Taking Off Podcast – Aviation Life
Dan Millican, Christy Wong, and Baylee Ward talk all about aviation—from discussing air disasters and plane crashes to the latest flying techniques and training. All to help the listener be better pilots and better people.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 30 minutes
- Episodes
- 75
- Years Active
- 2023 - 2025
#74 Nothing the Pilots Could Do
Dan and Christy discuss the crash of Air Midwest 5481 that took 21 lives on January 8, 2003 at Charlotte International Airport. And now another 1900D has crashed in South Sudan just a few weeks ago.
#73 Christy Changes Jobs?
Dan and Christy talk about new career opportunities for her as an airline pilot, and also what the lifestyle is like working flying the big jets.
#72 Talking Behind the Scenes of In The Hangar
Dan and Christy pull the veil back on what it’s like to film the studio talk show “In The Hangar” and recall their favorite moments so far. Season 9 to record on March 7-8 2025.
#71 Mike and Mark Patey – Origin Story
: From the Archive, Dan and Christy, in the early months of Covid were able to meet Mike and Mark Patey for the first time and talk to them about how they got started.
#70 Will FAA Medical Changes Impact You?
FAA is implementing a couple new changes to the airman medical certificate, including different procedures for testing color blindness and classification of medicals that are deferred to the FAA for …
#69 VFR Flight Plans
Dan and Christy talk about VFR Flight Plans and why they’re hardly used for today’s General Aviation pilot in the US.
#68 How Being a Pilot Impacts Daily Life
Merry Christmas from the TakingOff Team! Bryan Turn of JustPlaneSilly joins Dan and Christy to talk about how becoming a pilot has changed no pilot things in everyday life.
#67 Christy Can’t Fly
Dan and Christy talk updates in their lives, including what took Christy off flight status for a month and how you can teach an old dog new tricks as Dan learns something new and challenging in aviat…
#66 Clemente
Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals is announced as the 3034 Roberto Clemente Award Winner. We go back to 1972 and examine the plane crash that took the life of MLB Great Roberto Clemente. The R…
#65 Did You Know THIS Person Is A Pilot
Dan and Christy talk about the list of celebrity pilots, beyond the very commonly known ones, there are quite a few you might be surprised to learn are pilots. How many did you know? And yes, we le…
#64 These Pilots Died UPSIDE DOWN
From the In The Hangar archives, Dan and Christy interview DPE Joe Casey about the physiology of Spatial Disorientation and how easy it is for a person to get upside down and never realize it. The c…
#63 Safe to Drive Than Fly?
Dan and Christy sort through the data to determine if it is indeed safer to fly versus drive. To come to the correct conclusion, you must separate commercial airline travel from General Aviation. T…
#62 Garmin vs Everyone Else
Garmin or Aspen/Genesys? Dan and Christy talk about whats new, including upgrades to avionics in both of their planes and Dan’s upcoming helicopter training.
#61 Tribe STOLE His Plane
William LeBaron recounts his story of landing on an airstrip owned by a Tribe in Arizona.
LONG: Dan talks with William LeBaron about his experience landing at a private airtrip on a Reservation in…
#60 The Most AMAZING Plane Crash Survival Story
Dan Bass, a single pilot on a small plane, passed out because of carbon monoxide poisoning while flying. He awoke crashed in a snowy field. His story is riveting. Dan and Christy talked to him fir…
#59 Why Did This ATR Crash?
With the recent Brazil crash of an ATR-72, Dan and Christy look back to 1994 and discuss the American Eagle Flight 4184 that crashed near Chicago on Halloween. The plane had been put into a hold in i…
#58 Joey Johnson DPE
Is the DPE shortage getting worse? Designated Pilot Examiner and Major Airliner Line Check Airman Joey Johnson joins Dan @TakingOffDan and Christy @PilotChristy for a talk about life as a DPE and as …
#57 YouTuber’s CURIOUS Path To Airlines
Dan and Christy talk with Bryan Turn @JustPlaneSilly about his leaving the IT field and in his middle-age, making a career shift to airlines. But what is his path? What are his struggles? Is the P…
#56 Airventure Tips and WIN TICKETS
Dan @TakingOffDan and Christy @PilotChristy talk about EAA Airventure 2024 of what to see and what to do AND they have a pair of weeklong passes to give away. Just leave a comment below answering wh…
#55 EAA Airventure Tips
From the archive, one of the very first episodes of In The Hangar, Christy hosts some OshKosh veterans about their best advice for attending EAA Airventure whether you’re a first-timer or an experien…