AviatorCast Episode 1: New Show, New Year, New Aviator

Today’s Flight Plan

Welcome to the first ever episode of AviatorCast! We’re so happy to have you here and a part of this wonderful new venture at Angle of Attack.

We’re going to get started right away with a few topics. Generally we will only do two topics, but because this is a completely new podcast and new year, we thought we’d share an extra bonus topic for this special occasion.

New Show, New Year, New Aviator

This is the first ever episode of AviatorCast! As we kick off this shiny, new podcast, we also want to talk about how setting your New Year Resolutions can reignite your desire to become a better pilot.

• Make some New Year Resolutions for your flight training.
• Where are you now? What do you want to be?
• Set something measurable, attainable, and work at it!

Why Every Pilot Should Have a Simulator

Flight simulators are a bit of a taboo when it comes to real aviation. If people find out that you have a flight simulator at home, let the shunning begin! We share why every pilot will thrive with a decent home based simulator- and accelerate their training and experience as a result.

If you are ashamed of being a safer, more confident with sharpened skills, then by all means, pass this up.

• Limitless hours saves time, money, and blown checkrides.
• Do things you can’t do in a real aircraft safely.
• Fly in difficult locations.
• Learn communications faster.
• Perfect instrument skills.
• Head start on new type ratings or aircraft familiarization.

Why Every Flight Simmer Should Become a Pilot

If you are a flight simulator pilot, you’ve likely dreamed of being a real pilot. Although we know that not every person is able to become a pilot, we share why becoming a pilot will be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life.

We know it’s not for everyone, as money and health factors can get in the way. But if it is within your grasp, we’ll tell you how to go for it!

• As real as simulators are, there’s just nothing like the real thing.
• It’s a great achievement. Something many want to do, and few do.
• It’ll give you completely new perspectives into how aviation works.

Links and Resources

“New Show, New Year, New Aviator”

• Use “Clear” to keep good notes

“Why Every Pilot Should Have a Simulator”

• Fly with realistic controllers with PilotEdge
• Fly with VATSIM, which is a more worldwide ATC Program
• Realistic Scenery mentioned
• Just a few realistic aircraft to checkout from Carenado (GA) and PMDG (Airliners).

“Why Every Flight Simmer Should Become a Pilot”

• Signup for AOPA Flight Training Magazine for free

Credits

Music

Big thanks to Atrasolis for providing the great music for our podcast. Please check them out on their Facebook Page or SoundCloud and get the music you’ve heard for free.

Crew

Major thanks to the amazing Angle of Attack Crew for all their hard work over the years. Our team works incredibly hard, and they’re very passionate about what they do.

Now What?

iTunes Subscribe

Want to get regular updates through iTunes? This is the easiest way to automatically download your podcast, and take it on the go. Make sure to SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Email Signup

Want us to let you know via email when episodes of AviatorCast are released? We can do that, too. SIGNUP ABOVE.

Get Started Today!

Want to get started with some of our video training? Go to our main page and signup for Aviator90 (our basic and free course) or other pay products we have.

Transcript

[transcript]
Chris Palmer:
This is AviatorCast, episode 1. Let’s get it started.

Calling all aviators, pilots and aviation lovers. Welcome to AviatorCast, where we close the gap between real aviation and flight simulation. Climb aboard, buckle up and prepare for takeoff. Here’s your host, Chris Palmer.

Chris Palmer:
Welcome, welcome, welcome aviators. You’ve landed at AviatorCast. My name is Chris Palmer and I am completely crazy about airplanes, aviation, flight training and everything that comes with it. And of course, perhaps like you, I’m very blessed to be a pilot myself. I’m the founder and owner of Angle of Attack, which is a flight simulation training company that is bringing you this podcast today.

So you’re very lucky. This is actually the first episode ever of AviatorCast and I’m really excited to be starting this. I’ve been wanting to start it for quite a while now. This is just the way that I can bring you, maybe my ideas about the real world training that we’re so passionate about, also flight simulation training and how a flight simulator, a home-based PC simulator, can help you not only in your flight training, but also to I guess release that passion that you have for aviation if you’re unable to become a pilot.

So we’ll be talking a lot about that in every single episode of AviatorCast. I just want to thank you for being here on this very first episode. This is kind of ground-breaking and something completely new for us. I’m quite excited to get this started here with Angle of Attack.

Before we get started, I want to talk a little bit about why I came up with the name AviatorCast and why you’ll see the name Aviator, rather than pilot, throughout a lot of Angle of Attack’s products. Now the reason I came up with that is because I feel like today, as pilots, we are kind of on this rudimentary textbook sort of way of learning to fly, right? So in yesteryear, in the years of Charles Lindbergh, for example, who is a great model for what we should be, pilots didn’t have all of this knowledge that we have today. They didn’t have GPS’s, they didn’t have iPads in their cockpit and they didn’t have even a lot of navigational aids, right? These guys flew around just by dead reckoning and pilotage. They were absolutely incredible pilots and we can learn a lot from these guys.

So a big reason I named the AviatorCast is so we can get to the core of who we are and the core of what we want to be as pilots and as aviators. That I believe starts with the human factors of it: the decision-making and really all of that base stuff. Then from there, we can branch out and we can start to get to all these different subjects that we need to talk about, becoming familiar with GPSs and iPads, like I mentioned before, our aircraft, all of the new things that have come out. Even just the basic knowledge, that as a pilot you need, to fly around and the knowledge you need of your aircraft. I believe that a great pilot should be a great aviator really and that starts from the core, outward.

Every AviatorCast episode we’re going to do is going to have all the flight training topics. It’s also going to have a flight simulation training topic. I believe that doing one of each of these will help everybody to kind of bridge the gap between the real world and flight simulation.

As it stands now, there is kind of this taboo where the real world that kind of separates itself and those who use simulators every now and again in instrument training. Then we have the flight simulation world, which in a sense, is kind of laughed at by real pilots. To be completely honest, simulators these days are absolutely realistic and I think it’s almost idiotic for pilots that are going through training not to utilize these tools. We will talk about that a little bit today. This is going to be kind of the introduction episode of what these demographics are all about: the real pilots and the flight simulator pilots, if you will, or as they call themselves, flight simmers.

Before we get into that, I actually want to get into one topic that kind of comes to the forefront when you start a new year. Everyone starts to think about their New Year resolutions. We think about losing weight. We think about reading more books or stopping a bad habit, different things like that. I believe, as pilots and as aviators, we also need to be thinking about resolutions for us as aviators and pilots that are specific to our needs and specific to what we need to be doing.

As we make our New Year resolutions, we need to be thinking about what we can do as pilots. Evaluate where you’re at right now. Where are you in your flight training? Have you stopped your flight training? Is it going well? Are you unhappy with your instructor? Do you feel like you need to know more in a certain subject and you’re just kind of holding back? Are you having trouble with communications? Then from there, ask yourself, “What do you want to be?” What are the challenges you’re having and if you could fix them, what would that make you? I believe that we can definitely come up with some of these topics. I know for me, I definitely need to get back into real flying a lot more. I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus just having moved to Alaska where it is a bit difficult to fly up there, unless you have your own airplane. So I need to be getting back into that and I need to take care of my medical situation. All of that will work out really well if I just put my mind to it right and I start to work at that and chip at it here and there.

As you find out what exactly you want to change, I challenge you to find something that you want to change; maybe just one thing, one thing that you want to change as a pilot in this New Year. Set that goal. That goal needs to be measureable, attainable and obviously, you need to be working at it. That is the big thing. It needs to be measureable, attainable and you need to work at it.

If you’re going to say, “I’m going to start off from not even being a private pilot this year and I’m going to become an ATP pilot,” that’s impossible. That’s not something that’s attainable, right? But if you say, “I’m going to start off on my private this year and I want to get my instrument ticket by the end of the year,” that’s definitely attainable. That’s a pretty lofty goal in my mind but it’s still something that’s attainable. That’s just an example.

Obviously, there are other things that you could do.  For example, with flight simulator pilots, you could say, “I am going to go back and I’m going to learn the basics. I’m going to do well there.”  The reason I say that is because a lot of flight simulator pilots, they see these shiny, new 747s or 767s – whatever the model maybe, right? There’s every airplane under the sky out there for a flight simulator. They kind of jump in those airplanes without having known the basics so maybe that’s one of your resolutions, “I’m going to learn the basics.”  At Angle Attack, we actually offer a very basic course for flight sim pilots to learn all of those things.  It’s called Aviator 90.  It’s a free course; completely free and if you want to learn more about that, just go to Aviatior90.com.

As we kick-off AviatorCast and this New Year, it just kind of this opportunity to become a new aviator. So I challenge you to find something that you want to change and make it, again, measureable, attainable and you need to work at it. So put a number to it, put a time to it, whatever you need to do, make it something that you can do.

And now the flight training segment.

Chris Palmer:

All right. So now we’re going to talk about why every pilot should have a simulator. Now some of you may laugh at this and say, “I don’t want to be one of those dorks. Simulators aren’t realistic. They can’t do anything for me in my real flight training.” If I was face to face with you, I would say you are wrong.

Now when I started to learn how to fly, it was kind of at the maturity point of home-based simulators, or to be completely honest, simulators based on Microsoft flight simulator. Now you pilots may laugh at that but let me tell you that these simulators are almost completely realistic these days. You can load up basically any airplane under the sky. It’s incredibly modeled in 3D. You can reach for any switch. You can have any of the consequences that come with running the aircraft incorrectly. You have the real world, real time weather at your specific location. For example, if you have a METAR that says that there are broken clouds at 3,000 ft., you will have broken clouds at 3,000 ft. It is that realistic. Then as you travel through different areas, you’ll have the rain for those areas. It is very, very realistic. Let me tell you that if you have any reservations about flight simulators at all, let me just ask you for a few moments to step back and, maybe, re-evaluate this idea or thought you have that flight simulators are not for you.

Let me bring up a few points about why a flight simulator would be great for your flight training, to supplement your flight training. I’m not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that this is going to replace – supplement is a perfect word because it can only help you. It can only assist you in this process. Obviously, as with anything, you can gain bad habits from even a book. You could be way too much of a textbook guy with aviation and flying and not take that knowledge to the airplane or way too worried about all the numbers rather than actually going in and flying. There’s just a disconnect there. You can get too focused on one thing; in other words, you can learn bad habits from anything. However again, a simulator is a great supplement to your training. Here are just a few reasons why.

One of the first reasons is a simulator at home is very realistic and, along with that, it gives you limitless hours that saves you time, money and, potentially, it could save you blown check rides. This is one of those things that just help you build confidence, right? It allows you to spend as much time as you need, perfecting the skills that you need to have in the aircraft.

One of the biggest things that a simulator does is perfecting instrument skills; learning how to do your scan, learning how to do specific instrument approaches and doing that in an aircraft that you’re actually using. If you are a real pilot – you’ve already gone through your instrument training, for example, you will have used most likely, a simulator at some point during your instrument training because simulator time as you know is allowed during your instrument training and it saves a little bit of money. You’d go in and you do five or so hours of actual simulator training, maybe at your flight school.

Now I have found that those simulators, for example, are very unrealistic. Although they have the controls and they have the instrumentation, those simulators do not operate like a real aircraft as you will remember. They just don’t do a good job. They’re kind of frustrating. Now these days, if you’re doing your instrument training now, you may actually have a simulator at your flight school that is based on Microsoft flight simulator. There are a few spin-offs from that. Microsoft flight simulator itself, it can gain FAA approval in certain situations where the flight controls and everything are set up and can be approved for instrument time. But there are also some spin-offs of Microsoft flight simulator called Microsoft ESP and another called Prepared 3D or Prepared. That is a new one run by Lockheed Martin but that’s a license that they actually bought from Microsoft and it’s starting to run a lot of the simulators these days, even professional level-D simulators.

When you think of Microsoft flight simulator, I know it’s one of those things where you think, “Well, this is unrealistic. These are just kids playing this game. They buy it at Best Buy, they take it home and they just fly around and crash.” That’s not correct. I mean, Microsoft has made a lot of money actually selling this simulator to people. Again, I digress getting back, this offers you limitless hours. It saves you time, money and potentially blown check rides.

Another thing you can do in simulators is you can do things that you couldn’t do in the real aircraft safely. You can actually cut an engine, for example, completely and make it dead and try a forced landing, for example. You can just try some of those more dangerous situations that you would never ever try in a real aircraft. That’s where simulators come in handy and what they use them for, honestly, in the real world when they actually use a simulator – let’s say for the airlines. Let’s say airlines, right?

When you go to an airline and you do training, you generally don’t do training that is for actual, normal situations, right? You’re doing things that are engine cuts, engine fires, aborts on takeoffs, different mechanical failures during the actual flight and other weather related problems and things of that nature. You’re usually doing things that are scenario-based and in the real world, it will obviously be crazy to do. It’d be crazy to cut a jet engine on takeoff just to kind of prove a point.

Those are things that you can practice in a simulator that wouldn’t be safe to do in the real world. Really the sky is the limit and your creativity is the limit. Really, whatever you can come up with, the simulator can throw at you and it can do it successively too where you kind of have that Domino Effect that’s a popular topic in aviation accidents, where you break that Domino Effect. You can get that where you’re failing things one after the other to hone your skills.

Another thing you can do in a simulator is you can fly in different locations. You can fly anywhere around the world. The scenery is very realistic these days because there are a lot of companies that actually create very realistic scenery for specific areas. So say that you are in the Pacific North West, for example in, say, Seattle, Oregon or even up into Vancouver, you’ll get scenery that you could literally go and find your house if it was there.

The streets are all there, the trees will look the same, you’ll have traffic on those roads, all the coastlines will look the same and the mountains will look the same. Everything will look as it does in the real world. This specific example is great for the Pacific North West. But really, almost anywhere in the world that you want to fly, you can do so realistically with these simulators these days. That allows you to get, maybe, familiar or even just broaden your mind on what’s out there.

For example, say you saw this difficult approach on YouTube into Bhutan and you wanted to go in there and you wanted to fly that approach. You could do that with a simulator whereas, in the real world, you may never even get the opportunity to fly in Asia. That’s another one, just being able to fly in different locations.

Another one, which is more of a basic skill, is learning how to communicate. Learning how to communicate with a simulator is obviously a way that you don’t have to bother a real air traffic controller. You don’t have to get on the airwaves and feel like you sound like an idiot. Rather, you can practice that in an environment where it’s a learning environment and other people are learning as well, yet you still have that professional level air traffic control there. So there are several different services, actually, that do this really well with a flight simulator. One of them that’s pretty new and is showing a lot of promise – it’s gaining a lot of attraction in flight schools, not necessarily people that do flight simulator for a hobby but actual flight schools – is a service called Pilot Edge. Pilot Edge has an area in Southern California or, rather, the south west United States, because they do cover, I think, Las Vegas even.

These guys have professional level, hired air traffic controllers that are on at specific times of the day and will offer you professional service. So these are guys that will sound just like the air traffic controllers in the real world and are completely professional. And you can do anything in these environments, right? So I’ve never experienced a flight like this but say that you were going to do a flight from zero – not zero visibility – but IFR minimums to IFR minimums in between; so all the way through one of those scenarios where you’re socked in the entire time and you’re always on instruments and you’re never visual. These guys can be in that environment and they can teach you things through that process that you may not ever have the opportunity to learn. Or it may be a very rare opportunity for you to learn in the real world. So you’re going to go through holds. You’re going to go through exiting that hold and getting into the approach. And then you can do missed approaches and all sorts of things that are just really, again, scenario-based and really great. Now, again, that’s more of a professional service. Flight schools are using it.

There’s another service that’s free and it’s volunteer. So when I say that, it means that you’re going to get, obviously, a little less quality than you would with a paid service just because the checks and balances are obviously a little bit different. But it still has very high value, high quality and is very useful, I believe. That service is called VATSIM. VATSIM stands for Virtual Air Traffic Simulation. And these guys, again, are connected to simulators like X-Plane and Microsoft Flight Simulator. And you can fly around the virtual skies, have air traffic controllers and you can hear other pilots on the radio; all of that stuff just as if it was real. You even tune the radios for the correct frequency for that area, all of those things. It’s just all really great. Every step you can think of that communicates this would happen, that’s how it is with both of these networks, mostly with Pilot Edge because it’s such a new thing.

Now I mentioned the Pilot Edge is only in the southwestern United States for now; at least that’s what I believe. That’s what it was last time I checked. But that sim, however, has people all over the world. So if you are in the United Kingdom, for example, you can get on VATSIM and you can fly there: Europe, Asia, Australia, United States, obviously – a lot of these places – really, anywhere you can think of. There are air traffic controllers on there regularly. And obviously, there are some areas, third-world countries, for example, that sparingly have that air traffic control, just because it’s not a very popular area to fly into. In other words, people generally fly in the places that they live.

The next point is something that I already mentioned is that a home-based simulator can help you perfect your instrument skills. It helps you stay sharp as well. So in between your currency, you can make sure that you are staying sharp. I found that a lot of people that get their instrument tickets don’t actually use it in instrument conditions; at least, if they are going up through the ranks of private pilot, instrument, commercial, CFI, all those things – multi-engine in there somewhere. And I found that they generally don’t actually go into actual instrument conditions. I think a bigger reason for that is just confidence and just knowledge. If people had more time in those actual conditions, they’d feel more comfortable with it.

A simulator allows you to feel more comfortable with it. You can really get in the groove with those approaches and with those departures and everything that comes with instrument flying to where it becomes almost second nature and you really start to slow those aspects of the flight down, for you and your mind, to where it’s not too fast. It’s just clicking all the time. So that’s really one of those core things I’m all about and some of that aviator mentality, for example, is just confidence; confidence in what you’re doing and confidence often comes through a little bit of more experience than is required by the FAA minimums. I believe that we should be flying for confidence and be flying to actually use the skills we learned within those licenses, rather than just trying to do the bare minimum hours. There’s a happy median there because we don’t have all the money in the world, right? So we’ve got to find ways to do that and a simulator is one of the most cost-effective ways and limitless hours to perfect all those skills. It just comes back to that point.

Last on this point of why pilots need a simulator in their home is getting a headstart on a new type reading or aircraft familiarization with a new aircraft type that you’re flying on; or it may not even be a type. You just might be you’re switching from a 172 to an S322, for example. But there are realistic aircrafts, like I said before, for almost every single airplane you can think of out there. It really allows you to get familiar with these airplanes before you go in and actually start your lessons to where you actually know your way around the cockpit, you know how things are set up and you know the different speeds. And you at least have a head start on those things.

I’m not saying that it’s going to completely replace the knowledge that you’re going to learn from a very experienced person that flies that aircraft a lot. But it will definitely get you a head start and will also broaden your mind. You may want to try something like a pilotist and just broaden your mind on what kind of makes that airplane different from an operational perspective and be able to actually fly it in a simulator; whereas, you never may be able to fly that airplane in the real world. But it still broadens your mind on what is available there

That is it for the flight training topic today. But just keep in mind that a flight simulator really is very useful for an actual pilot. And it gives you limitless hours. You can do things in these aircrafts, or rather in a simulator, that you couldn’t do in the real world. You can fly in different locations. You can learn communications faster. You can perfect your instruments skills and you can get a head start on a new type rating or even just becoming familiar with the different aircrafts. Those are just the few other things that a flight simulator is good for. Again, I challenge you to put aside this taboo that a flight simulator is this thing that little kids do, that they buy from Best Buy; that’s not how it is. These simulators are very realistic.

You can get realistic controls for them. And they really will assist you in becoming a safe aviator or a safer aviator or a pilot. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re all after. We, not only want to be safe, but we want to get to our jobs faster. We want to get to, I guess, that dream career in aviation faster. And we want to set ourselves apart from other aviators as a result.

That’s how a simulator can assist you.

And now, the flight simulation segment.

Chris Palmer:

Okay, so we tortured the real pilots with having to learn about all the flight simulator gobbledy-gook. And so now, we are going to talk about why every flight simmer should become a pilot. I get to talk to flight simulator pilots quite a bit; people that are hobbyists, people that are retired pilots or people that are wanting to become pilots. And I feel like I know the average flight simmer very well. The challenges are very different. So the perspective I have on it is that there are many people out there in the world that have dreamed to learn to fly. There are very few people who actually have the opportunity, both with money and health and things like that to be able to become a pilot. So first of all, I understand that the circumstances around becoming a pilot have to be pretty ideal and not many people get to do it.

The reason being is that a lot of flight simmers could not become pilots for very reasonable reasons. First is they couldn’t become a pilot because of health reasons; they wanted to, but their health held them back, whether that be color blindness or other vision related issues or really anything. There are so many medical reasons that can hold pilots back. In fact, one of those, actually, almost happened to me. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was 17, just as I was about to get into college and start my aviation training. It was very difficult for me to get my medical certificate in order to start becoming a pilot. But I basically just said, “I’m not going to take no for an answer.” And I went to a medical examiner until I got someone that would look at my case. It’s not because I was trying to get past the system.

It’s not what it was about. I just have a very benign case of MS and I don’t have any symptoms or anything. And I believed that I was medically fit to fly. So I found someone that would take my case. Eventually, the FAA approved me after a lot of hard work. So I realized that there are very big obstacles in the way to becoming a pilot. I guess, in this segment, I just want to share why it’s so great to be a pilot and why, if you do have the opportunity, you should really try to do it and achieve that goal.

Again, getting back to the challenges, health is one of them. Finances are one of them, especially if you’re not in the United States. We have a lot of customers in Angle of Attack that are not in the United States. And if you get outside the United States – Australia is pretty close to how the United States is so it’s easier to fly there, too. The U.K. is okay when it comes to aviation. But generally speaking, when you get outside the United States or North America, it’s very difficult to afford even the opportunity to learn how to fly.

You have to be from quite a well-to-do family and you have to even take loans at that point. It’s way more expensive than it is in the States and the criteria is much higher for getting in to those airline training programs or whatever you’re trying to do. So it’s just a very difficult thing to do. Again, financial reasons. Career is another thing. Some people just get into their careers where they say, “Yes, I’m starting this career in Engineering but I don’t want to become a pilot.” And then they start to have a family, for example, and they just kind of get locked down. They need to feed some mouths.

That’s another reason why that dream kind of gets left behind. Now, as life goes on, you, maybe, become a little more able to afford those things if you make some sacrifices, enroll your family into the process and saving here and there to get your pilot license. So it is possible. It is possible to do that. But in general, the reason why flight simmers are flight simmers is because they’re medically, financially, career or family, just unable to become pilots. And they’re all very good reasons.

Now if you’re holding back for any reason and you do have the opportunity to fly, I just want to share a couple of things on why becoming a pilot may be for you. And I really think that if you are here, you’re passionate about aviation, you are a flight simmer and you do have the opportunity to become a pilot, I really believe that you should do it. The reason why I believe you should do it is because it’s absolutely fantastic goal to achieve in one’s life. It’s not that its bragging rights when someone asks, “Do you know how to fly?” It’s really a self-accomplishment.

I believe that every person that has become a pilot knows the exact moment and exactly what their check-ride airman said when they received their pilot license. So for me, I was doing my flight training in Utah. This was from my private pilot. I was doing my flight training in Utah and I had just completed my check ride. I was pulling off the runway and the check-airman said, “So I got one last question for you.” And I’m thinking, “Oh, great.” I think I even audibly said that, like, “Oh, no. What is it?” He comes back at me and says, “How does it feel to be a private pilot?” And I just got the biggest grin on my face and chills. It’s just set in stone and I will never forget that moment. There is nothing like being a pilot and being able to go out and fly on your own. Obviously people can go fly on their own but it’s not necessarily legal.

Anyway, I digress. There’s such a huge accomplishment that comes with becoming a pilot and something that you’ll treasure for the rest of your life, and not only that. I really think it’s not so much about that goal and accomplishment. It’s about the little beautiful things that you see in between and those moments that make you feel alive while you’re in the air. There are just so many memories for me – so many fond memories for me that come with my beginning training as a pilot; when I was a private pilot. Really, a lot of the moments of all of my flying throughout just – those moments have sheer beauty, just being in the clouds and feeling like I was floating and being in control of a complex airplane; just feeling in control, I guess, of everything around me. There’s just so much to be said for the human spirit in those moments.

I do believe that those have, in a large way, made me who I am and it’s given me a lot of peace in my life, experiencing those moments; whether that be the beauty that comes with IFR flying, when you’re cruising around a cloud top at sunset or whether you are flying at night and you dim down the cockpit lights and see the beautiful starts above you. Those simple moments as a pilot are what really make it for me. It’s not so much the fact that I have this little green card in my wallet that says I’m a private pilot, an instrument pilot, an ATP pilot or whatever it is. It’s the small moments in between that make me feel alive.

In that sense, I believe man was made to fly. I believe we were meant to fly. And I’m so grateful that in the last hundred years, aviation has come as far as it has. Who knows how much longer we’re going to have the opportunity to fly. Our circumstances change constantly, just as individuals, where, once there is an opportunity – and we have the opportunity to learn to fly and we have the opportunity to get that private pilot license that we’ve always wanted – that opportunity I have found only comes once, maybe twice, in one’s life. It takes dedication. It takes true intention. It takes working at that goal constantly. I’ve even heard it said it takes beg, borrowing and stealing. I don’t necessarily believe in the stealing part.

I don’t know how I feel about the borrowing part but everyone probably needs to do a little bit of that when it comes to learning to fly. But if you have the opportunity to learn to fly, then I would challenge you and exhort you to do so. It is an amazing part of who I am and I’ve had just the most beautiful moments of my life. Some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen have happened while I’ve been in an airplane, going from point A to point B. It’s been a wonderful experience for me.

If you do have the opportunity to fly, I would challenge you to go do it. Find a way to do it. I wouldn’t say beg, borrow and steal. But do what you need to do in order to learn to fly, especially if you’re young. You have the opportunity to do so; greater than you do if you get into your 20s and 30s and 40s. The more you go on, the less opportunity you have. But, heck, even if you’re retired, it is not too late to get that license and go out there and fly. You’ll have great moments, great memories from the second you start out with that instructor. You’ll have a wonderful time.

That is what I wanted to talk to you flight simmers about today: becoming a pilot and why you should become a pilot. And, really, you get a taste of what it’s like from a flight simulator. That’s what keeps you coming back for those long, boring hours spent sitting in front of a computer screen, those wonderful moments you have in that virtual airplane, right? But I can tell you that there’s just nothing like the real thing. There’s nothing like feeling the pit of your stomach lifting or dropping. There’s just nothing like it, especially the finality of what comes with real aviation. You can’t crash and reset in real aviation. You’ve got to get it right and that brings a lot of exhilarating feelings and, let’s say, even adrenaline. It’s just really great and wonderful.

That is it for you flight simmers. Now for a couple of credits: this music in this episode is provided by Atrosolis. You can download this entire aviation themed album for free by liking Atrosolis on Facebook. You’ll find a link to that in our show notes. Also, I’d like to thank the Angle of Attack crew for all they do in making this episode possible and all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes at Angle of Attack. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe via iTunes. Additionally, leave others a review and share why you love this podcast. It’s really easy. It will go a long way to help others learn about AviatorCast.

We also send out email updates each time we post an episode of AviatorCast so you can also sign up for that email list over at aviatorcast.com and that will update you constantly – maybe not constantly but regularly on what’s going on with AviatorCast.

Last but certainly not least, check out our training products from Angle of Attack. Start with the basics for free with Aviator 90, which I mentioned before. Learn instrument procedures and a lot of what goes on with instrument flying with Aviator Pro. Or even fly many of the world’s most popular jets virtually with our training products for the 737, 747, 777 and MD11. You can learn more about all of these products over at flyaoamedia.com.

Again, thank you so much for joining us on this first episode of AviatorCast. We are truly grateful to have you here as a part of our community. We are so glad that you are so engaged in sharing your passion for this wonderful thing we call flying or flight or aviation or whatever you want to call it. We’re very grateful to have you here. If you need any show notes for this episode, if you want to follow any of the links for things we talked about, head over to aviatorcast.com and you can get them there.

That’s it for me. Until next time, throttle on.
[/transcript]