Midlife Pilot Podcast

If you haven't listened to Episode 182 yet, go back — this conversation picks up about five minutes later. Ron Horton, DPE extraordinaire, returns with the crew to finish what he started: a data-driven, story-rich tour through what actually happens on checkrides, what actually trips people up, and what a lifetime of examining pilots looks like from the other side of the table.
In this second half, Ron walks through his color-coded scorecard of common ground and flight failures — weather, cross-country planning, airspace, and the takeoff and landing tables that trip up nearly half of all students. Spoiler: if your entire weather education came from ForeFlight, you and aviationweather.gov need to get acquainted. We also dig into why so many students arrive with no mechanical intuition whatsoever (one applicant had never cut grass — and had someone for that), why VOR navigation has become a near-lost art, and what it means when a student shows up with a perfectly calligraphed weight and balance that they clearly didn't do themselves.
Brian gets called out — gently — for overthinking his commercial W&B scenario, which as it turned out had absolutely no landmine in it at all. Ron also makes the case that showing up with a pre-tabbed FAR/AIM you bought online is a very different thing from showing up with tabs you put there yourself. And he closes with the phrase that stuck with Brian after the checkride: What's time to a hog? — a farmer's wisdom about taking the long road when the long road is worth it.
Mentioned on the Show:aviationweather.gov: https://aviationweather.govSeth Lake (VSL Aviation) YouTube: https://youtube.com/@VSLAviationJason Miller — The Finer Points: https://thefinerpoints.netFreedom Aviation Network: https://freedomavnetwork.org
Connect with the Show:Website: https://midlifepilotpodcast.comPatreon: https://patreon.com/midlifepilotpodcastYouTube: https://youtube.com/@midlifepilotpodcastEmail: [email protected]

The crew is joined by Charlotte-based Designated Pilot Examiner Ron Horton — 60 years of flying, Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, AOPA Regional Instructor of the Year, and the man responsible for both Brian's and Ben's commercial certificates. Ron comes armed with something most DPEs don't bother with: actual data. Over 500 checkrides' worth of it, color-coded spreadsheets and everything.
In this first of a two-part conversation, Ron unpacks his checkride pass/fail rates across private, instrument, commercial, CFI, and CFII — and the numbers will either comfort you or send you back to the books. (Spoiler: the instrument rating is harder than you think, and it's increasingly the avionics' fault.) We also dig into the sobering reality that the average student now takes 103 hours to reach their private checkride — up from 81 just five years ago — and what that 36% creep in dual hours says about the state of flight training. Plus: why soloing students at 40 hours dual is, in Ron's words, "staggering," and why the instructors who never ask a DPE what went wrong are the ones who keep sending unprepared students.

Mentioned on the show:
* DPE Ron Horton: http://planevisions.com/
* Seth Lake- VSL Aero- How to Read a Jeppesen SID and Star (Made Simple): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2osAEHUpKjw
* FlightInsight- How toRead a Jeppesen Approach Plate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQViPd5XYk8
* EGCB - Manchester Barton Aerodrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Barton_Aerodrome
* Thorndike's Law of Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_effect

Support the show, get shirts and hats, and more at www.midlifepilotpodcast.com

Brian's got a shiny new commercial certificate, Ben just logged 25 hours in three days in a flying potato over Florida, and somehow nobody declared an emergency — so naturally, it's time to talk about flying like a professional even when nobody's paying you to. From sterile cockpit discipline to weight and balance on every single flight (yes, everyone), the crew runs through a practical list of habits that separate polished pilots from the yank-and-bank crowd. Plus: a listener who went from ICU nurse to CFII at 54, a fuel tank horror story that will make you check yours right now, and Mark prepares to hand a large sum of money to some people in the Czech Republic who have definitely sent him pictures of his actual airframe. Probably.Mentioned on the show:
* Time Building Mafia: https://volare.aero/timebuildingmafia
* The Calm Cockpit Podcast: https://calmcockpit.com/
* TL Sparker: https://www.tl-ultralight.cz/en/ultralight-aircraft/sparker
* 0W3 - Hartford County Airport - Churchville Maryland: https://www.airnav.com/airport/0w3
* PHKO - Ellison Kona airport: https://www.airnav.com/airport/phko
* SISKIND: Do Easy: How Fast Can You Take Your Time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqsg-iW3KBw

Ben is about to climb into a Piper Apache, which our own blog has definitively declared the official airplane of twin-engine Russian roulette, and he's doing the responsible midlife thing: writing down the flows, chair flying in his hotel room until his shoulder gives out, and showing up prepared anyway. Brian is deep in commercial checkride prep mode, synthesizing seven sources of information into cheat sheets that actually make sense to a human brain, and Ted — man flu survivor — is keeping everyone grounded as only Ted can. The topic tonight is what it actually takes to reenter the atmosphere of training after a gap: the ego check, the clipboard anxiety, the moment you realize you don't understand something and instead of walking away, you just read it again slower. Also: Neil deGrasse Tyson drops some wisdom, a five-star review nails all three hosts in one sentence, and we make the case that your private certificate is just a learner's permit for everything you're about to get wrong. Safety third. Always.Mentioned on the show:
* Piper PA23 Apache: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-23
* Gary Vaynerchuk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Vaynerchuk
* Blog- The Ultimate "Official Airplane Of" Guide: https://midlifepilotpodcast.com/blog/the-ultimate-official-airplane-of-guide
* Brian Schiff on The Calm Cockpit podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnSCpa2weUs
* Transair Flight 810 - 737, shut down the good engine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transair_Flight_810
* Beechcraft Baron 55: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Baron
* Beechcraft Dutchess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Duchess

Support the show!
https://www.patreon.com/MidlifePilotPodcast

It's Information Whiskey time, and we're only one episode late — which, as Brian would say, is basically on time. Brian's commercial checkride is less than two weeks out, which means Lucy has been getting a workout and the chandelle has chosen violence. Mark crashes the Discord and the podcast in the same evening, Ted is somehow alive despite a brush with man flu, and a listener's tachometer cable failure at Sun 'n Fun reminds us all that airplanes love to choose the most inconvenient possible moment to express themselves. We dig into the surprisingly philosophical world of commercial regulations — where "do you have operational control?" is apparently all you need to know, until it absolutely isn't — debate whether AI is the future of aviation study or just a very confident guesser, and somehow end up at the conclusion that private pilots are pilots, instrument pilots are meteorologists, and commercial pilots are lawyers who can't bill by the hour. Monroe is a hornet's nest, the Cessna 140 is the VW Bug of airplanes, and Brian is headed to Mark's house. The pantry awaits.
Mentioned on the show:
* M54 - Lebanon Commemorative Air Force Warbird Day, May 23 2026: https://commemorativeairforce.org/events/750A
* EQY - Charlotte Monroe Executive, North Carolina: http://www.airnav.com/airport/EQY
* JQF - Concord-Padgett Regional Airport, North Carolina: https://www.airnav.com/airport/JQF
* MyAeroGlass: https://www.myaeroglass.com/
* Glide AI: https://www.glideai.io/
* HobbsMate: https://hobbsmate.com/
* WingsMX: https://wingmx.com/
* VSL Aviation- Seth Lake: https://www.youtube.com/@SethLakeDPE/videos
* Ben Lehman, Drift Aviation, Cessna 140 tailwheel: https://www.driftaviation.com/

Support the show and keep us ad free!
https://www.patreon.com/MidlifePilotPodcast

Visit us at midlifepilotpodcast.com