I Suck at Math, Can I be a Pilot? // #66 

I love these guys man! Down to earth guys that’s giving you the game like a buddy you’re grabbing a beer with. My journey is easier because of them 🔥

I'm not sure what I appreciate more in these videos. The information or the stories. "No not the first time, but the second time I thought I did" 😂😂😂

The question people have is not whether or not they can do the job once they have it. The question is whether they will pass the math test in the classes leading to the job!

Hey! Thanks for featuring my email. I sent that over a month ago so I was surprised to see it on the show today. Thanks a lot for the encouragement and I thought I'd give a bit of an update. You're correct that finances are the reason why I'm looking at flight school in a couple years. Sadly however I just went through a bankruptcy so I'm unable to qualify for any loans. However, I've started ground school online for my PPL as a way of getting started I figured I'd used this time to pass the FAA tests so I can focus flying when I do make it to flight school. Thanks again for everything. Love the show! -Jon

I was waiting for this one!! Thanks guys!

Great podcast guys! Not to dissuade the questioner, but that chart Mike was talking about was on my Private Pilot written exam just a few weeks ago (I passed by the way - lol). There was even a weight and balance question on there that I had to pull out my flight calculator for (several questions actually required it). There is still a TON of memorization for your writtens and Oral exams. It might go away once you are actually a professional pilot but the FAA is still stuck in the 60's on the exams.

You guys are really cranking out the content! Thanks for the insight on this amazing field.

I love listening to you guys. I keep coming back for more. Here's a suggestion for a future show: find someone to come and talk about the "economic outlook" of the overall industry over the next 20-30 years. There are estimates of a shortage of 30,000 pilots by 2036! This is going to have certain implications on making it easier to fly newer aircraft, the costs of owning a plane, how easy it will be to rent it out or share it, and so on. (Yeah, more math...) But if I were in my 20's today, I'd definitely consider becoming a pilot. (When I was young, I wanted to be an Air Force Test Pilot when I grew up! Then I got glasses in 5th grade and put an end to that dream. And yes, that was BEFORE they changed the policy to allow pilots to wear glasses. It's not just an "old wive's tale", it was a real policy for several decades.) Anyway, I was a Math / Computer Science major. I hated calculus as well as prob & stats. I've never used them since college. Believe it or not, the most useful class I took in college was called "Discrete Math Structures". It sounds really complicated, but it was all about ... counting. "Off-by-one" errors are the most frequent errors programmers encounter. And no matter what kinds of math you need to do, for most of the past 30 years, you'd be hard-pressed to NOT find a math library that does those calculations for you. So I can write programs that use extremely math-intensive stuff employing math I know nothing about. And I don't even want to learn. It just has to work. So most of this stuff has become what I call "applied math". The thing about that is what Mike alluded to: when you do the same calculations over and over and over, it gets to the point where you start to "just know" the answers. I sold real estate briefly when I was 19. Estimating the monthly payments (PITI) for a given priced home, mortgage, interest rate, and #payments took a while using a simple a 4-banger calculator back then. (This was back in the dinosaur age.) But it wasn't long before I could guess it within about $50. I don't know how, but it becomes like a pattern you learn to recognize I guess. I'm not a pilot (yet), but watching lots of videos I can tell that the software that runs now on all of this equipment is constantly monitoring dozens of different instruments and data streams, and updating your dashboard in real-time WAY, WAY FASTER than any human being could EVER possibly do it. I learned to use a "map and compass" back in Boy Scouts; now you just call up Google Maps on your phone and shazaam! You know exactly where you are, you can see a bird's-eye view of the terrain, changes of elevation, and it's nearly impossible to get lost -- unless your battery dies. They can even show you a view of the trails and roads beneath the trees. It's no different if you're in the sky, only they can show you what the ground looks like below both the clouds, weather, AND the trees. Meanwhile, the equipment just keeps getting better and better. Don't even THINK about the billions of math calculations going on every second that's needed to do that for you! Honestly, for me, the most complicated thing I'm encountering while watching so many videos, is the chatter with control towers. I can't understand most of it. I just want to know one thing: when are they going to switch to digital or at least FM so there's not so much background noise and cross-talk? I mean ... basic AM radio (Amplitude Modulation) disappeared with CB radios. But I guess we can all be grateful that it's not CW (Morse code)!!!

Fellas... Love the energy, information, and directness! Ty sooo much 🛩️🛩️🛩️🛩️🛩️🛩️🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Thank you guys for breaking it down so narrowly I’m going to be a pilot when I get out high school love your channel

Another great video has a new subscriber

I still remember this coming up in 8th grade math class in 1992. The teacher said you have to be "good" at math and have a college degree. I went though privat pilot and never used anything above 4th grade math. I'm sure she had never taken 1 flight lesson , but she spoke with such confidence of something she knew nothing about. I was a kid ans assumed adults wouldn't do something like that.

Gentlemen, love the info! Quick question, could you give advice on newer commercial pilots (CSEL) as it pertains to setting ourselves apart from other candidates with time building? I plan to instruct for a while but I don’t see how instructing for 1200hrs will make me better than anyone else at the atp level.

I have a question regarding maximum flight hours that can be performed by a pilot. When the authorities state that 1000 hours maximum can be flown in a year, do they mean 1000 hours in the preceding 12 months, or in the calendar year?

I had to take business calculus four times in college, and I think my last professor curved me up to a D to get me out, but I don’t think you have to do calculus in the cockpit :-)

Hey guys! I am transitioning careers at 27 and am super excited to start here in Alaska. Discovery flight will be Saturday! I loved the video comparing ATP vs corporate, but I am wondering if we could get another that directly contrasts pay scales over time, schedule progression, benefits, job security, and goes on a deep dive? Thanks and keep up the good work! Jake

i got a really interesting story that can also help people finance their aviation career. im only 5 hours into my private. when i get more experience i would love share my story. great video guys 💪💪

The problem is I'm 60, and to start the pro pilot journey this late in the game, the math doesn't work.

Me hearing that cg and arm is the hardest Math cause I was doing it last night 😅

60:1 rule is kicking my ass!

😂😂😂 inter national flights you ask the Navigator how long is it to destination, 20 minutes later he give you a answer and that time is 25 minutes old 😅😅