Photo Gallery
Part One: A Flying Career
A brief pictorial of my flying career, covering some of the types of flight instructing I do and have done, as well as my career in corporate, charter, fractional and airline aviation.
Click on any image below to see a larger version, including a descriptive caption.

Learning To Fly
This is a scan of the what’s left of the shirt I was wearing during my first solo flight. In keeping with tradition, my instructor cut off my shirttail and recorded the details of the event on it. Thanks Phil, wherever you are!

Learning to Soar
This is my first takeoff (launch) in a single-seat glider…a Schweitzer 1-26. Summer of 1992, two weeks before earning my glider rating and about a month before earning my initial Flight Instructor’s Certificate.

Early Flight Instructing
Finally, I’m the other side of the scissors. The student is my good friend, Brett King, who was my 4th or 5th “first solo” but was the first student I trained from zero-time through Private Pilot. Brett returned the favor by teaching me to fly dual-line stunt-kites. We are at North Vernon, IN (OVO), one of several airports near my hometown, where I instructed independently from 1994-96.

Primary Flight Instructing
Preparing for engine start with student Julie Waswick (summer 1995). The plane is a 1966 Beech Musketeer, owner by Julie and her husband, Corwin.

Instrument Flight Instructing
Teaching an instrument lesson to Corwin Waswick (note his Foggles) during late summer of 1995. My friend and fellow student Brett is observing from the back seat. We were all flying together a lot that year.

Ground Instructing
Fall of 1995. Doing an instrument ground lesson with Corwin Waswick. He earned his instrument rating that winter. He and his wife, Julie, were such good flight students that I decided to marry Julie’s sister!

Personal Travel
My wife and I, a few months before getting married (summer 1996). We are in Gwinner, ND on the second leg of a cross-country that took us from southern Indiana to southwestern Missouri to southeastern North Dakota and back to Indiana. The plane is a 1974 Cessna Cardinal 180, owned by my friend and former student, John Wilhelmi…thanks for all the free pizza, John!

Charter / Air Ambulance Flying
On final approach to the New Orleans Lakefront airport (NEW), runway 36L. Summer 1996, when I was flying a Cessna 421 out of Lakefront for an air-ambulance company.

Tailwheel Flight Instructing
Inkster, ND airport (ND24)…really! There are two grass runways there. One is running between the wing struts and the other is parallel with the plane. This is typical of the many grass and crop-duster airports I used while teaching the tailwheel flying course at the University of North Dakota (UND). Taken from a Piper PA-18 Super Cub in the spring of 1997.

Aerobatic Flight Instructing
Is that the ground through the skylight window? Yes. Taken while teaching aerobatics in a Super Decathlon, for UND. Spring 1997.

Multi-Engine Flight Instructing
This is intentional. Also taken while instructing at UND. The plane is a Piper PA-34 Seminole and I’m teaching a multi-engine instructor (MEI) course to my good friend Alex Unterberger. Alex and I instructed together at UND and later flew and instructed together at Skyway Airlines. He ended up at United Airlines.

Active Volcano
An unexpected magnificent sight, just north of Colima, Mexico (MMIA). I took this on my first post-training trip in the Lear-55, July 1997. The captain and I saw it right after takeoff and stayed low for one circle of it before heading to Guadalajara, Mexico (MMGL).

Corporate Business Jet Flying
Taken at the Jeffersonville, IN airport (JVY) in the winter of 1997. My flying partner and I went to college together and he went on to fly for UPS Airlines. While working for this Fortune 500 company, I flew Learjet models 55, 35A, and 24D.

Regional Airline Flying
The Mighty Beechcraft 1900 and I! Taken in the winter of 1998 at the Central Wisconsin Airport (CWA). At the time, I was based at CWA flying as F/O on this machine. What great machines they are! I would eventually get about 2500 hours in them, as First Officer, then Captain and Check Airman.

Moving up to Captain
Leaving Milwaukee, WI, northwest bound. This was one of my last flights as F/O on the 1900, before upgrading to Captain. Summer 1999.

My Regional Airliner
The front office of the 1900 (D Model). The main difference in the cockpit of the D-models, from previous models, is the dual EFIS system.

Matt & Mr. Hoover (Meet Your Heros)
It was my pleasure to meet Mr. Robert A. “Bob” Hoover at Oshkosh 2001. He was a true gentleman and, undoubtedly, one of the finest pilots to have ever lived. I would recommend his autobiographies to anyone who loves aviation.

National Airline Flying
Me, beside the DC-9-30. I had just finished ground school and a stint in the cockpit procedures trainer (CPT) in June 2001. I was about to leave for simulator training. Taken outside the Midwest Express Airlines maintenance hangar at Milwaukee Int’l, Mitchell Field (MKE).

DC-9 Steam Gauges
After flying EFIS for over three years solid (except for my general aviation flying), I stepped into the 1960’s-era DC-9 cockpit! It was challenging, but enjoyable. I hand flew the plane as often as possible, mainly because I found it simpler than using the ancient autopilot! This picture was taken somewhere over the central U.S. soon after I finished DC-9 training (summer 2001). We are cruising at 35,000’ and .78 Mach (not bad for an airplane that was several years older than me at the time).

Airline Furlough #1
Taken on a layover in San Antonio, TX, (SAN) in Oct. 2001. This was my last trip before my post-9/11 furlough. The captain let me fly every leg and I didn’t turn the autopilot on once! Check out the cabin…all First-Class seating. Midwest Express was a unique airline that I loved working for.

Cirrus Flight Instructing
Immediately following my post-9/11 furlough, in late 2001, I went to work for Cirrus Design Corp. (now Cirrus Aircraft) as a Factory Instructor & Delivery Pilot. Rick Beach was the 4th new Cirrus owner I trained while working for Cirrus. We spent a week and about 35 flying hours together in Dec. 2001 (he picked up his new SR-22 a day after passing his Private Pilot checkride). Little did I know that teaching in Cirrus aircraft would play such a large role in my life & career for decades to come (and counting).

Doug and Rick
PAS customers Doug Woods (N322TW) and Rick Kummerow (N122KM) outside Rick’s hangar at Waukesha, WI (UES) during the 2003 summer fly-in breakfast and aircraft display. Doug, his wife Carrie, and Rick were my first customers when I started PAS in the late summer of 2002.

Boeing 737
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to earn a Type-Rating in the 737 during airline furlough #1. This photo was taken after the checkride on Dec. 22, 2003. To my right, is my sim partner, Melanie Saunders (who was furloughed from United Airlines, at the time). We remained friends and she eventually ended up at Virgin America, then Alaska Airlines with me.

Matt & Merle
Merle Hodel (retired Southwest Airlines pilot) was the Designated Examiner for my 737 checkride. Behind us, the 737-300 simulator we used is “in flight.”

Franctional Business Jet Flying
In April of 2004, while still furloughed from Midwest Express and still actively training Cirrus clients, I took a job with CitationShares (an up and coming Fractional Bizjet operation at the time). I earned my CE-500 Type-Rating, which allows me to fly nearly a dozen versions of the Cessna Citation business jet. This model is the Citation Bravo, seen after landing at Eagle Co. (Vail Valley), CO (EGE) in Aug. 2004. We were the first crew to fly it after delivery from Cessna and pealed the protective plastic off the screens that morning.

Telluride
Approaching to land on Runway 9 at Telluride, Colorado (TEX), while flying a Citation Bravo. This airport’s high elevation (over 9000’ above sea level) and even higher surrounding mountains make it a one-way airport (meaning all landings arrive from the west and all departures takeoff to the west). Notice the pronounced slope of the runway (from both ends). All this serves to illustrate why the Colorado mountain airports can be some of the most challenging in the world.

Making Family Time
My wife Darcy, my daughter Norah, and I pose with a Citation Bravo at Milwaukee Int’l (MKE) on one of my last trips flying these airplanes for CitationShares (a job I did concurrently with PAS for a little over a year). Although I was a Captain on this aircraft by this point (April 2005), I left the job soon after to accept my recall from furlough at Midwest Express (re-named Midwest Airlines by that point). Good thing I did too, as CitationShares (later CitationAir) became a victim of the Great Recession, began to shrink quickly, and closed its doors completely in 2014.

Recalled: National Airline Flying (Round 2)
By the time I was recalled to my job at Midwest, they had retired all the DC-9’s and replaced them with Boeing 717’s. This is the airplane I was assigned and trained to fly. This photo was taken before one of the many simulator sessions, sometime in June of 2005, at the Alteon Simulator facility in Atlanta, GA.

Flying the 717
Five of the Midwest Airlines Boeing 717’s (and a lone MD-80, upper left) in the “alley” of the Midwest Ramp at Milwaukee International Airport (MKE). Taken in the summer of 2005 during one of my first trips after recall from 3.5 years on furlough.