Bill Burr (43:32)
I went Long beach to El Monte. That was the first one. That's kind of a straight shot. You just go up to 605 and you come back and that's like a 45 minute one. That was freaky enough. But then the next time is, it's called a cross country flight. It's basically anytime you fly and land, like, I forget how, 25 miles away from airport that you, you get to log. It's weird you get to log a cross country flight. However, if you just fly 20 miles out and don't land and then fly 20 back, it's, it's. You don't get to log it as that. And I don't know, I don't pay attention to that because I just do it for fun. But these guys that, you know, it's all about building up your hours to move, you know, to get qualified for the next job. So we had to fly. You had to put three hours of time. That's how they log it in time rather than miles. It's basically three hours on the Hobbs Meter. And that counts time. So I had to. And I had to land at a controlled airport in an uncontrolled airport. So a controlled airport has a tower. Uncontrolled does not have a tower. So your head's on a swivel and you're freaking out. But that three hours of being in the air, I mean, like, I just kept looking over at the empty seat going like, if this shit goes down, you know, I got to somehow get this fucker on the ground. You know, you're gonna get it on the ground, but am I gonna live? And I just remember when I came back, you know, I fucked up a bunch of things. As you're going to remember, when I was coming back to Long Beach, I'm talking to the tower. I was on the wrong frequency. And I'm just flying and they're not talking to me. I'm just flying towards the airport. I'm saying, what the fuck do I do? And finally I'm thinking I'm going to fly over to Compton and just land and just call them up because they got an airport over there that's an uncontrolled one. I knew where it was. I'm like, if this fucking guy doesn't talk to me, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. But I ain't Running out of gas here, because that was another thing too. You had to remember to get refueled. One of the Chinese guys forgot to fucking do it. And the fuel light comes on. I don't know why, with only five minutes left, it's like, how about 5:15? Give me a chance, right? So the guy finally came. He just said, the helicopter north of the airport, you know, we're on this frequency. And then I put. Came on. I'm like, oh, student pilot, sorry. And I remember just the relief of hearing that tower's voice because you start to know I was feeling like I was home. Come across the field, you're at 500ft, you go around the tower and you landed over at Aeroplex. And I just remember when I set it down, you set it down and then you roll down to like, what is it, like 70 rpms, whatever the hell it is. And then that's. At that point you really can't really lift up anymore. So you're beginning the whole shutdown process. And the greatest feeling ever. You pull the mixture and the engine cuts off. And it was just like. I was like, I can't even explain the mindset that I was in. Like, I remember I put it back, you know, wheeled the thing back and I went in there and one of my instructors used to always break my balls. He just came walking by and he was just making say, how you doing? He kind of did double take look at my face and he knew exactly what I was going through. And he just started laughing. And it wasn't until like, like two lessons later I talked to him. I was like, dude, that is the fucking scaredest I've ever been. And those pilots is going to, much as they are cool as, you know, and just like, you know, they got that pilot energy. They all laugh. They go, yeah, dude, I was so scared, man. I was never scared. Like, they, like, you know, if you're not, if, you know, if you admit that you're scared, they're going to tell you that they were. But I remember, I remember before we. I went to fly that same instructor. I was so happy I did that. I was just sitting there going over all my charts and all this, making sure I had all the frequencies, you know, making sure that wasn't going to get lost. Can you get lost up there? You know, I get it, yeah. And he goes, he just sat down next to me. This is going to be a visual joke because this won't play. He just sat down next to me and just kind of went. Just rubbed his Hands again, gave me a look like, oh boy, let's see how this fucking guy. And the reality is, what you don't realize is there's no way they're going to sign you off to go do this thing if they think there's even a hint of a chance, right, that you're going to fuck up and you should definitely go do it. It's one of the, it's an incredible privilege to be able to do it. I haven't flown in like two months and I got to get my medical up to date, but I've been writing the second season of Ephes for family, so I'm gonna fly. Coming up this week for the first.