May 24, 2021 • 45 mins
Season 2 is a go! 🥳
We kick this season off speaking to the CEO of Coradine, Noah Lieberman. Noah is an American pilot and software engineer, who founded Coradine back in 2003. He's so passionate about aviation and has a real desire and drive to improve the aviation software industry.
We hear about his aviation background, how and why he started Coradine and what his plans are for the future.
"Where we're going, we don't need roads..."
3 months free LogTen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ben Hall (00:06):
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Pilotbase podcast.
We're pleased to be giving youSeason Two and we've got a great
selection of guests lined up forthe next 10 weeks. We're kicking
the season off by chatting toNoah Lieberman. Noah started his
career as a software engineer,and is now the owner and CEO of
Coradine Aviation Systems. Youprobably know them best for
(00:27):
their LogTen Pro app. But asyou're about to hear, he and
Caroline have big plans forfuture. We've recently teamed up
with Coradine to create a livelink between their logbook our
pilot profiles, which you cancheck out at pilot base.com.
Stay tuned to hear all aboutNoah his life and career are
game changing integration. Hisplans for the future of
technology and aviation.
Dave Rogers (00:49):
Noah, welcome to pilot base. How are you? You
look pretty healthy. hanging inthere. Thanks for watching.
Yeah, yeah, really? Well, didyou know you might be the first
person that's asked me that inall the episodes. So I
appreciate you. Okay.
Noah Lieberman (01:03):
All right. Guess you need to interview more
polite people.
Dave Rogers (01:08):
That is not a slant on the lovely people.
Ben Hall (01:12):
Various podcast guests. How you doing over
there? Ben? Got your plantsgrowing? Looks good. Oh, yeah.
No, it's becoming a bit of ajungle in here, isn't it? Yeah.
Do you just put it on a slightlyhigher platform every time so it
looks like you've taken this isactually a trade out. My wife's
been doing a bit of houseworkrecently. And she's replaced a
smaller firm with this massiveone.
Noah Lieberman (01:35):
Nice, you're gonna have a observatory roof
that just opens up so it can getsome lighting. I mean,
Dave Rogers (01:43):
if pilot base subscriptions go up, you know
where the money's going.
Noah Lieberman (01:47):
nice bit of shrubbery behind us. You know,
we've got going on there. Yes,I've got a few plants don't
recall what variety. I have toadmit my wife helps with that as
well. She's the gardener. Andthen
Dave Rogers (02:02):
for those who are watching and can just see a
messy bedroom behind me. I'vegot plants too. All right. Yeah,
sure. shady. To see you'rejoining us from is it Portland
today? No. Yes, that's right.
Portland, Oregon. Oh, what'shappening? They're
Noah Lieberman (02:17):
pouring rain at the moment. That doesn't usually
actually.
Dave Rogers (02:22):
Oh, you're talking to two guys in midwinter in
Great Britain at the moment. Soyou know, we can relate retail?
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So lookingforward to getting to know you
today, the man that the pilotthe business man. And so can you
just give us a bit of backgroundon you as a pilot? First is a
(02:44):
good place to start? Yeah.
Always, as long as I canremember being interested in
flying.
Noah Lieberman (02:52):
While back my mother actually dug up an old
book that I had as a kid when Ifirst was learning to write and
it's got the little like, fillin the blank, you know, what do
you want to be when you grow upand I actually had written pilot
in there just barely legible.
And then I had my first flightin a DC three in Mexico. As a
passenger, I was a kid have notactually flown to DC three
(03:13):
myself, but I was quite theexperience, I'm sure and anyone
who's written in a DC three,it's, it's wild. And it was it
was really fun. And so DC threejust I guess, in case someone
isn't familiar with it's it's anold twin propeller aircraft that
was used all over the worldstill is in some places that are
(03:34):
very durable, giant landinggear. And I think that's a
tailwheel aeroplane. So it'ssloped back a lot of the back
and you actually climb in a doorat the back and you literally
have to pull yourself up theseats because the the iOS is so
steeply slanted, you kind oflike, fall into your seat and
buckle in. And, you know, whenit takes off, the back lifts up.
(03:54):
It's it's quite exhilarating forsure. I just loved it. And I've
been interested ever since then.
And High School, like 1991, Idid my first student flight here
in Southern Oregon, where I wasgoing to school and I think I've
managed all of four lessonsbefore the lawnmowing money ran
(04:17):
out. So that didn't didn't gotoo far. I definitely enjoyed
it. But reality sanken so wasn'table to pursue that. So it
actually took me Well, I didn'tget my pilot's licence until
2008. So it was a long trainingperiod, I always say did a few
(04:39):
different stints of flying overthe years but wasn't able to
actually have enough resourcesand everything to complete that
till 2008. So thank you toCoraline. That was a helpful
boost there at the end. Finallygot it done. And that was
brilliant. Over the years alsobeen very interested in flight
simulators to sort of feed theThe love of planes and I
(05:01):
couldn't afford to fly everyone.
Ben Hall (05:02):
So did you? Did you ever want to be a commercial
pilot? Or was it always just ahobby? Yeah, I definitely
thought about it. I actually hadmy plan after high school was
actually to become an aerospaceengineer, very interested in
space and rockets and aviationstuff in general. So I was
(05:26):
looking at doing aerospace andwas also in computers and
explored that a bit. So that wasdefinitely adventure with many
twists and turns.
Dave Rogers (05:41):
So when you got your pilot's licence and your
career went in anotherdirection, which I'm really
looking forward to talkingabout, by the way, you've
already mentioned, Corazon willbe going there next. What was it
that made you want to keepflying? Keep being a pilot? keep
getting up in the air?
Noah Lieberman (06:00):
Well, it's it's tough to explain. I mean, I
suppose most I'm sure everyonehas some passion or some thing
that just exhilarates them. Butyeah, I mean, it's even. Even
just driving by an airport andglimpsing down the runway. It's
just like, my heart kind ofbeats faster. And just kind of
(06:23):
like it just calls me for somereason. Looking at aeroplanes, I
have a good doing, like my oldscreensaver is just aeroplanes.
And I just, I don't knowsomething about just the magic
of flying is just I had asuperpower it would be flying. I
just the idea of being able tobe able to fly is just really
powerful.
Ben Hall (06:42):
If we need to get you an ally aircraft, I think yes.
Getting getting the controls ofan aeroplane is a really sort of
special feeling. It's like areally, like, it's like a
freedom that you just yeah,experience anywhere else.
Noah Lieberman (06:56):
Yeah, I mean, you remember when you got your
first car, there's the idea thatsuddenly you could go, you know,
maybe not anywhere and butanywhere in the UK anyway,
without any money to boat to goto. You can get that freedom
that you suddenly feel of whenyou're young. And it's like, oh,
I can only go as far as I haveto take buses and trains and buy
my bike or whatever. But thatsudden, like just that opening
(07:19):
up. It's kind of like that onthat on a whole nother level.
But that just that freedom move.
And you don't mean, so it's likemy favourite line from Back to
the Future where we're going. Wedon't need roads. Yeah.
Dave Rogers (07:33):
More 80s film references, please, we can add
that to the Top Gun referencethat we had in a previous
episode as well. But also, I'mgoing to start asking all the
Noah Lieberman (07:44):
I'd have to give some credit to Top Gun to
certainly probably inspired avery large number of Oh, yeah.
Yeah,
Dave Rogers (07:51):
there was a brief time in my childhood where off
the back of Top Gun I wanted tobe a pilot and then out of
nowhere developed a fear offlying so that soon got washed,
but that's gone. They see
Noah Lieberman (08:05):
some flight lessons is the best way to cure
a fear of flying.
Dave Rogers (08:08):
I will put them on my Christmas list next time
round.
Ben Hall (08:12):
Right day, this year, I'm going to take you up in an
aeroplane just menu. And we'rejust going to cruise around the
south coast of England, just meyou and a sick bag. You're gonna
have to force him to open hiseyes.
Dave Rogers (08:26):
No, I'd love that, then that'd be that'd be
absolutely incredible. We alsohave certainly will hold you to
it. Also, I'm going to startasking all of our guests from
now on if you had a superpower,what would it be? And I wonder
how many would say would sayfly? Hopefully all of them?
Although it's a good question,although in visibility would be
(08:48):
quite cool. Yeah, that's
Noah Lieberman (08:50):
there's a that's an interview question. We use a
quarter and actually with theweather you would choose which
which of those were the Wouldyou rather be invisible or be
able to fly as your superpower?
Is there? Well, it depends onyour company, but according to
Ben Hall (09:08):
your read by the wrong thing.
Dave Rogers (09:12):
Right then Cora dine, it's your company. You're
the CEO. Tell us about it. Andtell us about sort of what
brought you to set up thecompany?
Noah Lieberman (09:23):
Yeah, well, I'd go back kind of to tell my
entire life story. But the, youknow, I sort of ended up going
down. I ended up in computersand was working at a company
called Sun Microsystems, whichdoesn't exist anymore, sadly,
but they really kind of were thebackbone of the internet for
(09:44):
quite a while during the.comboom in the 90s and everything.
I worked there for eight yearsand quite large corporation at
the time, and I was gettingrather fed up with sort of large
Corporate bureaucracy and thingsbeing outsourced and just kind
of feeling like my time wasreally just being wasted. And it
(10:08):
just didn't, didn't, I wasn'tenjoying it. And so I was really
kind of wanting to go back toflying. So I started taking
flying lessons again. Saturdayit was it was just sort of a
little bit longer version of thefirst story, in that I ran out
of credit card room before I wasable to complete it. But I had
(10:30):
during that process, everyone Ispoke with was had told me that,
hey, you really need anelectronic logbook, Asian
started spreadsheet, get an app,you know, whatever, you need to
keep that because as soon as Ihad the intention was I was
going to complete my trainingand become a commercial pilot, I
was going to change careers. AndI wanted to, to really do that.
So being a software I of course,obviously, I would want to have
(10:55):
an electronic logbook makestotal sense saves countless
hours adding things up and madea lot of sense. So that was in
2003. And there was obviouslybefore the iPhone or the iPad or
any kind of mobile apps really.
So I was big, still a big applefan always have been in was
using a Mac and there was nolocal software for the Mac. And
(11:17):
I certainly wasn't going to runWindows. And so I made one. The
first one was just for myself,it was just based on my us
student pilot logbook. And itwas actually a FileMaker
database for anyone who knowswhat that is. And it worked for
me and but I figured well, youknow, there's gonna be a there's
(11:41):
obviously other Mac users outthere who are pilots and put it
online. It's kind of sharewareback in the day. I don't
remember what the first I thinkI might have checked probably
charged something I don't know.
And almost immediately startedgetting kind of because of that
was such a nice thing like Macpilot. And thanks to the
(12:03):
internet, it was like, you know,someone from Germany and someone
from Australia, they were like,Oh, this is cool. But I need
this other thing because mycountry this mic Oh, crap. Okay.
So I tried to kind of readjigger things, and then I
quickly snowballed into acompletely unmaintainable mess,
because it was just FileMakerwas not designed to be doing
(12:26):
updates and changing thingsever. So that was when I kind of
broke, you know, sat down andwrote the first native Mac App.
And it was it was the firstpilot logbook for the Mac. Well,
I should say for Mac OS 10.
There was, had previously beenan old log book called I think,
was mentor or something. It waspurchased by Jefferson, and they
then killed it. But it only ranon the older versions. So
(12:48):
anyway, that wasn't the first onthe Mac, but it was the first
for Mac OS 10, which is thecurrent sort of the major change
that Apple made back around thattime. So yeah, so that was that
was the first iterationbasically. And it languished?
Well, I wouldn't say language itpercolated sort of hibernated
(13:12):
grew grew slowly as a sideproject for several years, well,
ultimately until 2007. And in2007, we had just moved to
Portland. We lived in Canada fora while and we decided to
relocate here and I was nolonger working for son. And I
(13:36):
have been doing professionalgraphic design, sort of logten
cordain stuff was was maybe like30 or 40% of our income,
something like that, and therest of us doing graphic design.
So when we moved to Portland, Iconvinced my wife that it was
(13:56):
good, good idea to just focusall my energy on Cora dime, and
it was a big leap. We definitelydidn't have enough for a while.
Andit was a I'm sure it's let's you
listen to how I built this orany other kind of, you know,
(14:18):
business thing. It's the same.
It's the same story. Peoplestarting business really it was
just kind of like working sevendays a week, blowing hours and
trying to do everythingyourself. And I remember our
first we went to infinity withOshkosh, Wisconsin, they had a
(14:39):
huge airventure It's a giantaviation show. So we were there
in 2008. So you may or may notremember the iPhone launched in
2007. And we kind of had a sortof web a way to access it. On a
(15:00):
phone that allows you to sort ofsync some send some data to the
Mac, but it was March becausethere wasn't an app store. So
anyway, 2008, they launched theApp Store for the iPhone. And
it, we had the first logbook appfor the iPhone, and we were at
Oshkosh to launch it, whichhappened to be literally I think
(15:25):
it was in July. So it wasliterally just a couple of weeks
or something after the app storeopened. For the very first time.
You know, there's like 100 appsin the app store or something,
you could easily findeverything. very different than
today. And that was amazing andcrazy. It was my wife and I
running the booth and my wifewho was not a pilot or into
(15:48):
software, trying desperately tohelp people who are trying to
ask about it while I wasfrantically trying to fix bugs
in the back of the booth releaseupdates, like Oh, god, it's not
working. And dangerous. Yeah, itwas. It was a it was stressful.
(16:09):
But yeah, it was crazy. And thenI think I was just about because
only within a year, we hired myfirst employee to help try to do
take care of tech support,because I just couldn't do it
all trying to do the right thesoftware and update the website
and do everything, obviously.
and beyond. And maybe it grewquite quickly. And then in 2010,
(16:37):
Apple launched the iPad. And itwas really quite, I think within
a year or two airlines startedadopting it. And it's really
just become the gold standardreally for aviation's extremely
reliable, lightweight, it's justbeen adopted and mass across the
world for aviation as theelectronic flight bag. So and
(17:00):
certainly in general aviation aswell. But pilots everywhere, use
an iPad because it'sunbelievably helpful in, in
flight planning, carrying allyour charts carrying just
carrying everything you needreally in one easy place. I
would say that there's stillthere certainly still people who
(17:21):
are just using paper andeverything. But but we're
definitely I think I can'timagine that there's any pilots
that are not aware of the factthat that there is an iPad, and
there are cool apps for flyingon it. So
Ben Hall (17:36):
no, I was just going to ask you about the standard
technology adoption curve. Wheredo you think we are on that with
sort of electronic logbooksbecause I know tonnes of pilots
still who are afraid for abetter word to transition from
carrying a book around in theirbag to, you know, storing their
(17:57):
data online? For a variety ofreasons. So yeah, I was just
wondering why you think we arewith them? Yeah, it's
Noah Lieberman (18:05):
interesting.
It's an interesting education.
Challenge. I think there's stilljust a lot of people who don't
fully understand perhaps, thesecurity and advantages of using
technology. And certainly, Ithink we can all relate to and,
and empathise with theirconcerns or like, Oh, well, it's
(18:28):
I can't I have to build reliedon 100%. I don't want the
battery to die or to crash or,or do whatever, which I think is
particularly bad if you're on aPC or a non iPad, tablets that
have a bit more problem. Butanyway, just a smaller. No, but
(18:50):
that the I think they'veabsolutely proved that they are
reliable. But the I think theeven bigger thing that we always
talk about with especiallyspecifically with logbooks is
the fact that it actually is abackup, and that just having
your logbook in one place,whether it's paper or
(19:11):
electronic, is a bad idea.
Right. So if something happenedif you only have one source of
all this data that is socritical to your career, I when
we hear just the mostheartbreaking stories of people
whose bag got stolen and ortheir house burned down or
whatever, and they've lost allof their flying history. And
that is devastating to your Imean, it's just monumental if
(19:31):
not impossible to rebuild that.
And so, absolutely keep yourpaper logbook or even simpler.
Log down lets you create paperlog books you can print out your
logbook anytime you like make asmany copies as you'd like. And
of course the same for theelectronic it's click of a
button and you can make abackup. Make a backup make a
(19:53):
backup you can make as manybackups as you want. You can
store them in different placesyou can you know as secure as
you want to be. You can havecopies available. All over the
world. But it makes it supereasy to manage it when you use
an electronic logbook, becauseyou're inputting your data in
one place. And then it's easy toprint it out in different
formats. super helpful if youhappen to be in our global
(20:15):
industry, people travel and takejobs all over the world, and
logged in lets you print yourlogbook in the local country
format. So that's also reallyhelpful for interviews or
different things like that. ButI think that the adoption curve
is, is definitely increasing.
And and the more that people seepilots using iPads, airline
(20:36):
pilots using iPads, they startto recognise that, well, if you
know the professionals are usingit, it must be good. You know,
if American Airlines is going tobuy 11,000 iPads for every
pilot, it's probably you know,it's a pretty big investment,
right. And they've gone througha significant amount of
(20:56):
certification, it's actuallyinsane how much work they have
to go through to be able toallowed by the government to use
an iPad in the cockpit. So it'sgone through enormous amount of
testing, because the pilots arerelying on those iPads for their
charts, for their manuals forchecklists for all kinds of
(21:18):
stuff. So it's just extremelyreliable. So I think that that
is becoming more and morerecognised.
Dave Rogers (21:27):
security's a word you've mentioned there. What
would be the risks? If, forexample, Ben's flight logs got
stolen? Why? Why would that be aproblem?
Ben Hall (21:41):
When you want to answer that you want me to? So
what do you mean from from?
Dave Rogers (21:46):
So I think you've you've both you've, you've both
said it, like some pilots havegot concerns about about
security, if I, if I had,
Ben Hall (21:56):
pilots are too concerned about the actual
security of the data, becauseI'm not sure people could do a
huge amount with quick data,because it's, although it is
personal, sort of data, it'spretty useless outside of the
aviation industry. So I thinkit's the security in terms of
not losing it is the problemrather than it getting stolen.
Dave Rogers (22:18):
And with regards to say, you did have a paper
logbook, and you know, yourhouse burned down, as you
mentioned, or something terriblehappened, and you had 5000
hours, I always use hours as ametric. I know there's more
detail than that. But if thatdisappears, and that's your only
copy is that you kind of done,people just take my word for it,
Ben Hall (22:41):
there'll be disaster, because basically, you every
time you do a flight, you logthat flight in your logbook, and
you'll start with one trainingschool. So you'll log a fly. And
then when your traininginstructors like have to sign it
and all sorts of stuff to makesure it's valid. And then when
you do like a little flightcheck, you'll put like a little
summary in there, and that willget stamped and signed off. So
(23:04):
it's kind of like amalgamationof air schools and companies and
instructors and examiners whokind of validate your logbook as
it goes forward. So if you'vejust got a logbook, in paper
format, and then you lose it,or, you know, it gets wet or
something, you're in a bit bitof a pickle.
Noah Lieberman (23:25):
I'm just yeah, that's the real challenge to
just, or one of the mainchallenges with attempting to
recover from that would beusually you're talking most
anyone who's commercially flyingis probably got at least a
couple 1000 hours. So quiteprobably, it's at least five
years or more of history. Andfor me, it's like, you know, 30
(23:49):
years or whatever is that youcan't even like I don't even
have might even remember thename of the instructors that I
was flying with if I didn't havemy logbook, let alone what their
phone number is or how to findthem. And it's probably changed
since then anyway. So being ableto actually track down and get
them to re endorse anything foryou, there's really the only
(24:10):
option and is extremelydifficult. So you have this huge
challenge because an airline orany buddy who's hiring, almost
always the first thing they wantto know is what's your total
time or total time in aparticular aircraft. And so you
can say, Oh, yeah, I've got 5000hours like Okay, great, prove
it, you know, they want to see,they need to see that history to
(24:32):
be able to validate this guy'snot just saying he has the time.
And it doesn't happen veryoften. But there's absolutely
cases of pilots who completelymade this stuff up, gotten jobs
and have actually virtually noexperience at all, and then have
to be criminally processprosecuted. In fact, funnily
(24:53):
enough, we're actually involvedin a case in the UK against a
pilot who was using long timeand manufactured a whole bunch
of his Lying was completelyfake. And so trying to
investigate that and validate,you know, is this a real thing?
And how can you track it alldown and all that sort of stuff.
So your logbook is very, veryimportant for your career. So
(25:17):
there most companies are notvery likely to just take it on
faith, you know, they're gonnawant to see the history. And so
if you can't rebuild it, yeah,it could be devastating to your
career.
Ben Hall (25:28):
There was a news report recently, I think it came
out of Pakistan, where I thinkit was actually the Pakistan
Civil Aviation Authority saidthat up to 30% of their pilots
in the country had forged hours.
What? Yeah, it was terrifying.
It was this huge news release, Idon't know, out of interest
unlocked, empro or Corona, andlooking at any sort of
(25:51):
verification type tools to sortof try and prevent that moving
forward.
Dave Rogers (25:57):
Absolutely. Yeah, emotionally.
Noah Lieberman (26:03):
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things we can
do that in that space. But yeah,we definitely want to find ways
to help. You know, one of theservices that we're sort of
piloting right now is a more ofa an audit service, where we
would allow pilots to contact usand we would help them. This is
(26:24):
more this isn't really to thisisn't like trying to flesh out a
fake pilot, obviously, this isto help a pilot find mistakes in
their logbook and fix them.
Because those can be problems aswell. You know, if you turn in
your logbooks to a companyyou're trying to get hired for
and it's full of math errors,they're going to start to
question like, is thislegitimate? Why do you even add
(26:44):
these up, right? is this? Didyou fake some of this? What's
going on here? So you want to besure that all of those numbers
and columns add up correctly,which over a long history is,
it's a miracle, you're gonnahave mistakes. So using
electronic logbook is obviouslyanother advantage in that sense.
And it's pretty good adding upnumbers,
Ben Hall (27:05):
it is a bit crazy that we're in 2021. And there's still
no real way of a Civil AviationAuthority verifying a pilot's
experience. I mean, it's theystill rely on paper effectively,
because even even if you gotelectronic logbook, most civil
aviation authorities will wantyou to print it out and send it
(27:27):
to them. Yep. And they just relyon sort of faith. But yeah,
they've done that amount oftime. Fine.
Noah Lieberman (27:35):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, all of the Flying is
certainly all of the flights areself certified. Well, all of
them, I guess, you do have somethat are examiners or flight
instructors. But you know, overyour career, 99% of the flights,
no one is validating it. Besidesthe pilot, you write down what
it is. And if you say it was onehour or 10 hours, no one knows,
(27:59):
really, especially if it's olderstuff. Nowadays, we've got
electronic records of certainlycommercial flights, and even
many general aviation flights,especially if they're on an
instrument flight plan, thatdata is being captured and
recorded of this particularaircraft flew from here to here
at this time on this date, and,and that sort of thing. So at
least they could verify thatthat flight actually happened
(28:22):
and was at least somewhatapproached with the right amount
of time, that sort of thing. Butyeah, that's something that we
definitely think is aninteresting area to explore is
how can we better help.
Ultimately, we want to make itas seamless as possible for
pilots so that they don't haveto do any work at all. And their
data just flows into theirlogbook, and they can then
(28:43):
access it and generate reportsand do whatever they need to do
with the minimum amount ofeffort.
Dave Rogers (28:50):
Well, speaking of making life as easy for pilots
as possible, there is a log 10Pro and pilot based
collaboration that you too canboth Tell me and the listeners
about who's going to take thelead on this one.
Ben Hall (29:03):
So I think probably from what I understand this is a
bit of a world first. I mean,that probably sounds bigger than
it actually is. But basically,we have launched an integration
between an electronic logbook,so log 10, Pro, and pilot base,
which provides other services orcurrently we provide recruitment
(29:25):
services. So basically, you candynamically link your logbook
with pilot base. Every time youlog a flight, it automatically
updates your profile and pilotbase, and then all of the
functionality in pilot base,which has anything to do with
the flight hours, then sort ofwork seamlessly. So we get we're
(29:45):
building loads of coolfunctionality this year, but
that will include sort of jobmatching. So if you you know you
suddenly take over 3000 hours inyour logbook, you're suddenly
eligible for those jobs where3000 hours minimum requirement
and then also Moving on fromthat, with the application
process. I mean, pilotapplication processes are a
nightmare. I applied for one fora job in Japan once. And the
(30:09):
breakdown of hours they wantedwas absurd. They wanted like,
how many cross country hours doyou have at night? In an hour?
Say 320? Or somethingridiculous? Absolutely. But
instead of manually doing that,we'll just be able to
automatically sort of thing itall the way through from your
logbook, to the job application.
Super easy.
Noah Lieberman (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When if you don't
mind me interrupting. I justwanted to add that the one of
the things that we hear a lot inthis sort of flow is that not
only they want a lot of crazystuff, these job applications
generally take months, if not anentire year, or something of
back and forth, and collectingdata and doing different things
(30:53):
and going through hoops andgetting copies of your passport.
And you know, it's just alengthy and complex process. And
then they have to revieweverything. And by the time
they've reviewed it, you've beenflying for three months, and
your totals are all different.
And then they want to see yourtotals again. And so then you
have to go back and add them allup again and send them a new set
of totals. And that takes twoweeks. And so with this type of
you know, when you're using log10, and with this pilot based
(31:14):
collaboration, your profile isjust always up to date. So they
can you don't have to doanything, they can just see your
totals as of right now, anytimethey want to look at it.
Dave Rogers (31:23):
Oh, well. So it's almost it's almost real time
that if I'm a pilot, and I'mupdating it on my iPad, as soon
as I find a Wi Fi connection, Ican sync that and any potential
suitors can see my, my relevantinformation.
Ben Hall (31:38):
I mean, it's not even, it's not even a sync, it's, it's
a live connection. So as soon asyou close the log 10 Pro app
pushes the data straight topilot base. And just to be super
clear, when you're in pilotbase, we cannot change your log
with details at all. So there'sno, there's no corruption
issues, or, you know, if youpress delete something in pilot
(31:59):
base, your logbooks not gonna beaffected at all.
Dave Rogers (32:02):
Well, this seems like a great idea. I know.
Genius. Oh, Pat yourselves onthe back, gentlemen, well
played? Well, there'll be peoplelistening or watching this who
are familiar with log 10 are notfamiliar with pilot base, but
from or familiar with pilotbase, and not familiar with log
10. So how do they do it? Is iteasy? Is it difficult? What are
(32:29):
the first of all, from pilotbased perspective, Ben, what are
the what are the key points forpotential users.
Ben Hall (32:36):
So from pilot based point of view, it's super
simple. So you can just go topilot base calm, there's a big
sign up button. So he clickthere. And you can just sign up
with an email and password soyou can get him really easily.
And then take your time fillingout your profile. In the logbook
section, you'll find a button toconnect to your electronic
logbook. And from there, ittakes you through a nice, easy
(32:59):
flow can log into log 10 Pro,and it the connection can be
done in you know, two or threeminutes tops.
Dave Rogers (33:07):
And from a log 10 of site. No, I was gonna say
from from a log 10 perspective,does anything change for your
current users?
Noah Lieberman (33:16):
No, it's super easy, like Ben said, and it's
completely free. And also, infact, if you are new to log 10,
you can get a free three monthtrial by signing up through
pilot base. So by all means,check out log 10. It will save
you a tonne of time. And you canget your profile connected up
with pilot base and your totalsgo right in. So if you're
(33:36):
already logged in user, you caneasily go sign up for pilot base
and your logbook totals willjust sync right up.
Dave Rogers (33:44):
I'm going to go and get my three month trial when
Ben takes me up and log my fiveminutes when he left.
Ben Hall (33:53):
In the remarks section, it's just gonna be
blind panic. Yeah.
Dave Rogers (33:58):
And I'll also forget to cancel my subscription
though, as he'll be making moneyoff me forever. I've terrible
stuff. Yeah, in terms of thesecollaborations, then Ben, if we
can turn this into a bit of apilot base hagiography. And this
is exactly what you want, isn'tit you want to make life as easy
(34:19):
as possible for pilots to tohave convenient lives to be able
to find the jobs that they want,but also for the in potential
employers as well as a two waystreet. And this is a sort of
real step towards that. Thatuser friendly nature that you
want pilot base to be. Yeah,exactly. So
Ben Hall (34:36):
I think me And no, I've got really similar sort of
mindsets on this. I'm actuallygoing to Nick a quote from his
LinkedIn bio. Oh, yeah. So thisis what Noah said, are excited
by change and the challenge ofimagining and building the
future. My goal is torevolutionise the aviation
industry through designtechnology and services that
make flying easier, safer andmore fun. And I read that and I
(34:59):
thought to myself, That'sbasically what we're doing to.
So obviously, Cora Dinah focusedon log 10 Pro for the time
being, I'm sure they've gotloads of cool stuff in the
makings. And what we're doing atpilot base is trying to create
sort of a centralised hub forpilots to basically manage their
life. So currently, we'refocusing on recruitment. But
(35:20):
we're hoping to expand tobasically an all encompassing
platform where pilots that needstuff can just go to their pilot
place platform, and, you know,find whatever they need to be
doing.
Dave Rogers (35:33):
Invest now. free money to this address. Yeah,
exactly. This is my, this is mypaypal, that quote, Noah, just
based on those few sentencesalone, that makes me think that
you've got big ideas. I mean,log 10 is already a really
(35:55):
positive change and has been forover a decade now. But it does
sound like you've got some somebig irons in some some big
fires, and you would like to dosomething absolutely huge in the
future.
Noah Lieberman (36:09):
Yeah, I think we were always looking at new
opportunities to help pilots,that's really our mission
statement is helping pilots. Andwe want to try to make that as
as, as long as it has been saidthat I said that, it's we want
to make it you know, safer andeasier and more fun. And, as I
kind of alluded to earlier,we're looking at different ways
(36:30):
that we can try to minimise theamount of work that pilots have
to do, because I think, probablyin most jobs, but particularly
in pilots, that ends up being alot more paperwork than you
imagined when you dreamed offlying. I think for most pilots,
it's the pushing the throttlesforward and taking off is the
part that they like the most notthe filling out forms and
(36:52):
sitting in airports waiting forthings. So we want to try to
minimise that part as much aspossible and make you be able to
keep up on those things. There'sa lot of things that are very
important with that that aredifficult and not very fun to
keep track of making sure thatyou get enough sleep and that
your duty period isn't goingover. And you're not breaking
the law because you have tolegally be within limits. And
(37:14):
some of those things can berather painful and difficult to
track. And in most places in theworld, interesting thing where
you're legally liable, eventhough you're not the one
setting the schedule. So youknow that the airline could set
you up for something that wouldbreak the law, and you could
(37:34):
lose your licence. But you haveto kind of keep track of it, and
you're the one who gets introuble. They may get in trouble
as well. But But you know, you'dhave to keep an eye on that. And
a lot of pilots just let it goand figure out the company will
figure it out. But mistakeshappen. And when you're the one
liable, it's nice to know thatyou've got your own system and
tools for keeping track of allthat and that you can be able to
(37:57):
keep track of it because thingsget crazy weather roll then
flights get delayed. There'speople juggling lots of
different things. And you knowyou want to be You're the one
who's taking that flight and youwant to be sure you've got
enough duty to complete itsafely and within limits. So if
dispatch is saying, Yeah, you'regood to go, like, doesn't look
like it adds up to me. And I'vebeen in that situation
Ben Hall (38:18):
many times now, especially when you get like a
weather diversion. So I've beenon a flight before where I was
going Abu Dhabi to Sydney, soit's like a 15 hour flight
anyway, diverted to Melbourne.
So with that you're adding anextra hour or so. And then they
wanted us like minimum rest inMelbourne before they you know,
shimmy the aircraft over toSydney. But there are basing on
(38:40):
the original time schedule andall this sort of stuff. And it's
up to me to you know, enact mylicence legally. Yeah, and it's
stuff like duty times is a nightif you want to do that manually
is a disaster.
Noah Lieberman (38:58):
Yeah, and so that's something that we work
really hard to help log 10 beextremely flexible to support
all the different rules aroundthe world allow you to customise
it and keep track of all thosetypes of things on the fly while
you're flying. While you're onduty, you can just open it up
right to the plan tab and seeall of your limits and
currencies as of this moment. Soit's super helpful and it also
looks ahead at your schedule. Soif you we support importing
(39:21):
schedules from all over theworld, you can import your
flight schedule ahead of timeand then you can look ahead
monitor that for you so thatyour will notify you if there's
any potential issues if yourcurrent flight gets delayed and
you put in the actual times andthen that says while you're
scheduled to fly again in threehours, it's a good idea.
Dave Rogers (39:41):
Finally, then, what about you as a pilot any any
plans to get airborne againsoon?
Noah Lieberman (39:50):
as often as possible for sure. It's it's an
interesting, I find myself tornactually and I do spend a fair
amount of time in x plane mypreferred flight simulator. But
Mac because it doesn't have noco2 emissions. Low cost. Yeah,
(40:13):
it's a challenge. I did own myown plane for a few years. And
it was it was really fun, butultimately just didn't feel like
it made sense, environmentallyor financially just just kind of
a waste. You know, it's it's aninteresting thing to do as a
hobby, I guess. And I loveflying and I'm avidly watching
(40:36):
all the electric aeroplaneprojects that are underway and
Ben Hall (40:40):
I was going to ask Cardon getting into the electric
aeroplane business.
Noah Lieberman (40:43):
Love to, we'll see. But absolutely, that is,
the other piece of our missionreally is log 10 is a tiny piece
of it. But we do have a 10s of1000s of pilots all over the
world, using log 10. And that'sless paper being consumed, you
know, so part of our mission isto, we love flying, how can we
(41:07):
ensure that there is a futurefor aviation, we need to think
about the environmental impactof it, and how can we help
reduce it and minimise thatimpact so that we can all keep
flying and enjoy that amazingexperience and service that
allows us to travel all over theworld and have delicious
(41:29):
tomatoes in the middle ofwinter? And
Dave Rogers (41:33):
it's interesting, because people are talking more
and more about that. I mean, wespoke to Dr. Kearns in the first
series, didn't we and, and a lotof young people who are thinking
about getting into aviation andbecoming pilots, they go into
university to study. And thenthey've got students on other
courses saying, Well, why do youwant to do that? Because of the
environmental impact, it'll beabsolutely fascinating to see,
(41:57):
not only where it goes, but butsort of how quickly it goes in
that direction as well. It's notgoing to happen overnight. But
I'm very, very interested in inseeing sort of where it evolves
and how quickly it evolves. Butby the sounds of things not as
not as interested as you, Iwonder if that's something that
the company, and
Noah Lieberman (42:18):
yeah, it's interesting, you know, in one
sense, there may be the type offlying that pilots are doing may
change, we definitely seeanticipate definitely the move
toward a more more flying short,small aircraft. There's a lot of
companies working on small AirMobility stuff, electric air
(42:40):
taxis that allow us to helpreduce pollution, but move
quickly in large cities. I know,no one loves driving across
London, the idea that you could,you know, hop in an air taxi
downtown and be at Heathrow in20 minutes or something. Lots of
people would want to takeadvantage of that. And at least
(43:02):
for I would imagine, at leastfor the next 1020 years, those
are going to require a pilot.
It's a very different kind offlying and it probably be a
single pilot, but it's a wholenother type of flying. And
there'll be pilots that have tokeep track of logs and flights
and all that stuff. So we'llsee. Yeah, it'd be interesting
to see how it all evolves andhow how we are able to
(43:23):
transition to a sustainablefuture.
Dave Rogers (43:27):
I think that is a good note to end the podcast on
Thank you know, and good luck toyou as well, Ben, I never wish
you good luck in business, eventhough you very kindly have me
on his voice of this brilliantcompany of setup. Good luck,
gentlemen. So this is this islaunched and live now he asked
people can head over to thepilot base and get stuck in
straightaway.
Ben Hall (43:48):
Yeah, absolutely. So they can head over to pilot
base. And you can either getyour free three month trial log
10 pro or you can connect yourexisting account.
Dave Rogers (43:58):
Amazing. Good luck everyone. Let us know how you
get on as well head over to allthe socials pilot base HQ and
tell everyone how brilliant itis. That's what we like, isn't
it? share everything. Gordon?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Cheers.
No. Cheers, Ben, I will speak toyou soon, Ben and hopefully I'll
speak to you in the not toodistant future. Good luck.
Ben Hall (44:19):
Thanks for listening to the pirate base podcast.
We'll be back next week withanother great guest from the
aviation industry. Don't forgetto check out our new career
platform@polybase.com and allthe socials at pilot base HQ.
Again, enjoyed this podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe andrice review
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Pilotbase podcast.
We're pleased to be giving youSeason Two and we've got a great
selection of guests lined up forthe next 10 weeks. We're kicking
the season off by chatting toNoah Lieberman. Noah started his
career as a software engineer,and is now the owner and CEO of
Coradine Aviation Systems. Youprobably know them best for
(00:27):
their LogTen Pro app. But asyou're about to hear, he and
Caroline have big plans forfuture. We've recently teamed up
with Coradine to create a livelink between their logbook our
pilot profiles, which you cancheck out at pilot base.com.
Stay tuned to hear all aboutNoah his life and career are
game changing integration. Hisplans for the future of
technology and aviation.
Dave Rogers (00:49):
Noah, welcome to pilot base. How are you? You
look pretty healthy. hanging inthere. Thanks for watching.
Yeah, yeah, really? Well, didyou know you might be the first
person that's asked me that inall the episodes. So I
appreciate you. Okay.
Noah Lieberman (01:03):
All right. Guess you need to interview more
polite people.
Dave Rogers (01:08):
That is not a slant on the lovely people.
Ben Hall (01:12):
Various podcast guests. How you doing over
there? Ben? Got your plantsgrowing? Looks good. Oh, yeah.
No, it's becoming a bit of ajungle in here, isn't it? Yeah.
Do you just put it on a slightlyhigher platform every time so it
looks like you've taken this isactually a trade out. My wife's
been doing a bit of houseworkrecently. And she's replaced a
smaller firm with this massiveone.
Noah Lieberman (01:35):
Nice, you're gonna have a observatory roof
that just opens up so it can getsome lighting. I mean,
Dave Rogers (01:43):
if pilot base subscriptions go up, you know
where the money's going.
Noah Lieberman (01:47):
nice bit of shrubbery behind us. You know,
we've got going on there. Yes,I've got a few plants don't
recall what variety. I have toadmit my wife helps with that as
well. She's the gardener. Andthen
Dave Rogers (02:02):
for those who are watching and can just see a
messy bedroom behind me. I'vegot plants too. All right. Yeah,
sure. shady. To see you'rejoining us from is it Portland
today? No. Yes, that's right.
Portland, Oregon. Oh, what'shappening? They're
Noah Lieberman (02:17):
pouring rain at the moment. That doesn't usually
actually.
Dave Rogers (02:22):
Oh, you're talking to two guys in midwinter in
Great Britain at the moment. Soyou know, we can relate retail?
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So lookingforward to getting to know you
today, the man that the pilotthe business man. And so can you
just give us a bit of backgroundon you as a pilot? First is a
(02:44):
good place to start? Yeah.
Always, as long as I canremember being interested in
flying.
Noah Lieberman (02:52):
While back my mother actually dug up an old
book that I had as a kid when Ifirst was learning to write and
it's got the little like, fillin the blank, you know, what do
you want to be when you grow upand I actually had written pilot
in there just barely legible.
And then I had my first flightin a DC three in Mexico. As a
passenger, I was a kid have notactually flown to DC three
(03:13):
myself, but I was quite theexperience, I'm sure and anyone
who's written in a DC three,it's, it's wild. And it was it
was really fun. And so DC threejust I guess, in case someone
isn't familiar with it's it's anold twin propeller aircraft that
was used all over the worldstill is in some places that are
(03:34):
very durable, giant landinggear. And I think that's a
tailwheel aeroplane. So it'ssloped back a lot of the back
and you actually climb in a doorat the back and you literally
have to pull yourself up theseats because the the iOS is so
steeply slanted, you kind oflike, fall into your seat and
buckle in. And, you know, whenit takes off, the back lifts up.
(03:54):
It's it's quite exhilarating forsure. I just loved it. And I've
been interested ever since then.
And High School, like 1991, Idid my first student flight here
in Southern Oregon, where I wasgoing to school and I think I've
managed all of four lessonsbefore the lawnmowing money ran
(04:17):
out. So that didn't didn't gotoo far. I definitely enjoyed
it. But reality sanken so wasn'table to pursue that. So it
actually took me Well, I didn'tget my pilot's licence until
2008. So it was a long trainingperiod, I always say did a few
(04:39):
different stints of flying overthe years but wasn't able to
actually have enough resourcesand everything to complete that
till 2008. So thank you toCoraline. That was a helpful
boost there at the end. Finallygot it done. And that was
brilliant. Over the years alsobeen very interested in flight
simulators to sort of feed theThe love of planes and I
(05:01):
couldn't afford to fly everyone.
Ben Hall (05:02):
So did you? Did you ever want to be a commercial
pilot? Or was it always just ahobby? Yeah, I definitely
thought about it. I actually hadmy plan after high school was
actually to become an aerospaceengineer, very interested in
space and rockets and aviationstuff in general. So I was
(05:26):
looking at doing aerospace andwas also in computers and
explored that a bit. So that wasdefinitely adventure with many
twists and turns.
Dave Rogers (05:41):
So when you got your pilot's licence and your
career went in anotherdirection, which I'm really
looking forward to talkingabout, by the way, you've
already mentioned, Corazon willbe going there next. What was it
that made you want to keepflying? Keep being a pilot? keep
getting up in the air?
Noah Lieberman (06:00):
Well, it's it's tough to explain. I mean, I
suppose most I'm sure everyonehas some passion or some thing
that just exhilarates them. Butyeah, I mean, it's even. Even
just driving by an airport andglimpsing down the runway. It's
just like, my heart kind ofbeats faster. And just kind of
(06:23):
like it just calls me for somereason. Looking at aeroplanes, I
have a good doing, like my oldscreensaver is just aeroplanes.
And I just, I don't knowsomething about just the magic
of flying is just I had asuperpower it would be flying. I
just the idea of being able tobe able to fly is just really
powerful.
Ben Hall (06:42):
If we need to get you an ally aircraft, I think yes.
Getting getting the controls ofan aeroplane is a really sort of
special feeling. It's like areally, like, it's like a
freedom that you just yeah,experience anywhere else.
Noah Lieberman (06:56):
Yeah, I mean, you remember when you got your
first car, there's the idea thatsuddenly you could go, you know,
maybe not anywhere and butanywhere in the UK anyway,
without any money to boat to goto. You can get that freedom
that you suddenly feel of whenyou're young. And it's like, oh,
I can only go as far as I haveto take buses and trains and buy
my bike or whatever. But thatsudden, like just that opening
(07:19):
up. It's kind of like that onthat on a whole nother level.
But that just that freedom move.
And you don't mean, so it's likemy favourite line from Back to
the Future where we're going. Wedon't need roads. Yeah.
Dave Rogers (07:33):
More 80s film references, please, we can add
that to the Top Gun referencethat we had in a previous
episode as well. But also, I'mgoing to start asking all the
Noah Lieberman (07:44):
I'd have to give some credit to Top Gun to
certainly probably inspired avery large number of Oh, yeah.
Yeah,
Dave Rogers (07:51):
there was a brief time in my childhood where off
the back of Top Gun I wanted tobe a pilot and then out of
nowhere developed a fear offlying so that soon got washed,
but that's gone. They see
Noah Lieberman (08:05):
some flight lessons is the best way to cure
a fear of flying.
Dave Rogers (08:08):
I will put them on my Christmas list next time
round.
Ben Hall (08:12):
Right day, this year, I'm going to take you up in an
aeroplane just menu. And we'rejust going to cruise around the
south coast of England, just meyou and a sick bag. You're gonna
have to force him to open hiseyes.
Dave Rogers (08:26):
No, I'd love that, then that'd be that'd be
absolutely incredible. We alsohave certainly will hold you to
it. Also, I'm going to startasking all of our guests from
now on if you had a superpower,what would it be? And I wonder
how many would say would sayfly? Hopefully all of them?
Although it's a good question,although in visibility would be
(08:48):
quite cool. Yeah, that's
Noah Lieberman (08:50):
there's a that's an interview question. We use a
quarter and actually with theweather you would choose which
which of those were the Wouldyou rather be invisible or be
able to fly as your superpower?
Is there? Well, it depends onyour company, but according to
Ben Hall (09:08):
your read by the wrong thing.
Dave Rogers (09:12):
Right then Cora dine, it's your company. You're
the CEO. Tell us about it. Andtell us about sort of what
brought you to set up thecompany?
Noah Lieberman (09:23):
Yeah, well, I'd go back kind of to tell my
entire life story. But the, youknow, I sort of ended up going
down. I ended up in computersand was working at a company
called Sun Microsystems, whichdoesn't exist anymore, sadly,
but they really kind of were thebackbone of the internet for
(09:44):
quite a while during the.comboom in the 90s and everything.
I worked there for eight yearsand quite large corporation at
the time, and I was gettingrather fed up with sort of large
Corporate bureaucracy and thingsbeing outsourced and just kind
of feeling like my time wasreally just being wasted. And it
(10:08):
just didn't, didn't, I wasn'tenjoying it. And so I was really
kind of wanting to go back toflying. So I started taking
flying lessons again. Saturdayit was it was just sort of a
little bit longer version of thefirst story, in that I ran out
of credit card room before I wasable to complete it. But I had
(10:30):
during that process, everyone Ispoke with was had told me that,
hey, you really need anelectronic logbook, Asian
started spreadsheet, get an app,you know, whatever, you need to
keep that because as soon as Ihad the intention was I was
going to complete my trainingand become a commercial pilot, I
was going to change careers. AndI wanted to, to really do that.
So being a software I of course,obviously, I would want to have
(10:55):
an electronic logbook makestotal sense saves countless
hours adding things up and madea lot of sense. So that was in
2003. And there was obviouslybefore the iPhone or the iPad or
any kind of mobile apps really.
So I was big, still a big applefan always have been in was
using a Mac and there was nolocal software for the Mac. And
(11:17):
I certainly wasn't going to runWindows. And so I made one. The
first one was just for myself,it was just based on my us
student pilot logbook. And itwas actually a FileMaker
database for anyone who knowswhat that is. And it worked for
me and but I figured well, youknow, there's gonna be a there's
(11:41):
obviously other Mac users outthere who are pilots and put it
online. It's kind of sharewareback in the day. I don't
remember what the first I thinkI might have checked probably
charged something I don't know.
And almost immediately startedgetting kind of because of that
was such a nice thing like Macpilot. And thanks to the
(12:03):
internet, it was like, you know,someone from Germany and someone
from Australia, they were like,Oh, this is cool. But I need
this other thing because mycountry this mic Oh, crap. Okay.
So I tried to kind of readjigger things, and then I
quickly snowballed into acompletely unmaintainable mess,
because it was just FileMakerwas not designed to be doing
(12:26):
updates and changing thingsever. So that was when I kind of
broke, you know, sat down andwrote the first native Mac App.
And it was it was the firstpilot logbook for the Mac. Well,
I should say for Mac OS 10.
There was, had previously beenan old log book called I think,
was mentor or something. It waspurchased by Jefferson, and they
then killed it. But it only ranon the older versions. So
(12:48):
anyway, that wasn't the first onthe Mac, but it was the first
for Mac OS 10, which is thecurrent sort of the major change
that Apple made back around thattime. So yeah, so that was that
was the first iterationbasically. And it languished?
Well, I wouldn't say language itpercolated sort of hibernated
(13:12):
grew grew slowly as a sideproject for several years, well,
ultimately until 2007. And in2007, we had just moved to
Portland. We lived in Canada fora while and we decided to
relocate here and I was nolonger working for son. And I
(13:36):
have been doing professionalgraphic design, sort of logten
cordain stuff was was maybe like30 or 40% of our income,
something like that, and therest of us doing graphic design.
So when we moved to Portland, Iconvinced my wife that it was
(13:56):
good, good idea to just focusall my energy on Cora dime, and
it was a big leap. We definitelydidn't have enough for a while.
Andit was a I'm sure it's let's you
listen to how I built this orany other kind of, you know,
(14:18):
business thing. It's the same.
It's the same story. Peoplestarting business really it was
just kind of like working sevendays a week, blowing hours and
trying to do everythingyourself. And I remember our
first we went to infinity withOshkosh, Wisconsin, they had a
(14:39):
huge airventure It's a giantaviation show. So we were there
in 2008. So you may or may notremember the iPhone launched in
2007. And we kind of had a sortof web a way to access it. On a
(15:00):
phone that allows you to sort ofsync some send some data to the
Mac, but it was March becausethere wasn't an app store. So
anyway, 2008, they launched theApp Store for the iPhone. And
it, we had the first logbook appfor the iPhone, and we were at
Oshkosh to launch it, whichhappened to be literally I think
(15:25):
it was in July. So it wasliterally just a couple of weeks
or something after the app storeopened. For the very first time.
You know, there's like 100 appsin the app store or something,
you could easily findeverything. very different than
today. And that was amazing andcrazy. It was my wife and I
running the booth and my wifewho was not a pilot or into
(15:48):
software, trying desperately tohelp people who are trying to
ask about it while I wasfrantically trying to fix bugs
in the back of the booth releaseupdates, like Oh, god, it's not
working. And dangerous. Yeah, itwas. It was a it was stressful.
(16:09):
But yeah, it was crazy. And thenI think I was just about because
only within a year, we hired myfirst employee to help try to do
take care of tech support,because I just couldn't do it
all trying to do the right thesoftware and update the website
and do everything, obviously.
and beyond. And maybe it grewquite quickly. And then in 2010,
(16:37):
Apple launched the iPad. And itwas really quite, I think within
a year or two airlines startedadopting it. And it's really
just become the gold standardreally for aviation's extremely
reliable, lightweight, it's justbeen adopted and mass across the
world for aviation as theelectronic flight bag. So and
(17:00):
certainly in general aviation aswell. But pilots everywhere, use
an iPad because it'sunbelievably helpful in, in
flight planning, carrying allyour charts carrying just
carrying everything you needreally in one easy place. I
would say that there's stillthere certainly still people who
(17:21):
are just using paper andeverything. But but we're
definitely I think I can'timagine that there's any pilots
that are not aware of the factthat that there is an iPad, and
there are cool apps for flyingon it. So
Ben Hall (17:36):
no, I was just going to ask you about the standard
technology adoption curve. Wheredo you think we are on that with
sort of electronic logbooksbecause I know tonnes of pilots
still who are afraid for abetter word to transition from
carrying a book around in theirbag to, you know, storing their
(17:57):
data online? For a variety ofreasons. So yeah, I was just
wondering why you think we arewith them? Yeah, it's
Noah Lieberman (18:05):
interesting.
It's an interesting education.
Challenge. I think there's stilljust a lot of people who don't
fully understand perhaps, thesecurity and advantages of using
technology. And certainly, Ithink we can all relate to and,
and empathise with theirconcerns or like, Oh, well, it's
(18:28):
I can't I have to build reliedon 100%. I don't want the
battery to die or to crash or,or do whatever, which I think is
particularly bad if you're on aPC or a non iPad, tablets that
have a bit more problem. Butanyway, just a smaller. No, but
(18:50):
that the I think they'veabsolutely proved that they are
reliable. But the I think theeven bigger thing that we always
talk about with especiallyspecifically with logbooks is
the fact that it actually is abackup, and that just having
your logbook in one place,whether it's paper or
(19:11):
electronic, is a bad idea.
Right. So if something happenedif you only have one source of
all this data that is socritical to your career, I when
we hear just the mostheartbreaking stories of people
whose bag got stolen and ortheir house burned down or
whatever, and they've lost allof their flying history. And
that is devastating to your Imean, it's just monumental if
(19:31):
not impossible to rebuild that.
And so, absolutely keep yourpaper logbook or even simpler.
Log down lets you create paperlog books you can print out your
logbook anytime you like make asmany copies as you'd like. And
of course the same for theelectronic it's click of a
button and you can make abackup. Make a backup make a
(19:53):
backup you can make as manybackups as you want. You can
store them in different placesyou can you know as secure as
you want to be. You can havecopies available. All over the
world. But it makes it supereasy to manage it when you use
an electronic logbook, becauseyou're inputting your data in
one place. And then it's easy toprint it out in different
formats. super helpful if youhappen to be in our global
(20:15):
industry, people travel and takejobs all over the world, and
logged in lets you print yourlogbook in the local country
format. So that's also reallyhelpful for interviews or
different things like that. ButI think that the adoption curve
is, is definitely increasing.
And and the more that people seepilots using iPads, airline
(20:36):
pilots using iPads, they startto recognise that, well, if you
know the professionals are usingit, it must be good. You know,
if American Airlines is going tobuy 11,000 iPads for every
pilot, it's probably you know,it's a pretty big investment,
right. And they've gone througha significant amount of
(20:56):
certification, it's actuallyinsane how much work they have
to go through to be able toallowed by the government to use
an iPad in the cockpit. So it'sgone through enormous amount of
testing, because the pilots arerelying on those iPads for their
charts, for their manuals forchecklists for all kinds of
(21:18):
stuff. So it's just extremelyreliable. So I think that that
is becoming more and morerecognised.
Dave Rogers (21:27):
security's a word you've mentioned there. What
would be the risks? If, forexample, Ben's flight logs got
stolen? Why? Why would that be aproblem?
Ben Hall (21:41):
When you want to answer that you want me to? So
what do you mean from from?
Dave Rogers (21:46):
So I think you've you've both you've, you've both
said it, like some pilots havegot concerns about about
security, if I, if I had,
Ben Hall (21:56):
pilots are too concerned about the actual
security of the data, becauseI'm not sure people could do a
huge amount with quick data,because it's, although it is
personal, sort of data, it'spretty useless outside of the
aviation industry. So I thinkit's the security in terms of
not losing it is the problemrather than it getting stolen.
Dave Rogers (22:18):
And with regards to say, you did have a paper
logbook, and you know, yourhouse burned down, as you
mentioned, or something terriblehappened, and you had 5000
hours, I always use hours as ametric. I know there's more
detail than that. But if thatdisappears, and that's your only
copy is that you kind of done,people just take my word for it,
Ben Hall (22:41):
there'll be disaster, because basically, you every
time you do a flight, you logthat flight in your logbook, and
you'll start with one trainingschool. So you'll log a fly. And
then when your traininginstructors like have to sign it
and all sorts of stuff to makesure it's valid. And then when
you do like a little flightcheck, you'll put like a little
summary in there, and that willget stamped and signed off. So
(23:04):
it's kind of like amalgamationof air schools and companies and
instructors and examiners whokind of validate your logbook as
it goes forward. So if you'vejust got a logbook, in paper
format, and then you lose it,or, you know, it gets wet or
something, you're in a bit bitof a pickle.
Noah Lieberman (23:25):
I'm just yeah, that's the real challenge to
just, or one of the mainchallenges with attempting to
recover from that would beusually you're talking most
anyone who's commercially flyingis probably got at least a
couple 1000 hours. So quiteprobably, it's at least five
years or more of history. Andfor me, it's like, you know, 30
(23:49):
years or whatever is that youcan't even like I don't even
have might even remember thename of the instructors that I
was flying with if I didn't havemy logbook, let alone what their
phone number is or how to findthem. And it's probably changed
since then anyway. So being ableto actually track down and get
them to re endorse anything foryou, there's really the only
(24:10):
option and is extremelydifficult. So you have this huge
challenge because an airline orany buddy who's hiring, almost
always the first thing they wantto know is what's your total
time or total time in aparticular aircraft. And so you
can say, Oh, yeah, I've got 5000hours like Okay, great, prove
it, you know, they want to see,they need to see that history to
(24:32):
be able to validate this guy'snot just saying he has the time.
And it doesn't happen veryoften. But there's absolutely
cases of pilots who completelymade this stuff up, gotten jobs
and have actually virtually noexperience at all, and then have
to be criminally processprosecuted. In fact, funnily
(24:53):
enough, we're actually involvedin a case in the UK against a
pilot who was using long timeand manufactured a whole bunch
of his Lying was completelyfake. And so trying to
investigate that and validate,you know, is this a real thing?
And how can you track it alldown and all that sort of stuff.
So your logbook is very, veryimportant for your career. So
(25:17):
there most companies are notvery likely to just take it on
faith, you know, they're gonnawant to see the history. And so
if you can't rebuild it, yeah,it could be devastating to your
career.
Ben Hall (25:28):
There was a news report recently, I think it came
out of Pakistan, where I thinkit was actually the Pakistan
Civil Aviation Authority saidthat up to 30% of their pilots
in the country had forged hours.
What? Yeah, it was terrifying.
It was this huge news release, Idon't know, out of interest
unlocked, empro or Corona, andlooking at any sort of
(25:51):
verification type tools to sortof try and prevent that moving
forward.
Dave Rogers (25:57):
Absolutely. Yeah, emotionally.
Noah Lieberman (26:03):
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things we can
do that in that space. But yeah,we definitely want to find ways
to help. You know, one of theservices that we're sort of
piloting right now is a more ofa an audit service, where we
would allow pilots to contact usand we would help them. This is
(26:24):
more this isn't really to thisisn't like trying to flesh out a
fake pilot, obviously, this isto help a pilot find mistakes in
their logbook and fix them.
Because those can be problems aswell. You know, if you turn in
your logbooks to a companyyou're trying to get hired for
and it's full of math errors,they're going to start to
question like, is thislegitimate? Why do you even add
(26:44):
these up, right? is this? Didyou fake some of this? What's
going on here? So you want to besure that all of those numbers
and columns add up correctly,which over a long history is,
it's a miracle, you're gonnahave mistakes. So using
electronic logbook is obviouslyanother advantage in that sense.
And it's pretty good adding upnumbers,
Ben Hall (27:05):
it is a bit crazy that we're in 2021. And there's still
no real way of a Civil AviationAuthority verifying a pilot's
experience. I mean, it's theystill rely on paper effectively,
because even even if you gotelectronic logbook, most civil
aviation authorities will wantyou to print it out and send it
(27:27):
to them. Yep. And they just relyon sort of faith. But yeah,
they've done that amount oftime. Fine.
Noah Lieberman (27:35):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, all of the Flying is
certainly all of the flights areself certified. Well, all of
them, I guess, you do have somethat are examiners or flight
instructors. But you know, overyour career, 99% of the flights,
no one is validating it. Besidesthe pilot, you write down what
it is. And if you say it was onehour or 10 hours, no one knows,
(27:59):
really, especially if it's olderstuff. Nowadays, we've got
electronic records of certainlycommercial flights, and even
many general aviation flights,especially if they're on an
instrument flight plan, thatdata is being captured and
recorded of this particularaircraft flew from here to here
at this time on this date, and,and that sort of thing. So at
least they could verify thatthat flight actually happened
(28:22):
and was at least somewhatapproached with the right amount
of time, that sort of thing. Butyeah, that's something that we
definitely think is aninteresting area to explore is
how can we better help.
Ultimately, we want to make itas seamless as possible for
pilots so that they don't haveto do any work at all. And their
data just flows into theirlogbook, and they can then
(28:43):
access it and generate reportsand do whatever they need to do
with the minimum amount ofeffort.
Dave Rogers (28:50):
Well, speaking of making life as easy for pilots
as possible, there is a log 10Pro and pilot based
collaboration that you too canboth Tell me and the listeners
about who's going to take thelead on this one.
Ben Hall (29:03):
So I think probably from what I understand this is a
bit of a world first. I mean,that probably sounds bigger than
it actually is. But basically,we have launched an integration
between an electronic logbook,so log 10, Pro, and pilot base,
which provides other services orcurrently we provide recruitment
(29:25):
services. So basically, you candynamically link your logbook
with pilot base. Every time youlog a flight, it automatically
updates your profile and pilotbase, and then all of the
functionality in pilot base,which has anything to do with
the flight hours, then sort ofwork seamlessly. So we get we're
(29:45):
building loads of coolfunctionality this year, but
that will include sort of jobmatching. So if you you know you
suddenly take over 3000 hours inyour logbook, you're suddenly
eligible for those jobs where3000 hours minimum requirement
and then also Moving on fromthat, with the application
process. I mean, pilotapplication processes are a
nightmare. I applied for one fora job in Japan once. And the
(30:09):
breakdown of hours they wantedwas absurd. They wanted like,
how many cross country hours doyou have at night? In an hour?
Say 320? Or somethingridiculous? Absolutely. But
instead of manually doing that,we'll just be able to
automatically sort of thing itall the way through from your
logbook, to the job application.
Super easy.
Noah Lieberman (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When if you don't
mind me interrupting. I justwanted to add that the one of
the things that we hear a lot inthis sort of flow is that not
only they want a lot of crazystuff, these job applications
generally take months, if not anentire year, or something of
back and forth, and collectingdata and doing different things
(30:53):
and going through hoops andgetting copies of your passport.
And you know, it's just alengthy and complex process. And
then they have to revieweverything. And by the time
they've reviewed it, you've beenflying for three months, and
your totals are all different.
And then they want to see yourtotals again. And so then you
have to go back and add them allup again and send them a new set
of totals. And that takes twoweeks. And so with this type of
you know, when you're using log10, and with this pilot based
(31:14):
collaboration, your profile isjust always up to date. So they
can you don't have to doanything, they can just see your
totals as of right now, anytimethey want to look at it.
Dave Rogers (31:23):
Oh, well. So it's almost it's almost real time
that if I'm a pilot, and I'mupdating it on my iPad, as soon
as I find a Wi Fi connection, Ican sync that and any potential
suitors can see my, my relevantinformation.
Ben Hall (31:38):
I mean, it's not even, it's not even a sync, it's, it's
a live connection. So as soon asyou close the log 10 Pro app
pushes the data straight topilot base. And just to be super
clear, when you're in pilotbase, we cannot change your log
with details at all. So there'sno, there's no corruption
issues, or, you know, if youpress delete something in pilot
(31:59):
base, your logbooks not gonna beaffected at all.
Dave Rogers (32:02):
Well, this seems like a great idea. I know.
Genius. Oh, Pat yourselves onthe back, gentlemen, well
played? Well, there'll be peoplelistening or watching this who
are familiar with log 10 are notfamiliar with pilot base, but
from or familiar with pilotbase, and not familiar with log
10. So how do they do it? Is iteasy? Is it difficult? What are
(32:29):
the first of all, from pilotbased perspective, Ben, what are
the what are the key points forpotential users.
Ben Hall (32:36):
So from pilot based point of view, it's super
simple. So you can just go topilot base calm, there's a big
sign up button. So he clickthere. And you can just sign up
with an email and password soyou can get him really easily.
And then take your time fillingout your profile. In the logbook
section, you'll find a button toconnect to your electronic
logbook. And from there, ittakes you through a nice, easy
(32:59):
flow can log into log 10 Pro,and it the connection can be
done in you know, two or threeminutes tops.
Dave Rogers (33:07):
And from a log 10 of site. No, I was gonna say
from from a log 10 perspective,does anything change for your
current users?
Noah Lieberman (33:16):
No, it's super easy, like Ben said, and it's
completely free. And also, infact, if you are new to log 10,
you can get a free three monthtrial by signing up through
pilot base. So by all means,check out log 10. It will save
you a tonne of time. And you canget your profile connected up
with pilot base and your totalsgo right in. So if you're
(33:36):
already logged in user, you caneasily go sign up for pilot base
and your logbook totals willjust sync right up.
Dave Rogers (33:44):
I'm going to go and get my three month trial when
Ben takes me up and log my fiveminutes when he left.
Ben Hall (33:53):
In the remarks section, it's just gonna be
blind panic. Yeah.
Dave Rogers (33:58):
And I'll also forget to cancel my subscription
though, as he'll be making moneyoff me forever. I've terrible
stuff. Yeah, in terms of thesecollaborations, then Ben, if we
can turn this into a bit of apilot base hagiography. And this
is exactly what you want, isn'tit you want to make life as easy
(34:19):
as possible for pilots to tohave convenient lives to be able
to find the jobs that they want,but also for the in potential
employers as well as a two waystreet. And this is a sort of
real step towards that. Thatuser friendly nature that you
want pilot base to be. Yeah,exactly. So
Ben Hall (34:36):
I think me And no, I've got really similar sort of
mindsets on this. I'm actuallygoing to Nick a quote from his
LinkedIn bio. Oh, yeah. So thisis what Noah said, are excited
by change and the challenge ofimagining and building the
future. My goal is torevolutionise the aviation
industry through designtechnology and services that
make flying easier, safer andmore fun. And I read that and I
(34:59):
thought to myself, That'sbasically what we're doing to.
So obviously, Cora Dinah focusedon log 10 Pro for the time
being, I'm sure they've gotloads of cool stuff in the
makings. And what we're doing atpilot base is trying to create
sort of a centralised hub forpilots to basically manage their
life. So currently, we'refocusing on recruitment. But
(35:20):
we're hoping to expand tobasically an all encompassing
platform where pilots that needstuff can just go to their pilot
place platform, and, you know,find whatever they need to be
doing.
Dave Rogers (35:33):
Invest now. free money to this address. Yeah,
exactly. This is my, this is mypaypal, that quote, Noah, just
based on those few sentencesalone, that makes me think that
you've got big ideas. I mean,log 10 is already a really
(35:55):
positive change and has been forover a decade now. But it does
sound like you've got some somebig irons in some some big
fires, and you would like to dosomething absolutely huge in the
future.
Noah Lieberman (36:09):
Yeah, I think we were always looking at new
opportunities to help pilots,that's really our mission
statement is helping pilots. Andwe want to try to make that as
as, as long as it has been saidthat I said that, it's we want
to make it you know, safer andeasier and more fun. And, as I
kind of alluded to earlier,we're looking at different ways
(36:30):
that we can try to minimise theamount of work that pilots have
to do, because I think, probablyin most jobs, but particularly
in pilots, that ends up being alot more paperwork than you
imagined when you dreamed offlying. I think for most pilots,
it's the pushing the throttlesforward and taking off is the
part that they like the most notthe filling out forms and
(36:52):
sitting in airports waiting forthings. So we want to try to
minimise that part as much aspossible and make you be able to
keep up on those things. There'sa lot of things that are very
important with that that aredifficult and not very fun to
keep track of making sure thatyou get enough sleep and that
your duty period isn't goingover. And you're not breaking
the law because you have tolegally be within limits. And
(37:14):
some of those things can berather painful and difficult to
track. And in most places in theworld, interesting thing where
you're legally liable, eventhough you're not the one
setting the schedule. So youknow that the airline could set
you up for something that wouldbreak the law, and you could
(37:34):
lose your licence. But you haveto kind of keep track of it, and
you're the one who gets introuble. They may get in trouble
as well. But But you know, you'dhave to keep an eye on that. And
a lot of pilots just let it goand figure out the company will
figure it out. But mistakeshappen. And when you're the one
liable, it's nice to know thatyou've got your own system and
tools for keeping track of allthat and that you can be able to
(37:57):
keep track of it because thingsget crazy weather roll then
flights get delayed. There'speople juggling lots of
different things. And you knowyou want to be You're the one
who's taking that flight and youwant to be sure you've got
enough duty to complete itsafely and within limits. So if
dispatch is saying, Yeah, you'regood to go, like, doesn't look
like it adds up to me. And I'vebeen in that situation
Ben Hall (38:18):
many times now, especially when you get like a
weather diversion. So I've beenon a flight before where I was
going Abu Dhabi to Sydney, soit's like a 15 hour flight
anyway, diverted to Melbourne.
So with that you're adding anextra hour or so. And then they
wanted us like minimum rest inMelbourne before they you know,
shimmy the aircraft over toSydney. But there are basing on
(38:40):
the original time schedule andall this sort of stuff. And it's
up to me to you know, enact mylicence legally. Yeah, and it's
stuff like duty times is a nightif you want to do that manually
is a disaster.
Noah Lieberman (38:58):
Yeah, and so that's something that we work
really hard to help log 10 beextremely flexible to support
all the different rules aroundthe world allow you to customise
it and keep track of all thosetypes of things on the fly while
you're flying. While you're onduty, you can just open it up
right to the plan tab and seeall of your limits and
currencies as of this moment. Soit's super helpful and it also
looks ahead at your schedule. Soif you we support importing
(39:21):
schedules from all over theworld, you can import your
flight schedule ahead of timeand then you can look ahead
monitor that for you so thatyour will notify you if there's
any potential issues if yourcurrent flight gets delayed and
you put in the actual times andthen that says while you're
scheduled to fly again in threehours, it's a good idea.
Dave Rogers (39:41):
Finally, then, what about you as a pilot any any
plans to get airborne againsoon?
Noah Lieberman (39:50):
as often as possible for sure. It's it's an
interesting, I find myself tornactually and I do spend a fair
amount of time in x plane mypreferred flight simulator. But
Mac because it doesn't have noco2 emissions. Low cost. Yeah,
(40:13):
it's a challenge. I did own myown plane for a few years. And
it was it was really fun, butultimately just didn't feel like
it made sense, environmentallyor financially just just kind of
a waste. You know, it's it's aninteresting thing to do as a
hobby, I guess. And I loveflying and I'm avidly watching
(40:36):
all the electric aeroplaneprojects that are underway and
Ben Hall (40:40):
I was going to ask Cardon getting into the electric
aeroplane business.
Noah Lieberman (40:43):
Love to, we'll see. But absolutely, that is,
the other piece of our missionreally is log 10 is a tiny piece
of it. But we do have a 10s of1000s of pilots all over the
world, using log 10. And that'sless paper being consumed, you
know, so part of our mission isto, we love flying, how can we
(41:07):
ensure that there is a futurefor aviation, we need to think
about the environmental impactof it, and how can we help
reduce it and minimise thatimpact so that we can all keep
flying and enjoy that amazingexperience and service that
allows us to travel all over theworld and have delicious
(41:29):
tomatoes in the middle ofwinter? And
Dave Rogers (41:33):
it's interesting, because people are talking more
and more about that. I mean, wespoke to Dr. Kearns in the first
series, didn't we and, and a lotof young people who are thinking
about getting into aviation andbecoming pilots, they go into
university to study. And thenthey've got students on other
courses saying, Well, why do youwant to do that? Because of the
environmental impact, it'll beabsolutely fascinating to see,
(41:57):
not only where it goes, but butsort of how quickly it goes in
that direction as well. It's notgoing to happen overnight. But
I'm very, very interested in inseeing sort of where it evolves
and how quickly it evolves. Butby the sounds of things not as
not as interested as you, Iwonder if that's something that
the company, and
Noah Lieberman (42:18):
yeah, it's interesting, you know, in one
sense, there may be the type offlying that pilots are doing may
change, we definitely seeanticipate definitely the move
toward a more more flying short,small aircraft. There's a lot of
companies working on small AirMobility stuff, electric air
(42:40):
taxis that allow us to helpreduce pollution, but move
quickly in large cities. I know,no one loves driving across
London, the idea that you could,you know, hop in an air taxi
downtown and be at Heathrow in20 minutes or something. Lots of
people would want to takeadvantage of that. And at least
(43:02):
for I would imagine, at leastfor the next 1020 years, those
are going to require a pilot.
It's a very different kind offlying and it probably be a
single pilot, but it's a wholenother type of flying. And
there'll be pilots that have tokeep track of logs and flights
and all that stuff. So we'llsee. Yeah, it'd be interesting
to see how it all evolves andhow how we are able to
(43:23):
transition to a sustainablefuture.
Dave Rogers (43:27):
I think that is a good note to end the podcast on
Thank you know, and good luck toyou as well, Ben, I never wish
you good luck in business, eventhough you very kindly have me
on his voice of this brilliantcompany of setup. Good luck,
gentlemen. So this is this islaunched and live now he asked
people can head over to thepilot base and get stuck in
straightaway.
Ben Hall (43:48):
Yeah, absolutely. So they can head over to pilot
base. And you can either getyour free three month trial log
10 pro or you can connect yourexisting account.
Dave Rogers (43:58):
Amazing. Good luck everyone. Let us know how you
get on as well head over to allthe socials pilot base HQ and
tell everyone how brilliant itis. That's what we like, isn't
it? share everything. Gordon?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Cheers.
No. Cheers, Ben, I will speak toyou soon, Ben and hopefully I'll
speak to you in the not toodistant future. Good luck.
Ben Hall (44:19):
Thanks for listening to the pirate base podcast.
We'll be back next week withanother great guest from the
aviation industry. Don't forgetto check out our new career
platform@polybase.com and allthe socials at pilot base HQ.
Again, enjoyed this podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe andrice review
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Monster: BTK
'Monster: BTK', the newest installment in the 'Monster' franchise, reveals the true story of the Wichita, Kansas serial killer who murdered at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991. Known by the moniker, BTK – Bind Torture Kill, his notoriety was bolstered by the taunting letters he sent to police, and the chilling phone calls he made to media outlets. BTK's identity was finally revealed in 2005 to the shock of his family, his community, and the world. He was the serial killer next door. From Tenderfoot TV & iHeartPodcasts, this is 'Monster: BTK'.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.