Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Cockpit Conversations. This is a place where we share tips and strategies for not only getting hired, but getting the most out of your aviation career along the way. Additionally, we'd like to share thoughts on many things that we find interesting at 35,000 feet.
Speaker: Sit back, get comfortable, and welcome aboard. What are your criteria for determining If somebody moves on to the next event, goes on to the check ride or AJ, from your perspective, OK, I'm going to release you to the line now.
Speaker: We know perfection isn't the standard because if it was, I would have long since been bounced out. But and I know we've got every airline has and the FAA has specific measurable objectives, but we all know those are words.
Speaker: It's your subjectivity. It's your impression. It's it's. your take that's going to decide if this person moves on and is successful in this training, or if they've got to get recycled to do some additional stuff.
Speaker: So tell me what you kind of define as success. And if you don't see it, how you actually make that determination and and what you do next.
Speaker: think you're looking at me. Well, the call standards are the call standards, and they haven't changed in 20 years, right? So that's pretty easy to call balls and strikes. ah The tougher one is CRM, and especially for an upgrading captain. But since we're talking about new hires, how well they get along with the sim partner or the captain or whoever's playing the captain,
Speaker: um yeah For new hires, it's just flying the jet and having the big picture, right? Just... Yeah, it's hard to say.
Speaker: It's subjective, and I realize it I just tossed this, you know, ethereal ah ah thing out there. i I heard a story about somebody at my airline that had not made it through Captain's Upgrade, and their instructor, without being too specific, was just saying,
Speaker: They never could keep the expand the SA bubble out very far. They didn't seem to know what was going on immediately past the nose of their airplane. They were constantly in a react mode. They weren't thinking ahead or planning ahead.
Speaker: So that was one warning flag. If you can't, if on a ah go around, you can't mentally get yourself around the box pattern, get the checklist done and get yourself back safely on the ground, that that's a red flag. What what are some things that are your kind of warning flags?
Speaker: Are you ready to put your family on that airplane? So if I have a ride that's going south, I'll whip out a picture of my five-year-old daughter sitting in the sim cockpit. I've already made it on my mind. I'm just making myself feel good at this point. yeah so We're going to do that one again.
Speaker: And it's usually not a very hard sell. You can say, hey, this is what you did wrong. um What do you think about it? Let them critique themselves. And they're like, yeah, that was not so good. Not too many busts have been contested.
Speaker: Okay. alex
Speaker: Alex? I would say there's a few different times. One is you just can't get through all the material. you sell missing items and that's pretty easy. you need an extra SIM before you're ready. So that's the good place to be.
Speaker: um The one that's tricky is where, you know, if they if they can do a V1 cut good 80% of the time, 90% of the time, they're ready. And if they don't think they're ready, I'll try to convince them that you're ready for your check rate tomorrow. You're going to be okay.
Speaker: um The ones that are tricky are are maybe they've done one good V1 cut, but then the next three are kind of lousy. And really what I tell them is, are you comfortable doing your validation tomorrow?
Speaker: And I remind them that the validation that's on your training record, it's permanent. What do you say you get an extra same some more practice so that way you can be confident going into the validation and usually i can get them to respond with yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker: i want that extra sim. I don't feel comfortable right now. um So usually it's trying to get them to agree with you that they need more more practice. As instructors, can you do you have any inclinations as to the why i mean, why would you be able to clobber it on one set?
Speaker: And then the next two sets really struggle. What what is it that leads to that consistency under pressure or, you know, I'm i'm going beyond being evaluators of did that meet standards or not?
Speaker: I'm kind of asking, can you figure out what's going on in your head or offer any keys to success for somebody who feels like they're a little behind the eight ball in the s sim? yeah Yeah, i you know I think one of the things that is a trigger that's a total trigger for me that they they like try to memorize the script, right? So if it's all going per the script,
Speaker: and they do fine on the first one, but then I say, hey, let's do that instead of a left down one entry, let's do a right down entry. entry And they haven't practiced that seven times. Then it's a true it's kind of a clue to me that they' they've rehearsed this to the point where they're not really understanding the next level, the bigger picture of how do I fly the airplane with a single engine around the pattern other than, hey,
Speaker: the I actually had one student say, well, that's not in the script. I said, well, the script is really just kind of a baseline and I want to see if you can do this. Right. And so I try to get them to understand that, you know, you're not going to get engine fail out of Denver on the right side. You're going to get it on both sides. or one side or the other. So you need to really understand what you're doing. So for me, it's an understanding.
Speaker: If a guy does it the first time and it does not go well the second, third, and fourth time, it's an understanding problem by some rote memorization issue. Okay. If I'm the student and i'm I'm having a tough time with a maneuver, I've doomed up a couple of V1 cuts or an RNAV approach twice in a row,
Speaker: What do you want me to do in the box as a student? You want me to try to gut through that? Should I ask for that? what what would What do you think would be a good thing to tell a student to do at that point? Stop doing it the way you were doing it. Let's try something different.
Speaker: right you listen walking you are Yeah, right. So, you know, I had a student. I think Wilson heard this story before. um i had a student on V1 cuts didn't want to use the rudder trim.
Speaker: I can do it. I can hold it. I'm like, OK. um And each V1 cut was fine. But by the time we got around to final, it was we were just playing ping pong all the way down to localizer.
Speaker: ah I said, hey, how about we try something different? you know And that works for a lot of people. you're Like, hey, one instructor told me to do X. All right, cool. Let's try it that way.
Speaker: Hey, that's not really working out for you. Let's try a different technique. there's There's several different ways to do this within you ah standards. Let's try something else because that might click for your brain.
Speaker: So I'm really like ah one of the guys is like, how many tools you got in your tool chest? And let's expand that if we need to. And then the other piece is this might just be a confidence issues.
Speaker: You know, maybe, you know, maybe break it down into smaller pieces, celebrate the victories and focus on the victories. And then they'll build this into, you know, adjusting the problem. And then the final piece is understanding why you're not able to you know do the right turn off of runway 25 with the engine failure.
Speaker: Oh, that's because you're doing X, Y, and Z. It's an understanding problem. So you yeah there's a couple of different methods there. But at the end of the day, you know you got to, again, have that bigger picture of why why am I doing this wrong? and is there a different way to do it?
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. be willing to change is asking for a break a bad bad strategy if ah if i'm just getting frustrated not at all take the sim down go get a coat talk about it yeah you know okay absolutely i would say too just using all the resources you have there in the sim so even if you don't necessarily drop the sim and get out and take a break just letting the other pilot for a second take a stab at it getting a chance to watch maybe ride along in the controls feel what's happening. And then the other thing too is sometimes I've said, Hey, sit back here for a second. and i go sit in their seat and I demo the maneuver. I say, Hey, let me hop in next to you and I'll show you kind of what I do from this seat here. You can feel along the controls with me a little bit, get a general idea. So ah those are some instructor techniques, but you can certainly as a student, again, advocate, ask for those things so if you're struggling. So it's, there's all kinds of ways to skin the cat.
Speaker: ah We want to get you across the goal line. We need you out there on the line. yeah Okay. Well, let me see if I recap initial, if I've missed anything. I brought up, you know, good study hygiene, a place, a safe environment.
Speaker: We talked about advocating for yourself. If you have a SIM partner that does not mesh with your learning style, everybody hammered the importance of, hey, control the stuff that you can control. Know the call outs, know the flows, know the basic stuff.
Speaker: And then from there, uh, If it's not working, try something different. Be honest. Ask for help. Don't start training until you're actually ready to commit.
Speaker: You know, i think that's a very big deal. ah Keeping your personal life. ah When people talk about getting ready for training, I don't say go get the United Slides and study in three weeks in advance. What I say is get your taxes done.
Speaker: Fix the refrigerator that's been leaking. Get your car service so your wife doesn't have any reliability problems while you're gone. You know, kind of take care of the home front so that you can give it your full focus.
Speaker: And then, you know, have a good attitude. to Roll yourself into it. Ask for help if you need it. Is there anything that I've kind of missed?
Speaker: How about that first? How about that first recurrent? Okay. woo I'm out on the line. I've been flying for six months, nine months. Maybe it's a probationary sim. Maybe I'm off probation depending on the company. But um what do you guys see as the key to to an effective first recurrent?
Speaker: i'll say sorry go go for it alex i know what you're gonna say well what i'll say is um you can't just study cram the night before and hope it goes well the next day the people that do well every day they show up to their to the airplane they're trying to get better they're asking the captain questions they're diving into the manuals and they've had the full Ever long six months, nine months, one year to prepare for that CQ event. So hopefully the week leading up to it, not much studying was needed.
Speaker: um And they're also arriving maybe with a list of of questions um that are more specific for things they've encountered. Okay, what else?
Speaker: I think come into training with an open mind. um you know i don't care if it's your first CQ event or you know one before you retire. um you know Coming into the to the building, understanding that you know we're there. There's a couple of things we're there to do, right?
Speaker: One, the first day is to refresh, make sure that we all know what, you know get an opportunity to touch the controls and uh do a v1 cut and do stuff that we typically don't do on the line and the second one is understanding that that debrief between the first day and second day is critical for success right the the crews that i see on the validation events can can it tell me the top four five things that the instructor prior said hey these are things we need to work on real quick you know go home get a beer eat a burger and let's go talk about you know your call outs or your V1 cuts or your single engine approach.
Speaker: When they can articulate that to me, what they were supposed to learn, then that means to me that they actually put the effort into it. And to me, it's all about effort and prep time. If you spent you put prep into it, I'm happy to help you. If you walk in and you think you're going to wing it, it does not go well at all.
Speaker: Okay. I'll tell from experience, too. I mean, I definitely have my very first recurrent. I went in and made a lot of mistakes. And that's from somebody who's a 7-3 background for three years prior to coming to United.
Speaker: um You definitely want to take that debrief, like Luke just said, and really take it to heart, figure out, hey, what do i need to do? What I need to look at between day one and day two, go home, chair fly that, you know, get into the books where you need to polish that kind of stuff up.
Speaker: And then I was able to come back and and replicate a really, really good ah second day event where to the point where my sim partner and the other instructor are like, what happened? What did you do last night? And it paid really not a whole lot other than just kind of take the debrief to art, work through a few things, get my knowledge up to where it needed to be. and then I was able to go in and execute effectively. But yeah, sometimes you do have those the stumbling block days on the first day sometimes where its it doesn't go as well as you want to, but there's certainly plenty of opportunity to to make up on the time in between when you hop in for day two.
Speaker: Okay, and that's fine. realized you haven't done a v1 cut in nine months, you know, you you haven't probably done wind shear recovery. But just put your student hat back on, right?
Speaker: Recalling limits have to be perfect. We've had a couple guys stumble on that on their first recurrent, we had to hammer down send Send them out and going to go get a coffee, see if we can't polish those up.
Speaker: and Be ready to ready to learn again, right? we're We're all here to polish you up, do stuff you can't do in the airplane. Flying the airplane's of easy, right? You're out on the line, you're working out, you're drinking, you're having a good time.
Speaker: Now it's time to come prepare for when things don't go so well. I will share a bit of perspective. You know, coming from the military, we had bubble sheets, we had training items that we had to get done.
Speaker: So you can come back to the traffic pattern and you would maybe try a single engine approach or a no flap approach. And you were expected to do that. And in our line of work, we flew and practiced things in the air that were abnormal routinely.
Speaker: That's how we got our training. So For folks coming from a 121 regional background, the idea that I haven't done a V1 cut a year isn't a new concept. But for many of us who come out of the military, like i haven't practiced any of this. I just feel completely lost.
Speaker: So I'm a big believer in controlling what you can control, right? And that is the general knowledge, the limitations, knowing the bulletins, anything that that's come up. And the best way I've ever found to make recurrent training go well. Well, let me ask you guys this. How do you feel when somebody walks in at start time or after still trying to find the room?
Speaker: Doesn't doesn't create a warm fuzzy. yeah So I strive to be, you know, in the room 10 minutes early certificate out medical out coffee, maybe donuts for the crowd.
Speaker: And the first time that guy's asking so many questions, I might ask something about the latest bulletin or something that's come out. How does this apply what's going on here? If they want to play stump the dummy with me,
Speaker: Oh, they're going to get it batted right back. I'm going to know the stuff that I need to know, and it sets the tone. And I learned that very early in the 727 because I didn't consolidate. It was very hard at our company to get enough hours. So I'm back for my first sim.
Speaker: by the way, 90 days after I are we in the right seat, and a little bit nervous. And I'm with like a ah guy who's been in my company about as long as AJ has.
Speaker: So I apologize him, I tell you got gypped, brother, I'm sorry, I'm new fresh off I read. And back then we used appendix F not AQP. And we had orals.
Speaker: And we started into this recurrent oral And, you know, if he throws what I thought was a softball out. i'll I'll hit that back. And he's throwing it to both of us. He throws another one. I hit it back.
Speaker: He throws another. I hit it back. And finally looks at me goes, you need to stop talking. i'm going to see what the captain knows. And it quickly became apparent that the captain's way to prepare was to get to Memphis. Right? that was his That was his recurrent preparation.
Speaker: I don't think a book had been cracked. So for the next uncomfortable hour, you know, I watched as he got... Drug through the FOM and drug through the systems manual.
Speaker: Occasionally they toss something my way, but I batted it back. But the point is I controlled what I could control. Now we got in the box and he could fly the piss out of a V1 cut. He'd been doing it for 20 years. and But I'd already got the bow wave of, hey, this guy's trying. This guy's got a good attitude.
Speaker: He's here, he's prepared. And I'm sure my execution probably had a a rough spot or two, but the feedbacks and corrections I got, I think, were already shaped with hopefully a bow wave of goodwill. Now, that doesn't mean you can nail the oral and be a complete fungo in the box, but I do think you do have a control of the mood and of the impression the instructor have and just take care of the simple stuff.
Speaker: You know, dress professionally early, knowing your stuff, having a few things to ask about that indicate you you are up to speed with with what's going on with the latest things, and then just work your butt off.
Speaker: um
Speaker: ah The other thing that I find about recurrent, a lot of people are, when they come back to recurrent, they're nervous because they remember how hard it was in the simulator when they were going through their initial training.
Speaker: But what's different after you come back after six months, nine months, a year on the line? you've got muscle memory now, you know, the airplane, you know, the lingo, you've been flying with a bunch of different people, you're getting a bunch of different techniques.
Speaker: And I was actually surprised at how pleasant and easy recurrent really was. I remember, I thought this used to be hard. ah The sim was hard to fly. But now it's like, okay, this isn't nearly as difficult.
Speaker: ah The other tip that I have for going through recurrent is, you know, for years, I use the cutouts and study by flows for initial but The best place I found to study for recurrent is in long cruise sections, right? I break open the checklist, I go, and now I go, oh, there's that switch.
Speaker: And as good as those cutouts are, when you look at it on a real overhead panel, you realize, oh, that's a little recessed, or that's over here behind this, it's a little R or or whatever, it's not so apparent. But And as Alex said, if I'm going to do call outs, I'm going to do it while I'm bouncing a ball or doing pushups or something.
Speaker: I try to look at these flows or checklists and go, OK, I'm not really going push the ah flap a symmetry button, of course, in flight, you know, pastors on board or or flying a regular route.
Speaker: But I can certainly look down and put my finger next to it. Okay, that's where that is. And that's where this is. And run through some of that. So I find that the ah the actual jet when I'm working in those months before recurrent is a great place to go back and review some of my cell my procedures, obviously, not at the distraction of doing our job, not a distraction, letting CRM break down or doing the pilot monitoring or pilot flying stuff we're supposed to do.
Speaker: But it is a great resource. Um, Just a question for the crowd based on the the ah thing that I told you ah before we started recording, which is if you were successful in initial training, certainly if you'd had a stumble, say you needed an extra sim or two, or let's say, heaven forbid, you'd busted a Chloe or busted your initial line check but gotten through that okay, would you consider upgrading or changing airplanes before you were off probation?
Speaker: Go ahead, guys. Shake your head.
Speaker: No, you know, I'll be honest with you. I'm really against just Captain Upgrades inside or even at a year. You know, I was able to hold Captain Denver at a year and a day, and I could have done it.
Speaker: And there's... For me personally, that concept, I was just like, that that might be with the most insane thing I've ever done. How about going from 737 to an Airbus or vice versa? Would you do that?
Speaker: Not off probation. yeah Risk versus reward. Unless it gets you closer to home or makes your commute better. But you've got to want it and you've got to have a really good reason.
Speaker: Okay. I just, from a from a pilot, coaches, advocate, helping people prepare for interviews, you've worked so hard, you're finally here. Certainly, if you've stumbled even a little bit in the initial training, I go, I would just ride it out until I'm off probation.
Speaker: I can't tell you what to do with your life, but I think that is a high-risk, low-reward game. If you've consistently been ace of the base, Maybe this is your second or third airline or you've been through multiple training cycles. You've never stumbled and you go, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.
Speaker: Understand you're taking some risks. So all the things we said about initial still apply. Show her prepared, focused, um good attitude, able to wash or rinse off the last airplane. don't Don't worry about how you used to do it.
Speaker: Do it the way they want you to this now. But I would also say if you waited one bid, You could probably relax a little bit and really enjoy the training instead of having that extra level of stress. Again, I can't dictate what you do. It's your career.
Speaker: But take it from somebody who talks to a lot of people who ask about how to deal with training blemishes or other issues in job interviews. It's nice if you can avoid getting those at all. All right.
Speaker: Last section before we get into being an instructor, just real quick. Um, Any big changes that you see between the initial or recurrent training rules of thumb and that upgrade? Now you're coming, you're finally going to get that left seat, you're going to get that fourth strike.
Speaker: What's different about that captain upgrade or maybe even going from a medium size or a small airplane to say 7A or an A350? What are the big things that you would be telling your students?
Speaker: Well, I think you see the level, as well, it yeah depends, right? Typical aviation answer. um If you're going from the right seat to the left seat on the same airplane, I think it's confidence. You know you understand the airplane, you understand the CODs.
Speaker: It's now become like second nature. But when I see 7-8, triple-7, long-time bunkies come in to be captains on the seven three the initial struggle is just keeping up with the jet, right? The seven three is the most complex, simple airplane that Boeing has ever figured out on a napkin.
Speaker: ah And being a captain, you're no longer the technical expert. The first officer is the guy or the girl that understands the box, understands the technical stuff. And the captain understands everything else. You're a leader. You set the tone.
Speaker: um I just had a flight on Monday night. Captain, we're literally pushed back. Passenger has a medical episode and was like, hey, you've got everything else.
Speaker: I gotta figure out if we can go with this guy, right? So you as the captain are no longer really the technical pilot. You are everything else. And it was just a complex problem to solve. We ended up pulling back and because the passenger gene had oxygen, that's a no-go.
Speaker: And the captain was like, I didn't even know that, right? So you have to be able to ask the right questions, build that team, listen and then make a ah decisive decision and ah communicate it effectively.
Speaker: And that's what makes a good captain for me is is up somebody who doesn't know all the answers, but can lead the the the team through the problem. Okay.
Speaker: I'll double tap that a little bit too. And just in terms of the fact that we see a lot of folks that will come over to the 7.3 typically for seniority reasons, for bit back reasons, things like that. And they've been on a different fleet, sometimes the wide body, sometimes the Airbus, but they'll come over and not really realize what they're getting into just in terms of workload. They're having to learn ah that first officer's side and all the technical piece of it, they're having to learn their side of it, at least in terms of the flying aspects in the left seat.
Speaker: And then they're having to learn the leadership piece of it for a new upgrade captain. So it's almost triple the workload, whereas they don't start off knowing necessarily everything about that aircraft and what they've done before. So it it definitely is a very steep learning curve ah for some of those folks that are switching fleets and upgrading at the same time.
Speaker: ah Would not recommend that if you could avoid that. Okay. Okay. I'll go there. What do you guys think about going Airbus to Boeing early in your career? It's a pretty big nut to crack, right?
Speaker: It's a huge nut to crack. I had a student today, five years on the Airbus, we were on a procedure validation prep. So tomorrow's, i got the same crew tomorrow.
Speaker: And he literally said, he was like, i did not understand how complex this airplane was. So, Right. And like I said, it's the most simple, complex airplane you can ever get yourself into.
Speaker: And it doesn't have to be necessarily Airbus. I don't mean to pounce on those guys. I've been seeing guys, even new hires that have never flown round isles. You know, g one thousand right to the RJ and now they're on a 75 and they're like a pig staring at a wristwatch. So, you know, get some round out time or turn your G1000 into a six pack or whatever you got to do to help yourself out there.
Speaker: Go jump seat, fly around on that thing a little bit. Yeah, yeah. You need to expose yourself to that. But, you know, I think the hardest part with the 7-3 is the switches. Right? you know, you are the panel.
Speaker: Right? You know, other aircraft, I mean, like I said, I was 7-7 guy. It was magic, right? Start... thing, have coffee, airplane starts itself, ba makes a noise when it's ready to go.
Speaker: 7.3, you are everything. So I really, you know, when I talk to people about making the jump to 7.3, I'm like, you better be ready. Our company realizes that the right seat in the 7.37 is the most complex and busiest seat in the company.
Speaker: Period. End of story. Period. Not. victoria yeah yeah At the same time, you know, that's a little bit of encouragement for the new hire, if they can get that because if you can manage that, and you build the habit patterns, and you build the cross check, and you build the discipline, it will carry over into easier airplanes.
Speaker: and And I think, you know, I started off without much of a choice, very manual airplanes, six packs in the 727. We even did ADF approaches, believe it or not, in the simulator, ah during my time there, ah because we had one down in South America that was still ah in our repertoire going into Valencia, Venezuela, and I've actually believe it or not flown that approach into a Valencia, Venezuela.
Speaker: So um yeah, I used to say that I was never better than when I was flying in the guard, flying F15s, flying round dials in 727, and then flying my round dial G air airplane. And I always liked to try it was always cool to be able you to get trifecta to be able to fly all three in one week.
Speaker: I got two in a day a couple of times never got three in a day. But I will say now, I've got Garmin 1000 perspective system in my GA airplane, I fly seven six, and my scan is nowhere near what it used to be.
Speaker: And if I was going to go upgrade, or if I was going to go back and fly an airplane with a six pack, I would probably be working pretty hard, you know, so uh respect what you know respect the the challenges it doesn't mean you can't take them on but uh have you found some specific tips for people that are going from airbus to boeing or going to airbus as uh valuable or helpful i realize everybody on here is is an instructor now in the boeing but uh when you have somebody coming in with a little bit of a french accent what do you do to help them succeed
Speaker: Speak slower and louder. like but <unk>'s gonna have Over and over till it does what you want. That was my favorite. You know, it's, it' I think it, you know it comes, it comes down to, you know,
Speaker: How much time do you, that we at our company, we have a great app on our iPad that allows them to get into the box and and really kind of tinker around with it and get comfortable.
Speaker: It's just about being comfortable and and understanding what the button you're pressing and what you're trying to do, right? If you ask yourself, am I trying to understand VNAV? then you know if you're you're not hitting the right buttons, then you're not never going to get there. But it is it is definitely a ah ah jump um for the – I think also the ERJs, the 175 guys, it's a little bit different style ah styleable box.
Speaker: It's the bulk of what we do, right? So you've got to put the time in and sit on your iPad with a beer and and really practice ah loading the box and understanding what it's going to do when you hit execute.
Speaker: Well, there was a book I read years ago, and i I cannot recall the title of it, but I'm going to look it up and I'll put it in the links on the remarks on this podcast. But the author was a Czech airman and the MD 11.
Speaker: And his basic premise was that you ought to know your airplane so well that as you look across the top of the display, You know what every FMC means, why it will transition from whatever mode it's in to the next one, and what the catalysts were for that change.
Speaker: And I remember thinking about that when i first got that airplane. Ooh. Ah, that' that's kind of a big bite. You know, I mean, I know it's not PFM, and I know and i know there's some things going on here.
Speaker: But as I thought about that more, and I challenged myself, and I would be thinking about, okay, as I press the level off, what do I expect the displays to look like? What do I expect the displays to look like for every single phase of flying?
Speaker: And while it is kind of a big bite initially, when you're when you're in training, it will start to force you to analyze what the airplane is trying to do what it's trying to tell you.
Speaker: And that little exercise helped me And it's something I still challenge myself on a long leg somewhere when I'm approaching a point of descent. Okay, what modes do I expect to see? Where do I expect this carrot or ball to drop?
Speaker: What do I expect to see on the VNAV page at this point? And, you know, it's this quiet little conversation you're having with yourself quizzing yourself. It's embarrassing when you're wrong or you're you you miss something.
Speaker: But it's also your biggest catalyst to go, okay, why didn't I not understand that? What's the answer? And then dig in. And it it has helped my synthesis of of what's going on.
Speaker: So when I have people that ask me about how do I figure out this Boeing, how do I know what why it's doing what it's doing? That's what I say. Look at the FMAs.
Speaker: Tell me why it's in each one of those modes and what the next mode is going to be and why. And that little exercise gets them thinking and spinning and helps process us how all this stuff kind of comes to together.
Speaker: The other thing is, and I think we've all taught this, but it's something that gets dropped off a little bit, is many times, especially in the approach phase, The quickest, cleanest way to clean things up is to de-automate and re-automate. If it's not doing what you want, you don't like, or you've got a little bit of confusion, kick everything off and reset it back to what makes sense to you. um You shouldn't have to do that. That's a little bit of a crutch. And again, this is a line guy talking to instructors, but this was something that was taught to me in the 7.2 and even on the MD-11 a little bit.
Speaker: um And it's it's worked to to great effect for me over my career. Mm-hmm. What have you seen that that helps your guys get that, I wouldn't even call it a mastery, but at least a safe operator level of of how it all ties to together?
Speaker: um I agree being able to anticipate what the airplane will do next, anticipate the FMA changes before they happen, anticipate what the box will say before you click a certain button.
Speaker: um But I would say that for us, we do the FTD, the fixed in a fixed training device first before going in the full motion sim. And that's really your ah your opportunity to manipulate nothing but the autopilot using the mode control panel and not have that crutch that everyone uses on the line, which is disconnecting autopilot to make it work and then getting it all back. So in the FTD when it's a little bit slower paced, that's your opportunity to really be able to do a whole flight with nothing but the autopilot and i anticipate those changes.
Speaker: Yeah, well, AJ wasn't throwing up in his mouth a little when I said that like, No, no, that's a terrible technique. And we can always say it is out if it is but it's great on the line, would say for sure. it It Well, it it is what it is and what it is, it's a crutch it is not you know, and and I don't I'm not patting myself on the back when I've done that. I've just gone Okay, something is not quite right.
Speaker: I'm not gonna let the situation degrade any further because I can re automate quicker than I can do my error analysis. And I'll self flagellate about this on the ground. not right now, we're keep this airplane, you know, moving in a safe, proper direction while I'm doing this.
Speaker: I think, you know, just admitting, hey, I want to see that again. Understanding, you know there's a time distance problem in the sim, but I don't have a problem if someone says, hey, I need to do that reroute again because I totally, you know, did it. I got it right, but I didn't understand why. Perfect. that And I totally agree with Alex. That's the time. B phase, procedure phase.
Speaker: If you don't understand, you you're going to be in a real bad place under the loft training. when when I just expect you to get that stuff done in a timely manner. so okay i was going to harp on some of the law training too we've done a really nice job out here in denver lately of revamping our syllabus where you see a lot of different clearances and a lot of different types of very real world scenarios that you would find yourself in on the line with atc and so we try to give you that in the last four uh last four simulator full flight events before you go to your check ride so that you have a very good understanding of
Speaker: Hey, what do I do if I get behind or above the path on VNAV? Or what do I do if I get a delete the speeds on this star or something that I'm not really used to? I get a reroute that I'm not expecting around the weather and then I have some kind of a non-normal is event occur. so Anyway, there's a lot of different lot of different things that are built into the syllabus already. And I think United does a very good job of ah basically taking all of the ah different sim events, at least for the last, for seven, eight, nine, or excuse me, eight, nine, and then 10, they give you actual pairing sheet, and just like you're gonna fly a pairing on the line.
Speaker: and have you fly those specific legs. And so it starts in eight, it goes to nine, which is a little bit builds up a little bit. And then ten is an actual easier sum that we do ah between Albuquerque and Denver. So anyway, it's I think it's nice the way it builds on itself and the the in the amount of realism that's introduced into it from the different ATC clearances and things like that, that really test your knowledge of what's the correct automation management we should be in right now.
Speaker: Okay. Sounds like we all have a yeah similar flow on our program, FTD to maneuvers to LOE kind of stuff. Yeah, realizing once you do your maneuvers, which is what everybody's jacked up about, you know, i passing the maneuvers valve.
Speaker: You're now doing, you know, checklists again and flows and back to the box. So don't don't ram dump all that shit. you're going to need in about another week. yeah You know, and I tell the students during maneuvers, if if you're not thinking about the loft phase, you're behind.
Speaker: Right, you know, you should spend 20, 30 minutes going, okay, let me go over that ah before push checklist real quick because in maneuvers, we the instructor owns the box. We don't do any that stuff because, you know, we have finite amount of time to do nine, you know, V1 cuts and approaches and all this stuff.
Speaker: yeah You've got stay, again, this goes into you've got to invest he yourself, which, you know, Aaron said, you've got to invest in yourself because the students I see be very successful in our um international ops and our full flight seven are the students that are, hey, I kind of looked over this. Even if it was for 30 minutes a day, I'm not reinventing the wheel.
Speaker: I don't have time to reinvent the wheel on six. We have too much to do. Let's go back to the big airplane from medium-sized airplane upgrade or the captain upgrade. What do you see ah what do you see the trends in the failures?
Speaker: um you know I've always found that looking at case studies, looking at accidents, back in pilot training, we had what what we called the book was i think called The Road to Wings, which was a paragraph or two synopsis about every training mishap since...
Speaker: UPT started, ah we called it the road to toast sounds a little morbid, but you learned a lot looking at the mistakes, right? You go, wow, I see how this happened or how dangerous this could be kind of put your own hair on your back and neck saying these are dangerous phases of flight or things to watch out for.
Speaker: ah What are the what are the trouble areas that you see in those more advanced upgrades, the captain upgrades, the big airplane upgrades, if any? One thing I see is for new captains or someone who's maybe newer at the airline is um they're a little bit trying to prove themselves as the captain. They're a little bit stressed about the job.
Speaker: And I think in the same, they're trying to make all the decisions. They're trying to be ah this big captain and impress the instructor. um And the upgrades, that I see do really well are usually the guys that have been at those maybe for 20 years or they've been a captain for a long time on a different airplane. And they're not stressed about trying to prove themselves.
Speaker: They don't care who comes up with the right answer. They just want a successful outcome. So the good captains are the ones that turn to the FO and say, what do you think? What should we do? The FO gives great feedback and sounds good. Let's do that.
Speaker: um You don't need to be forcing yourself as you know the one in charge of the flight deck. You just need a successful outcome. Well, ultimately, it's going to be the captain's decision, right? So it never hurts to go i ask and get as much input as you can because you've got the veto and you can always filter it.
Speaker: yeah But if you if you don't ask those kind of questions, you might miss out on a nice little nugget that somebody had to offer. yeah What else? I think understanding, kind of piling on what Alex said, I think understanding that your aura sets the tone for everything. So if you walk into it stressed, the FO is going to be stressed, the flight attendant is going to be stressed.
Speaker: I see upgrades that are really successful, um are calm, even during the, moment you know, where they're putting the mask on, where, you know, I'm jumping up and down the sim to make as much noise as, you know, rapid D. If they're calm, I find the first officers calm.
Speaker: If they're flailing around, the first officer's flailing around. We're probably missing checkpoints. We're missing checklists. The captain has to be the foundation of the house. So if you've never been a captain before, how do I go in there and I'm calm?
Speaker: Goes back to prep work, making sure you're ready for that captain upgrade. ah You know, we at our company, ah this was probably two years ago. We just got the new contract. I had a new hire who had bid.
Speaker: ah It's in our contract for to be a new hire captain. Right. So he's coming from ah I think he was Sky West. He was captain there for two years. And he he was like, well, I'm going to be a captain in five months.
Speaker: I said, look, you know, that's you know, he's like, I'm doing it for the money and for the, you know, to get ahead on my financials. So what you're doing it for the wrong reasons, man. Captain's a leadership position.
Speaker: And if you're not ready to accept the leadership position, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. ah And quite frankly, he, through the sim, it was actually one of our later stage loft sims.
Speaker: He actually realized himself in his own debrief that he was not ready for that responsibility. but because I had locked it on him per the script and he wasn't ready.
Speaker: And it's I actually appreciated him coming back to the debrief and saying, look, that was eye-opening for me. was like, well, yeah, that's well that's good. That's the step in right direction, right? Admitting you have a deficiency. So I tell guys, if you're going to upgrade to captain, you have 177 souls on board that depend on your decision-making.
Speaker: And if you're not ready to make decisions, you're not ready to be a captain. And I would say as far as ah what kind of captain you can be, think back to the past captains you've had. Maybe you haven't upgraded before, but I'm sure you have a list of great captains that you flew with. Think of their character traits.
Speaker: Think how they, you know, set the tone of the flight deck. And then think back to those bad captains you had as well. And you can use them as mentors and kind of mimic those personalities.
Speaker: Well, you can't fake some things, but I do think that you can have a conversation with yourself that goes something like this. Hey, what would a guy walking into the box that knew he was going to just completely nail this sound and do everything great, how would he carry himself?
Speaker: How would he talk to the instructor? How would he treat his FO? you know How would he talk to people? And he would probably say something like, he's going to be slow and deliberate. He's going to look at you in the eyes and shake your hand when he talks to you.
Speaker: He's not going to be rushed. One of the things i always told my sim partners ah ever since I got the left seat is I really don't give a shit what you know going into this box as long as you know how to do a present position hold.
Speaker: Because I don't care that the instructor wants to get home and play soccer with his kids. He's going to have dinner. He's going to do all these great things because he lives here. You me are going back to hotel. So we'll take all the time we need.
Speaker: So if we get a light or something that You know, I don't know what is because this instructor put something that wasn't on the script on my scenario. Gonna go, okay, let's hold.
Speaker: Let's break out the book. Let's talk about this. But completely ice water, unless we're on fire or or something catastrophic is happening, I'm pouring fuel out of a fuel tank somewhere, I've got time. That's the one aspect I've got. So setting a pace, setting a tone, uh,
Speaker: And that's not always our natural inclination we first show up at training. We're a little bit nervous, right? So you can fake it. What would a guy who's going to just nail everything look like? Now pretend to be him. And what happens is you establish that loop because you start carrying yourself like that.
Speaker: The people around you start to give the feedback like, well, I'm glad he's my captain because he's pretty calm and squared away. And you realize, hey, these people are looking at me. They trust me. Things are going okay. Instructor seems to think I'm doing all right.
Speaker: and you establish the positive feedback um now that only works if you do actually the head work that you need to before right that you actually are prepared but visualizing as i said model the captains that you looked up to model the captains that you liked and certainly my mentors were the ones that were always kind to everybody slow and deliberate are you ready we'll go when you're ready okay here we are both and that confidence carries over into my performance, it carries over into the FO, it sets the tone that you're talking about.
Speaker: And that's something that can be done. And I think a lot of that can be done. And like I mentioned, my last train was upgrade captain, I are upgrading captain, I had a great FO. And we we studied together, we practiced our call outs together, we worked at the cockpit mockups together.
Speaker: So by the time we got to the sim, we already kind of done this. We were just okay, now we get to show what we know to the instructor, he's gonna give us some new good stuff. But we're prepared.
Speaker: And I think that confidence carried over. So um one thing I will say to people that are listening is, if you need advice, if you want some help, you know, reach out to some of your mentors, it's one of the funnest things to see people take a leap in aviation, to make that next big step,
Speaker: And your peers and your friends will want to see you succeed. You don't have to do it alone. And if you do have a situation where ah this instructor and I aren't clicking or my sim partner and I or it seems like I'm struggling in certain areas, there's a lot of times that a 30 40 minute phone call with somebody that's been there done that can can pay a lot of big dividends. So you're not an island, reach out.
Speaker: So let's talk about you guys personally for just a few minutes to wrap this up. For those of you that were here to listen to all about tips for training, that's great. A lot of people end up working in the training department, they find their niche there. And it turns out to be a really rewarding quality of life.
Speaker: And I never did it at my airline, though, the one reason I thought about it or was tempted a couple of times, the thing that appealed to me was always, I'm gonna have to be forced to know this airplane to know my systems and other procedures, and the confidence that you get with that.
Speaker: ah In my military days, I was a schoolhouse instructor for 10 years, and I felt like I knew the F-15 pretty well, knew how to employ it, knew several ways to approach a problem from different angles as far as an instructor, and that gave me a lot of great confidence.
Speaker: That's the kind of confidence I see you guys with, you know, in your respective airplanes now, but I'm not trying to jam words in your mouth. I'd like to hear from you guys. What made you decide to be an instructor, and what is it about the job that that you enjoy now?
Speaker: Let's start with AJ. You got to want to do it, right? It's got to be in your DNA. that I like teaching. I like you know bringing up the new guys, keeping the operations safe. This thing's got to be around for all of us to enjoy, right? So if we bend metal, that that's going to be a problem for your business and your career.
Speaker: So... kind of looking out for myself, looking out for my bros from that perspective. But time off is nice. You're home just about every night when you're teaching, when you're out flying, you're just, you know, doing your flying gig. But you're also driving in to work 17, 20 days a month. So there's that.
Speaker: um You can command your schedule really well. ah You get your days off, at least a handful of them that are no touchy. few more they try and honor. And then you can do off period combos where if you got an appointment early in the day, hey, I can work late.
Speaker: So you really command your schedule, which is right nice. how what For a junior instructor at your company, how often would they be expected to fly? Would they fly a two-day or three-day trip every month, every couple of months?
Speaker: I realize it may vary seasonally, but is is there an average or a typical? We do it where you get sent to line for the whole month. You bid whatever you can hold as a line holder that month.
Speaker: And then when you're in department, it's by seniority, whether you're a seniority list instructor, a PCP, and then APD. So, and then as far as when you're flying the line versus teaching, that's the needs of the airline. So I've flown seven out of the last eight months, but we just had some problems with our 321 Neo not getting certified.
Speaker: So royal called the bullpen, 75, come on. So we've got all of the next three new higher classes and we're full board teaching. So I'll be in the schoolhouse for the next four or five months doing nothing, but check rides and getting guys trained up.
Speaker: Okay, and for the record, ah you said you drive to work, right? So you're not commuter. You live just down the street. It's pretty easy. Yeah, I got about a 24-minute commute. It's easy. Okay, nice. how about you We have had guys commute from Bozeman to Atlanta, and that's not the worst thing. You come in, you got your crash pad, maybe double bang a couple days and get your work done and then take a week off.
Speaker: Okay. Well, Alex, you're on the other end. you're ah You're a new instructor and you're still commuting. How how does that work for you? Yep. Yeah, it's definitely a different job as a commuter. Um, I would say the job is built to be living in base where you're home every night, but it does work fairly well as a commuter. I kind of tested the waters the first six months or so to see if it would work out well. And, um, I try to make it similar to flying a line. So I try to go out to Denver three days, maybe four days at a time.
Speaker: And it makes it feel like a three day trip or a four day trip. Um, and, The majority of instructors, I would say, live in base, but there are quite a few who commute as well. So it is commutable. For you, is there a, because you don't drive to work, as you look at your seniority on this particular airplane through the years, is there a point that you reach a break even or even you lose out ah economically if you give up the training job? Or is it even with the schedule you've got and having commute, is it financially advantage or advantageous to be an instructor?
Speaker: Yeah, I'd say ah a comparable position would be if I was ah like a 737 captain. um And my schedule for that, I'd be very junior. So I pretty much just get what I get, be on reserve a lot.
Speaker: um A few perks of being in the training department is the bidding. Even though I'm very junior in the training center, um I can usually get the days off I want. And so even though I'm junior, getting the days off I want um is a pretty big help right now.
Speaker: One more question for you. You've got a youthful face. You've been at the company you know less than three years, and yet you're doing upgrades. Do you do Chloe's?
Speaker: No. so I do pretty much all the full mission sim lessons, but not the MV yet, and then I'm not LOE. Okay. um Well, that makes sense. I'm just wondering, do you ever get blowback from the grizzled 22-year captain who comes into the sim goes, you know you look like my son?
Speaker: How does ah is that ever a dynamic or is is it, are everybody professional enough it just get gets handled? um I thought it maybe would be before starting the job.
Speaker: But I will say you're good at what you do. So when I'm teaching the same lesson every day, know, someone comes in with a bunch of questions, I usually know the answer. I usually know where to find it.
Speaker: yeah I've got the whole brief prepared. So I think pretty quickly they see, you know, our company sets us up really well to teach the lessons. um And so as long as they are receiving good training,
Speaker: um I think there aren't any complaints. So your actions carry the credibility. It's not just age. It's not just seniority. It's it's what we're doing in the in the box. brief OK.
Speaker: ah Wilson, you're a you're a driver to work kind of guy. What do you like about it? yeah I mean, I'm going to, I'll double tap what AJ said earlier. Just the fact you've got to want to serve the pilot group. And so I think that's kind of the thing that first and foremost drew me to the instructor position. i had a mentor who's I think about to come back into the building as a triple seven evaluator.
Speaker: um But he basically kind of told me a little bit about, hey, you know, if you've got young kids, this is an amazing job. um I've got a four-year-old and a six-year-old pre-K and first grade.
Speaker: and it's pretty amazing to be home and be dad as much as i am so in terms of being able to have a more normal family life uh being right here in denver with a 35 to 50 depending on traffic minute drive to work uh it's pretty unbelievable i still miss the flying sometimes and i do get out to fly uh with our company usually it's like one to two days a month something like that is typically how it shakes out um and so yeah i miss that and i'm able to go out and get my fix and one of the great things is we actually build the trips that we want so we can go out and specifically say hey i want to
Speaker: want to go to this cool place that i've never been before uh for me earlier this month that was saint marty i've never gotten to go down to the beach and see the people hanging on the fences and stuff like that uh as the jet blast kind of carries them backwards towards the water and uh anyway so i got a chance to to go land there and experience that and then fly back out of there um you know on a nice little two-day trip that we did so There's a lot of really cool benefits that I could talk to about that. I think the the one that that certainly comes to the foremost in my mind is just legitimately wanting to help the pilot group fly the safest and best that they can and give back.
Speaker: How about how about drawbacks to the training department? Is there anything that you find frustrating or that might tempt you back to the line at some point? and There's a lot of changes. yeah and yeah there's There's things that change constantly in the training department, whether you know going through the de current flight manual you know that we we change, it feels like almost monthly sometimes, um some of the syllabus stuff that happens, that you're relearning different events.
Speaker: that they've put in a different you know a different script for, different um trained to proficiency item, or maybe it's something that's instructor scheduling related. there's some quality of life things that you know while we've we've gotten some really good things on the compensation side, because we've gotten some of those things, we've wound up giving up some other things on the quality of life and some of the yeah scheduling pieces of it. So Again, we are able to get most of the days off that we want and life is pretty awesome. But that being said, ah there can certainly be trade-offs at times based off of you know constant change, I guess would be ah the thing you have to be comfortable living with, which most of the military guys that I know, how Luke included, are just look at his youthful face there.
Speaker: Well, you know, one of the things as an airline ah interview coach, I'm very familiar with the sine wave and the way things go up and down for hiring. You guys are kind of at that whipsaw training the new hires. But what about your own job security in the training department? you guys regularly have cutbacks or are you at threat for losing your positions based on hiring cycles or the jobs typically fairly stable once you work your way into the training department?
Speaker: Well, I think, Aaron, that depends, right? ah Last year with the door coming off the seven three some stuff was in flux in our building here in Denver.
Speaker: um Management has been ah very steadfast in we have enough instructors on the 7-3. Alex can speak to the seven five since we all work for the same uncle.
Speaker: ah But – Right now, we we are overstaffed on the 7-3 side, um but the company expects growth to happen, and they've invested a lot of money into us. like Wilson and I are basically the same timeframe, so we can do validation events for the MV, and we're looking at some ah higher quals here soon.
Speaker: um So the company is really trying to stabilize the instructor force. We're not hiring, unfortunately, right now. It's basically lose one, gain one. So we're not seeing a lot of attrition inside the building.
Speaker: But luckily, in management ah is on board on basically facilitating ah the instructor group. staying in the same size ah for the time being. Right. I'm sure there's some bean counter lurking around saying there's a cut date to start lopping heads off. But ah for right now, the word is we are at where we're at. And we expect Boeing to produce airplanes and expect to be very busy this summer and fall.
Speaker: Very frankly, is the is the is the writing on the wall. Okay, fantastic. AJ, anything different on your side of Mississippi? Yeah, I'll tell ah kind of our story coming out of the shitstorm where we early retired 1,700 guys. We were max plus 10% for about two years training. We hired 70 instructors in a year and a half where a normal big year would be five, right?
Speaker: ah So we had new guys watching new guys, being watched by new guys. It was not good. We hired a handful of captain-only SLI instructors, and they were really good either. You know, they came in with some attitudes. They didn't hit the books as hard as a first officer would, and they were poor seat fillers, to tell you the truth. So that was a bad experiment.
Speaker: Now things have slowed down and we just lopped off 20% the workforce. And the way they did that, they took student critique grades and started at the bottom and picked up the phone.
Speaker: So when we got to the last guy, he was 0.01 difference from the next grade up and sorry, man, I gotta let you go. um So working hard every day, raising your hand for additional duties meant something in the In the end, it was student critiques. So I think that's the should be done.
Speaker: Well, that's a good lesson. I mean, in life, ah in business, good customer service it is critical. And you guys are in the customer service business. You're serving your customer as, you know, your major airline is one master, right? They need a good quality product out on the line.
Speaker: But you're also serving the student, right? They deserve your very best effort. And I think all of us have a few examples in our airline career. If you've been around for a while, that instructor that just seemed to relish it, eat it up, enjoy teaching, found ways to challenge you. And and actually, maybe even within an AQP syllabus, there's ways to tailor a briefing or tailor approach based on somebody's but experience level or what they're bringing to the table.
Speaker: And then we've all probably had that instructor. it looks like they're looking at their watch and can't wait to get home to you know, grow up in your backyard or play soccer with their kids or something, which are which your noble goals, but not at the expense of somebody who's only getting in the box, you know, once every nine months or ah once a year.
Speaker: So you want to emulate the people that like captains that you want to be, be the instructor that you want to have. Your clients appreciate it, your students appreciate it, your employer appreciates it, and it's good for your job security. So that's ah that's a good lesson.
Speaker: Is there anything else you'd like to tell, you know, it what would you tell yourself, you know, 27 years ago or five years ago or three years ago, depending on when you got hired, you know, that that you know about training now that might have made it a little bit better, a little bit easier? Any last minute reattacks to maybe make a difference for somebody?
Speaker: I would tell i would tell me to take a break, right? You know, I came to the company and I didn't go home for 30 days because it was too too tough to get the the positive space back to Norfolk.
Speaker: And so I just kind of grinded out 30 days because, you know, what's 30 days? I've done a year on deployment, right? So I would say take that break, mental health, really understand where you're at mentally and physically. And I think it goes a long way for training.
Speaker: okay anything else
Speaker: i think it's a good thing to to harp on it's this this career in general is a uh it's a marathon not a sprint and so there's all kinds of different jobs and roles you can find yourself in whether or that's being a first officer for a little bit coming into the building for a little bit upgrading to captain or going over to the wide body later on and being a funky for a little bit, whatever it is, um there's some there's some good variation in the flying that you can do here. And it's, ah you know, if you're going to be at the company for 30, potentially 30 plus years, make sure that you're able to kind of keep up with that mental health and continue to do something that's encouraging you, challenging you and that you're happy with. And
Speaker: I'm super fortunate that I've found the current role that I'm in right now up here in Denver. It's been absolutely amazing for all of those reasons, for sure, to kind of take a little bit of a break, like Luke said. We've got a little mantra that says we should be knowledgeable, humble, and credible.
Speaker: but you also don't have to know everything, right? I learn a lot from smart students and I'm like, well i might not know the answer, but while you guys are setting up the box, I'm gonna find it or I'm gonna call you tonight, right?
Speaker: And as Alex is learning, once you have been in the schoolhouse, you will never sweat going to the box again, ever, in the machine, right? and RVR 1800.
Speaker: Roger. it That's good, yeah, the confidence, the... the ah The knowledge, the habit patterns, that's that's all good stuff. Alex, you're the new one on the block.
Speaker: What have you learned in the last couple of years that you just think is invaluable to pass on? um I would say as ah a new hire at ah at a new airline, taking notes is crucial. Everyone learns differently. But for me, taking new notes is really important. I see a lot of people who don't take notes. And then later on that lesson, they'll say, I never knew that when it was in the brief just two hours ago. So.
Speaker: um To me, it's very helpful. I was really surprised looking at my notes as a new hire when I was learning to be instructor. There's things I had written down that I had completely forgotten and um I was surprised it was in there. So trust the training, take notes and it all builds on each other. So if you can stay on top of it and review the lesson one all the way to the end, um then you should be able to progress just fine.
Speaker: Okay. Well, gentlemen, I've got a lot out of this. Thank you so much for your time and for your perspectives. Thanks for what you're doing out of the line. I think this has been a, you know, the start of 2025 has reminded us that safety out there is an automatic.
Speaker: It's earned every leg, but you know, every trip, day after day, week after week, month after month, discipline, training, habit patterns, they all count. And the foundation for a lot of that starts with with people like you. so Thanks for what you're doing for our industry.
Speaker: Thanks for sharing your insights. And I sincerely appreciate your time and and your input.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us today. This has been Cockpit Conversations with Aaron Hagen from Emerald Coast Interview Consulting. Have some ideas for future interesting episodes?
Speaker: Contact us at emeraldcoastinterviewconsulting.com with your ideas and inputs. We look forward to hearing from you.
