m0a nation magda here welcome to our new series flying with family and friends
hey missouri nation jason schappert here of alongside the love of my life magda welcome
into our new series flying with family and friends which is really something sweetie it was placed
on your heart that's right that's for that's right well first of all thank you for this opportunity i
am so excited about this new series because it's something that i feel really really related to
one thing i have never mentioned before i believe is that when jason and i started flying together
i was really intimidated i was scared to fly at certain places you know above water or at the
mountains and you know with a little airplane and i realized that my fear was because of my lack of
knowledge yes so i said you know what what can i do to start enjoying aviation because he loves it
and when we go to places it's just amazing what an experience no doubt so i realized that there are
just a few things that i could learn to do on the ground and actually help me understand a little
bit more what's going on and make me feel safe as well and that's what this series is all about here
how can we empower our co-pilots our spouses our best friends our sons our daughters whoever that
is that you fly with and maybe they're not a pilot maybe they have no dream of becoming a pilot but
what are some things they can do so we can go from a distraction to an asset in the cockpit how can
we even open non-pilots to make some crm and some magic kind of happen with that so throughout this
month we're going to share how magda and i fly together work together and how her even helping
with the most basic things really goes a long way in the cockpit and this lesson really starts here
on the ground i'm going to kick it off to magda who's going to share with you really three things
she does to start while i'm busy doing my pre-flight and then we'll bring it back in and
share some more great items all right co-pilot so there are three simple things that jason taught me
to do on the ram that actually i can be an asset and help him so first of all when
jason is doing his pre-flight and checking fuel and stuff i just start working on the tie-downs
so i normally start with the wing so you will find typically three tie downs on the aircraft
one by each wing and one by the tail so this is very easy i just want to emphasize here that
jason taught me that for some reason many people have the habit of just throwing the rope like this
on the ramp and this is actually dangerous because the propeller and the wind can catch the rope
and it can damage the aircraft so what we need to do here is just get the rope and put it together
all the way together so it doesn't fly away so that's it super simple another thing i would
like to share with you is about the chucks so how i remember about shocks are blocks so normally
they put the chucks or the blocks by the by one or two or three wheels it's very interesting how
different pilots different fpos they have different ways to to choke the airplane
so in this case we are here in ocala and they chucked 2 3 mike zulu by the left wheel so this
is very interesting because sometimes i find three shocks sometimes i i find one so what i do here i
go around the airplane make sure i have i spot all three or just one and i grab the chalks by
the rope so i don't get my hands dirty and i just put it on the side by the cones the reason why
i want to put it on the side by the cones is because i want to make sure that jason sees
that the the chalks are away it's very interesting here that jason flies from the right seat because
he is an instructor and the chucks were on the left wheel so it's very easy for him to miss
so i want to make sure that i always do a lap around the airplane to make sure all
the chugs are removed and finally my last thing is about the cones we have one cone by each wing
and then one by the tail and one by the propeller the cones by the wings are very easy for jason
to sear for the pilot to see but the one from the tail and the one by the propeller
are the ones that we need to make sure we remove so we grab the cone and we put it on the side
with the other cones and the chalk by the wings so now those are the three simple things that
you can do and be an asset on the ground so now let's come back to jason and let's hear about
propeller safety 12 hands who would rather just see magden videos instead of me i know i would
anyways propeller safety we want to share a little bit about now talk why i'm holding a tow bar here
in just a second rule of thumb pilots to teach your co-pilots and co-pilots who are watching this
rule of thumb let's just always say the propeller is always hot and i don't mean hot to the touch
what do i mean it could turn over at any second anything could happen it could always just fire on
just always assume propellers are dangerous right that's how we want to kind of treat this situation
so any time and it's okay to pull the airplane with the tow bar by the propeller assuming you've
confirmed that it's cold and how do i know if it's cold well short of looking inside and checking the
ignition where the keys are you know one habit we have and pilots and co-pilots i hope you'll adopt
this is you'll notice the keys the keys are always up on the dashboard for us everyone can always see
and go the keys are not in the ignition right now there's still some mechanical things that could
happen very rare that could cause this to fire over so it's always just best to say hey it's
always hot that being said when we're working with the tow bar when i'm working with the tow
bar i don't want to come underneath what's called the propeller's arc i mean if it spun it would get
me essentially so what i want to do is i want to always come from the side when putting on
the tow bar or taking off the tow bar now i'm very particular too i want it to be this side
not the other side that has the exhaust we were talking about things being hot earlier literally
the exhaust could be hot you don't know if this just came back for a flight if you don't own the
airplane if it's a flight school or a flying club if you own the airplane you may know but again
always assume the exhaust is hot so when working with things like the tow bar with working around
the propeller we want to always approach it's typically have to look at your airplane but in
our case it's pilot's side coming in to pre-flight the nose to adjust the tow bar to do anything like
that that's really the main stays of propeller safety now to wrap up this ground-based series or
not series just this particular video clip i want magda to teach you a thing or two about how she
loads the airplane because while i'm pre-flight she's low in the airplane and let me let you on
a secret nobody can fit more things in a 172 and stay within weight and balance than that lady so
i think that was a compliment but i am not quite sure anyways so one thing i would like to share
with you here is that i learned from experience that when you want to take something with you
like your purse your bag your phone snacks water whatever it is that you think you will need during
flight make sure it stays near you because if you can reach it you are not going to get it and
if you need something during the flight don't put it in the back in the luggage compartment because
you will not be able to get it during flight so another thing that i would like to share is that
when we fly with 2-3 mike zulu you know every aircraft is different so you need to ask your
pilot about this but jason told me that with this cessna 172 the heaviest luggage must be as
forward as possible so what i do is to start with the heaviest luggage and put it on the bottom on
the first thing and lighter things on top if i have any questions i always go and ask jason
and he helps me with the weight and balance but i encourage you to before you start packing share
share and talk with your pilots about the mission and what you will need and what you can bring
based on how many people are on board and the fuel and everything else but anyways super easy super
exciting please let us know in the comments below how you prepare how you work with your co-pilot
where do you go what do you do to enjoy aviation so i can learn so everybody in the m0 nation can
learn and most importantly we can all learn and grow aviation together so mcrae nation please
leave out the comment below and most importantly remember a good pilot is always learning
mgr nation jason here i hope you absolutely loved that video can't wait to read your comments below
this video but before we dive into that i need to share with you an amazing amazing contest
we're running right now the fly with jason contest all this month leading up to oshkosh we're going
to be giving away a flight with myself we'll cover your airfare in we'll put you in a hotel
and you are going flying with myself we're actually going to have four winners of this
contest someone working on their private someone working on their instrument someone working on
a commercial pilot plus we'll call it and then of course we'll open it up as well to
co-pilots as well which is perfect for that flying a family and friends series as well so
head over to flywithjason.com and go ahead and enter no purchase necessary just head over to
the website all the contest details are there we picking our winners live at oshkosh 2021