"Keep Swinging"

I recently attended a leadership conference where the theme focused on Challenges and Perseverance.  I wasn't sure what to expect but I was really grateful I was able to attend.  Ed Hearn, a former major league baseball player that won a world series with the New York Mets, had his career cut short by injury.  Later, he faced life threatening health issues and has since received three kidney transplants.  His message was simple: life will throw you curves but you need to stay in the batter's box and keep swinging.

It's really easy to identify challenges in your life.  It's not so easy to count your blessings, especially when you're going through some tough times.  So is there a secret to living a happier and healthier life?  Heck no!  The answer lies within you.  The only thing you can control in life is the way you react to it.

So why am I writing this blog if I'm not going to promote any secret to success?  Because it's a message that should be shared and is relevant to our aviation industry right now.  If you step out of the batter's box you will never ever get a hit.  But, if you step up to the plate and take a few swings...who knows?  You may just hit one out of the park.

Never stop swinging.  Don't give up, especially on yourself.  If you have a passion in life, pursue it relentlessly, even in the face of adversity.

This past month has been a tough one for aviation and aerospace.  We lost three good doctors in a plane crash outside of Chicago.  We lost more good people when a plane crashed into a building in Wichita.  And we lost another when SpaceShip Two crashed in California.  This last event was followed by stories in the media that questioned the safety of flight and the pursuit of space travel.

If you choose to live, then you accept risk because there is no way to eliminate it completely.  If you choose a career in an industry that you are passionate about, then adversity cannot become an obstacle but a building block.  From each others mistakes, tragedies and setbacks, we learn new things about our machines, processes and most importantly...ourselves.

As an individual how do you respond to adversity?  As a collective whole, how do we respond?  It's not in our nature to give up.  We are an optimistic nation, even if we need to remind ourselves of that from time to time. We keep swinging.

When I heard of the recent rocket explosion and then the questions of Virgin Galactic's space pursuits, I had to go back and re-read President Kennedy's speech when he challenged us to go to the moon.

I've heard this speech before, as I am sure many of you have.  But it's still relevant and timely.  Our energies and skills are measured by our ability to achieve goals.  We have a willingness to accept challenges (risk) in order to accomplish goals.  And we do these things because we're not just optimistic but very competitive.  We like to be first.  We like to be best.  We can be neither if we aren't willing to step into that batter's box.

To this day people still ask me why I fly.  I can never give a good answer that satisfies their curiosity, especially when their perspective is one from concern.  "Flying is so dangerous", they say.  But if I were to let those challenges and fears overwhelm the positive benefits I receive from flying, I would never leave my house.  Instead, I choose to live.  I choose to fly.  I choose to step into that batter's box knowing full well there are times I'm going to swing and miss.  Heck, I may even get hit by a pitch.  But you know what?  I'm willing to take my lumps, and first base.  I'm not going to step away.  I'm going to keep swinging and I know our industry will continue to do the same. 

Aviation is for everyone!

Aviation is for everyone!  That's what we kept telling all the kids we talked to during the Fly Kansas Air Tour and the Kansas Aviation Expo.  Never take no for an answer and never let someone else set limitations on what you can achieve.

Those are great messages. Hopefully it resonated with at least a few of those kids, because we certainly turned several heads.  It's hard not to look when you're traveling around the state with 40 different aircraft and 60 volunteer pilots.  It's hard not to notice when you're standing with two earth-rounders in Barrington Irving and Amelia Rose Earhart.

The last time I wrote a blog post I talked about creating an atmosphere that may foster chance encounters and hopefully spark the aviation bug in some of these kids.  I called it Planned Serendipity -- the act of putting someone in a position to discover something on their own and maybe experience something they weren't expecting.

The Fly Kansas Air Tour went to 9 different locations in 3 days and reached out to over 600 kids. Then we had another 300 kids in Wichita experience the Flying Classroom and heard some very inspirational speeches. That's nearly 1,000 kids in just 4 days of outreach efforts, thanks in large part to all the sponsors that believed in the vision and the volunteers that shared the passion.

But there was one little boy that stood out in the crowd, a 9-year old named Jack.  When we arrived at Pittsburg we were greeted by 250 kids, most of them around 13 years old.  There was also a reporter there who told me about her 9-year old son that loves aviation so much he reads WWII warbird encyclopedias to bed.

She asked me if this was an event that her younger son could participate in if she were to pull him out of school.  Of course I responded affirmatively and with encouragement.  When she returned little Jack got to experience the thrill of a lifetime...he got a ride in a Stearman bi-plane!  His mom wrote a great article about his experience and gave credit to the pilot for remembering what it was like to be 9-years old and discovering a passion for aviation.

And that, folks, is why we do it.  Not because we remember what it was like to be 9, but because we never really grew up.  Deep down inside, we're all still a bunch of little kids that get to run around and play with the toys we love.  Of course, some of our toys have grown in cost and unlike a kite that could take and survive a dive into a tree, we take great care in playing with, cleaning and putting our toys away for the night.

After so much planning, anticipation and nerves, the Kansas Aviation Expo 2014 has concluded.  What a blessing it was to have been a part of the third ever air tour to go across Kansas!  Making friends and enjoying the camaraderie of so many other pilots was amazing!  Reaching out to that many kids across the state was our goal but to see it come to fruition was incredible!

I even got to share a little of my own story.  I recalled growing up in an area of Los Angeles that doesn't look like Beverly Hills and told them that I once took a field trip to the local McDonald's.  There they gave us a behind the scenes look at working there and then left us with a simple message: don't do drugs, stay out of gangs and one day you can work here with us.
Some people asked me later if that was a true story and the answer is yes.  But even back then I never really listened to what others had to say about what I should be doing with my life.  I mean, really, who in LA would have thought that I'd end up in Kansas!  Here I am, though, living the dream.  Living my dream.  And when you do what you love, you're never really working.

At the end of the week I was logging all of my time in aircraft and I realized something.  My first discovery flight took place on September 25, 1993.  21 years later I was standing in front of a large group of students telling them to pursue their dreams and encouraging them to learn to fly.  It doesn't get much better than that.

Planned Serendipity

When I started this blog I named it my Aviation Passion Bucket.  I came up with that name because aviation isn't just a job to me, it's in my blood, it's my passion.  The term "passion bucket" also comes from an interview that former head coach of UCLA football, Rick Neuheisel, said during an interview with Dan Patrick.  He said that you had to have your passion bucket full in order to play against your cross town rival.

This message is so important in the way you attack life.  If you have a passion for what you do, it's obvious to everyone around you...and it's infectious.   This is why I love my job.  I get to work with people who share my passion.  We love aviation!  We love it so much that we want to share it with others, which is why we've been so focused on creating events and activities that reaches out to our non-traditional partners and to the younger generation to try and help inspire them towards a career in aviation.


The Kansas Aviation Expo is about take-off in exactly one month from the day I write this post.  We're not just building another industry conference.  Oh no.  We're doing much more than that.  We're going to fly around the state with a group of pilots to talk to kids about aviation careers, educational programs and scholarship opportunities.  We're trying to inspire the next generation of aviation leaders!




The Fly Kansas Air Tour will allow students from across the state to experience portions of the Kansas Aviation Expo that they wouldn't have otherwise experienced without having to make a trip to Wichita.  This is important outreach as aviation is the second largest economic driver in the state, second only to agriculture.  Speaking of, Kansas farmers can attribute over $1 billion in crop value to the efforts of aerial applicators so we're going to have an ag spraying demo at our first air tour stop.

We'll also have Amelia Rose Earhart and Barrington Irving come out to talk to the crowds.  After talking with Amelia in Oshkosh I sat with some friends and we started discussing how we could fly around the world.  We didn't realize it until later but hearing her stories inspired us to think about pushing our own limits.  These are great opportunities for kids to learn about all that aviation has to offer.

Sometimes it's hard for me to think about myself as a career role model and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.  But more of us need to think about that passion bucket that we have, the one that drives us to take on the tough challenges of our industry and continue to persevere with our dreams.  We need to think about sharing that passion and helping fill someone else's bucket.

I was recently watching the old John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale movie from 2001 called Serendipity.  At the end the main character's best friend tries to support his decision by stating that the Greeks never wrote obituaries.  Instead, they just asked one question after a man died: did he have passion?  This is totally fabricated by the way as the Greeks wrote pretty extensive eulogies, but for the sake of my blog post I'm going to go with the underlying message.

As you look back at your career and life, can you answer that question affirmatively?  Did you live with passion?  Did you follow yours?  Did you share it with the next generation to help carry on the legacy?  When you were a kid, who inspired you?  Where did you find your passion?  

We're hoping that with the Kansas Aviation Expo we help these kids make fortunate discoveries by accident.  That after all, is the definition of serendipity.  Some of these kids may not know they have a passion for aviation unless we show them what it has to offer.  

Don't forget this message: there is something for everyone when it comes to aviation.  It's not just about being a pilot, a mechanic or riveter.  There are so many more options than that.  

Getting kids to the airports, interacting with passionate pilots and learning about aviation, hopefully, will put them in a position to make a very fortunate discovery.  

Aviation is cool and you can do it, too!

Pilot shortage or a new state of normalcy?

I was at an airport meeting recently with several pilots in attendance.  We went through several of the normal questions related to airports and pilot issues, then came the off-the-walls.  Those are the questions that you get during public speaking that are completely inconsistent with the theme of discussion.

Of course, it doesn't take much to get me to opine on matters related to aviation.  I'm always open to engage in hypothesizing some of our challenges, like the pilot shortage.  Or is it?

Leading up to our discussion on the alleged pilot shortage issue we first talked about the proposed third class medical revision. Someone in attendance made an observation that the average age of the pilots in the room was somewhere around 65.  I hadn't even noticed until he said something because that's just our normal audience.  Pilots are an aging breed.

I made the comment that I think that the third class medical is going to keep the old-timers flying longer, but will do little to help with new pilot starts.  Keeping the older generation flying isn't a bad thing; we just need to keep in mind what problem we're solving with this third class medical change.

Then I thought of something.  If this is seen by most pilots as a good thing for our industry, yet it doesn't address the issue of new pilot starts, what will?  What is driving the shortage?  What has changed?  Why does it seem critical for this generation?  Perhaps we don't have a pilot shortage at all.  Maybe we're just reaching a state of normalcy in the industry.  I'll explain.

Most of our aging pilot population are baby boomers, or products or WWII.  Why is that?  I think we can see a direct correlation to the activities of WWII and pilot starts from that era.  Not only did we have very large military air forces, but several WWII veterans were able to use their GI Bill to learn how to fly.  Because we were a manufacturing mecca, we had plenty of flying assets in the national fleet.

But did we, as a nation, create an artificial market?  Without the assistance of government funding, most of the pilots from that generation may not have been able to afford pilot training.  It's a similar state that we are in now.  Without some level of financial assistance, the cost of learning to fly is keeping several people on the ground.

Not everyone can afford to fly, and maybe not everyone deserves the privilege to fly.  So maybe we've reached a state of normalcy with our pilot population.  I think this is similar to the concept of the airline industry.  Because of government subsidy, everyone was afforded an opportunity to travel by airline.  However, the ticket price didn't correlate to the true cost of operating an airline.  To this day, everyone feels entitled to travel yet not everyone would be able to afford  the ticket price if it was solely based on operating cost.

Have we been too coddled by our government all this time?  As goes the military, so goes our industry.  And right now you can see a trend in downsizing our military and shifting some flying missions to drones.  Don't get me wrong, I believe there will always be missions for manned flights, but we can't deny the correlation between our industry and the military trends.

And let's be frank, this administration has not been entirely friendly to general aviation.  When business tools, such as aircraft, are systematically demonized then it impacts us all.  Those corporate pilots started somewhere.  Not everyone can or does enroll at a university to get into a pilot program.

Taking a purist viewpoint of a free market, one can argue that any industry that can't sustain itself without government intervention shouldn't be in the game.  It's clear that in our current political climate, we aren't likely to see assistance from either side of the aisle.

With that said, it's all up to us.  What are we willing to do to help develop general aviation pilots?  Are we content to sit back and accept that we've reached a state of normalcy in the market?  Or will we rise together to start tackling these challenges head on with creative solutions?  What say you?