[Speaker 0] Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever the
[Speaker 0] case may be. This is Mike, and this
[Speaker 0] is Mike Dell's World number four twenty nine
[Speaker 0] for the twenty third of November twenty twenty
[Speaker 0] five. I I think it's time for my
[Speaker 0] dove world. There it is. And here we
[Speaker 0] are. So today, I'm gonna talk about aviation
[Speaker 0] and, specifically aviation up north here at Traverse
[Speaker 0] City, Cherry Capital Airport, which we talked about
[Speaker 0] the airport back in, what was it? Long,
[Speaker 0] long, long time ago on the seventh of
[Speaker 0] the month, I think. Yeah. It was the
[Speaker 0] seventh of the month. We talked all about
[Speaker 0] the airport here, but what we're gonna talk
[Speaker 0] about this time is flight schools and other
[Speaker 0] schools, at the airport. And what I mean
[Speaker 0] by that is places to learn to fly,
[Speaker 0] and, also, we have a unique school up
[Speaker 0] here to teach people to be airplane mechanics.
[Speaker 0] And it's it's pretty robust, I have to
[Speaker 0] say, for a a place that a lot
[Speaker 0] of the year, it's really hard to get
[Speaker 0] good flying weather. But we have a really
[Speaker 0] successful school here, Northwestern Michigan College, which also
[Speaker 0] has the excuse me. Oh, excuse me. Wow.
[Speaker 0] Anyway, northern Northwestern Michigan College also has the
[Speaker 0] only freshwater maritime academy of, you know, teach
[Speaker 0] people how to be engineers and officers on,
[Speaker 0] you know, mainly Great Lakes freighters, but they
[Speaker 0] can go worldwide. And the Merchant Marines, you
[Speaker 0] know, working on ships and whatnot. That's one
[Speaker 0] of their big schools here. And then, the
[Speaker 0] other one is the, NMC Aviation School, and
[Speaker 0] they're a pretty big deal. You know, they've
[Speaker 0] got, I don't know how many aircraft, but,
[Speaker 0] a lot, I have to say. I you
[Speaker 0] know, a lot of one seventy twos, some
[Speaker 0] twins, and they, their business is making airline
[Speaker 0] pilots. You know, they teach aviation from, you
[Speaker 0] know, private, commercial, multi engine, and instructor ratings.
[Speaker 0] And then a lot of times, the instructors,
[Speaker 0] you know, once they graduate as an instructor,
[Speaker 0] they work for the school as instructors until
[Speaker 0] they get their fifteen hundred hours they need
[Speaker 0] to apply to the airlines. And they have
[Speaker 0] a pretty good track record of, you know,
[Speaker 0] getting people through that school and, and, you
[Speaker 0] know, eventually onto the airlines. There is a
[Speaker 0] rule to get your ATP, which is airline
[Speaker 0] transport pilot license or certificate. They don't call
[Speaker 0] them licenses, by the way. You know? But
[Speaker 0] people use it. Anyway, English optional today. But,
[Speaker 0] you know, NMC graduate graduates a lot of
[Speaker 0] pilots, for, you know, airlines and, you know,
[Speaker 0] corporate, jet jobs and other things. You know,
[Speaker 0] they don't teach helicopters, but there's another I
[Speaker 0] I don't know if you wanna call it
[Speaker 0] a school, but there's another helicopter thing here
[Speaker 0] in town, but we'll we'll get to that.
[Speaker 0] But, NMC Aviation is, you know, they're top
[Speaker 0] notch, and they just built this beautiful facility,
[Speaker 0] over there. They redid, their hangars, and and,
[Speaker 0] they got a maintenance facility, and, it's just
[Speaker 0] awesome. I, you know, I got a little
[Speaker 0] tour of it not too long ago, and
[Speaker 0] and they just opened it up. I wanna
[Speaker 0] say less than a month ago. And, you
[Speaker 0] know, they keep getting in new aircraft and,
[Speaker 0] you know, they're just, they're building. The the
[Speaker 0] guy that runs it over there is a
[Speaker 0] former seven forty seven pilot, young guy too.
[Speaker 0] You know? He worked for, Atlas Airlines. You
[Speaker 0] probably never heard of Atlas, but you have
[Speaker 0] heard Prime Air. They're a cargo outfit, and
[Speaker 0] one of their claims to fame is they
[Speaker 0] operate all of the prime aircraft or not
[Speaker 0] all of them, I should say, some of
[Speaker 0] them. They, you know, they they operate those.
[Speaker 0] They also operate the Dreamlifter, which is that
[Speaker 0] really weird looking seven forty seven that hauls
[Speaker 0] the parts around for the seven eighty seven,
[Speaker 0] for Boeing. But, but, anyway and I and
[Speaker 0] I actually know three people that either have
[Speaker 0] worked there or do work there. Rick and,
[Speaker 0] Kelsey, the two that I know that are
[Speaker 0] both captains on seven forty sevens. This guy,
[Speaker 0] I don't think he was a captain, but
[Speaker 0] he was, on seven forty seven. He got
[Speaker 0] tired of, being gone all the time. So
[Speaker 0] he, took the job here at NMC Aviation
[Speaker 0] and is doing a bang up job. It's
[Speaker 0] a it's a really cool facility and, you
[Speaker 0] know, they like I said, they train a
[Speaker 0] lot of people, to be airline pilots, and
[Speaker 0] other, you know, paid pilots. You know, people
[Speaker 0] do it for a career. But, that leaves
[Speaker 0] a little gap there because, you know, recreational
[Speaker 0] pilots and some people that also wanna do
[Speaker 0] airlines. There's another outfit. One that I've taken
[Speaker 0] advantage of is Giving Wings Aviation. That's, done
[Speaker 0] by a guy, Eric. And, he he, is
[Speaker 0] running this flight school and maintenance facility. You
[Speaker 0] know? So he does maintenance on other people's
[Speaker 0] airplanes, but mostly, the airplanes for the school.
[Speaker 0] So I don't know what's going on with
[Speaker 0] my watch here. But, you know, so I've
[Speaker 0] been flying with them for a few years
[Speaker 0] and renting airplanes and taking instruction and all
[Speaker 0] that good stuff. And it's, you know, it's
[Speaker 0] a nice outfit, and it's a small outfit,
[Speaker 0] which is kinda nice. So, you know, that's
[Speaker 0] another option for, you know, pilots who wanna
[Speaker 0] get their sport pilot license or private pilot
[Speaker 0] license, even their commercial. And, you know, they
[Speaker 0] do all the stuff. It's just, you know,
[Speaker 0] they don't do multi engine anymore, and they
[Speaker 0] don't do seaplanes anymore. At one point, they
[Speaker 0] were doing seaplanes and and, multi engine. But,
[Speaker 0] they've kinda paired it down to, just single
[Speaker 0] engine land aircraft, and you get all your
[Speaker 0] ratings, on those, at least all the single
[Speaker 0] engine ratings. And, yeah, it works out really
[Speaker 0] good. It's a more laid back school, the
[Speaker 0] way the FAA does it. There's things, called
[Speaker 0] a part one forty one school, which goes
[Speaker 0] by a syllabus. And and, you know, Giving
[Speaker 0] Wings also does one forty one training as
[Speaker 0] well. But one forty one training is more,
[Speaker 0] you know, airline focused or career focused aviation,
[Speaker 0] Whereas part sixty one is kind of the
[Speaker 0] more laid back, you know, you get an
[Speaker 0] instructor, you get all the boxes checked, and
[Speaker 0] then you take a check. Right? You get
[Speaker 0] a certificate or a license, you know, for,
[Speaker 0] you know, what most people call a pilot's
[Speaker 0] license, but, you know, it's not really a
[Speaker 0] license. It's a certificate. That's what the FAA
[Speaker 0] calls it anyway. And, you know, it's but
[Speaker 0] it's it's really nice that here in Traverse
[Speaker 0] City, we have these schools available. You know,
[Speaker 0] really nice for me. I live, you know,
[Speaker 0] five minutes away from, the airport here from
[Speaker 0] giving wings hanger. So, you know, when I
[Speaker 0] go flying, it's oh, I'm gonna go flying
[Speaker 0] at, at four. I leave here at, you
[Speaker 0] know, ten minutes to four over there plenty
[Speaker 0] of time, and, you know, it's great. Like
[Speaker 0] I said, it couldn't be more convenient. The
[Speaker 0] airspace is a bit of a challenge, especially
[Speaker 0] with all the college planes and and all
[Speaker 0] that, but, you know, it's it's a busy
[Speaker 0] airport, but, there's a lot of airports around
[Speaker 0] here. In part two of this, aviation up
[Speaker 0] north series, I'll I'm gonna talk about some
[Speaker 0] of the other airports around here, but we'll
[Speaker 0] focus on the the schools that are in
[Speaker 0] the area right now and, you know, and
[Speaker 0] other interesting things. Our high school also has
[Speaker 0] an aviation program. And now somebody else is
[Speaker 0] talking. I don't know what's going on. I
[Speaker 0] think my my phone and my Alexa and
[Speaker 0] all that stuff, it's sorry. I don't I
[Speaker 0] got my headphones on. I won't pay any
[Speaker 0] attention to it. But, anyway, our high school
[Speaker 0] or not our high school, I should say,
[Speaker 0] our regional, career tech center, which is affiliated
[Speaker 0] with a bunch of high schools around here,
[Speaker 0] also has an aviation program. Now they're not
[Speaker 0] flying. These are, you know, eleventh and twelfth
[Speaker 0] grade students, in high school. And, you know,
[Speaker 0] it's kind of a aviation introduction to aviation
[Speaker 0] and some maintenance and, you know, our local
[Speaker 0] EAA group is is is gonna get involved
[Speaker 0] with them a little bit as for mentorship
[Speaker 0] and maybe building, airplane or something, you know,
[Speaker 0] something like that. Again, it's it's a fairly
[Speaker 0] new program, and a lot of the, a
[Speaker 0] lot of the guys from, EAA are are
[Speaker 0] helping out the instructor and and all that,
[Speaker 0] getting that program off and running. But, you
[Speaker 0] know, it's it's pretty pretty slick how that
[Speaker 0] works. It used to be called the TBA
[Speaker 0] Career Tech Center, and I don't remember. They
[Speaker 0] they've changed their names, like, name, like, twice,
[Speaker 0] but it's part of the intermediate school district,
[Speaker 0] which covers the five county area around here.
[Speaker 0] And they teach a lot of other things
[Speaker 0] over there, the building trades and small engine
[Speaker 0] repair, auto mechanics, auto body shop, medical. That's
[Speaker 0] what I went to it for, you know,
[Speaker 0] thirty, forty, forty years ago. Jeez. But, yeah,
[Speaker 0] I did a year. My senior year of
[Speaker 0] high school did the, medical thing. It's called,
[Speaker 0] I don't even remember what the class was
[Speaker 0] called, but, basically, teach how to be a
[Speaker 0] nurse's aide, which I never did. I I
[Speaker 0] mean, I got through the the course, but
[Speaker 0] I went in the air force and and
[Speaker 0] did a lot of airplaney things. So, didn't
[Speaker 0] didn't really, use the medical thing. But, yeah,
[Speaker 0] it was a way to get off campus
[Speaker 0] for half a day my senior year because
[Speaker 0] I I had enough credits to graduate high
[Speaker 0] school, early anyway. So, you know, I just
[Speaker 0] like, it wasn't really a goof off class.
[Speaker 0] It was a very informative class and not
[Speaker 0] particularly easy. But, anyway, wish they had aviation
[Speaker 0] back then, but, they didn't. But now they
[Speaker 0] do. And, like I said, a lot of
[Speaker 0] our EA guys are, involved with, helping the
[Speaker 0] instructor set that up. But, you know, I
[Speaker 0] don't know how much they're involved, but pretty
[Speaker 0] cool. And then there's Legacy Aviation. Now this
[Speaker 0] is unique in the aviation maintenance world. It's
[Speaker 0] the only school in the country that you
[Speaker 0] can do a twelve month program, and that
[Speaker 0] takes you all the way up to, where
[Speaker 0] you can get your airframe and power plant
[Speaker 0] license, which is the license you need. And
[Speaker 0] that well, they call that a certificate too
[Speaker 0] probably, but FAA is weird. But, you know,
[Speaker 0] get get your certification to be a, aircraft
[Speaker 0] mechanic. And this one does it in twelve
[Speaker 0] months. The the the one that's even, you
[Speaker 0] know, close to that is eighteen months to
[Speaker 0] two years, usually. And for, you know, fairly
[Speaker 0] substantial amount of money, but not, not ridiculous,
[Speaker 0] not college level amount of money. You can
[Speaker 0] go to Legacy Aviation, and, I think they
[Speaker 0] do fifty weeks. So they get two weeks
[Speaker 0] off, during the the year, but it goes
[Speaker 0] year round. And when you come out of
[Speaker 0] there, you are eligible for the AMP certificate.
[Speaker 0] And, you know, actually, I've got a, interview
[Speaker 0] lined up with the founder of that and,
[Speaker 0] some of the the people involved with that.
[Speaker 0] So that look for that coming sometime in
[Speaker 0] the not too distant future. We we've been
[Speaker 0] planning it for three or four months. But,
[Speaker 0] yeah, I wanna sit down and interview those
[Speaker 0] guys because that is, quite the the program
[Speaker 0] they have over there. And what's really cool
[Speaker 0] about Legacy Aviation is on top of that,
[Speaker 0] they're also, donating the office space and meeting
[Speaker 0] area for the, local experimental aircraft association and
[Speaker 0] the local civil air patrol. And they're right
[Speaker 0] on the airport. They have a hangar. They
[Speaker 0] have, well, actually, I think they have I
[Speaker 0] wanna say it's a seven twenty seven aircraft
[Speaker 0] that's up in, Oscoda at the, the old
[Speaker 0] Air Force Base up there, the old Wurtsmith
[Speaker 0] Air Force Base. And there's a huge maintenance
[Speaker 0] facility up there, and Evergreen Airlines is up
[Speaker 0] there or or at least part of them
[Speaker 0] is up there. There's a big seven forty
[Speaker 0] seven engine, facility up there. Just just a
[Speaker 0] lot, you know, a lot of aviation stuff
[Speaker 0] over there in Oscoda on that old airbase.
[Speaker 0] And they donated a seven twenty I think
[Speaker 0] it's a seven twenty seven. One of their
[Speaker 0] one of its engines is, in the hangar
[Speaker 0] over at Legacy. And, yeah, that's really quite
[Speaker 0] the facility. And, you know, when the kids
[Speaker 0] graduate that, they graduate with a a toolbox,
[Speaker 0] you know, all donated and or paid for
[Speaker 0] by, you know, the tool manufacturers and, you
[Speaker 0] know, all this all the stuff they need
[Speaker 0] to do to to, become an aircraft mechanic.
[Speaker 0] And there's a big shortage in aircraft maintenance,
[Speaker 0] both for, you know, airlines and and military
[Speaker 0] even, you know, higher civilian mechanics. Although I
[Speaker 0] don't believe they have to have their AMP
[Speaker 0] license to to work on military aircraft because
[Speaker 0] I didn't. I never got the AMP. But,
[Speaker 0] but I was military too. So I I
[Speaker 0] don't know what the requirements are for that.
[Speaker 0] But, yeah, legacy is quite the outfit. They
[Speaker 0] would give us an extra room there in,
[Speaker 0] the EAA, and we have a simulator room.
[Speaker 0] We have one, two, three, four, five five
[Speaker 0] simulator setups in there for a flight sim,
[Speaker 0] different versions of it or whatever, but they're
[Speaker 0] really pretty nice simulators. You know, they have
[Speaker 0] the throttle quadrants or rudder rudder pedals, either
[Speaker 0] a stick or or a yoke, all on
[Speaker 0] the desk and everything. And they can all
[Speaker 0] be tied together, and some of the controllers
[Speaker 0] from Traverse City come over and pretend to
[Speaker 0] be controllers, when the kids are are flying
[Speaker 0] and mostly kids, but I I played with
[Speaker 0] them too. I don't like to use the
[Speaker 0] SIM all that much because it gives me
[Speaker 0] bad habits in the real airplane. So, you
[Speaker 0] know, but it's it's still pretty good and
[Speaker 0] pretty realistic. And then they have a, motion
[Speaker 0] SIM in another room over there at Legacy,
[Speaker 0] you know, where I mean, it isn't one
[Speaker 0] of those full motion ones, but it's, close
[Speaker 0] enough, and they wear the VR goggles. It's
[Speaker 0] it's pretty intense flying those things, and, that's
[Speaker 0] pretty cool. But, yeah, Legacy is, is a
[Speaker 0] relatively new startup, and, they're doing good. A
[Speaker 0] lot of benefactors around here, got that going.
[Speaker 0] And like I said, we'll be talking to
[Speaker 0] some of them, in a future episode, not
[Speaker 0] during NAPOD, POMO. But, yeah. If you wanna
[Speaker 0] learn to fly, you can come to Traverse
[Speaker 0] City to do it. If you wanna be
[Speaker 0] an airline pilot, go to nmc. You wanna
[Speaker 0] just do it for fun, do, giving wings.
[Speaker 0] Or even if you wanna be a airline
[Speaker 0] pilot, it's a little cheaper to go to
[Speaker 0] giving wings, to get up to a certain
[Speaker 0] level. But to go get your multi and
[Speaker 0] and a few other things, you gotta go
[Speaker 0] over to NMC or somewhere else. There's also
[Speaker 0] a relatively new flight school, and I don't
[Speaker 0] have great big details on it over at
[Speaker 0] Cadillac Airport, which is about, well, driving about
[Speaker 0] an hour south about fifteen minutes by air.
[Speaker 0] They go down there and shoot touch and
[Speaker 0] goes once in a while when they're not
[Speaker 0] busy. But, there's a relatively new one going
[Speaker 0] on down there. I saw it on Facebook,
[Speaker 0] So I don't really know much about it,
[Speaker 0] but, that's another option for those that wanna
[Speaker 0] learn to fly. And then, there's a guy
[Speaker 0] that does seaplane training. And, like I said,
[Speaker 0] I don't have any great big details, but
[Speaker 0] he does it over on Silver Lake over
[Speaker 0] close to Traverse City. And, I could probably
[Speaker 0] get the guy's name and phone number if
[Speaker 0] you're interested in in pursuing a seaplane rating.
[Speaker 0] Chances are, though, you probably have to have
[Speaker 0] your private pilot's license before starting with him.
[Speaker 0] I don't think he does any initial training.
[Speaker 0] But, again, you know, like I said, that's
[Speaker 0] not really a school. That's just a a
[Speaker 0] dude in an airplane. And I told you
[Speaker 0] I was gonna talk about helicopters. Well, there's
[Speaker 0] no real helicopter school here, but the US
[Speaker 0] Coast Guard air station is here. And a
[Speaker 0] lot of the students not students. A lot
[Speaker 0] of the coast guardsmen, you know, let's say
[Speaker 0] they because they all go to helicopter school,
[Speaker 0] Fort Rucker, Alabama. That's the big army school
[Speaker 0] and even the air force sends pretty much
[Speaker 0] everybody there to get their initial helicopter training
[Speaker 0] and then they go out to their individual
[Speaker 0] services. Now I know the Coast Guard's really
[Speaker 0] big air stations, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, I
[Speaker 0] believe. But, pretty much everybody in the Coast
[Speaker 0] Guard and aviation cycles through Traverse City at
[Speaker 0] some point. And they do a lot of
[Speaker 0] training and not initial training or anything like
[Speaker 0] that. You know, a lot of it is
[Speaker 0] just, you know, training people to fly the
[Speaker 0] h sixties, which is what they have up
[Speaker 0] here. And, you know, I I hear them
[Speaker 0] a lot on the scanner. I I'm lucky.
[Speaker 0] I live right near the airport here, and
[Speaker 0] I've got, you know, my ham radio set
[Speaker 0] up. And and on my ham radio set
[Speaker 0] up and a scanner, I can listen to
[Speaker 0] air traffic control. In fact, I wrote the
[Speaker 0] book on it, flight radio. I think it's
[Speaker 0] mostly out of print now, but it was
[Speaker 0] available on Amazon. I don't know. I keep
[Speaker 0] getting little tiny royalty checks once in a
[Speaker 0] while, but, anyway, it is out there. It's
[Speaker 0] a re a book called Flight Radio. Basically,
[Speaker 0] it's just how to listen to airplanes on
[Speaker 0] a scanner, or on a, you know, whatever.
[Speaker 0] But now, you know, there's, there's live a
[Speaker 0] t c dot com where you can stream
[Speaker 0] it from all over the world. So, you
[Speaker 0] know, most people just do that. But, you
[Speaker 0] know, some of us still listen to it.
[Speaker 0] But I'm real close to the airport, so
[Speaker 0] I can hear, you know, I can hear
[Speaker 0] hear the people on the ground. I can
[Speaker 0] hear people in the air. I can, you
[Speaker 0] know, hear most of what goes on around
[Speaker 0] here as far as air traffic. And a
[Speaker 0] lot of times, the coast guard will be
[Speaker 0] out there, you know, doing auto rotations and
[Speaker 0] pattern work in the helicopters and, you know,
[Speaker 0] full run on landings and just, you know,
[Speaker 0] obvious training. And also the, North Flight, I
[Speaker 0] guess it's called still, but the local air
[Speaker 0] ambulance outfit. They have a King Air and
[Speaker 0] a and a, s seventy six helicopter. Anyway,
[Speaker 0] sometimes you'll hear them out training, but they're
[Speaker 0] just doing that for, currency. It's not really
[Speaker 0] a school. But, anyway, that's, that's really about
[Speaker 0] it. But what I got about the, the
[Speaker 0] training in schools here in Traverse City and
[Speaker 0] and all that, Like I said, if you
[Speaker 0] wanna learn to fly, it's not a bad
[Speaker 0] place to do it. It's just in the
[Speaker 0] winter, you're gonna have a little challenge with
[Speaker 0] the weather. Like, when I'm training, it's, always,
[Speaker 0] you know, summertime, springtime, fall, and, you know,
[Speaker 0] maybe go for a flight in the winter
[Speaker 0] if you get a really nice day or
[Speaker 0] something like that. But, again, I'm a fair
[Speaker 0] weather pilot, so I'm not gonna go when
[Speaker 0] it's crappy. I'd rather be sitting here wishing
[Speaker 0] I was flying than up there wishing I
[Speaker 0] wasn't. So with that, tomorrow's episode, I'm gonna
[Speaker 0] talk about some of the other airports around
[Speaker 0] here. Why not? Since, it's my show. Anyway,