Latest Commercialpilot Podcast Episodes
RFT 608: D-Day 2024
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - June 06, 2024 07:29 - 15 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsD-Day Anniversary Today is the 80th anniversary of the Normandy D-Day landing. Many of the heroes of the Greatest generation traveled back to Normandy for a final visit. All are over 90 years old, many over 100. When I was growing up, everyone I knew had a relative who had been kille...
RFT 607.1: A-10/Airline Pilot Scott Cerone
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - May 27, 2024 20:30 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsScott Cerone grew up on Long Island, listening to the Concord supersonic airliner fly final approach to JFK Airport, and KNEW he wanted to fly. He attended the United States Air Force Academy, majoring in General Engineering, and went to Undergraduate Pilot Training at Colombus Air Force Base. ...
RFT 606: 787 Pilot/NIFA Mentor Andrew Ross
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - December 03, 2023 18:52 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsAndrew Ross is a pilot at a major airline flying the Boeing 787 domestically and internationally. Andrew has served as a union representative, committee chairman, and is a member of the National Education Steering Committee for the ALPA. He has also served as an airline check airman and is a G...
RFT 605: Triple MiG-Killer Rico Rodriguez
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - October 30, 2023 18:18 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsCesar "Rico" Rodriguez's first operational assignment was flying the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II at Suwon Air Base, South Korea; in 1985 he was selected to attend the Instructor Pilot Course at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas then spent the following three years as an AT-38 Instructor...
RFT 604: Airliner Cargo Fire Systems
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - September 16, 2023 01:20 - 9 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsOn the afternoon of May 11, 1996, Valet Flight 592 pushed back from gate G2 in Miami after a delay of 1 hour and 4 minutes due to mechanical problems.There were 110 people on board: 105 passengers, mainly from Florida and Georgia, and a crew of two pilots and three flight attendants. At 2:04 PM ...
RFT 603: Stunt Pilot Scott Kartvedt
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - July 29, 2023 18:02 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsWatching Top Gun Scott Kartvedt watched Top Gun in 1986 just like many other young men but then went on to be a Navy pilot, something many of us just dreamed of. He applied to and was selected to the elite Blue Angels air demonstration team where he served as the number seven, six, and number ...
RFT 602: Home Builder Dan Verdoorn
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - June 09, 2023 04:19 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsDan Verdoorn started his flying as a young child, riding his bicycle to the local airport and watching airplanes take off and land from outside the fence. Finally, a pilot in a J-3 Cub asked him if he wanted to go for a flight, and that was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with aviation. ...
RFT 601: Marine/Airline Pilot Tom Speer
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - May 22, 2023 03:30 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsDuring the Vietnam War, with two years of college, Tom Speer was facing the draft. Out of curiosity, he visited a Marine recruiter and saw a photo of an F-4 and was hooked. The recruiter sent him to take numerous tests - which he aced - and he signed up to be a Marine Aviation Cadet. He had a bi...
RFT 600 Captured By Love Interview With Lee Ellis
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - May 05, 2023 19:20 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsCaptured by Love shares the real love stories of 20 Vietnam War POWs. Some had wives who started a movement that changed American foreign policy. Others came home and had to start over, while five single men met the loves of their lives. Despite their unique differences, all these couples have b...
RFT 597: Divine Intervention - Let's Stop Believing Our Own Press!
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - April 04, 2023 23:57 - 25 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsSully Sullenberger: "I'm very glad that the Federal Aviation Administration has ensured the safety of the traveling public by wisely denying the waiver request by Republic Airways to cut in half the pilot experience requirement. U.S. airlines have attained an extraordinarily good safety recor...
RFT 288: Cancer Survivor/Airline Pilot David Whitson
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - March 08, 2023 21:45 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsFrom Air Line Pilots Association: In September 2016, Capt. David Whitson (United) was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a condition in which white blood cells that manage the body’s immune system form abnormally. The then B-787 first officer was treated at the Texas Oncology–Baylor Charl...
RFT 596: Medivac Pilot Bud Willis
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - February 15, 2023 00:50 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsNamed Tennessee's Outstanding Young Man for service to his community, state and country, Bud Willis has been well recognized for his first book, Bluestocking, released in 2009, now in its second printing. A native Tennessean, Willis grew up in Tullahoma, and graduated from Tennessee Tech Unive...
RFT 595: Aviation Photographer/Author Scott Dworkin
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - January 30, 2023 03:11 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsScott Dworkin is an aerial photographer, contractor, and photojournalist based outside Los Angeles, California. He has had a lifelong passion for aviation and photography, and after honing his skills as a photographer for many years, he decided to combine the two interests professionally in 2010...
RFT 594: Goals for 2023
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - January 14, 2023 01:30 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsI'd like to tell you about a great new podcast called Air Traffic Out Of Control. The show brings you curated ATC recordings that are funny, interesting and downright unbelievable. The show publishes a full episode every Wednesday and short 'fly by' episodes throughout the week. Check ou...
RFT 593: Steven Myers
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - December 23, 2022 02:32 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsThe cornerstone of courage is optimism. In 1992, at the end of the Cold War, Steven Myers became the first American since Charles Lindbergh in 1931, to pilot an aircraft into the Russian Kamchatka peninsula. There he formed one of the first post-Soviet era joint ventures - a pioneering, expans...
RFT 592.1: POW Dave Carey
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - November 19, 2022 16:14 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsDave Carey was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1942. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1960, and was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Navy on June 4, 1964. Carey next attended flight training at NAS Pensacola, Florida, and was designated a Naval Aviator in 1966. After completing A...
RFT 591: Airline Pilot John Barton
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - November 07, 2022 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsAs a Captain, John F. Barton Jr. has been a Captain on the Boeing 767-300/757 and 737 Aircraft. He taught as an instructor the Boeing 777 aircraft, at the United Airlines Training Center from 1997 till 1999, He began his flying with a Major International Airline as a Boeing 727 first and second ...
RFT 590: Pilot/Author Roger Johnson
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - November 02, 2022 01:09 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsRoger Johnson is a Captain with a major airline and a former Fighter Pilot in the USAF. He has been flying for 48 years and has flown throughout the world. He is the second generation of being trained and operating in the civilian, military, and airline realms of aviation with his father givin...
RFT 589: Operation Linebacker
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - October 27, 2022 19:37 - 13 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsOperation Linebacker, the code name for the new interdiction campaign, would have four objectives: to isolate North Vietnam from its sources of supply by destroying railroad bridges and rolling stock in and around Hanoi and north-eastwards toward the Chinese frontier; the targeting of primary st...
RFT 588: Sterile Cockpit
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - October 18, 2022 05:07 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsby Robert L. Sumwalt It's no secret. When a flight crew's attention is diverted from the task of flying, the chance of error increases. Over the years there have been dozens of air carrier accidents that occurred when the crew diverted attention from the task at hand and became occupied with i...
RFT 587: Air Force Pay Cut
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - September 19, 2022 22:00 - 8 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsEnlisted airmen who work in some of the Air Force's most difficult jobs will receive from $900 to $5,400 less annually beginning next month as the service faces financial challenges that affect the ranks. Hundreds of service members will see cuts to their Special Duty Assignment Pay, known as ...
RFT 586: September 11th Retropsective
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - September 12, 2022 16:51 - 18 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsThe minimum age to obtain an Airline Transport Pilot certificate is 23, which means that it is possible that new airline pilots were as young as two years old when the attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred. The world changed forever on that day, and it's worth looking back at the airline indust...
RFT 585: Airline Pilot Art Ziccardi
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - September 05, 2022 23:29 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsArt Ziccardi learned to fly as a teenager after participating in Civil Air Patrol for four years. He attended an aviation college and accumulated thousands of hours as a SFI while there. He later obtained a Master's Degree and held several jobs in aviation until getting hired by United Airlines ...
RFT 584: The Cautionary Tale of Abel Castillo
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - August 29, 2022 06:00 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsAbel Castillo worked his way up to 1500 hours as a CFI and was hired by a regional airline, rising to the position of Captain on a Regional Jet. His goal was to advance to a legacy airline, and he had just been hired by another, better-paying, regional airline. He had completed all pre-employmen...
RFT 583: Great Balls of Fire
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - August 16, 2022 23:58 - 12 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsI turned off my Big Ben alarm clock at 0230, the usual wake-up time for our Linebacker mission. When the scheduling board simply indicated “Special”, we knew it would be a 0400 mass briefing at Wing Headquarters for a bombing mission over North Vietnam. We wouldn’t know our target until the miss...
RFT 582: Protecting Taiwan
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - August 09, 2022 12:53 - 13 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsThe 18th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Kadena AB, Okinawa maintained two Squadron of McDonnell F-4C Phantom II aircraft from November 1972 until May 1975. On 6 November 1972, the 18th Wing dispatched the McDonnell Douglas F-4C/D Phantom II fighters of 44th Fighter Squadron and 67th Fighter Sq...
RFT 581: Airline Pilot Murder/Suicides
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - July 26, 2022 13:33 - 13 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsPreliminary evidence suggests the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Corp. jet in March may be the latest such tragedy, a person familiar with the investigation said. If confirmed, that would make it the fourth since 2013, bringing deaths in those crashes to 554. So as aircraft become more reli...
RFT 580: Author Matt Lohmeier
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - July 11, 2022 06:00 - 45 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsMatthew Lohmeier is author of the bestselling book Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military. His book Irresistible Revolution was published in May 2021, at which time Matt was a respected active-duty commander in the newly formed US Space Forc...
RFT 579: Miami Air Flight 293 Flight Attendant Melissa Gonzales
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - June 27, 2022 06:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsOn May 3, 2019, Miami Air Flight 293, a Boeing 737 that took off from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, attempted to land at Naval Air Station Jacksonville. The jet overshot the runway and eventually settled in a shallow part of the St. Johns River. There were seven crew members and 136 passengers on boar...
RFT 578: Congressman August Pfluger
Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career - June 20, 2022 06:00 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsServing his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman August Pfluger represents 29 counties in Texas’ 11th congressional district, including the cities of San Angelo, Llano, Brownwood, Granbury, Midland, Odessa, and much of the Permian Basin—the top-oil and gas producing regio...