Taildraggers and $50 Fill-Ups, With Ethan O’Rourke

By John Zimmerman
Jul 15, 2025
0 Comments

Pilot's Discretion Podcast, episode 108

Learning to fly is all about the challenge for YouTube creator Ethan O’Rourke. That meant training in a J-3 Cub with no electrical system and now traveling the country in an Aeronca Chief. Ethan explains the joy of low and slow flights, shares his approach to making memorable aviation films, and describes what it was like to fly over the North Atlantic in a WWII bomber. In the Ready to Copy segment, you’ll learn tips for hand-propping airplanes, what it was like to fly a MiG-15, and how to land on a frozen lake.

Listen online:

Listen on your favorite app:

Quotes:

Why he learned to fly: “The main reason I wanted to do it is, I needed the challenge.”
Learning in a Cub: “A Cub is about as cheap fun as you can get. You’re going nowhere fast.”
Old school advice for new pilots: “It’s always more right rudder… that and keep your head outside the cockpit.”
The joy of a long cross-country in a vintage airplane: “I like the Chief because you actually can appreciate looking outside and enjoying stuff.”
Saving money by flying an older airplane: “every fill-up I have is under 50 bucks.”
Using social media as a new pilot: “I would argue that most of my friends in aviation came because of connections on through social media.”
A tip for student pilots: “when you work with multiple instructors, you become way more well-rounded.”
The key to making a great video: “audio drives the film… you can make something look cinematic with an iPhone, but really it's how you're using your audio.”
Fears about AI videos: “What I worry about is it portraying aviation in a negative light and showing stuff that either didn't happen or isn't true.”
Where aviation and filmmaking intersect: “the number one thing that becoming a pilot gives you that helped me with my film business was attention to detail.”
Riding in an A-26 to Europe: “being up at 11,000 feet over Greenland, where you're looking down and it's just rigid ice mountains. And like if something happened, there's no way we're hiking out of this. So it was very humbling.”
Flying a MiG-15: “Easiest plane I've ever landed… it's because the Russians designed the plane to fight. They didn't want the pilot to be thinking at all about flying the airplane.”