The Pilot Life
The Pilot Life takes you behind the cockpit and into the lives of aviation professionals. In each episode, we sit down with pilots and other aviation experts to hear their personal stories, unique experiences, and the highs and lows of life in the sky. Whether you're an aspiring pilot or just fascinated by aviation, The Pilot Life offers an authentic, unfiltered look at what it really means to live and work in the world of aviation.
The Pilot Life
Phil Wiltse / Horizon Air Captain (ret)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This Great conversation with Captain Phil Wiltse reflecting on his 35 year flying career with Horizon Air. He has witnessed nearly the entire 45 years of Horizon Air from a ground agent at the newly formed airline, to a check pilot and instructor on the E175.
“The information provided in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. This is a personal vlog and the opinions expressed are solely those of the participants and do not represent any associations or institutions they may or may not be affiliated with unless expressly stated.
Welcome to the Pilot Life, the show where we sit down with people who are passionate about aviation. My name is Brendan. I've been a commercial airline pilot for over 20 years, and in that time I've heard some incredible stories. This is the show, and I'd share those with you. Welcome to Lord.
SPEAKER_01Here we are. Here we are. We're back. Yeah. You know, they told me that uh you had a team, but it's just you.
SPEAKER_00You know, what I've learned in my aviation, you know, uh era is that you you gotta be a little scrappy. Yeah. You gotta be a little resourceful. Yeah. But you work for Horizon. I did work for Horizon. Yep. We're scrappy. Yep. First of all, welcome to the podcast. Good to be here. Just to let people know, we met decades ago. Years ago. Probably on the Q400.
SPEAKER_01It was. When you were uh you were in the RJ. Yep. And then when you came to the Q400, that's when I think I but I was aware of you, of course. Oh no, we all were. When you were in the RJ. That's right. We uh kept our eyes.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Um congratulations. Uh you are newly newly retired, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yes. Um, and you know, I I'm still like carrying my flight bag around. I don't know what to do with it. There's not as much stuff in it, but it it feels a little odd, not uh, you know, having to take it to work. You know, and I went and I retired at 64. Oh, you did? Yeah, I had a I had a year to go, but um it was really great. I mean I I really walked away, I think, in May, um, being about as grateful as a person could be for just the opportunities to be in places that I was throughout my career.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, and and yeah, I was you know, almost 36 years at Horizon, but it was just um I mean it was really, really wonderful.
SPEAKER_00Did you think about your last flight a lot during your flying career or was it more as you got towards the more as I got towards the end.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so I think when I it went like this, Brendan, is that for me, um, I think for some reason in my mind I thought, I'll retire at 62, and then 62 comes, I go, I'm not ready to retire. You know, but for some reason I thought I didn't really want to go to 65. I just had all these ideas in my head. And really what it came down to was with my work schedule and my wife's work schedule, and she traveled really more than I did in her work, that it stung a little more when I would be home and she wouldn't be home, you know. It it whereas 20 years ago, it's like, hey, we're just in the grind of it all. And it's like but as you get older, you know, for me, it it really became important. You know, the time thing is what really made the difference. And so I started to think about that. And and um, and so leading up to you know, that last year and making the decision that, yeah, maybe 64 for me is the right time to do this, and and I really wanted to take control of that a little bit, that narrative about how I wanted to end, you know, 36 years at the airline. And so I started flying out in the Tri-Cities in Pasco. My first flight at Horizon was with Sig Fandler and Jolene Ballalunga. Yeah, and yeah, they just harassed the hell out of me on my first day at Horizon. It was awesome. And so what I wanted to do was repeat that first flight at the end. Yeah. So I had Jolene, who still flies at Horizon, she was on the flight, and then of course, Sig is not here with us, but was there in spirit for me, and we just went and repeated my first flight.
SPEAKER_00Um does 64 feel like what 64 thought was gonna feel when you were younger?
SPEAKER_01You know, I still in my head, I'm still 16. I really am. I mean, in my head, uh, and I don't know what any of it feels like, and that's that's okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think uh I think when I first started, it's like this, Brendan. I think when I first joined Horizon in 1990, 91, and I'm flying with these captains that I learned so much from. I mean, I really learned, I mean, I was flying IFR and doing all the freight stuff around the Northwest and things like that, but really I didn't learn crew performance, IFR, flying like I did when I first got on Horizon, right? And and some of these guys were pretty far along in their career, and some were like very and it's very informative to me. It's like this is if this is gonna be a marathon, I want to end up at the end of this thing whole and not have the machine chew you up and how and so I think early on I really wanted to have a strategy um for me to be like, how can I do this career and not be bitter, cynical? So I really early on I started to look at who who my mentors would be, and even if they didn't know they were my mentors, they were right. So they became, you know, um, you know, big time guides for me about how to kind of navigate the career and how I wanted to do this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What did your um parents do?
SPEAKER_01Well, so I grew up on Vashon Island. Oh, you did in in uh early 60s. Seattle area. Yeah, Seattle area. Just uh you know, I wasn't a kid who was building models, uh airplane models in my room and fascinating about being a, you know, just thinking about being a pilot. Yeah. It wasn't really in my in my mind. But be growing up around here, or really anywhere in the 60s and 70s, you heard Sonic Booms, there's Boeing, there's SSTs, there's Apollo, there's all these things that get you just knew it was cool. Yeah. Right? You just know it. And so um I think all of us kind of felt that way, at least that's kind of how I felt about it. I had these touches of aviation, you know, throughout my, you know, when I was young. My dad occasionally had uh partnerships in airplanes for his and he was in construction real estate back then, and and there's a couple projects that's like, well, I think we need to fly. And so he got into partnership. And so I got to fly a couple times, and I just thought, wow, this is really cool. And was and was he also a pilot? He was a private pilot.
SPEAKER_00Oh, he did, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um but didn't really, you know, didn't do much with it. I think got the license, but then really had other people flying. Did he do that when he when he was younger? He didn't. Okay. No, no. He he did it when he was uh, I want to say, you know, I was young. Yeah. You know. My earliest memories, though, I used to go to Boeing Fifty to fly to see my grandmother in Pendleton. This was probably this would probably be in the late 60s. And it would be Pacific Coast Airlines. I think they had F-27s. Okay, yeah, right? Yeah. So here's what I remember. I remember Boeing Field, I remember jet fuel, I remember blue taxi lights, right? Yeah. And I remember there used to be this map of the United States and the terminal at Boeing Field that had these lights on it. The whole thing just was cool. Yeah. Right. And so I knew that. I just knew it seemed cool. But I'd never thought I would be a pilot. Yeah. Right? So then we ended up moving to the Tri-Cities. And, you know, like to answer your question, you know, my my my mom didn't work. My dad was in kind of real estate construction business. Um, and in 1978 we were living in Richland in the in the Tri-Cities. Okay. And that's Pasco. Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland. Kennewick and Richard. Yeah, two or three cities put together. Yeah. And um, and so he was flying on business from Richland to Seattle on a commuter, Columbia Pacific. It was the beach 99. Yeah. That crashed. And it crashed on takeoff. It was a runaway trim, and everyone died on board that airplane. And that was in 1978.
SPEAKER_00That was your your dad's flight?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. NTSB was the findings were like inadequate training procedures was kind of a big part of what happened. Was it recoverable? Probably was. And once they, you know, that was part of the findings was uh that wasn't followed or outlined very well or whatever. Yeah. And again, at 15, I didn't really understand any of that. And so, you know, my story and how I entered aviation professionally was after that, as anyone would be, I really got a bird's eye view of what airline tragedy is like for a family. I mean, it was it was like instantaneous, you know, change. So I um, you know, from that, I gotta say, I was, you know, 15, just trying to struggle through that. I didn't really know I was a bit lost, you know, like what am I gonna do, especially towards the end of high school. I wasn't really sure really what what am I where what's my direction here. And so I found myself one day as in Seattle, and uh just on a whim, I think I was probably around 19, and I went to a painfield air show. And I mean it was just like I saw it in the paper, right? Yeah, in an ad. Well, I'm not doing anything, so I'm gonna go up to the Painfield Air Show. All my other friends were out doing other stuff, I just went by myself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh, and I was uh Brendan, I was just mesmerized, and it was like this rare moment of clarity. I go, okay, I I know what I'm gonna do. I mean it sounds kind of ridiculous, but that's kind of how I felt about it.
SPEAKER_00What were the what were the acts at the air show that you saw that were like, is there anything that stood out? Was it like you know, the fighter jets?
SPEAKER_01Was it No, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't it was the whole thing. It wasn't any one thing. Um I think if it was any one thing, I would have remembered it that way. I just remember that experience being kind of like I just walked away just going, well, okay, here I go. And literally I went home and called up. There was a I can't even remember the name of the place in Boeing Field. They were it wasn't Galvin, it was another place that's not there anymore. Yeah. I just started I I went the next day, sign me up, let's go. That's the way I felt about it.
SPEAKER_00Was the goal when you were thinking of this? Was it I want to pursue a pilot's license? Was it I want to become an airline pilot?
SPEAKER_01What I wanted to fly. So here's what I knew. I knew that taxi lights were cool. I knew that jet fuel smelled cool. I just knew that it was cool. I didn't know anything about the career. Um, I knew that I wanted to be more than a private pilot. I knew that I wanted to be an airline pilot. Yeah. But I didn't put and I didn't have anything in mind about what that looked like. It didn't really matter.
SPEAKER_00It's funny. I used to go out to the airport in high school. And I loved lights. Yeah. Runway lights. I would look at I would look at the odals and like like you know, all that. Mesmerizing. Like, what it why are those sequenced like that? I know. Is that where the plane lands? Does that help you when you all of those questions that you kind of have?
SPEAKER_01I didn't know anything, but I knew that. It just sounds so naive, but that's kind of how I thought about it. I never went to the library to research airline careers or how much they made or what they did or didn't do. I didn't do that. I just go, I'm gonna be a pilot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Did your mom or you or anyone in your family did you ever obviously maybe there could have been a little hesitation about going. It was never discussed.
SPEAKER_01And to be honest with you, Brendan, and I'll probably get to this. I never thought about it. I never did. There had been enough time of getting through that, those those years. It was a couple years after my dad passed away. It was pretty rough, you know. But then after that, you're young, I'm I'm still young. I'm just I'm not really I'm not fully developed or fully formed. I'm not really thinking thing about things like that. I didn't anyway, about connections and what you know, what I should or shouldn't do. I just knew that it was cool. And I went and did that. And so, you know, I ended up going to the Tri-Cities and and and flying and and getting through my you know initial commercial instrument. And right around that time I I got hired at Horizon as an agent in 1982. Really? So a friend of mine uh was the first uh when Horizon started as a as a company in 1981, um, they started in Pasco, Seattle, and Yakima. That was kind of the deal. And the first station agent there or station uh manager was Mike Shannon. He was an older brother of a friend of mine. He said, Hey, if you're working on your flying stuff, why don't you just come work out here at the airport and you can fly and you can be at the airport?
SPEAKER_00And I go, this was in when 1982. And and and when did Horizon start? Okay, so this was the early days.
SPEAKER_01Early days. It was right before they purchased Air Oregon, is when I when I joined, right? And so back then Horizon had some F-27s, they had they had some Metro 2s, they were gonna get Metro 3s, they're gonna buy Air Oregon. It was wild. Yeah, it was really cool. So I I worked for this airline, then I flew when I wasn't working. And uh during that process of early Horizon days, you know, I I got to know Milt pretty well. I used to fly Milt around, you know, he would speak at rotary meetings in eastern Washington quite a bit, and he knew that I flew, and he would literally call me up and say, Hey, I'm doing a rotary talk and walla walla or something like that. And and I would he would fly in and I would take him to the rotary meetings, and it was just awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, and um Do you have any insights into MILT for someone who doesn't know Mill? I mean Well You just hear stories.
SPEAKER_01You do you hear stories stories about I think, yeah, when you look back, I think in those days, um I think with a lot of companies when you have the spirit of something new, the entrepreneurial spirit of somebody, um, it it really is someone like him. Uh it is it back in those days, it was all Horizon was very, very big on service. It was a service company first. It was not an airline first, it was service first. We happened to be an airline, that was kind of the thing. Yeah, he was big on that. And that's uh as a result, I think, from him flying around on Cascade Airways and being woefully disappointed, he thought he thought he could do better. Yeah, and he did, yeah, to be honest with you. And I think there was this spirit early on at Horizon that it's a different thing that's happening here. Um and so we all bought into that early on, everybody. You know, there were trainings, there were seminars, there were things that we did, you know, to kind of buy into this idea of service and God, this is such a great topic.
SPEAKER_00I was just listening to this podcast with Marcus Buckingham, who's this big time, you know, leader, and he's all about stats and data. And he says, you know, the biggest challenges for a company is how do you stoke the flames of the founders to keep people engaged to a place that they, and it's his word, love. Right. Because it's easy to get into the machine phase to be quarterly profits and but to tap you were right there.
SPEAKER_01It was, yeah, it was very but it was, you know, it it had its peaks and valleys for sure, right? So um, but that's the spirit of what it started with. It was very, very, you know, Northwest, you know, and as it matured, of course, you know, there was food on every flight. It didn't matter whether it was Pasco to, you know, Seattle or even Pullman Lewiston. Yeah. They'd serve you like a gourmet basket of food.
SPEAKER_00Do you remember the donuts?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean What was your top snack in all your years of arrival?
SPEAKER_01It certainly wasn't the tuna.
SPEAKER_00It certainly wasn't the tuna can. You mean the little tuna kit? No, obviously stocked by someone who's not a pilot. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01No, they they obviously had a big catch that year and then you need to get rid of it. Oh my gosh. Don't open the tuna.
SPEAKER_00I had blocked out that tuna. Oh my gosh. Okay. It was not a that wasn't a high point. So you get all of your ratings, yeah. Private, commercial instrument.
SPEAKER_01Instrument. And you know, so here I am multi-engine, and I'm kind of, hey, I just want to get on at the airline.
SPEAKER_00And you're working at Horizon. Working at Horizon.
SPEAKER_01And you know, all I would do would be at those days is I would just look at those guys in their tan uniforms. That's right. The guys that I really liked and looked up to, I would just pummel them with questions. I remember this. One day I asked that to Jimmy Roberts. And he goes, you know something, slow down, you know. Finish your four-year degree. He goes, and I hadn't finished it yet. I hadn't I just went to work, got my flying and I just wanted to get on. I know it's gonna sound like you don't want to hear this, but go get your four-year four-year degree. So I listened to him and I go, okay. Horizon was a publicly traded company at the time, and I had enough company stock to pay for one quarter of school, and I just went. And I go, I'll figure the rest out later. Yeah. So I went to Central and finished my four-year degree there. And it was a really good experience for me to go do that. And and so I finished uh I think they call it a flight technology degree, bachelor's science.
SPEAKER_00What was the hardest part about being a ramper?
SPEAKER_01I can remember going into um waking up in the middle of the night in the winter at uh after a long day of de-icing F-27s or Metros. I go, I think I need to go to the emergency room because I had a skin rash from soaking in glycol in the uniforms. I mean, it was that kind of thing. Back then we just didn't really think about it. We were sitting on a tower and spraying, we had these cloth. Just soaked it. Soaked in it all day long. So there were days like that. Yeah. Um I think a lot of it would be, you know, doing a lot with a little. Yeah. That's what it was. And so you would um multiple airplanes, two people, hard work. Yeah, you know. But I don't I look back on it going, you know, I saw the beginnings of an airline, and I think at the time it was a very, you know, you wanted to be I think we all felt it was a special thing, really, you know, being a part of Horizon early on.
SPEAKER_00Did that job give you then the in to get the interview?
SPEAKER_01It didn't.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_01No, I don't think it did. Well, I should say this.
SPEAKER_00So when I was ready to be hired after Central, you got a four-year four-year degree and some flight time and everything.
SPEAKER_01I was like, there wasn't anything, there wasn't any hiring going on. Talking mid-80s. Uh it was like 89, okay. There wasn't much, there really wasn't anything happening. The I I ended up getting a call from Katie Michael in dispatch at Horizon. She'd been there and still is for decades. I used to work with Katie. She used to work in the Pasco station um back when I did for a number of years, and then she went on to have a long career in dispatch at Horizon. She just called me out of the blue saying, hey, I think they're gonna pick up a couple of dash eights and maybe hiring some pilots, can maybe put in a resume. So, I mean, I wasn't thinking I would get go back to Horizon or anything like that. You know, I ended up getting an interview, and I'm in this interview with like ex-Eastern captains and military people coming, you know, out, and I was like, Oh my god, I'm never gonna have a shot here, you know. But um, but I remember like Ted Blonick, you know, interviewing me and asking, Hey, um you want to stay in the Northwest? And I go, Yeah, you know, okay. So I was so that's how I then I got high.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_01Dash eight one hundred, two hundred, and four hundred.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What was it like in um training? Because you've seen the other side for so long.
SPEAKER_01What was it like getting into airline training after doing your well back then, you know, when we the you had to um and and this is probably true for anybody, and it's it's still true today in some places. I mean, the memorization and detail of what you needed to know back then was substantially different than how we approach it today. Not that we don't memorize stuff, but the l the what you're memorizing, right? You know, it's like you're into the really into the weeds.
SPEAKER_00Fucking drawing out correct the system and all the real.
SPEAKER_01Circuit breakers, you're trying to figure out all that. And you know, I mean, you I still remember like, you know, this is what you don't forget is like stuff that sticks in your mind from those memorization stuff is like, you know, um the uh the bin limits. You had to know what you know the the overhead bin limits were and what the coat hanging rod limit was in the in the wardrobe closet, the flush cycle to the laboratory. Yeah. Five seconds plus or minus two, I think is what that was. Bromotrifluoromethane, that was the its extinguishing agent for the firebottles. So I mean, I will be in an old folks' home. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Tomato flame.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And they'll be looking at me going, hey, it's just going on, you know, he's just talking about airplanes.
SPEAKER_00Right. You actually have been a witness to that change in psychology of we we used to have to work on this stuff. Like pilots were the mechanics out on the line. You had to understand how to do this stuff. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01You did. And you know, for I think part of it for me looking back is that some of that then, even though we weren't actually going to be working on it, like flight engineer type stuff, it was it was really the way the airlines that's what they knew how to do, quite frankly. They knew how to training was it was this this kind of established, and we you had to memorize, you got to have, you know, all this stuff in your head, and that's what made a good training program. I mean, that's kind of I think the extent of it. And Horizon wasn't any different back then.
SPEAKER_00So your first flight at the airline was with SIG?
SPEAKER_01It was with SIG, yeah. SIG and Jolene, and then uh and then I did um you know OEM, flew as a first officer for about four years. Okay. And then upgraded. I think it was pretty close to a five-year upgrade at that point. And you know, there was shoot, there were people who were just like, yay, I I'm out. I can't it was a long time. There wasn't a lot of movement in the industry. And you know, 14,400 a year isn't a lot.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And so people it's dollars. It's dollars you're talking about. Correct. Yeah, that was that was pay.
SPEAKER_00And you're flying eight leg days. Correct, yeah. Pretty routinely, eight leg days, yeah. Icing conditions, wintertime, back and forth, yeah, cascades, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Loved it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Autopilot on the Dash 8 100? Oh, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, you constantly, you know, for the people that flew the Metro, they're like, Yeah, country club, and you come on, man, you know, you guys don't you really think they have the uh HUD on that one yet? So the HUD came onto the 100.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so the Cat 3 capability came on during those years.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Did you ever fly the CRG?
SPEAKER_01I did I didn't. You know, I was gonna I was gonna go into it, and then at the time, uh, you know, I was in the Q and then they both came on pretty much simultaneously. Yeah. And then uh, you know, my seniority didn't favor a move to that, so I didn't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When you went to the Q400, what did that feel like it was a big jump up from the top?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, we can talk about the Q400.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because you went to Africa in that too. I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We can talk.
SPEAKER_00Tell me how uh horizon pilot ends up in Africa flying the Well, let's talk.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's go back to the Q when it first came on board. So I was part like speeds, right? Jet Like Speeds. And so when I I was part of the, you know, the initial group that went and did that too. And so um we were the second. SAS was the first company to have Q400s. Okay. And we were the second, but the first in North America, that was our thing. We're the first in North America to have the Q. We were up in Toronto and we're going through the training and all that stuff, and we're talking to the SAS guys, and there was a lot of flaps 15 early on usage with the Q400, which is not full flaps, not full flaps, and so what that allowed for was a lower deck angle. I should say, I'm sorry, a higher deck angle for landing profile. And so you're already closer, you're already closer to tail strike. So you only had like three degrees of play at Flaps 15 landings.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_01And so power management, energy management, all that stuff was was like you're kind of right there. Yeah. You know, and so you're putting yourself, if you just look at it over the fleet and the landings, you go, we quickly went to all right. And and Don Weens was was definitely part of this as well, where it's like, all right, we have to make flaps 35, flaps full as our profile. Flaps 15 for HUD stuff and practice, but basically it's going to be flaps 35.
SPEAKER_0035 lowers the deck angle.
SPEAKER_01Lowers the deck angle instead of three degrees, you got five degrees to play with, something like that. And so your tail strike potential is reduced quite a bit. And and we never had one at Horizon ever. I flew that in some like like you mentioned Africa. I mean, there were some very challenging places that we flew over there with that airplane, and it was it was everything you wanted it to be.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell What was the story behind you going to Africa with that airplane?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Well, I did three different um projects over there. And what what Bombardier wanted to market that airplane into Africa. Um, there were a lot of aging turboprops over there, Foker 50s and whatnot, that they you could see that you know, Africa really it seemed like if you're Bombardier, you go, hey, Q400, that's a Q400 world over there. Let's let's make that work. And so the first customer that I'm aware of that purchased um some Q400s was uh in Mozambique. And so they purchased three. And uh some of them were, I think all of them that might have been uh ex-SAS airplanes, because SAS said, I think we're done with the Qs, and so they had some spare airplanes, and so they so they bought those. So when with that purchase agreement came some training credit. So they trained a cadre of pilots that went to a flight safety program. So Bombardier goes to Horizon and says, Hey, can you lend anyone to go check, be a Czech pilot and help these guys set up uh a program down in Mozambique? So I'm like, yeah, sure. No, nothing about it. I'd done I'd done some overseas stuff for different things, you know, and and I'm like, hey, I and I go, how long is it gonna be how long is it gonna be? Um it could be four months, it could be five months or whatever. It's like and my wife's like, go for it. So I go, okay.
SPEAKER_00So what airplane was this airline flying prior?
SPEAKER_01Prior to that, it was flying. I think they had some King Airs. They had big jump. Um I think they had some Bondarandes, I think. And then then they had some old 737s. That was it.
SPEAKER_00So the task is you're gonna fly with these pilots and spool them up.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, so I'm gonna train the check the chief check pilot, the instructor, all the captains, the first officers. I'm I'm living living there. Right. It's non-radar, most of the pilots that were of any tenure were trained in the Civil War by Russian, you know, Russian pilots. And I think just uh IFR procedurally, it was very, very, very, very challenging. So but here's the nice thing about it was um there were some young people there, and internet was, you know, it was alive and kicking, you know, and they knew enough to know that they were eager to learn everything. They knew things were a little sideways there, yeah, because they had seen it from other places that they're looking at in the internet. Everyone had a story of the impact of the Civil War. And it was absolutely heartbreaking. Everyone you flew with had a family member or something tragic happened to them, and how they have found themselves in aviation, you find so much more common ground to where they were or where they are in aviation than where we are. It's it's the same, it's we're all in the same boat. They got scheduling issues like we have them. I mean, it's a whole just maybe on a little bit different part on the on the spectrum of things, but um, I found a lot more common. It was it was a great experience. I wouldn't say that would be for everybody. How long did you end up spending over there? I was there for four, I think almost four and a half months.
SPEAKER_00Did your did your wife come back and forth?
SPEAKER_01No, she didn't. You know, I did another project similar for Ethiopian Airlines. And and and I was in Addis Um for, gosh, I want to say three and a half, four months. And my wife and daughter did come to Africa and they did their own thing. I was working, they were seeing Africa.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna ask you a couple questions about training because you've been in training for so long. Yeah, you bet. Um what's like one or two things that you would want, like if you're training a new first officer, what what are those traits or those few things that like that you want to impart onto them of like, hey, carry this with you as you move forward?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think a lot of it would be w before I retired and if I was working with somebody, either you know, flying with them on OE or in the simulator or whatever, it would be um see this as a craft. This isn't necessarily just the job you have. You know, it's it's a craft that you you um have to be responsible for. Does that make sense? I mean, so I really would want people to see their career as I think a lot of times just people are going through the hoops. You know, what's next? What's next? Oh, I got the job, I'm fine, and you know, I'm a pilot, da da da. But really, it's the craft of it. How do I approach this? How do I become um, this is a big one for me, is like a big part of I think being and growing as a pilot. Like for instance, procedures are procedures, and we can be good at procedures, but how do we grow in our career as a pilot? Well, that is gonna have to come with my own self-examination and my how I how I look at myself and what I'm doing there, it's not gonna be coming from the company or the outfit I'm flying with. Does that make sense? So I really would talk about that with them. Is is really it's more than just being good at your flows here and maybe making some good decisions, it's also like how well do you play in the sandbox? How do you communicate with your fellow pilots? Are you who you think you are? You know what I mean? Right. Um, I think um these are all things that like when we go through CQ, it's like it's an opportunity to kind of maybe just take a step back and say, where am I now in my career? I thought that when I was first starting as a captain, I was one person, and then you know, later on, it was I I came at my job in a different sort of way. And I really wanted to kind of spend some time, Brendan, and kind of go, all right, so who am I now? Am I am I the story that I'm telling myself, or am I really doing am I really walking the walk? So um, and I I would try to tell that to some of the young people who are coming in because um they may not understand what I'm saying, but they will. I probably, hopefully.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What message do you try to impress then on captains? If that's your message to first officers when you're working with someone who's going through upgrade or a captain who's come back for training, and you think, what what is the the philism that you try to Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's not a democracy. I would uh that sh typically would come up is that it is and then it's not. So for instance, um we are always wanting to cultivate the team and and have that information flow. It it arguably is the higher level of safety when we do that rather than trying to isolate and silo somebody out. So you are promoting that. And and then those those certain sorts situations that you need to know now it's not that. Does that make sense? Yeah. So um now I don't want to live in that world, you know, all the time at all. I'd rather just have fun and and be able to have it flow and and we're all you know, doing what we're supposed to do. But when it doesn't, we also need to take care of that. And as cap as a captain, you own that. That's your thing now. And to let something go by, you know, that's on you. But you you have to um you you that's your responsibility now. If a communication thing didn't go awry and you didn't quite solve it or whatever, and you just like whatever. You know, it's on that's your that's your type of department now as a captain.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, I I I think with captains it was like I would ask people early on when working with them, I was like, what kind of captain are you? What do you mean? I was like, Well, who are you? You know, what's your thing? Well, what do you mean? And so really getting them to think about, so what are you? You know, are you somebody who just lets things go? Or are you a hard ass? Or, you know, how how do you do this job that it's not just flows from the left seat here? So what is this? With new captains, those are things you really want to talk about, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Isn't it funny those things that stay with us over time? It's always those one-offs. It is that you had to be that person that you didn't want to be.
SPEAKER_01It happens, yeah. It's very rare. Very rare. Yeah, it didn't happen very often. And you know, most of my flying experience has been like great people, everything's going the way it's supposed to go. And if it doesn't, we work on it. It's you know, we're all learning, yeah, and and all that, and that's all all good.
SPEAKER_00What were the highlights from from your your flying? Like if you could pick out top top two or three moments.
SPEAKER_01Probably my number one is I've worked, been lucky enough, and and I couldn't be any more grateful for this, is I've worked with this group of people um for the better part of like 25-30 years. You know, there's there's a core, there's about five of them. Yeah. We've all been in training and standards together. And um and then when the E-175 was announced uh it was gonna be an airplane, um being part of the development uh cad race, there's five of us that that did all the work on that before the airplane got on. All the flying, I mean, yeah, I can say circling approaches and Pullman and snowstorms and all that, or Butte or wherever that was. Um probably not. Or maybe it was. You know, I think you look back on it, you go, that's pretty cool stuff to do, and and I like that a lot. I've liked flying in the Northwest.
SPEAKER_00So what did it feel like when you got done with your last last flight and everyone's at the gate and you're sh shaking shaking hands and all that stuff, and then you and then you leave the airport. Right. You go home.
SPEAKER_01My my flight was Seattle to Pasco to Pasco, Seattle. That was it. I get to Pasco and they have the fire trucks there. It's like it's awesome, you know? And that was a big surprise. And then I come home to Seattle and they have them in Seattle, and it was remarkable, right? Everyone was there, yeah, you know, and it was really, really cool. Um, you know, Kurt Bauer did a lot of work to make that happen for me, and uh, I couldn't be more grateful to him and others who helped that out. It's not easy to get that done in Seattle these days. You know, and um and they did, and and uh and just it was great. And then, you know, the next day I had a a big affair at at the uh flight museum, museum of flight, and so many people were there and it was really, really awesome. I mean it really I looked out and I just like, geez, Brendan, if anybody ending their career can see what I'm seeing. You know, all these people that really were helped me, right? I mean, they the they were I I feel like I I haven't done any of this myself. It's all come from somebody else. Does that make sense? I mean, so I feel like, yeah, I probably did some things myself, but really everything I know has come from somebody else. I owe so much to them, and a lot of them were there, and it was just great. It just felt so good, and and and I think having it kind of end that way, it was I was so grateful, you know, and really kind of came to a place where the last you know, say six months of my career, I just you know, I would go to work and I go, I'm just grateful for this. All these people, I wanted to let them know personally how much they meant to me. Every each and every one of them. And uh, and I think, you know, if there's a summary here, you know, it's that you know, when I think about the airline experience, I just think lots of times airlines think they're in the operations business because so much focus is on the operation. It's really it's a people business. You know, it's uh it's all about the people. And yeah I think that uh when it comes to training and standards, certainly thinking about the people and coming back to where I started with the tragedy, it is definitely about the people.
SPEAKER_00How amazing for your mom to let you chase your dreams without ever putting her own, you know, hesitations because she must have been like, oh no. Right. Right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, and and it never came up. It never did. I think, and here's the funny thing about it is that, you know, when that happened, and then I of course worked for Horizon as an agent, but then I was hired in '91, beginning of ninety-one. This this came up at my retirement was I never really thought about my chosen profession and how it linked to where I was when I was fifteen. Never thought about it. You know, and so here I am 30 years in aviation safety business. And how many times have I trained, you know, elevator trim runaways? Thousands of times. And it really probably it wasn't until about five years ago. And I was in California visiting a friend. Well, actually, it was vis it was visiting a friend, but we went and had lunch with my mom's cousin. And my mom had passed away then, but but her cousin was they were very close, and and uh and he was asking me, you know, he had some really wonderful things to say about my dad, and I hadn't heard in years, and it was really kind of awesome to see him. And and he asked me straight up, he goes, Have you ever really thought about your dad's crash and your chosen profession? And I said, What do you mean? Well, I mean, he goes, haven't you ever thought about that? And I go, No. And actually, I was kind of embarrassed and shocked. I go, I I guess I really haven't thought about it. And he kind of looked at me and he kind of goes, maybe it's time you take a look at that. And I don't know, you know, I've tried not to put a lot of emphasis on it, you know, and go, I think it just it's the the path that I ended up flowing to, like water, you know. I will say this, though, that that experience at 15 has been very informative being involved in training and standards at an airline where you know in deep within your soul what it means when training in standards is not where it should be. The consequences are um profound, you know, for sure. They were for us. Um they were they are for anybody that has that kind of a thing happen. That person in the back of our airplanes has people that love them. They have family, extended family. And and and when we go when we go to work, we end up we're not thinking about that so much. If we thought about it every day all the time, it would be overwhelming. So we don't. Um yet every once in a while, I think it's important that we we come to grips with what that is to reconnect to what our roles are in the cockpit and in training and standards as well. You know, it's like, hey, we are here to make sure that we have we have a duty, yeah, you know, and and that's the way I approach you know my work in training and standards is like, you know, with people that are coming into the industry, new and young people, it's like we've now signed, it's not about the company, it's not about anything, it's about you as a pilot. You now have signed a contract to protect, you know, yeah, protect the public, if you will.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're one of the good ones. Yeah, yeah, one of the good ones. And um it's been an honor to be here. Thank you very much for having me. Honor to have you, Captain. Honor to have you, and thank you everyone for checking out the podcast. One of the greats here, Captain Phil Wilty. Until next time.
