Midlife Pilot Podcast

EP163 - The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Midlife Pilot - Part 2: From Dream to Checkride Part 2 of our Ultimate Guide tackles the training ecosystem from CFI selection to checkride reality. While Brian demonstrates "evasive maneuvers" on instrument approaches, the crew covers milestone moments and why your bank account will never forgive you. Key Training Insights: Find a CFI you can &qu...

The crew has just released their comprehensive Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Midlife Pilot - a 23-page PDF packed with community wisdom from hundreds of pilots who started flying at 40, 50, 60, and beyond. Download it FREE at midlifepilotpodcast.com! This is the first episode in a three-part series walking through this game-changing resource that answers the question every aspiring midlife pilot as...

Join the gang as they toast to 2025's greatest hits: Ben earning the coveted "you are a badass MF" landing review from his wife, Brian discovering his Cherokee is indeed "the Toyota Camry of the skies" when loaded with three dudes and camera gear, and Ted conquering his first real Rockies crossings. Plus, the moment we've all been waiting for - The Thaden Invasion is of...

Ben leads the crew through a heartfelt discussion on the power of aviation community, proving that even "internet pilot buddies who are somehow both extremely wise and definitely unsupervised" can create something meaningful together. While Brian emerges from his five-week "gateway drug situation" of nonstop testing (having "forgotten how to function as a normal human bein...

Like George Costanza pulling a golf ball from a whale's blowhole, Ben emerges from a harrowing 3.5-hour IMC flight through icing conditions with quite the tale to tell. Our intrepid Atlanta pilot finds himself wondering "did I get away with one? This sparks a deep dive into normalization of deviance, expanding personal minimums, and whether Ben just wrote "the first line of his NTSB...

1DullGeek casually announces he's signed a contract for a Czech-built TL Sparker and will spend a month in Prague building it – because apparently "24 cubic feet of cargo space" (more than his compact SUV!) justifies international aircraft construction. The only minor detail? He has absolutely nowhere to hangar this composite beauty that "costs more than his house." Cue the...

The spotted cow tradition lives on as the crew discusses building instrument flows (Wendy's "source-morse-course" wisdom), why updating flows is harder than you think (law of primacy), and the great EFB pricing debate (Sky Demon €120 vs ForeFlight $370+ in Europe). Plus: celebrating no-go decisions as bigger accomplishments than completing flights, Ted's minimalist wedding where...

Checkride prep reality check with CFII Erica Gilbert! Brian passes his instrument written ("a solid grilled cheese sandwich with slightly better ingredients than Kraft singles"), Ben confesses his multi-engine notice of disapproval after chasing the CDI below the glide slope—then passed two days later—and Erica reveals her 100% initial pass rate secrets: mock orals should be 3-4 hours of...

Pattern predicament! Discord member Dom shares audio and flysto.net data from a close call at an untowered airport—100 feet of separation, spotty ADS-B, garbled radio calls, and the eternal question: turn right to avoid or stay predictable in the pattern? The non-CFI crew looks at 14 CFR 91.113, Wild West untowered airports, and why sometimes you just need to GTFO. Plus: Thaden Invasion updates, i...

Airplane down! Not a crash—just 65 days and counting of repair purgatory. Special guest 1DullGeek (Mark) joins to talk about what happens when your plane is out of service for months, Keith C's emotional feedback about avoiding aviation altogether, and the reality of airplane ownership. Plus: Brian's IFR long cross-country with C-130s and blown approaches, Ben's icing adventure to Cinc...

Information Whiskey strikes again! BIG NEWS: The Thaden Invasion is official—March 13-15, 2026 in Bentonville, Arkansas! Brian confesses his Sheppard Air conversion after weeks of IFR written torture ("The FAA told you to look at figure 71, but you have to memorize it's actually figure 24"), his wife solves compass errors in 8 seconds ("Here, idiot"), and Ted's fuel gau...

("One Fifty Two") Ted celebrates Mosaic Day by breaking free from the "walled garden" of light sport aviation and "soloing" both a purple lightning-bolt Cessna 152 and a 172. As our friend Dominic eloquently writes, sport pilots are now "loose upon the natural wilds of general aviation," discovering that some planes "require you to hold the yoke one-thi...

Listener Chris T. writes in with a powerful story about his WWII pilot grandfather, a 25-year-old discovery flight that ended in motion sickness, and the question: Is it too late to try again at 46? The crew tackles motion sickness remedies, finding the right CFI as a midlifer, and realistic training schedules for busy adults. Plus: Ben celebrates 28 years of marriage ("She's said 'Yo...

Episode 150! Ben has a hilarious ATC mix-up flying into Nashville at night ("The other controller told me it was two zero...I could hear him laughing in the background"), Ted gets stuck at an abandoned airport for five hours, and the crew dives deep into avionics upgrades. From hoarding Garmin 430s like Beanie Babies to debating engine monitors, this is real talk about the joys (and fina...

It's Information Whiskey time - the crew's monthly no-format format where they "chew the fat" and see what happens. Brian accidentally became a Cherokee salesman at an air show ("I turn around, there's basically a queue forming"), Ben's on a night-flying mission to 1,500 hours, and Ted's been landing on Oregon beaches and flying 4,000 feet in ground effect. The guys also get serious about planning...

Listener Chris C sparked this week's conversation with a thoughtful question about infrequent flying: "I have to think there's a whole class of pilots out there like me who just don't get up in the air very often... how I'll probably be camping on Mount Stupid for years at my current rate of flying." The crew dives deep into proficiency, imposter syndrome, and why flying...

The crew tackles the midlife aviation dilemma: wanting that next rating but lacking time for full commitment. The hosts share Brian's "Trip Fall Succeed method" - making progress through small steps instead of diving headfirst into training. Ben returns from Europe unable to eat American pasta again and explains how multi-engine training feels like "standing in front of a cliff&...

1DullGeek takes the hot seat to defend his controversial lean-of-peak flying technique that left Brian "smiling and nodding while trying to keep up." Using full throttle and mixture control for power management breaks more than just Lord Alpha Juliet's brain - it challenges decades of conventional wisdom. The crew dives deep into the psychology of finding and keeping good A&Ps, f...

Episode 145 brings you "information whiskey" - the crew's loose, conversational format where they step back from their "really tightly wound formatted structure" to catch up on life, flying, and everything in between. Ben confesses to being a "plane jinx" after his multi-engine training gets derailed by yet another 100-hour inspection, while Brian plans an epic de...

1DullGeek drops the bombshell that building beats bureaucracy, while keeping his aircraft shortlist more classified than Area 51 (spoiler: Ted's in on the secret). Brian discovers that flying tailwheel means surrendering all control to achieve actual control, and that Cherokee muscle memory doesn't translate to delicate Cessna 140s. Ben's multi-engine journey continues with nose-diving...

What happens when four pilots discuss IFR ground school and nobody really knows what they're talking about? Episode 143 delivers a chaotic journey through aviation acronyms that'll make you question everything. Ben admits he's "a little nervous" before diving into MOCAs vs ROCAs. Brian, suffering through IFR ground school, says his brain "goes cross-eyed" with acron...

Welcome back to the aviation playground where three guys who "have a podcast and don't know what we're talking about" dive deeper into MOSAIC regulations! After Ted's fan-favorite first episode on the topic, the gang returns to explore what these new rules actually mean for us midlifers - from couch potatoes thinking about learning to fly, to seasoned pilots with 5,000 hours...

When Tim "Banjo Pilot" Lien's CFI's wife called his sectional chart maps "ugly," he didn't get mad - he got creative. The result? MyAeroGlass - stunning aviation art that actually makes spouses happy (imagine that!). It also is tech-enabled to show us the current weather, because we love VFR green. Tim joins the crew to explore why midlife pilots are secretly makers...

Welcome to another Information Whiskey post-maintenance flight where apparently we need more whiskey. Ben's out here doing multi-engine training in a Beechcraft Duchess and discovering that single-engine work is basically "leg day" for pilots. Meanwhile, Brian's back in the air after a month-long hiatus (because life gets in the way when you're a midlife pilot) and Ted's...

The aviation world just got flipped upside down! At EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2025, the FAA dropped the MOSAIC bomb—the biggest shake-up to general aviation since 2004. Sport pilots can now fly aircraft with stall speeds up to 59 knots, and now have access to four-seat aircraft. But this isn't just about sport pilots—MOSAIC fundamentally reshapes the landscape for ALL pilots. Our friend Ted, who...