Podcast Episode Transcript
Aaron Henriques: Hello everyone. And welcome to the first episode of the British pilot podcast. I'm Aaron Henriques from London in the UK. And this episode is just a brief intro to introduce myself, say who I am and how this podcast has come about now. I didn't really know what to call it. And so I'm British. It's going to mostly be about flying sometimes about business and a few other things, but you know, the mate, the name made sense to me, but it's not, it's not just for British pilots or enthusiastic it's for, you know, everyone because the aviation community is so international.
[00:00:39] And luckily for me anyway, you know, nearly everyone speaks the same language as me in aviation. So it's something definitely that's. And you know, relevant to everyone out there. So I'm looking forward to having lots of fellow pilots and student pilots from all over the world. And that would include myself of course.
[00:00:59] And share those, obviously help share their experiences too. So a little about me, I'm 33 years old, right? Living on my own in Romford, in a house at the moment, but only for the next few weeks, cause I've just sold it. I was a police officer for over 10 years. I currently own two businesses, two very small businesses.
[00:01:22] I've got a little cat called Phoenix. You know, I'll, I'll mention the cat in a bit, but and I've been flying since about 2001 when I took my first lesson in Gloucester airport was I think it was flying school. And it was, you know, for, for out the years. From my younger years, I joined the air cadets and had cadet scholarships, you know navigation, scholarships, guiding scholarship, various other things that I did for out that, and eventually gained my pilot's license or private pilot's license in 2008.
[00:01:53] And you know what, with 2019 now, November, 2019, when this has been recorded and Low hours still and hardly ever used it. You know, I'm still just under 90 hours and yeah, it's hardly ever been used. So why this podcast really, I mean, I've just decided to sort of turn my life upside down a bit. And I think a lot of people are looking at me thinking clear my family, thinking.
[00:02:22] A bit crazy. But you know, because if you look from the outside in, you know, I've got a house, you know, I've got, you know, a businesses, I've got money that's being made, and I've got a lot of time on my hands as well to go with it and going back a bit in 2017, I was still a Sergeant on a police emergency response team.
[00:02:42] And I've been in various roles over the decade before that. And in 2018, I then became fully focused on my business. I actually resigned from the metropolitan police in November, 2017. And when I started, you know, focusing on the business, I got quite a bit press one, various awards, and I was even invited to attend down street for, for a meeting about small businesses.
[00:03:09] And now in 2019, I've actually decided to fight. You know a childhood dream of doing my ATPL's to become a commercial pilot. And, you know, there's such a long journey ahead with so many uncertainties now, you know, it's things like the weather, the next thing I'm going to have to do is my class for medical.
[00:03:28] And that could cut this podcast really short on its own because there's a lots of yeses in things aren't going to have to be able to justify to the. To, to the doctor and hopefully fingers crossed touch wood. Everything will be okay. And then there's exams, you know I've not studied, I've not had to study like there since 2006, you know, we're 2019, it's a long time.
[00:03:52] From what I understand, those exams are very hard and you know, that that's something that's sort of a bit of a concern, you know, can I get back in. Am I going to be able to keep up with, you know, the young blood that's really dominant in aviation? There's sort of people in their very early twenties, even younger than that sometimes.
[00:04:10] And the training and the cost of it all, you know? I didn't come from money at all far, far, far from it. Everything I have is because I've, I've had to work for it and built it myself. And yeah, it can be a bit of a. We have a cliche thing, but it is just what it is. You know, there are lots of young people and I don't regret them at all, who get the opportunity very young to do that.
[00:04:35] One of my old friends, he did exactly that same thing. You know, he, his parents managed to find the 70,000 pounds for him, for his course. This is well over a decade ago. And, you know, as one, what I understand, he went on to fly with BA a very young age. Then there's the problem of, can you find a job at the end after all that training and the cost of it all?
[00:05:01] All the sacrifices one has to make, you know, can you actually get a job at the end because there is no guarantee at all now to sort of help me go down this path. You know, I had to do quite a bit of restructuring, a few things and you know, one of the things that I've done and actually I decided. Do this before I even fought about doing commercial pilots, like.
[00:05:26] And that's selling my house now, initially I decided to sell my house because the second business that I started shortly after leaving the place it didn't work out as planned, you know, had a lot of issues with the supply. We've ended up having to take them to court. We won the case, but it's taken 18 months to get there.
[00:05:42] And, you know, lo and behold, they still haven't paid even then. And that's something that's still ongoing at the minute, but I had enough of that business and I just thought, well, you're not going to sell the house. I'm going to buy some houses up north. Maybe something like that, and then go and do a bit of traveling, go and see a bit of the world.
[00:05:56] I'm going to also have to get rid of my cat, unfortunately. I'm going to have to adopt my cat out to some friends that I have who have kindly offered to take the cat. And that, that was quite hard because you actually, you know, the little fairy animal you do actually get quite attached to. The city thing, but and then there's also about the restructuring of the businesses.
[00:06:16] So, you know, I I've really worked over a number of years for the first one I've had, even while I was in the police. I had it as a side business. That one has, was already sort of set up in a way where it will run itself. Without me needing to do much with it. And it's continued like that even since I've left.
[00:06:37] So that, that, one's not a problem. The other business that I set up afterwards, that's something I've had to do a lot of restructuring in to make sure that the services is providing our services, that don't require me, but can, that can be done by other members of staff. Another, another partner.
[00:06:56] So really why, why have I decided to do this podcast? And I've decided to do this podcast because I was looking around for a podcast myself. You know, there's, you know, you've got aviation forums, like P prune. I don't even know if that's how you say it, but you know, it's one that I've known for for many years.
[00:07:16] There's a handful of blogs, you know, there's. There's YouTube. Actually, there's a lot on YouTube, you know, there's, you know, like mentor. His YouTube channel is really good. It tells you a lot of useful information. He's got a little app as well. Which is great, but I didn't find a podcast for myself that was in any way useful about the perfect, you know, the, the journey from.
[00:07:37] Pretty much, you know, normal human being, not saying pilots, aren't normal human beings, but you know, from not being a professional pilot all the way through to hopefully becoming one myself and, you know, managing the businesses on the side and events like you know, pilot job events that I attended, I attended one recently.
[00:07:55] He fro I've been invited to another one with British airways. The coming up in the next couple of weeks, I'll probably talk more about that. A useful resources equipment I use the flights that I go on much more, really, and for people who are interested in aviation doing flying training from, you know, it could be PPO level, which is where I'm at right up to becoming a professional pilot.
[00:08:16] And beyond, you know, people may go into instruction who knows? I may do that one. And also one key thing is you see a lot of things online about older pilots. Now, most people, you out with 30 freight, you're not old, but having spoken to many flying instructor over the years had this been 10 years ago, I would have been old.
[00:08:39] There there's such a demand for pilots now that people, my age, it's quite normal for them to, you know, to be able to get into, into jobs. But that may not have been the case a decade. From what I've been told and you know, certainly 10 years on from now, what I didn't want to be in a position where I'm going to be looking back thinking, I wish I'd done that when I had the opportunity and right now I've got the opportunity.
[00:09:04] So that's why I want to sort of share my experiences with. Other people, and it is only my own personal opinions and my own personal experiences. I'm not an expert in this field. You know, I can only tell you what I believe to be true. And, you know, if people have different opinions and whatever on that, I'm happy to hear them.
[00:09:24] You know, you just pop me an email or come on the podcast yourself and we can write whatever wrongs I may say. But it's going to be raw. You know, it's going to be hard. The editors. I'm recording this on my phone. I'll probably use my apple watch now. And then if I don't have my phone with me and there's going to be some ums and the odd snap, or, you know, swear word that comes out and you just have to deal with that guys and girls, of course.
[00:09:47] Now I'll try to record in the moment as much as possible. Yeah, so, you know, after events and stuff, I'll try and get it recorded. I'm sorry, it's as fresh in my mind as possible. So that you're getting really the honest sort of what I've experienced and not some brushed up things to make it look more glamorous.
[00:10:04] And I'd love to get to know, you know, some of you on the podcast in the future, you know, if people want to listen and you've got your own experiences because everyone's training experience is different. There's so many paths you can take. Then, you know, let me know what you want to talk about and we can get on a call.
[00:10:21] You know, go through that. It's not a problem. So this is really short one, stay tuned for episodes coming up soon about why I've decided that now is the right time to do my professional pilot training. Why not a year? Why not in five years time, but right now and how I'm financing that training. That's a big topic for a lot of people.
[00:10:41] How can they finance their training? Because becoming a professional pilot is still very much again for the rich, if you do not have access to money you know, you see a lot of 1920 year olds coming in because their parents have been fortunate enough to be able to pay a hundred grand or. A hundred thousand pounds or more for their training, you know, for a lot of people like me, when I was, you know, 18, 19 seeing my friend back then it was only 70,000 pounds.
[00:11:12] I say only it's quite a lot of money. People like me didn't have access to money like that. Back then, it was one of those careers that it wasn't ever going to be possible for me. But now it is. And I'm going to tell you about. You know, the journey I've taken to be able to finance the training. Revalidating my licenses, my license has lapsed, so I'm going to have to revalidate it.
[00:11:36] It's only, you know, an hour in the aircraft, but that's another thing to keep on top of you gotta keep on top of your hours and managing my businesses and you know, more coming soon. There's various other things I just recently found out about. An issue with the exams, you know, the difference because of Brexit actually, you know, potential issue over Brexit.
[00:11:55] So there's two different types of exams you may want to take. And I'm not going to talk much about that in a moment, I'm doing a bit of research to find out what the pros and cons are really of doing either or the other. So that's it for today. I'll record another one shortly and get that out to you guys.
[00:12:12] So, if you want to get in touch with me, you can you can follow me on Instagram. That's AaronHenray . It's not my name, but people can't spell my name or you can visit my website, aaronhenriques.com.
