It's not an emergency if you're ready for it.
Hey, everyone, Jason Schappert here of MZeroA.com,
and you are listening to the Commercial Pilot Podcast,
brought to you by our number one-rated online ground school.
Visit MZeroA.com to check it out and learn more.
April is a phenomenal month.
So many great things happening.
Please, please, head over to MZeroALive.com,
so you can check it out,
learn more about some of the great livestreams.
Hopefully, you had a chance to be in our birthday celebration, 14 years,
for MZeroA.com.
What a blessing that has been to serve you all for so many years.
Hopefully, you had a chance to catch that, if not,
you've caught the recording already.
MZeroALive.com, as we talk more about mastery this week.
And, next week, we'll be diving into another great Zoom call altogether.
I just cannot wait to share with you.
So, really looking forward to that.
Thank you for everything that you all do.
It is an honor to work alongside and share with you all,
and it's an honor today to talk about the topic that everybody doesn't really--
not that we don't like it.
It's just not used a lot, which is emergencies.
And, I opened up by saying
it's not an emergency if you're ready for it.
Well, you're still going to squawk 7700.
It's still, by definition, an emergency.
It's just a catchy way of saying,
if you prepare for the unexpected and expect the unexpected,
it's not going to come as a surprise, if I had to put that in plain English.
So, don't take me out of context there,
and there's haters out there in the world that do such a thing sometimes.
And, that's okay.
It takes all types to make the world go around.
We water the rose for the benefit of the thorns as well.
And, there's some thorns out there.
You all are roses.
Don't worry. Don't worry.
You don't fit in the thorn category if you're listening to this.
Anyways, it's not an emergency if you're ready for it.
This is the problem I have,
commercial pilots and future commercial pilots.
You practice emergencies
and you practice them during your private pilot training.
You practice them.
You did them on your checkride.
You went through instrument.
You did partial panel.
You went through all these things, but at some point in your flying career,
you'll find yourself a pilot just flying.
I see this often in between private and instrument.
Someone becomes a private pilot,
that I see them in 24 calendar months for their flight review,
and we get up to altitude,
I pull the power back to idle for an engine failure,
and I ask, "When's the last time you did this?"
They go, "Huh, I don't know.
Probably, on my checkride."
Or, even better,
"I don't know. Probably, 24 months ago, Jason,
when you last did my flight review."
And, I think, "What?
It's been two years since you've practiced, perhaps,
what could be the most important landing of your life."
I'm all about spaced repetition and the science of learning,
but can I tell you?
Two years is way too much space.
You can let some months, maybe, lapse between that one,
but, my God, not years, please.
Do you have protocol in place to continue to practice emergency procedures?
And, yes, I would love for you to rent the airplane out,
go out to the practice area, do a simulated engine failure,
spiral down to landing on a grass strip,
like we did in episode 3 of the 31 Day Safer Pilot Challenge
at the beginning of this year, January 2021.
Yes, I would prefer that.
But, could you make your next landing a power-off 180?
Could you do that?
Would that be terrible?
Could you make your next landing
at a pilot-controlled field that's just dead,
there's nothing happening there?
Get over top the field, pull the engine back to idle at 3,000 feet
and steep spiral down?
Assuming no one's there and you're not intruding on anybody,
or if tower could clear you for that, if it's not busy.
Could you do that?
These are ways we can practice.
Even though we're still doing our same cross-countries,
even though we're still getting out there and making these things happen,
I want you to focus on those things.
How do you become a master of emergency procedures?
You expect the unexpected.
And, it's so easy to say, "Jason, expect the unexpected.
Well, what possibilities are there?"
My goodness, there's so many possibilities.
How can I prepare for the engine fire on start,
the engine failure on takeoff, the engine failure in-flight,
getting my plane iced up, losing my vacuum system,
engine fire in flight, electrical fire?
I could just go on and on naming things in the back of my checklist.
Or, I could sit back and, each week, maybe each month,
that's my focus.
What's your electrical fire in flight procedure?
How would you know if you had an electrical fire in flight?
Why can't that just become your all-consuming passion
for the month to chair-fly these things?
To practice these things?
To work through them?
To memorize the flows rotely, and then understand and correlate,
apply all of these as well into some muscle memory
and what you would actually do and understand what in my airplane
could cause an electrical failure?
What am I going to lose when I flip the master switch off?
My flaps aren't going to work.
Oh, no, I have manual flaps.
What am I going to lose?
What am I going to gain?
Every airplane is so different.
My Cherokee 140 I used to fly had manual flaps.
My 172 has electric flaps.
So, in some instances, I'll lose flaps.
In some instances, I won't.
What if this happens now at night?
I have no landing light, no flaps, no avionics.
I'm practicing my glassy water landing,
like we learned about at the beginning of March.
Mastering emergency procedures
has to become an all-consuming immersed process,
is what it really comes down to.
And, maybe, taking an item from the POH,
taking an item from the emergency checklist,
and working through that can serve you.
And, that can make you the safer, smarter pilot,
and that can do what you're on the quest to actually do,
which is pursue mastery, pursue being that safer, smarter pilot,
the good pilot who's always learning,
because that's what you're really after with everything, right?
So, I can master emergencies by thinking about them,
expecting the unexpected, always being ready for this.
And, then, there's a little factor in there that comes with time.
And, it's knowing your airplane and knowing your gut.
And, maybe, you're this way with an airplane.
I hope that's the case.
But, you're this way with other things.
Have you ever been so close to a person
that you just know when they're off a little bit?
A spouse, a best friend, a child.
"You're not you today, what's happening?"
You don't know what--
You can't put your finger on it just yet, but something's not right.
And, you know something's not right.
Is it a gut feeling?
Is it how you perceive it?
Where does that level of intelligence come from?
It's clairvoyance, in a way.
Where does that come from?
It's instincts.
And, you experience it with humans.
You also experience this with machine, though, as well.
Have you ever been so close to a car, a motorcycle, a boat,
an airplane,
where, "It just sounds different today.
It's just not running how it used to always run?"
I remember, I was so close--
I still am, obviously.
2-3-Mike-Zulu used to be 7-1-5-9-Quebec, and I used to fly traffic.
I was a traffic reporter.
I've shared this a million times in the Commercial Pilot Podcast.
I'd fly traffic a traffic loop, and I'd report traffic accidents
around downtown Jacksonville, Florida
two hours in the morning, from 7:00 to 9:00,
and then two hours in the afternoon, from 4:00 to 6:00, during rush hour.
And, I would just report these traffic accidents to a local radio station.
I'd fly the same loop
at the same RPM, at the same altitude,
assuming clouds would allow for that, every single day, four hours a day.
I was so in tune with that airplane,
that I knew that engine was time for an overhaul
before it showed any other signs
because it sounded differently.
I remember, again, thousands of hours of listening to that airplane
through a passive David Clark headset.
I still have the bad hearing to prove it.
And, I remember the first day I was able to save up
and buy the original Bose headset.
And, I bought a Bose headset, I turned on the ANR.
I thought, "This is awesome,"
and I thought, "The engine sounds different."
I was so used to the passive headset, that when I switched headsets,
the same airplane, different headset,
now noise-canceling, sounded different to me.
And, all that primacy, all that recency,
these are principles of some learning and some long-term memory
and short-term memory reconciliation, I guess,
went out the window because I had to re-learn
how the airplane sounded with this new headset.
That's why it would behoove you to get a headset early on
and just know that headset, know that airplane through that,
not bounce around between a million rental headsets
at your local flight school.
So, that would benefit you greatly.
That would benefit you.
I had to relearn how the airplane sounds
because sometimes you just have these instincts
where something doesn't sound right.
Or, even better, something doesn't feel right.
There's actually, a sub-chapter in "Aviation Mastery," the book,
called Something Doesn't Feel Right.
And, it's where I share my story of my engine failure on takeoff,
where I lost cylinder number three on takeoff at 400 feet in 5-1-2-Romeo,
now 5-1-2-Mike-Zulu, my beloved Cessna 150.
And, I just think of this, and I knew it backfired that day.
It didn't sound right.
It didn't feel right.
I had a weird gut feeling.
Have you ever just had a gut feeling that someone is mad at you?
That this doesn't sound right, this doesn't feel right?
Mastery is within those feelings.
There is mastery within that clairvoyance, within that whatever you want to call it.
I don't care what you want to call it.
But, its meeting machine, it's meeting human, it doesn't matter.
You have to know your airplane at that deeper level.
You have to know where your airplane likes to be leaned out to.
You have to know what your airplane sounds like,
what the airplane feels like.
I remember another story.
We never had an autopilot on 2-3-Mike-Zulu.
Then, we added an autopilot, add these servos.
And, I was so used to flight controls free and correct.
I've done it a million times.
I know exactly what those flight controls feel like.
We added an autopilot, which added servos to the control cables,
which just made everything a little bit heavier
on that flight controls free and correct check.
And, still to this day, I don't know how many hours I have in it since that.
I have to go back and look.
I do that, and even the pre-flight, when you move them on the pre-flight,
they move differently.
The elevator, especially.
I think, "Is this normal?"
It's the new normal.
And, I just think, "Wow, this is going to take some getting used to."
I had pretty darn close to master what this airplane feels like,
what this airplane sounds like,
and we've done things now that have caused that to change.
You may be hopping from aircraft to aircraft.
You may be the classic commercial pilot that doesn't have the luxury
of flying the same airplane all the time,
so you just bounce from airplane to airplane.
And, it's hard to master different airplanes.
But, sometimes, that diversity,
that mixed practice in so many different airplanes
will actually make you a better pilot
when you finally find a home in one airplane
and spend all your time in that airplane.
Tom, who edits these podcasts, is probably thinking--
You know Tom flies 2-3-Mike-Zulu a lot.
But, then, he goes and flies a Lear 50 a lot.
There's a lot of differences between a 172 and a Lear 50.
Tom's laughing, shaking his head right now, I'm sure, listening to this.
And, you think,
"Wow, the level of mastery it takes for someone
to bounce from a Lear 50 in the right seat to bounce to a 172 in the right seat."
It takes a switch that you have to flip.
And, mastery comes when you also can add diversity to the equation,
where you can be a master,
and Tom's humble enough to never call himself a master.
Tom would call himself, "Listen, I'm a learner.
I'm a student of all things.
And, I'm in the pursuit of mastery.
I'm in the pursuit of mastery in the Lear 50,"
he would tell you, or the pursuit of even mastering the humble 172.
And, that's a great attitude to have.
You may know a lot, but you're willing to learn more,
and you're willing to go with your gut when something just doesn't feel right.
And, that can be a powerful thing.
And, maybe, you have a story
whether it's in aviation or just life or something didn't feel right.
Let me know in the comments below.
I'd love to hear about it because it's true of all aspects of things.
Your gut, your instinct--
It's not really your gut.
It's more your heart, more than anything.
And, it is a smart, smart device, nonetheless.
And, whatever you want to call it, wherever you believe it comes from,
that's not as important as that you actually apply it and use it
and choose to listen to it and choose to learn from it as well.
"This airplane doesn't feel right.
This airplane doesn't sound right.
This airplane isn't performing as it should.
I'm not getting the power out of this airplane that I should."
Stand up and land the airplane.
Don't continue on,
because that's the day you'll have your engine failure.
And, I pray to God you never have that experience.
But, this is how you become a master of emergencies.
You prevent them from ever happening, in the first place.
In the event that they do, you've already planned for the unexpected.
So, while everybody else is hitting the panic button,
you're chill, you are calm, cool, and collected, sitting back there.
Commercial pilots, that's how you master emergencies.
Mastery is a quest, not a score on a test.
I don't care how well you do on your knowledge tests, your checkrides.
I mean, I do care, and I know you're going to pass them with flying colors.
But, honestly, team,
I'm here to make you a real-world pilot, a safe real-world pilot.
I have never doubted you on your written test.
You may doubt yourself, but I don't doubt you.
I have never doubted you on your checkride.
You may doubt yourself on your checkride, but I don't doubt you.
I've never doubted you're going to be a safe real-world pilot,
because if you're listening to this podcast--
And, I want you to notice something, too.
If you watch this on YouTube or Facebook,
the podcast, they get a lot of listens on iTunes and stuff,
usually, this and the CFI get the least amount of views,
just because there's fewer commercial pilots and CFIs.
If you're hearing my voice right now,
you're one of the best pilots out there.
I hope I can hire you one day.
I mean that.
I seriously, seriously mean that.
I hope I can hire you one day,
because I want people like you on our team, because you get it.
You get it that mastery never ends, that "a good pilot is always learning"
isn't a catchy slogan.
It's something to live by.
So, next time you see MZeroA open to accepting applications,
I want you to put in yours.
"Hey, Jason, you said you'd hired me one day
on the Commercial Pilot Podcast.
I heard you.
Give me a chance."
That'll jump you up, no doubt.
So, I cannot wait until that day.
But, listen, you're a blessing.
Thank you for everything that you do.
It is absolutely outstanding.
Have an incredible, wonderful, blessed rest of your week.
And most importantly, remember,
that a good pilot is always learning.
Have a great day, everybody. We'll see you.