Ep. 286 The Long Way Back: Man Phung on Persistence in Aviation

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Hey, pilot. Welcome back to Ready for Pushback. I'm Nick Fjelka. Today's interview is with my friend,

spk_0 Mon Fung. And this is a story. It has a lot of interesting twists and turns. If you are a pilot

spk_0 or a parent that is thinking about getting your kid into aviation, Mon crushed it. He got most

spk_0 of his ratings before he was 18 years old. We talk about the experience of going through flight

spk_0 school and flight training at a young age and then running out of money, going into the civilian

spk_0 world, into the regular world, having a regular job and then getting back into aviation as a grown

spk_0 adult as a second career kind of thing. And then it just we talk all sorts of really unexpected things.

spk_0 There's mishaps, there's failures, there's successes, there's victories. And it is a fun

spk_0 interesting conversation. A lot of twists and turns. And I will like the moral of this story is

spk_0 don't quit. The moral of this story is aviation is for everybody. Aviation is for you.

spk_0 Aviation is for you. If you succeed, aviation is for you. If you have a trip up, just like I'm

spk_0 having a trip up talking right now, like stick with it. Have the grace that you can give yourself

spk_0 to continue to push hard. And that I think is what this entire conversation is about. So here we go.

spk_0 Sit back, relax. Let's get ready for push back. It all started as a spark. Maybe it was the sound

spk_0 of jets racing across the sky. For the feeling of your heart racing as you watch crop duster flying

spk_0 low and slow. Even then you knew you were meant to fly. For pilots it's more than just a job. It's a

spk_0 call. The early mornings, the long hours, the relentless training, you didn't do it for the money.

spk_0 You did it for that moment. That moment when the wheels lift off and the earth falls away beneath you.

spk_0 But flying is just the beginning. The journey to your dream job takes more than just skill in the sky.

spk_0 It takes strategy on the ground and a lifetime of learning.

spk_0 Most pilots don't understand what career opportunities are available in the world of aviation.

spk_0 Learn how to go from good to great, from fight school to regional to major, and from hopeful to hired.

spk_0 Whether you're sharpening your skills, building your resume, or preparing for that big interview.

spk_0 This is where pilots come to level up. Let's get ready for push back. Here's your host and my dad, Nick Fialka.

spk_0 All right, Monfung. What is up my man? How are you?

spk_0 I'm doing good. Thanks for having me today.

spk_0 Man, I'm so excited to have you to have this conversation with you today. I think it'll be really

spk_0 interesting. Thank you for agreeing to come on the show. I want to talk about your story a little

spk_0 bit because I think that you've had a lot of experiences that,

spk_0 interesting, like your buckets of experience are a lot of things that a lot of people are going through

spk_0 at the moment. I wanted to talk to you about it. You started flying in a real early age.

spk_0 Will you talk to me about your flying and how you got into it?

spk_0 Yeah. I took my discovery flight when I was 16 in Honolulu, Hawaii. I've always a passion. Take

spk_0 a story back. I migrated to the United States when I was about before I turned seven. I fell in love

spk_0 with aviation. Flew on the 747. Set in the economy. See, fall in the sleep and over the wing and

spk_0 just watch going from Vietnam to Hawaii. I remember laying in my aunt's house. We were living

spk_0 in different couple of months in the pool and just looking up in the sky with the little metal

spk_0 eye cast plane. The flight attendant would give me because I was a kid and I would just fly in.

spk_0 I would see this airplane flying over my aunt's house coming in for the arrival. I looked up and I

spk_0 said, one day that's going to be me flying that plane. That's how I fell in love with aviation.

spk_0 So, 16. I had some money saved up. I was just hustling as a kid.

spk_0 Paid for my discovery flights and did some training. It's solo, 16. When I soloed the very first flight,

spk_0 lost all the avianist radios. I had a squawk 7600 in a pattern. Then I had the knee board green,

spk_0 ungreen, you're clear to land. I landed and it was a system 152.

spk_0 Came back and got signed off on that. It was great. Didn't get my shirt cut off because

spk_0 that was my only shirt I had for a week. Then, did my private, did my instrument back to back.

spk_0 Then got my private multi which back then was the stage, you get your instrument, your private

spk_0 multi and then you get into your commercial. But I was under 18. So commercial, you had to be 18.

spk_0 Being an inpatient kid, just start building some hours. There are a lot of cross-country,

spk_0 time-building, split flying. Where are you cross-countrying in Hawaii? I guess there's not

spk_0 you're probably on a Wahoo or you flying to the other islands. All of our flying are

spk_0 immediately over the ocean. We would do a lot of flying to Lenae Maui, Big Island,

spk_0 Kauai. I think even back then we had a special exam if you're out on the island that

spk_0 consider cross-country would be under, believe, 50 miles and 150 miles or something like that.

spk_0 Where here's commercials 300 miles that didn't apply to us because the furthest we can go

spk_0 was 216 miles. Yeah, so when you were a kid, are you a studious kind of guy,

spk_0 are you the kid that's going to sit down and do all the studying or were you kind of slack?

spk_0 How would you describe yourself then? I was very serious then. I flew a couple hours,

spk_0 hit the books, hung out near the flight school, just talked to everybody and just

spk_0 sat in the back of somebody's flying. If I could, wonder doing their cross-country and just really

spk_0 took it all in and just watch. But yeah, I hit the book probably harder than I would hit my

spk_0 my school. Probably because you really, you know, it's the with school I feel like there's no

spk_0 there's no end in sight but with flying, right? There's like, there's study and immediate reward.

spk_0 So that's what's up. Yeah, I took it very serious. I knew the end results.

spk_0 What it would look like if I achieve all those ratings and get the hours.

spk_0 So did you turn 18 and get your commercial? No, I actually ran out of money.

spk_0 You know, and we grew up poverty. So all my flight hours, I practically paid for it.

spk_0 I remember right when I before I turned 18, I had maybe seven, eight hundred hours of

spk_0 flight time and almost two hundred hours of multi. I would fly to Florida back then we had,

spk_0 you know, the duchess where you can build the multi times. And so we, I went for a month and a half

spk_0 in the summer and just knock it out flying at night up and down to close to Florida.

spk_0 I remember get to see the space shuttle launch over in the camera memories at port.

spk_0 Can it never? Yeah. Yeah. Going on on the coast of on the would be the

spk_0 what west of the coast, but because of the TFR and then you can see on the east side of the

spk_0 coast that launch and that just blew my mind, be able to see witness that at midnight.

spk_0 What year do you think that was? I would say 2003. So when I got my multi, so summer 2003,

spk_0 we'd give or take in that in that time frame. And I got to see that. And so yeah,

spk_0 that's but to answer your question, they ran out of money by 18 and then had to get a real job and

spk_0 you know, that's by that time I stopped flying. So what you got a real job and you did that job

spk_0 basically for how long? I've got into the really was sales was my career of, you know, I

spk_0 did vacuum door to door for four years. It was really good in sales. I knew how to talk to people,

spk_0 how to convince people and what what's selling made a lot of money and in 18 years was making close

spk_0 to $10,000 a month in 2004 and five. I'm like, wait a minute, you know, I can make this maybe

spk_0 flying can wait a little bit while I'm making that money and thinking, hey, I can save that money

spk_0 and go back flying, but that didn't happen. How long to take for you to get back into aviation?

spk_0 Sad to say about 20 years did not get current again till late 2022.

spk_0 Man, wild. So COVID was basically finishing up everybody. The big hiring boom had started.

spk_0 Was that what inspired you to get back into it? It did. I still have my business, but my business

spk_0 was doing so well and I was commuting back and forth to Dallas for Dallas and Austin for work.

spk_0 I just had a lot of clients and I'm, you know, remember going to the airport, flying every week,

spk_0 twice a week even to commute and I said, you know, with all this flying that I'm doing, I might

spk_0 so I'll buy a plane and go get recurrent and get my BFR and all that and I said, maybe, you know,

spk_0 if I buy my own plane, build some hours and work right it off and use that money, you know,

spk_0 to build time and possibly, hopefully, the hiring still, I didn't think the hiring, you know,

spk_0 the boom would stop and build my time back up. And that's what I did as I went out and bought a plane

spk_0 and flew for my mission. What did you buy? What kind of plane? I had a pipe remalibu.

spk_0 It's a pressurized, was cool to get up to 2.5.0 and you know, six hour trip like it was nothing

spk_0 and it felt great. Yeah, now, okay, a couple questions like people, people are a lot of people

spk_0 wonder if they should buy a plane or not buy a plane, whatever, like that's not a cheap plane.

spk_0 Did you pay cash for it? Did you finance it? Like, do you have any tips on kind of thinking about

spk_0 buying a plane? Well, for me, why I bought that because it was my mission, but yes, I paid cash

spk_0 and the company obviously was doing well and we had the depreciation bonus or we, at that time,

spk_0 I could write 100% of that off. So I took advantage of that. Yeah, it's not cheap at all.

spk_0 But to answer your question, should you buy a plane to build time? If you can get a few people

spk_0 in and do it correctly and build that time that they need to and then turn around and sell it,

spk_0 then yes, I would recommend doing it and it doesn't have to be, you know, anything of that expensive,

spk_0 it could just be a trainer that you're building times, right? And then doing your own, if you can

spk_0 do your own maintenance, I was lucky that my brother is an AMP mechanic. So he did the oil change,

spk_0 you know, some easy maintenance. You know, he was working at that time for a republic. So

spk_0 I would joke that if the plane goes down and you fix on it, it's on your, you know, that's going

spk_0 to be on your conscious. So I think I put some pressure on him, make sure that he made

spk_0 the service to my plane correctly. Smart man, smart man. When you bought the plane, did you set it

spk_0 up as an LLC or did you just have it as like you sold owner of it? I did. I had a, everything was

spk_0 risks company, nothing was tied back to me just for liability reason just because I am my own

spk_0 company. Yeah. And then I've heard a lot of people will set up as an LLC and then

spk_0 pay into the LLC for like as if they're renting it back to themselves to have a good write-off

spk_0 for for maintenance and functions like that. Did you do those kind of those kind of steps or

spk_0 you just kind of had it as its own thing and you flew it and put my hand to the other way? I would

spk_0 expense, I would essentially left pocket building right pocket for the actual expense, right?

spk_0 So my company would pay the plane, that company that owned the plane to pay for gas maintenance.

spk_0 So it was a 100% write-off for it. So yeah, I mean, there's ways, obviously I'm not a CPA.

spk_0 Definitely need to speak to them to see how that works and your mileage may vary situation kind of

spk_0 Did you spend a lot of time researching it or did you just go out and be like, that's a nice

spk_0 Malibu. Let's go. Now believe it or not, somebody told me it takes about a year and to really get,

spk_0 you know, you should wait, take about a year to do your research and I did it in nine months.

spk_0 I was going back and forth between a serious assessment of 340

spk_0 and then back to Malibu, back and forth. And I finally, yeah, about nine months

spk_0 before I put a trigger on a Malibu. But yeah, don't rush. It's, you know, it's something that you,

spk_0 it's your life and it has to fit your mission. It's always that nice big plane that

spk_0 everybody wants to own, but if it doesn't fit your mission, it's there's no point.

spk_0 Do you still own that plane?

spk_0 No, and that's by force. I actually had an accident in that plane. I was flying to Texas,

spk_0 so I had a two emergency. I had a loss in engine and this is not my brother's fault or anything.

spk_0 I think I was flying back from Austin back to Indiana and I was climbing to flight level 190

spk_0 and my engine just stopped working. So I immediately just completely silent and I'm like,

spk_0 oh, this is not good. And I looked over my pressurization and started creeping up.

spk_0 So I declared emergency and diverted to college station and was able to land.

spk_0 Uneventfully, which is, you know, nice. So we had to replace a new travel on that plane.

spk_0 That went out and that took about a week longer than it's supposed to. The local flight school

spk_0 there didn't work on Malibu. It was just assessing the 172 school. So he had to call my

spk_0 mechanic who specializes in Malibu to kind of go through it.

spk_0 So now the situation that you want to be in. So I came back the next week and on Father's Day

spk_0 did a run up. Everything was fine. It was 8.20 in the morning. Took off college station.

spk_0 Right. Start climbing. Immediately when I started climbing to around 2,000 feet, I was watching

spk_0 the oil temperature gauge and it just started slowing to creep up to where I was

spk_0 starting, okay, this is not looking good. Then the oil pressure started to drop.

spk_0 Then I declared emergency saying, hey, I need to come back. This is not looking good.

spk_0 Well, I got a vector back and it was marginal VFR. And then the engine stopped working and

spk_0 started having smoke in the cabin from the vapor and the oils just start on a hot engine. So

spk_0 in front of me was college station, but had a cloud layer above it, I could not see the airport.

spk_0 I remember maybe it was 2,200 feet was the top and the base was 1,500. I didn't want to risk it.

spk_0 And I looked to my left. I could see this big field. Somebody's back, you're essentially 30 acres.

spk_0 My instinct kicked in with the emergency training. Start running to memory item.

spk_0 And I'm doing this while I'm flying smoke coming in and I'm just doing this. Get the smoke out of the way.

spk_0 Flu right over almost clicked a tree. Immediately, I think in myself, okay, my gear is not down yet.

spk_0 I need more drag. Put flaps on, landing gear to get some drag. Because if I was going to go into a

spk_0 soft spin and in a Malibu if you're a soft spin, you have a 0% chance of survival in a low altitude.

spk_0 And that just stuck to my mind. Okay, do not stall. Smean get as much as drag.

spk_0 And it was clearly almost clipped a tree. And then once I clear the tree, I put her down and had a

spk_0 landing on a soft field, essentially, but the Malibu couldn't handle the soft field.

spk_0 Came to stop completely and damaged my plane. Luckily, no one was hurt. Got out.

spk_0 And just like, oh my god, what just happened. I survived this crash.

spk_0 In a funny joke, in a funny way, as soon as I land, I pull my insurance policy and start looking

spk_0 at it way, it might cover it. Because I'm an insurance guy, that's my business. And I'm like, wait,

spk_0 did I have the right insurance? Insurance? I did. So yeah, happy Father's Day to me with that accident.

spk_0 You were okay. Everything was good to go in your body. I was good. Went to see the chiropractor

spk_0 just to make sure and just had a whiplash soaring after a week. And I was fine after that.

spk_0 Good. What the guy say when you went into his house and knocked on the door.

spk_0 No, he drove out, had his dog. He said, I saw you coming down. Are you okay? And I'm like, yeah,

spk_0 where am I? So, you know, FAA on the phone, police, everything, I find. And they drove me to the

spk_0 airport waiting, you know, for me to jump on a commercial fly back to Indiana. And funny enough,

spk_0 the airport manager saw me at the gate and say, hey, wait, you're the guy that just,

spk_0 weren't you just here last week? Because I had an emergency last week and he was there to

spk_0 to tug my, told my plane off the runway. And I say, yes, that was me. And so, okay,

spk_0 so that was you just now. He's like, yeah. And I said, love, you know, I like you and everything.

spk_0 But I hope this is the last time I'm seeing you at this airport. See you live. He's like, I agree.

spk_0 Man. So were you ever ever able to fly that plane again? Was it all right?

spk_0 Now, total lost. You know, I have some pictures and I can send you, but yeah,

spk_0 you just left it there at that guy's yard and you just said, all right, enjoy this free plane.

spk_0 NTSB obviously came in, took that plane to the junk and then my insurance total it out.

spk_0 But the cause of that engine is the cause of that accident, NTSB determined was that the

spk_0 mechanic failed to secure the oil gasket correctly, which caused the leak oil. By the time we land,

spk_0 we had less than two quarts of oil just barely in oil was all over the the cowling.

spk_0 Man, that is wild. Believe it or not, I have had a similar experience to that in a T-34 one time,

spk_0 but that's for another time. Okay, so here you are. You don't have a plane anymore.

spk_0 But the goal is you're committed, right? You want to be aviation is the job. That's what you

spk_0 want to do. So how did you get from, well, I got no plane to, I need to get a job.

spk_0 Well, luckily I still have my business, but yes, I continue the time build in the Sesson 172.

spk_0 I went back and found a couple guys to split time. One of that person was building a little time

spk_0 and she got on to Atlas and I was still taught here today. I joked her, he had a member back there

spk_0 and when we was doing 172 flying and now you're flying a 747 while I'm still building time.

spk_0 But I was doing all that and I was working on my training and commercial simultaneously for

spk_0 my commercial single and multi in a miss of crashing the plane and all that. I was getting ready

spk_0 to do a check ride two weeks later after that accident, but obviously didn't think that was going

spk_0 to crash the plane and then going into a check ride. Yeah, that's a big, that's a big threat. Did you

spk_0 do the check ride? Did you push it, put it off? No, I did proceed with the check ride and that's,

spk_0 looking back on my story, I had a lot of pressure to finish it, an internal pressure that

spk_0 didn't need to do it. Then my first check ride in the commercial and I had,

spk_0 my very first check ride. Was that also your first check ride back in the saddle as you're

spk_0 doing? What was that experience like? It was like riding a bike, you didn't forget how to fly,

spk_0 but going back to studying, going to be in business for 20 years, being on a doubt and all that

spk_0 was different. We didn't have ACS back then, it was PTSD. It was trying to work my

spk_0 my around business and then working on my commercial ticket. It was difficult for sure, trying to

spk_0 focus multiple things. Did you reschedule it and try again? Did you take some time off? How did you

spk_0 decide what was best? As far as after the failure? Yeah. No, it was a silly

spk_0 failure on my end. I went back and retrained just for that segment.

spk_0 We were coming back to do a short field and we got clear to take off. It was supposed to be

spk_0 a left-close traffic. Controller told me to make a right-close traffic and the airport where

spk_0 I was doing it had a crossing runway. As I was going on to, he said, he cleared for the

spk_0 option for this runway as I was making a left-downwind. I saw the runway, so I'm like, holy crap,

spk_0 I'm already on a downwind. This runway is over here. I missed the base. I turned base immediately.

spk_0 As I saw that runway, I'm like, wait a minute, this is a wrong runway. When I was correcting it,

spk_0 the DPE said, hey, that's a wrong runway. Immediately, this failure. I was so upset

spk_0 in myself for rushing, not verifying the runway with the heading and all my tools.

spk_0 There was a limit-learn. I got this oriented on which runway I'm supposed to come back for.

spk_0 We went back with the instructor, just did another soft field and made sure that this is

spk_0 the right runway and went back and passed that one.

spk_0 That was which checkride was that? What's the commercial single?

spk_0 Commercial single. You're going to get all the way to ATP and did you do commercial multi-next?

spk_0 I did. Two weeks later, went back for the commercial multi, the first one, went to the oil.

spk_0 Everything fine. I had a couple of weeks bought with the system. As I went out to the airplane,

spk_0 I started the run into the checklist. Right when I bought the DSTARDI engine, the DPE

spk_0 looked at me and said, hey, stop right here. You don't have your, where's your POH at?

spk_0 And I'm like, I was back there. He's like, no, it was not back there.

spk_0 I had a thing for a moment where he was going with it. I had left the POH in his office.

spk_0 So I thought back for a second, the DPE asked me, hey, make sure you got everything for the plane.

spk_0 And I think he was hinting me that he knew I left my POH in his office.

spk_0 That's tricky. That's true. He doesn't come out. Right? So it's easy to forget.

spk_0 Yeah. And so I originally went back to the airplane. Why I took the POH out of the airplane?

spk_0 Because it was in 1965, 6.9.3.10. We didn't really have a POH to do weight balance and performance.

spk_0 So I went out to the airplane to bring it while we're doing, was doing all that. And just forgot to

spk_0 bring that and that's part of one of the things that you need to have on your airplane. Right?

spk_0 Arrow.

spk_0 So that's right.

spk_0 Yeah. So I failed that. So the second failed. And here I'm like, you know,

spk_0 get your ass together. Went back the third time to do it. Went up to do the air work,

spk_0 everything. And we're cruising along at, you know, 35, 4000 and then he failed my engine.

spk_0 And he did it in a way that he blocked all the view. So I couldn't really look at the gauge and

spk_0 I just panicked. I'm like, oh my god. You know, this guy's 240, 50 pounds. I'm thinking he's attacking me.

spk_0 And I would, um,

spk_0 left and right on the router. I start. What is that word?

spk_0 That's a rather swap. Yeah. And just there. And so I'm keeping the play on the control.

spk_0 And I'm like, okay, what's going on? You know, I did do an identify of which engines there. And so I'm

spk_0 thinking, okay, so I'm pulling the throttle back slowly. All right. Is this the right dead engine?

spk_0 And slowly when I pulled that back slowly, he's like, nope, wrong engine failed me the third time.

spk_0 So I was rattle with, with, you know, what's going on? And then didn't slow down to think,

spk_0 all right, you know, watch what my plane is doing, right? I had time and I kind of rushed through it.

spk_0 And I remember going back, you know, um, sitting at home and just really just so mad at myself and talking to my instructor.

spk_0 Like, just sign me, sign me off again. Sign me off again. He's like, you know, mom, you need to slow down.

spk_0 You've been to a lot of things, um, especially with the crash. I think you need to take something.

spk_0 I mean, I would love to take your money, but you need to slow down. So I took his advice and I stopped

spk_0 doing it flying. Commerged the multi for six months. I had already had a, you know, a one thirty fine one thirty five lined up to fly the caravan cargo.

spk_0 And so I went and did the flu continue to fly single engine just to get, you know, not think about that.

spk_0 And then in, I would say eight months later, I went back to different DP star fresh.

spk_0 I think that's a really smart of that, uh, that instructor to just say, take a break, take a break, get some space.

spk_0 There's, you're not an aspirant like, just take a breath. That's, that's really good advice. I'm glad you listen to a man.

spk_0 There's, there's so much pressure and it's all us heaping it upon ourselves, right?

spk_0 Now you know, you can do it at the first swing of the bat. You know what it takes. You know how to do it and you're ready to rock.

spk_0 And that's, that's a good place to be mentally. So you're set up for success now.

spk_0 Well, mom, thank you for coming on the show and sharing with the pilot this story. Um, I think that there's a lot the people can take out of it.

spk_0 And I'm excited for your future, man. You're gonna start flying this Falcon. You're gonna start crashing.

spk_0 All the things, all the things are coming down your road. So preparation is key and just being being tenacious. Good job, dude.

spk_0 I'll write pilots. That's a wrap on this episode and I know what you're thinking. You need to make yourself a little bit better.

spk_0 So how do you make yourself a little bit better? You tighten up your resume. So here's what I want you to do.

spk_0 Go over to my websites, SpitfireEleek.com slash podcast. And you can download my free resume template.

spk_0 It is tight, organized and it's the perfect pilot resume. It's just something I like to do for the pilot group and it is free to you.

spk_0 So go over there, spitfireleek.com slash podcast and download your free resume template.

spk_0 While you're over there, look at all the services that we offer. Lots of great interview prep, lots of great application review.

spk_0 Everything you need to be professional pilot is right there. SpitfireEleek.com slash podcast.

spk_0 Thanks and I'll see you on the next episode.

Ep. 286 The Long Way Back: Man Phung on Persistence in Aviation

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