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How I Became a Pilot: Part 5 Joining the Reno National Guard and Becoming a Pilot

For a long time it looked like I would not be able to go to the Guard yet.  In fact, my first application was denied outright. I know it was never looked at because it came back in less than 48 hours, and the Air Force never does anything that fast.  

But with some consistent support from my current, and future leadership we got through the process and I was able to leave Active Duty about 8 months before the end of my commitment.  I was super excited to be back on the West Coast, and to get to fly in the mountains around Reno.

When I was going through the process of joining the unit I mentioned a desire to become a pilot, but based on my age, and their needs I was told it was not going to happen.  Honestly, I was okay with that as I genuinely love what I do, but I figured it didn’t hurt to ask.

Adapting to Guard life took some getting used to.  Financially it was far more complex than getting a paycheck on the 1st and the 15th, but we have figured it out.  The culture is also very different since the majority of the people in the unit are part-time and thus are not available to do  training or for flying at a moments notice like we were on active duty.

Maybe most importantly, the Guard is also one big family.  An incredibly dysfunctional family at times, but the dynamics of a group of people who work together in one place, for in some cases 30+ years, can get very interesting.  

Families know each other, and not just spouses and children, but siblings and parents and other extended relatives.  While it does have its challenges, there is a bond that is undeniable, and something I personally find valuable.

I was also excited to be flying in what is the best local flying area anywhere in the world.  Though recently I have decided I may need to alter that statement as Alaska is pretty darn amazing, it is incredible to rage through the Sierra Nevada mountains on a regular basis.

About six months after I joined the unit they decided they were going to have a board to convert some navigators to pilots.  Initially, I was hesitant as I was 36 and pretty set in my ways. The idea of going back through 18 months of training with 23 and 24 year olds was not appealing.  I reached out to some trusted friends and after hours of discussing the practical side of it all I was still not convinced.

Then a great friend, who apparently knew me better than I knew myself at the time, appealed to the emotional side of it all and it tipped me over the edge.  Essentially he told me that for as long as he had known me I had wanted to be a pilot, so why would I not even try to do it. Let them tell me it wasn’t going to happen, but I at least needed to try.

As part of the preparation process for the board I decided that I needed to finish my private pilot’s license.  We had just gotten our tax return, and I convinced my saint of a wife to let me use most of it to chase my childhood dream.  I figured that even if the pilot thing in the Air Force didn’t work out, I would still be a pilot in the eyes of the FAA and I would have fulfilled a dream.

I immediately set to work finding an instructor and preparing to take the written test.  The first time I went up in the air with Nikk I knew that I had made the right choice. I really can’t even put it into words, even more than a year later.  It awakens something inside of me that nothing else does. I have written quite a bit about all of that training so I will refer you to past posts to read more about that.

I was not able to finish my license in time for the board, but I was proud of myself for getting as close as I did.  If it weren’t for weather I would have finished, but I don’t think it would have really made any difference with the results.

The time for the board came and I felt really good about how I presented myself and what I wanted to accomplish.  When the results were given I was not surprised as they selected the person they knew better who had been around longer.  While I was disappointed, I once again knew that things always seem to have a way of working out for me and my family.

After a few more weather delays,  I was finally prepared for my checkride and got it scheduled for 22 June 2018.  You can read about the details of that memorable day here, but as you are likely already aware, I became a private pilot on that very day, and it was maybe the most proud I have ever been of myself on a professional level.

To finally do something that I had talked about for more than 30 years was simply incredible.  The path was much longer than I had anticipated and there were many times that I thought it would never happen.  With all of the twists and turns that life takes, I had given up on fulfilling that dream. Like so many people I had moved on to something more practical and left those childhood dreams behind.

It happens to all of us at some point, whether we realize that at 5’9″ we are never going to play in the NBA, or that despite our love for the violin we will never play at Carnegie Hall.  At some point most of us concede to reality.

I have often struggled with this as I believe that you should never give up on your dream, but that at the same time, at what point is it keeping you from doing something else great because your other dream just isn’t going to happen.

Recently I have come to feel that it isn’t that you need to give up on your dreams completely, you may just need to tweak them a little.  If you are a five foot tall adult you will never be a center in the NBA, but maybe you can become a coach, or a trainer, or a writer for Sports Illustrated, or a sports agent.  If you don’t have the eyesight or stomach to be a fighter pilot maybe you can work for an airline, or an airport, or do maintenance on airplanes, or write a blog about them that becomes wildly popular and now you get to go for rides in those same fighter jets.

I firmly believe anyone can achieve true and lasting happiness in this life by pursuing their dreams.  As you can see by my path, it was windy and bumpy with a few pit stops and 180s, but I did it, I became a pilot.  

I have flown more than 1500 hours as a navigator all over the world in a C-130 and seen sights that few other people in the world will ever see.  I have provided life saving airlift to people who needed it. I have helped fight forest fires saving people’s lives and homes.

I don’t say any of that to brag or be prideful.  I say all of those things to point out that I have lived an amazing life.  I have fulfilled so many of the dreams that I had as a kid with my face pressed against a window at DFW looking at airplanes with my dad.  I just didn’t even realize that I had some of those dreams. I knew that I loved airplanes, and that I wanted to fly, and once I actually pursued that dream I found happiness and purpose that I did not have before.

That to me is true success.  I still have a lot of things I want to do, and fortunately I am still young enough to pursue many of them, but I feel successful with the things I have already done.  I have done things that money can’t buy, and I know that the experiences I have had are priceless.

So if you have a dream, go after it.  You may need to tweak your expectations a little, and you may not get there as fast as you would like, but when you put your heart into something and you chase it because it awakens part of your soul in a way that nothing else does, you can’t go wrong.  You will find happiness, and that is what I found when I became a pilot.

June 27, 2019 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.

How I Became a Pilot: Part 4 Falling in Love With the C-130

While graduation was the pinnacle event of the training program, as evidenced by the fact that we celebrated by going to Disney World, it really was not the most exciting event at the end of training.  

A few weeks prior to graduation we held our drop night, which is where we all would find out which plane we would be going to, and where our first duty station would be.  It is often a raucous occasion with lots of excitement and anticipation because it determines most of the rest of your career.

I had great desires to go to the B-1 as a weapons system officer because I thought it would be super cool to fly that fast, that low, and drop bombs.  I felt that I had a pretty good chance as I knew I had scored well throughout the course and would be competitive for what I wanted. As luck would have it I would discover in the first few minutes of the night that I would not be getting my wish and I would be going to the C-130 in Little Rock, AR.

Now if you have read much that I have written in the past, you would know that I could not be happier with where I ended up.  The culture of this community, the missions we fly, and the work I do could not be a better fit for me, and I am eternally grateful I did not get my first choice.  That being said, at the time I was pretty devastated, and so was my wife.

Not only was I not getting the plane I wanted, but I was going to the last place I had wanted to go on my list.  Were I a drinking man I am sure I would have gotten pretty trashed that night because I was shattered. I really should have known that it was for the best though, because it has always worked out for me in the end.

I am not really sure when I fixed my attitude about the whole thing.  It may have been after I did some more research on what C-130s actually do and realized it is a pretty cool mission, or it may not have been until I got to Little Rock and started to actually get into the training.  Either way, it was not very long before I realized this would be a pretty great fit for me.

Training in Little Rock mimicked all of my previous training as I started with a lot of academics, followed by a bunch of sims of varying types, before I hit the flight line and I got to set foot on what is now my beloved Hercules for the very first time.

I will never forget that first flight, even though it was probably the most boring flight I have ever had on a Herk.  We literally flew out over Oklahoma, and then turned around and came back and landed. I had no idea then how much I would love this plane.

It was not long after completing my initial training that I got on the board for my first deployment.  I was not overly anxious to go at first as my wife had just given birth to our third child, but after talking about it a little, I went and volunteered to go because I knew it would be a vital part of my development as a professional.

The four months of preparation before leaving flew by, and before I knew it I was headed to Afghanistan by way of Slovakia and Kyrgyzstan on a DC-10, and into Bagram, Afghanistan on a C-17.  Both my first flights on those aircraft types, and thus memorable in their own right.

I spent the first two months working a desk and doing mission planning for the other crews, but flew as much as I could which was about every 4-5  days. It was incredible. The missions did not require a ton of planning, and that aspect of the job was actually pretty easy, but it was amazing to actually do what I had been trained to do.

We were flying into austere airfields all over the country delivering supplies and people to the areas where they were needed.  We were flying aeromedical evacuation missions helping people who were injured get the help they needed, or in some cases being the first step on their way home.  I got my first combat airdrop where we dropped sixteen bundles of food and water and other supplies to a remote destination where they had no other supply chain support.

Sure it sucked being away from my family and my five month old daughter, but I was doing what I had trained to do and it was incredibly rewarding.  When you are deployed like that, your crew of six becomes a little family that does almost everything together. Most of us would not have been very close prior to the deployment, but when you spend almost all of your time together you build a bond that cannot be underestimated.

Upon returning from the deployment, I quickly inserted myself into flying as much as possible.  I did a lot of tactical flying locally and signed up for every trip that I possibly could to build hours, and gain experience.  I was fortunate to build hours relatively quickly and only about 18 months after getting to the unit I was told I would be going to instructor school.

The cool thing was that I got the news at the same time that I would be going to Yokota AB, Japan to continue flying on the C-130 for my next assignment.  At the time our squadron was converting to the C-130J which does not have a navigator, and I had assumed I would either change airframes, or possibly even go back to Pensacola to instruct there.  So to hear that I would be able to keep flying on the C-130, and that I would be going to Japan was incredibly exciting.

Instructor school was relatively uneventful, though ironically, the person that gave me my checkride at instructor school was the same instructor that had been with me on my very first flight in the C-130. Upon completion of the course, I headed off to Japan which would prove to be one of the best experiences of my life.

I have written a fair amount about my experiences in Japan in the past so I will let most of that information stand on its own, with a few points of emphasis.

I was fortunate to fly with an instructor pilot who was very influential in the unit on a few occasions, and every single time we flew together we would always end up in these in-depth conversations about how we would handle a certain situation or how we would interpret the way a regulation was written and we would both walk away better for the learning opportunity.

She would later become the chief of standards and evaluations, overseeing all of the checkrides and other such areas of regulation oversight in the squadron.  As fortune would have it, she had decided when she was told she was going there that getting me into her office would be her first order of business, and being the influential person she was, she succeeded.

I can’t begin to express what a fortunate event this was for me.  I credit all of my success since then to her having faith in me and refusing to back down when others questioned if she was making the right decision.  She saw something in me that I still don’t often see in myself and I am forever indebted to her for that. So thank you Dominique Haig for having faith in me.

Before I ever got to Yokota I was aware that they too would be converting to the C-130J and I would once again be out of a job, though in this case there would be nowhere else to go on active duty and I would have to change airframes if I was going to stay active.

I was going to say that after much deliberation I decided I needed to find a way to stay on this plane, but there really was not a lot of deliberating for me.  The other options I was presented with were simply not appealing to me and my family and what I wanted to accomplish. My wife on the other hand took a little more convincing.  She was very hesitant to leave the steady, consistent paycheck of active duty, and while I had many of the same concerns, I knew that I needed to make a change.

So with the help of some amazing leaders, who took it upon themselves to help me to get what I wanted and would be best for my family, I decided to transfer into the Air National Guard, where they still had the H model and I could keep flying on the plane I love.  It would also allow me to move back to the West Coast as I was joining the Reno Guard unit. If it weren’t for those leaders going to bat for me it never would have happened, and I am incredibly thankful to them for that.

I feel like a broken record with mentioning the support of people who got me to where I am, but to me that is really just emphasis of how important those people are.  In some cases I didn’t even realize their impact until much later, and I am sure there are people I have neglected to give the appreciation they deserve.

So make sure that you express that gratitude when you have the chance, because you never know if you will have another chance, and while most of those people don’t do it for the recognition, they deserve that recognition all the same.

I should also mention something that I don’t think I have ever expressed in on my blog.  I have previously written, once or twice, about my love of the C-130.  That is a love that I almost never experienced due to a lack of education.  When I got to Pensacola for training I thought I wanted to fly in a fighter, but that as long as I didn’t end up on a C-130 I would be happy.

This perception was one of complete ignorance.  All I knew at the time was that the C-130 was the antithesis of a fighter and so I wanted nothing to do with it.  Ironically, the fact that the C-130 is the antithesis of a fighter is now one of the reasons I love it most.

Two lessons are to be learned here.  One is that you really need to educate yourself before you make decisions, because otherwise you will miss out on some of the greatest experiences, and loves, of your life.  I almost missed out on the C-130 because I knew nothing about what it actually did.

The other lesson is to find a culture where you feel at home.  Looking back now I never would have felt at home in a fighter unit, it just isn’t my personality.  I won’t get into specifics because they don’t matter.  Everything about the C-130 community matches who I am with how we execute our missions, the types of missions we execute, and the crew dynamic that we thrive in.

To relate this to everyone else, it’s okay if you don’t want to fly for an airline.  You may want to fly cargo, or backcountry, or be a CFI, or just chase $100 hamburgers, or only be a passenger, and all of that is okay.  There is a place for everyone in this wonderful world of aviation, and whatever that is for you, AWESOME!

The key here is to find happiness in what you are doing, and then go after more of it so that you can find even more happiness.  I am so glad that the C-130 found me because outside of family, I don’t think anything else in my life has brought me more joy.

June 26, 2019 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.

How I Became a Pilot: Part 3 Becoming a Navigator

Driving away from Texas and leaving my family behind was really hard.  Being the cry baby I am, I am pretty sure I was still crying somewhat until I got through Dallas three hours after leaving.  

I had just been blessed with a son and I wanted to play with him and see him grow up, not go through another boot camp.  I just had to keep reminding myself that it was the long game I was playing here, and not a short game, so I continued on to OTS.

What can I say about Officer Training School?  Not much that is relevant here, though there was one experience that summed it up pretty well.  Upon arriving at the OTS complex I was greeted by a member of my upper class who saw the sticker on my car from my previous base and asked if I was prior service.  I explained that I had done six years in the Marines.

He then proceeded to ask me when the last time was that I had been yelled at by someone who had been in the military for 7 weeks.  I replied that I didn’t think I ever had. To which he responded, “Welcome to OTS, go park over there.” I still laugh a little thinking about it.

There wasn’t much about the OTS experience that related to flying, so I will skip ahead to becoming an officer in the Air Force on 16 Dec 2010.  Though honestly that was the second best thing that happened that week. The first was going to the Atlanta airport to be reunited with my family after 12 weeks apart.  Just to be clear, it was being reunited with my family, not going to the airport, that was the highlight there.

The day after graduation we headed down to Pensacola, FL which is where Combat Systems Officer training takes place.  That is technically what I am, a Combat Systems Officer or CSO(if you doubt me Google “Air Force CSO” and look at the images and see who comes up first), though in the C-130 community we only refer to my crew position as navigators or navs.

The first aspect of training was leaving the family behind again for a three-week crash course known as Initial Flight Screening in Pueblo, CO at DOSS aviation flying the DA-20, or more affectionately, the Mighty Katana.  

The first week is strictly academics, which gets a little old, especially if you have a background in aviation, but any learning is good learning in my opinion.

After that first week you get to wear your flight suit for the very first time and you get to start flying.  Fly days consisted of a stand-up brief that started well before the sun came up. I recall it being at 0430, but I could be a little off.  This is a chance for you to show your preparation, and for instructors to challenge the group to rise to the occasion of being professional aviators.

It made me throw up in my mouth a little to type that, but the more I think about it, it is true.  In no way did I enjoy doing those briefs, but they are a good opportunity to learn and grow as an aviator which was the whole point of the training.

Once I started flying I flew every single day, which was amazing.  The Colorado skyline is quite the scenic place to be learning to do something that is that much fun.  The first few flights are really no different from anyone else that is learning to fly. After 3-4 flights though we shifted to an emphasis on navigation which was what the Air Force was paying me to learn.  It was a bummer not really being at the controls anymore, but it was nice to feel like I was moving in the direction I had signed up for.

Looking back now there was nothing cosmic about what we were learning.  It was really just basic dead reckoning, clock to map to ground, navigate along a route to get you back home.  The crazy thing is that not a whole lot has honestly changed in the intervening 9 years. I still do pretty much the same basic thing.  I am just a lot better at it now.

After 14 hours of flying in 8 days I completed the course and headed back to Pensacola with a total of 22 flying hours where I sat on the dreaded casual status for 3 months.  The only training that took place during that time was a three-day water survival course that was mostly parasailing, but still with some valuable lessons to be learned.

Then in June of 2011 I was assigned to a CSO class and started training.  This post is about becoming a pilot, so I will spare most of the in-depth details, but it does seem valuable to mention some of the things that got me to where I am.

After about a month of academics, that included everything from physiological concerns to weather, to the details of flying the T-6, we got our first simulator sessions in preparation for hitting the flight line.  There is really no simulator that can prepare you for your first flight in an aerobatic airplane.

For me it was an awe-inspiring experience, and incredibly uncomfortable all at the same time.  Flying in such a high-powered plane with a bubble canopy so you can look all around…I really don’t have words to describe it.  The uncomfortable part came when I threw up about an hour into the flight. It was not one of my finer moments, but I am proud to say it is the only time in my life that I did so.  I’ve come close a few times, but never again have I repeated it.

Continuing to fly in the T-6 was a joy and I really started to feel like an aviator at that point.  We were not allowed to actually fly the plane a ton, but even just being in the plane and executing the various maneuvers made the whole thing very real for me.  I was going to fly in airplanes for the rest of my life, and even better, people were going to pay me to do it.

It was during this phase that I started a habit that I still have to this day.  On every flight I try to take a moment to just take in the magnitude of how cool my job is.  I know I am lucky to have this as a profession, and I never want to lose sight of that.

Your first few flights are all about just getting in the air and getting comfortable with the plane.  We did loops and rolls and even got one formation flight. Then it was time to learn some instrument flying where we started executing instrument approaches and navigating airways.  After we completed basic navigation it was time to execute visual low levels.

At the time I thought it was pretty fun flying a few hundred feet off the ground at 240 knots.  We would joke that you could tell if you were on course because the cows you flew over wouldn’t run away since they were used to the noise.  While it was still pretty cool, my experiences in the intervening 8 years have made it a little less impressive because of how flat the southeastern United States is.

After the completion of T-6s I entered a series of phases with a whole lot of academics with a mixture of simulators.  These simulators would be more something akin to Microsoft Flight Simulator, the old one, not the new one (that looks freaking amazing by the way).  Like many things in life, some phases were interesting, and others were meaningless, but you play the hand you are dealt and I got through relatively unscathed.

It was now time to prepare to go back to the flight line for the T-1, but it wouldn’t be the Air Force if we didn’t spend a few more weeks in academics and simulators first.  It makes sense though because the amount of time we spent preparing on the ground made all the difference in the world when it came time to get in the air.

For the T-1 phase of training we executed a very similar training profile as we did in the T-6 of contact with the plane, instrument flying, and finally low-level flying.  Though we didn’t try doing any loops or rolls in the T-1, except maybe in the sim.

Upon completing the T-1 phase of training we were essentially done with the challenging part of the syllabus, and after about 12 months of training, I  was awarded my Combat Systems Officer Wings on 1 June 2012.

It was a truly amazing day, and incredibly fulfilling to have completed such a rigorous training program over such a long period of time.  Having my family there to support me and enjoy that moment was something I will never forget.

I was not a pilot, and I didn’t know at the time if I ever would be, but I had wings on my chest, and I am still really proud of that.  We lost a fair number of people during training that didn’t cut it for one reason or another, so to actually get through was pretty cool.  It also was special having my wife put my wings on my chest.

I was super proud of her when she reared back and punched me on the wings as hard as she could which made everyone, including the Colonel presiding over the graduation, laugh.  Most of the wives or parents just gave a nice little pat, but that is not my wife.  She socked me good, and I was so proud because I am a big fan of tradition.

June 25, 2019 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.

How I Became a Pilot: Part 2 Joining the Air Force

That’s right, I ended the previous post about becoming a pilot telling you about how I quit.  Again, it is not one of my prouder moments, but 11 years later, it is what it is and I can’t go back and change it.  I learned from the experience, and I am better for it.

A year or so after I gave up on my dream, I was visiting my old cub scout leader who was a retired pilot and former navigator in the Air Force.  We had a nice meal harassing each other about the Marine Corps and the Chair Force. All in good fun of course. On my way home that night I was talking to my wife and jokingly said, “Maybe I should just join the Air Force.”  We both had a good laugh.

The next morning when we talked on the phone she asked me if I had been joking about that comment the night before.  I told her that at the time I was, but that I had stayed up late that night and done some research and as far as I could tell I still had a chance before I would need a waiver, which is not something they were giving out at the time.  At the time you had to be into training by the time you were 30. (That limit was recently raised to 33) So we decided to look into it.

I contacted a recruiter in the area I was visiting that was incredibly helpful but he told me I should really work with one in the area I lived.  So I got in contact with her. She told me I was already too old and that it was impossible. After more research I realized she had no idea what she was talking about.  With some support from the online community at airforceots.com, and the help of the first recruiter I helped her realize that she was wrong and my package started to come together in earnest.

The first lesson here is to realize when a no is really a no, and when it is just laziness.  I could have easily taken her word for it and I would never have gotten to where I am today. At the same time I didn’t berate her or get mad, I simply kept searching and asking questions and eventually I found the right answers.  So never give up on your dream, especially if the first answer is no.

In the process of putting together my package there were a number of tests, paperwork, and various other steps that had to be accomplished.  Despite the complete ineptitude of my recruiter I was able to schedule the AFOQT and TBAS which are standardized tests that are required to apply to become a pilot in the Air Force.  All of the services have similar tests. Having already taken the Marine Corps one, and scored very well, I was confident I would do well, and I did. Not perfect, but very competitive scores.

I went into the process with the mindset that I was either going to be a pilot or I wasn’t joining.  I simply didn’t want to do anything else in the military but fly. As the deadline for the selection board approached, I was scrounging to get the last few pieces of paperwork signed and was genuinely scared it would not come in time and I would have missed my opportunity.  Fortunately for me, some of my Marine leadership took it upon themselves to help me, and it did come in time.

On the day that the application was due I made what I consider to be the best decision I have made in my career.  I called the recruiter and told him to add that I was willing to take a navigator slot. I figured that even if I wasn’t selected as a pilot, which was a very real possibility at the time, then at least I would still be flying, and more importantly I would actually be in a career that would support my family.

Then I had to wait.

From the time packages were submitted in June until the results ultimately came out in December was almost exactly six months.  They didn’t announce a release date, but based on previous boards I had determined about when to expect them.

As that time started to approach I became really anxious.  My commitment to the Marine Corps was in its last few weeks and I honestly wasn’t sure what I would do if it didn’t turn out as I had hoped.  I had even started taking classes to become a high school physics teacher because I needed something to take care of my family and the odds were not great that I would be doing that as a pilot.

At that time the selection rates for the boards had been in the 25-30% range because this was 2009.  The economy sucked and a steady paycheck from the military was pretty appealing.

I will never forget where I was when I got the call.  I had visited our local library with my daughter for story time.  As I was putting her in my truck I got a call on my cell phone from my recruiter.  Fortunately, he is not like me and didn’t tease me or keep me waiting and he told me that I had been selected as a navigator.

I really didn’t know what to say other than thank you.  I hung up the phone and screamed as loud as I could before calling my wife to tell her the good news.  I of course made her wait and teased her a little before letting her know our whole world was going to change.

I would later learn through the official press release that my board had resulted in a 17% selection rate. Of the approximately 700 applicants only about 120 had been selected to become an officer period.  Of the 120 or so selected there were only 6 pilots so it just wasn’t meant to be, yet. For reference the last board press releases I saw a couple of years ago had selection rates in the 65-75% range.  What can I say? It is all about timing.

Over the next few months I proceeded to fill out a bunch of paperwork, get a flight physical, and then wait to get a class date to attend OTS.

Shortly after learning I had been selected as a navigator, we learned that my wife was going to be laid off, and in the same month that we were going to be having another baby.  Isn’t life just grand sometimes? It was becoming even more imperative that I get a class date so that I could get going and take care of my family.

Despite some objections from my recruiter, and a relatively unhappy person in the office that scheduled class dates I was able to get a class date for September of 2010 with follow on training in Pensacola, FL.  With a little scraping by, and a lot of blessings from God, we were able to get by until I was sworn in, and three days after my son came into the world I left my growing family behind for Maxwell AFB, Alabama.

I have to laugh a little as I think back on that time.  Until that dinner with my cubmaster I don’t think I had once considered joining the Air Force, at least not seriously.  And once I had become a Marine there was absolutely no way I would lower my standards and go to what I considered a lesser service.

To be clear, I still had great respect for the Air Force and what they did, the way that I had, and still have, great respect for all of the services.  We all provide unique skill sets to accomplish our assigned objectives.  The greatest problems we create in the military are when we try to take on the roles that have already been perfected by the other services, but that is a topic for a different time.

But for a Marine to go to the Chair Force?  That is madness.  Fortunately, I had enough sense to care more about my family than my own over inflated ego.  And, even more importantly, I had a wife that loved me and supported me through it all.  Not many women would willingly send their husband away for three months only three days after giving birth, and as I would later learn, only a few days before she would have an emergency surgery.

Adding to the theme of the people who got me to where I am, I am forever indebted to my little sister Natalie who willingly came to live with my family and take care of my kids and wife which she recovered.  The real sacrifice is that she is not really a big fan of kids, but she was an angel to those kids and I will never forget it.

So if you are having trouble finding how to accomplish your dream, it may be time to look down a path that you have never considered, and hopefully there will be someone who will push you in that direction.  You may find, like I did, that something that you never considered, is it exactly the path that you needed to take.

June 24, 2019 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.

How I Became a Pilot: Part 1 Early Motivation, and Quitting too Easily

I started writing this post a few weeks ago with the intent of publishing it yesterday which was the anniversary of the day I got my private pilot certificate.  But, before I knew it, what was intended to be one post turned into a ten page life story and I decided that I would be better off breaking it up.

It was fun looking back on where I have come from and where I will be going in the future.  Speaking of the future I was hoping to have gotten some news last week to put a cherry on the top, but it hasn’t come yet, so maybe it will come by the time I get all of this published.

As I often do, much of my writing is really for me, but in this case I am hoping that my story will help other people to realize that it is never too late to follow your dreams.  Even when you have given up on yourself, it is never too late to kick yourself in the butt and get back at it.  I also want to emphasize the importance of other people in achieving your dreams, and maybe more importantly, looking for opportunities to help others in their journey.  That is really what I would like to accomplish with this series of posts.

There are as many stories about becoming a pilot as there are pilots.  Each person has their own unique angle and path that they took to get there.  While there are many similarities, even those who followed a similar path, say USAF Pilot Training or an ATP school, will still have a unique story because that is simply the nature of the industry.

I have loved flying and airplanes for as long as I can remember.  I will spare all of the dirty details since I write about it pretty regularly, and this is about becoming a pilot.

When I started college I had originally intended to become an engineer of some sort much like my oldest brother, and a few good friends that had followed that path.  However, upon moving to California and discovering that there were actual aviation majors I knew that engineering was not going to be for me.

The first thing that pushed me back to aviation was working as a stock person at the Nordtroms in La Jolla (San Diego), CA.  You may think that Nordstroms has nothing to do with flying, and you would be right. But, if you know anything about the area I am referring to, that store sits just off the departure end of the runway at MCAS Miramar.

Everyday as I would come to and from work I would see all of the different planes (mostly F/A-18s) coming and going, and I would just sit there and dream about flying in them.  After months of this I finally kicked myself in the butt and decided that if I didn’t at least try then I would regret it for the rest of my life. So off to the recruiter’s office I went.

I think I surprised him a little because he started to try and sell me on the benefits of becoming a Marine, but I told him to stop selling and just tell me where to sign.  To make a long story a little shorter, I was off to boot camp a month later and nine months after that I finished training as an aviation ordnance systems repair technician.  I had no idea what that was when I joined, but it was the only job available in the air wing when I enlisted so there you go. My whole intent was to finish school as fast as I could and get my commission in the Marines and fly fighter jets.

After coming back from all of my training, I first enrolled in aviation courses at Palomar College in San Marcos California.  Sadly, I just discovered that those classes no longer exist. After the main instructor, Jerry Houser, retired, enrollment was too low and they had to cut the classes.  It’s really a shame because I learned a lot there. Jerry was one of those old school fliers that had a million different stories that you only acquire with decades of learning and living in the industry.

While the program at Palomar would never get you a bachelor’s, there was a companion program from Southern Illinois University, that still exists, that would allow you to do your general coursework at a junior college like Palomar.  You could then finish your bachelor’s at their satellite campus in San Diego. It actually moved into the classroom at Palomar right before I started the program.

For someone that was working multiple jobs, drill weekends with the Marines, coaching high school sports, and trying to date girls as often as I could, this program was amazing.  We met essentially every other weekend on Saturday and Sunday for 18 months and after that, you were finished. It was a fantastic program that catered to the military, but that benefited civilians who were in the classes as well.

As I was completing my general coursework, I started to work with an officer selection officer to get selected for OCS and a pilot slot in the Marines.  After completing all of the necessary testing and physicals, I submitted my package and was blessed to be selected for a pilot slot with an OCS date in the summer of 2006.  The way the program works I would attend OCS and then come back and finish my degree at which point I would receive my commission and attend pilot training.

As life is wont to do, my plans changed dramatically when I got sick two weeks before I was to leave for OCS.  The doctors weren’t sure what exactly was wrong so out of an abundance of caution my orders were cancelled and I was told to reapply once my medical was cleared up, which it was, a few weeks after I was supposed to have left.

No worries, I would just finish school first and reapply later.  But, on the day I was supposed to graduate OCS I met my now wife.  I made it very clear from day one what my plans were, and she was always very supportive.  Never once did she try and dissuade me from pursuing my dream. However, after some deep soul searching I decided that I would not reapply and that I would simply take my aviation management degree and find a different way to be involved in the industry.

Shortly thereafter we moved to Austin, TX and I got a job working at the FBO there which is still one of my favorite jobs I have ever had.  Within that FBO there was a Cessna Flight School which always got my attention when I was at work. After much debate with my wife, because we were barely getting by, we decided to take on the debt and just go for it.

So I got my Sallie Mae loan and started working on becoming a pilot.  3 Instructors, 7.5 hours and $3,500 later I realized that this was not a sustainable model, especially with a new baby girl in the family.  So as much as it pains me to think about it even now, I gave up on my dream.

I would love to say that this was the right thing to do, but part of me still thinks it wasn’t.  I really think I just didn’t listen to the right people and had gone down the wrong path.  I could have found a way, but instead I put it to the side for the time being.  It happens to most people at some point in their lives, but it still hurts when you are the one doing it.

June 4, 2019 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.

How to Get More People Excited About Aviation?

This is the thought that runs through my head more than probably anything else in my life, except maybe how much I love my family…maybe.  I intentionally made the title a question because I don’t think I have the answer, nor do I think there is “AN”  answer.  For that matter there may not be an answer at all.

For me it was a father that loved airplanes and would take me with him to airshows, airports, The Boneyard, etc.  The interesting thing is that he took some of my other siblings too, so why I am the only one that caught the bug?  Is it something inherent in who I am?  Or did I just hit the right events at the right times in my formative years?

Who knows?

There are so many obvious answers out there that come to mind.  Get people to airshows, take cool pictures or cool videos, show them the cool places you can take a plane, and the list goes on and on.

Personally, I think the absolute best way to get people excited about airplanes and aviation, is to get them in a small airplane.  I know nothing changed my perspective more than getting in that little plane for the very first time.  Even as someone who loved airplanes the first time I got in a 172 I was never going to be the same.

It may have been getting in the plane, but as I think about it, it is more likely that it was taking the controls for the very first time that really made the difference.  It was insane to me that I got to take the controls within minutes of getting into the plane for the very first time.  I know I didn’t do anything crazy or groundbreaking, but to feel an airplane maneuver through the air at your own bidding is incomparable with anything else I have ever done.

Since that first flight I have accrued only about 50 hours in small planes, but about 1500 as a navigator in the C-130.  I love everything about my job, and would gladly do it until they kick me out, but if I am really getting down to the heart of it, I think I cherish those 50 hours in small single engine planes even more.

Maybe that sounds crazy, and maybe I am lying to myself, but there really is something indescribable about leaving the earth, and then safely returning with your hands and feet at the controls.  Flying is so inherently unnatural for a human being, that successfully accomplishing it is difficult to put into words.  It is amazing, and incredible, and empowering, and liberating, and a dozen other adjectives at least, but there is seriously not enough adjectives to do it justice.

So where am I going with this little rant?  Simply put, we need to get more butts in the seats.  You have to get people at the controls, and up in the air to really light that spark inside of them.  It is true that some people will hate it, and that is fine, but if we want more people to care about aviation, and to put in the time to learn the aspects of the industry that make it so valuable, they need to be at the controls.

For many people flying has become as much a part of life as driving a car.  I recently had someone tell me they actually spend more time in airplanes that they do in their own car.  This individual was a fellow avgeek so his passion is pretty well secured, but when something becomes run of the mill, it is not easy to create the excitement and passion that are necessary to create valuable change.

Now many of us don’t have our own planes, or in some cases may not even be pilots, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t get more people at the controls.

The first thought that comes to my mind is the EAA Young Eagles program.  If you are not familiar with the program I would encourage you to visit the site and learn more.  But, in short, it is a program that gives kids and teens the opportunity to get their first flight in a small aircraft for free to try to ignite that spark early.  According to their website they have given more than 2 million kids their first flights in the 27 years that the program has existed.  It is also supported by the likes of Harrison Ford and Jimmy Graham who regularly posts pictures on Instagram of the kids he takes up in his plane.

If you can’t take the kids up yourself, you can donate to the organization, or you can even just educate kids and teens that the program exists.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but lack of education is one of the biggest things hurting the industry.  We have to educate kids about all of the different paths and opportunities that there are in the industry.  Some of which don’t even involve flying, though my favorite ones all do.

June 2, 2019 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.