December 10, 2024 • 47 mins
In this episode, Adam sits down with Emmet Feerick from Green Dot Aviation to explore his unique perspective, from a psychological vantage point, on the aviation industry's investigation on aircraft incidents. Emmet shares his journey into aviation, from his initial interest and early influences to the creation of the wildly popular YouTube channel, Green Dot Aviation. They discuss the challenges of funding flight training, the integration of simulators in content creation, and the balance between content creation and pilot training. Emmet talks about the evolution of Green Dot Aviation's mission and offers advice for aspiring content creators and aviation professionals. The episode closes with insights for international aviation career aspirants and how to connect with Emmet. Enjoy!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:18):
Hey, TPN.
Welcome back to another episode of the pilotnetwork podcast.
This episode was recorded a while back ago.
We got busy with TPNX and then summer flying aswell as family stuff.
Wasn't able to put it out, but here it is.
Anyways, I'm joined by the producer, host, andcreator of Green Dot Aviation on YouTube,
Emmett Fierick, who combines his study ofpsychology with aviation and details a lot of
(00:44):
incidents, accidents, and industry news thatoccurs from his lens and perspective.
It's also interesting to note that Emmett isstudying to become an airline pilot right now
over in Europe.
He's probably much further along.
I'm gonna reach back out to him when thisepisode airs and get an update for y'all.
It's exciting to get that perspective because alot of times we as professional aviators have
our own perspective and to see somebody elseand their lens, through their lens is something
(01:09):
that is something we should probably all bedoing a little bit more.
It gives us an objective step back to take alook or or a subjective look, but we can
objectively look at the issues that surroundour industry.
Anyways, I think you'll enjoy this conversationwith Emmett, and go check out Green Dot
Aviation on YouTube.
He's got a ton of subscribers.
I think you'll really enjoy the material thathe has produced.
(01:30):
I got interested by watching his interpretationof the MH 370.
Although, I didn't agree with everything thathe did.
He did have some awesome points in there, andit was super unique to see his viewpoint.
Anyways, enough for me.
Let's get on with my conversation with Emmett.
Emmett, welcome to the pilot network podcast.
(01:52):
It is really truly an honor to have somebody soyoung in aviation, but someone who's really
studied this industry and career field heavily.
Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you.
It's great to be here.
Yeah.
So, you were you started, what I assume startedas a little YouTube channel Yeah.
(02:13):
A few years back, Dream Dot Aviation, which Iknow where the name came from, because of my
experience.
And it has grown to, a level that I'm sure youweren't necessarily prepared for.
So can you kinda talk us through how this allbecame a thing?
Yeah.
So, I was working in psychology, before Istarted this channel in psychological research,
(02:36):
kind of educational psychology.
And I had always wanted to be a pilot since Iwas 5 or 6 years old.
But, obviously, it's very expensive to become apilot, probably similar to the US.
I think it might even be a bit more expensive.
It's about I'm living in Ireland.
It's about €100,000, maybe a bit more if youinclude the type rating, which is a 130 ish, I
guess, $120,000.
So, yeah, I wasn't gonna be able to fund thatmyself.
(02:57):
And, the only way I thought, okay, I'll set upsome business to do this, but I had no idea
what that was going to be.
And, I set up the channel.
I was kinda I was a big fan of Air CrashInvestigations when I was a kid, the thing on
Nat Geo on TV.
And I saw some similar channels on YouTube, andI thought I can do something like this.
My thing when I was younger was always, like,writing.
I was good at, like, reading and writing.
(03:18):
And I thought, basically, these are justscripts.
These are just essays, and you put pictures ontop of them for YouTube.
So I started making those.
I didn't know where it would go other than justI'll keep at it, and I'll try and be
consistent.
And, I started that in October of 2021 duringthe pandemic, which was a good time to start it
because for one thing, a lot of people wereonline.
But also I had loads of free time.
(03:39):
I was working from home at that point and hadbeen for a few months.
And I had a load of free time basically afterwork.
I wasn't actually wasn't allowed to go within 2kilometers of my house.
And actually, I was renting at the at thatpoint, 2 kilometers.
I was 4 kilometers away from my parents' house.
So I used to cycle the 2 the 4 kilometers totheir house.
And I had it in my head that if the guards orthe police stop me on my way and I'm before the
(04:00):
2 kilometer point, I'll tell them I'm from myapartment.
If they stop me after the 2 kilometer pointmarked by a bridge, I'll tell them I'm going to
my parents' house.
So I had all that planned out.
That was a very strange era.
But, yeah, that that's how it started off.
I just kind of uploaded these videos and triedto make, the kind of basically make the final
reports accessible to a large audience.
Yeah.
And how I stumbled on the channel was I was I Idon't remember why, but I started looking up
(04:25):
the, Malaysian, stuff again.
Malaysian 370, I guess.
And I was just I I think I think it was becausethe Netflix channel or Netflix documentary came
out, and I said, wow.
This is really not very good.
Wolfens, the the production quality, very good,but the theoretical ideas behind it were a
little far fetched for my tastes.
(04:48):
So I wanted to find somebody out there whomaybe took a different approach.
And I went on YouTube and just kinda lookedaround, and all of a sudden, I saw this Green
Dot Aviation thing.
And I watched it all the way through, and Ithought, well, this is interesting.
And I could tell it wasn't necessarily comingfrom a professional pilot standpoint, but it
was somebody who had some knowledge ofaviation.
But there was something else there that Ididn't really understand, and I hadn't looked
(05:10):
up any of your past or history or what yourbackground was.
So I knew there was something a little bitdifferent there.
So instead of focusing on that one because youhave I I don't even know how many video how
many videos do you have now on I think
it's about 6 to 70 at this point.
Yeah.
It's it's it's not a small, library.
(05:31):
That's for sure.
So I I watch it through, and I said, this thisis really interesting.
He's he's done a good job more so than anybodyelse who's not have who doesn't have the same
background that I have where it's just inflying airplanes and and the everything that
comes with that.
So I wanted to I reached out to Emmett, and Isaid, hey.
I'd really like to have you on the podcast.
(05:52):
And he comes back and he says, well, I'mactually in training, to become a professional
pilot.
I'm like, oh, that's so cool.
Good for you.
And I said, we can pause it for as long as youneed.
I get it.
You know, you're busy.
This is a that that is a very strenuous time insomebody's life, kinda stressful.
And, we finally got the chance to get together.
So instead of going down the Malaysian 370 yearold, let's let's take a look at kind of the
(06:14):
grand scheme of all of your all your videos outthere.
What's the when you started doing the channel,what was your ask how did you how how are you
able to go, okay.
I am not somebody who's got experience as aprofessional pilot, but I want to show them a
different aspect, the psychological humanfactors aspect, if you will.
(06:37):
How did you marry those 2 up with having a lotof experience in this one field that a lot of
pilots don't with having just a passionateinterest on the aviation side?
Yeah.
I think it works quite well because, yeah, likeyou said, I have the psychological aspect to
it.
Like, my aviation interest, I mean, I've hadthis since I was 5 or 6.
(06:59):
So I was able to kind of pick up just fromreading stuff online, from watching videos
online, some amount of information about howthe world of age aviation works.
Obviously, my understanding of it is is quitelimited compared to somebody who's been a
professional pilot themselves.
So that's definitely a weak point in my, in thekind of merging of those two things.
But like you say, like, the I use the finalreports basically as the only reference in my
(07:21):
videos.
And that means that I mean, they're entirelyfact based.
They're very, comprehensive and in-depth.
And a lot of what's in the final reports isunderstandable even if you don't have, like, a
fully, like, immersed experience in aviation.
You don't need to be a pilot to read them.
It would almost certainly help, and you couldkinda contextualize what's in the final report
(07:42):
better.
But there's enough information there that,somebody with an interest in aviation can kinda
cobble together an understanding of whathappened, marry that to whatever their other
area of interest is, in my case, psychology,and kind of combine those two things to make a
narrative that makes sense to people who aren'tin aviation, say, like me, or at least weren't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You you are now.
(08:03):
And Yeah.
So let's back up the train then a little bit.
So you first you first got into aviation.
A lot of us have this there's always thatstory.
I I mean, there's the majority of pilots, it'ssome sort of thing that happened when they were
a kid, and they just kinda Yeah.
Within some people some of us don't evenremember not being interested in airplanes.
Take us back to that historical moment or orthat era in your life where all of a sudden
(08:26):
you're like, man, I I this is this is it.
This is what I wanna do.
Yeah.
That is hard to know.
In my head, there's, like, 2 things.
I don't know which one of them is moreimportant.
So one thing is the one of my best friend whenI was 5 had, a remote controlled plane.
And it wasn't one of the ones that could fly.
It was just like a Fisher Price plastic toythat drove on the ground.
And it's, it went very slow and everything, butit had 2 speed modes.
(08:48):
And the remote control was a yoke.
It was like a like a blue control column.
And you could turn the plane by just turningthat like it must have had some accelerometer
or something else.
And I thought this was so cool.
It had the lights.
And I remember there were, like, paintedwindows on for the cockpit, like, it was just a
cheap kind of plastic model.
And there must have been about 8 or 9 or 10black painted windows.
There's a 747 model type thing, just kind of akids version 747 and chunky.
(09:11):
And, I would imagine, like, I'll kind of lookinside the windows, not that you could see
through them, they're just painted on, and justimagine that inside and realize there's
probably, like, 8 pilots inside, like, flickingbuttons and doing all sorts of, like, cool
things to make this thing fly.
It seemed like magic.
And I was I suppose when I saw a plane in areal plane in the air, I just thought something
similar to that must be going on and what acool thing it would be to be a part of that.
(09:32):
And the second thing was before thatchronologically was, I used to want to be a
fireman.
My favorite show when I was a kid was FiremanSam.
I don't think you had that over in the US ormaybe it's a they had a few iterations of it.
But the one I watched, I thought it was reallycool when they would they would it's basically
like a clay animation type of show.
They would they would go to rescue cats fromtrees and put out fires in kitchens and stuff.
(09:53):
It was kinda like basic stuff.
But they get a call on the fax machine, and andthey'd, like, the fire bell would ring.
They'd all jump down the fire, pole in the inthe firehouse.
And the 3 of them like, there's room in a fireengine for 3 people.
So the 3 of them would sit across.
One of them would flick the siren button, andthey'll all start to drive out to the scene of
the the emergency.
And something about the sense of, like, themission, like, having lights and sounds, like,
(10:16):
very kind of childish thing if we're going on amission.
I think some of that transferred over to, like,a cockpit.
Like, we're sitting down.
We're using machinery.
We've lights.
We have sounds.
We have all these displays and everything.
It just looked really cool.
And I basically, I think the kind of coolnessof that, the kind of team aspect on a mission
transferred over to aviation then when I was abit older.
Yeah.
(10:36):
So I I think that sounds pretty normal for alot of us.
In fact, I would say a lion's share of pilotswanted to be a firefighter at some point.
I was one of Oh, cool.
And I was one of those as well.
In fact, I know a couple of guys nowadays whoare and a couple girls too who are both
firefighters and pilots.
They do either volunteer or yeah.
They volunteer firefight, or they they do, alittle bit of both professionally, in some in
(11:01):
some form or facet.
I
think the next thing that in in fact, we talkeda little bit about this is you you, like, a lot
of us play the flight sim games and, you know,just kind of develop that love for flicking
switches and playing with big machinery.
And then you get a little bit older, and thisis something that it's almost like a, the pilot
(11:24):
network selling point is you you statedsomething about how you would look you were
looking online and you were trying to find, howcan I become a professional pilot?
What's the career field like?
And instead of being motivated and kind ofinspired to do it, you're almost it was almost
the opposite.
Tell me walk me through that a little bit.
(11:45):
Yeah.
So I went to secondary school then.
I think you would call it middle school.
And I was looking online because I realized atthat point, like, oh, it's a job.
Like, it's like, I'll have to go and get a job.
And it's because in my head before that, it wasI would have done it for free.
It's so cool.
I'll I just want to do that.
Then you kinda realize that jobs exist.
And, yeah, when I looked it up, I was on pprune.
(12:05):
I must have been on a few other forms as well.
And I was curious to see what people would sayto their kids, for example.
I know nobody in my family is in aviation.
So what would a pilot say to his or her son ordaughter about, becoming a pilot?
And there was a lot of negativity.
There was a lot of people saying, oh, Iwouldn't do it anymore.
The glory days are over.
You know, the condition's going down.
Tech's taking over.
(12:26):
There's a lot of negativity, which I supposeyou get in any form.
That put me off a bit.
And then other people were saying that even ifit's you know, you like it, it's a very
tumultuous career because it kinda sits on topof the rest of the economy.
It has experienced the shocks way more, deeplythan a lot of the rest of the economy does.
So you better have a backup career.
So I was pretty put off by all that.
(12:46):
I even kind of stopped flight swimming for awhile because I just thought, oh, this dream is
kind of dead in the water.
It's not something I want to do.
And I didn't think then.
I kind of assumed that something else wouldtake its place and that, you know, I'd have
some other obsession, but that never happened.
So anyway, I kind of put that on hold for a fewyears, and decided, okay, I better work on this
other thing that I'm interested in.
(13:07):
And that was psychology.
So I did psychology in college, and I reallyliked it.
I did philosophy as well with it.
Loved that too, and did a master's in it.
And I was kinda thinking, okay.
Like, I like research.
It's basically reading and writing.
I'll do that.
And, hopefully, like, maybe I'll teach in acollege or something like that.
But I had kind of seen the aviation thing as abit of a pipe dream at that point.
(13:28):
And that kind of changed when I had had anoffice job for 3 or 4 years, and I kinda
thought, well, I'm gonna be, like, old one day.
I'm gonna be, you know, 60 or 70 or and I'm,like, I might as well have been a pilot, and I
might as well find out for myself that it'sthat it's bad rather than just rely on other
people's opinion.
So, yeah, I thought I might as well give it ashot.
(13:50):
I'm literally I don't I believe I'm gonna liveonce.
So, that's that's what I did.
I started the channel to to fund that then.
So did you start flying on your own accordthen, start going out to the FBO and
Yep.
Paying here here's my money.
Let's go, let's go learn how to make this thinggo up in the air.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I paid lesson by lesson.
(14:10):
It was a modular thing.
And, yeah, the first time I went up, it was thesummer of 2021.
I was actually really scared the whole flight.
Like, it was an hour long.
I touched the controls for a bit and did a bitof turning.
But I was like, you're in this rattly machine.
It's a Cessna from, like, the early eighties,and, like, nothing worked in it.
There was the fuel gauges didn't work and,like, it was just I was this is just a metal
box.
I could see why for the first time in my life,I was like, I see why people are afraid of
(14:33):
flying.
I thought, how am I gonna get used to this?
But I wasn't I was not too concerned because Ithought even if I find it terrifying, I'm still
gonna do it because it's what I want to do, anda 3 twenties are a lot safer feeling than than
Cessnas.
So I'll bear it out or, yep, keep it up.
And, that'll actually disappear the second orthird time I went.
And, yeah, it's been absolutely thrilling.
I'm sure it's the same to many people, like,listening to this and yourself as well.
(14:55):
Like, once you start doing it, it's you can'tstop thinking about how you're going to do it
again.
Yep.
It's really fun.
Yep.
That is a true statement.
I remember when I did, because I so I when Idid RTC, I got my private pilot's license
through the RTC program because they had to dobasically a, a filtering process to see if you
could make it an air force pilot training.
That was the that was the point, the plananyways.
(15:17):
So I went and did that, and I remember I didmy, PBL checkride.
And this is, a couple months after 9:11.
I really had to work really hard to get it donebefore I was gonna go into pilot training.
And I went and did my checkride and it did notgo well.
I passed, but he, the, the evaluator said,you're going on to learn much more complex
aircraft with much more rigorous training.
(15:38):
And he said, but I think that's what you'regonna need because I don't know if going at
your own speed is gonna work.
And I did not have the best study habits at thetime.
I've said this a couple of times on the show.
So I needed to learn how to study, and the AirForce actually taught me exactly, that piece
because it taught me in a way that I it wasn'thanded to me.
(16:00):
It was, here you go.
Learn this stuff.
You gotta come back the next day and performit.
And when you have that and your your career ison the line and your dream of becoming a
military aviator is on the line, you either doit or you figure out how to get around it.
And I did not figure it out very quickly.
Once I did, things things came kind of fullcircle and, you know, finished and whatever.
That was many years ago now.
(16:21):
And I think watching somebody young who's intoit and does it.
But then the thing to me is I had to figure outa way to go become a military aviator.
You had to figure out a way to pay for thisbecause it is expensive and you were going, I'm
not going to loan the money out.
I want to I want to do this.
So you started this YouTube channel, Green DotAviation.
Now when you first started Green Dot, youprobably had when you had and we all know this
(16:47):
for anybody who's created anything and put itout for the masses to see or hear.
It is extremely unnerving because you know thatthe first iteration is probably not gonna be
great.
And in fact, it might even be bad, but theperfect is the enemy of the good and just
getting it out there.
So you create this first video.
How long did that take you?
What was that video about?
(17:07):
I don't think I've ever seen the first thefirst one.
Probably good that you haven't seen the firstone.
Yeah.
That was that was error proof 603.
It was a 757 that crashed in 96, I think itwas.
And, that was so I became really interested inthat I just I was I thought I'm gonna make one
at at the least, and it's gonna be this one.
Because, it took me about a month to make.
And part
(17:27):
of
that was because I haven't done the researchbefore, so I didn't know what how do I turn a
final report into a script that makes sense?
How do I structure it?
And, also, I use the cockpit voice recordings,which are available for that accent.
Obviously, mostly, they just have the scripts,or the the transcripts.
But for this incident, for whatever reason, thethe cockpit voice recorder itself is available.
(17:51):
And, of course, it's speaking Spanish, but Ihad a bit of Spanish and I could translate.
And, of course, the the official version hadthe translated version.
So I would kind of intersperse the CVOrecordings inside the script.
And then a lot of my time was spent taking theflight simulator shots, which is how I record
the videos, and also, stitching it all togetherfor the first time.
I hadn't done video editing since I was a kidwhen I played around with it a bit.
(18:11):
So, yeah, it took it took at least a month todo, but I thought, like, there's no audience
waiting for me to upload.
So I can take as long as I like.
And, you know, after the first one, maybe I'lltake a bit longer and be a bit quicker rather.
And yeah.
So well yeah.
And I knew when I was uploading it that I willlook back on this and think this is terrible.
But when I was uploading, I I was like, I can'tpicture I can looking at it, I'm watching, and
(18:33):
I can't see what's bad about it.
But I know it's I know it's gonna be bad, butin in 10 months' time or whatever.
And looking back at it now, like, it's it'sI've I'm like I'm like muttering.
Like, I thought I should speak in a kind of asomber tone of voice because there's, like,
death involved.
And so I speak in this kind of monotonous wayand very drony.
And it's like it's hard to listen to with themusic over it.
So I made a lot of kind of rookie mistakes,but, like, I knew and I still know.
(18:56):
Like, there's no other way to do it.
And my hope is that in a year's time or in 2years' time, I look back at the current videos
and think the same thing.
Like, if you're if you like if you if you're ayear ahead and look back at yourself a year ago
and you think that's great, it's probablybecause you haven't improved.
So I yeah.
That's that's the only way to do it.
And, I I think I can still stand behind thescript.
I just wouldn't stand behind the editing atthis point.
(19:17):
Yeah.
I well, I I know how you feel after I do, anyone of these shows.
I feel, like a fraud and that that that wasgarbage.
And the next one's gonna be the perfectepisode.
There never is.
There never is.
You get you just keep trying to improve.
Right?
Like, that's all that this kind of mediumallows for us to do.
And you hope that somebody gained somethingfrom it and or at least they're entertained if
(19:39):
nothing else.
And I think that's one of the things that Inoticed about, when I stumbled upon your
channel was not only was the material wellthought out, and and and and I'll be the first
to say, I didn't necessarily agree witheverything that you said, but didn't matter
because I thought this was well thought out andwell researched, which a lot of other channels
(20:02):
and a lot of other even TV shows don't do agreat job of that or their production quality
is it it it weakens the material.
I was watching, an air, an air disaster show orsomething on Smithsonian or one of the channels
out there, and I just happened to flip it onbecause I was like, oh, you know what?
I don't see what they're talking about.
I think they were talking about, a bunch of 73crashes that happened in the eighties with,
(20:26):
basically a rudder reversal because of the the,pressure control unit in the back, if I recall.
One of the things I I was so miffed by thatreally made it hard to watch was they had these
actor scenes that were supposedly reenactmentsof what was going on on the flight deck at the
(20:48):
time of the incident.
And they were terrible.
Like, they were so bad that they took away fromthe material, which honestly could be a very
strong lesson for young professionals or evennon professional pilots who find who who just
like to fly because they can understand what'sgoing on.
But the reenactments were so not good that itwas it took away from the show.
(21:10):
That is something that I've seen, on yourchannel and some others out there that do a
really strong job and going, okay, we're gonnaveer away from that idea because those
reenactments, they're there for eyeballs and, Idon't know, keeping people tuned in who are who
are novices or don't know anything aboutaviation.
What your channel does that I like so much isit the reenactment is based on with simulator
(21:33):
stuff.
So you can kinda get an idea of what theairplane was doing, and then you kind of
explain, either through a lot of fact basedstuff from from data that came from a from the
boards that review these crashes.
And then you complement that with you have alevel of expertise in a field like psychology
(21:56):
to kind of get in the mind of what maybe theywere talking about thinking about doing at that
time.
The reality is we don't necessarily know in alot of situations, right?
Like that's it's that's just don't it's sad.
That's kind of the nature of the beast of someof these.
And I think that to me is what kept me going.
I was like, man, this is this is reallyinteresting.
(22:16):
I actually told some other people about itright after I met it.
And then I find out that I'm like, Emmett's,like, almost 20 years younger than I am, and
he's he's got he's got a much betterunderstanding of how this stuff works, which I
think will take you a lot further in differentplaces in your career than you can ever imagine
as you go forward here.
I think the other thing that I wanted to getinto a little bit was now that you're, you're,
(22:37):
I mean, you're, you're rapidly gonna becomevery busy because congratulations, you're in a
cadet program at an esteemed, airline.
And that's going to be that's a lot of work.
Like, as you're starting to see it, it it'sgonna ramp up, you know.
How do you plan on because you're gonna have toprobably take a pause at some point with not
being able to produce, a show regularly.
(23:01):
And that's going to that's gonna hurt obviouslylonger, but, obviously, you know, you have a a
greater cause for this.
What's your plan is going forward a little bit?
I mean, how many subscribers do you have nowfor Green Dot Aviation?
I think it's 370 or 380,000.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
And and they like they obviously like whatyou're producing.
So how are you gonna how what's your plan goingforward then?
(23:24):
Yeah.
I mean, I'll do as much as I can for both ofthe things.
Obviously, the priority is finishing pilottraining.
So Right.
I can't put on pause.
I can put on pause the videos.
I absolutely can't pause this program.
So if any of them takes a hit, it'll be the thechannel.
But I just want to give it kind of give it aslittle of a hit as possible.
So I do have somebody working with me who'svery good.
(23:44):
He's a video editor, and he kind of does theediting when I he does the simulator shots as
well.
So I give him a list of shots to do.
He takes them, and then he stitches themtogether.
And so he does that on top of the voice overthat I provide him.
So it's, it is a team effort at this point.
And my plan is basically to delegate as much aspossible to to him and to other people so that
the channel can kind of stay running, on a onprobably on a reduced schedule.
(24:07):
So I'm flying this summer, and that means thatI have plenty of free time.
I'll be I'll be flying probably once or twice aday for about 3 months, and that'll give me
enough time to work on scripts.
But then when I go back to the ground schoolaspect and complete more of the ATPL exams and
then do the kind of multi crew cooperationtraining that we do for a few months in in the
simulator, that I expect will be more involvedand that will require me to cut back a bit.
(24:29):
So the plan is to keep it going, delegate asmuch as possible.
And, yeah, as much as I can, kind of my jobconsists of of basically writing at this point.
So all I need is a laptop.
I'll sit at my desk or sit in wherever is ishandy and write away as much as I can.
And, yeah, that's how I plan to do it goingforward.
Again, fully accepting the say, when I'm goingto the type rating and, probably in the initial
(24:52):
experience as well with the airline learninghow the every night before a flight, I'll be
looking up the airports and how how do Inavigate in this airport and everything.
I expect that'll be pretty intense.
You do know plenty about that.
So that's, I may may have to take a bit of ahit at that point.
But if I can keep it going to some extent,that's better than stopping it altogether.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
Totally.
I think the other thing that I found to be,really fascinating with how you develop this
(25:14):
was first, we all start something for there's areason.
Right?
For you is, hey.
I wanna fly.
This is I have an interest in this, andthere's, a kind of a little void that I can
fill in in in the space out there.
And then it shifts, right?
Like, we we shift.
At first, maybe it's money or first, it'ssomething we want to help somebody else,
whatever the case is.
(25:34):
But you you kind of mentioned that you had,like, you you really kind of kept that mission
focused, and it was the higher quality, a goodsource of information for people out there.
How did that develop over time?
Because obviously, yeah, that's in your mindwhen you first do it, but normally, it takes a
little bit of refinement because you you playaround with making this video.
(25:56):
And then the video comes out and you're like,okay, I'm going to hone this.
I'm going to I'm going to tweak this here, makethis a little bit better, drop this completely,
add something here.
How did this that like your mission and yourvalues to what Green Dot Aviation is and then
aviation in general is this whole big worldbecause it's not just Average Joe who's
watching this.
There's professional pilots all over the worldwho see what you produce.
(26:19):
And you want to not only show them that youkind of know what you're talking about, number
1.
But number 2, you don't want to projectsomething that's, not true or you're giving
pure opinion based when you have facts to backit up.
Yeah.
I I think when I started the videos initially,I was just focused on making videos.
(26:40):
And I wasn't even thinking about like, I got alogo designed.
I got that on Fiverr website where you can justpay people to nearly a €5 or €5, €10, to, to
design stuff for you visually, includingthumbnails for videos even I did those myself.
But, yeah, I wasn't really focused on the brandaspect of it.
I was just focused on making videos, and Ididn't know how YouTube branding worked.
But then as you get more into it, you realizethat I'm making a certain type of video.
(27:04):
There's a certain style to these videos.
And you hone that as you as you yeah.
Like you said, you try out things, you dropthings.
For example, one one kind of small example ofthat is I used to describe the aircraft type at
the beginning of every episode.
Say, but this Boeing 757-200, it was made inthis year, that it carries this many people.
And then I kind of thought, I'll try and dropthat because it takes up a lot of space at the
start and see if there's any drop off in theviews, which there wasn't.
(27:27):
So you're constantly just trying to it's likeyou're an experimenter.
You're just kind of playing around withdifferent things, seeing what works, and then
gathering a sense of what is the brand about,what am I trying to do here.
And I suppose lately I've been thinking, like,I always thought at the start this will last
about 3 or 4 years.
Like, I'll get 3 or 4 years out of this.
That's as far as I can take it.
But now I'm kind of thinking more long termthinking where will this be in 10 or 20 years
(27:50):
and what does it really stand for at thatpoint?
Because it's a brand.
I want people to have good association goodassociations with it.
And, yeah, that's kind of more what I'mthinking about.
I'm taking a more holistic view on it than justvideo by video.
Yeah.
Now what exactly that means, it's hard to kindof work on clarifying that while also going to
pilot training.
I do think, like you say, I'll look back insome of these videos now when I am a
(28:12):
professional pilot and I'll think, oh, that's Ihad I really didn't know what was going on in
the cockpit at that point.
And if I had the industry experience, I'd havea better understanding of what those pilots
were thinking or what was actually going onthere.
But that that's part of the journey of justimproving.
Like, my I suppose if there's one underlyingvalue, it's to continue improving everything
I'm doing, but mostly improve improving them interms of how base they are in the facts and in
(28:37):
in the evidence and keeping sensationalism toominimal because, yeah, like you said about this
Smithsonian thing, they'll do things like thethe copilot will say, I'm putting the gear up,
and he'll say, and that's that handle here, andhe'll move it.
And it's like, that's obviously not a astandard call out.
That's not what we say in the cockpit, butthat's for the audience to understand.
So minimizing things like that.
And, yeah, is that does that answer yourquestion?
(28:58):
Yeah.
It it's spot on because I think the thing thatyou you're saying in a very detailed way is
that this, like, integrity and and evidencebased idea behind what's happening behind the
scenes for some of these crashes, a moretechnical aspect that we can that we as pilots
and and nonpilots like who have an interest inthe in in that kind of thing and seeing how
(29:22):
these things happen.
Because the reality is is pilots wanna knowwhat happens in a crash or an accident, whether
it's, a pilot error, it's a it's assessed apilot error or some sort of mechanical issue.
So we can avoid something like that in thefuture for ourselves and for other people, for
our colleagues and friends who we've knownthrough years in this and how we can better the
(29:43):
industry.
The industry has been become so safe because ofhow we rigorously look at what what's happened
both mechanically and and then also astechnique procedure wise to get it better and
better and better.
So it can become it it has become as safe as itis with the help of support agencies that are
out there.
You know, there's a laundry list of those thatthat exist.
(30:06):
I think when I look at something like this as aas a pro, and I look out and go, okay, what's
out there that I can look at and learnsomething from?
You've done that with even without having thatexperience yet.
You've taken something that you do know verywell and applied it, which is which is unique
because I I don't think a lot of people can dothat.
And people who try sometimes don't do thatgreat of a job, and they try to overproduce
(30:31):
something that doesn't necessarily hit themark.
But the integrity of your your channel and whatyou're producing is, hey, I did.
And I think you you said the exact right word.
I'm not gonna make these sensationalized.
Like, there is no reason to sensationalizesomething that's tragic.
There's a way to look at it as we're going totake this on the surface and dig a little bit
(30:53):
deeper and see what we can find out to bettereverybody else out and also explain what could
have possibly happened.
Because there are other events out there thatwe we we know looking at them in-depth, and
there's some that are very hard to write,material or actually do something about
because, well, well, they're not going to get alot of clicks or views.
It was just what happened, right?
(31:14):
Like, it's just the the and you don't want tosensationalize any of these any any tragic
event, but looking at it from a very, very,almost objective, don't put any emotion behind
it way to me is something that is kind of lostin a lot of media that's out there, especially
in flying.
I mean, we we you're going to see this too whenyou get to the other side is you'll see
(31:37):
somebody go on the news or whatever and talkabout, an incident that happened.
In fact, I mean, not to time stamp this toobadly, but we just had an incident in the US
where there was a flight that happened with acarrier Spirit Airlines, and they reported
that, to watch out that they might have to do aemergency water landing, which was most likely
(32:02):
not the case.
And my guess is that didn't come from theflight deck, that that might have came from a
overzealous flight attendant, that they had aminimal issue.
I some of the rumor mill out there is that itwas a pressurization problem, and that would
not cause a water landing.
But what happened is it got out to the media,and then the next thing you know is they're
interviewing the passengers, and it gets out ofcontrol.
(32:24):
It's, oh my gosh, look at all this crazinessthat happened.
The reality is that that's not the case.
I mean, we people handle mechanicals all thetime in the airline industry and beyond.
And it's not as bad as it seems.
However, we can't get that very objective,almost flat tone of this is what happened.
(32:46):
Let's take it back.
Why did it happen that way?
Let's investigate it so it doesn't happenagain.
We have to dig through a media firestorm to tryto make people excited and click more and then
go on to a different story on their website,which is something that I'm glad that people
out there like yourself are doing to bring amore nuanced approach to this.
(33:08):
It makes me happy because it's something that Ican kinda get behind and watch and go, oh, you
know what?
I I like I I like the production value, and Ilike the fact that I don't have to dig through
that garbage.
So I think Yeah.
To me, that's a big that that that's so big andimportant in our field.
And I think when as you've grown through this,you've had other opportunities and experiences.
(33:29):
Like, when you first started the channel, theidea was, I'm gonna make a few bucks, and I'm
gonna produce this, this this high quality, nonsensationalistic approach.
And then you start to have other opportunities,doors open for you.
And that's only gonna happen more and more asyou as you get older in this field.
Field.
Trust me.
This is this is the big thing that has happenedto me that I never thought would.
(33:50):
What are some of those experiences that you'vehad so far that these doors have opened and,
how it's grown and changed you as a person anda pilot?
Yeah.
They've been the most surprising things.
Like, that's not I didn't expect these thingsat all.
And, one thing has been actually, even to startbefore I started this channel, kinda learning
from this has been that, like, there was athere's a guy called Mark Van Hoennacker.
(34:13):
He's a think that's how I pronounce his name.
He's a BA pilot.
And, he's written a book called Skyfaring.
It's very good.
Just kind of describing his life as a pilot andhow that came from when he was a kid.
And, he, I got in touch with him when I wasstill thinking, should I become a pilot
basically before my flight training.
I just emailed him, after reading his booksaying that I enjoyed it and and kind of put to
(34:34):
him my two fears about becoming a pilot, abouttechnology taking over and also about the
worsening conditions.
Would it be worth it?
And he wrote me a nice long reply and was veryhelpful and everything and said, you know, stay
in touch.
I thought that was so cool.
And this was somebody who seemed kindauntouchable, because he was, yeah, a writer for
the for Financial Times.
He was, like, this, an author of a few books.
He was kind of a cool guy.
(34:55):
I thought he's just responding to some randomeron an email.
Like, that's cool.
And, yeah, a few things similar to that havejust happened with the channel.
I've talked to, Eric Moody, who passed away,unfortunately.
I think it was last month.
He was the captain of a a British Airways 747.
Went into a NASH cloud in in the eighties,1982, I think.
All the engines failed, and they managed torestart them before before hitting the ocean.
(35:16):
And, that was amazing.
I had actually first come across him, when Iwas watching Air Crash Investigations.
I think I was probably 10.
I saw the episode, and I saw him him beinginterviewed in that.
And I could never have imagined then that I'dbe talking to him one day over Zoom,
nonetheless, but still.
And, same with Kevin O'Sullivan, Australianguy.
He was ex, I hope I get this right because Iknow there's different wings in the military.
(35:37):
He's at US Air Force.
He was in the top one program and everything.
Really cool guy.
I got to chat with him for a while.
He's written a very good book on that.
And another thing was has been, like, lastyear, a BA pilot got in touch with me asking,
could he use one of the videos, on a trainingcourse he's using for, cadets on the a320?
Yeah.
That's really cool.
Wow.
Yeah.
Right?
(35:57):
And I was like, I I was thinking, I want to bea pilot one day, and this guy wants to use this
video as, like, a training tool.
And he's a, you know, a a what's he is he atype rating examiner or something along those
lines at FPA, on the 3/20 fleet?
I don't want to be too specific about who heis, in case he doesn't want.
But, yeah.
And I said, oh, that's really cool.
Of course, you can use it.
And, like, you know, by the way, I'm I'mtrained to be a pilot right now.
(36:19):
I was working on my PPL.
And he said, well, in that case, come over andsee the simulator here.
So I got to have a go at the Full Motion 3 3/20sim in the UK, in Heathrow Airport.
That was an amazing experience.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, being inside the cockpit for the firsttime and every it's so cool.
It's such I don't know about playing Ufly, but,like, I'd say it's the same for a lot of big
aircraft.
(36:39):
Like, they're real clicky.
They're mechanical.
It's nothing like using a flight simulator on acomputer.
And, that was amazing.
So that's something that's just totally left afield that came simply because I just started
this YouTube channel.
And even, like, if the you know, I'd never madeany money doing it, just getting these
opportunities, getting appear on this podcastand everything, that's I could never have
imagined that.
So, yeah, the kind of random opportunities thatcome up are that have been for me, like, the
(37:05):
most surprising thing.
You just never you get an email, and you neverknow what it's gonna say inside.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's true statement.
I think, there's so many places that you'regonna be able to take this to.
I I highly encourage you to do even more of it.
Once you get further along and you get your nonrev travel and you're able to go all over the
planet at a moment's notice, you can startreally taking the channel to new heights.
(37:29):
Like, for instance, we have our conferenceevery year called TP Next.
And one of the gentlemen that I met wasoriginally from New Zealand living in Dubai.
He's got his own company over there.
He's trying to get into the States to fly foran American airline of some I can't remember
which one he wanted to go to.
It doesn't really matter.
But one of the things that he was so he heloved TPN, everything that was about, and he
(37:51):
was like, hey.
I, you know, I want to I can get you guys aspot at the Dubai Air Show.
Would you guys wanna come to Dubai Air Show?
I'm like, yeah, it sounds like pretty cool.
Having 2 little kids might be tough for me toget over there.
But if I can convince the wife that she can wecan go take a little trip to Dubai.
I've been there a couple times.
She said, I'd like to see it.
It'd be pretty cool.
And that's the kind of stuff that I encourageyou to go and and experience as well because
(38:15):
you've got a channel out there that, you cangrow that from 100 of 1000 to 1,000,000 of
people who are interested in seeing what youhave to offer.
Because the thing that I've noticed too isoutside of the US is that fascination with
aviation still exists at a much higher levelthan in the US.
Like in Canada, Canada has got tons of shows onflying and all this kind of stuff and they're
(38:38):
really interested in it.
Whereas in the US, it's just not as big.
It's, you know, it's almost like taking a busnowadays, but however people wanna look at it.
That's fine.
I don't really care.
But I think for you, this is some cool there'sso many cool experiences that you can that
you've got coming for you as especially as yougrow a professional aviator.
Plus, you started a channel, Green DotAviation, which has so much, as far as unique
(39:04):
content, but content that's also value addedto, pilots and nonpilots alike.
I think the other thing, you mentioned, like,what do I fly?
I've been flying a bus, Airbus for a while.
So that's how I when I saw it, I was like, oh,well, I know what green I know I know what
green dot is.
Let me, let me let me take a look at this.
And that's kind of what drew me in.
And then all of a sudden, here I am having achat with you.
(39:27):
If if somebody, was in and now I know thatyou're in a new you're you're a newly minted
cadet.
So maybe not so much here.
But if we're looking at what's something thatyou want people to remember.
I'm not I'll drop the change about the aviationindustry because you're you're not you're not
quite there yet.
But something that you think that they shouldtake away from you and what you've been doing,
(39:50):
for the channel and how you put forth effort toget to where you're at, starting your career.
What's that takeaway for them out there?
We call it the bold face memory, Adam, whateveryou wanna call it.
What what should they take away from thisepisode?
I suppose, like, it's hard not to say a cliche,but, like, you never know where like, if you're
passionate about something and if you're goodat something and if you can combine those two
(40:11):
things together, you never really know whereit's gonna lead you.
If you're
especially if you're just insistent at it andyou keep at it.
And another thing that I kind of mentioned justback there about the, that British Airways guy
getting in touch with me, like and and gettingin touch with other people, you should email
people if if you're interested in working withthem.
Like, if you're interested if you can providesomething to them, that you think would be
(40:31):
useful or if there's some kind of collaborationthat could happen, you should get in touch with
them, man, because people are not untouchable.
Like, I know, totally outside of aviation, butI know Noam Chomsky.
He's a you know, you'll probably know him inAmerica.
Like, he's huge.
He's a linguist.
He changed linguistics, philosopher and apolitical activist and everything.
He he he spends a lot of his day justresponding to emails, and he's like an
(40:53):
incalculably big figure.
But a lot of people are are actually accessiblethat you would think are not.
And so probably one thing I'd say is if you canadd something to what somebody is doing, you
should get in touch with them.
And, like, they may not reply, but, like, ifyou message a 100 people, then somebody's gonna
reply.
So, yeah, I'd say, like, it costs you verylittle to invest the energy in doing that.
(41:17):
Like, I don't know how, like, people listeningwill be able to apply this to their own
situation.
So I guess I should I can't be too specificabout it other than say what's worked in my
case.
But, yeah, I I'm, like, consistently surprisedwhen I email somebody cool and they email back.
I'm like, wow.
That that was nice of them to reply to somebodyrandom.
You know?
Yep.
I've I have that experience with, Jeff Skiles,the FFO on Sully's flight.
(41:39):
Yeah.
He was great.
Hilarious.
I invited him on the podcast.
He graciously, said no.
But he's very funny in the way he did it, and Iunderstood why he he was removing himself from
the public eye.
So I I understood that.
But it was it was the immediate response, andit was very cool.
And I I encourage people to do the same thing.
And I think, you you said it, and I can sum itup because I'm I'm a big believer in what you
(42:01):
said is if you can provide value to somebodyelse asking nothing in return, except for a
chance to hear what they're going to say toyou, but you can give them some value.
It's amazing how far that can go.
Give it, providing value with really nothing inreturn and seeing that maybe something will go
away from it or take away from it.
(42:24):
You can take something away from it in thefuture.
It's truly amazing.
I just listened to a podcast, the other day.
Shameless plug for my first million greatpodcasts out there for anybody who's
entrepreneurial or just wants to know moreabout kind of advancing their career is to be
a, there's there's 3 types of people.
(42:44):
There's the, there's the the Mathers.
I think it was Mathers, the takers, and thegivers.
And takers, you don't you don't really wanna bearound a taker.
They're just gonna take from you and never giveanything back.
The the the Mathers or the Matchers, I can'tremember which.
I can't I couldn't really understand what theguy said.
But to me is if you say the mat we'll call it amatcher.
I think it's matcher.
(43:04):
Is they're gonna give you something, but theywant something equal in return.
If you're a giver and you just give, you wouldbe, you'll be shocked at what you get back.
It may be not directly from that person, butthere's times when when you may have the big
ask and they will come forward, and I think younailed that with what you just said.
And if people wanna get ahold of you besidesobviously going to YouTube, searching Green Dot
(43:26):
Aviation, how can they get ahold of you?
Or maybe if they have because there's peopleout there who are listening to this podcast who
may have stories or events that have occurredthat you've never seen before that you're like,
wow.
That's a that's a fascinating, piece ofinformation that I can present in a very, well
produced way.
How can they get ahold of you?
How can they submit ideas or just get in touchwith you to have those cool emails and chat?
(43:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The best way would be via email.
So there's a few ways.
I'll just list them.
But first of all, email.
So green.330@gmail.com, and that's dot.
This is why I should have renamed this email,but that's dot as in d o t rather than the
period.
D o t and,
period, folks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So green, d o t, 330, as in a 330, atgmail.com.
(44:11):
And then I have a if you go into my YouTubechannel, green dot aviation, there's a links
section where you can, message me on Discordand and other things as well.
But the most surefire way is the email.
So green dot 330@gmail.com.
Yeah.
We'll throw that in the show notes with thedot, with the dot so people know.
Thanks.
And and reach out to Emmett.
I I really appreciate you coming on, man.
(44:32):
It's cool to see somebody young in the careerand, starting to go, but who's got an
experience that a lot of us don't have withbeing a content creator and not just, doing
something with a lot of substance to it aswell.
And I think that's a lot of pilots reallyrespect that.
So congrats on on what you've accomplished sofar and good luck to the future.
I'm sure you and I will be in touch.
(44:52):
And as always, you know, with the network, wewant you to come in.
And if you've got questions, like, there's abunch out there, especially And for those of
you who are interested in learning to or orwant to take your aviation career outside of
the United States, Emmett and people that Iwanna have on the pod who I'm in contact with,
(45:13):
they're the guys that you can ask because asthey get experienced now right now, Emmett's
got a lot of other stuff going on.
But in the future, he's gonna be able to answerthose questions of, oh, hey.
You need to convert this license and do thatkind of thing because with your background of
what you've done and just the fact that you'rejust the charger that you are, I don't see you,
just sitting on the, flight deck.
I see you doing a lot more at your airline andbecoming a a a power player in the future.
(45:38):
So go forth, do those kind of things becausethen we can all, take from or we can all get
something out of what you've given us even moreso, and it it always feels good to help.
But thanks again for joining.
I I'm really excited to see what you got goingon in the future, and and hopefully, there'll
be, just a little slowdown and then we'll goright back to creating some awesome content in
(45:59):
the future.
And as always, everybody out there, if you gota question, comment, concern, complaint,
critique or otherwise, hit Matt or I up atHeyguys, thepilotnetwork.com.
Check us out at the website,thepilotnetwork.com.
Fly safe.
Keep the shiny side up.
Greasy side down.
The Pilot Network podcast is a TPN productionproduced by Matt Sui, hosted and edited by Adam
(46:22):
Yuhan with support from Podcast AI.
As always, in loving memory of Jason Depew.
Hey, TPN.
Welcome back to another episode of the pilotnetwork podcast.
This episode was recorded a while back ago.
We got busy with TPNX and then summer flying aswell as family stuff.
Wasn't able to put it out, but here it is.
Anyways, I'm joined by the producer, host, andcreator of Green Dot Aviation on YouTube,
Emmett Fierick, who combines his study ofpsychology with aviation and details a lot of
(00:44):
incidents, accidents, and industry news thatoccurs from his lens and perspective.
It's also interesting to note that Emmett isstudying to become an airline pilot right now
over in Europe.
He's probably much further along.
I'm gonna reach back out to him when thisepisode airs and get an update for y'all.
It's exciting to get that perspective because alot of times we as professional aviators have
our own perspective and to see somebody elseand their lens, through their lens is something
(01:09):
that is something we should probably all bedoing a little bit more.
It gives us an objective step back to take alook or or a subjective look, but we can
objectively look at the issues that surroundour industry.
Anyways, I think you'll enjoy this conversationwith Emmett, and go check out Green Dot
Aviation on YouTube.
He's got a ton of subscribers.
I think you'll really enjoy the material thathe has produced.
(01:30):
I got interested by watching his interpretationof the MH 370.
Although, I didn't agree with everything thathe did.
He did have some awesome points in there, andit was super unique to see his viewpoint.
Anyways, enough for me.
Let's get on with my conversation with Emmett.
Emmett, welcome to the pilot network podcast.
(01:52):
It is really truly an honor to have somebody soyoung in aviation, but someone who's really
studied this industry and career field heavily.
Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you.
It's great to be here.
Yeah.
So, you were you started, what I assume startedas a little YouTube channel Yeah.
(02:13):
A few years back, Dream Dot Aviation, which Iknow where the name came from, because of my
experience.
And it has grown to, a level that I'm sure youweren't necessarily prepared for.
So can you kinda talk us through how this allbecame a thing?
Yeah.
So, I was working in psychology, before Istarted this channel in psychological research,
(02:36):
kind of educational psychology.
And I had always wanted to be a pilot since Iwas 5 or 6 years old.
But, obviously, it's very expensive to become apilot, probably similar to the US.
I think it might even be a bit more expensive.
It's about I'm living in Ireland.
It's about €100,000, maybe a bit more if youinclude the type rating, which is a 130 ish, I
guess, $120,000.
So, yeah, I wasn't gonna be able to fund thatmyself.
(02:57):
And, the only way I thought, okay, I'll set upsome business to do this, but I had no idea
what that was going to be.
And, I set up the channel.
I was kinda I was a big fan of Air CrashInvestigations when I was a kid, the thing on
Nat Geo on TV.
And I saw some similar channels on YouTube, andI thought I can do something like this.
My thing when I was younger was always, like,writing.
I was good at, like, reading and writing.
(03:18):
And I thought, basically, these are justscripts.
These are just essays, and you put pictures ontop of them for YouTube.
So I started making those.
I didn't know where it would go other than justI'll keep at it, and I'll try and be
consistent.
And, I started that in October of 2021 duringthe pandemic, which was a good time to start it
because for one thing, a lot of people wereonline.
But also I had loads of free time.
(03:39):
I was working from home at that point and hadbeen for a few months.
And I had a load of free time basically afterwork.
I wasn't actually wasn't allowed to go within 2kilometers of my house.
And actually, I was renting at the at thatpoint, 2 kilometers.
I was 4 kilometers away from my parents' house.
So I used to cycle the 2 the 4 kilometers totheir house.
And I had it in my head that if the guards orthe police stop me on my way and I'm before the
(04:00):
2 kilometer point, I'll tell them I'm from myapartment.
If they stop me after the 2 kilometer pointmarked by a bridge, I'll tell them I'm going to
my parents' house.
So I had all that planned out.
That was a very strange era.
But, yeah, that that's how it started off.
I just kind of uploaded these videos and triedto make, the kind of basically make the final
reports accessible to a large audience.
Yeah.
And how I stumbled on the channel was I was I Idon't remember why, but I started looking up
(04:25):
the, Malaysian, stuff again.
Malaysian 370, I guess.
And I was just I I think I think it was becausethe Netflix channel or Netflix documentary came
out, and I said, wow.
This is really not very good.
Wolfens, the the production quality, very good,but the theoretical ideas behind it were a
little far fetched for my tastes.
(04:48):
So I wanted to find somebody out there whomaybe took a different approach.
And I went on YouTube and just kinda lookedaround, and all of a sudden, I saw this Green
Dot Aviation thing.
And I watched it all the way through, and Ithought, well, this is interesting.
And I could tell it wasn't necessarily comingfrom a professional pilot standpoint, but it
was somebody who had some knowledge ofaviation.
But there was something else there that Ididn't really understand, and I hadn't looked
(05:10):
up any of your past or history or what yourbackground was.
So I knew there was something a little bitdifferent there.
So instead of focusing on that one because youhave I I don't even know how many video how
many videos do you have now on I think
it's about 6 to 70 at this point.
Yeah.
It's it's it's not a small, library.
(05:31):
That's for sure.
So I I watch it through, and I said, this thisis really interesting.
He's he's done a good job more so than anybodyelse who's not have who doesn't have the same
background that I have where it's just inflying airplanes and and the everything that
comes with that.
So I wanted to I reached out to Emmett, and Isaid, hey.
I'd really like to have you on the podcast.
(05:52):
And he comes back and he says, well, I'mactually in training, to become a professional
pilot.
I'm like, oh, that's so cool.
Good for you.
And I said, we can pause it for as long as youneed.
I get it.
You know, you're busy.
This is a that that is a very strenuous time insomebody's life, kinda stressful.
And, we finally got the chance to get together.
So instead of going down the Malaysian 370 yearold, let's let's take a look at kind of the
(06:14):
grand scheme of all of your all your videos outthere.
What's the when you started doing the channel,what was your ask how did you how how are you
able to go, okay.
I am not somebody who's got experience as aprofessional pilot, but I want to show them a
different aspect, the psychological humanfactors aspect, if you will.
(06:37):
How did you marry those 2 up with having a lotof experience in this one field that a lot of
pilots don't with having just a passionateinterest on the aviation side?
Yeah.
I think it works quite well because, yeah, likeyou said, I have the psychological aspect to
it.
Like, my aviation interest, I mean, I've hadthis since I was 5 or 6.
(06:59):
So I was able to kind of pick up just fromreading stuff online, from watching videos
online, some amount of information about howthe world of age aviation works.
Obviously, my understanding of it is is quitelimited compared to somebody who's been a
professional pilot themselves.
So that's definitely a weak point in my, in thekind of merging of those two things.
But like you say, like, the I use the finalreports basically as the only reference in my
(07:21):
videos.
And that means that I mean, they're entirelyfact based.
They're very, comprehensive and in-depth.
And a lot of what's in the final reports isunderstandable even if you don't have, like, a
fully, like, immersed experience in aviation.
You don't need to be a pilot to read them.
It would almost certainly help, and you couldkinda contextualize what's in the final report
(07:42):
better.
But there's enough information there that,somebody with an interest in aviation can kinda
cobble together an understanding of whathappened, marry that to whatever their other
area of interest is, in my case, psychology,and kind of combine those two things to make a
narrative that makes sense to people who aren'tin aviation, say, like me, or at least weren't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You you are now.
(08:03):
And Yeah.
So let's back up the train then a little bit.
So you first you first got into aviation.
A lot of us have this there's always thatstory.
I I mean, there's the majority of pilots, it'ssome sort of thing that happened when they were
a kid, and they just kinda Yeah.
Within some people some of us don't evenremember not being interested in airplanes.
Take us back to that historical moment or orthat era in your life where all of a sudden
(08:26):
you're like, man, I I this is this is it.
This is what I wanna do.
Yeah.
That is hard to know.
In my head, there's, like, 2 things.
I don't know which one of them is moreimportant.
So one thing is the one of my best friend whenI was 5 had, a remote controlled plane.
And it wasn't one of the ones that could fly.
It was just like a Fisher Price plastic toythat drove on the ground.
And it's, it went very slow and everything, butit had 2 speed modes.
(08:48):
And the remote control was a yoke.
It was like a like a blue control column.
And you could turn the plane by just turningthat like it must have had some accelerometer
or something else.
And I thought this was so cool.
It had the lights.
And I remember there were, like, paintedwindows on for the cockpit, like, it was just a
cheap kind of plastic model.
And there must have been about 8 or 9 or 10black painted windows.
There's a 747 model type thing, just kind of akids version 747 and chunky.
(09:11):
And, I would imagine, like, I'll kind of lookinside the windows, not that you could see
through them, they're just painted on, and justimagine that inside and realize there's
probably, like, 8 pilots inside, like, flickingbuttons and doing all sorts of, like, cool
things to make this thing fly.
It seemed like magic.
And I was I suppose when I saw a plane in areal plane in the air, I just thought something
similar to that must be going on and what acool thing it would be to be a part of that.
(09:32):
And the second thing was before thatchronologically was, I used to want to be a
fireman.
My favorite show when I was a kid was FiremanSam.
I don't think you had that over in the US ormaybe it's a they had a few iterations of it.
But the one I watched, I thought it was reallycool when they would they would it's basically
like a clay animation type of show.
They would they would go to rescue cats fromtrees and put out fires in kitchens and stuff.
(09:53):
It was kinda like basic stuff.
But they get a call on the fax machine, and andthey'd, like, the fire bell would ring.
They'd all jump down the fire, pole in the inthe firehouse.
And the 3 of them like, there's room in a fireengine for 3 people.
So the 3 of them would sit across.
One of them would flick the siren button, andthey'll all start to drive out to the scene of
the the emergency.
And something about the sense of, like, themission, like, having lights and sounds, like,
(10:16):
very kind of childish thing if we're going on amission.
I think some of that transferred over to, like,a cockpit.
Like, we're sitting down.
We're using machinery.
We've lights.
We have sounds.
We have all these displays and everything.
It just looked really cool.
And I basically, I think the kind of coolnessof that, the kind of team aspect on a mission
transferred over to aviation then when I was abit older.
Yeah.
(10:36):
So I I think that sounds pretty normal for alot of us.
In fact, I would say a lion's share of pilotswanted to be a firefighter at some point.
I was one of Oh, cool.
And I was one of those as well.
In fact, I know a couple of guys nowadays whoare and a couple girls too who are both
firefighters and pilots.
They do either volunteer or yeah.
They volunteer firefight, or they they do, alittle bit of both professionally, in some in
(11:01):
some form or facet.
I
think the next thing that in in fact, we talkeda little bit about this is you you, like, a lot
of us play the flight sim games and, you know,just kind of develop that love for flicking
switches and playing with big machinery.
And then you get a little bit older, and thisis something that it's almost like a, the pilot
(11:24):
network selling point is you you statedsomething about how you would look you were
looking online and you were trying to find, howcan I become a professional pilot?
What's the career field like?
And instead of being motivated and kind ofinspired to do it, you're almost it was almost
the opposite.
Tell me walk me through that a little bit.
(11:45):
Yeah.
So I went to secondary school then.
I think you would call it middle school.
And I was looking online because I realized atthat point, like, oh, it's a job.
Like, it's like, I'll have to go and get a job.
And it's because in my head before that, it wasI would have done it for free.
It's so cool.
I'll I just want to do that.
Then you kinda realize that jobs exist.
And, yeah, when I looked it up, I was on pprune.
(12:05):
I must have been on a few other forms as well.
And I was curious to see what people would sayto their kids, for example.
I know nobody in my family is in aviation.
So what would a pilot say to his or her son ordaughter about, becoming a pilot?
And there was a lot of negativity.
There was a lot of people saying, oh, Iwouldn't do it anymore.
The glory days are over.
You know, the condition's going down.
Tech's taking over.
(12:26):
There's a lot of negativity, which I supposeyou get in any form.
That put me off a bit.
And then other people were saying that even ifit's you know, you like it, it's a very
tumultuous career because it kinda sits on topof the rest of the economy.
It has experienced the shocks way more, deeplythan a lot of the rest of the economy does.
So you better have a backup career.
So I was pretty put off by all that.
(12:46):
I even kind of stopped flight swimming for awhile because I just thought, oh, this dream is
kind of dead in the water.
It's not something I want to do.
And I didn't think then.
I kind of assumed that something else wouldtake its place and that, you know, I'd have
some other obsession, but that never happened.
So anyway, I kind of put that on hold for a fewyears, and decided, okay, I better work on this
other thing that I'm interested in.
(13:07):
And that was psychology.
So I did psychology in college, and I reallyliked it.
I did philosophy as well with it.
Loved that too, and did a master's in it.
And I was kinda thinking, okay.
Like, I like research.
It's basically reading and writing.
I'll do that.
And, hopefully, like, maybe I'll teach in acollege or something like that.
But I had kind of seen the aviation thing as abit of a pipe dream at that point.
(13:28):
And that kind of changed when I had had anoffice job for 3 or 4 years, and I kinda
thought, well, I'm gonna be, like, old one day.
I'm gonna be, you know, 60 or 70 or and I'm,like, I might as well have been a pilot, and I
might as well find out for myself that it'sthat it's bad rather than just rely on other
people's opinion.
So, yeah, I thought I might as well give it ashot.
(13:50):
I'm literally I don't I believe I'm gonna liveonce.
So, that's that's what I did.
I started the channel to to fund that then.
So did you start flying on your own accordthen, start going out to the FBO and
Yep.
Paying here here's my money.
Let's go, let's go learn how to make this thinggo up in the air.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I paid lesson by lesson.
(14:10):
It was a modular thing.
And, yeah, the first time I went up, it was thesummer of 2021.
I was actually really scared the whole flight.
Like, it was an hour long.
I touched the controls for a bit and did a bitof turning.
But I was like, you're in this rattly machine.
It's a Cessna from, like, the early eighties,and, like, nothing worked in it.
There was the fuel gauges didn't work and,like, it was just I was this is just a metal
box.
I could see why for the first time in my life,I was like, I see why people are afraid of
(14:33):
flying.
I thought, how am I gonna get used to this?
But I wasn't I was not too concerned because Ithought even if I find it terrifying, I'm still
gonna do it because it's what I want to do, anda 3 twenties are a lot safer feeling than than
Cessnas.
So I'll bear it out or, yep, keep it up.
And, that'll actually disappear the second orthird time I went.
And, yeah, it's been absolutely thrilling.
I'm sure it's the same to many people, like,listening to this and yourself as well.
(14:55):
Like, once you start doing it, it's you can'tstop thinking about how you're going to do it
again.
Yep.
It's really fun.
Yep.
That is a true statement.
I remember when I did, because I so I when Idid RTC, I got my private pilot's license
through the RTC program because they had to dobasically a, a filtering process to see if you
could make it an air force pilot training.
That was the that was the point, the plananyways.
(15:17):
So I went and did that, and I remember I didmy, PBL checkride.
And this is, a couple months after 9:11.
I really had to work really hard to get it donebefore I was gonna go into pilot training.
And I went and did my checkride and it did notgo well.
I passed, but he, the, the evaluator said,you're going on to learn much more complex
aircraft with much more rigorous training.
(15:38):
And he said, but I think that's what you'regonna need because I don't know if going at
your own speed is gonna work.
And I did not have the best study habits at thetime.
I've said this a couple of times on the show.
So I needed to learn how to study, and the AirForce actually taught me exactly, that piece
because it taught me in a way that I it wasn'thanded to me.
(16:00):
It was, here you go.
Learn this stuff.
You gotta come back the next day and performit.
And when you have that and your your career ison the line and your dream of becoming a
military aviator is on the line, you either doit or you figure out how to get around it.
And I did not figure it out very quickly.
Once I did, things things came kind of fullcircle and, you know, finished and whatever.
That was many years ago now.
(16:21):
And I think watching somebody young who's intoit and does it.
But then the thing to me is I had to figure outa way to go become a military aviator.
You had to figure out a way to pay for thisbecause it is expensive and you were going, I'm
not going to loan the money out.
I want to I want to do this.
So you started this YouTube channel, Green DotAviation.
Now when you first started Green Dot, youprobably had when you had and we all know this
(16:47):
for anybody who's created anything and put itout for the masses to see or hear.
It is extremely unnerving because you know thatthe first iteration is probably not gonna be
great.
And in fact, it might even be bad, but theperfect is the enemy of the good and just
getting it out there.
So you create this first video.
How long did that take you?
What was that video about?
(17:07):
I don't think I've ever seen the first thefirst one.
Probably good that you haven't seen the firstone.
Yeah.
That was that was error proof 603.
It was a 757 that crashed in 96, I think itwas.
And, that was so I became really interested inthat I just I was I thought I'm gonna make one
at at the least, and it's gonna be this one.
Because, it took me about a month to make.
And part
(17:27):
of
that was because I haven't done the researchbefore, so I didn't know what how do I turn a
final report into a script that makes sense?
How do I structure it?
And, also, I use the cockpit voice recordings,which are available for that accent.
Obviously, mostly, they just have the scripts,or the the transcripts.
But for this incident, for whatever reason, thethe cockpit voice recorder itself is available.
(17:51):
And, of course, it's speaking Spanish, but Ihad a bit of Spanish and I could translate.
And, of course, the the official version hadthe translated version.
So I would kind of intersperse the CVOrecordings inside the script.
And then a lot of my time was spent taking theflight simulator shots, which is how I record
the videos, and also, stitching it all togetherfor the first time.
I hadn't done video editing since I was a kidwhen I played around with it a bit.
(18:11):
So, yeah, it took it took at least a month todo, but I thought, like, there's no audience
waiting for me to upload.
So I can take as long as I like.
And, you know, after the first one, maybe I'lltake a bit longer and be a bit quicker rather.
And yeah.
So well yeah.
And I knew when I was uploading it that I willlook back on this and think this is terrible.
But when I was uploading, I I was like, I can'tpicture I can looking at it, I'm watching, and
(18:33):
I can't see what's bad about it.
But I know it's I know it's gonna be bad, butin in 10 months' time or whatever.
And looking back at it now, like, it's it'sI've I'm like I'm like muttering.
Like, I thought I should speak in a kind of asomber tone of voice because there's, like,
death involved.
And so I speak in this kind of monotonous wayand very drony.
And it's like it's hard to listen to with themusic over it.
So I made a lot of kind of rookie mistakes,but, like, I knew and I still know.
(18:56):
Like, there's no other way to do it.
And my hope is that in a year's time or in 2years' time, I look back at the current videos
and think the same thing.
Like, if you're if you like if you if you're ayear ahead and look back at yourself a year ago
and you think that's great, it's probablybecause you haven't improved.
So I yeah.
That's that's the only way to do it.
And, I I think I can still stand behind thescript.
I just wouldn't stand behind the editing atthis point.
(19:17):
Yeah.
I well, I I know how you feel after I do, anyone of these shows.
I feel, like a fraud and that that that wasgarbage.
And the next one's gonna be the perfectepisode.
There never is.
There never is.
You get you just keep trying to improve.
Right?
Like, that's all that this kind of mediumallows for us to do.
And you hope that somebody gained somethingfrom it and or at least they're entertained if
(19:39):
nothing else.
And I think that's one of the things that Inoticed about, when I stumbled upon your
channel was not only was the material wellthought out, and and and and I'll be the first
to say, I didn't necessarily agree witheverything that you said, but didn't matter
because I thought this was well thought out andwell researched, which a lot of other channels
(20:02):
and a lot of other even TV shows don't do agreat job of that or their production quality
is it it it weakens the material.
I was watching, an air, an air disaster show orsomething on Smithsonian or one of the channels
out there, and I just happened to flip it onbecause I was like, oh, you know what?
I don't see what they're talking about.
I think they were talking about, a bunch of 73crashes that happened in the eighties with,
(20:26):
basically a rudder reversal because of the the,pressure control unit in the back, if I recall.
One of the things I I was so miffed by thatreally made it hard to watch was they had these
actor scenes that were supposedly reenactmentsof what was going on on the flight deck at the
(20:48):
time of the incident.
And they were terrible.
Like, they were so bad that they took away fromthe material, which honestly could be a very
strong lesson for young professionals or evennon professional pilots who find who who just
like to fly because they can understand what'sgoing on.
But the reenactments were so not good that itwas it took away from the show.
(21:10):
That is something that I've seen, on yourchannel and some others out there that do a
really strong job and going, okay, we're gonnaveer away from that idea because those
reenactments, they're there for eyeballs and, Idon't know, keeping people tuned in who are who
are novices or don't know anything aboutaviation.
What your channel does that I like so much isit the reenactment is based on with simulator
(21:33):
stuff.
So you can kinda get an idea of what theairplane was doing, and then you kind of
explain, either through a lot of fact basedstuff from from data that came from a from the
boards that review these crashes.
And then you complement that with you have alevel of expertise in a field like psychology
(21:56):
to kind of get in the mind of what maybe theywere talking about thinking about doing at that
time.
The reality is we don't necessarily know in alot of situations, right?
Like that's it's that's just don't it's sad.
That's kind of the nature of the beast of someof these.
And I think that to me is what kept me going.
I was like, man, this is this is reallyinteresting.
(22:16):
I actually told some other people about itright after I met it.
And then I find out that I'm like, Emmett's,like, almost 20 years younger than I am, and
he's he's got he's got a much betterunderstanding of how this stuff works, which I
think will take you a lot further in differentplaces in your career than you can ever imagine
as you go forward here.
I think the other thing that I wanted to getinto a little bit was now that you're, you're,
(22:37):
I mean, you're, you're rapidly gonna becomevery busy because congratulations, you're in a
cadet program at an esteemed, airline.
And that's going to be that's a lot of work.
Like, as you're starting to see it, it it'sgonna ramp up, you know.
How do you plan on because you're gonna have toprobably take a pause at some point with not
being able to produce, a show regularly.
(23:01):
And that's going to that's gonna hurt obviouslylonger, but, obviously, you know, you have a a
greater cause for this.
What's your plan is going forward a little bit?
I mean, how many subscribers do you have nowfor Green Dot Aviation?
I think it's 370 or 380,000.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
And and they like they obviously like whatyou're producing.
So how are you gonna how what's your plan goingforward then?
(23:24):
Yeah.
I mean, I'll do as much as I can for both ofthe things.
Obviously, the priority is finishing pilottraining.
So Right.
I can't put on pause.
I can put on pause the videos.
I absolutely can't pause this program.
So if any of them takes a hit, it'll be the thechannel.
But I just want to give it kind of give it aslittle of a hit as possible.
So I do have somebody working with me who'svery good.
(23:44):
He's a video editor, and he kind of does theediting when I he does the simulator shots as
well.
So I give him a list of shots to do.
He takes them, and then he stitches themtogether.
And so he does that on top of the voice overthat I provide him.
So it's, it is a team effort at this point.
And my plan is basically to delegate as much aspossible to to him and to other people so that
the channel can kind of stay running, on a onprobably on a reduced schedule.
(24:07):
So I'm flying this summer, and that means thatI have plenty of free time.
I'll be I'll be flying probably once or twice aday for about 3 months, and that'll give me
enough time to work on scripts.
But then when I go back to the ground schoolaspect and complete more of the ATPL exams and
then do the kind of multi crew cooperationtraining that we do for a few months in in the
simulator, that I expect will be more involvedand that will require me to cut back a bit.
(24:29):
So the plan is to keep it going, delegate asmuch as possible.
And, yeah, as much as I can, kind of my jobconsists of of basically writing at this point.
So all I need is a laptop.
I'll sit at my desk or sit in wherever is ishandy and write away as much as I can.
And, yeah, that's how I plan to do it goingforward.
Again, fully accepting the say, when I'm goingto the type rating and, probably in the initial
(24:52):
experience as well with the airline learninghow the every night before a flight, I'll be
looking up the airports and how how do Inavigate in this airport and everything.
I expect that'll be pretty intense.
You do know plenty about that.
So that's, I may may have to take a bit of ahit at that point.
But if I can keep it going to some extent,that's better than stopping it altogether.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
Totally.
I think the other thing that I found to be,really fascinating with how you develop this
(25:14):
was first, we all start something for there's areason.
Right?
For you is, hey.
I wanna fly.
This is I have an interest in this, andthere's, a kind of a little void that I can
fill in in in the space out there.
And then it shifts, right?
Like, we we shift.
At first, maybe it's money or first, it'ssomething we want to help somebody else,
whatever the case is.
(25:34):
But you you kind of mentioned that you had,like, you you really kind of kept that mission
focused, and it was the higher quality, a goodsource of information for people out there.
How did that develop over time?
Because obviously, yeah, that's in your mindwhen you first do it, but normally, it takes a
little bit of refinement because you you playaround with making this video.
(25:56):
And then the video comes out and you're like,okay, I'm going to hone this.
I'm going to I'm going to tweak this here, makethis a little bit better, drop this completely,
add something here.
How did this that like your mission and yourvalues to what Green Dot Aviation is and then
aviation in general is this whole big worldbecause it's not just Average Joe who's
watching this.
There's professional pilots all over the worldwho see what you produce.
(26:19):
And you want to not only show them that youkind of know what you're talking about, number
1.
But number 2, you don't want to projectsomething that's, not true or you're giving
pure opinion based when you have facts to backit up.
Yeah.
I I think when I started the videos initially,I was just focused on making videos.
(26:40):
And I wasn't even thinking about like, I got alogo designed.
I got that on Fiverr website where you can justpay people to nearly a €5 or €5, €10, to, to
design stuff for you visually, includingthumbnails for videos even I did those myself.
But, yeah, I wasn't really focused on the brandaspect of it.
I was just focused on making videos, and Ididn't know how YouTube branding worked.
But then as you get more into it, you realizethat I'm making a certain type of video.
(27:04):
There's a certain style to these videos.
And you hone that as you as you yeah.
Like you said, you try out things, you dropthings.
For example, one one kind of small example ofthat is I used to describe the aircraft type at
the beginning of every episode.
Say, but this Boeing 757-200, it was made inthis year, that it carries this many people.
And then I kind of thought, I'll try and dropthat because it takes up a lot of space at the
start and see if there's any drop off in theviews, which there wasn't.
(27:27):
So you're constantly just trying to it's likeyou're an experimenter.
You're just kind of playing around withdifferent things, seeing what works, and then
gathering a sense of what is the brand about,what am I trying to do here.
And I suppose lately I've been thinking, like,I always thought at the start this will last
about 3 or 4 years.
Like, I'll get 3 or 4 years out of this.
That's as far as I can take it.
But now I'm kind of thinking more long termthinking where will this be in 10 or 20 years
(27:50):
and what does it really stand for at thatpoint?
Because it's a brand.
I want people to have good association goodassociations with it.
And, yeah, that's kind of more what I'mthinking about.
I'm taking a more holistic view on it than justvideo by video.
Yeah.
Now what exactly that means, it's hard to kindof work on clarifying that while also going to
pilot training.
I do think, like you say, I'll look back insome of these videos now when I am a
(28:12):
professional pilot and I'll think, oh, that's Ihad I really didn't know what was going on in
the cockpit at that point.
And if I had the industry experience, I'd havea better understanding of what those pilots
were thinking or what was actually going onthere.
But that that's part of the journey of justimproving.
Like, my I suppose if there's one underlyingvalue, it's to continue improving everything
I'm doing, but mostly improve improving them interms of how base they are in the facts and in
(28:37):
in the evidence and keeping sensationalism toominimal because, yeah, like you said about this
Smithsonian thing, they'll do things like thethe copilot will say, I'm putting the gear up,
and he'll say, and that's that handle here, andhe'll move it.
And it's like, that's obviously not a astandard call out.
That's not what we say in the cockpit, butthat's for the audience to understand.
So minimizing things like that.
And, yeah, is that does that answer yourquestion?
(28:58):
Yeah.
It it's spot on because I think the thing thatyou you're saying in a very detailed way is
that this, like, integrity and and evidencebased idea behind what's happening behind the
scenes for some of these crashes, a moretechnical aspect that we can that we as pilots
and and nonpilots like who have an interest inthe in in that kind of thing and seeing how
(29:22):
these things happen.
Because the reality is is pilots wanna knowwhat happens in a crash or an accident, whether
it's, a pilot error, it's a it's assessed apilot error or some sort of mechanical issue.
So we can avoid something like that in thefuture for ourselves and for other people, for
our colleagues and friends who we've knownthrough years in this and how we can better the
(29:43):
industry.
The industry has been become so safe because ofhow we rigorously look at what what's happened
both mechanically and and then also astechnique procedure wise to get it better and
better and better.
So it can become it it has become as safe as itis with the help of support agencies that are
out there.
You know, there's a laundry list of those thatthat exist.
(30:06):
I think when I look at something like this as aas a pro, and I look out and go, okay, what's
out there that I can look at and learnsomething from?
You've done that with even without having thatexperience yet.
You've taken something that you do know verywell and applied it, which is which is unique
because I I don't think a lot of people can dothat.
And people who try sometimes don't do thatgreat of a job, and they try to overproduce
(30:31):
something that doesn't necessarily hit themark.
But the integrity of your your channel and whatyou're producing is, hey, I did.
And I think you you said the exact right word.
I'm not gonna make these sensationalized.
Like, there is no reason to sensationalizesomething that's tragic.
There's a way to look at it as we're going totake this on the surface and dig a little bit
(30:53):
deeper and see what we can find out to bettereverybody else out and also explain what could
have possibly happened.
Because there are other events out there thatwe we we know looking at them in-depth, and
there's some that are very hard to write,material or actually do something about
because, well, well, they're not going to get alot of clicks or views.
It was just what happened, right?
(31:14):
Like, it's just the the and you don't want tosensationalize any of these any any tragic
event, but looking at it from a very, very,almost objective, don't put any emotion behind
it way to me is something that is kind of lostin a lot of media that's out there, especially
in flying.
I mean, we we you're going to see this too whenyou get to the other side is you'll see
(31:37):
somebody go on the news or whatever and talkabout, an incident that happened.
In fact, I mean, not to time stamp this toobadly, but we just had an incident in the US
where there was a flight that happened with acarrier Spirit Airlines, and they reported
that, to watch out that they might have to do aemergency water landing, which was most likely
(32:02):
not the case.
And my guess is that didn't come from theflight deck, that that might have came from a
overzealous flight attendant, that they had aminimal issue.
I some of the rumor mill out there is that itwas a pressurization problem, and that would
not cause a water landing.
But what happened is it got out to the media,and then the next thing you know is they're
interviewing the passengers, and it gets out ofcontrol.
(32:24):
It's, oh my gosh, look at all this crazinessthat happened.
The reality is that that's not the case.
I mean, we people handle mechanicals all thetime in the airline industry and beyond.
And it's not as bad as it seems.
However, we can't get that very objective,almost flat tone of this is what happened.
(32:46):
Let's take it back.
Why did it happen that way?
Let's investigate it so it doesn't happenagain.
We have to dig through a media firestorm to tryto make people excited and click more and then
go on to a different story on their website,which is something that I'm glad that people
out there like yourself are doing to bring amore nuanced approach to this.
(33:08):
It makes me happy because it's something that Ican kinda get behind and watch and go, oh, you
know what?
I I like I I like the production value, and Ilike the fact that I don't have to dig through
that garbage.
So I think Yeah.
To me, that's a big that that that's so big andimportant in our field.
And I think when as you've grown through this,you've had other opportunities and experiences.
(33:29):
Like, when you first started the channel, theidea was, I'm gonna make a few bucks, and I'm
gonna produce this, this this high quality, nonsensationalistic approach.
And then you start to have other opportunities,doors open for you.
And that's only gonna happen more and more asyou as you get older in this field.
Field.
Trust me.
This is this is the big thing that has happenedto me that I never thought would.
(33:50):
What are some of those experiences that you'vehad so far that these doors have opened and,
how it's grown and changed you as a person anda pilot?
Yeah.
They've been the most surprising things.
Like, that's not I didn't expect these thingsat all.
And, one thing has been actually, even to startbefore I started this channel, kinda learning
from this has been that, like, there was athere's a guy called Mark Van Hoennacker.
(34:13):
He's a think that's how I pronounce his name.
He's a BA pilot.
And, he's written a book called Skyfaring.
It's very good.
Just kind of describing his life as a pilot andhow that came from when he was a kid.
And, he, I got in touch with him when I wasstill thinking, should I become a pilot
basically before my flight training.
I just emailed him, after reading his booksaying that I enjoyed it and and kind of put to
(34:34):
him my two fears about becoming a pilot, abouttechnology taking over and also about the
worsening conditions.
Would it be worth it?
And he wrote me a nice long reply and was veryhelpful and everything and said, you know, stay
in touch.
I thought that was so cool.
And this was somebody who seemed kindauntouchable, because he was, yeah, a writer for
the for Financial Times.
He was, like, this, an author of a few books.
He was kind of a cool guy.
(34:55):
I thought he's just responding to some randomeron an email.
Like, that's cool.
And, yeah, a few things similar to that havejust happened with the channel.
I've talked to, Eric Moody, who passed away,unfortunately.
I think it was last month.
He was the captain of a a British Airways 747.
Went into a NASH cloud in in the eighties,1982, I think.
All the engines failed, and they managed torestart them before before hitting the ocean.
(35:16):
And, that was amazing.
I had actually first come across him, when Iwas watching Air Crash Investigations.
I think I was probably 10.
I saw the episode, and I saw him him beinginterviewed in that.
And I could never have imagined then that I'dbe talking to him one day over Zoom,
nonetheless, but still.
And, same with Kevin O'Sullivan, Australianguy.
He was ex, I hope I get this right because Iknow there's different wings in the military.
(35:37):
He's at US Air Force.
He was in the top one program and everything.
Really cool guy.
I got to chat with him for a while.
He's written a very good book on that.
And another thing was has been, like, lastyear, a BA pilot got in touch with me asking,
could he use one of the videos, on a trainingcourse he's using for, cadets on the a320?
Yeah.
That's really cool.
Wow.
Yeah.
Right?
(35:57):
And I was like, I I was thinking, I want to bea pilot one day, and this guy wants to use this
video as, like, a training tool.
And he's a, you know, a a what's he is he atype rating examiner or something along those
lines at FPA, on the 3/20 fleet?
I don't want to be too specific about who heis, in case he doesn't want.
But, yeah.
And I said, oh, that's really cool.
Of course, you can use it.
And, like, you know, by the way, I'm I'mtrained to be a pilot right now.
(36:19):
I was working on my PPL.
And he said, well, in that case, come over andsee the simulator here.
So I got to have a go at the Full Motion 3 3/20sim in the UK, in Heathrow Airport.
That was an amazing experience.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, being inside the cockpit for the firsttime and every it's so cool.
It's such I don't know about playing Ufly, but,like, I'd say it's the same for a lot of big
aircraft.
(36:39):
Like, they're real clicky.
They're mechanical.
It's nothing like using a flight simulator on acomputer.
And, that was amazing.
So that's something that's just totally left afield that came simply because I just started
this YouTube channel.
And even, like, if the you know, I'd never madeany money doing it, just getting these
opportunities, getting appear on this podcastand everything, that's I could never have
imagined that.
So, yeah, the kind of random opportunities thatcome up are that have been for me, like, the
(37:05):
most surprising thing.
You just never you get an email, and you neverknow what it's gonna say inside.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's true statement.
I think, there's so many places that you'regonna be able to take this to.
I I highly encourage you to do even more of it.
Once you get further along and you get your nonrev travel and you're able to go all over the
planet at a moment's notice, you can startreally taking the channel to new heights.
(37:29):
Like, for instance, we have our conferenceevery year called TP Next.
And one of the gentlemen that I met wasoriginally from New Zealand living in Dubai.
He's got his own company over there.
He's trying to get into the States to fly foran American airline of some I can't remember
which one he wanted to go to.
It doesn't really matter.
But one of the things that he was so he heloved TPN, everything that was about, and he
(37:51):
was like, hey.
I, you know, I want to I can get you guys aspot at the Dubai Air Show.
Would you guys wanna come to Dubai Air Show?
I'm like, yeah, it sounds like pretty cool.
Having 2 little kids might be tough for me toget over there.
But if I can convince the wife that she can wecan go take a little trip to Dubai.
I've been there a couple times.
She said, I'd like to see it.
It'd be pretty cool.
And that's the kind of stuff that I encourageyou to go and and experience as well because
(38:15):
you've got a channel out there that, you cangrow that from 100 of 1000 to 1,000,000 of
people who are interested in seeing what youhave to offer.
Because the thing that I've noticed too isoutside of the US is that fascination with
aviation still exists at a much higher levelthan in the US.
Like in Canada, Canada has got tons of shows onflying and all this kind of stuff and they're
(38:38):
really interested in it.
Whereas in the US, it's just not as big.
It's, you know, it's almost like taking a busnowadays, but however people wanna look at it.
That's fine.
I don't really care.
But I think for you, this is some cool there'sso many cool experiences that you can that
you've got coming for you as especially as yougrow a professional aviator.
Plus, you started a channel, Green DotAviation, which has so much, as far as unique
(39:04):
content, but content that's also value addedto, pilots and nonpilots alike.
I think the other thing, you mentioned, like,what do I fly?
I've been flying a bus, Airbus for a while.
So that's how I when I saw it, I was like, oh,well, I know what green I know I know what
green dot is.
Let me, let me let me take a look at this.
And that's kind of what drew me in.
And then all of a sudden, here I am having achat with you.
(39:27):
If if somebody, was in and now I know thatyou're in a new you're you're a newly minted
cadet.
So maybe not so much here.
But if we're looking at what's something thatyou want people to remember.
I'm not I'll drop the change about the aviationindustry because you're you're not you're not
quite there yet.
But something that you think that they shouldtake away from you and what you've been doing,
(39:50):
for the channel and how you put forth effort toget to where you're at, starting your career.
What's that takeaway for them out there?
We call it the bold face memory, Adam, whateveryou wanna call it.
What what should they take away from thisepisode?
I suppose, like, it's hard not to say a cliche,but, like, you never know where like, if you're
passionate about something and if you're goodat something and if you can combine those two
(40:11):
things together, you never really know whereit's gonna lead you.
If you're
especially if you're just insistent at it andyou keep at it.
And another thing that I kind of mentioned justback there about the, that British Airways guy
getting in touch with me, like and and gettingin touch with other people, you should email
people if if you're interested in working withthem.
Like, if you're interested if you can providesomething to them, that you think would be
(40:31):
useful or if there's some kind of collaborationthat could happen, you should get in touch with
them, man, because people are not untouchable.
Like, I know, totally outside of aviation, butI know Noam Chomsky.
He's a you know, you'll probably know him inAmerica.
Like, he's huge.
He's a linguist.
He changed linguistics, philosopher and apolitical activist and everything.
He he he spends a lot of his day justresponding to emails, and he's like an
(40:53):
incalculably big figure.
But a lot of people are are actually accessiblethat you would think are not.
And so probably one thing I'd say is if you canadd something to what somebody is doing, you
should get in touch with them.
And, like, they may not reply, but, like, ifyou message a 100 people, then somebody's gonna
reply.
So, yeah, I'd say, like, it costs you verylittle to invest the energy in doing that.
(41:17):
Like, I don't know how, like, people listeningwill be able to apply this to their own
situation.
So I guess I should I can't be too specificabout it other than say what's worked in my
case.
But, yeah, I I'm, like, consistently surprisedwhen I email somebody cool and they email back.
I'm like, wow.
That that was nice of them to reply to somebodyrandom.
You know?
Yep.
I've I have that experience with, Jeff Skiles,the FFO on Sully's flight.
(41:39):
Yeah.
He was great.
Hilarious.
I invited him on the podcast.
He graciously, said no.
But he's very funny in the way he did it, and Iunderstood why he he was removing himself from
the public eye.
So I I understood that.
But it was it was the immediate response, andit was very cool.
And I I encourage people to do the same thing.
And I think, you you said it, and I can sum itup because I'm I'm a big believer in what you
(42:01):
said is if you can provide value to somebodyelse asking nothing in return, except for a
chance to hear what they're going to say toyou, but you can give them some value.
It's amazing how far that can go.
Give it, providing value with really nothing inreturn and seeing that maybe something will go
away from it or take away from it.
(42:24):
You can take something away from it in thefuture.
It's truly amazing.
I just listened to a podcast, the other day.
Shameless plug for my first million greatpodcasts out there for anybody who's
entrepreneurial or just wants to know moreabout kind of advancing their career is to be
a, there's there's 3 types of people.
(42:44):
There's the, there's the the Mathers.
I think it was Mathers, the takers, and thegivers.
And takers, you don't you don't really wanna bearound a taker.
They're just gonna take from you and never giveanything back.
The the the Mathers or the Matchers, I can'tremember which.
I can't I couldn't really understand what theguy said.
But to me is if you say the mat we'll call it amatcher.
I think it's matcher.
(43:04):
Is they're gonna give you something, but theywant something equal in return.
If you're a giver and you just give, you wouldbe, you'll be shocked at what you get back.
It may be not directly from that person, butthere's times when when you may have the big
ask and they will come forward, and I think younailed that with what you just said.
And if people wanna get ahold of you besidesobviously going to YouTube, searching Green Dot
(43:26):
Aviation, how can they get ahold of you?
Or maybe if they have because there's peopleout there who are listening to this podcast who
may have stories or events that have occurredthat you've never seen before that you're like,
wow.
That's a that's a fascinating, piece ofinformation that I can present in a very, well
produced way.
How can they get ahold of you?
How can they submit ideas or just get in touchwith you to have those cool emails and chat?
(43:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The best way would be via email.
So there's a few ways.
I'll just list them.
But first of all, email.
So green.330@gmail.com, and that's dot.
This is why I should have renamed this email,but that's dot as in d o t rather than the
period.
D o t and,
period, folks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So green, d o t, 330, as in a 330, atgmail.com.
(44:11):
And then I have a if you go into my YouTubechannel, green dot aviation, there's a links
section where you can, message me on Discordand and other things as well.
But the most surefire way is the email.
So green dot 330@gmail.com.
Yeah.
We'll throw that in the show notes with thedot, with the dot so people know.
Thanks.
And and reach out to Emmett.
I I really appreciate you coming on, man.
(44:32):
It's cool to see somebody young in the careerand, starting to go, but who's got an
experience that a lot of us don't have withbeing a content creator and not just, doing
something with a lot of substance to it aswell.
And I think that's a lot of pilots reallyrespect that.
So congrats on on what you've accomplished sofar and good luck to the future.
I'm sure you and I will be in touch.
(44:52):
And as always, you know, with the network, wewant you to come in.
And if you've got questions, like, there's abunch out there, especially And for those of
you who are interested in learning to or orwant to take your aviation career outside of
the United States, Emmett and people that Iwanna have on the pod who I'm in contact with,
(45:13):
they're the guys that you can ask because asthey get experienced now right now, Emmett's
got a lot of other stuff going on.
But in the future, he's gonna be able to answerthose questions of, oh, hey.
You need to convert this license and do thatkind of thing because with your background of
what you've done and just the fact that you'rejust the charger that you are, I don't see you,
just sitting on the, flight deck.
I see you doing a lot more at your airline andbecoming a a a power player in the future.
(45:38):
So go forth, do those kind of things becausethen we can all, take from or we can all get
something out of what you've given us even moreso, and it it always feels good to help.
But thanks again for joining.
I I'm really excited to see what you got goingon in the future, and and hopefully, there'll
be, just a little slowdown and then we'll goright back to creating some awesome content in
(45:59):
the future.
And as always, everybody out there, if you gota question, comment, concern, complaint,
critique or otherwise, hit Matt or I up atHeyguys, thepilotnetwork.com.
Check us out at the website,thepilotnetwork.com.
Fly safe.
Keep the shiny side up.
Greasy side down.
The Pilot Network podcast is a TPN productionproduced by Matt Sui, hosted and edited by Adam
(46:22):
Yuhan with support from Podcast AI.
As always, in loving memory of Jason Depew.
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