Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem and happy holidays. Closing down on Feliz Navidad here and hope you're all having a good one. I've got a great and very different show for you today with a guest whose resume is just unbelievable and not a paraglider. So very different. I think you're going to really enjoy it. Stay tuned for that. I get a couple bits of housekeeping before we get to it. The first is insurance. I understand a lot of people utilize my article on insurance that I try to keep really up to date on the website. If you go to cloudbasemayhem.com and just put the search term in insurance, the article is called Unscrambling Insurance. And I've just recently updated that again as Geos is not going to offer most of their policies in terms of insurance.
Getting you home if you have an accident or repatriation and a lot of other things. They're only going to still provide the high risk benefit in case you hit your SOS on your spot or your in-reach. And they were kind of a one-stop shop there. So now you really have to go back to another. You need kind of three different things. You need the insurance in case you hit your SOS, which you can still get through Geos. And then you need repatriation insurance. What I suggest is through Global Residence. There are a couple others like Medjet. And then you need a really good travel insurance that covers medical in-country in case you get hurt. And you got to have surgery or something before you get home. So three different things. There are others out there that are not in the article.
But these are the ones I really know of. And I've done a lot of study on them. And I know they work. And I've had many friends that have had to utilize them, unfortunately. And nobody's had any trouble. So check that out if you're traveling. I know a lot of people are getting ready to travel this winter for various flying escapades. And don't go uncovered. Don't think it's not going to happen to you. It could put your family or your friends or our community in a big bind if you have an accident and you're not covered properly. So check that out. Second thing is I usually have this at the end of every show, just about contributing. But we've been putting out a lot of bonus content lately. And that's for subscribers. But we don't put anything ever behind a paywall. I kind of figure that everything we're doing here is a public service announcement.
And we're just trying to help our community and help everybody get better and fly better and fly more safely. So that's the purpose. And so that's why I don't have anything behind a paywall. But for those of you who do support the show, obviously, we really appreciate it. There are a ton of costs here and a lot of time and editing and doing the interviews and all that. So if you can, all we've ever asked for is a buck a show. We really appreciate it. And there are various ways to do that. There are ways to do so. They're all spelled out on the website, cloudbasedmayhem.com. And I know I've sent you back and forth on this a few times. But for those of you who especially contribute just, you know, a dollar show, which is great, that if you do it through the website or through PayPal, that kind of thing, they take a lot of fees there.
And it's better. I've learned now through Patreon.com forward slash cloudbasedmayhem. And you can find that link on the website. They're the best in terms of fees. And they can also set it up. So you can just calculate it out for the number of shows per year and paid in one go. And then the fees are a fraction of what they are if you just do it. One dollar, one dollar, one dollar. So all that's on the website. Again, we really appreciate it. If you can't afford to support the show, send me an email. I'll get you all set up with a lifetime account. You can always access all the content we put out whenever you want. So thank you. All right. My guest today, Peter Zaccarino. You know, he is when I Googled him initially, it came up as actor. And but he is everything.
He's a philanthropist. He's basically a modern day Chuck Yeager. He's flown over 23,000 hours and more than 250, 270 aircrafts. He's flight tested over 685. He's built his own airplanes. He's been around the world a bunch of times on private airplanes. And he's a four times air racing gold champion. He's in the 80s. He's been in the aviation hall of fame. This guy has done it all. He's been at gunpoint in Pakistan. He's been to every country but one. And I think you'd be surprised on the one that he hasn't been to. Anyway, had a blast with this. Really fun. Oh, and he's also an author. He's doing a whole series of books. His first two are out. First one is relevant. And the second one is the new cold war.
These are kind of military fiction spy novels that are doing really well. And people love them and super exciting stuff. So we talk about his documentary filmmaking and push planes up in Alaska. And he was part of a big discovery series called the most dangerous. I don't have that in front of me, but he's yeah. The most dangerous flight series. So yeah, incredibly productive person and has had a very, very interesting life and he's not slowing down. So we really enjoyed made a blast with this. It was super fun. I think you're going to enjoy it as well. A lot of great takeaways. Happy holidays, everybody. And enjoy this talk with Peter Zacharino.
Peter. This is very cool, man. We didn't meet in a traditional way, but welcome to the mayhem. And I'm really excited to talk to somebody who's had a very different resume and life than I typically talk to. I, we, I talked to a lot of people that take a lot of risk in free flight. Yeah. I bet. I bet. I bet.
I bet.
I bet.
I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet. I bet.....
i've done a little discovery channel work too yeah and uh it's funny i guess google has algorithms because i really a big compliment i got a few years ago was someone i was working with said you know i googled you it was really fun to google you and i was like wow that's a heck of a nice thing to say i guess that's a good
compliment yeah yeah i really
i dug it it was cool uh but
how do you answer that question i mean my gosh your resume is impressive
yeah i you know i definitely pursue the adventure i i when i'm given a talk somewhere and they're like okay my concern always is well the venture means you gotta do something that's scary right i'm like no no no you know an adventure could be just you've never played chess before and you're going to chess camp for a month you know because that's an adventure right sure you're challenging your brain you're doing something you haven't done you're getting uncomfortable you know you're not going to be able to do it you're not going to be able to do it you're not you know you're going to look bad in front of people and all those risks but yeah i i really just pursued the adventure it's um you know i want to get out and see the world um that was a motivator i love to learn i love to teach i'm always teaching at some capacity i never get away from teaching whether it was at a college i taught at or you know teaching some flying aspect or whatever um and you kind of put that all together into this bend diagram where you have all this overlap and i look at that overlap and that's that overlap is me you know it's it's the adventure it's all things flying i'd like to try some of your flying that i haven't done i've done some other free flying but uh it just adds into the adventure and and the challenge and i'm a big believer anything you learn helps everything i mean it just helps everything whatever you're learning it's going to help some capacity right
and uh so that's kind of the short answer
so you would so if somebody came up you would say yeah i'm an adventurer that's the that's the number one thing or would it be you know are you a racer are you a yeah you're a test pilot uh could you give me a single one answer uh
renaissance ah
that's probably the best
single word answer i mean it's definitely all things aviation right you know test flying the racing uh traveling the world taking customers around the world and really lighten up their their daily grind a little bit it's definitely all things aviation but i think it's a it's a it's a it's a really the whole renaissance concept to me philosophically aligns with my like ideals and i'm pretty ideological person probably to a fault actually but uh yeah and that's why i got into the writing it was it's really hard for me because i'm an engineer by study and by practice that parlayed into my test flying as an aeronautical engineer and so i write like an engineer the door is open go through the door what's so hard about that right
yeah uh-uh you know and it was really hard to write for me but i really enjoyed the process and um so yeah you know all things flying for sure um taking some uh personal risks you know yeah
so author pilot uh and you're you're kind of aviation expert i mean you've flown over 23 in your bio you've probably got more hours now but you've flown over 23 000 hours and more than two
thousand hours in your bio and you've flown over 23 000 hours in your bio and you've probably
270 aircraft um flight tested over you i mean you're you're chuck yeager man
i used to harass chuck yeager actually yeah but uh yeah i i i fly all things as i can get my hands on if you let me fly a paraglider i'll be there you know
nice we can arrange that all
right i'll take you up on that i really will too fantastic yeah well
you're in a good part of the world for it you know living in the wasatch there you're just on the other side of the world is one of the greatest places to learn in the country and then you know you can get up in the big mountains that right after that so yeah for sure we'll do it cool cool your new book uh just came out we were we wanted i wanted to start off talking with your first one you and i both published our first book in 2020 uh mine was all about paragliding and yours was fictional military and hats off i you know is is this a fiction i think is much harder to write than non-fiction it is it typical fiction and that you know this really was much of it is based on your own life and experience and you just you know got a little whimsical or how did it how did it work writing it
yeah um the first book relevant has a lot of uh factual stories in it
okay but
i put it put it into a narrative so that it was as readable as my skill levels allowed basically and made it
would allow me to continue the story into book two book three and i've outlined five books for the series wow what long as people buy them i'll keep writing them and uh and so yeah there's a lot of um real life story based stuff in in relevant less uh probably about 50 of the second book about half of it is real stories and like in the first book everybody thought i was picking on my brother and and he's not my brother i mean there was no representation of him being my brother but everybody's like well you know pete was raised by a single mom and has one brother and i used that context and they're like god you were mean to your brother in the book it's like i was like that's not my brother the it's just backstory you know right but um so yeah and and you know i've lived around the world in a lot of different places so i drew on a lot of those experiences and some close calls and being detained in nigeria and you know roadblocks in pakistan stuff like that it helped that all is that
all military no
uh just boy um how do you answer that no not military i'm not prior military just to be setting the record straight and clear i just did a lot of different jobs and flight tests and some other types of work and it had me in a lot of strange places you know over the years and got to see some how we politely describe it unique things
yeah unique things i'll say it that way
yeah i spent a bunch of time sailing around the world uh two certain navigations there were a few times we went into places that i would describe for sure as unique yeah
you know it's nothing like you see on the major news outlets is it
no no definitely yeah let's rewind way back he's tell me about your family a little bit how did you become an adventurer where did that spark where did it hit i
give a lot of credit to my mom i was raised by a single mom raising two obnoxious kids in new jersey and uh she really instilled a sense of confidence and a a just go get after it whatever that is again doesn't have to be scary stuff it can be whatever just get after it and um my mom was awesome in that spirit i think it's the best way and and definitely out of the box you know not um doing things that are kind of the standard and nothing wrong with that hey i could have been on a standard career and i'm not doing that anymore i'm not doing that anymore i'm not doing that anymore i'm not doing that anymore i'm not doing that anymore i'm not doing that anymore i'm not doing that anymore path and that would have been great but she definitely said you know whatever you're doing is going to be great as long as you're enjoying it and and it helps other people it's good for other people it motivates other people you know just be that person and you know we all stumble and fall but get up fix it own it be accountable and keep going after it and i got a lot of that from my mom and um you know it was just growing up it was my mom my brother and i i'm the youngest and uh you know my brother was uh always pounding on me until i got old enough i could pound back and you know that was a big part of it he's a great supporter as well my brother's awesome is
he also a pilot no
i'm the only pilot engineer crazy guy in the family no one else you know has any flying in in my family and
how did the aviation it was it engineering and then aviation or aviation and then engineering no
i mean uh a lot of my life was in parallel is the best way to describe it if i did it in series i'd be you know 120 and um and i can get away without a lot of sleep usually not always but usually and uh so i i did my undergrad in aeronautical engineering and uh to come back to your primary question though i don't really have a good answer i just wanted to i wanted to design build and fly airplanes since i can remember and i had an older brother mike who passed away when i was pretty young but we would go do the classic you know three-year-old thing where i'd run around the house with a toy airplane making it right and he was pretty awesome about that but it's really the only thing I can point to in my aviation drive and um but again since I was walking it was design build and fly airplanes I'm like so I think I have to become an engineer I think I have to become a pilot and I think I have to become you know a repairman for aircraft so I did my engineering degree in Florida a great school really happy with that while I was doing that as the poor kid from Jersey I was getting flight lessons I had some grants and you know stealing money borrowing this that whatever it took and and then that was a joke by the way but anyway
yeah what are you a bank robber too it doesn't say that on the bio I
cannot confirm or deny no but what but flying during my engineering program did me I me was I got enough of the pilot licenses very quickly so that I could start making money doing it
okay my
first thing I did while I was at my uh late in my freshman year I I started flying skydivers and so they I went down to this place the owner was this classic grumpy guy and piece of garbage airplane and I didn't know any better I was like oh this plane's awesome I get to fly he's paying me three dollars and ten cents you know but the whole deal was every time I took a load of skydiver skydivers up in this little plane I got paid per load so I was pretty motivated to get people into the airplanes and and the owner loved it because I would go around be like hey aren't you ready to jump let's go because I wanted the flight time and the money and so I would pile them in the plane and do as many loads as I could and you know the time I had between school and college and everything and it was awesome so I was I was making way more than flipping burgers plus I was getting flight time which is everything for pilots you know you need need that valuable flight time to advance your career and and it kind of worked and you know it rolled into becoming an instructor and it was basically I became an instructor when I had enough money to do that and find planes and people to teach and got me into aerobatics and I knew I wanted to be a test pilot I was like well I better go you know chasing after people to fly goofy airplanes you know it's kind of my little thing but I
was like well I better go you know chasing after people to fly goofy airplanes you know it's kind of my
little freak thing
but I was like well I better go you know chasing after
raise the goofy airplanes. Why did
you know you wanted to be a test pilot?
Because I really like what it embodies. It embodies the technical academic engineering part, high level of accountability. You're responsible for a prototype that a company is banking a ton of money on. And of course, advanced piloting skills, you can't suck.
You've got to deliver. And when emergencies happen, kind of zen-like is how I describe it. It's not an adrenaline thing for me at all. It's very zen-like. And you've got to adapt to the emergency, make it work. Survival's first, safety second, aircraft safety third. And then you get to fly really high-tech planes and work with super smart people. And it just was very appealing to me. And so I chased after it. And when I was told no, I asked, why? And I learned that skill of asking why early on. And I just kept chasing it until it kind of worked out. And so here I am.
And you've done, but you've done all the hours. I mean, typically, and I don't know anything about powered aviation. So correct me if I'm wrong, but typically someone who's gone down your, you don't have a path. It sounds very, it's very adventurous, but for somebody that's, that goes into, test flying and that kind of hours is usually done with military. And so you've been able to do all this kind of on your own gumption. Sounds like.
The military, when I flown with military contracts and jobs, most people thought I was a military pilot. So your assessment is absolutely correct. I was the abnormal one and you know, we're in flight suits and survival gear and all that stuff. And so it looks very military and for good reasons. I mean, they have great. Okay. I mean, I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft. I've flown some military aircraft.
I've flown some military aircraft. He went to test pilot school and things like that. That was definitely a big one. The other one, I had a really big break. I had a customer that's a large aircraft manufacturer, starts with a B, based in the Northwest.
They put their trust in me on a pretty cool project, and it went really well. When the Air Force got involved, I had to go and get prerequisite Air Force training. They were apologizing to me because we paused the program. We're in the middle of an SRB, a safety review board. They're like, he can't fly it until he has the prerequisites. The guy in charge was like, he's the only guy that's flown it until now. What do you mean he can't fly it? It was just politics. It was awesome because they went and sent me off to various prerequisite training after the fact. It just added to the resume, especially early on. Now, my dossier was getting fatter and thicker. They kept apologizing. Now, you got to do this. Now, you got to go to McCourt Air Force Base, et cetera.
That was one of those breaks or building moments. Then I started testing some small planes. That was another kind of turn in the path. That opened up into the air racing. I started working for this company. Again, it's all on contract, so we come and go all the time. The small company was making these really fast airplanes. A lot of people were racing them. I was like, wow, that sounds like a great idea. What could go wrong? Yeah,
sure.
That's how you got into racing was testing these planes for the company that makes them?
Yeah.
It's just an enthusiast airplane that goes really fast made of carbon fiber. Well, in some cases, fiberglass too. Is this
the Red Bull Air Race type plane?
No, this is the Pylon Racing. That is really fast. It's really high speed, so we're all about speed. Our track, just to keep the story from getting too long, is about an eight-mile circumference. It's not a circle, but it's also not an oval. It's kind of a blob, a roundish blob shape.
What the pylons look like, they're not, but they look like a telephone pole sticking in the desert with a can on top. Then they're painted, and they mark the courses that we're on. Off you go. And so because I was flying that type of plane called a Lancer, I got a call from this guy, Rick, who's now one of my best friends. I don't know. This is like 18 years ago, I think, something like that. And he's like, hey, you know how to fly a 4P? I'm like, sure. And he's like, can you be our Pace pilot? I was like, when? September. I'm like, can you come to the Championship Air Races? I'm like, great. Let's go. Right. So I flew that plane as Pace. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'll be here next year racing.
There is no questions about it. And that's how it got started.
You had quite a bit of success there. Yeah. A couple, it was a goal. I don't know how this works. Is this a circuit that's all over the world? Do you do a lot of traveling for it? Do you ship in airplanes? Or is it mostly in the States? Well,
it is. It's such a tough sport because it's gone all over the place. Right. We've had races in foreign countries. We've raced in Portugal. We've had races in China. It used to be a circuit. And for whatever reason, when there's an aviation fatality, it has such a different perspective on it than if car racing has a fatality. I don't know why. It's just, it is what it is. And there was a fatality a long time ago. And it really changed races. And then we had another one in 2011 that almost ended racing. So I'm giving you a longer answer. But it's the championships have always been at Reno in September. There's been other races. Depends on the year. Depends when you ask.
It's been, unfortunately, inconsistent. It used to be very consistent. But it's hard. I mean, it's the fastest sport in the world, right? By far. I mean, my fastest lap was 560 in 2019. You know, 560 miles an hour. There's no sport that touches us in speed. But it doesn't get the exposure. You would think it would get right. And I mean, look at someone flying a paraglider around the world. It doesn't get the exposure. It should. Yeah.
Well, geez, not even close when it comes to that. But is that.
Yeah. I mean, it's cool stuff, but for, I don't know why it currently is a little bit on the downside. I guess is the best way to put it.
Is that how you got into the aviation hall of fame? What, or is that just everything? Is that, is that it all coupled together?
But I didn't even know I was nominated. They told me I was nominated. I was nominated one year and I didn't get in unbeknownst to me. But when I, the year I got in and they called me up to kind of interview me, I got past that first barrier and they were interviewing. It was really a lot of things. It was, you know, from the charitable work, um, the lecturing I do, uh, pro bono, just to try and mentor people. They're looking for well-rounded aviators. I think the racing, you know, winning at the championship and, um, setting records. I. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've done some of that.
I've done some of that. I've done some of that. I've done some of that. I've done some of that. I've
done some of
that. I've done some of that. I've done some of that. I've done some of that. I've done some of that. I've done some of that. I've done some of that. it and a joke about it. And so I did this record in Florida, you know, it's a city pair record from, you know, St. Pete, Florida to Daytona beach in this a hundred mile an hour airplane. And, uh, so there was some of that and some course, uh, leadership stuff, things like that.
Let me ask you what's I'm sure a ridiculous question for in the power world. But again, I don't know anything. I've never flown an airplane. I've been in on a lot of airplanes, but you know, you flown 270. My daughter came home the other day and said, dad, can you drive? She's four. Dad, can you drive any car? And I said, yeah, I can drive every car. You know, I was, my, my job was valet Parker back in my teens at Caesars. You know, you learn how to drive every, I said, yeah, I can drive every, can you fly any airplane? Can you just get in and fly it?
You know, skill wise, I'm comfortable. I could safely get a plane up and down again. Um, but there's legal requirements. So like say, let's say, let's say you're a, you're a, you're a, you're a, you're a, you're a, you're a, let's say you're an airline pilot. And for the last 10 years, you've been flying the 737 and you get upgraded or side graded or whatever to a 757 and you've never flown it. You would have to go to school for that specific airplane. It's just about that plane,
right? And
that school is anywhere from depending on the jet, you know, a month to three months. It just depends. But
let's take away. I get that. I mean, this, you guys have all kinds of regulations. So the, which is good. Uh, but, um, but could you just, let's just say there are no regulations and every single plane is lined up on the runway. Could you just get in and figure it out?
Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable. Really get in and I might get a little reading, right?
But yeah, I don't want to take anything away from the, you know, that requirement of training, but yeah, of
course, you
know, some crazy thing was happening and I'd get in and fly the plane and save a baby. I don't know. I would be happy, you know, I'd be happy. You can do it.
The principle is the same. It's just different speeds, different computers, different and everything. Yeah. Pull back.
The houses get smaller, push forward to get bigger, you know, push the throttle up, you know?
Okay.
Uh, most, if you could step out of your house right now and walk into the plane of your choice, what would it be? Ooh.
And I just had to pick one. Didn't have a choice. Yeah. Yeah.
No, it just, the, the, the, the one that you dream, about still at night is sitting right there, right on the runway, ready to roll.
Probably an F20.
Oh, okay. It
never got into production. Um, it's a lot like an F5 and has a great performance and it's very intriguing to me. It'll never be in production. I mean, you know, that probably high on my list.
Hmm. What do you love most about aviation?
Ooh, definitely the freedom part. I mean, it's, it's pretty cool not to be constrained by lines on a road and pavement.
Um, I never tire when I'm flying anything, a slow plane, a jet 50,000 feet or 500 feet. I never tire looking down, just watching the world go by it. It's not like I'm doing it, you know, nonstop, but it's, uh, I can always look down and just dig. I dig it, you know? Hmm. But definitely the freedom is probably the biggest answer. Yeah. And, but learning all the different planes is a challenge and I do enjoy that. I could go to school once a year for a new jet and I would, or, or a new airplane for that matter. I would love it. Like there's, there's a plane right now called a beach 18 and it's not that it wouldn't be that
uncommon for me to fly that plane. I just never have. It's just no reason. It's a twin engine, radial engine, uh, old school. It's kind of a Harley of the skies from the fifties, you know? And it's a cool airplane. I'm going to be flying it soon, but I still kind of look forward to that challenge of that airplane because I've just never flown it. And yeah, I've flown hundreds of hours and thousands of hours with radial engines, bigger, smaller, blah, blah, blah, tail draggers and all that stuff. But it's different. And, uh, that is, that's intriguing to me, um, to go out and find the challenges, find out what you don't like about that ride and what you do like about it. That's all.
This is something that I haven't seen in anybody's, uh, resume. I've been to a lot of countries, I think 105 or something now with all the sailing, you've been to every one, but one. So what's the one country you haven't been to and how did you pull that off? Well, what's, what was the, is, and is that still going today? Are you still just traveling constantly or tell me about the travel?
Sure. As test flying was, let me give you a little bit bigger answer. When I, when test flying was changing, the market was changing. You know, I have to say, I've been to a lot of places where I've been to a lot of places where I've been told I'm going to have to make a living just like you do and everybody else. Right. And, um, I pivoted a little bit into more of the, um, corporate jets. And so I've, I've done some ferry flying where I would take, you know, customer bought a plane it's in France. I got to go get it, bring it across the Atlantic. And I enjoy that. I love crossing the Atlantic, especially stopping in Iceland. It never gets old. Um, but anyway,
So, so it's, I mean, so you have deliveries of aircraft, just like you do a sailboat. Yep. Same thing. That kind of worked. Okay. Wow. Yep.
Very cool. Very similar. So that was a part of it. And that's led to some things. And then I've also been hired to help a new jet company. They've made a new airplane. And there was this little jet I got involved with in 2008. And I literally, between the company and some of their customers, took that one little jet to over 90 countries. Jeez. And that was, yeah, because some of it was, I was helping their sales team. Some of it was deliveries. Some of it was, I got a new customer that had one. And I was his tour guide around the world. I had one customer that, like one year I took him all over Europe, for example. Then one year we did East Africa.
And is this
a little tail dragger? Is this a jet? It's a
jet, but it's a very small jet. So you can land on
shorter runways?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So. But a really good little jet. I enjoy it. It's called an Eclipse. And it was really fun to fly. And heck, I took him on an around the world trip in that little jet, you know, 700 mile legs at a time or whatever they were. And seven weeks just surfing around the world with this little jet as our transport.
How do you, so how do you cross, how do you cross the Pacific when you can only go 700 miles? Where are you hitting on the way? Give me that route. That's pretty, that'd be pretty neat.
I'll bang the right out for you in that little plane. We went from Albuquerque, New Mexico
to Montreal with a fuel stop in between.
Montreal had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, of course, you know, got to have the good food. Then we went Montreal to Goose Bay, Canada. Goose Bay to Narsarsawak, Greenland. Landed in Narsarsawak, which is another really cool spot. Narsarsawak to Reykjavik, Iceland. And overnight at there, did some trips and other things I recommended around there, some trekking. And then there to Wick. Wick, I picked up some scotch for them and put that in the back of the plane. It's a scotch you can't get outside of, well, you can get it outside, but not.
You and I need to become better friends. We have a love of scotch. No problem.
Then we went Wick to Milan, Italy. I want to take the, his. Folks to this seafood restaurant there in Milan. That's spectacular. Then we went from Milan to Southern Italy. Where did I stop in Southern Italy?
For fuel. Boy, I usually don't forget things like that. Anyway, then we went to Crete, Heraklion. Heraklion to Cairo. We got a couple of days there, hung out with camels and went to the pyramids and all those things. We went to Luxor, flew down to Luxor and that's a pretty cool place, the Valley of Kings. Then we did, from there, went to Riyadh. His passenger got yelled at for using the Royal bathroom. That was hilarious.
We went from Riyadh and we went down to Oman, to Muscat. Stayed there for two days. We went and sailed in the Gulf there. Hung out with the pirates and all the bad guys. It was hilarious.
Yeah. Just right there in Somalia. Yeah. There you go. Then
we went to Pakistan. We didn't stay there. I have a lot of friends in Pakistan, but we didn't stay. We just fueled there to Varanasi, India. Some of these are more than 700, FYI. Then we went from Varanasi to Mumbai, Mumbai to Calcutta, Calcutta to Chiang Mai, Thailand, Chiang Mai down to Phuket. The airport's name is escaping me. Then we went to India. Then we went to Singapore for two days. Then we did Bali because we were surfing at a lot of these stops. We did Bali. We surfed Bali. Wait.
Hold it. Before you keep going because this is awesome. What have you got in the plane? What's in there?
Just our kit. You got surfboards or something? No. We were renting surfboards all over these places. Okay. We just had our kit. Just change
of clothes.
Yeah. Change of clothes. I had my technical stuff for this big of a trip for the airplane charts and NAV stuff. Are you the mechanic? No. I'm the mechanic. No. I mean I'll facilitate and assist but I'm not the mechanic. Okay. We did have some things break and we did assist the process with other mechanics.
Okay. Keep going. Sorry. No. That's
all right.
How big is the plane? One more question. It's small. I'm used to just flying Super Cubs in Alaska where you can't bring a handkerchief without pissing off the pilot.
Remind me. I'm going to make a note. I'm going to send you a DVD about Super Cubs in Alaska if you still have something on the plane. I'll play a DVD. It's pretty cool. We made this film, about 50-minute film about bush flying. It was awesome. Cool. Yeah. So then we hung out in Bali. We surfed in Bali and all that in Indonesia. I had great food. Then we went from there into Australia where, oh my goodness, I forgot about that. We landed up in Darwin and we're going to go to like their version of a big state part. Yeah. We were going to go to their version of a big state. Yeah. We were going to go to their version of a big state park in the north part of Australia. They said, don't drive at night. I'm like, no problem. We're driving down the highway in the middle of nowhere and this poor little kangaroo, big kangaroo actually jumps in front of us, takes out the whole car, totaled.
Yeah. I've spent a lot of time in Australia. Holy cow. Yeah. It
was quite
… Big gray.
That's an hour story at the minimum. But anyway, we walked out of there, hitchhiked this and that. It was nuts. Then we got to the east coast of Australia. Yeah. Australia. Surfed there for a couple of days. Then we went to a place I've never been to, which was really cool. It's called Lord Howe Island. Yeah.
I've never been there. It's got this little runway. They only allow a few hundred people on the island at a time. We landed there. We found this guide and we wanted to go hike up this volcanic mountain because the surf was terrible just on that particular day. He's like, oh, you can't do it. We're like, I'll just set the pace. If we're not making pace, we'll just go. We'll just turn around. We got up to the top of this thing where these birds, I think they migrate there periodically. I'd have to check one of my notebooks. I write everything down. I have like 80, no, 40 volumes of notebooks with all these little notes. Oh,
wow. Anyway,
this bird, we're up at the top of this thing. We're just taking a break, chilling out. There was just hundreds of them. They would fly by and drop at your feet. I have no idea to this day why. I've asked. I never got a straight answer. Never really followed them. I don't know if you followed up further than that, but they just dropped to your feet and they were all doing it. It was just wacky. It was totally wacky. Anyway, we left Lord Howe, went to New Zealand, did a bunch of stuff in New Zealand and a lot of trekking. We surfed a little bit. It wasn't that good. Then we came back to Australia. We went out through PNG, Papua New Guinea. That was just a fuel stop. Then we got into the Philippines.
We went to this island called Sagora, I believe it's pronounced. Wild. Awesome. Great stop. There's another place I've never been to and it's on the east side of the Philippines. They had three different surf breaks. They had this boat break we went out on, a great pier break.
Is that Sargao? Sargao. S-I-A-R. Yeah. Yeah, Sargao. We had the boat. I haven't been there either. Our boat went there. I have this kite surfing expedition thing, but it went there. I haven't been there either. Oh,
put that on your list. It was fantastic. It was one of my favorite stops. The people were great. There was some really nice surfing, which doesn't have to be a big wave. We're old, so let's just ride nice, safe waves, not big killer waves.
That was a blast. He's like, Peter, can you extend? I'm always on a tight schedule. I go, I'll figure out a way to extend. We'll stay here a couple more days.
Yeah. Coming into your answer to your question, we left there, Manila for a fuel stop, Taiwan. We surfed Taiwan. It was pretty good, actually. We hopped over to Okinawa, had some really good food, surfed Okinawa. Not bad. It wasn't just really up while we were there. It just wasn't building. Then we went up to Sapporo, Japan. Great food again. Then out of Sapporo, over Camp Chotkin to Petropavlovsk, Peter and Paul. Wow. We did a volcano hike. Oh, no, no, no. It was a different trip. Sorry. Anyway, Peter and Paul got a bite to eat and then into Anchorage and back to the US. That's how you get across the Pacific in the fall. Up through
the Aleutians.
Yeah. Fantastic. Hop over and back to the US, which you always feel good coming back home.
How long was the trip in total?
Seven weeks on that one.
Why were you on such a tight schedule? What's that all about? Why don't you take more time?
I don't know. That's me living in a - Is that
the owner?
No, me. It's always me on the schedule side. Okay. I always have a lot going on, I guess. The risk of sounding self-aggrandizing. I've got always constraints. This plane's waiting for me to get back and flight test. My editor's waiting for chapters from me. My race plane needs work that I got to do or design. Yeah. Yeah. I'm always on a very flexible as – well, it has to be. As you can be,
but it's hard. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Huh. And so you talk about what's the kind of main thing that pays the bills these days? Is that the company that handles the corporate jets?
Yeah. I pivoted from flight test and the market just changed. It's just different structure nowadays for contract flight test. Yeah. And so it was pretty natural pivot into the corporate flying because I've done test flying on corporate jets and I really like corporate jets. It's a different adventure. And we started acquiring customers and turning it into a full-time business of managing private jets for people. Okay. And it's everything from staffing them, managing the maintenance, managing their trips, especially international trips, hangers, insurance, you name it, the whole thing. And that's PC Aviators. That is what pays my bills and allows me to write books and still race airplanes and all that silly stuff.
Scariest airplane or flight incident you've ever had or you've probably had many. I don't know. Don't leave it to one if there's a bunch.
I mean there's a bunch. I've had over 23 or 24 engine failures in aircraft. Most of them have gone very well back to runways. I had a race jet that I had put into the desert in 2016. And in fact, it's on YouTube. NBC was there filming. And that one was intense. I mean, again, when things are happening, I don't want to sound macho because there's no place for that. But you really, I get very focused. I get very kind of quiet. I'm thinking very rapidly and life preservation first, aircraft preservation next and all that stuff because they don't always go hand in hand. And I had to put that plane in the desert and it's totaled. But I've walked out of it.
And I've had some really great mentors that I give a lot of credit to for being able to walk away from that crash. Were you the
only one on board?
Yeah. When we race, there can't be anyone on
board. Oh, this was in a race.
Yeah. This was during a race in 2016. I was trying to retain my championship from 2015. And it's a very complicated series of events, but I had to leave the course because I had a loud bang in this jet. And I was climbing vertically. I pulled the power about halfway back because, you know, until you know the problem, you don't want to go to idle and you don't want to leave your power full. So mid-range is a good thing to do. So I pulled the power to mid-range and I was zorching on up, going up to whatever altitude I could get and intercepting my best glide speed. And that plane's 160. And again,
a lot happening at the same time. But I had the side canopy. Which is still baffling to me. Had a big hole in it and a crack propagated through it. And this is bullet resistant. I'll say plexiglass. It's not plexiglass, but really thick stuff. And it was on the side though. If I hit a bird, it would have been in the front. Right? So I had this, had the loud bang, realized I had this crack in the side canopy. So what? You know, plenty of flies, just fine. Except until I was on my way to get altitude. You know, altitude is life insurance, right? So I was getting altitude. And I was like, I'm going to get out of here. And then my pitch controls were jammed in the trim. And I couldn't budge them. So I'm like, oh, if I don't have that working well, it's time to bail out of this airplane.
If you can't control it, you got to get out. So I was headed northbound away from all the crowds and stuff. I got that freed up. I did a functional check, control sweep and all that stuff. I was up there floating around doing 160 at this point. And the plane was now flying fine. And then I looked down and continued to evaluate what happened. The chase plane never found me. It would have been helpful for him to tell me, hey, you know, you're missing a part here. You got smoke there. He never found me. And, you know, things happen. And so I set up to come back down and recover to runway eight. And I believe in treating emergencies as normal as you can, depending on the type of emergency. So I came in overhead. I hit high key and I started to turn.
And when I hit low keys where I got to add power and I went to add power and there was nothing. And I was looking at the gauges going, but the gauges look good. They're like, well, dumbass better accept what's in front of you because it may look good, but it's not good. Right. You know, if I made a turn to the runway at that point, no way I would have made it. And so I had to turn 90 degrees away from the runway because I wouldn't have made the 180. I was losing too much altitude and speed and all that stuff. So then I aimed north. And I started now as in I got to shut down the plane mode and reduce fire risk, reduce flipping over risk, get ready to get out of this thing when I touched down. And so I was lined up for this road. It was looking pretty good as dirt road dirt like a G path, but it's flat.
And I made my last Mayday call. I shut all the electrics off, shut the fuel off and started unlatching things so I could get out as quick as I could. You know, there's a secondary latch on the canopy. Things like that. So as I'm getting down low right in front of me between myself, well, the aircraft and the dirt road was this three foot wide, roughly concrete pillar. I guess it's about two feet wide, about three feet tall, right in the height of the sagebrush in the desert. I was like, I think that's bad. If you hit that, that's in the bad category. Right. Yeah. So because I want to keep the plane level when I was contacting the ground. So I minimize flipping it over. And so I just ruddered off to the left. Very little.
Popped the nose up, went into the desert at a 345 heading, touchdown. And then the entire Nevada desert went into my face. I swear it was horrible. I have a mask on my helmet and goggles and all that stuff. And I couldn't get over how much dust came into my face. It was terrible. But I think it was a big factor in because a lot of fuel, you could see it in the video.
There was a bunch of dust. And I had a belly feeder tank. So that just ruptured immediately. And jet fuel spraying all over the place, like a perfume bottle on steroids. But I think that dust actually was suppressing any spark turning into a flame. I think it was an added value. And so I was just flying it instead of sliding on the belly because you don't want to put the gear down into a soft surface. And I plowed through. I literally made this really nice furrows plow line. For about 1,200 feet. And then right at the end, it just made a gentle right turn. I popped the canopy off. I got out. Then there's rattlesnake marks and holes all over the ground. Like, you guys are kidding me. That's not cool. And then I just figured I'd walk over to that dirt road because at least I'm not in the desert proper.
And it was like a scene in a movie. I had my helmet, my parachute, my gear. I'm just walking to this. And I was all by myself. There was no rescue folks for like five minutes. It took a little longer to get out there. And then I was like, hey, how about your phone? Out in Nevada,
Stan. We did a big search and rescue for a very good friend who disappeared out there last year paragliding. And I know that dust you're talking about. It is unbelievable. It's a foot and a half deep. And it's just, oh, man, it gets everywhere. Wow. I'm glad that one ended up okay. Have you had any other? There have been times you've been in an airplane when you've thought, yep, this
is it.
Not going to get to the ground. No. I
never. I don't allow that to enter my head. We had a really bad fire on this vintage airplane, really large vintage airplane a few years ago. And it was bad. The entire, and this is a big airplane, 90-foot wingspan. The entire cabin cockpit was full of smoke. And lucky in that plane, the side windows can open in the cockpit. And I had a couple of guests on the plane. And I had them up breathing that fresh air because it was that bad. And the flame was coming out of this massive junction box bigger than your home's circuit breaker box. And I was just, you know, it was a two-pilot airplane. So I got out of my seat. And he was doing a great job flying the plane.
I'm like, go towards that water because if this goes bad, we're going to go land in that water. You know, if that flame doesn't reduce, it's just going to get worse. And then aluminum doesn't do well with flames. And then parts start to fail. And failing parts in altitude don't get along too well. So I was like, go towards that water. And if we have to, we'll ditch into water near the shoreline and get out. And so I shut off all the electrical power. And I started pulling every single circuit breaker. And there was about 110 circuit breakers in that plane, trying to find out what the electrical fire source was. And then I saw the flames were, they were reducing. And then they stopped. And then we did a bunch of emergency stuff to get the, you know, the fire out. And then we had to get the gear down and pump down. And then we landed without our power on and back at a runway.
And it all went really well. One guy got smoke inhalation really bad. And so we had to take him in for oxygen. But other than that, the plane was back flying a few miles later. But that one was a pretty intense fire. It was bad.
What happened in Pakistan? You said you had a lot of friends in Pakistan. But you had some gunpoint stuff. Well,
I was just sharing this story. I forgot about this story. And it's a really good one because it deals with the empathy of humans. And again, finding where that Venn diagram overlaps with very different people and very different worlds. And it was 4 in the morning. And I had a driver. And we're driving through Pakistan. We went through this one section that has roadblocks. And we knew that. And we stopped at the roadblock. You know, the scene is just right out of Hollywood, right? Everybody's pointing guns at the car. And they're all acting angry. And I'm like, why are you so angry? I'll give you a chocolate bar. So they pull the driver out. And they took him away. And I'm like, huh, that's probably unfavorable.
So I get out of the car. They're telling me to get back in the car. And they speak about eight words of English. And my Urdu is about less than that. And so I'm trying to do hand gestures. So I'm hanging out inside the backseat of the car just chilling. And I don't know where I came up with this idea. And subsequently, I've used it ever since in several heightened experiences. I had one of these little Sony cameras, the little ones. I pulled it out. And I was making the gesture, can I take a picture? And he's looking at me like I'm nuts. He's like, why does this kook want to take a picture? And he's being all mean and angry. And I'm like, no, no, I want to get a picture with you. So through sign language and everything else, I'm taking a selfie with him.
The guy with the most stripes on his arm. And he's like, OK, OK. And we take a picture. And then I asked him if I could hold his rifle while we take a picture. He's like, OK. So I'm holding his rifle. He's taking a picture of me while I hold the rifle. This very surreal moment. And he actually cracked a smile. And then he had one of his subordinates come over and take a picture of he and I together holding these rifles.
Fantastic. And
he was like, OK. You guys can leave. I'm like, where's my driver? He'll be back. He'll be back. It's fine. And his English actually improved slightly as he deescalated.
I learned that sailing around the world. We were places that were potentially a pirate area, the Malacca Straits kind of thing. We always had cigarettes and a Polaroid. Those were the two things that – Smart move. Yeah. And they – don't get the guns out. Invite them on board. Offer them some cigarettes and start taking pictures. And a Polaroid was – now you could just do it digitally. But back then, that was terrific because you could literally go think and then they'd show
them. Yeah. It
just diffused everything. Yeah. I
couldn't agree more. Coca-Cola goes a long way. And I drink soda. The other one is newspapers. If you give them a current newspaper, they love it.
Totally. Magazines. Yeah. Magazines. Absolutely. Sometimes, magazines that have scantily clad women in some parts of the world tend to work pretty well.
Yeah. Sears Catalog will work for that.
Exactly. Exactly. Right. Too much. Any other scary – when you think back, it was a long career in the air. I don't know why I'm centering on scary. It just seems like with all the racing and all the test flying, they're most likely going to be scary. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just a moment.
Well, I mean, like 2011, I lost my engine racing, but that was easy. I knew the engine failed. I came off the track, got some altitude. I recovered to runway one four.
I don't know. Again, I don't want to sound like I'm being macho, but it wasn't scary. I just had a job to do. I had gates I had to pass so that the job came out successfully. I had to pass those gates. I needed this much altitude to make runway one four. Don't turn this way. Turn that way. You just – training and rehearsal and stuff has an intensity to it. I'm always more concerned about my team. My team is awesome.
People are very close to me and all volunteers. It's already too expensive to race. I know they're nervous when they see and hear a mayday call because they have radios for lots of reasons. But great outcome and other times like that. Yeah. The weather can be one of those moments that really get the hair on the back of your neck going because I had one that was pretty intense. I was taking one of those small jets, the Eclipse. I was delivering it in England. I never cut fuel tight, never. That's just a fool's errand. I left Reykjavik on this leg going to Wick, Scotland, really up north. I went and missed approach because the weather was bad.
I start climbing out. I said my alternate was Aberdeen. They have an ILS there which gets you down to really low weather conditions. I said I'll go to Aberdeen. I turned south to go to Aberdeen. Plenty of fuel for that, no problem. I don't know. It seemed like hours but it was probably 12 minutes going towards Aberdeen south. They said Aberdeen just shut down. I was like, well, that's unfortunate. I was like, so what's my closest ILS that is still open weather-wise? They had me go to the Orkney Islands. I'm like, oh boy, islands and weather, not good. Now I'm getting tight on fuel and the Orkneys are north. I was going south. I'm like, this is bad. This is why you have reserve fuel.
It's there to use if you have to. I was coming into the Orkneys and it was blowing like 35 knots and rain and all that nasty stuff. They're like, hey, you're going to be number two. There's this life flight. Someone with a medical thing. Inbound. I go, hey, that's great. I promise I won't get in the way. You can turn me early onto that ILS but I'm landing right now. I'm critical fuel. They're like, okay, can you keep your speed up? I'm like, whatever you need but I'm landing right now and I will not get in the way of the life flight. They did it. Turned me early. The wind was so much that the plane was offset about 30 degrees to the right. You're looking out the quarter view window and rolled out, uneventful. The weather, I think, is intense. I was really tight on fuel.
I was landing there no matter what. Let's put it that way. It worked out
fine. That was part of the world tour that you took us through earlier. Is the flying part of something like you're in a jet and you're not flying in Alaska right on the deck looking at the most. You're up tall. Is that still exciting for you? I wouldn't imagine it matches the racing and stuff. Is that something that you're looking at? Or is the beauty of that kind of a trip really all the places you get to go?
Yeah. It's a great question because absolutely racing is one type of flying. It's really intense. You have eight planes with you, feet apart. Bad things can happen. You're asking the most out of an airplane. It's super intensity. You get out of the plane after racing, you got to slow down back to what the world is moving at. I know you get that. I take a beautiful flight. I take a beautiful Falcon over to Oman, which I just did. I just got back from there a few weeks ago. It's different challenges. The flying, it's a ton of straight level flying. I personally enjoy it. It's very opposite to use the racing example. But I know I'm going to get to another adventure.
In this case, I played golf, which I'm very bad at, but I like it on this golf course where you could not putt on the greens. It was impossible. There was no putting greens. But there was a hole there. It was hilarious. It's another tiny little paragraph of an adventure, right? Sure. There's not a golf course that bad here in the US, period. It was hilarious. We laughed about it. I do the full pilot that went with me. Yeah, it's absolutely different. It's not your hair on fire, but it's very enjoyable to me. Those trips, the international trips in a large corporate plane, they're full of challenges. But they're different challenges. There's permits. There's landing rights. There's all kinds of stuff. And now throwing COVID, which is a whole other layer of enjoyment, and that makes it even more difficult and different.
We didn't get to hear what country haven't you been to? There's one?
Oh, yeah. Madagascar.
Oh, you got to go there. I know. That's a place I've spent a lot of time. And Madagascar is pretty amazing. We've been watching all the cartoon films with my four-year-old the last few nights, too. Got to love King Julian. Yeah, that's a crazy place. You'd love
it. Yeah,
I absolutely
want to. No reason. It's just built for adventure. Yeah, exactly. I've heard great things about it. Like you're another person telling me with a great background. It's wild.
You're really going. I mean, it's very, very, very poor. I think it's fourth poorest in the world or something. But it's the flora and fauna there are mind-boggling. It's very unique. Sounds awesome. Yeah. What happened in Guatemala? Well,
I got involved with a group that is informal and it's not some large organization. It was just, hey, let's go help some people that need help. And there are three orphanages down there that we decided to make better for them. And the one orphanage was their kids get stolen. It's horrible. And so we got some friends to help with that. And then we got some friends to help with the whole security thing that are very well experienced in that and well trained in that. And then the big thing was to put in a cement floor. So we did that because that stopped a pathway for the snatching to occur. Good God, they
dig? They come up through the floors? Yeah.
They come up underneath the wall through the dirt and if the windows are protected. And we did that.
Holy cow.
So we just helped these orphans. And it's been really successful. We helped them with school supplies and other technology. Obviously, the security was first and foremost. We did several trips down there and then COVID happened. So a lot of doctors and others weren't comfortable going there during COVID. I was like, well, give me a plane to take. I'll head down and we'll see what's up. But we've had favorable correspondence with them even during COVID that all of the measures we applied have been working now for several years.
And it's kind of like the teach a kid to fish story. They get to eat for life, right? It was kind of that approach. We don't want to just give them things. We want to make them better contributors to the community. And it's been really rewarding.
Has most of your philanthropic work been oriented around kids?
A little bit. I have this phrase I've used for years. Kids don't have a choice. All of us adults have a choice. We can do good, do bad, whatever. And kids are just born. They don't have a choice. They're just there. And so, yeah. Plus, raised by a single mom, that whole type of outlook definitely has some influence on me. So a fair amount with that, a fair amount with our veterans. And again, people that don't have the choice, people that were born with a genetic issue, we help with an organization here in Park City called National Health. We're a volunteer center for the National Health and Disability Center. And we donate it. We call it Fighter Pilot for a Day. We take them up in a military fighter. It's just an auction item that raises a ton of money for their group.
And it's really terrific to see how well organized that NAC is and helping these people there. Again, they don't have a choice, right? They're just born. And we have choices. You and I have choices. The kids don't. Yeah.
Good for you, man. That's awesome. I was kind of caught off guard there when you said Madagascar, and I just kind of ate that. But that means you've been to places, North Korea? Yeah. Syria? Yeah. Have you been into a lot of the countries you've been in, if they've been in active conflict times? Yeah.
All kinds of reasons. Yeah. North Korea was a diplomatic deal that I was pilot for. And a couple of different times. It's funny you keyed in on that. Because when people hear that little factoid, they ask like, well, what about Ukraine? Like, well, that's easy. I mean, you know. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Cuba, North Korea. Well, Cuba now is semi-open. But yeah, you know, just doing different tasks and jobs. And lived in Turkey for a while. Lived in South America for a while. And so, yeah.
What's the favorite place you've lived? Or what's your favorite place you've lived? Or been?
If I did it by kind of like topic or region, a huge Italy proponent. Love Italy. Love the people. You love food. Yeah. I'm a foodie. And I love the history there. But the people are awesome, right? Yeah. And I think when there's awesome people in a location, there's usually awesome food. Iceland's another one. That's another one. I'm never tired of going to Iceland. Yeah. I'm never tired of going to Iceland. Great food. You know, whole different scene. Really nice people. Welcoming. Thailand. And the same thing, you know. Yeah. Hiking in Thailand's awesome. And doing a jungle tour on my friend's elephant is awesome. But, you know, the food and the people, right? And it's different.
You know, one common thing among food is everyone has their version of a burrito. Some rolled up flour thing with food stuffed in it. Every single place has some form of a flour rolled up, like a burrito. And it's a really good thing. Yeah.
But, yeah, I really, really like Thailand a lot. I've had a lot of great trips there.
Is there a place you've been that if you had to go back, you'd go, eh, not that excited about it?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. DRC.
Oh, yep. Okay.
That wasn't fun. I was in Somalia. I had a few different times, you know, young boys and girls. I was in a horrible situation. It was pointing an AK-47 at me. Not cool. Yeah. Because they don't have a value. Sure. They're in a horrible life. Life means nothing. Life means nothing. And if they make it to 18, they're like, wow, I'm old.
And that's horrible. Yeah. Liberia was like that. Oh, God, yeah. Same
thing. I went
into port there to get fuel in Liberia. And I just, it was, you know, there are a lot of countries, Madagascar is a perfect example of this, you know, that are really poor. Yeah. And you just, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the people, the community, the friendliness, it just blows your mind. And there are other places that are really poor that are just scary in my experience. Just terrifying. And Liberia was one of them.
Yeah. There's several African countries that are really tough. Yeah. West Africa is full of some sketch.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough place.
I was in this Ebola village for this experience and I didn't go there a 10 times. I didn't even know.
I didn't
even know. I didn't even know. I
didn't even know.
I didn't even know.
I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. about?
Well, thanks for asking because that was super fun. I almost didn't do it. But the whole premise is a broker sells an airplane to somebody in, say, the Philippines and the plane's in Florida. And then Discovery Channel followed us around and did interviews with us and the goings on and the happenings and the risks. And the planes were smaller. They weren't tiny, but they also weren't a corporate jet. So we had to stop a fair amount and have the adventure on the ground too, so to speak. And so each episode was following two different trips. And it was great. It was really good.
It was doing well. And then we had a tragedy and that's why it got canceled. We had a direct die. And he crashed. Yeah. He crashed. In Kenya after I completed a four-week trip with them. And I left and he wanted to fly around Mount Kenya around this spot called Dead Man's Curve. And I told him, do not go there. And I said, I won't go there and I'm not taking you there. And it's about a 24-hour trip home. So I went down to Nairobi, flew to, I think, Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Salt Lake and finally get home. I was literally driving up the mountain, going home. Phone rang with his foreign number and I knew what happened. I knew before I picked up the phone. I knew before I picked up the phone. And sure enough, John died and he's a great guy. Great, great shooter,
film shooter. Why was this
spot the dangerous whatever? What was it called?
It's called Dead Man's Curve, but it's on the east side and there's a big draw in there. There's a big deal for paragliding because if there's a big cold draw, air draw, it's always there. It's almost always there. And that down current can get up to 60 miles an hour easily. And in some cases more. Depending on where in the world you are. And this one has a really bad current that draws you down because of that cold sinking air that goes deep into this volcano that goes up to 18,000 feet. And sure enough, they crashed within feet of where I said, don't go. Because he wanted the shot. He was a consummate cinematographer and he was great at his craft and found this local guy that took him up in a small plane and both of them were killed instantly.
It was a real shame. Wow. That's why we didn't continue with the next season. But it was a great little run though, I can tell you that. And the people love it. They still air it. They still play it around the world. We get questioned, are they going to do it again? And I think Discovery Channel got a little gun shy.
Right. Has there been a lot of tragedy in your career given what you do? You lost a lot of friends along the way?
Yeah, unfortunately. I've lost a lot of friends. Test flying has some hazards in it. Racing does. And then some of the international trips, just people, bad turn of events, bad luck, and they don't go home. It's unfortunate.
Do you chalk up your own survival to any kind of approach more than luck? I mean, there's the obvious stuff, but I'm looking for something more.
I don't know. You have a playbook? Yeah. Listen to your inner self, anything that just...
I do. I never allow outside or external pressures to affect my decisions. And I think a lot of people that have had bad outcomes, they didn't realize they were pressuring themselves from the external forces. And we call it get home-itis. That's a classic weather. Oh, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. I've done this before.
And then some of it is just not enough planning or training in a certain area. And treat it as carefully as they should in cases. And then, of course, bad luck. So I definitely plan. I've taken some single-engine planes across the Atlantic, hopping across the different islands and everything. And I get done with them like, God, that was a bad idea. Why did I do that? Going across the Atlantic at 5,000 feet.
I'm very conservative about the weather. I mean, I was a professor of meteorology, and I still don't think I know enough about weather. And I'm just very conservative in lesser-capable planes in certain environments. You know, the satellite picture is not good. I'm not going. See ya. And that's when the schedule does not bother me at all. Because I promise, I don't want to hang out in Kujuak, Canada, eating, you know, the same food. every single day, which I've done. Right. But
that is what gets the bush pilots in Alaska. It's, you know, it's usually when they're flying for the lodges or the fishermen or, you know, or something and there, and there's pressure, you know, there's pressure to fly
in the weather and they got, they got the bad weather scenario. They got the pressure, they got planes that are, you know, they're not super well equipped. I've flown a bunch up there and they can only do certain things. Bottom line.
How do you, how do you think about, you know, six months, two years, five years? Are you a real goal oriented guy? Yeah. Okay. Do you, how do you, how do you, you've had all this adventure. How, what do you, where do you go from here?
The next immediate goals are definitely a part of it's the books. I want to, I'm going to interrupt the, the series with a book about my flying stuff. And Yeah. Things related to the flying stories. Like some of them we're talking about. It's mostly done, but I've had to transcribe my notebooks and that is a daunting task. I now have a solution for that. So maybe by January I'll be able to release that third book, but not, it's not a part of the series. It's just the flying adventures in my first 30 years of flying. So those are some immediate goals. I really want to see the, the relevant series, at least relevant, the book turned into a movie. I don't know. I don't know anything about it. I, I'm trying to learn and I'm trying to find the people to get some mentoring from.
It's been hard. We wrote the screenplay and I'm like, Oh my God, this is, this is awesome. Like, doesn't anybody want this?
That's tricky. It's all who you know. Yeah. The, can, can I just ask a way too direct question? Has it been quite a successful book? Relentless? Yeah. And is the new Cold War, which was just released, is that part of that series? Is that the second one?
Yeah. So the series is the title of the first book and that's relevant and relevant is a term. I think that's relevant to a lot of people and professions. But anyway, so relevant is the series and the second book in the series is called the new Cold War, but it is a standalone story. It'll make references to the first book, but you can pick it up and just read the second book and it will be a story in and of itself. And
that's also military fiction.
Yeah. It's a spy thriller. Yeah. It's a spy thriller. Yeah. It's a CIA asset dealing. So a lot of my book is about the metaphysical side of the world. If I can get people to think a little differently maybe or just challenge things. And I don't mean challenge like, you know, like maybe your daughter at four years old does. Like, why do you want me to do that, dad? You know, I don't mean that way, but I mean like, you know, genuine asking questions why instead of just Googling stuff and listening to the media, maybe find someone to actually live there with. With success and experience and learn from them about a certain region Somalia, right? Or something like that. And so in the narrative in both of these books, I really pose a lot of philosophical questions, a lot of why questions, historical references.
So, you know, everyone right now wants to rewrite history. And I get it. It's all cool. But however, there are things that happened in this world. And you can't look at it from our perspective in 2021. No. No. And so to gain the right perspective and or the time perspective is super hard. It's extremely hard. And to really understand the perspective that was going on in 1855, in 1772, blah, blah, blah. And really understand why did someone rally people around a city in the Middle East? And is it good? Is it bad? Is it different? And is it good and bad from a 2021 perspective?
Or was it good and bad in 700 AD or whatever the case may be? I'm just using one example. But really have that understanding. I mean, you don't have to become this scholar in history. But maybe just a little bit more common ground among different cultures and people. And not just the people who live at the end of the runway. They hate airplanes no matter what. Well, why aren't they at the end of the runway, folks? I mean, there's a reason your house is 20 % undervalued. Compared to the rest of the county. Because it's at the end of the runway. And now you hate airplanes. Well, maybe go meet a pilot and really talk about what's going on there. Right.
So throughout those two books, even though it's a story about a CIA asset and what he does. For example, in the new Cold War, we're really – I'm challenging the whole quantum computing that's emerging. Because we've had times – in my opinion, the last – Big topic we had to deal with was when the world started getting nuclear weapons. And we had to deal with it philosophically. Because a weapon could take out an entire country in some cases. And I'm not here to get on a platform about good, bad, or indifferent. But the world had to tackle that philosophically. And they did. And, of course, people made mistakes. It's just we're humans.
And the idea is that the mistakes can't be catastrophic. Make some mistakes. Learn from it. Own it. I know not everybody owns them. But when quantum computers – if we had a proper quantum computer, I mean full up, running with the proper bridging to allow humans to interface with it, it may have – it could – it is possible that it would be able to make a cure for cancer in seconds or hours. And we don't know. I mean we don't know what we don't know. But what they can – What they can do is unbelievable. The potential for what they can do is unbelievable. However, there's the downside. And everything we use, our phones, our computers, our banking, our credit cards, is all based on integer security measures.
A quantum computer will hack that in a second. And the entire world's security will be gone. Absolutely gone. And as a world – because we're citizens of the world. We're not citizens of the US. We live in the US, but we're citizens of the world. And we're not philosophically ready to answer that question or that complete change in our civilization where nothing is secure because there's a lot of bad guys out there. There are a lot of bad guys out there. People are like, oh, people want to do the right thing. I'll take you on a few trips and we'll go meet the people that are the bad guys because they exist. They just do. And it's human nature to try and get things easier for some people. It's human nature. It's human nature to progress towards a bit of a chaos.
Entropy is a reason. In science, there's a reason we have entropy existing, the term entropy. And so anyway, a long story, a little bit on my soapbox, but we broached the topic of quantum physics and quantum computers in the second book. It's part of the plot. And I had some – I say we because I had some really good advisors on quantum physics and quantum development and other good advisors.
I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good
advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. I had some really good advisors. documentary. It was terrible. It was absolutely horrible, but I learned a ton from it. And then I made some good documentaries. The bush flying I referenced in Alaska kind of made it for fun, but it is very professionally done. Good cinematography, good production value. It was great. And I really enjoyed that. So the books were just another creative extension. You know, I wanted to use the right half of my brain a little bit more, you know, getting a book done in 12 months was hard for me and I got it done. It's not perfect, but I'm, you know, I really like it and they're doing well to answer your aforementioned question.
You know,
they're doing well and I hope they continue to do well because you don't make any money from it. I just want to go and talk to authors that are doing this for a living. I'm like, holy cow, you just don't make any money, but the sales are important because it creates the momentum for other things to happen. And so the numbers are important. Like my brother, you know, I just shame him into, I'm like, John, go buy the book. And, you know, my spouse and my friends, like you guys have to buy the book. I'll give you the money for it, but it's the number game, right? It's not the earnings, you know.
It's a trip. It's a weird world too. And, you know, my book is not something that you would even put on Amazon. It's because it's a very niche thing. You know, if you're a paraglider in the world, you know about the book and that's what's terrific about it. It was like our kite surfing business. If you were a kite surfer, you know, the business, because it's pretty easy to reach all those people, you know, but when you're writing a spy thriller, you want to sell it to the masses, you know, it's, it's a trip because it's a, it is a numbers game, like you said. And, you know, a New York times bestseller is 10,000 books. It's not that many copies. And so I'm with you. How do these people, it's a, yeah, it's a tough game to make a lot of money to make money in period, or, you know, a lot of
money. And, you know, I I've been stumbling and I've been getting help to get the message out there and sell the book. And I'm really happy with it, with the amount of people supporting, I'm super happy and thankful. And hopefully that plays into the third book, you know, and getting that continuing the momentum, you know,
Peter, good for you. Well, uh, what a joy it is to hear about a fraction, a tiny, tiny snippet of your history and your adventuring and your love of Scotch, which we'll have to take up at some point. And congratulations on writing Relentless and the New Cold War. And, uh, those of you listening, go out and grab it and I'll have all the links up in the show notes for the books and your videos. I'll put on that. I think I've seen the bush plane documentary you're talking about, but we'll have to put up some links to that as well. I've seen all those up in Alaska. I'm an Alaska freak. And, uh, but thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate your time and sharing some of the books. And I'll see you next time.
We'll have to do a part two here at some point. Well,
Gavin, thanks for the time. Super appreciate it. Eager to do part two.
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