SPC095 [HS] Pull Early, Pull Often — Inside Cirrus Training

So you must be about 82 years old then to fit

all of that in.

I am, I am 97.

Oh,

97.

Okay.

Uh, yeah, 97.

All right.

Yeah, currently,

That's Eamon Powers.

He's not 97.

He's an airline pilot, an A&P, and he has a PhD, and he runs training for

a company that has at last count had 302 saves with their parachute system.

How Cirrus actually did that, in episode 95 of the Student Pilot Cast

Welcome back to the Student Pilot Cast.

I'm Bill.

Back in the previous episode, I told you I'd sat down with a couple of

people at AirVenture who have pointed their entire professional lives

at making pilots better trained.

This is the first of those conversations.

So I'm at the Cirrus booth, and really, as you're gonna see in here, it's

really a compound, with Eamon Powers.

Eamon is the director of Cirrus Approach, which is also, in his words,

the director of training development.

It's an internal title, external title, same job type of thing.

he owns all the training content for Cirrus products, all that they

produce for pilots and maintainers.

He's been there for about 18 months.

Before that, he was at FlightSafety, where he started as an instructor

and then ended up building the curriculum for the Legacy 500.

And then he took the course that he wrote and finished as their director

of courseware design, doing R&D and immersive training for maintenance.

Before that, he owned a flight school.

He flew volcano tours in Hawaii.

He's an A&P.

He's got an ATP certificate, and he has a PhD in instructional design.

I wanted to tell you why I wanted this conversation specifically, and

it has a lot to do with his background and, and the things that he's

studying and working on all the time.

But Cirrus is a little unusual.

Most manufacturers build you an airplane, and they hand you the keys.

Cirrus builds you an airplane and then has opinions about how

you're gonna be trained in it.

Uh, they have a standardized instructor corps and a purpose-built

learning system and free courses that they give to people who might

never even buy anything from them.

And there's a story underneath that.

12 or 14 years ago, the fatal accident rate in the Cirrus fleet was, and

this is being generous, unremarkable.

And there was a real argument in the industry about whether the

parachute was helping at all.

That number has moved dramatically since, though.

And I wanted to know what actually moved it, how they know what

moved it, and how much of it is transferable to the rest of us,

Because most of you listening, and me included, are not flying

a Cirrus on day-to-day basis.

I mean, I teach in Warriors, Cherokees, and Cessnas.

So that's the conversation here, how you build training that works, how you

measure whether it worked, and what a company with real data behind them has

figured out that the rest of general aviation can steal or use from them.

Two housekeeping notes here.

First, about two-thirds of the way into the interview, we got

kicked out of the room we were in.

Somebody needed the bigger room, so the room tone and the backdrop

changes a little bit mid-episode.

That's not you, it was us.

Second, there's a lot of Cirrus-specific vocabulary in here, like CAPS, COPA,

CSIP, Cirrus IQ, stuff like that.

I tried to catch him and stop him during the interview and have him define

those things so that, uh, everyone would know what he's talking about.

So hopefully I didn't miss anything.

So here's Eamonn Powers

Welcome back, SPC listeners.

Uh, I'm sitting here at the Cirrus booth.

Uh, I should call it a compound.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, the Cirrus compound at OSH, uh, And I'm here with Eamon Powers.

who- why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at

and how long you've been working here?

Sure, yeah.

So, uh, my name is Eamon Powers.

uh, I've been with Cirrus for about 18 months.

I'm the, uh, director of Cirrus Approach, which is also the

director of training development.

Bit of an internal external title, if you will, but Cirrus Approach is where

we do all of our training content for both the pilot and, uh, maintainers.

Uh, so we build a bunch of internal and external training and we've been really

focused on making sure that the, you know, uh, that training experience is as

seamless as possible and really smooth.

my background, I've got a varied background, like many aviation people do.

I've, I've tried to be an airline pilot a couple times.

I, uh, I own my, I owned my own flight school for a while.

I did volcano air tours in Hawaii.

You know, you know, we've, we've done all that.

And then, uh, academically, I have a PhD in instructional design and, uh, just,

um, really passionate about, you know, helping as many people learn to fly.

Uh, that's like, kind of like the cornerstone of what

I do- why I do what I do.

Excellent.

So you must be about 82 years old then to fit

all of that in.

I am, I am 97.

Oh,

97.

Okay.

Uh, yeah, 97.

All right.

Yeah, currently,

yeah.

You've done a lot.

Yeah, I'm trying.

I, I have, uh, attention surplus disorder.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So, and I noticed you came from, uh, FlightSafety- Yep … at one point.

So you were running some

Yeah.

When I was at FlightSafety, I started off as an instructor on the 170, just,

uh… And that, I was on that program for about six months before they were like,

"Hey, we need to build, you know, some new curriculum for the, um, uh, Legacy 500,"

which was just coming online, the Embraer.

Uh, and that's really where, I mean, that was, uh, what a tremendous

opportunity there that FlightSafety gave me 'cause, yeah, I got to like,

you know, before the airplane, you know, it's like, I think I was like 30th

type rating in that airplane, you know?

Oh, man.

And, uh, uh, and then like, it's funny 'cause like, you know, I'm

30th type rating, but like I'm taking the course that I built.

So you're like, "This is kinda weird, right?" Yeah.

Uh, but, uh, really cool opportunity.

I got to work with great manufacturers there too.

So I started with Embraer executive jets and then, uh, wound up, uh, uh,

moving over to the Pilatus, uh, line and, um, uh, both Pilatus pilot and

maintenance, and then, uh, Falcon maintenance, uh, when I moved to Dallas.

And then I became the director of courseware design at FlightSafety,

uh, which is, you know, we were doing kind of research and development

on how to use immersive media, uh, specifically in the maintenance context.

So, um, I'm one of those, you know, strange pilot and mechanic people.

Uh-huh.

Uh, so I, that was a really tremendous opportunity to work on the, uh, PT6

and bring- You know, immersive training into the regulatory environment.

Like, that had never been done.

So we did that, and I thought that was pretty cool, so.

Yeah, when I, when I saw you were an ATP, an A&P, and you had a PhD-

Yeah

… Bill: I was like, "What?"

The business card looks a little silly, I will admit.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a little silly.

Yeah.

Excellent.

All right.

So let's talk about what y- what you

Sure.

Um, Cirrus is a little unique, at least in my experience for

manufacturers because of your focus

Yeah

… Bill: um, and having your, I- I think it's the approach is that right?

Yep, yeah.

And, training pilots even who buy your airplane right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, so tell me a little bit about, that unique approach

from Cirrus, why it exists-

Yeah

uh, and how you think it's, um, unique in the

industry, and why you think it's

Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that Cirrus… Uh, so like

we have these, uh, core principles at Cirrus that, uh, everyone is like

completely like focused on, right?

And you can see the division of the company is, is based off of that and,

um, yeah, really how we're doing.

So we, we want that incredibly tailored, incredibly dialed-in customer experience.

That is our focus.

So if you come to a Cirrus location, uh, whether it's, you know, wholly owned

like one of our locations in Knoxville or McKinney or Scottsdale or Orlando,

you know, that- that's the, uh you're not gonna pre-flight the airplane

outside kind of experience, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It's, uh, you know, we've really dialed it up a lot.

Yeah.

And I think you're gonna find that even at many of our CTCs, which are like

kind of independent But, um, yeah, like, the… Coming into it, what, what is

abundantly clear is like we, we made a decision, probably about 10 years ago

with Cirrus Approach to launch Cirrus Approach, and Cirrus Approach was…

it's a, a home-built learning management system that, that has all of our content.

Uh, it's built specifically for flight training in mind.

Mm-hmm.

So with that, you know, we've really tailored that experience to be like lesson

one and lesson two, they should flow in this way, and they should meet this.

And what's wild about that is, you know, we, we track our

safety metrics quite a bit.

You know, everything from overruns and, you know, hangar rash.

We, we track that.

And y- we can see, you know, and this is where some of the, you know, I think a lot

of learning and development people would love to have, like, this kind of data.

Uh, but we can see, like, hey, we implemented Cirrus approach here, and

we saw the accident trend go down.

Mm. And you're like, "Nice." Yeah.

"I'm glad that worked," right?

Yeah.

so we're really focused on, uh, you know, tremendous… the number one course we

sell and, and do and, and offer is, uh, our transition training courses across

the entire fleet of, uh, Cirruses.

Because, you know, even if you were in a, a, you know, G1, right, um,

that in the Avidyne, like, that's still a thing that's fully happening.

Yeah.

Those are new airplanes- Yeah.

Yeah … uh, for people, and we still support those planes, uh-

Well, in the grand scheme of things, they're new airplanes.

Exactly, yes.

If you look at,

if you look at the whole fleet.

Yes.

Yeah.

I, we say this all the time, you know?

We get a little spoiled.

Like, we fly around in, you know, brand-new airplanes all the time.

Yeah.

And like, let me tell you, like, that- … that person's 25-year-old G1 is still,

like, really new compared to the, uh, you know, my… I owned for a number

And it's like-

And that's new.

Yeah, that's new.

Right, yeah.

I was talking to a guy at the booth yesterday about… He's like, "Yeah,

I've learned to fly at a '59 Tri-Pacer."

Oh,

yeah.

And I was

like, "Friend, welcome." Yeah.

Like, let's-

Well, I teach regularly in, uh, uh, Piper Warriors.

Yeah.

Or Cherokees.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

It's a, it's… Uh, you know, airplanes, uh, age well, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, uh, yeah, so- If they're taken

care of.

Then they are taken care of.

And, so yeah.

I mean, so that's, that, uh…

Training has been a, a, is part of our… You know, you'll see it on some

of our materials and our marketing stuff.

Uh, training is part of our total safety system at Cirrus.

Uh, so yeah, obviously that includes CAPS and Safe Return and, you know, blue level

button and EPS and all those things.

But training is always mentioned in there because we know a significant

amount of, like, the aviation experience is what you and your

instructor are doing kind of one-on-one.

So we see that as a high-touch, you know, high, uh, customer service kind of thing.

So all of the flight instructors, that work with us, like, you

know, that's a gigantic focus of our- Yeah … whole thing.

I imagine it's, uh, it's a little tough because of all

the different and types of to standardize that program a little

how does- how much does that differ the training approach from who's

buying a brand new, you know,

It doesn't… You know, so what- one thing that I think we've

done, I've only been here 18 months, so I certainly can't take any, uh, you

know, any or all the credit for this.

But I think one thing that we've done tremendously well is, uh, structured.

We- I think what we do is we have this, this kind of a way of

structuring training, uh, that, you know, based in, uh, you know, what

I would call direct instruction.

So we, we kind of do the instructional experience kind of standardized

regardless of what the, you know, mission profile kind of is.

So if you're in private, you'll see it.

You might not even realize you're seeing it, but we've kind of built the

instructional ex- experience to be like, "Oh, I'm going to get a couple nuggets

of video from Anthony Bottini," right?

And then, "Oh, there's gonna be, you know, a ground lesson, uh, that's

one-on-one with the instructor.

It's a little more in-depth." Covers the same kind of topics, but it's

more advanced and allows- Yeah … for that kind of Q&A kind of situation.

And then I'm- then the flight is not always paired to that ground

information, but oftentimes there's a common thread line, right?

Yeah.

And those are those places where we ritualize safety.

You know, like we, we make a big deal.

So like, hey, the caps briefing, whether you're in a G1 or you're

in a G7, is pretty darn close.

And guess what?

Like when you come for private or you come for annual training, you come

for a simulator session, that's what we're expecting to hear, you know?

And then- and it's those things that I think are the common thread.

but we're always trying to make it better, right?

You know, we're- we're- we're always very mindful of people's time, uh, you

know, 'cause we recognize time as a… We're selling time machines, right?

Yeah.

So we, we can't make the training onerous or we want it to fit within their lives.

So we're always kind of fighting on, well, how long should this really take?

Because, you know, you give a person a 45-minute, you know,

lesson here, you know, like,

eh.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's happening, right?

You know?

Right.

So really tailoring the experience for that kind of high customer, satisfaction

is like what we're doing every day.

All right.

Well, I'm gonna touch on this a little bit later more in depth, but,

very doing anything you know, with your academic background, right?

Sure.

This, may, uh, resonate with you.

Are you doing take what you've learned and give it to you will?

Yeah.

Uh, so we have, we, I can't speak directly about them, but we have

two academic studies that are, like, in work at the moment.

Okay.

Um, and, but I, what I can speak to without the specificity of it is,

we're particularly interested in, um, uh, the term we kind of use internally

is, like, time to independence, right?

You know, so a lot of times, you know, we, we just revised

our private pilot curriculum.

Okay.

Uh, like, came out with it less than a month ago.

Um, so private pilot, was a new product for us.

Yeah,

it's relatively new, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

thought process here was, you know, "Hey, we want a person to be able to

learn to fly in the plane they bought."

Yeah.

Right?

And, uh, we made a, I think we made a very, like, ambitious, like, "Hey,

one-stop shop. Here's the course. It's completely integrated, uh, all the ground

knowledge, all the systems knowledge." you know, it's kind of a big course, right?

but we took, uh, the data from that course, and we saw the places where

people were stumbling, we saw the peop- places where people were…

And what it kind of came to, what, what became kind of evident to me as we were

kind of digging into the meat of the data behind the course was things that you

would, I think any flight instructor would be like, "Yeah, that makes sense," right?

and it's, you know, time, like, the solo, right?

You know, solo is such a big part of private pilot and then, like,

where you put those solos and where, how we're using the simulators.

And, uh, and what we found is, you know, like, we built the course, like, with

this, like, kind of design that, you know, solo was at, like, lesson 15, right?

And you had a bunch of ground and you had a bunch of stuff.

And if you look at the, you know, you look at other curriculums out there, you

look at Sportys and King Schools and, uh, Gleim and, you know, like, Jeppesen,

like, we know of all these things.

Like, we are u- users of the aviation system.

We think general aviation and personal aviation is, we want

everyone to do better, right?

You know, so we wanna, you know, we, we look at all that stuff and, um,

one thing that jumps out is- and if you look at any curriculum, like, the

solo is always pre-lesson 20 Always.

Yeah.

Right?

And I think this is, um, you know, I think this is a holdover from kind

of World War II thinking, right?

Uh-huh.

You know, and, you know, uh, Robert Gagné was, you know, kind of one

of those early instructional design guys, and he was in the war effort.

Uh, and you know, that was really important to get, uh, you know, an

airman at the time to solo before, you know, 15 hours in the airplane.

Well, you also didn't have radios, you didn't have- Yeah … all these things-

yeah … that now kind of complicate it, and the Cirrus flies quite fast, right?

Mm-hmm.

You know, so teaching a person, kind of in that environment.

So what we found is, you know, our speed to independence,

that's the thing we're kind of…

We want a person to be independent and we want a person to be confident.

So we even changed our grading system to kind of represent that, in instrument

grading, which we came out with last September, and now in the refresh

of what we did with Private Pilot.

And our focus there is, you know, um… I am not a fan of repeating lessons.

Like, I don't think, like, it… With- without design, right?

Like, I think it's fine to repeat a lesson so long as that was the plan.

Because I think, um, what we found is, you know, we have a lot, like,

just like everyone, our, our private pilot rate, uh, of completion is

above the, like, national average.

Uh-huh.

But that's not good enough, right?

We're still leaving too many guys on the table, guys

and

gals-

It's a little skewed too, because somebody presumably has already

bought a million-dollar airplane, so

- Eammon: Well, it's, some, some of it is … So some of that is, yes, that.

Uh, but it's also, we, we have a number, you know, all of our, uh, locations

do primary try- training- Oh, okay

whether a person's a-

Yeah

… Eammon: uh, an owner or not, right?

Okay.

You know, so the vast majority of people in Cirrus Approach are not owners, right?

Yeah.

They're part of a flying club.

We have a tremendous amount of fractional ownership.

Okay.

Yeah.

We have a tremendous amount of, you know, group things.

Like, you know, so that's really common to have a person learning

in a Cirrus that maybe isn't even their Cirrus, but it is a Cirrus.

Uh-huh.

And so the things that we're kind of really focused on at the moment is kind

of… Uh, and this is something that I think when we kind of publish some

of these studies and when we make… continue to do things like we're doing

right now with outreach- Uh-huh … we're not trying to hide this, right?

Right.

We, we think, getting a person to a point of confidence, right, without having this

kind of, uh, sole focus on, "Well, you're going to solo in, uh, you know, 10 hours,"

or something like that, we think that is not helpful to the conversation- Great

… because it just kind of adds this, like, level of burden and stress to it,

where when we're talking, like, a person learning to fly in a Cirrus, they're

doing so because they want something.

They want to enjoy the Cirrus life.

And if we can make some of that Cirrus life happen even in training, you know,

that's, I think, some of the, you know, some of the stuff that I think is going

to be really good for not just us, but

Yeah.

one thing that's been pretty clear, uh, in the lifespan Cirrus, since

the G1 and even before, there was a time where the fatal accident rate

at Cirrus was, um, pretty average.

and didn't seem… th- there was quite a bit of in the industry was

probably about 12, 14 ago, right?

Yeah.

There's a lot of angst in the industry about whether CAPS uh,

useful or not in the fatal accident, y- you know, things like that.

that has shifted dramatically, Yeah … over the last decade.

Yeah.

Right?

100%.

and so what I'd like you to dig into a little bit is how you're measuring this,

and what do you think has been the big There's, all kinds of discussions about is

getting people used to, being ready to pull CAPS?

maybe it was that was there-

Yeah

… Bill: but nobody was using it.

Yeah.

Or, is it more around some of the nuances you're talking about?

And then here's the most difficult part of the How do you measure what i- is

causation, what's actually working?

You, you might be doing a few different things over the last decade.

Yeah.

how do you try and attribute what you're seeing in the numbers that you

might look at as success, what you're seeing in the numbers that you think are

opportunities that you still need to build on, and how do you measure which levers

you're pulling are making a difference?

Yeah.

All very valid questions, yeah.

uh, our overall thought process, obviously we want, we want the

fatal accident rate to be zero.

We talk about it all the time, 100%.

Um, a gigantic portion of the kind of genesis of Cirrus Approach was to

address the very thing you brought up.

Fatal accident rate was kind of high, and we're like, "Why?"

Uh, and so one of our first courses was a ve- a very straightforward CAPS course

where… And that CAPS course is free.

Uh, anyone in the world can take it.

Um, and the thought process there is, we humanize that moment.

We know that the pulling CAPS is, uh, kind of an aeronautical

decision-making- Yeah … event, right?

So we tackle it.

one thing I think we do, you know, I think pretty well, is we're pretty direct with

how we think we can improve safety, right?

And I'll give you a couple examples, but, like, with the CAPS course, like,

the choices we made there, with the design of the course was highlight two

specific situations that fully occurred with the people that it occurred with

photo and video from the actual events, and talk, you know, kind of talk

them through the th- the whole thing.

Then what we do is, in the training itself, every Cirrus instructor pilot,

whether you're, you work for Cirrus or you're one of our- you know, 500

or so standardized instructor pilots that are out there in the world.

a CAPS briefing is always, uh, it's in the checklist, right?

Yeah.

And, and we're expecting to hear, you know, hey, before 600 feet,

after 600 feet, up to 2,000.

Like, we know, like, this is dialed in.

And it's not just, it's not a rote thing.

This is kind of one of those elements that I think an interesting thing with

Cirrus, and especially when we're working in the jet, is I think there would be

this concept of, hey, let's lean towards airline kind of proficiency- Mm-hmm

and thought processes.

And I'd say the CAPS briefing is actually an example of us doing that.

But then there's other circumstances where we, like, that doesn't make

sen- the, the, the, like, the level of aviator we're trying to work

with is not necessarily at that, oh, I've got four type ratings, right?

You know?

Yeah, yeah.

Like, we don't need them to be there.

Yeah.

'cause that's, that's a different thing, right?

so I'd say the CAPS briefing and- And they're

generally single pilot, so- Yeah … you, you have to adjust.

Yeah.

You know, h- how do I try and standardize?

This is what I'm always trying to do I, I don't always know the

right answer on how to do it.

Yeah.

100%.

And you're trying to You're trying to create a, a cockpit

or a crew- Right … of one-

Yeah

… Bill: that is a, a, at, as efficient as crew of two at catching

Yes.

Right?

Yeah.

It's really difficult to do.

Yeah.

And so I'm sure you guys have come up with ways to do that, and part of

that's probably the CAPS briefing- Yep

and making sure it's not rote.

Yeah.

So, so sorry to interrupt your train of thought.

No, no, no, you're fine.

how do you approach that specific thing?

How do you keep it from being rote?

Because a lot of times a checklist can be

Yeah.

I think what we find is, yes, it's, So the way that we've been making

it and working hard, like, the last, uh, since I've been here is we've

brought CAPS decision-making into more novel training experiences, right?

Yeah.

So in, uh, in our, in the Mission Ready Sim Session, uh, product that we came

out this year, and I think com- y- we're coming out with two every month

basically, it is a free simulator-based course, and the CAPS decision has

come up in several of them and never in a place that is an obvious place.

Oh, okay, cool.

Right?

So, hey, you briefed CAPS altitude, you briefed what your plan is here,

but you briefed that 40 minutes ago.

Uh-huh.

And now you're, you're flying over the Smoky Mountains.

Mm-hmm.

And your, your available, your AGL is a little different than it was

when you were… And now you're in that bubble where you gotta make a

decision on CAPS right this second.

And we've allowed, in those kind of circumstances in the simulator

environment, which I think is a fantastic place to do it, we've allowed

people to make the wrong decision, and there's nothing like making the wrong

decision and seeing that experience, uh, that real- I think internalizes a

lot of pilots to being like, "Oh, this is something I should think about."

The other thing I think we've done a really good job, and with our partners

in COPA, like, done, I think really well, is a lot of times, yes, the

person's flying by themselves, but a ton of times they're not, right?

So having-

Let me stop you real quick.

You mentioned COPA.

Yeah.

I believe that stands for Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's an ownership group, right?

It is,

yes.

So I didn't want the listeners to-

Yeah, good point.

My bad.

Sorry.

Yeah … not know what you were

talking about.

But go ahead.

You're in the- Go ahead … you're in the Cirrus ecosystem.

The bubble.

Yeah.

Everyone knows what we're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

So, uh, the, the Owners and Pilots group, yeah, like,

they're, um, they're fantastic.

They come out with their own content that we work with them on.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, we're big supporters of basically all of their initiatives

because, again, uh, you know, it's about r- you know, raising the safety

level- Mm-hmm … across the board, and we know that's not just our choice.

It's everyone's choice.

So, uh, but to that point, like, hey, emphasizing when your spouse or when

your children are on board, anyone in the airplane can pull CAPS, right?

Yeah.

So giving the… And most people when they get in the airplane,

they're like, "What is that?" "What's

that giant red

handle?" And it's such an easy way- Yeah.

to explain what's going on.

And yeah, like, as of last week, we have 302 saves, and we see that as, like- Yeah.

Now, the work's not done, right?

You know, so this year in the annual training course, you know, our, our

annual training course this year focuses a tremendous amount on go-arounds,

low-energy flight, and spot landings.

Yeah.

Now, spot landings might seem like a weird thing to focus on-

I love that

but it's, it's to be like you are operating at a,

a 50-foot wide strip, right?

You know, like, your sight picture might be look- looking different.

And all of these decisions- Or

a field-

Or a field … in an

emergency.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And all of these things also tie into the CAPS decision, which our, our

thought process is the pull ear- pull, pull early and pull often, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, that is, that is how we talk about it- Yeah … right?

Because, uh, we know you're gonna walk away.

Like, it's gonna be fine.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

And, uh, a lot of those airplanes with people who pull CAPS on come back and fly.

Yeah.

You know?

So it's, it's kind of a remarkable thing.

Yeah, I, I love the spot landing training because it does so much.

Yeah.

I mean, it teaches energy management and t- Yeah … I mean,

there's just so much in there.

Yeah.

So that's good.

Yeah.

We really like those things that like, sure, it's spot landing, right?

But like, it's like the, well, the, a lot of time when I'm talking to the people

making the training, right, uh, people, you know, writing the syllabus and stuff

like that, it's like, listen, we have an A bo- A story and a B story, right?

An A story is, like, the plot, right?

But the B story is, like, the moral of the story, right?

Like, the, the thing, the lesson you're supposed to take away from it.

So the plot might be, hey, let's figure out your, your spot landing here-

Yeah … and we're gonna have a little competition with using, uh, IQ and- Yeah.

Right … see if, see if you get that, uh, Seneca's 100% Challenge coin, right?

Uh, but the secondary thing is like, hey, even if you got a 97 on your

approach score, what that meant is you were stable at 500 feet.

Yep.

You came over the fence, set VREF.

Man, like,

you did-

Yeah.

Nice job … you did the things.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, you, mission accomplished.

Yeah.

Way to go.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Yeah.

So let's talk about your, your standardized instructor training.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think it's CISP?

CSIP.

Yeah.

So Cirrus-

C-S-I-P, right?

CSIP.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And what does that stand for?

Uh, Cirrus Standardized Instructor Pilot.

Okay.

Yeah.

so I think the goal here is, a CSIP in- Oh … or let's talk

it from the owner's perspective.

A, a Cirrus owner Munich-

Yeah

essentially going to get very similar standardized

training from an instructor there- Yeah … that they might get in

Uh, yeah, 100%.

So s- so this is a large undertaking-

Yeah

… Bill: to, keep that as standardized as possible.

Can you talk about how you're doing that, how you're measuring

it, and how it's going?

Oh, absolutely.

And what you wanna do in the future.

Yeah.

Yeah, so the, the CSIP program is… We get asked, I mean, I, I was asked

probably five or six times yesterday, like, "How do I become a CSIP?" Mm-hmm.

Uh, and that's a normal process.

You know, like, um, it, it's a bit of a business relationship, right?

You know, we, uh, we work with professional instructors that have

dedicated a no small portion of their life to becoming, you know, an elevated

kind of flight instructor, right?

not a person that's necessarily, you know, gunning for the minimum time

and- Yeah … getting to the airlines.

There's no wrong- nothing wrong with that.

Yeah.

That's a real thing, and we respect that as well.

But, uh, for-

Airline pilots have to come from somewhere, right?

Yeah.

Uh, I was an airline pilot.

I understand that life.

Believe me- … I get it.

Right.

So, uh, but yeah, the CSIP is really tailored towards that person

that's going to really kinda be our partner, who's a field, right?

You know, uh, the CSIPs are, are normally kind of independent from a,

a formalized FBO or a flight school- Uh-huh … or something like that.

Uh, and, uh, the training they get, uh, you know, they're coming to Knoxville,

and they're getting a bit immersed.

So Knoxville is where the vision center is.

It's where we do a tremendous amount of our customer training.

It's where we do all of our jet training, uh, with the exception of some

recurrent, which is now in Scottsdale.

But, um, yeah, I mean, you're coming in and you're, you're seeing, you know, how

we elevate the flight training experience.

Like, you're seeing what our briefings look like.

You're seeing, uh, what our customer training looks like.

you're working with, with, uh, with us.

It's not just a… You're not just coming for an IPC, and we're

like, "Oh, you're good." Yeah.

Uh, it's really that.

And then in terms of the measurement, yeah, we, we measure, like, everything.

we measure, uh, hey, how many people have, uh, gone through…

How many Embark trainings you doing?

So people that don't know what Embark is, you know, we, we care tr- like, we care

about training so much, I know it sounds probably like, I don't know, but, but, uh,

we care about training so much that, like, we're willing, like Cirrus is willing

to pay the training forward, right?

So if you bought a, a pre-owned Cirrus, you bought a, a G3, a G5,

doesn't matter what it is, we'll set you up with a CSIP, right?

Or, or a CTC, you know, in this case.

But we'll set you up, and, and we'll pay for the training.

You know, you, you're still gonna cover the airplane and the gas and all that,

but we assume that's your plane, right?

Yeah.

So-

Right

… Eammon: you know.

so but we'll provide the instructor gratis, right?

Because we think it's that important.

Yeah.

we think going

from a- That is, that is very unique.

Yeah.

We know- Yeah … and, and it's no small measure, right?

I mean, uh, you know, the, the revenues we make from, like, you

know, course sales and stuff like that, you know, are meant to basically

kind of compensate for that, right?

Yeah.

You know, so like, you know, like the thought process there is we want to be

able to make sure that anyone that gets in a Cirrus, you know, got, got with

a CSIP and, and make sure they, they went through the transition course.

And those transition courses, we do the most of those out of

any courses we offer out there.

And, um, yeah, I think, I think that ins- instructor training that

we're doing in Knoxville and then how that matriculates throughout

the network is one of those things.

I mean, we have monthly calls, we have weekly safety briefings.

when you come to work with Cirrus as a flight instructor and/or whether

you're a, or you're an independent CSIP, you're committing to a, a, I

would say, a very heightened level of safety awareness, heightened level

of communication that I do think

I mean, I, I worked at, I've, you know, I've worked at several airlines and, uh,

I think it rivals that in a lot of ways.

You know, um, um, I think at the appropriate level.

Yeah.

But, like, yeah, like the communication is, is great and

quick and w- and very, um, you know, it's a big culture of safety thing.

Yeah.

So you mentioned the analog with airlines.

in the airlines there's quite a bit of oversight

How do you the, level of consistency that you're presumably after-

Yeah

going forward

Um, oversight?

Do you have ride-alongs anything like that in your program

to kind of help ensure that

Yeah.

And so anyone that is a Cirrus instructor, goes through… We basically, we

put them on a, a annual path, right?

That annual path includes that, you know, they've got to do a, um, you

know, kind of an annual review, right?

Which is just kind of a, a, "Hey, these are the things that have updated." Uh,

so very similar to, you know, a 121 recurrent or something like that- Okay.

Yeah … you know?

So, uh, it's, it's sh- shorter, right?

It's, it's a three-day, kind of a three or four-day event, right?

Yeah.

And so we do do that.

We do exactly that.

Okay, yeah.

And then, uh, every six months, you know, you're not always gonna

have an instrument student, right?

So we do, uh, it's very specific.

We do an IPC every six months just to make sure that your physical flying skills, uh,

in the instrument environment are where, you know, where you need them to be.

And normally these are very, you know, they… I think so much of training

is just setting the expectation.

Yeah.

So when you come to be a instructor with Cirrus, like, the expectation

is, "Hey, yeah, you're gonna have two training events a year- Yeah

Obviously- Yeah … right?

Uh, and because things change, and we're a dynamic company, and, you

know, we might have a big focus going for, you know, three months, and then

three months from then we might have a totally different focus based off of

what we're seeing in the field, right?

And then secondarily, we do, we keep, we very much keep track of everything

from, you know, we, we keep track of, you know, how many recurrence a person's

doing, how many annuals a person's doing.

we keep track of all that stuff.

yeah, so along those lines, Eamonn, they, um, they do this recurrent training.

You're tracking.

You're always results, the numbers, and things like that.

One of the most difficult numbers to get, it's not saves you've had.

It's not how many accidents there are or, heaven forbid, fatalities, right?

Sure.

Easy to track.

It's that denominator-

Yeah

… Bill: that's hard to track.

So I'm curious what you you know, what you can share about how you

track denominator how, how well you're doing flight hours or how many-

Yeah

uh, the air.

I know you guys do some self-reporting through COPA, I think, and- Mm-hmm

… also through your maintenance programs.

You're probably able to gather Yeah … things like that.

are you doing this with consent of the owners?

Is it all anonymized?

It… H- how are you gathering the the denominator to figure out how well

Yeah.

The thing we're, the thing we've been… Uh, so we don't necessarily

have all the answer to that-

Yeah

… Eammon: to be clear.

The

thing- It's a, it's a hard problem.

We're always t- always trying to figure it out.

The thing we are doing, right, is, uh, and the thing that I think

we've been focused quite a bit on, and you could see it in our actions, right?

You know, so if you come to the booth here at Oshkosh, you'll see

that Cirrus Approach is seated right next to Cirrus IQ, right?

And Cirrus IQ is, uh, for those not initiated into the Cirrus bubble,

Cirrus IQ is, is, uh, basically our, our data package, it's based off the

Garmin GDL60, and then our programming on the backside to essentially,

yes, the data can be anonymized.

Like, we know who it is 'cause it's tied to an airplane.

Yep.

Right?

but how we've been packaging that is, uh, you can see that in approach

score, and you can see that in, you know, the, you know, uh, maintenance

and- Mm-hmm … you know, all these kinds of things that are, perceived as

creature comforts maybe to some degree.

But, like, our plane is not a creature comfort thing.

Uh, you know, like we, we talk about it a lot.

So the reason we're doing that stuff with IQ is i- it's our intention… So

we've been doing a beta pr- test for the last six months with a program called

Master Pilot, uh, to, use some AI to, you know, help with the debriefing process.

And what that does is it takes data from IQ and really crafts it to improve the,

like, debriefing experience, if you will

All right.

Well, we got booted out of our room.

Uh, so we're gonna continue the l- last little bit of this

interview here- in a slightly different room, different backdrop.

Yeah.

Another nice so as you were saying- As I was saying- I think

you were talking about your- Yeah

approach next to your-

Yeah, so, I m- there's, uh, without question our focus here,

over the next year, is we're going to increase the amount of, you know,

kind of practical data coming off of IQ and then being put into our,

into our training products, right?

and I'll give you an example of this, right?

Like, we work with a lot of flight schools, and most flight schools right

now are having their instructors log their time in, like, two or three different

things because the unit of commerce at a flight school- Uh-huh … is normally-

Yeah, time … flying hours, right?

Yeah.

You know, so if you're putting something into your maintenance softw-

you know, maintenance software, and you're putting something into, like,

Flight Schedule Pro or, you know, like, Logbook 10 or whatever, any

of that jazz, you know, that's not necessarily the most ideal experience.

Yeah.

So we're integrating with a bunch of those as well to make it- Oh, okay.

Interesting … easy for those folks.

but yeah, it'd be really great if we had a, a kind of a experience that

kind of represented, you know, that kind of the same level of seamless

experience we're expecting with the rest of Cirrus to be represented.

So now that we have all this data coming off the airplane, which is incredible,

you know, uh, I think what you'll see in the, you know, pretty near future is us,

you know, hey, when a flight gets done, you know, um, especially with the stuff

that we're doing with the Track 10, you know, our new airplane, um, which is

built for the training environment- Mm-hmm

I think you're gonna find yourself, like the debriefing experience is going

to be one where, hey, like, here's what, here's how everything went.

Like, is this normal trajectory?

Is this normal be- you know, behavior?

Is it emergent behavior of better skill development?

And I think we're gonna get very nuanced to the point that, you know, hey, we

noticed this thing happening when you were doing your steep turns, right?

we're gonna take this exact same scenario, and then we're gonna port

it into a simulator environment so you can drill and practice without needing

the airplane, uh, to get yourself to a proficiency, so the next time you go and

fly this maneuver, you not only know why it didn't go the right way that- Right

that last time, but, but you know how to fix it, and you know how to

g- give yourself the confidence, you know, to be the pilot you wanna be.

And, uh, that's not just in private pilot.

You know, our, our… You know, you could already see what we're doing with, um, uh,

if you're, you know, paying attention with the Mission Ready Sim product we have and

then the annual training product we have.

It's our intention to… A good pilot is always learning, right?

Mm-hmm.

So if we give people, we think right-sized, offerings throughout the

year, uh, and then tie that to, say, experience milestones, like, hey, you hit

50 hours this year, or you hit 100 hours.

Uh, a lot of times the word like gamification's thrown around,

and there's a part of me that's cheapens that a little bit.

It's more like what I would love to see is, yeah, sure, leaderboards and

stuff like that are fun- But I think most, uh, most individuals, especially

pilot individuals, you know, they're, they're interested in making sure that

they're safe and confident and good.

And if we can give them an experience that, helps them make that decision

on a daily basis with some data, I think most of our pilots are

gonna be very interested in that.

And I think most of the industry will see that as, "Oh, okay, this is something

we can all really do." and yeah, I think that's- so measurement is gonna be a

tremendous, uh, point of focus- Yeah … for the next, maybe forever, right?

You seem like a data guy.

I might be a data guy.

Yeah, I might be.

Yeah.

I might be.

The evidence makes sense.

Yeah, let's- that's probably true.

Excellent.

So that leads me kind of the final area I we talked about it a little bit, and that

is, taking, uh, this excellent work that and, uh, helping rest of the industry.

Yeah.

And you already talked about kinda share some of your data.

how else is Cirrus, Beyond owner group-

Yeah

how else are you, trying to reach out to the rest of

the lift, level everywhere?

Yeah.

So, we sit, uh, probably the most direct way I could say is we sit on

a, a number of committees, right?

Mm-hmm.

And those committees, uh, with Gamma, and with, um, AOPA, and you know,

uh, so we're, we're doing, uh, I, I think we're doing a tremendous amount

to, you know, share the things we've learned that actually work, right?

Uh, or we see work, right?

Yeah.

Maybe they wouldn't work in every context, but I think we've done

a lot there, and I think we're gonna continue to do a lot there.

The other thing I think you'll see, uh, you could already see in, like, um, you

know, you could kinda see it today with the Apple Vision Pro app we have, is we're

trying to just increase accessibility.

And, um, there's some stuff that we're, that you'll see coming down the pipe

here in a little bit that I think is, is about that, like, okay, can we

onboard people into aviation without them necessarily needing to find a

flight school immediately, right?

Like, what is, how do we increase the scope of people, uh, that know

that aviation is a possibility for them, and know that aviation is,

like, incredibly safe in reality?

Yeah.

Those things I think we're gonna continue to do.

So growing the community.

That's exactly it, yeah.

Yeah.

So we're gonna, I think we're gonna continue to do that.

So, so on one side, yeah, I think we're gonna continue to try to lead

conversations on the policy side.

I also think we're gonna do, you know, and you can already see some of the

evidence of this, it's our intention to make it very clear to anyone whether

they fly Cirrus ever or not that general aviation is a thing for them.

Mm-hmm.

Like, it, it's a thing for everyone, and democratizing aviation is

something that's, like, incredibly important to Cirrus at large.

So, and, and I think you're gonna continue to see efforts to do exactly that.

Yeah, and it helps, it, it helps financially as well because

the, you have a larger target audience to market to, right?

Sure, sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so

there's- Yeah, don't get me wrong

… Bill: an incentive there from, from everywhere.

there's reasons.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's, it's, uh, you know, if, if, if your first plane is a, you know,

a, a Piper War- you know, I learned to fly in a Piper Warrior, right?

Yeah.

There's, uh- Mm-hmm

absolutely nothing wrong with that plane.

Yep.

It's a great plane.

but you know, like, when you wanna go, you know, uh, 180 miles an hour,

you know, like, or 180 knots or whatever, um, you know, you probably

need something a little beyond that.

Yep.

Right?

So we see that as there, there are very clear entry points, into Cirrus

and, and yeah, we think if we, we get more people to get into any airplane,

eventually they'll get to a Cirrus.

Well, you

guys sell a lot of them- We- … so you must be doing something … we're

trying.

We're trying.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Excellent.

So I guess the last question then is what have I not asked- That I should have-

Oh, well-

Because, you know, I'm not that smart.

No, no, no, yeah, I bet you're plenty smart, man.

Uh, I'd say the one thing we didn't cover at all, uh, you know, um,

and, and probably because, you know, it, it's mostly a pilot, uh,

but the maintenance training is one of these things that, um- Oh, yeah

I think Cirrus, is doing something that is also, you know, the, our

maintainers are not always the people that we're thinking about first

when we're thinking about training.

Mm-hmm.

Like, oh, well, they just know everything.

Yeah.

You know, if you're coming up with a new airplane every year, you know,

like that's a new and unique challenge.

And, and one of the benefits of the maintenance training we're doing

is, uh, we have a number, it's not every pilot, but you know, let's say

10 or 20% of the demographic really wants to know- what's going on in the

engine- Mm-hmm … at that particular moment in time and you know, what the

service bulletin actually really means.

but like I think, uh, a thing you'll see like pretty, like y- you can see it

already is, you know, the just, you know, when we came up with a G3, Vision Jet,

you know, the, it's a, there, the changes on the maintenance side were a bit more,

like they were, they're more than the changes on the pilot side to some degree.

Oh, interesting.

Okay.

Like, you know, not from a reg- like from a, a, it's kind of a mix, right?

You know, so, it's, G3 is a tremendous improvement on a couple

things on the pilot side, uh, but it's an iteration, right?

And th- those iterations then expand into the maintenance side quite a bit,

and having training, like ready at the point in which the plane is like

actually rolling off the line- Yeah

is one of those things that I think maintenance organizations, uh, like

if you go and talk to your A&P, or you go and talk, and you ask them

what training they've had- Yeah … I think sometimes you're gonna get

like very not satisfactory answers.

Yeah, that's

true.

And at Cirrus, we don't want that to be the case.

It's almost

all on-the-job training kind of.

All on the job, right?

Yeah.

And so you know how that works.

Yeah.

Can you imagine, you know, if, could you imagine if there was no, like

on the pilot side, we would never think of doing something like that.

Right.

Like, oh, well, you're ready when that guy over there tells you you're ready.

Mm-hmm.

And that's a pretty common practice in maintenance.

Mm. Uh, and, and what that does is because we have some of the similar things going

on, with, you know, just, you know, the number of maintainers and the number of

pilots not being a satisfactory amount.

What winds up happening is at a lot of locations, you wind up having, you know,

kind of new maintainers, just like you have new flight instructors entering, you

have new maintainers, and they don't have that 10 years of experience of what this

looks like when it doesn't look right.

So one s- one thing that Cirrus has been, uh, doing, I think a tremendous

amount and, of work on, and I think it really shows in, in, you know, our

service records and stuff like that, that our maintainers are trained, right?

Our, our maintainers are like, they go to class.

They've got, you know, we onboard them in a very specific way.

Uh, and I think that's one of those things that it's not the most

flashy thing, but it really changes-

Super important though.

Yeah.

It, it- Yeah … it changes the whole kind of, you know, if we, if we take

care of our maintainers, and we, we make sure that they feel confident

on the job, and they have the tools necessary for them, well, guess what?

That airplane's getting out the door a little faster.

Yeah.

Right?

It's in-

And, and it's gonna be safer.

And it's gonna be safer.

Yeah.

And, and it, and we, we operate with more certainty that the aircraft's

gonna, you know, execute to the mission.

Mm-hmm.

Those things are one of those things that might not be

the flashiest thing, but it's, man, it's, it's really important.

Um-

Yeah, it's a

good point.

So that's, that would be the only thing we didn't talk about, I think.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, Eamon, thank you so much for- Yeah … taking the time to do this.

Really interesting.

Love to get inside your brain a little bit- Yeah … and

see how you're applying the

Yeah, I appreciate your time.

Sorry for do-si-doing the room on you-

No,

no worries at all … a little bit.

But thanks.

Thank you so much.

Well, I appreciate that.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

Three things I took out of that and one bonus.

One, structure beats hours.

The phrase he used was time to independence, which I thought was

interesting, and I've been kind of thinking about that ever since.

Their whole redesign of the private pilot course came from looking at

where people actually stumbled, and one of the things they found is that the

solo milestone had become a source of pressure instead of a source of progress.

And when he pointed out that every syllabus on the market basically puts

solo before lesson 20 or whatever that means, and it traces back to wartime

training when you had 15 hours and no radios and, you know, dedicated training.

I've taught out of some of those syllabi, and I've never once asked

where that number comes from and why we teach that way, why solo

is such, you know, an important milestone that we focus on it so much.

So here's your takeaway, and it cuts both ways.

Students, if you're behind somebody else's number, who cares?

That number could be 60 years older than you are.

And instructors, know your milestones and why they sit where they sit, and

don't be afraid to move them if the situation dictates Two, ritualize the

decisions you hope you never have to make.

In this example, the CAPS briefing happens on every flight, in every generation

of the airplane, from a brand-new G7 all the way back to a 25-year-old G1.

Same briefing, private student or annual recurrent training, doesn't matter.

It's the ritual.

But the part I really liked is that they keep it from getting to become rote.

They drop the CAPS decision into the simulator in places that you're not

expecting it, 40 minutes after you briefed it, whatever, over terrain

that's changed, and then you get to get it wrong and watch what happens.

That is good training.

You don't have a parachute probably.

I don't fly with a parachute, but that's not really the point here.

You have the same problem no matter what kind of airplane you're, you're flying.

Pick the decision that you'd hate to make, whether it's the diversion

or an engine out on takeoff.

Brief it out loud every single flight the same way, and then when you're

training sometimes, get it wrong.

You wanna get it wrong when it's cheap to get it wrong, so in a

simulated fashion with an instructor in a simulator, something like that.

But get it wrong sometimes and evaluate how well you did.

And three, standardization is a system, not really a

document or something like that.

A CSIP, for example, the Cirrus Standardized Instructor Pilot,

is on an annual recurrent path.

They, they do annual training.

Um, they do an IPC every six months, whether they've had an instrument

student or not, monthly calls, weekly safety briefin- briefings, you know,

things that, that keep it standardized.

He compared the communication rhythm to an airline, and he'd know.

He used to fly for, for at least one, and that's kinda the actual mechanism.

It's, it's not a binder or a document or something like that.

It's related to the calendar.

It's recurrent.

It's, it's training all the time.

And here's the part that surprised me the most.

If you buy a used Cirrus, a, you know, an older one, doesn't matter, no money

goes to Cirrus in that transaction.

They'll still pay for the instructor to transition you.

That's the Embark program that he was talking about.

You cover the airplane and the fuel, of course.

They cover the CFI.

I don't know of any other manufacturer that does that.

There may be some.

If there are, let me know.

Uh, but I think that's pretty unique, and I think it's pretty important, um,

that that's become part of their ethos.

And here's the bonus, which I brought up when I asked what I

should have asked and didn't, and he brought up maintenance training.

So go ask your A&P what formal training they've had on your airplane.

If Eamonn's right, and I think he is, most of the time there hasn't

been any formal training on specific airplanes or specific airframes.

So you might get uncomfortable with the answer because that's not really

how it works most of the time.

Um, you, you kind of get this

on-the-job training, if you will, sometimes, which is very good.

Uh, but I think it would be important for A&Ps to train, uh,

do some formal training on the airframes that they are maintaining.

Uh, I think that's something we could learn from, uh, from Cirrus and

apply it to the rest of the industry.

So you know the drill.

Voicemail line is at studentpilotcast.com/voicemail.

The Friday Flight Brief goes out most Fridays, and you can

always just hit reply and tell me when I'm wrong about something.

Two specific things this week.

One, the Cirrus CAPS course is free, and it's open to anybody online.

You don't have to own a Cirrus.

You don't have to fly one.

It's a real piece of aeronautical decision-making training built around

two accidents that actually happened, with the real photos and the real video.

So if you're so inclined, go take it.

Same for their Mission Ready Sim sessions and things like that.

Um, or do similar things with other organizations, but do additional training.

Uh, this will always, always be helpful.

And two, and I want to hear from you guys about this one.

What's the ritual in your flying?

The thing that you say out loud every single flight the same way, whether or

not anybody's with you in the airplane.

D- Tell me what that ritual is.

Tell me what you guys are doing.

I may learn something from it.

I may be able to pass that on to students, um, recurring or

primary students, whatever.

So let me know what you do and what you like about what you do.

One more thing before I go.

Somewhere in the middle of that conversation, Eamonn told me he

learned to fly in a Piper Warrior.

That's the airplane I teach in a lot of days.

That's the airplane a bunch of you are probably learning

in now or have learned in.

It's the one with the paint chipping off the cowl and the yoke that's

shiny from 40 or 45 years of hands that have been holding it.

You know, all the things on these, these workhorses of the industry.

The man who runs training for an airplane that costs over a million dollars learned

to fly in the same airplane that you and I did, or very similar ones, and his line

about it was there's absolutely nothing wrong with that airplane, of course.

He said something else that stuck with me.

He said that it's their intention to make it clear to anybody, whether they ever fly

a Cirrus or not, that general aviation is a thing for them, that aviation is, and

I'm quoting, "Incredibly safe in reality." Democratizing aviation, he called it.

And y- yeah, there's a business reason why he would want more pilots in the

world, and I talked to him about that in the interview, and, uh, he agreed.

But both things can be true at once.

But I've spent a lot of this summer thinking about the differences

between training that's good enough and training that isn't, for reasons

some of you probably know about.

I've been thinking about it extra hard this summer.

So when somebody tells me that they've spent their career trying to make pilots

better trained, a PhD, an ATP, and an A&P all pointed at that one thing, I'm just

grateful that they're out there doing it.

However silly it makes the business card look with all those letters, I'm

glad that Eamonn's out there thinking about this and sharing with us what

he's learning and what he's learned

So I'm still flying, still learning, and remember, the solo was never the end goal