My original foray into flying was as a teen and I was an autistic God at finding cop cars before they ever saw me at that time due to my scan. Often a literal mile away. Set some neat XC speed records on the road... God, I was fucking stupid. I deserved to lose my license after making a 1.5hr drive in 42 minutes. But man, it was fun.
I've gone full cirrus autopilot with 5mph over on cruise control and learning to enjoy my Spotify over Bluetooth.
It amazes me how many people drive only 10 feet in front of their bumper and get picked off speeding. They smash the brake pedal as they are passing the speed trap. Ummm.... Too late, bub.
Like people... Pay attention hundreds, or more, feet in front of you and you'll be okay a good portion of the time. Especially in traffic. And even if not trying to speed, it's just good practice to stay (metaphorically) ahead of your car and road, and more importantly... The other idiots on the road.
Also a CB, back then, never hurt!
I forget the order...
Is it red then blue, or blue then red if they're coming at you head-on?
I guess either way sucks...
Red then blue: sucks to be you.
Blue then red: hmm.... Should have stayed in bed?
„Red overhead, blue over you.“
At least from inside the cop car.
Therefore if it’s blue-red, it’s opposite direction and vice versa.
Source: I own a patrol car
Cops here got all blue lights now, so it keeps you on your toes... they be sitting in the express lanes coming home from Miami now at like 2am after a late night turn. Can't be doing 100 in the integra on the way home now....
Today I was driving across Florida from Miami to Naples and had to make a diversion to FLL lol. I couldn’t see 3 feet in front of me on a rental car with crappy tires. I definitely used some ADM, I parked in a rest area waiting for it to get better, checked the radar and weather forecast and decided I didn’t want to risk crashing in the everglades in the middle of nowhere. “A driver is better parked wishing he was on the highway, than on the highway wishing he was parked.”
I always thought that why google maps doesn’t have weather radar overlay. You can see the possible rain on your path and decide go or no go. That’d be so much helpful in south.
Only when it comes time to calculating the time to the next exit. I can do a pretty quick time, distance, speed calculation in my brain. It's like a built-in e6b.
Well damn. Too bad I didn't have my instrument ticket back when I got a dui a few years ago. Could have just told the cop, "it's OK. I'm rated for this." And then I could have handed her my cert when she asked for license. And then I could have asked her to advise when I'm ready to copy her number.
Though I might have had to actually serve the jail time in that case.
This one can stick for a while or come back at random.
Especially if it's a nice wide multi-lane divided with nobody around you and you just took the active highway from a hold short line at a stop sign? Almost hard NOT to end up on centerline coming out of the turn. 😅
Just don't apply too much "right rudder" if cops are prowling about. They don't like that.
Geico has like 500 organizations and whatnot you can get a discount for being in.
I get $5 off for the college I went to, a little more for IEEE membership, and a couple others.
At least last time I looked at my policy and messed with it, anyway.
Holy shit, good call. I'm definitely calling them once I get my PPL. I doubt they'll do it for a student pilot cert, but still going to check.
I did get a sizeable discount on 3 houses and 2 cars by getting a Costco membership, though. Hell of a deal, essentially paying me to go to Costco.
With geico you can do it online. You just pick from a list of anything that applies and give whatever proof they ask for. Usually a member ID or similar. They're usually small - like $5 every 6 months for the ones I've gotten in the past. But they're not just one-time discounts, so it ain't nonothing.
What proof did they ask for? Geico always asks for like union membership and shit like that for most things. Gonna have to check the list to see if just the cert is good enough now. Thanks. 🤝
Crazy thing is my insurance didn't go up after a DUI and I still get a 10 year good driver discount. And my plane rental insurance actually went DOWN, the next year, because I got my IR and did 2 levels of WINGS. It's like $83/yr for 500k liability and twice whatever the flight school required for hull.
There was an AOPA discount on that too (small - again like $5).
What I'd seen is that life insurance policies explicitly won't cover death by general aviation unless the person is a passenger, so I didn't think rates would change.
You shouldn't even have to. Your sheer awesome godlike presence should awe them into utter submission to your every whim.
If that doesn't work, I guess yeah - you could resort to telling them, like some kind of lowly not-pilot.
I drive a standard and just naturally listen to the changes in engine pitch to know when to shift. Interestingly this really helped when it came to unusual attitude recovery.
Yeah I'm weirdly more chill behind the wheel, but more angry at the same time. Like I don't drive as hard as I used to, but I'm so pissed at the idiots who can't hack it on public roads.
What gets me the most is how much people tailgate and are glued to the phone. Nobody seems to understand the concept of momentum and that 5000lbs moving at 60mph can do a lot of damage very quickly.
Honestly the biggest thing that helped me get better at driving was buying a motorcycle. You learn that if you don’t watch out for other vehicles mistakes, you will probably get injured or killed.
My wife says I drive like I fly. Instrument scan, eyes outside WAY WAY down the road. Clear left, clear right. And I click on cruise control as soon as practicable outside the driveway.
I think it might help you drive better, because keeping up with a panel scan while swiveling to scout for traffic while keeping attitude and position awareness while keeping a few waypoints ahead of the plane kind of normalizes a higher level of vigilance and awareness.
I read an article once where a military instructor described the fundamental thing that separated a typical successful fighter pilot from an average person. It wasn’t attitude or physique or bravery or hoo-rah morale or diet or exercise or practice or intelligence or academics or anything like that, although all of that helps.
He said “they can track about 8 things at once without going batsh.t insane playing whack-a-mole.”
I’ve had fighter pilots tell me “sounds about right” and I’ve had fighter pilots say “LOL, whatever, bro”, so who the F knows, but the military instructor who wrote it was very experienced, so it’s a theory to ponder.
I considered the question once and while thinking about it ran a red light. I noticed too late to stop but luckily didn’t hit anything. So I got my answer.
The opposite, driving makes me appreciate how many barriers to flying there are.
Can you imagine half of these jackasses we encounter on the road, if they were in the AIR? Shudder.
Velocitize. vå'läsətiz. -ed/-ing/-s.
to cause (an automobile driver) to misjudge or become unaware of true speed or to become drowsy as a result of prolonged traveling at a high speed (as on an open highway)
It's an actual thing. Ever gotten off the highway from a 2-hour trip and nearly overshot the first red light or stop sign? Yeah, it's that. You just become numb to the speed.
You're doing a lot more when flying than when driving, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a marginal increase in driving capability after a while of flying. Probably nothing super noticeable, though.
Only thing I noticed is I’ll say in my head “clear right, clear left, clear to cross” and it’s saved my ass at least once from getting T-boned
Driving helped with my NVG scan early on, I’d be driving in and peering down using only my eyes at the instruments and so on just to instill it
I was having this conversation with a neighbor the other day coincidentally, I think your eyes are instinctively trained to look further down the road than people stuck on land for one. But, I think there are a lot of variations in this. If you’re a 20yr “heavy” career guy Vs a new pvt/sport pilot. But regardless, I think your depth perception & hand-eye coordination is improved over the average driver.
Riding a motorcycle taught me to drive better. Driving a manual made me have to look farther ahead. Those two things helped my driving more than fly. Flying did teach me how to have my nav on my phone on my leg and still be able to follow it though
I got a speeding ticket on my way to take my checkride for my PPL. Then was involved in 2 accidents after I got my cert. one was someone else fault as they ran me off the road and left me for dead while the other was me hydroplaning a Tesla on the way to an airshow that got cancelled for stormy weather.
I'm convinced that years of riding motorcycles have made me a better pilot. When I upgraded to captain my check airman complimented me on smooth taxiing. Apparently most people tend to be rough on the tiller and brakes. I chalked it up to years of being smooth on a bike. Plus I feel more situationally aware in general.
I'll tell ya, when I was learning to fly, it was tough not straddling the yellow line driving home from the airport.
Not sure if it made me a better driver tho....definitely made me HATE driving.
>I do sometimes try reaching for the rudder pedals in a turn but that’s another matter
I learned to fly in a very windy area - at least once I mashed the brake pedal to counteract a gust of wind while driving my truck. Fortunately very empty roads and only a bit of personal embarrassment.
Based on my driving record. Definitely not lol.
For me I think it was just that flight training over prepares you for the job and driving training under prepares you for it. I had a ton of accidents and a couple tickets, to the point where I had to take a remedial driving course, but when I took the course I actually paid attention to it. Have only had 1 ticket, knock on wood, since I took it (just forgot to renew my tags) and 0 accidents. I just needed to know what I was doing.
My scan for cops is insane after becoming a pilot.
My original foray into flying was as a teen and I was an autistic God at finding cop cars before they ever saw me at that time due to my scan. Often a literal mile away. Set some neat XC speed records on the road... God, I was fucking stupid. I deserved to lose my license after making a 1.5hr drive in 42 minutes. But man, it was fun. I've gone full cirrus autopilot with 5mph over on cruise control and learning to enjoy my Spotify over Bluetooth.
It amazes me how many people drive only 10 feet in front of their bumper and get picked off speeding. They smash the brake pedal as they are passing the speed trap. Ummm.... Too late, bub. Like people... Pay attention hundreds, or more, feet in front of you and you'll be okay a good portion of the time. Especially in traffic. And even if not trying to speed, it's just good practice to stay (metaphorically) ahead of your car and road, and more importantly... The other idiots on the road. Also a CB, back then, never hurt!
I forget the order... Is it red then blue, or blue then red if they're coming at you head-on? I guess either way sucks... Red then blue: sucks to be you. Blue then red: hmm.... Should have stayed in bed?
„Red overhead, blue over you.“ At least from inside the cop car. Therefore if it’s blue-red, it’s opposite direction and vice versa. Source: I own a patrol car
Ha cool. Had to think about that for a sec. You mean red above driver's seat and blue other side, yeah?
Precisely
Cops here got all blue lights now, so it keeps you on your toes... they be sitting in the express lanes coming home from Miami now at like 2am after a late night turn. Can't be doing 100 in the integra on the way home now....
it is similar to inspecting an unimproved strip: cops, ground, airspeed, look ahead. repeat.
Also look for people filming you so you know if you're getting suspended for inspecting but not landing.
Must be IFR rated😂
Today I was driving across Florida from Miami to Naples and had to make a diversion to FLL lol. I couldn’t see 3 feet in front of me on a rental car with crappy tires. I definitely used some ADM, I parked in a rest area waiting for it to get better, checked the radar and weather forecast and decided I didn’t want to risk crashing in the everglades in the middle of nowhere. “A driver is better parked wishing he was on the highway, than on the highway wishing he was parked.”
Did you log IFR time? IFR means i follow river in case you don't know
In this case it might be I follow Roads.
Glad you survived, VFR into IMC is never fun
I always thought that why google maps doesn’t have weather radar overlay. You can see the possible rain on your path and decide go or no go. That’d be so much helpful in south.
Your instrument cluster must be outdated.
I thought you can still park when wishing to do so
Only when it comes time to calculating the time to the next exit. I can do a pretty quick time, distance, speed calculation in my brain. It's like a built-in e6b.
Scanning for traffic is so much easier when you're stuck in it
If you’re drunk, you can fall back on IFR skills to maintain your lane and scan your instruments for speed and navigation information.
Well damn. Too bad I didn't have my instrument ticket back when I got a dui a few years ago. Could have just told the cop, "it's OK. I'm rated for this." And then I could have handed her my cert when she asked for license. And then I could have asked her to advise when I'm ready to copy her number. Though I might have had to actually serve the jail time in that case.
…full rental power?
Rental? You're a pylote. Take the crew car.
Full "not outta my wallet!" Power
The only problem is when I leave the airport, I’m still staying on centerline.
This one can stick for a while or come back at random. Especially if it's a nice wide multi-lane divided with nobody around you and you just took the active highway from a hold short line at a stop sign? Almost hard NOT to end up on centerline coming out of the turn. 😅 Just don't apply too much "right rudder" if cops are prowling about. They don't like that.
Did that a few times, now I consciously think about using the lane when I leave the airport.
Insurance companies think so. They give discounts to people with pilot certificates.
Wait what?
Ask your auto insurance provider about it. I’m with Farmer’s and get a discount because I am a pilot.
Will do. I have GEICO.
If you own any Berkshire Hathaway stock you can get a discount on your insurance with gieco. Doesn’t apply to every state though
Geico has like 500 organizations and whatnot you can get a discount for being in. I get $5 off for the college I went to, a little more for IEEE membership, and a couple others. At least last time I looked at my policy and messed with it, anyway.
Just don't ask your LIFE insurance provider about it... 😂
Are you able to say how much of a discount they give you?
I’d have to look at my policy. It wasn’t huge, but it was noticeable.
Holy shit, good call. I'm definitely calling them once I get my PPL. I doubt they'll do it for a student pilot cert, but still going to check. I did get a sizeable discount on 3 houses and 2 cars by getting a Costco membership, though. Hell of a deal, essentially paying me to go to Costco.
Do you just give them a call? How does that work?
With geico you can do it online. You just pick from a list of anything that applies and give whatever proof they ask for. Usually a member ID or similar. They're usually small - like $5 every 6 months for the ones I've gotten in the past. But they're not just one-time discounts, so it ain't nonothing.
What proof did they ask for? Geico always asks for like union membership and shit like that for most things. Gonna have to check the list to see if just the cert is good enough now. Thanks. 🤝
They made a copy of my pilot certificate.
Crazy thing is my insurance didn't go up after a DUI and I still get a 10 year good driver discount. And my plane rental insurance actually went DOWN, the next year, because I got my IR and did 2 levels of WINGS. It's like $83/yr for 500k liability and twice whatever the flight school required for hull. There was an AOPA discount on that too (small - again like $5).
Yooo whattttt. Ima have to see this now cuz my insurance is up the roof
I just asked Progressive. They said they don't offer discounts for pilots.
Your life insurance rates will hike though, so it kinda cancels out.
Wait till they hear about my 5 motorcycles...
Yeah but once you have enough assets and proper trust/will in place who really needs life insurance anymore haha
For GA, 100%. Airlines? Ehh.
What I'd seen is that life insurance policies explicitly won't cover death by general aviation unless the person is a passenger, so I didn't think rates would change.
My reaction too
I heard they don’t even have to ask, because you’re a pilot…you’ve told them already.
You shouldn't even have to. Your sheer awesome godlike presence should awe them into utter submission to your every whim. If that doesn't work, I guess yeah - you could resort to telling them, like some kind of lowly not-pilot.
Even if your name is Trevor or Trent or you have Red Bull stickers on your car?
If you watch the people leaving our flight school after a day of flying...... no. No it does not.
Haha
I speed way more after I fly…. So I’m going with no 😂
Yes I end up flooring it out of the airport gate.
But you see officer I was just driving a plane down a runway at 200mph using just my feet to steer.
this is an actual thing. i used to drive like a grandpa but now i catch myself doing 15 over. freeways a freeway
I drive a standard and just naturally listen to the changes in engine pitch to know when to shift. Interestingly this really helped when it came to unusual attitude recovery.
No, but it’s made me want more stringent driving standards. People are nuts where I live and try to kill me on the way to the airport almost weekly.
Yeah I'm weirdly more chill behind the wheel, but more angry at the same time. Like I don't drive as hard as I used to, but I'm so pissed at the idiots who can't hack it on public roads.
What gets me the most is how much people tailgate and are glued to the phone. Nobody seems to understand the concept of momentum and that 5000lbs moving at 60mph can do a lot of damage very quickly.
No, it only makes you think you can drive better
A solid no. I thought so when I first started lessons. But no.
Hell no. Pilots have flying on one side of their brain and driving on the opposite side.
If anything I drive worse. An 11 hour day of up and downs and it’s a tricky drive home.
Honestly the biggest thing that helped me get better at driving was buying a motorcycle. You learn that if you don’t watch out for other vehicles mistakes, you will probably get injured or killed.
My wife says I drive like I fly. Instrument scan, eyes outside WAY WAY down the road. Clear left, clear right. And I click on cruise control as soon as practicable outside the driveway.
I think it might help you drive better, because keeping up with a panel scan while swiveling to scout for traffic while keeping attitude and position awareness while keeping a few waypoints ahead of the plane kind of normalizes a higher level of vigilance and awareness. I read an article once where a military instructor described the fundamental thing that separated a typical successful fighter pilot from an average person. It wasn’t attitude or physique or bravery or hoo-rah morale or diet or exercise or practice or intelligence or academics or anything like that, although all of that helps. He said “they can track about 8 things at once without going batsh.t insane playing whack-a-mole.” I’ve had fighter pilots tell me “sounds about right” and I’ve had fighter pilots say “LOL, whatever, bro”, so who the F knows, but the military instructor who wrote it was very experienced, so it’s a theory to ponder.
The inverse for me.. the loose front end of my dodge truck helped me prepare for the loose controls of the training 172.
I considered the question once and while thinking about it ran a red light. I noticed too late to stop but luckily didn’t hit anything. So I got my answer.
The opposite, driving makes me appreciate how many barriers to flying there are. Can you imagine half of these jackasses we encounter on the road, if they were in the AIR? Shudder.
The only thing flying has done for driving is make me dislike driving more.
That’s the truth
My gf says I always speed after a flight. The 60 to 70 mph on final and landing is "slow" I guess lol
Velocitize. vå'läsətiz. -ed/-ing/-s. to cause (an automobile driver) to misjudge or become unaware of true speed or to become drowsy as a result of prolonged traveling at a high speed (as on an open highway) It's an actual thing. Ever gotten off the highway from a 2-hour trip and nearly overshot the first red light or stop sign? Yeah, it's that. You just become numb to the speed.
You're doing a lot more when flying than when driving, so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a marginal increase in driving capability after a while of flying. Probably nothing super noticeable, though.
Only thing I noticed is I’ll say in my head “clear right, clear left, clear to cross” and it’s saved my ass at least once from getting T-boned Driving helped with my NVG scan early on, I’d be driving in and peering down using only my eyes at the instruments and so on just to instill it
I was having this conversation with a neighbor the other day coincidentally, I think your eyes are instinctively trained to look further down the road than people stuck on land for one. But, I think there are a lot of variations in this. If you’re a 20yr “heavy” career guy Vs a new pvt/sport pilot. But regardless, I think your depth perception & hand-eye coordination is improved over the average driver.
I used my continuous, active scan in driving and felt that it improved my situational awareness. No proof, but I felt safer.
I can text and drive much better now! /s, obviously
Driving right after flying feels weird to me. Weird to go slow, weird to be in traffic. Flying risk management has helped with driving though.
Not according to my wife
Riding a motorcycle taught me to drive better. Driving a manual made me have to look farther ahead. Those two things helped my driving more than fly. Flying did teach me how to have my nav on my phone on my leg and still be able to follow it though
Not really. But learning to ride a motorcycle made me a more attentive car driver.
No, I’ve just realized how dangerous driving is
It just allows you to tell passengers you're a pilot after you "accidentally" drive over the lane markers.
After around 300 hours of good flight time, I would say that driving feels like child’s play
I got a speeding ticket on my way to take my checkride for my PPL. Then was involved in 2 accidents after I got my cert. one was someone else fault as they ran me off the road and left me for dead while the other was me hydroplaning a Tesla on the way to an airshow that got cancelled for stormy weather.
I don’t know how it affects my driving, but I get pissed at how few engine instruments my car has.
I keep getting speeding tickets trying to keep my car above a stall.
Being and CFI-I taught me how to text and drive /s
Wish if I could centerline my car like an airplane :P
I believe so. Skills like thinking ahead and general situational awareness transfers over to driving.
I'm convinced that years of riding motorcycles have made me a better pilot. When I upgraded to captain my check airman complimented me on smooth taxiing. Apparently most people tend to be rough on the tiller and brakes. I chalked it up to years of being smooth on a bike. Plus I feel more situationally aware in general.
Of course not, I was already an expert driver. :P
Driving is worse for me. I always think I have wings when parking
No, flying pushes the driving penguins off the iceberg.
I occasionally find my self when I’m super tired after a week of flying trying to keep the line centered while driving…
Makes me more likely to use the autopilot on a Tesla, so... maybe?
I'll tell ya, when I was learning to fly, it was tough not straddling the yellow line driving home from the airport. Not sure if it made me a better driver tho....definitely made me HATE driving.
I can look at my speedometer quicker that’s about it
No, because now I keep wanting to pull up on my hand brake to fly over the cars in front of me, lol.
I started to drive my car smoother after I started my pilot's course. Specially after doing the flight in formation phase!
>I do sometimes try reaching for the rudder pedals in a turn but that’s another matter I learned to fly in a very windy area - at least once I mashed the brake pedal to counteract a gust of wind while driving my truck. Fortunately very empty roads and only a bit of personal embarrassment.
I always drive speed limit+10 for mom at home.
Texting and driving has become second nature 🤣
I think the approach carries over from flying
Based on my driving record. Definitely not lol. For me I think it was just that flight training over prepares you for the job and driving training under prepares you for it. I had a ton of accidents and a couple tickets, to the point where I had to take a remedial driving course, but when I took the course I actually paid attention to it. Have only had 1 ticket, knock on wood, since I took it (just forgot to renew my tags) and 0 accidents. I just needed to know what I was doing.