Mark is back ("Thanks, Mark. Glad to be back") with Sparker transition-training dispatches: two seats, retractable, bubble canopy, Rotax 916, "about 165 knots at 10,000 feet," pending "a whole bunch of marketing inflation that I think might be going on there." Meanwhile a Phenom on frequency earned the highest honor this show can bestow: "the green machine of airplanes." And if they made an adult size Green Machine? "I would buy it a thousand percent."

Ted is deep in the instrument written, armed with Sheppard Air and Erica's class ("You're doing all the right things") while the questions do their job, which is making you feel dumb. Brian's advice from the far side of the test: be a glutton for punishment and take the IGI a day or two later. "Send it. If I fail the IGI test, like, who cares." On the tape machine, Drew prescribes the Jacobson flare for landing consistency in anything from a Cub to a 747, and Sir Elliot gave the family a tour of a G650. Say "narrow runway" five times fast. "Well, I've started drinking, so I'm not going to do that."

Tonight's wisdom: "a go-around isn't an admission of defeat. It's a pilot refusing to let pride fly the airplane."

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
The Green Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB2T8dnbhhw
Opposing Bases: https://www.opposingbases.com/
Erica's Instrument Pilot course: https://www.gilbertaviation.com/ifr-course
Sheppard Air: https://www.sheppardair.com/instrument-rating.htm
Gulfstream G650: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfstream_G650/G700/G800
The Jacobson Flare: https://www.jacobsonflare.com/
Mark's TL Sparker: https://tlsportaircraft.com/sparker/

Ted did the math: episodes 83, 108, 116, 119, 128, 155, 188, and 201 were all more or less about landings, and tonight makes it nine, because you filled the tape machine and we have no self-control. The eternal question of this show, asked out loud tonight: "Oh man, how does this even work? What is landings?" Ted's official position: "I don't want to be the landing podcast. I do want to be the emotional rollercoaster podcast." Exhibit A, Micael: two weeks ago, six attempts, five go-arounds, and "I walked away in tears." This morning, six for six. That's the ride, folks.

The panel's collected landing science: it takes "100 landings more or less" to figure it out, the whole business is the Magic Eye poster of aviation (everybody else could see it, and Brian couldn't), and the real breakthrough is to "just start loving how bad you're doing." Or, as a bar mitzvah kid with a cracking voice once told rabbi Ben Stiller: embrace the suck. Welcome to new Land-o-matic members Ben H. and Hector R., and a salute to Elliot's first instructor: "You have eight hours. I can't believe you're not perfect yet."

Tonight's wisdom: a flight review is where you discover which bad habits have become traditions.

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
Houlme, Orcas Island, Washington: https://www.houlme.com/
EAT, Pangborn Memorial, Wenatchee, Washington: https://www.flywenatchee.com/fbo-services/
RMG, Rome, Georgia: https://www.airnav.com/airport/RMG
SISKIND, Learning to Land: The Magic Eye Poster for Student Pilots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_UDm4n7zxs
"Embrace the suck" in Keeping the Faith (2000, Ed Norton/Ben Stiller): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_the_Faith

Last week's emergency deserves a sequel about the thing you reach for in the later phases of one: the checklist. Enter returning special friend of the show Checkmate Barry, two years to the day (October 1st) from taking over CheckMate Aviation, the premier checklist company. His origin story is extremely midlife pilot: he redid his 182 panel, his trusty checklist no longer matched anything, so he designed his own, laminated it himself, watched it fall apart twice, and concluded "they make a better product than what I can do at home." He sent them the file. He now owns the company.

Around the group: the Beast will be unleashed Wednesday (two and a half weeks in the avionics shop, plus one buffer day, "that's what you do"), Ben is inbound to Phenom indoc where a single-engine approach go-around is allegedly the single hardest thing you can do in that jet, and hold entries are being practiced the honest way, drawn in a notebook, no navigator, no pause button. Tonight's wisdom, from the old-school book: the aircraft may fly poorly, but it will always crash well.

Mentioned on the show:
Tape machine, merch, and everything else: https://www.midlifepilotpodcast.com
Checkmate Barry's CheckMate Aviation: https://www.checkmateaviation.com/
QuarkXPress (Barry's design roots): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuarkXPress