Time in Flight

Welcome to the first episode of Time-in-Flight!

In this episode is an interview with my first flight instructor, turned professional pilot, to discuss his adventures in Aviation. He first describes life in England in the 1970’s and 1980’s and his introduction to aviation. Then he explains what it was like to take a 15 year break from flying and what re-ignited his passion for aviation in the United States. He explores the differences between what it was like to fly then vs. now and flying in Europe vs. Stateside.

He later chronicles the journey that took him fb rom private pilot to flight instructor and what life was like for him during his flight instruction career. At the end he discusses how the skills he learned from working with different learning styles as a flight instructor translated into his career as a first officer in a regional airline.

Please enjoy the show.

This is the show’s first episode and all feedback is welcome. Please email me directly at: [email protected] with any suggestions on how to improve the show or ideas on guests that you would like to hear on the podcast.

Peter Zaccagnino went to Embry Riddle for an engineering degree. While he was learning about aerospace engineering, he was taking flight training and was getting to amass experience with flying sky-divers and getting tailwheel experience initially in a Pitts Biplane and then a Cessna 195, with a rotary engine. He was 19 when used that Pitts to get into aerobatic flying and discusses what that preflight entails. Peter loves to flight instruct in the MIG-29. He also likes to teach out of larger seaplanes to include the Grumman Mallard, Goose, and Albatross. Peter used his engineering knowledge to also fly as a test pilot. Peter has also raced both prop and jet aircraft in the Reno Air Races and has won 4 times, making him an Air Racing Hall of Famer. Peter is also the author of several books. The first one is Relevant and has just released the sequel called the New Cold War. Peter has also been on television shows such as Air Dogs and Aircraft Repo.

Links from the show:

Born in Mumbai, India. Moved to New York when she was a little girl. Her first love was music and she can play 7 instruments. Audrey fell in love with aviation at 16 and started going to Embry Riddle to be an aerospace engineer. That’s where she learned she actually wanted to fly and left Embry Riddle to pursue her flying career. She did her Private and Instrument training in Cirrus SR-22. It took her about 3 years to get the 1500 hours she needed to get to ATP and around age 22 she joined a regional airline. At age 25, she then decided to transition to Part 135 flying and went from a large regional jet to a turboprop King-Air and is now a New Hire at the largest fractional ownership/part 135 operator in the country.

With her passion for music, she’s seen being a pilot as being akin to a conductor of a symphony in how everything is orchestrated together.

Mike Geyer

First was introduced to flying by his father, while he was stationed in Japan for the Navy. His father gave Mike his first discovery flight as a present for his 11th birthday and this was the ‘fish-hook’ moment for him for wanted to become an aviator. After high school he decided to attend an aviation university in Louisiana but after two years, he was notified that program was going to close down to ‘reorganize’ and he was given a decision to change his major and wait for the program to come back or leave the school.

He decided to leave that school and enrolled in a rapid certificate program, where you can get all of your ratings in 10 months. Once he achieved all of his ratings, he was still below 250 flight hours, which was the minimum time required by the regional airlines were looking for. Right as he approached that number is when the Colgan Crash happened in 2008 and Mike found himself need more time as the minimum flight hour requirement kept increasing. He did a multitude of flight instruction jobs from teaching Private Pilot skills to new Marine Corps pilots to moving to California and instructing international students. Mike then pursued his dream of joining the military and became an Air Force Load-Master on a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane. He is now a captain at a regional airline

Hunter Dunlap-Getting Commercial during Covid

This guest has been on the show before during the 2018 Oshkosh Air show, were recorded under the wing. The reason Hunter has returned to the show is that he has reached a major aviation milestone and earned his Commercial pilots license. As a non-career aviator, Hunter explains his passion and reason for pursuing an advanced aviation license that is not required for a private aviator. He discusses how speaking with friends and fellow pilots helped him come to his conclusion for investing in a pilot's license.

He started his journey by getting a Gliem ground school program and studied at home, and just after he successfully completed his written exam, the country shut-down for the Pandemic is 2020. He discusses his VFR Day ad Night Cross Country going through the NYC VFR Corridor and what it was like to land in White Plains, NY. He also talks about needing to reschedule his check ride due to springtime weather in Maryland.

Hunter also discussed what happened the day of his check-ride, to include the oral and practical portions of the test in a Technology Advanced Aircraft (TAA)

Looking back on his commercial experience, he appreciates all the new skills he’d learned and how far it has bought him, since first starting to fly in 2010.