Podcast Episode Summary: Pilots - Part One

Introduction

In Part One of this three-part series, Katherine chats with Marco and Nate—two regional pilots with nearly two decades of collective flight time. From what’s in their fridge (yep, we're going there) to what it’s like inside a flight simulator, this episode covers the nitty-gritty of daily pilot life with warmth, curiosity, and a dash of dry skin talk.

If you’re someone who loves digging into real-world routines, quirky human details, and niche subcultures (especially ones with uniforms and acronyms), you’ll love this one. Katherine brings her signature writerly eye to the flight deck, asking questions that hover between “How does this actually work?” and “What’s the emotional cost of flying 30,000 feet above it all?”

Welcome to the world of pilots—from personality assessments to hangar banter, and everything in between.

Here's the link to this specific podcast episode on my website. Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all other major platforms!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:49 What is in your fridge?

00:04:39 What is in your flight bags?

00:06:24 Do you guys get dry skin?

00:07:43 Is there anything else that you could spot on a pilot on their body where you're like, you're a pilot?

00:08:30 What accolades or credentials do you guys go by?

00:10:37 How did you get into cargo?

00:13:09 You'll go through ground school, and then you'll go through whatever flight portion you need to obtain the certificate, right?

00:13:45 What is it like being in a flight simulator?

00:16:01 What's a typical day for you?

00:18:03 How does it affect your sleep?

00:20:28 How do you go about saying that you're fatigued?

00:25:32 What cargo were you moving?

00:27:47 What makes a great instructor?

00:31:02 What's a personality assessment?

00:34:56 Working as a crew

00:36:44 Fixation.

00:39:23 What is the social culture of being a pilot, an instructor in an aviation scene, whether it's a hangar, whether it's an airport, whether it's just shooting the shit with other pilots, what is the culture that you guys get to share where nobody else understands the stuff that we go through?

00:42:50 Do you struggle in any way with friendships outside?

00:44:45 Your flight hours determine where you live in the country.

00:49:46 Could you guys moonlight as weathermen based on your knowledge?

00:50:25 aviationweather.gov.

00:51:15 What other resources do you guys use to either keep up on your knowledge or to inform you of new stuff that's in the field?

00:53:28 So as far as flying and getting all the credentials needed, is flying a plane in the US about the same or different as flying a plane in the UK versus flying a plane in the Uruguay versus flying a plane and does it vary state by state?

00:57:25 How fast is too fast? How slow is too slow?

01:00:40 So you said difference, that you go by FAA until there's a difference.

01:03:40 What makes [airports] so efficient?

Key Takeaways:

1. The body remembers what the job demands

Dry skin, calloused hands, and disrupted sleep—all physical evidence of the labor and limits that come with flying. Pilots learn to read each other by these markers, like a shared language carved into the body.

2. Saying “I’m fatigued” is its own form of courage

Fatigue is a constant threat to safety in aviation. Pilots are trained to recognize it and speak up, but the culture doesn’t always make that easy. Owning your limits in a profession that valorizes grit takes knowledge and trust in your crew.

3. Flight bags are biographies in disguise

Every flight bag is a curated mix of policy, survival, and personality—logbooks and lip balm, checklists and lucky charms. What pilots carry says as much about who they are as what they do. It’s logistics AND identity.

4. The classroom never closes

Even after ground school and flight simulators, the training never stops. Pilots are always preparing for what-if scenarios they hope never happen. This readiness shapes how they think, react, and relate to risk itself.

5. Pilots are quiet meteorologists

Pilots study patterns, pressure systems, and cloud behavior with a precision most people overlook. Their fluency in turbulence, visibility, and forecasting is second nature, built from thousands of hours in the air and on the ground.

Editor's Note:

As a writer, I’m always chasing the "invisible work" behind a role—what people actually carry, feel, say when no one's asking. This episode? It delivers. Pilots Marco and Nate opened up about the culture, rituals, and quiet intensity of flight life, and it reminded me how much language and rhythm shape every job, not just writing.

If you’re building a character who flies, a world that moves at 500 knots, or even just looking for ways to ask better questions—this one’s for you.

References & Links:

1. aviationweather.gov – The site mentioned by Nate and Marco for real-time weather reports and forecasts pilots rely on.

2. FAA Airplane Flying Handbook (PDF) – The actual training manual used by many student pilots.

3. Inside a Flight Simulator – YouTube – Look for a solid explainer or POV video from real training environments.

4. Part Two of this Series

5. Part Three of this Series

From 30,000 feet to the written page,

Katherine Arkady