

4:25

What was the inspiration? Was it something

4:27

to do with your family? I know

4:29

that your dad is on airplane,

4:32

so obviously you can talk about

4:34

that, but talk about why Marco

4:36

wanted to become a pilot. Yeah,

4:38

you know, I grew up playing

4:41

Microsoft Flight Simulator a lot, and

4:43

kind of being where I was at,

4:45

there's always been a lot of GA, and

4:47

my dad was, my dad was a big GA

4:49

guy, and he were all originally from

4:52

Europe, so he originally had

4:54

the opportunity. kind of late in

4:56

life to become a pilot and decided

4:58

not to take that route because the

5:00

time was pretty risky. And so when

5:03

we came to America, he kind

5:05

of got back into aviation

5:07

and eventually I kind of got a

5:09

little bit of a buck and he

5:11

was able to kind of introduce me

5:13

to flying and stuff like that. And

5:15

first flight we didn't in a Piper

5:18

warrior. I just hopped in the back,

5:20

fell asleep. Didn't even wait for the

5:22

whole time. Just went back to sleep.

5:24

And then when I was probably like

5:26

16 years old my dad kind of was

5:28

it was the summertime and he wanted to

5:31

go to Oshkosh and I wasn't really doing

5:33

much and he had done a vacation while

5:35

with a brother and so he was like

5:37

you know I'll take him to Oshkosh for

5:40

me because he wanted to go and went to

5:42

Oshkosh three days after I got back started

5:44

my first flight lesson. Oh no way. That

5:46

was kind of like the initial bug to

5:49

be a pilot per se. I didn't really

5:51

pursue. airline flying in the beginning

5:53

it was actually at flying was what

5:55

really caught my butt initially and then

5:57

I think until I got older was when

5:59

I'm realize like oh you know family career

6:01

and path and stuff like that but yeah

6:03

mom was kind of the why was really

6:06

just it was just kind of a bug

6:08

that got nipped on me really early on

6:10

and just from there it kind of took

6:12

off What was it about Oshkosh that kind

6:14

of turned you on to flying? Because you

6:16

mentioned that if you were in G airplanes

6:18

before, but nothing really caught your eye there,

6:20

but Oshkosh in particular was like, hey, this

6:22

is kind of what I could do. Was

6:25

it just seeing people your age? Was it

6:27

seeing people that look like you that you

6:29

could kind of talk to and see that

6:31

it's accessible and easy for you to do?

6:33

It was your shows. You know, the airbatic

6:35

guy, like I said, I do aerobatics, I

6:37

do aerobatics, like I do aerobatics, like I

6:39

do aerobatics, like I do aerobatics, like I

6:41

do aerobatics, like I do aerobatics, like I

6:43

do aerobatics, like I do aerobatics, like I

6:46

do aerobatics, like I do aerobatics, like I

6:48

do aerobatics, like I do aerobatics, like I

6:50

do aerobatics, like I do aerobatics, like I

6:52

do aerobatics, like I do aer The airline

6:54

fly wasn't really this whole avenue. I was

6:56

like, I was watching people like Michael Gullian

6:58

and Matt Chapman, you know, Shawnee Tucker, people

7:00

like them. And I was like, man, that's

7:02

really cool. Like, go make money and go

7:05

to these big shows and do all this

7:07

stuff. And I was like, oh, that's what

7:09

I want to do. And from that point

7:11

on, I was like, all right, well, I'm

7:13

going to go down that route. And then

7:15

the act flying Avenue in the beginning was

7:17

like aerobetics. do high banking, low-flying kind of

7:19

stuff. But yeah, that was, that's really what

7:21

started. It wasn't anything to do with, you

7:24

know, back then they didn't have, this has

7:26

been 2005, 2006, so they didn't have the

7:28

workshops like they do, not the STEM type

7:30

stuff now. They had STEM that was more

7:32

of like fabric and mechanical side. It wasn't

7:34

this whole network of education and, it's a,

7:36

you know, airline advertising, it was just, It

7:38

was just an airshot at that point. Yeah.

7:40

And was there any like performance in particular?

7:42

You mentioned a couple names. Well, there's like

7:45

any one person you can single out. They're

7:47

like, oh, dude, that's awesome. I want to

7:49

do that. Yeah, I would say it was

7:51

Michael Gullian's performance. It was really like the

7:53

eye opener. You know, he, I think then

7:55

he was, it was a green white plant.

7:57

I remember correctly, he was flying and just

7:59

in noise and the smoke and everything. Now

8:01

that I do it, I couldn't tell you

8:04

which performance how it was. I just remember

8:06

just it was captivating to watch a point

8:08

and do what it could do. So. Have

8:10

you gotten in touch of them at all?

8:12

Oh yeah, yeah. You know, we messaged, he

8:14

was kind of a helper, getting in my

8:16

sack car, am I on my own? my

8:18

new show card, as well as through the

8:20

aerobatic contest scene, you know, just too there.

8:23

So no, I've definitely met him in the

8:25

future. Love it, dude. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

8:27

It's really cool to see kind of like

8:29

people that you've looked up to, someone that

8:31

had such an impact on your life and

8:33

your career. And with social media, with Instagram,

8:35

with email, you know, it's so... much more

8:37

easy and accessible for you to reach out

8:39

to them and whether they reach reach out

8:41

back to you is a different story but

8:44

the fact that he took the time to

8:46

do that it's pretty cool and just understand

8:48

that like hey let me help out my

8:50

my future my future pilots I'm handing the

8:52

cards down to you know Marco one day

8:54

maybe someone's maybe my kid will look up

8:56

and watch you at Oshkosh one day be

8:58

like I want to fly you don't want

9:00

to fly like Marco trust me no no

9:03

no no no no no yeah yeah yeah

9:05

no that no that that that that that's

9:07

what that's what that's what that's what that's

9:09

what that's what's what's what's what's what's what's

9:11

what's what's what's what's what's what's what's what's

9:13

what's what's what's what's what's what's what's what's

9:15

what I was pretty You know in my

9:17

mind, there's stars, you know, there are people

9:19

that are doing something, they're on an elevated

9:22

platform, even though they're all human, they're in

9:24

the general, they're on an elevated platform that

9:26

you look up to, and you know, the

9:28

fact that somebody like me, who wasn't really,

9:30

I didn't have, when I first originally reached

9:32

out to him, I didn't have anything, I

9:34

had like a little small biplane, and that

9:36

was really it, but every, when I asked

9:38

him to questions, he didn't There wasn't nothing

9:40

right away, but you know, he took his

9:43

time out of his day who, you know,

9:45

just super busy and was able to enter

9:47

back and, you know, the last year with

9:49

stuff going on for me with, you know,

9:51

getting to the air show stuff as well

9:53

as that, you know, if I had questions,

9:55

it doesn't hesitate to reach out and so,

9:57

you know, just nice to reach out to

9:59

people and... They'll, you know, if they

10:02

see something, they'll reply back.

10:04

And that's what's, that's what's

10:06

good about those guys is an

10:09

aviation in general is, you know,

10:11

such a small nigh group of

10:13

people that majority of time if

10:15

you reach out, somebody's gonna try

10:17

to help you out in the

10:19

right path. 100% totally agree. Or

10:22

the wrong path. I don't want

10:24

to be careful. I'll get used

10:26

to it. mentioned that a couple

10:28

days later you started your training.

10:30

Your dad was in general aviation.

10:32

So was he pretty excited? Do

10:34

you think this is kind of

10:36

in the back of his mind

10:38

to be like, hey, let me

10:40

get Marco here. Once you eventually

10:42

got there, he was trying to

10:44

kind of nudge you in that situation.

10:47

Was he just kind of letting it come

10:49

to you and see what came out of it?

10:51

He never nudged me in any way.

10:53

He was definitely like, hey, this is a

10:55

really cool career. because he used to

10:58

have VHS tapes all of the house

11:00

of just planes of people that

11:02

remember what a VHS tape is.

11:04

I don't know how all the audience

11:06

is here, but he used to have

11:08

this VHS tape of a Cathay Pacific

11:11

74. I used to watch that religiously.

11:13

And so that was kind of like

11:15

that initial like, hey, you should go

11:17

look at these kind of things. Like

11:19

this is a really cool thing. You

11:21

can go through the world, go fly

11:23

to school planes, this that the other.

11:25

So the nudge wasn't like, hey, you need

11:28

to do this. This is the career path

11:30

because I kind of did my private pilot

11:32

in high school and then did my

11:35

instrument a little after high school. And

11:37

then I didn't really do anything in

11:39

aviation for, I guess I went became

11:41

a CFI. And then I took like

11:43

a six, seven year break from it

11:45

and just worked with their company. And

11:48

I wasn't even going to do aviation

11:50

for six years. I was just going

11:52

to go run my own my own

11:54

business. airline wasn't even a thing

11:56

in my mind at that time or being

11:58

a pilot in general. So yeah, I

12:00

think the, I don't think he ever

12:03

had a push in it, which he

12:05

was always good about, you know, he

12:07

just let things go as they were.

12:10

So when you say like airline wasn't

12:12

on your mind, even being a pilot

12:14

was on your mind, what was your

12:17

goal then? So you're starting your training,

12:19

obviously, you know, you wanted, you loved

12:21

aerobatics, but. starting your own business was

12:24

the idea to make your own money

12:26

and then fly for fun on the

12:28

side and do aerobatics on the side

12:30

rather than maybe have being an airline

12:33

pilot as your source of income or

12:35

flying as being your main source income.

12:37

I guess I should backstate that little

12:40

say a little bit so when I

12:42

was in high school and I got

12:44

my ratings initially that was kind of

12:47

an avenue. It was like okay I

12:49

do want to be a pilot and

12:51

then I went to college and kind

12:53

of carried on and then 2009, 2010

12:56

time, everything started to downturn. Yeah, bad

12:58

time to want to be a pilot.

13:00

Yeah, I know exactly right. People know,

13:03

it's like back then it was like,

13:05

you know, I think I was like

13:07

$11.20 an hour for an instructor. Like

13:10

being an instructor. Yeah. So I was

13:12

like, I am not going to get

13:14

paid this. This is a waste of

13:16

time. I had one of my ratings

13:19

and my family business is seafood trade.

13:21

And so we kind of had a

13:23

unique business in that avenue. So I

13:26

was like, you know what, screw it,

13:28

like, I'm just gonna go and go

13:30

and do that. And yeah, so my

13:33

whole plan, you know, when up until

13:35

about 2016, prior to that from probably

13:37

2010 to 2016, wasn't even to be

13:39

a pilot anymore. It was just, I

13:42

was gonna be a seafood, fly on

13:44

my own side. I was, you know,

13:46

doing aerobatics, and then I was all

13:49

in seafood, tuna spotting, tuna spotting, with

13:51

my own planes. What were you doing

13:53

to this spot? I had a Cessa

13:56

150 and basically just went offshore and

13:58

coast of Maine and flew. We would

14:00

just go around looking for tuna in

14:02

the ground and in Maine you can

14:04

fish ride and reel for tuna and

14:06

then you can do a tarpooning. So

14:09

people stand on the front of a

14:11

boat and they harpoon for tuna and I

14:13

would be up there in the 150 I

14:15

owned and we would just basically I

14:17

would go out there a couple

14:19

hours like an hourish before during

14:21

a certain time of between tides

14:23

and day and the tuna will come up

14:26

to the surface to try and increase

14:28

of metabolism. And I'll go out

14:30

and find them in certain areas

14:32

that I know they're going to

14:34

be fishing here. And basically just

14:36

guide them in. So and then your whole

14:38

job is to tell them boat links, you

14:40

know, turn starboard, or whatever it is.

14:42

And so you'll say your 10 boat

14:45

links, nine boat links, eight boat links.

14:47

And then you kind of have to keep

14:49

nine to fish and the guy up on the

14:51

bell. And once he kind of pops

14:53

his harpoon over, then you have that

14:55

tells you that tells you that he

14:57

sees the fish himself. So once he

14:59

sees it, you know, you just go quiet and

15:02

then at that point your whole focus is to

15:04

see the to watch the fish because if they

15:06

miss The tuna will die, but they will normally

15:08

not be able to see them But you

15:10

can see sometimes out there 70 feet. I

15:13

would assume underwater. You can see them die

15:15

sometimes and then zoom around and form back

15:17

up. Generally, they're like I call a pause,

15:19

but I don't know what they technically call them,

15:21

but they're kind of like four to

15:23

eight deep maybe I never saw anything

15:25

bigger than that but Yeah, it was

15:28

pretty cool. That was a lot of fun. I

15:30

was like 20, 21, 22 at the time, eating

15:32

subway sandwiches, swimming off the, flying off the

15:34

coast of Maine, just, you know. I was

15:36

flying like, you know, flying four hours every

15:38

day, every day, every day in the summer.

15:41

It was great. Yeah, it was great. And

15:43

that's where I was in that time frame. I

15:45

was had like 300-ish hours, so I was

15:47

in that whole, I needed the build time, but

15:49

I need to build time, but I didn't

15:51

want to build time, but I didn't want

15:53

to build time. ended up just going

15:56

down the avenue with the seafood

15:58

trade and yeah was this um your own

16:00

business or did you work for someone else doing

16:02

this? No I know it's my own my own stuff

16:04

yeah so I was I was really fortunate yeah

16:06

I say for it I was actually spoiled realistically

16:08

so when we got to the point we're at

16:10

to get flight time our parents you know we have

16:12

the business and the flight school went in I

16:14

think it was like people are gonna be crazy

16:16

about now but I think to get like that

16:18

leap from instrument to commercial so another 200 I think

16:21

it was like 26 thousand dollars at that time.

16:23

I'm sure it costs a lot more now, but

16:25

we just kind of looked. I was like, well,

16:27

that's kind of a waste of money. We don't get

16:29

the money back. So we're like, well, you know

16:31

what? We found Cessile 150, had low time on

16:33

it, you know, it wasn't pretty inside, but had

16:35

a really cool paint scheme outside. It was an

16:37

old PMont scheme. So it was pretty neat. And

16:39

then I thought that and then I just kind

16:41

of built time that way. And then when I

16:43

started saying, like, like, like, like, like, like, just

16:45

gonna do my own business flying you know I

16:47

eventually took that over from them and then um

16:49

yeah and then I don't I only did that

16:51

for three summers but I think I got like

16:53

gosh I don't know something I got like over

16:55

a thousand hours over three summers doing that just

16:57

so is this something that was commonly done already

16:59

like was this already like flight for years oh

17:01

yeah so like flight schools do this people up in

17:03

Maine no no not flight schools it's normally no

17:05

independent people so Yeah, normally it's like independence that

17:07

do it or something like that because it's not

17:09

it's not like a it's not done a lot. There's

17:12

not like a full-time thing for it and most

17:14

of the people because of if just how the

17:16

fishing industry is it's very like Nick Titan but

17:18

somebody comes in tune spots you're basically giving somebody your

17:20

fishing grounds so there's a big truss side and

17:22

I was already buying selling. fish from these guys

17:24

overseas and around the US. So we had already

17:26

had this trust and so they were like, you know,

17:28

let's do some tuna spotting and stuff like that.

17:30

So this is what love doing

17:32

this. It's just cause like

17:34

when did you ever talk

17:36

to someone? I mean,

17:38

it is funny though. I

17:40

did talk to someone

17:42

very early on the podcast.

17:45

I mean, like five or

17:47

six episodes in Justin

17:49

Zeller. Um, he was Carl's

17:51

bad pilot. We used to

17:53

go back and forth

17:55

all the time, but he

17:57

also flew off the

17:59

coast and he was doing

18:01

fish spotting and stuff like

18:03

that. Can't remember what

18:05

kind of plainly did it

18:07

in and not to the

18:09

extent that you did

18:11

it where you were very

18:13

involved in the fish

18:15

business. I don't really remember

18:18

how he got involved. She

18:20

probably go back and

18:22

listen, but it's so crazy.

18:24

Just the way that people

18:26

can build their time,

18:28

the way that people can, can just

18:30

enjoy flying. Like you could have made a career

18:32

out of that. Probably you could have started a little

18:34

business. You probably could have had people in Maine.

18:36

You probably could have had people in the South, you

18:38

know, done this all over the place, right? The

18:41

Bahamas to do this. And it could have been a

18:43

very good lucrative business. I mean, I don't know

18:45

if lucrative is the right word, but it could have

18:47

provided income for you. Right. It could have paid

18:49

bills. It could have done a lot of things to

18:51

fund the lifestyle that you would like. Um, when

18:54

most people, when they see

18:56

an airline pilot, they

18:58

automatically think military or CFI

19:00

or part 61, part

19:02

141, like those kind of

19:04

flight schools, not necessarily

19:06

thinking about fish

19:08

spotting, tuna spotting, where the seafood you ate

19:10

was probably from Marco finding a tuna up

19:12

and the guy, which is just wild to

19:14

me in the fact. I mean, talk about

19:16

just like coordination, too. What it's almost sound

19:18

like when you're explaining it, you sound like

19:20

a NASCAR spotter. Like you sound like something

19:23

like I'm under the cooks under like, all right,

19:25

you got some help on your right. You got a

19:27

two car legs ahead. Yeah. Launch

19:29

the missiles. No, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

19:31

right. Yeah. And it's a pump. It's

19:33

a, I mean, it's an adrenaline

19:35

rush, too. Like when you see them

19:37

hit the fish and then you

19:39

see all the splashing, you know, they've

19:41

got them. You're like, yeah, we

19:43

got one. But then, you

19:46

know, the issue with the two is you're

19:48

talking about a VHF frequency and so every,

19:50

every other week, we were creating new coordinates.

19:52

So we'd have like alpha spot for spot

19:54

one, two, or you'd be like, all right,

19:56

I'm going to fish alpha 10 today or

19:58

I'm going to fish Charlie three. Because

20:00

what happened is people learned your

20:02

coordinates, right? You are offshore and

20:05

you can see a plane circling

20:07

for miles and miles away. You'll

20:09

hear it. And you know, if you

20:11

circle tight, they know that there's a

20:14

fish there. So all these boats start

20:16

coming to that area. So all these

20:18

boats start coming to that area.

20:20

So you have to do these

20:22

really big sweeping patterns. It's kind

20:24

of to see where you're at.

20:27

Because once you get out there,

20:29

you've been. There's tons of boats

20:31

out there, but yeah, it's a yeah, it's

20:33

a totally different like avenue than what I

20:35

was used to and I was just GA

20:37

flying and doing a few aerobatics and I

20:40

get out there and yeah, people are

20:42

People are trying to scramble your

20:44

free your your radios when you try

20:46

to make a call they'll hold the

20:48

call button. So that way you can't

20:50

they can't hear you as you're doing

20:52

it. I mean, it's incredible what some

20:54

people do out there, but again, you

20:56

know they're catching. 200 to 600

20:58

pound tuna can be anywhere

21:00

from a you know five

21:03

six thousand dollar payday to

21:05

a 20 grand payday right

21:07

you know yeah for them

21:09

it's a big thing yeah absolutely

21:11

how high would you be

21:13

fine and how far offshore would

21:16

you be fine so anywhere

21:18

from four or five

21:20

hundred feet upwards of

21:22

a thousand and then Close

21:25

up to like 40 miles depending on the

21:27

area we were we were out at so

21:30

Deliest time with is it was getting to

21:32

the fishing grounds because Gulf of Maine

21:34

you're only worried about like I guess

21:36

you know we're not really we're not sharp

21:39

to anything out there because what are

21:41

so cold it's just hypothermia I mean

21:43

that the The water is still like

21:45

in the 50s and 60s and then

21:47

once you get out to the fishing

21:49

grounds. I think it's like the upper 60s

21:51

or 60s, but getting out there's like

21:53

the fishing grounds I mean All you got

21:55

to do is some of that's a clean

21:57

crash. So all you have to do is

22:00

to survive a plane crash and you'll

22:02

be alright. Oh, thank you, Marco. Yeah,

22:04

good to know. And then you got

22:06

10 minutes to survive hypothermia and hope

22:08

that you're right. Yeah, no, exactly, right?

22:10

Yeah, that's all you got. I got

22:12

my meatball on my subway, I'm okay.

22:14

Did that ever creep through your mind?

22:16

I mean, like, when you think about

22:18

it now, I'm sure there's times, you're

22:20

like, wow, I mean, yeah, I had

22:22

fun, but like, I don't know if

22:24

I'd ever want to fly a 150,

22:26

500 feet, 40 miles off the water,

22:28

you know, like that just like, all

22:31

the time. I would never do it

22:33

again. I always say, I'm glad I

22:35

was like 21, 22 at that time

22:37

because life and kids now, heck now,

22:39

like, you won't, yeah, you won't catch

22:41

me doing that again with that. Did

22:43

you have any kind of moments where

22:45

like the engine was starting to do

22:47

and you're like, like, we need to

22:49

go back or like, or like, oh,

22:51

oh, oh, oh, oh. No, I never

22:53

had a moment, I never had a

22:55

moment with the engine. The worst one

22:57

I had was coming back in, I

23:00

didn't really, it's like my third or

23:02

fourth time in Maine, people that live

23:04

up there know about, but they have

23:06

like crazy fog rolling. I mean, it

23:08

just rolls in out of nowhere, so

23:10

you can be on the fishing grounds

23:12

and there's no fog. And the coast

23:14

of Maine isn't so bad. But then

23:16

like as you're coming in, all of

23:18

a sudden you're flying over all this

23:20

fog. And it rolls into there like

23:22

in less than an hour I can

23:24

do it. Yeah, for like a reference,

23:26

I would normally would lay it in

23:28

Kenny Bunkport. And that's really the plane

23:31

at, but I had to go on

23:33

with it. Gosh, what is it? I

23:35

think it's a... I think it was

23:37

Worcester. It's kind of towards mass in

23:39

that area. It was like the closest

23:41

place I could get to. Well, they

23:43

spell out like Worcester, but it's actually

23:45

called Worcester. Yeah, Worcester. Yeah, yeah. So

23:47

I flew part one up through single

23:49

pilot freight in PC 12 and a

23:51

caravan. That's how I build most of

23:53

my hours. We were doing one trip

23:55

from Palm Beach up to Providence, Rhode

23:57

Island, and very similar to what you're

24:00

talking about. the approach and the only

24:02

airport that had any kind of visibility

24:04

was Worcester. So I had to

24:06

divert to Worcester as well. And

24:08

what's funny is when I got

24:10

there, they're like, this is weird

24:12

because usually we're the most fogged

24:15

in out of everyone. They're like,

24:17

I don't know how you got

24:19

here. It's like, well, it's clear

24:21

here now. But yeah, so it's kind

24:23

of funny that both have stories

24:26

about Worcester. Yeah. Yeah, and I

24:28

was living in Worcester, Ohio at the

24:30

time, so that even threw me off

24:32

the floor when I saw how they

24:34

spelled it. I was like, that's not

24:37

how you spell it. Like, I understand

24:39

that you're different, but like,

24:41

it's cool. You're fine. You're

24:43

fine. You're fine. You're fine.

24:46

You're fine. You're fine. You're

24:48

fine. You're fine. You're fine. You're

24:50

fine. I was really lucky. I

24:52

only did summer up there. You know

24:55

now if if if I have the opportunity

24:57

to have like a summer house up there

24:59

I do it in a heartbeat Maine in

25:01

the summer is like no other I

25:04

mean the The weather is beautiful the

25:06

the lakes are great the water temperatures

25:08

great. It's just such a great area

25:10

you can be on the coast go

25:13

swim surf and then hour and a

25:15

half later you can go hiking in

25:17

the mountains So yeah, I man. Yeah,

25:19

it's such a such a beautiful area

25:22

Is that probably the top place? Like,

25:24

I mean, for me, it's Jackson, Wyoming.

25:26

I'd go there any day. If I

25:28

could afford it, kind of like you,

25:30

that's where I'd go, but is that

25:33

your place that you would go to be

25:35

the main area? Oh, man, I don't know.

25:37

You know, I really know. I love where I

25:39

live now, honestly. I hate to say, hey, I

25:41

know this kind of kind of sounds

25:44

cheesy cheesy, or kind of sounds

25:46

cheesy cheesy cheesy cheesyzy, I don't think

25:48

I would love to live there permanently because I

25:50

don't want to do with the winners. Yeah, so

25:53

that's like you get about two months of good

25:55

time up there. Yeah, exactly right. Like so no.

25:57

If anyone's on Instagram you can find you know

25:59

George. done, flew at the company, we

26:01

flew at the company, we flew out.

26:04

Yeah, yeah, I know right in your

26:06

place in the winter. Everyone will fall

26:08

and see what main life is like,

26:10

you can follow 80 weekends, you can

26:13

fall to George. I want to see

26:15

a main app. Yeah, right? He was

26:17

up there, he was up there, he

26:19

was up there in the hot tub,

26:21

he was like, he came out of

26:24

prune. So what came next? So you

26:26

mentioned that you had a ton of

26:28

hours. I mean, not a ton, but

26:30

you got a good thousand hours. You

26:33

started around 300, so you had 1300

26:35

hours. In this time frame of flying,

26:37

of doing this, what was going through

26:39

your mind in a career? Because it

26:41

sounds like from the beginning, you weren't

26:44

sure and weren't really interested in the

26:46

airline lifestyle, but as we all know

26:48

right now, you are a major airline

26:50

pilot. So something changed. So yeah, so

26:52

I was doing the kind of the

26:55

self-business and my my mom and dad

26:57

owned a seafood business So I kind

26:59

of got into that very very heavily

27:01

involved in that and We we were

27:04

kind of specialized and With what we

27:06

did and I just was like, you

27:08

know, I'm just gonna go full throttle

27:10

with the business, you know, they I

27:12

had a beautiful life growing up. So

27:15

you know, and they've had a great

27:17

life. So I didn't see any reason

27:19

that career while I was there and

27:21

I was enjoying what I was doing

27:24

at the time and you know my

27:26

young 20s and stuff like that and

27:28

so we set up we would do

27:30

live seafood hauling with tractor trailers and

27:32

ship live seafood overseas to Belgium and

27:35

Asia or Europe and Asia and I

27:37

ended up taking that full-on head-on and

27:39

so I was able to sell the

27:41

150 and we bought a Cessna cardinal

27:44

and I kept flying and I was

27:46

truck driving mainly at the time selling

27:48

a few truck driving and then had

27:50

a car know that we would go

27:52

down to Florida and I was still

27:55

going up to Maine but wasn't doing

27:57

tuna spotted with it. I was doing

27:59

of things. We go to Florida,

28:01

we would set up these fish farms

28:04

and stuff like that, and then doing

28:06

a bit of GA still on the side,

28:08

and then cows pulled throttle with

28:10

that. That eventually led

28:12

into Halvin lobsters. So we took

28:14

kind of a contract locally over

28:17

here through the military that

28:19

were for lobsters, and then

28:21

some places down to Florida

28:23

that needed lobsters. grew pretty

28:25

big with the trucks and trailers.

28:27

So the time needed to be

28:29

in Florida wasn't really helpful. So

28:32

the cardinal wasn't cutting anymore

28:34

for a load and flight

28:36

time. So we ended up operating

28:38

to it 210. And then this was

28:40

kind of circuit 20 like 2013,

28:42

kind of around that time frame,

28:44

2013, 2014, and was doing that,

28:47

doing that. And then we

28:49

kind of got hit with

28:51

some regulations that really killed

28:53

our exporting business. You know, it went

28:55

from, it probably killed 80%

28:57

of our income on that side of

28:59

the industry. So, and it was just

29:02

primarily due to there was importing

29:04

and exporting acts that

29:07

got involved with the European

29:09

Union and Asia, and so it

29:11

basically killed the wild fish side

29:13

that we were doing out of America.

29:15

So, and it exploded the farm race

29:18

in Europe, which we had no, we

29:20

had no business in. So, it kind

29:22

of just. kill those a lot. So,

29:24

and at the time, it wasn't so

29:26

bad the next like kind of

29:28

year or two. I was still flying

29:31

a lot of GEA. I still knew

29:33

had bugs that were kind of

29:35

in the airlines. And that was

29:37

kind of sparking. I was still

29:39

going to Oshkosh in 2014,

29:41

2015 thing. I think so

29:44

when they started doing the

29:46

university tent. Not the university, the

29:48

career tent. So I was there

29:50

one year and kind of went

29:52

there and was kind of seeing

29:54

like, oh, okay, like that's pretty

29:56

neat like what they're doing stuff

29:59

and. And then kind of

30:01

saw my wife now who we had

30:03

started dating, I was a stepdad with

30:05

them, and then that kind of really

30:07

opened my eyes, kind of in the

30:10

mid-20s, like, okay, I have this life,

30:12

my parents have this life, but then

30:14

I have airline and friends who have

30:16

their life, and they were near my

30:19

parents' age, and I was like, well,

30:21

do I want this life? The wife,

30:23

you know, fiancé and the kid and

30:25

everything kind of came right. It was

30:28

like, I don't think this is the

30:30

best life for me. Oh, the fish

30:32

life, yeah. You know, when that was

30:34

like the hardest night of my life,

30:37

I think I sat on that thing

30:39

for like a month, trying to, before

30:41

I can muster up the, the courage

30:43

to tell my dad, like, hey, I

30:46

don't want to do this anymore. I

30:48

love you, but this is, because you

30:50

know, it's his baby. He built us

30:52

from the ground up. You know, he

30:54

has, he has no, he's kind of

30:57

left school in Holland and like in

30:59

middle school and just built his own

31:01

businesses. And he loves this thing and

31:03

it was kind of like, hey, your

31:06

business is that good. I don't even

31:08

like it. I don't want to do

31:10

it. So it's kind of told your

31:12

dad, like, you don't even like, you

31:15

know, like, it's kind of like nine

31:17

o' nine o'clock at night at night.

31:19

to their house, like, like, like, like,

31:21

like, 20 minutes away, and, yeah, I

31:24

was, like, sat in the room, like,

31:26

hey, man, I don't want to, and

31:28

then I just bawled crying, couldn't even

31:30

say anything, I was just so, so,

31:32

like, sad about it, and he just

31:35

gave me a big hug, and he's

31:37

like, I'm happy for you, man. He's

31:39

like, like, go on it, full force.

31:41

He's like, that's kind of how that's

31:44

kind of how that whole transition phase

31:46

was. What I wanted when I was

31:48

18 was different than I when I

31:50

was 21. As everybody, every relationship will

31:53

say, like when you meet somebody, they

31:55

change you. Sometimes you're going to get

31:57

sometimes for worse. the line was for

31:59

the best and you know that's what

32:02

kind of pivoted in my mind to

32:04

saying like okay I now I need

32:06

to see this avenue so that went

32:08

kind of pushed me into like my first

32:10

I call I always call my big boy

32:12

job because all the other jobs are just

32:15

fun and I made them myself and I

32:17

saw a little pissing planes around but

32:19

you know which is what trans taste

32:21

just the first one so so as

32:23

someone who has seen kind of like a

32:25

different industry, a different way of making money

32:27

of having, like you said, you can make

32:30

a good life, you can do well. I've

32:32

always been told, and I've always kind of

32:34

thought, that being a pilot, eventually, right, like

32:36

you and I are both very junior where

32:38

we are, short-going life, we're not around as

32:40

much as we would want to be in

32:43

as much as our family would like us

32:45

to be. But in the grand scheme of

32:47

things, I've always kind of been under the

32:49

idea that there's nothing else that you can

32:51

do where you can make as much money

32:53

as you can as an air as a

32:56

pilot and be home as much as well.

32:58

Like I said that's down the road right

33:00

like it's like when you see these these

33:02

older pilots that are working two or three

33:04

trips a month and they're doing well and

33:07

they're making a ton of money. Would you

33:09

agree with that as someone who has seen

33:11

you know another way that someone can make

33:13

a living? Were you gone more in the

33:15

fishing side of things? I'm way home. I'm

33:18

home way more now. People, no one's ever

33:20

ran a business or started a business.

33:22

Entrepreneurship sucks in the beginning. These guys

33:24

think it's all glory of fame. That's

33:27

like, they are some of the hardest

33:29

working people ever met because it's

33:31

a constant grind, right? You decide

33:33

your life, you decide your outcome,

33:35

and it's such a big burden too,

33:38

because you're not worried about yourself if

33:40

you've got, you know, we had 10

33:42

employees, right, you're worried about their life,

33:44

their kids, their outcome, everything else. And

33:47

so, yeah, I mean, the life now is

33:49

much more relaxing. I mean,

33:51

on the beginning, my dad, my

33:53

dad couldn't believe, what do you

33:55

mean you don't have to go to

33:58

work? You have five days off. five

34:00

days, wants you to work, well like you

34:02

can't just sit and work, because as an

34:04

entrepreneur, like you're working every day, like that,

34:06

there's always something you can do, the fact

34:08

that you can just get off the flight,

34:10

get to the house, shut the door, shut

34:12

the phone off, throw the bag away for

34:14

whatever, five, four, or five days, and then

34:16

show up the next day, be like, all

34:19

right, I'm ready to act like nothing happening

34:21

for the week, and you can, you know,

34:23

it's just a mind-blowing concept of him to

34:25

be able to be able to be able

34:27

to be able to be able to be

34:29

able to be able to be able to

34:31

be able to be able to, like, like,

34:33

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

34:35

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

34:37

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

34:39

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like

34:42

just go to work and come home and

34:44

not do anything. That's why I love it

34:46

better now. It's just as like with a

34:48

family, you know, it's just nice to when

34:50

you get done, your time's done and your

34:52

time's dedicated to family. You know, as the,

34:54

when we were on the visit, it was

34:56

never like that. You, I could be at

34:58

dinner and... Get a call in 30 minutes.

35:00

I'm out the door driving a truck from

35:02

North Carolina to New York Toronto Florida Texas

35:05

I mean you it was just you know

35:07

You're always doing something at 4 a.m. You're

35:09

on the phone with somebody overseas trying to

35:11

figure out a pricing on fish Like there's

35:13

always something going on. It's always an emergency

35:15

right? Yeah, always there always is yeah Yeah,

35:17

and nothing happens quick and then yeah, yeah

35:19

With um I guess one thing before I

35:21

move on from the fishing just because it's

35:23

so interesting interesting to me as someone's been

35:25

in that business You know, there's two ways

35:28

to look at this one. Do you ever

35:30

eat airport sushi like because you know what

35:32

stuff? You know like all right this manufacturer

35:34

is definitely getting this from them or this

35:36

is happening from here. It's like do you

35:38

ever eat airport sushi at all? Are you

35:40

like absolutely not? You know I used sushi

35:42

I am. not picky with food. The only

35:44

thing I just don't need is tilapia. And

35:46

I hate saying it because that is like

35:48

90% of our business. It's a lot to

35:50

lockets. That's what we do. But yeah, I

35:53

just don't like tilapia. I've set up too

35:55

many farms and watched them raise them. It's

35:57

just not something that, as a word of

35:59

wise, I would just stay away. from tilapia.

36:01

That's hilarious as a tree does. Yeah, I

36:03

mean most stuff is most of seafood

36:05

like your your blue fin, your yellow fin

36:07

tuna, I mean it's all Walcott, I

36:10

mean even if it's farm raised like this

36:12

pen farm race or they raise it in

36:14

pens offshore so it's still kind of like

36:16

the same, it's still in a natural

36:19

habitat, but like your salmon, your

36:21

artificial crab like that's no different

36:23

than eaten, no offense, chick fully,

36:25

it's the same stuff, so. So you don't

36:28

have any issue with like eating crab

36:30

in Phoenix, Arizona or eating like I

36:32

mean you're not gonna see me going

36:34

to a sushi joint in Iowa What

36:36

do we need to avoid? I don't

36:38

need a fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah For

36:40

East of the Mississippi I'll start eating

36:42

sushi for West of the Mississippi Maybe

36:44

I'll think about rethink it. Until you

36:47

get to like Seattle where they're probably

36:49

flying it. Yeah, then I'll be okay

36:51

then. Yeah, yeah. Once you get past

36:53

any of the Rockies, then we can

36:55

start going back to Michigan. It's like

36:57

your Memphis, are you going to eat

36:59

the freshly caught fish in the Mississippi

37:01

River? Probably not, you know. Catish, yeah.

37:03

Good point. Yeah. So you, you're kind

37:06

of deciding and realizing that. you know,

37:08

whether your wife now was telling you,

37:10

hey, like, you have these hours, you

37:12

have the ability to go do something

37:14

that's pretty cool and can afford us

37:16

a good life that we want to

37:18

live. What time frame was that, like

37:20

in the grand scheme of things, just

37:23

so we know, because you mentioned 2008,

37:25

2010, terrible time, the whole industry, I

37:27

mean, when I started training in 2010,

37:29

I had multiple people come up to

37:31

me and be like, do not be

37:33

pilots, do not do this, do literally

37:35

anything. And I was like, okay, this

37:38

is the first thing I found that

37:40

I liked, I have to realize I'm

37:42

not going to do anything else, so

37:44

here we go. What was the timeline

37:46

for you right now? That was like around

37:48

2015 was kind of like okay I'm going to

37:51

go be pilot you know full-time so the

37:53

only thing I didn't have a multi-engine

37:55

had everything else just didn't have a

37:57

multi-engine and so again when luck that

38:00

like three days whatever it was that

38:02

you'd do that with and then and

38:04

then of course I was gonna try

38:06

and fly for a mountaineer cargo and

38:08

then yeah I was gonna go fly

38:10

from mountaineer cargo I was like well

38:12

I need I need I was like

38:15

I need I need to get it

38:17

like you know just some flying and

38:19

that kind of stuff and then this

38:21

is right when everybody started doing like

38:23

oh you don't need an ATP you

38:25

just need conditional time I was like

38:27

what is that and So I went

38:30

and interviewed at PSA Pmont and expressed

38:32

yet that they're all the same thing.

38:34

Like you don't need an ATP, we'll

38:36

pay for your ATP, you're just going

38:38

to have 25 hours of multi and

38:40

all this stuff. So I was like,

38:43

ah, okay. So I just went and

38:45

knocked out my 25 hours of multi

38:47

and then got conditions from all three

38:49

of those and ended up going with

38:51

trans dates because it had at the

38:53

time, had the Raleigh base. So I

38:55

was like sweet, go to Raleigh. Little

38:58

did I know, that's not how it

39:00

works when you go to training. So

39:02

get hired and I'm like, oh sweet,

39:04

do the seniority skip, you got hired

39:06

and you could postpone your class for

39:08

six months or three months. So postponing

39:11

at the train and like, oh, everybody

39:13

that started when you originally did your

39:15

class was in Raleigh, now everybody's going

39:17

to Denver. So yeah, exactly. So I

39:19

originally got based in Denver for like

39:21

one month. And then luckily, I only

39:23

had to do, it. So I never

39:26

actually had to like. I had to

39:28

go out there, but it was a

39:30

true reserve out there. And then I

39:32

was in St. Louis and then I

39:34

got to Raleigh and then they shut

39:36

Raleigh down like one month after I

39:39

was in there. Raleigh smoke. Then I

39:41

had to go to Chicago and it

39:43

was like, oh my god. What's your

39:45

life? And then I had to go

39:47

to Chicago and it was like, oh

39:49

my god. So what's your now wife

39:51

or then wife or what was she

39:54

thinking through the end picture? It's funny

39:56

because like, like, She's so laid back,

39:58

you know, if you take the fish

40:00

days... So this day, it's like, everything's

40:02

just elevated. So like,

40:04

she's, she, you know, she enjoys

40:07

life. He just gets to hang

40:09

out with the, you know, with

40:11

the kids every day. She enjoys

40:13

me to stay home mom. And

40:15

that's how it's always been

40:17

with her and I kind of.

40:20

Because we've had the kids and

40:22

she just, she was just like,

40:24

you kind of have to figure it

40:27

out. Like, she'll be quiet. she won't

40:29

open her mouth she'll wait for me

40:31

to do it and if I open it

40:33

then then she knows it's concerning like

40:35

at that point and it was like

40:37

two years of the trans days and then

40:40

I was like I came home and it

40:42

was like I kept getting junior manned

40:44

and I was it was the way they

40:46

were junior manning I couldn't get home

40:48

that night on the normal flight so

40:50

I was taking a FedEx flight back

40:52

and then I was getting into Raleigh at

40:55

like 4 a. And I left two hours

40:57

from Raleigh back to the house. But then

40:59

because of I got junior man, it was

41:01

taking a day of time off. So Jen,

41:04

I always had like a day or two

41:06

off. And this went on for like

41:08

months. And so there's like no

41:11

end in sight. And I'm trying to

41:13

think like, okay, like, do I upgrade?

41:15

But then I go back to Denver

41:17

and then like, do I find another

41:19

job? Like, what do I do? What do

41:21

I do? And I just got home and

41:24

she was getting out to take one

41:26

of the kids that daycare. like just

41:28

so drained from it and yeah so then

41:30

at that point I was like just kind

41:32

of trusting my gut self and I

41:35

was like I gotta find something different so

41:37

so that I try I mean flying jobs

41:39

or just like any flying jobs yeah yeah

41:41

yeah I mean I knew I was saying

41:43

new flying like it wasn't like going to

41:45

do a whole other thing it was just

41:47

like like I gotta find a different

41:49

company or go somewhere stuff like

41:51

that so at the time I had like

41:53

the 121 I needed and at this time

41:55

everybody was trying to get PIC time So I

41:57

was looking at Atlas for a little bit.

42:00

I was like, oh cool, I go

42:02

fly seven four and, but then I

42:04

kind of saw their schedule and I

42:06

was like, ah, that's not going to

42:08

work, you know, not going to work

42:10

for us. So, right. So then I

42:12

was, I was doing, flying a, three

42:14

weeks in the road, yeah. Yeah, I

42:16

know. Here's Cologne, have fun. Yeah. So

42:18

then I end up going to a

42:20

sign of Piper Meridian kind of on

42:22

the side and one of the companies

42:24

I was working for. They had just

42:26

started up and so they were just

42:28

looking for guys and he kind of

42:30

knew me from you know earlier and

42:32

he was like well come work for

42:34

me and I'll make you captain The

42:36

the Excel Exiles I was like sweet

42:38

dude like work for me higher pay

42:40

PIC and it was 20 30 minutes

42:42

from my house home base. I was

42:44

like I'm all in so then I

42:46

went to the 135 well so I've

42:48

left a 121 and went 135 and

42:51

then I spent like a year there

42:53

there and I was like this is

42:55

a bees knees knees I'm not doing

42:57

121 ever again. I commute five minutes

42:59

out where my house is. Work eight

43:01

on, six off. Just getting on my

43:03

schedule all year. Like I was like,

43:05

is this great gig ever? Yeah. And

43:07

then I was kind of like, oh,

43:09

I need to 135s to sometimes be

43:11

different. Can I not be a, I'm

43:13

not going to call it not the

43:15

safest, but they're just the way they

43:17

do things, you know, there's protections you

43:19

want in life or ready, like a

43:21

saps and stuff like that. you know,

43:23

just having those protections is great. So

43:25

then having that at the region, I

43:27

was like, well, now I kind of

43:29

want to try to find that. So,

43:31

you know, that's when I looked at

43:33

going to one of the big fractals

43:35

or something like that, because I was

43:37

interested to make the airlines at that

43:39

point. I was like, no, I'm never

43:42

doing airlines. Just, just say. You were

43:44

100% turned off on the airlines. Yeah,

43:46

after that regional experience. I was like,

43:48

this isn't nice. Even though that you

43:50

knew eventually it would get better if

43:52

you ever got to that point you're

43:54

still like there's no way. I think

43:56

I was too young and too blind

43:58

to see that at the time. I

44:00

think I was too young and immature

44:02

to see that. So at the time,

44:04

I think I was just too narrow

44:06

to be like, this is all it's ever

44:08

going to be. Because at that

44:11

time, none of my friends were

44:13

moving. Like, everybody was just staring

44:15

at the region. It was so

44:17

hard to go get a job

44:19

anywhere. You know. And so it was

44:21

like, you need to agree. You need

44:24

a thousand hours. P. I see.

44:26

You know, like, this isn't, this

44:28

just. this company and this area

44:30

for me, you know, maybe a

44:32

different regional might have been, but at

44:35

that time that was not, that

44:37

wasn't 15. So then you,

44:39

you decide fractional might be

44:41

the life for you. Now

44:43

really in my mind, there's

44:46

two fractionals, right? There's two

44:48

fractionals, right? There's two fractionals,

44:50

right? Like, there's two fractionals,

44:52

right? Like, was that kind

44:55

of any model of fractional?

44:57

No, I was, well, I mean, it's going

44:59

to be the thing of the way, but

45:01

you know, I was, I was on else

45:04

who's focused on union, ASAP, ACAP, ACUP, like

45:06

that's it. You know, I think if anybody's

45:08

trying to make it a long-term game,

45:10

as well as do GA on the side,

45:12

I think that's like two big avenues there,

45:15

is GA, and that generally if you're just

45:17

doing your career, you know, you don't

45:19

really need to have all that need to

45:21

have all that need to have all that need

45:23

to have all that, but, but, that backing

45:26

to know that when you're at work

45:28

that all that protections there there's

45:30

people that are going to be your voice

45:32

when sometimes do you not the wisest person

45:34

to say voice you know we're not all

45:36

lawyers and that's why hire lawyers but

45:38

you know I didn't want to have to go

45:41

to somebody and say hey I want to pay raise

45:43

yeah like That's just not me. I'm just not that

45:45

kind of person. Yeah, you just show up in front,

45:47

right? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was just flying.

45:49

I came in, I can't pay. I'm like, well, I

45:51

need to get paid. But you know, we'll talk about

45:53

next week. Oh, fine. So you decided to pay. Yeah,

45:55

yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. That was

45:57

kind of the whole thing I didn't have to worry

45:59

about. So yeah. of the big focuses was just

46:01

like if I have ACAP, ACUP, all that

46:03

kind of stuff, I know that, you know,

46:05

in a span of a 40 year career,

46:08

if I go to show up at the

46:10

simulator one day and I have a bad

46:12

day, it's not going to kill me, it's

46:14

not going to be in the world, it's

46:16

going to have the bad day, come back

46:18

a couple weeks later, redo it. Which is

46:21

something that a lot of people really think

46:23

about the beginning, right? I mean, obviously some

46:25

people are aware of what that means, but

46:27

being having FOCA, having ASEP, having AQP, which

46:29

is really only airlines and very, very certain

46:31

companies. I think there only is actually one

46:33

other company that has it outside of the

46:36

121 world. Could be different now. But it's

46:38

something that's just great to have. Because like

46:40

you said, the best pilots have bad days,

46:42

right? I mean, that's the one thing that

46:44

you and you and I have failed any

46:46

training in. but it's just sometimes things happen

46:49

and it's nice to know that all right

46:51

well you're not gonna get fired you're gonna

46:53

get placed on special tracking which you just

46:55

do a little bit extra training you come

46:57

back you trained on it you do it

46:59

and then you come back in six months

47:01

instead of a year and you just continue

47:04

on with your life and it's there and

47:06

it's there and it's not something that people

47:08

really want to judge you for or people

47:10

are going to look down any for it's

47:12

just all right let's get some extra training

47:14

let's get you right yeah right yeah which

47:17

is good you right yeah which is good

47:19

you're good you right yeah which is good

47:21

you're good you're good you're good you're good

47:23

you're good you're applying, you get the job,

47:25

I think you were a couple months after

47:27

me. Yes, 2019. Yeah, I was beginning of

47:29

2019. So almost a full year after excited

47:32

her in 2018. And then what's ironic is

47:34

where we are now, you were just a

47:36

couple months behind me there as well. Yeah,

47:38

yeah, here, yeah. So I love how like

47:40

Marco, yeah. I know, it's funny because like

47:42

you think about it. We never met in

47:45

person for like three years. We text it

47:47

all the time. Because we're going through the

47:49

same stuff, essentially. Yeah, all the same stuff.

47:51

I mean, we texted for like two years,

47:53

never meeting each other, sending gifts, joking on

47:55

deal, because we flew with him together. We

47:58

were both on the latitude, just so people.

48:00

Yeah. And then like ironically we meet up

48:02

three years later and quote unquote we

48:04

were like two hours from each other.

48:06

So like that's the other funny thing

48:08

about it. We're not that far. Same

48:10

state. Probably one row. I think it's

48:12

right there. Yeah, I decided to go

48:15

from the latitude, skip the upgrades and

48:17

go to the global because I want

48:19

to try international. And you're

48:21

on vacation and I just so happened

48:23

to get a pop-up trip to, I

48:25

think it was a pop-up trip in

48:27

Munich. And that's where we meet up at for the first

48:29

time in person is beers at beer tent. at like what

48:31

was like 10 a.m. 10 a.m. drinking beers in Germany at

48:34

10 a.m. What for me you can't beat it right? Like

48:36

that's the dream. Beer is in Broadworth, maybe. Yeah, beer in

48:38

Broadworth at 10 a. What else are you going to do?

48:40

I remember because I was so tired, I think we got

48:42

there the day before and I was like, I think we

48:44

got there the day before and I was like, I was

48:46

so tired. I think we got there the day before, I

48:48

think we got there, I think we got there, I think

48:50

we got there, I think, I think, I think, I think,

48:52

I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I

48:54

think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think,

48:56

I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I

48:58

think, I think, I think, I think, I think,

49:00

I think, I think, I think, I think, I

49:02

think, I Whenever I go somewhere, I'm always either,

49:04

if I have someone and find my friends, I'll

49:06

look at their location, or I'll just like

49:08

text them, like, hey, are you Munich? And

49:11

I mean, it hasn't happened a ton of

49:13

times, but every once in a while I'll

49:15

be like, yeah, I'm here too. And it's

49:17

like, oh, cool. It's like, oh, cool. It's like,

49:19

yeah. It's like, oh, cool. It's like, it's like, oh,

49:21

oh, cool. Yeah. Oh, cool. It's like, cool. Oh, cool.

49:23

Oh, cool. Yeah. Oh, cool. Oh, cool. Oh, cool. Oh,

49:25

cool. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

49:27

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

49:29

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

49:31

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You're kind of the only one.

49:33

Yeah, I mean, so I was the only thing I

49:36

was listening to because you

49:38

just had, um, again, stories from

49:40

every walk of life that you

49:42

could listen to be like, oh,

49:45

that's kind of like, well, that's

49:47

kind of like what I'm going

49:49

through. Yeah, right. Oh, maybe like,

49:51

oh, that's what they did. And

49:53

so, yeah, and then of course, when,

49:55

you know, we found out we all

49:58

work together, don't get hyped up. That's

50:00

all it matters. That's all it matters.

50:02

That's all I need. That's all I

50:04

need, man. That's all I need. Justin

50:06

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50:09

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to register for this powerful new webinar

50:31

today. That's Allworth airline.com/Pilot. And now back

50:33

to today's episode. I want to talk

50:35

a little bit about your transition from

50:37

a 121 regional lifestyle to the 91K

50:40

lifestyle. I think it's going to be

50:42

pretty similar to me because when I

50:44

was in the fractional for the first

50:46

two years, It was the greatest place

50:48

I've ever been in my life, right?

50:51

Would you agree? And I was never

50:53

been happier. I never thought about going

50:55

anywhere else. This is what I'm going

50:57

to do for the rest of my

50:59

life. When I flew with some crabby

51:02

captains, I just didn't understand it. I

51:04

was like, we have seven days on,

51:06

we have seven days off. I just

51:08

didn't do anything. Very similar. Very similar

51:10

with that. Yeah. more that seven and

51:13

seven I'm gonna get a whole like

51:15

extra day off and this had the

51:17

other and then it was like sweet

51:19

like I'm gonna know my schedule all

51:21

year I have like a true seven

51:24

days on a true seven days off

51:26

like and that's how it was and

51:28

you know I always tell people like

51:30

the coolest thing about that schedule was

51:32

every time we went on vacation somewhere

51:35

was never on the actual vacation pit

51:37

it was just on one of my

51:39

weeks yeah because 21 days off But

51:41

not even that you didn't need that

51:43

you just had seven days off. So

51:46

you're just talking about that. Yeah. Yeah.

51:48

Yeah. I would just on a seven

51:50

days off dummy ticket wherever the wife

51:52

kids are going and you'd go on

51:54

vacation somewhere like that. So that was

51:57

the coolest thing like at that time

51:59

about it. It was, what was like

52:01

the huge eye-opener for me was,

52:03

there's just a lot of work

52:05

in seven days. And you understand why

52:08

these people, some people, you guys,

52:10

you fly with a burn-out after

52:12

four or five days because it's just,

52:14

they're long days, doing a lot.

52:16

And you know, when you're in your

52:19

20s, you don't know what you

52:21

want in your 30s, because life

52:23

changes, everything happens, that's kind of

52:25

where the ballpark was for me

52:27

was, was, I go to the

52:29

fractional. So I don't really think

52:31

much of it because it's a year

52:33

and two years old. There's not

52:35

much communication going on there. And

52:37

then in the latter part of my

52:39

time there, it was, you know, face

52:41

time. It's always face time. It was

52:43

always face time. And then I'd be home

52:45

and then, you know, you'd enjoy the time

52:48

home. And I just go to myself like

52:50

day four. I was like, I was just

52:52

ready, just ready to be done. Day

52:54

four. day five is like you're pissed

52:56

off day because you're just like and

52:58

then day six comes around you're getting

53:00

all excited again because you just focus

53:03

on where my where my airline and

53:05

where my airline and then you see

53:07

where airline and hope from you're like

53:09

that's a two billion airline and it's

53:11

like I live in Carolina why am

53:14

I in California so you know yeah

53:16

so I did that and like I

53:18

kind of got I got I would

53:20

say rote into that mentality and um

53:22

So when I when I upgraded I

53:24

ended up having like three months

53:26

off because it was kind of a

53:29

delay That was like the biggest eye-opening

53:32

part of my life because My kid

53:34

did not care. He didn't care what

53:36

Jedi flew. He didn't care where I

53:38

went. They didn't care about

53:40

anything all they saw was dad was

53:42

home to go pick them up and

53:44

drop them off us to hang out

53:47

with them have chocolate milk on the

53:49

couch just just stupid things And

53:51

so my wife and I, you know, I had

53:53

friends that were at the major I

53:55

was at and I was just

53:57

kind of like in question.

54:00

with them about it and things like that.

54:02

Luckily that's people that were really like their

54:04

10 year 20 plus years there and I

54:06

had some people that were a couple years

54:09

there and the guy actually that introduced my

54:11

wife and I worked versus the major so

54:13

he was like the one of the bigger

54:15

helps with they because he's been there a

54:18

few years but you know with with the

54:20

basin system and the callouts all changing you

54:22

know the long callouts weren't really a thing

54:25

back then and now they are and I

54:27

was just like well I can do a

54:29

three day trip, be home after three days.

54:31

I mean, even if I go out and

54:34

do a three day trip, come home for

54:36

a day and have to go back out,

54:38

do a three day trip. Well, guess what?

54:41

I was still home three of those nights

54:43

to do something. So that was kind of

54:45

like the big eye-opening thing. Like, no matter

54:47

what, as a pilot, you're missing stuff, you're

54:50

missing birthdays, you're missing holidays. Like, that is

54:52

a guarantee in life. holidays, Christmas is the

54:54

big one we love, but birthdays, stuff like

54:57

that. You know, I missed my son's birthday

54:59

last week, but you know, we celebrated it

55:01

a few days before, and so, you know,

55:03

I think it's a get older to understand

55:06

that, but. It's also quite like you said,

55:08

and I think one thing to kind of

55:10

preface with this is just to make sure

55:13

everyone knows that the company that we did

55:15

work out last. There's no like shade toward

55:17

it or anything. It's just a work out

55:19

for our lifestyle anymore. Like where I loved

55:22

working there more than anything and it wasn't

55:24

necessarily anything they did. You can make great

55:26

money there if you want to work very

55:29

hard for that money, which is how that

55:31

business is set up where when you go

55:33

to the airlines, there's some more games you

55:35

can play, you become senior, you have the

55:38

ability to fly less and work less and

55:40

you don't get the last minute trip to

55:42

Aspen because you're the only person that can

55:45

do it. At the airline rate, you might

55:47

need a bid, right? And then you kind

55:49

of do your own thing. Yeah, it's not

55:51

even just a, I don't even know as

55:54

money is always involved in a matter of

55:56

what in black, because that's what sometimes brings

55:58

happen to something like that. It's the quality

56:01

of life while you're on the road. The

56:03

airline just provides that top-notch

56:05

style. When you get Signore, you get

56:08

the ability to have that. There's so

56:10

many guys that fly with now, just

56:12

do day turns. Show up at 9,

56:14

back home by like 6 p.m. Like

56:16

that's all they do is a day-turn. Then

56:18

when you're kids go out of the

56:20

house, you can go on the overnight

56:22

to make a drinking or whatever. One

56:24

dude that's fluid, he's home by like

56:26

2 p.m. every day, but he starts

56:28

at like 5 p.m. but his wife

56:30

and kids are asleep, kids, so he's

56:32

back home and the kids get off

56:34

school almost. Stuff like that. So like

56:37

the the the whole thing with the

56:39

fraction side is like it's a cool

56:41

gig like you go to cool places,

56:43

get like great airplanes, advanced, super safe,

56:45

all that avenue. But once you get

56:48

on the road, you have no control

56:50

over anything anymore. you're just there

56:52

to show up day one and

56:54

some people like that that's cool like

56:56

and all that stuff but the the

56:58

whole avenue is I guess it can be

57:00

difficult you know you can then what you're

57:03

gonna show at 8 p.m. we're gonna

57:05

fly through the middle of night to

57:07

the to somewhere and the middle night

57:09

you get a mess is like hey actually

57:11

we're gonna we're gonna go in divergea

57:14

pop into the ground 11 hour clock

57:16

swap and now you're trying to go

57:18

out and fly the next day and do

57:20

stuff and um Like, yeah, everybody has

57:22

a fatigue policy and stuff like

57:24

that. But at an airline, you've

57:26

controlled that whole month prior. At

57:28

a fraction of, you don't know that's

57:30

happening until 10 hours prior. And so,

57:33

it will change. Pardon? And everything can

57:35

still change, right? And everything can still change,

57:37

right? And you could get that and all

57:39

of a sudden they give you 20 hours

57:41

off, right? And then you're like, okay, well,

57:44

what am I supposed to do now? Like,

57:46

you know, things like, things like, things

57:48

like that. So that was kind of

57:50

like that's like the whole there's two the

57:52

whole two big sides of it. It's just

57:54

there's some when you get when you get

57:56

to the actual point. There's just so much

57:58

more life control. on and off between

58:01

the two. But again, you're still, you know,

58:03

with the airlines, you're still commuting, you know,

58:05

I drive two hours, I still do one-like

58:07

commute, stuff like that. But like now, I've

58:10

gotten enough seniority where I do a four-day,

58:12

everything's, or whatever I do, all my stuff

58:14

is commutable day in, day out. So it's

58:16

a true, go in, true come home, which

58:19

is super nice now. It's not my case

58:21

because I had to go the night before

58:23

and a lot of times my trip was

58:25

on me and then I had to come

58:28

back the morning before. I do want to

58:30

ask. So you and I, very similar case,

58:32

like we were hired, the expectations were that,

58:34

you know, things were going to move very

58:37

fast and then kind of things paused, made

58:39

us be on short call and not in

58:41

the base of our choice for longer than

58:43

we thought. It's not great, right? No one's

58:45

going to lie to you and say being

58:48

junior and being short call is fun. What's

58:50

fun about that is that hopefully it ends

58:52

fast and you get to move on and

58:54

do something else and you're like, unless you

58:57

live in base, like a short call, by

58:59

all means, could be the greatest thing in

59:01

the world. But living in Raleigh and having

59:03

to go to New York for me is

59:06

not necessarily my favorite thing. It's just another,

59:08

especially when you go on a day that

59:10

you're not working, that you're not working, right,

59:12

right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right?

59:15

It really, like, I'm missing time with my

59:17

kid to do this, but you got to

59:19

think about in six months or a year,

59:21

this isn't going to be a thing for

59:24

you anymore. No, exactly. Knowing that, what we're

59:26

going through right now and what we just

59:28

came from, do you ever, like, regret it?

59:30

Do you ever, like, regret it? Do you

59:33

ever, like, regret it? Do you ever think

59:35

about that? So. The past

59:37

is very bad, so I don't

59:40

think about it in that sense.

59:42

I think about, I definitely compare.

59:44

I mean, even if it compares,

59:46

there's a deep enjoy. But no

59:49

matter what you compare, every human

59:51

does it. So, but for me,

59:53

they took my base, my home

59:56

base away. I would have had

59:58

to go to Raleigh. And when

1:00:00

I first started, I was doing

1:00:03

rally and still driving two hours.

1:00:05

So I was still getting up

1:00:07

at three in the morning, two

1:00:09

in the morning to then go catch

1:00:12

a 5am flight, to then go fly

1:00:14

all day. Whereas like now, if I

1:00:16

do do a 3am wake up to go to

1:00:18

go to work, to go do reserve, I

1:00:20

can just pass all and decide

1:00:22

like, hey, if you really need me,

1:00:24

you can need me, but if you

1:00:27

don't. Then I'm going to go in

1:00:29

and go back and take a nap

1:00:31

and then like set myself up for

1:00:33

it to be refreshed and be set

1:00:35

up. You didn't have that ability there.

1:00:37

So no, I mean, I don't I don't look

1:00:39

at it like that. I mean, I think

1:00:42

I think like saying like, oh, well, one

1:00:44

was that that's makes me like miss

1:00:46

it. It definitely doesn't. I

1:00:48

mean, commuting right from five minutes

1:00:50

down my road. That was that

1:00:52

was nice. But they went up

1:00:54

happening is tickets got too expensive.

1:00:56

to too much problem for them.

1:00:58

So then it became this point of, well,

1:01:01

actually, we're just going to send you to

1:01:03

Raleigh. So then at that point, it didn't

1:01:05

matter anymore. I didn't have on base. I

1:01:07

was starting to get a rental car at

1:01:09

four in the morning and drive to Raleigh.

1:01:12

So it didn't, it didn't gain anything.

1:01:14

Like, I think that way, I don't think I,

1:01:16

it didn't gain anything, yeah. No, and I

1:01:18

remember. I can't remember if it was

1:01:20

after I applied or maybe I think

1:01:22

I got the interview where I am

1:01:24

now and I think a texture, I

1:01:27

always like, hey dude, are you? Oh,

1:01:29

me too, man. Like we didn't have

1:01:31

like any planning or anything, but it's

1:01:33

like, hey man, I just did my

1:01:35

interview or I just got my CJO

1:01:38

and you're like, I got an interview

1:01:40

next month. And I was like, literally,

1:01:42

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why didn't we

1:01:44

talk about this? I was really supposed

1:01:46

to be in March and then I

1:01:49

was supposed to be in April and then I

1:01:51

was supposed to be in May and then I

1:01:53

like actually we're not going to do and these

1:01:55

summer classes you're going to be in September

1:01:57

and then I was like oh no like I don't know if

1:01:59

I can and sit here for that long,

1:02:01

like, where he had senioritis and everything

1:02:03

was like, I'm just writing it out.

1:02:06

You got the CJO, you're ready. Yeah,

1:02:08

I know, right. Yeah, and so then,

1:02:10

and I mean, I had mine, and

1:02:12

then, and then they were like, actually,

1:02:14

I don't think we're gonna do anything,

1:02:16

so you're gonna be next year, and

1:02:18

I was like, oh my God, no.

1:02:21

And then you text me, and we're

1:02:23

like, I, I. called the lady that

1:02:25

was doing my recruiting stuff through, I

1:02:27

called her every day for nine days.

1:02:29

So then she, like when I picked

1:02:31

up the phone, I would call her

1:02:34

like 10 a.m. And she was always

1:02:36

super nice about, then I call her

1:02:38

and it's on that nine thing. She's

1:02:40

like, actually, you know what? I've got

1:02:42

two classes for you. And I was

1:02:44

like, okay, sweet, I'm going to take

1:02:46

this class. And I was like, thank

1:02:49

you. Thank you. No, yeah, yeah, exactly.

1:02:51

I just I would just be I

1:02:53

mean seniority-wise there's still a couple hundred

1:02:55

adult below me But I mean what

1:02:57

what happened in my life last year

1:02:59

that I got to have? There's no

1:03:01

way I would have had that if

1:03:04

I didn't start in that that one

1:03:06

class You know I was able to

1:03:08

get my airshow rating You know we

1:03:10

had another kid I got to spend

1:03:12

a lot of like a lot of

1:03:14

other month or two with him You

1:03:16

know, we just it was just like

1:03:19

such a like such a great year

1:03:21

a great year Absolutely, man.

1:03:23

It's, yeah. It's, yeah. It's been great for me.

1:03:25

I mean, like we talked about commuting, being junior,

1:03:27

short call, can kind of be a burden, the

1:03:29

way you look at it, but I mean, the

1:03:32

flying itself has been great. We were, I literally

1:03:34

called you the other day, and we're like, I'm

1:03:36

24 hours in the Cayman Islands. I was like,

1:03:38

I just got off 24 hours in Barbados. We're

1:03:41

like, we only did one leg, I only did

1:03:43

one leg out there and one leg out there

1:03:45

and one leg out there and one leg out

1:03:47

there and one leg out there and one leg

1:03:50

out there and one leg out there and one

1:03:52

leg out there and one leg out there and

1:03:54

one leg out there and one leg out there

1:03:56

and one leg out there and one leg out

1:03:58

there and one leg out there and one leg

1:04:01

back back in a back in a two day

1:04:03

back in a two day back in a two

1:04:05

day back in a two day back in a

1:04:07

two day back in a two day back in

1:04:10

a two I can get used to this. This

1:04:12

is a great. I remember you texting me on

1:04:14

your first OE and you're like, dude, it's 12

1:04:16

o'clock and I'm done. Never happened. the first time

1:04:19

I had 16 hours off and I was like

1:04:21

legit like oh my gosh this is amazing I've

1:04:23

never had like on without having to fatigue or

1:04:25

out all the stars aligning I've never had 16

1:04:28

hours off and I just like I was like

1:04:30

this is too much like I need to go

1:04:32

you know I was like I'm bored let's go

1:04:34

back but now it's 24 hours and you're sitting

1:04:37

there and you're like you know This trip could

1:04:39

be like a 30 hour overnight. I think I

1:04:41

could use another six hour. But it's been great.

1:04:43

Before we go, I know it's been about an

1:04:45

hour, I want to talk about aerobatics. And I

1:04:48

also want to talk about a crazy story that

1:04:50

you keep on hinting at with me. And you

1:04:52

said, oh, I'll tell you when you're on the

1:04:54

podcast. Four years, we're on the podcast. So you

1:04:57

know, I share it. So I'm not going to,

1:04:59

I'm not going to try to explain what happened.

1:05:01

I'm just going to give it to you. Yeah,

1:05:03

I'll just rat it out, yeah. And rattle it

1:05:06

out, man, but I heard it's pretty wild. And

1:05:08

so I got into aerobatics, started a satabria, then

1:05:10

went to a decathwa and renting one. And then

1:05:12

when I made like my first big boy aircraft,

1:05:15

first year I bought a Pitts S-1-S. And so

1:05:17

this is for people who, if you have an

1:05:19

accident on your record, doesn't hinder you all. It's

1:05:21

not a big deal. Like just be truthful and

1:05:24

honest to what happened. Mine was pretty horrendous. I

1:05:26

had to parachute out of an aircraft. So the...

1:05:28

control stick pits is a center stick and the

1:05:30

the weld at the bottom that holds all the

1:05:32

aileron usage ended up snapping in flight after a

1:05:35

few rolls and yeah so it was about 2,000

1:05:37

feet ish where it happened and by time I

1:05:39

got out it was like 800 feet went to

1:05:41

the water was out there for like 20-ish minutes

1:05:44

and under under under canopy well I went out

1:05:46

under canopy they would call it. But you know,

1:05:48

luck for me though is nothing bad. that

1:05:50

happened to me it

1:05:53

kind of cut my ear

1:05:55

lobes from where the

1:05:57

kind of canvas hat came

1:05:59

off and then I

1:06:02

had some really bad bruising

1:06:04

and like a little

1:06:06

cut in my arm but

1:06:08

um yeah it was just went

1:06:10

to the water eventually the the boats came

1:06:12

out and got me out um and

1:06:15

then kind of had that you know I thought

1:06:17

that was like the end of my career like

1:06:19

I just started with trans states and I was

1:06:22

like man they're like I am gonna be this

1:06:24

is gonna be my life and um it

1:06:26

was super cool every time I applied you

1:06:28

know was like has anything ever happened

1:06:30

what ended up being like one of the

1:06:32

worst parts of my life has turned

1:06:34

out to be the best tell me about

1:06:36

a time when story yeah absolutely and

1:06:38

I think the whole the whole story with

1:06:41

the the parachute stuff like that ended

1:06:43

up turning into this like I would say

1:06:45

beautiful but it was just this great

1:06:47

educational point about you know perseverance and you know

1:06:49

kind of coming back because you know now

1:06:51

I have my airship rating and at that time

1:06:53

I didn't think I was ever going to

1:06:55

be able to fly air shows again or be

1:06:57

able to be an air show pilot because

1:06:59

I wrecked a plane and um as well

1:07:01

as I didn't think at that time I

1:07:03

was like I just ruined my chances for being

1:07:05

a full you know full major airline pilot

1:07:07

or being a pilot a career and

1:07:09

uh yeah so um

1:07:12

it's all it's on YouTube

1:07:14

you can search it up there's an

1:07:16

accent on YouTube yeah I mean it's like

1:07:18

bystander got a video of me jumping

1:07:20

out and stuff like that so yeah

1:07:22

it's uh it's on YouTube and stuff

1:07:24

like that so um November 27832

1:07:26

um you can

1:07:28

look it up there or you can just search

1:07:30

my name and my YouTube account should come up you

1:07:32

you kind of scroll down through I'll be on

1:07:35

there but yeah it's a uh yeah it's a neat

1:07:37

thing um it was uh it was

1:07:39

just such a life changing event

1:07:41

that you know um which is

1:07:43

kind of where you talk about

1:07:45

like the reserve stuff would be like oh crap it's

1:07:47

like kind of sucks right now the life life happens

1:07:49

and your time will come when your time will come

1:07:51

for something and yeah I mean we're all in a

1:07:53

we're on the blessed place to be no matter what's

1:07:55

going on so when you when

1:07:57

you were flying you know you're pulling g you're

1:08:00

doing whatever movie you're doing and all of a sudden

1:08:02

you turn to the right or you turn to the

1:08:04

left you pull back or push down whatever you were

1:08:06

doing and all of a sudden you know the stick

1:08:08

just like comes in you're gonna laugh like and

1:08:11

you look disbelief yeah you're just like this

1:08:13

belief because it's never something that you would

1:08:15

think would happen right in a million years

1:08:17

of you having to crash an airplane it's

1:08:19

probably not because jumping from a plane

1:08:21

it's what disbelief is like crashing a plane

1:08:23

is different because that becomes a reality like

1:08:26

we're like we're trained for that you train

1:08:28

for it from your private pilot,

1:08:30

like engine failures, runaway trends.

1:08:32

When did you ever train about jumping

1:08:35

out of a plane? I mean, I've

1:08:37

never heard about it, right? We put

1:08:39

parachute. Yeah, exactly. You don't ever think

1:08:41

about that. But like, we, you know,

1:08:43

the only guys that do it a

1:08:45

military. Like, they're trained to do that.

1:08:48

I'm a civilian guy. Like, I wear

1:08:50

a parachute, like, you know, something will happen.

1:08:52

This is how you get out. committing

1:08:54

to the point of being like, all right,

1:08:56

I'm pulling a canopy open, I am unlatching

1:08:58

myself, I'm standing on my seat, and I'm

1:09:00

jumping out of this plane, and then I'm going to pull

1:09:02

a D-read. Like, that is a, and, you know, there's

1:09:05

always this age argument, well, you can train,

1:09:07

you can train, you can train, there's just some

1:09:09

things you can't train for, and you can do

1:09:11

all the skydiving you want, you can do all

1:09:13

that stuff, you go on my opinion on

1:09:15

my opinion, but, but, but your personal fire

1:09:17

flight or fire flight or flight or flight or

1:09:19

flight or flight or flight or flight or flight mode.

1:09:21

is going to get you out. There's

1:09:23

nothing that's going to, the trainer will

1:09:26

put you in the right path, but the answer

1:09:28

to say like, I'm going to leave this plane,

1:09:30

hope that I don't smack my head on

1:09:32

something, hope that I don't get clipped by

1:09:34

something. You know, there's line wires back there

1:09:36

that can slice you in half in a

1:09:38

second. The plane's moving at 180 miles an

1:09:41

hour. So there's stuff that can just kill

1:09:43

you in a second. So you're playing with

1:09:45

luck and luck and luck and luck and

1:09:47

if you. You got a lot going against

1:09:49

you in the moment. Yeah, and I know

1:09:51

if when whoever watched the video, you'll see

1:09:54

in the video, there's two seconds from when

1:09:56

the canopy opens to where the plane hits the

1:09:58

water. So two seconds, it has a tape. would

1:10:00

have been dead. I was an ask.

1:10:02

I mean, obviously there's a startle effect.

1:10:04

Like we all have seen 1549, you

1:10:06

know, Teeterboro, or not Teeterboro, LGA, Lane

1:10:09

in the River, everyone saying why couldn't

1:10:11

you just go to Teeterboro and they

1:10:13

could do it in the Sim when

1:10:15

they had no startle effect. But when

1:10:17

they had to sit there for 10

1:10:19

seconds, or whatever the timeline was, maybe

1:10:22

it was like 30 seconds, they couldn't

1:10:24

make it to Teeter bro. You would.

1:10:26

You didn't have 30 seconds. You had

1:10:28

less than 30 seconds between when it

1:10:30

snapped and when the plane hit the

1:10:32

water. So you had no time to,

1:10:35

you had no affordable time for the

1:10:37

startle effect. Do you remember at all,

1:10:39

like, obviously you said disbelief, like, oh

1:10:41

my gosh, this is happening me? Was

1:10:43

it just immediate, you know, seat belt

1:10:45

off, canopy out, jump, de ring in

1:10:48

your mind? Or did you know? Ten

1:10:50

minutes for that all to happen in

1:10:52

your mind? Yeah. I was

1:10:54

just saying like everyone learns about it

1:10:56

or probably like invulnerability right you get

1:10:58

up and fly every time you think

1:11:00

like well then you feel like it's

1:11:03

going to happen to me and you

1:11:05

know when you're flying a lot of

1:11:07

aerobatics you do a lot of flying

1:11:09

that that does play into you like

1:11:11

it's your job to always have that

1:11:13

kind of back you to say like

1:11:15

this what's going to happen when this

1:11:17

goes on and for me it was

1:11:19

just all effect was just like it

1:11:21

Snaps and then it still kind of

1:11:24

moves and the plane's kind of like

1:11:26

slowly rolling like this and I'm like

1:11:28

What's going on? So there's this false

1:11:30

sensation of the stick movie But then

1:11:32

the biggest killer was when it snapped

1:11:34

it jammed the elevator. It's I couldn't

1:11:36

move the elevator So then of course,

1:11:38

you know most people's natural reaction right

1:11:40

if it's like you get car wreck

1:11:43

you turn your stereo down for some

1:11:45

reason like everyone's natural action has pulled

1:11:47

off of that For some reason is

1:11:49

that, so I started pulling the throttle

1:11:51

back, I'm like, huh? And then I'm

1:11:53

playing with it a bit for a

1:11:55

couple seconds, and then at that point,

1:11:57

the plane just kind of noses over

1:11:59

and starts kind of diving down because

1:12:01

it can't hold it any longer. and

1:12:04

the biggest like tell tell was you

1:12:06

get startled then you're come back into

1:12:08

the zone that you're in and when

1:12:10

I hit the rudders and the plane

1:12:12

could completely move at that point I

1:12:14

was like okay it's not a spin

1:12:16

I'm not in a spin I have

1:12:18

no idea what's going on and I

1:12:20

don't have time to react but what

1:12:22

I do have is a parachute and

1:12:25

an aircraft insurance and that's what that's

1:12:27

there for. You know, so and luckily,

1:12:29

you know, we do aerobatics, I do

1:12:31

it over just smack the out of

1:12:33

the middle of an airport, either over

1:12:35

a farmland or over the water. It's

1:12:37

one of those three. So, you know,

1:12:39

thankfully, because of how a lot of

1:12:41

aerobata boxes and stuff do not over

1:12:43

populated areas. So we have to have

1:12:46

that back in the mine. It's like,

1:12:48

oh, we might hit somebody on the

1:12:50

ground. Right. Yeah, it was super. It

1:12:52

was super. Yeah, it's a disbelief in

1:12:54

the beginning, but you know, like I

1:12:56

said, we all trained, right? We all

1:12:58

trained to get to bring to have

1:13:00

the ability to bring ourselves back into

1:13:02

the moment, then focus on what's supposed

1:13:05

to happen at hand. So what was

1:13:07

going through your mind when you hit

1:13:09

the water? Like when when you hit

1:13:11

the water, you came back up and

1:13:13

you're just like, all right, I'm alive.

1:13:15

I was not happy about when I

1:13:17

came back up. Yeah, I came down

1:13:19

and like started throwing up because I

1:13:21

swallowed so much water going into the

1:13:23

in there and I was trying to

1:13:26

get up and there's all the paraport

1:13:28

around June stuff. And where I live

1:13:30

and it happened that's a Duber North

1:13:32

Carolina. The water you can see about

1:13:34

like that far. That's about it. Underwater

1:13:36

you can barely see because it's all

1:13:38

black. Blackish water is all over murky

1:13:40

water. came back up and I just

1:13:42

started throwing up and screaming because I'm

1:13:44

just just like I mean people definitely

1:13:47

saw it you're not going to miss

1:13:49

a plane going into the water like

1:13:51

it's definitely thing but of course in

1:13:53

your mind you're like nobody said this

1:13:55

like somebody how me so just screaming

1:13:57

at the top of my lungs like

1:13:59

help help and then I'm trying to

1:14:01

find something I can float on because

1:14:03

I can't get my parachute off you

1:14:05

know the parachute unclipped up here but

1:14:08

it was so tight down there I

1:14:10

couldn't get it off and so now

1:14:12

I'm like I got to find something

1:14:14

to grab onto because I was worried

1:14:16

about shoot dragging me under luckily the

1:14:18

the water there doesn't move so it

1:14:20

wouldn't it never it would have never

1:14:22

dragged me under but at the time

1:14:24

you'll think of that you're just like

1:14:27

the water parakeets going to kill me

1:14:29

yeah yeah So then like I'm swimming

1:14:31

and swimming and kind of waiting and

1:14:33

I find a piece of fabric and

1:14:35

I'm like, oh sweet, there's a piece

1:14:37

of fabric. And you think like, well

1:14:39

a plane crash, like there's going to

1:14:41

be parts everywhere. Well, my plane would

1:14:43

straight into the water and obliterate it

1:14:45

until like a thousand. I mean, tens

1:14:48

of thousands of pieces of wood. So

1:14:50

there's, are they like the biggest piece

1:14:52

of wood I have is like that

1:14:54

big? Yeah, I mean, there's nothing. So

1:14:56

I grab. And then I started seeing

1:14:58

fuel everywhere and I'm like, oh my

1:15:00

god, like, now this thing's going to

1:15:02

catch fire. But then I'm like, you

1:15:04

know, you're thinking all these worst case

1:15:06

scenario, like, I just jumped out of

1:15:09

a plane, I survived, and then you're

1:15:11

like, crap, now I'm going to drown.

1:15:13

Oh, no, now I'm going to catch

1:15:15

fire, right? Like, nobody's going to see

1:15:17

the, then it's October. I saw, yeah,

1:15:19

then eventually you saw a fire trucks

1:15:21

trucks, everything coming down to the waterfront.

1:15:23

And then at that point I was

1:15:25

like, I just got a kind of

1:15:27

wait here for 20 minutes. So thankfully

1:15:30

I went to a swim camp when

1:15:32

I was a kid. So there you

1:15:34

go. I had my band to tell

1:15:36

me I could swim for 10 minutes,

1:15:38

but I was an overachiever and I

1:15:40

did it for 20 minutes out there.

1:15:42

So, thank you. With a parachute attached,

1:15:44

you know, I was trying to, you

1:15:46

know, there's no drag, like, like, the,

1:15:49

the parachute didn't do anything. That was

1:15:51

like my whole concern. kind of good

1:15:53

stuff. But then of course then the

1:15:55

pain comes in like my legs hurt

1:15:57

so bad. and then like I'm like

1:15:59

I could feel like I could feel

1:16:01

the the slit to my ears from

1:16:03

where they they had cut so that's after all

1:16:05

that kind of like pumpness went away

1:16:08

then I was like the only thing I asked never

1:16:10

went to the hospital never anything

1:16:12

I just asked for a Tylenol and that was

1:16:14

it when I got out and nobody would give

1:16:16

me a Tylenol because they wouldn't give me one

1:16:18

unless I got admitted to the hospital you're like

1:16:21

come on guys I know like a really good

1:16:23

friend of mine as a really good friend of

1:16:25

mine as a police friend of mine as

1:16:27

a police We're best buds now, but he

1:16:30

was a guy that went back to his

1:16:32

car and said, I'll give you a towel.

1:16:34

So you didn't go to the hospital at

1:16:36

all? No, honestly, I was flying two

1:16:38

days later, so I had to go

1:16:41

to my brother's wedding and that was

1:16:43

my brother's big thing. It was like,

1:16:45

thanks for not dying two days for

1:16:47

my wedding. But yeah, no, only three

1:16:50

days later, yeah, like three days later.

1:16:52

So yeah, I flew like three days later

1:16:54

after that. made a mental decision like

1:16:56

to go back up and fly as because

1:16:58

I could. So yeah, so I mean, another kind

1:17:00

of similarity in our paths is I

1:17:02

also, well, you're much more traumatic than

1:17:04

mine, to be honest with you. I

1:17:06

wasn't, I mean, I was actually, yeah,

1:17:08

there's, yours is definitely more, you're stranded

1:17:10

though. What you say? You were kind

1:17:12

of like stranded. Yeah, it was. Exactly.

1:17:15

I had somebody you want to come

1:17:17

to get to me. In the mountains of West

1:17:19

Virginia. I think all at all at all at

1:17:21

all at all at all it took. It took.

1:17:23

It took. five or six hours before a police

1:17:25

officer or fire trucks got to us? Yeah. So

1:17:28

I mean like if we didn't have, and

1:17:30

it was cold too, like it was very

1:17:32

cold, if it wasn't for kind of, I

1:17:34

mean, I don't have any better way to

1:17:37

explain it than the mountain man of West

1:17:39

Virginia that was driving by who came out

1:17:41

full beard. Just honestly full beard. For the

1:17:43

point where I was like, if I enter

1:17:46

this house, they might like eat me like

1:17:48

I was of eyes, like I don't been

1:17:50

like. I mean obviously I'm joking right like

1:17:53

I'm super thankful it was yeah but yeah

1:17:55

you laugh about it now that's the whole

1:17:57

part of it. You have to laugh about

1:17:59

it. I had a plane incident, I'm in

1:18:01

the middle of West Virginia, like I'm okay,

1:18:03

I'm not going to have my first phone

1:18:05

call to like my wife or my dad

1:18:08

and no one answered the phone. So I

1:18:10

was just leaving voicemails, I was like, hey,

1:18:12

it's Justin. I had a plane incident, like

1:18:14

I'm in the middle of West Virginia, like

1:18:16

I'm okay, I want everyone to know what

1:18:18

I'm okay, like I'm not injured at all,

1:18:20

but like I don't know how I'm going

1:18:22

to get out here. She was working downtown,

1:18:24

like right where I was at, as a

1:18:26

bartender, and you know, she even heard all

1:18:28

these fire trucks and everything go by, she

1:18:31

didn't think anything of it, right? And then

1:18:33

she gets a call like 30 minutes like,

1:18:35

hey, so I just need to come pick

1:18:37

me up. My plane had to go in

1:18:39

the river. So she just stopped, like, I

1:18:41

had like... floating this thing in and like

1:18:43

Wally gagged it in there and it was

1:18:45

sitting by the shoreline. Which in a way

1:18:47

is very scary but no you decided to

1:18:49

not do that. No and then like she

1:18:51

comes out I've got one shoe on there's

1:18:53

all these people trying to interview me I

1:18:56

still have like my parachute over my backpack

1:18:58

trying to drag it because it was so

1:19:00

heavy I couldn't it was so hard to

1:19:02

fold I couldn't even carry it I had

1:19:04

to like drag it on the floor behind

1:19:06

me it was just like and she's like

1:19:08

Oh my god, what's happened to you? And

1:19:10

I was like, I went in the water,

1:19:12

but I told you, yeah. Yeah, I told

1:19:14

you, but of course, like on the phone,

1:19:16

like the first thing is like, if you're

1:19:18

calling your wife, you're like, no, everything's okay.

1:19:21

Yeah, it's all good. Yes, yeah, you'll be

1:19:23

home for five for dinner. You're doing steaks

1:19:25

though? Yeah, you should do steaks. What's funny

1:19:27

about how you just explain that, you know,

1:19:29

you're dragging a parachute, maybe you think of,

1:19:31

not Men in Black, Independence Day with Will

1:19:33

Smith when he's dragging the alien behind, like

1:19:35

in the parachute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah,

1:19:37

it's. So we talked about you mentioned that

1:19:39

if you have an accident, if you have

1:19:41

an incident, I was lucky that the FAA

1:19:43

came out. They looked at the airplane. We

1:19:46

landed. It was me, my buddy. I'm not

1:19:48

going to say his name. I don't know

1:19:50

if he really wants to be attached to

1:19:52

it at all, but there's nothing wrong with

1:19:54

it. It was actually 10 years ago. two

1:19:56

days ago. So 10 years, every single day

1:19:58

on the day that it happened, we always

1:20:00

text each other. And we always like say,

1:20:02

hey, happy, we almost died day. Like all

1:20:04

that. We're bonded to life, trauma bodies. But

1:20:06

we were talking about it. And I mean,

1:20:09

elation when we land, right? But we didn't,

1:20:11

FAA came out. They said, there's literally nowhere

1:20:13

else you could have landed. It's not an

1:20:15

investigation. It's not an incident. It's not an

1:20:17

accident. There's zero things that we're going to

1:20:19

we're going to look into. for your paperwork

1:20:21

for anything. Great job. That's all I did.

1:20:23

Which is good. Mine is not on my

1:20:25

record or anything. But the whole thing about

1:20:27

me was the way the way social media

1:20:29

and technology is these days like somebody can

1:20:31

do a Google search to pull you up.

1:20:34

So I was like, you know, I'd rather

1:20:36

me be the person to tell the story

1:20:38

that them ask me. And again, like, if

1:20:40

they're trying to find something and they pulls

1:20:42

you up, and then they're like, well, I

1:20:44

didn't need tells about it. Now you're interested

1:20:46

and look suspicious. Even though it's not your

1:20:48

fault, but if you have nothing to hide,

1:20:50

nothing to hide. That's the same thing with

1:20:52

when you fail a check ride, right? It's

1:20:54

the same thing with the check ride. They're

1:20:56

not necessarily worried about you failing that check

1:20:59

ride. They want to see how you respond

1:21:01

with adversity, how you respond to anything, because

1:21:03

your whole career is going to be adversity

1:21:05

in the plane, everything. But I wanted to

1:21:07

agree with you. The whole reason I started

1:21:09

talking about mine as well, as well, is

1:21:11

because it was because it was because it

1:21:13

was like, it was like, it was like,

1:21:15

If I didn't get back in an airplane

1:21:17

relatively soon, I would have never flown again.

1:21:19

Yeah, like the doubt, even the first time

1:21:21

I got an airplane, you know, like I

1:21:24

remember I flew home on probably like a

1:21:26

145 or COJ 200, whatever it was, even

1:21:28

like any power adjustment that was like not

1:21:30

very smooth. I was like, oh my gosh,

1:21:32

like I had to get over the fear

1:21:34

of something like that happening happening again. I

1:21:36

mean, it doesn't really matter. Like, it just

1:21:38

had one doesn't mean you can have another,

1:21:40

it can't mean you can have another, but

1:21:42

you can have another, but. The idea of

1:21:44

just that can happen you got to get

1:21:46

out of your mind you got to trust

1:21:49

what you're flying and you got to trust

1:21:51

yourself. Yeah, I mean the first when I

1:21:53

when that happened it happened doing three A-level

1:21:55

on rolls back-to-back and stopping to stick when

1:21:57

I bought my next aerobatic plane which has

1:21:59

ended up being about three years later, the

1:22:01

very first aerobatic maneuver I did was that

1:22:03

exact same figure. Just like the testing, I'd

1:22:05

be like, oh, get out your system. I

1:22:07

could, you know, because I was like, it

1:22:09

could happen again. And I still think about

1:22:12

every time I fly aerobics, like, I still

1:22:14

think like, you know, these controls can explode

1:22:16

at some point, right? Yeah. I still think

1:22:18

about every time I fly aerobatics, like, I

1:22:20

still think like, you know, I still think

1:22:22

like, these controls, like, like, like, like, like,

1:22:24

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

1:22:26

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

1:22:28

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

1:22:30

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

1:22:32

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

1:22:34

like, Now, yeah, I mean, she never, she

1:22:37

never was like, you never flying again, you're

1:22:39

never going to do that again. She knows,

1:22:41

it's like, that is my psychiatrist. Arabatics is

1:22:43

my psychiatrist. You know, we have other five

1:22:45

minutes from where I practice at. If, you

1:22:47

know, I don't, I don't want to handle

1:22:49

more than like 15 minutes in the plane

1:22:51

because we do like upwards of nine to

1:22:53

like negative 60s and the way the plane

1:22:55

flies now, it's kind of a lot. But,

1:22:57

yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean. I'm

1:23:00

not saying like that's who I want

1:23:02

to be to fight with in life,

1:23:05

but I just don't know myself about

1:23:07

it. Yeah, that's just it's my therapy.

1:23:09

It's it's just my way of like

1:23:11

venting you know my I guess venting

1:23:13

my emotions sometimes and then it's also

1:23:15

my way of just expressing myself which

1:23:17

is you know which is I enjoy

1:23:19

with it I mean senior I've seen

1:23:21

your videos on Instagram yeah yeah yeah

1:23:23

you know everyone laughs about that and

1:23:25

it's just my normal face yeah I

1:23:27

just my normal face I don't know

1:23:30

what it is I'm seeing your normal

1:23:32

face right now I've probably look like

1:23:34

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah as

1:23:36

my wife always comments is just me

1:23:38

taking a crap it's always Bashes on

1:23:40

me on the stuff about it. It's

1:23:42

not should be man. Oh, it should

1:23:44

be. Yeah, she humbles me brings me

1:23:46

back to someone's got to humble you.

1:23:48

I know how big you're taking this.

1:23:50

Yeah. As someone who's continuing the aerobatic

1:23:53

scene, as someone who's continuing the major

1:23:55

airline life, talk a little bit about

1:23:57

successes you've had on the aerobatic side.

1:23:59

We've talked pretty far about how. you

1:24:01

know, you've reached the pinnacle of your

1:24:03

career in the airline side. Only thing

1:24:05

different is becoming a captain, flying wide

1:24:07

body, you know, that's kind of like

1:24:09

as high as you can go. But

1:24:11

talk about what you're doing on the

1:24:13

aerobatics. Talk about successes you've had, where

1:24:16

you're at right now, and if people

1:24:18

ever want to see you in airshow,

1:24:20

or if they want to be like,

1:24:22

is that Marco? How can they find

1:24:24

you? Yeah, so, you know, I would

1:24:26

say the most successful thing I've had

1:24:28

to have had to date, I've had

1:24:30

to date, I've had to date, a

1:24:32

basically two years of just going after

1:24:34

it. You know I went I was

1:24:36

had a fortunate to attend a team

1:24:39

one of the team camps previous team

1:24:41

camps and I got done with it

1:24:43

and you know I had a we

1:24:45

had a coach here named Rob Holland

1:24:47

who was coaching and another guy who

1:24:49

invited me again to power social media

1:24:51

and another one of your people that

1:24:53

you agree with Alana Quayo from a

1:24:55

He did an interview with him a

1:24:57

long time ago. A couple years ago.

1:24:59

He kind of got me there and

1:25:01

I was like, man, this is fun.

1:25:04

There's like a mental side to this.

1:25:06

There's like this constitute of perfection. And

1:25:08

so that was like two years of

1:25:10

just going after it, going after it.

1:25:12

And it's this sport at the end

1:25:14

of the day, you know, you have

1:25:16

to, not to be the fittest person,

1:25:18

because I'm not, but you have to

1:25:20

be fit. You have to be mentally

1:25:22

there. You have to be mentally there.

1:25:24

There's a whole bunch of training there.

1:25:27

And yeah, so that was like the

1:25:29

pinnacle I feel like I'm making the

1:25:31

team. I got to compete at the

1:25:33

world championships in advance. But although that

1:25:35

was really cool and like that's a

1:25:37

super staple, to make the USA team,

1:25:39

you have to be one of the

1:25:41

best in the United States to even

1:25:43

have the opportunity to then go to

1:25:45

the world championships. Once you make the

1:25:47

team, you're guaranteed to be able to

1:25:50

go to the championships. So, you know,

1:25:52

I got I got fifth in the

1:25:54

country with the plane. It was the

1:25:56

only four cylinder aircraft. $50,000 plane was

1:25:58

competing against things that were 180 to.

1:26:00

half a million dollars. That's crazy. Yeah,

1:26:02

so, you know, it was just, it was

1:26:04

showing like, it was a perfect example

1:26:07

of, it's a pilot, not the plane a

1:26:09

lot of the time. And then kind

1:26:11

of going on from that, you know,

1:26:13

I still do competition robotics, you

1:26:16

know, this year we're getting really

1:26:18

ramped up with it again. It's

1:26:20

unlimited, which is a pinnacle of

1:26:22

the US for competition, so that's

1:26:25

the highest category you can

1:26:27

compete in. So, you know, I've created

1:26:29

my plane to what's called a Sukoy

1:26:31

S-U-31. And so for this year, it's

1:26:34

kind of the same thing. It's just try

1:26:36

to make the team. You know, you've got

1:26:38

to be one of the best top

1:26:40

eight in the country to make

1:26:42

the team. And then you're competing

1:26:45

against people who, again, are just everybody

1:26:47

is the same goal. It's to be

1:26:49

one of the best in the US.

1:26:52

And then, thankfully, we have the ability

1:26:54

in 2026 that... The World Arabatic Championships

1:26:56

is going to be in Batavia, New

1:26:58

York. So if anybody is around, but

1:27:01

they aren't announced yet, I don't think,

1:27:03

but it's probably going to be like late

1:27:05

July, August. But basically, it's the top

1:27:07

countries from around the world. I think

1:27:10

we'd only have like 15 to 16

1:27:12

countries representing around the world,

1:27:14

come compete. And yeah, so that with alongside

1:27:16

the air show stuff, you know, last year I

1:27:18

was able to finally get my, what we call

1:27:21

the SAC card, a Stephen Arab

1:27:23

Arabidabatic competency. And that's been

1:27:25

a childhood dream since I was like

1:27:28

12. So, so it's kind of just,

1:27:30

that's always been the goal in

1:27:32

aviation and to finally achieve it. You

1:27:34

know, there's the goals in life that

1:27:36

you have career wise, which is the,

1:27:38

you know, like the major in life

1:27:40

stuff, it's cool, but what's also nice

1:27:42

is that career has allowed me to

1:27:44

then achieve other dreams of mine, which

1:27:47

has been this, this aerobatic side of

1:27:49

thing. And the coolest thing about it

1:27:51

is to keep doing it, because of

1:27:53

my work, you know. So I've got

1:27:55

to come home, I tap with family,

1:27:57

compete, go to events, go do all

1:27:59

this stuff. So yeah, it's like now

1:28:01

with the with the air show stuff,

1:28:03

you know, this year will be my

1:28:05

my first year as an inertial pilot.

1:28:07

So Sky High Expo currently is my

1:28:09

first airship looking, which is in Lewisburg,

1:28:11

North Carolina, just just outside Fayetteville. So

1:28:13

it's a three day fly in. So

1:28:16

it would be two days of performance.

1:28:18

So it'll be on my website, which

1:28:20

is just Marko Bao air shows.com. And

1:28:22

yeah. And yeah. And so I'm. Look

1:28:24

forward to looking a couple more. So

1:28:26

that's the first one. We have another

1:28:28

one scheduled for September. But that one's

1:28:30

first September. We have another one in

1:28:32

the middle of September, one later in

1:28:34

November, and then possibly one in May

1:28:36

that we're trying to finalize right now.

1:28:39

Love it, dude. Yeah. As one of

1:28:41

my last questions, just because I'm sure

1:28:43

people want to know, you know, some

1:28:45

people might be in a similar boat

1:28:47

where like, originally you fell in love

1:28:49

with aerobatics. Is there money? solely in

1:28:51

that? Is it just like select few

1:28:53

that can make it or is it

1:28:55

a way that you could go without

1:28:57

having any other job in having a

1:28:59

pretty good lifestyle or would you say

1:29:02

it's it's pretty difficult? I think again

1:29:04

you're fun of the entrepreneurship side right

1:29:06

like you you are your own person

1:29:08

so you have to decide you know

1:29:10

there's the Shawnee Tuckers, it's Michael Gullians,

1:29:12

Rob Hollins, you know. Muckulli is sponsored

1:29:14

by Sirius, Bose, Lot, all these big

1:29:16

companies, but he didn't get there because

1:29:18

he just said, hey, I have a

1:29:20

plan on I can do this. He's

1:29:22

been doing this that he's 20 years

1:29:24

old, running it out, doing it. Rob's

1:29:27

the same way. He's a full-time airshow

1:29:29

pilot, but he's also a seven-time world

1:29:31

freestyle championship pilot. So for people that

1:29:33

want to do it, it's not that

1:29:35

it's not possible. But you just have

1:29:37

to be dedicated. You can't just show

1:29:39

up next week and be like, all

1:29:41

right, I'm going to do this. As

1:29:43

you know, for me, it's been a

1:29:45

dream from 12, and then I did

1:29:47

it for. a bit than I couldn't

1:29:50

do it and then coming back at

1:29:52

it. And the biggest side of it,

1:29:54

you know, is safety with the airshow

1:29:56

stuff because you can perform for up

1:29:58

to 100,000 people at a time. And

1:30:00

it just takes one mistake, one wrong

1:30:02

energy vector and you're into a crowd.

1:30:04

You know, that's why we train all

1:30:06

the time. You know, I generally fly

1:30:08

every week I'm home. Even if it's

1:30:10

not an actual air show routine or

1:30:13

it's a competition routine, it's just some

1:30:15

type of... type of fly that is

1:30:17

revolves in that sense and the better

1:30:19

the more the more time you spend

1:30:21

it easier it does get but at

1:30:23

the end of the day you're still

1:30:25

trying to There's a grind to it

1:30:27

because it's not just It's not just

1:30:29

being a pilot anymore. You've got to

1:30:31

be personable. You got to know how

1:30:33

to handle veterans. You got to know

1:30:36

how to handle kids. You got to

1:30:38

know how to know how to handle

1:30:40

sponsors, but you have to have the

1:30:42

stuff yourself to do it. And, you

1:30:44

know, like we've seen with anything, sponsors

1:30:46

come and go, you know, sponsors aren't

1:30:48

there forever. You know, sponsors will be

1:30:50

there a couple years and they drop,

1:30:52

they have different marketing departments. So it's

1:30:54

a nice, it's nice to have sponsors,

1:30:56

but you have to have the stuff

1:30:59

yourself to do it. And I enjoy

1:31:01

that I don't have to do it

1:31:03

as a full-time career, but. There's people

1:31:05

that do do this full-time career. So

1:31:07

there's definitely, you know, there's definitely money

1:31:09

into it. There's definitely money to be

1:31:11

made and stuff like types, but, you

1:31:13

know, again, it's a grind. And these

1:31:15

guys that do it, hats off to

1:31:17

them. They deserve every bit of it.

1:31:19

They deserve every bit of the start

1:31:22

of them and the faitum. They're saying