The Smelly Cockpit Problem

I have had CFIs that do not take the professional route and just say,

Hey, man, you stink. I can't fly with you anymore. I can't fly today.

And they say it like that and that rude.

And all I want to think about, Mr. rude CFI,

that maybe you don't even think you're rude just because you're so irritated at the situation.

You just might have ruined somebody's entire

love of flying that they may have had since they were a child.

Hey, usually it takes one bad experience.

Welcome to the Aviation Mentors podcast. The podcast that takes your dreams of flight and turns it into reality.

Sponsored by Strasse Financial, Finance and her flight training.

Four pilots, buy pilots. I'm Brandon Martini, a commercial pilot and flight instructor.

And I'm Carson Vaska, I'm a private pilot.

Whether you're a seasoned pilot or beginner with dreams of flight.

Aviation Mentors is your source for expert insights, industry trends, and inspiring stories.

So fasten your seat belts and prepare for this incredible journey through the skies.

And stay connected with us in social media for exclusive content.

And visit our website at www.aviationmentors.com and let us be your co-pilot on this adventure.

Welcome back, everybody.

To another awesome and of course amazing episode of the Aviation Mentors podcast.

Thank you so much for joining us.

What would it be like if I didn't say that Carson?

Would it get us in a good enough mood?

No, it would just be off.

It would be off.

Like welcome to the Aviation Mentors podcast.

I don't think that gives us right ring.

Right everybody?

No.

No.

We talked about changing our intro and outro.

I was a guy that just fell off.

I feel it didn't feel wrong.

It's been two years, three years.

I know.

Well, we've changed our, like all the sound effects and the pre-recorded stuff.

Yeah, marked as a whole bunch of stuff before we even get on.

And I say welcome back.

What?

Yeah, it happens.

I'm glad to forgot about your little sound panel.

Oh, I know.

I know we do have our sound panel.

Carson was messing with it today.

Speaking of that, I bet you I need to use it today.

I wish it was a good one.

Oh, there's got to be a good one for our topic today.

I'll find it.

I'll find it.

What are we talking about?

We are talking about CFI hygiene.

And it doesn't matter.

It doesn't just mean the CFI being smelly.

It could also mean the student being smelly.

And I have had some disease before.

I have had students come into the flage school.

And they smelled like a farm.

And we weren't around farms.

I don't know where the smell would have come from.

We weren't at Chino Airport.

We were at Riverside.

Yeah.

And I have no idea why it smelled like like farm animals

and everything that the farm animals produce.

It was awful.

And I felt so bad for the CFI.

So I usually put them with the smelly as CFI.

And I felt bad for everything in the plane after.

You like my explosion?

Yeah, I was good.

Yeah, best of come up with so far.

Yeah.

But you know what you can't do if you have a smelly, smelly student?

You can't do it.

Uh, you can't do the flight with the windows open a lot more.

I can tell you that.

I love flying with the windows open.

It's one of my favorites.

I love taking off and landing with them too.

Yeah, it just adds a little more lift.

Just a little bit more.

Click a little bit doing.

I don't think so, but it might.

All right, cool.

So have you ever had a student or, I mean, you're a CFI,

but have you ever had somebody who you had to go fly with that was smelly?

Absolutely.

I did.

I split time with the dude that smelled like a farm.

Did you?

Uh, it was awful.

I split one hour with him.

What was his first name?

I can't.

I can't say.

Okay, what did it start with?

The me.

Yeah.

Who's an Edwin?

No, I think it was Eric.

Ethan.

Oh, there's a whole bunch of names to start with ease.

I bet you was one of the three.

I think I know which one it was.

I think it was one of those three names of problems.

Oh, yeah, it was him.

Yeah, it was him.

It was also young.

Wasn't he like 18 or 17 or something?

Did they really make a lot of sense?

I mean, I understand if you're like a teenager,

because he was a teenager.

It was like 18.

I understand teenagers smell like they go run around.

I know, but you think I will tell you having a teenage boy.

I walk into his room and it smells like teenage boy

with all of his little friends that run around there.

It just smells different in his room than it just mind.

I mean, I take like at least a shower every morning,

if not a shower in the morning and at night.

That's why I do.

Probably more often than more often than not.

Yeah, it's on theater at Cologne.

You got to smell nice.

The whole bit.

And you definitely have to smell nice.

We're going to be sharing a little cockpit with somebody.

And what bothers my mind is that student that you,

that you said you flew with, his parents smelled too.

That means like hygiene was not important to them in their family.

And I will actually say that if hygiene isn't important to you

when you're going in flying an airplane,

what is important to you?

I mean, there's some basics in mind.

Tips in car yourself.

I get to care for a plane.

You want to be a smelly person in an airplane?

I mean,

imagine getting, I've been on a big jet before

and I've sat next to passengers that freaking stink.

They're nasty.

They smell terrible.

You must take a shower before you go fly a plane in a plane.

Before you share any enclosed space with me.

Any enclosed space.

But especially a plane,

you know, we're talking about it and assessing the 172 cockpit

is roughly 42 inches wide.

So you're sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone

for an hour or more.

And unlike an office, there's no escaping that.

By the way, I was really impressed by your knowledge of how

wide it 172 cockpit was and when I look down on

I saw our show notes.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we got to make sure that's written.

That's a very precise measurement.

It was. I was.

No, but I, which version of the Sesson 172 is exactly 42 inches wide?

You know, Brandon, I don't think it matters.

They're all about 42 inches wide.

Got it.

Okay, you did say roughly.

I'll give you that one.

Sometimes you're sitting more than shoulder to shoulder.

Sometimes you're sitting shoulder over shoulder like this.

And you're going like this.

You know, like if we're like hook and arms and fronking in the field,

we do when we play golf.

That's what Maddie is.

I'm just like, you guys just fronking in the field.

You know, that's kind of what we're doing with clubs.

It's like, I've watched you guys golf.

You guys just all drive over to whoever's balls right there.

Then you go crowd round.

Then it's heck of a teller to go on and like you guys go and put.

And you guys give you to their high fives and hugs and

and Brandon has some good news on that.

I do.

I'm really excited.

I've been practicing golf for, I don't know.

Probably really, really seriously for a year.

Maybe not so seriously for two years.

And I finally got my first birdie.

I was so excited on part four.

Most people got it on video and we got it on video.

Thank you Nathan.

Most people do their first birdie on like a part three.

And I was really stoked that I've gotten so close on every round.

We've had what passed like four months.

Yeah, and he keeps calling it engines.

So I know.

And this day I was like, I'm not going to do this.

I don't even care.

It's just and a Scotty looked at me and was like,

hey, Brandon, is this your birdie shot?

I was like, I don't tell anybody.

And it was a far birdie shot.

It was like 10 feet.

It wasn't.

That was maybe further than 10.

It might have been like 14, 15 feet.

So I was really excited about getting that birdie.

But that has nothing to do with smelly, smelly people.

Oh, we just get sidetracked.

We do get sidetracked.

But I did get my first birdie.

So I'm pretty stoked.

So if anybody else is on is a golfer,

you know how special that was.

I know I've got my first par a long time ago,

and I finally got my first birdie.

Now I'm getting more pars.

You know that I got zero pars on Friday.

I looked at it.

All of them were bogies.

Oh, we all sucked on Friday.

That was very good.

Except for one birdie.

Speaking of golf,

am I golfing at aerosol?

Yes, you are.

Are you golfing at aerosol?

I'm golfing at aerosol.

Are there any spots open at aerosol?

There's a whole bunch of golf spots open at aerosol.

Unfortunately, we don't have as many people

wanting to do that event as I expected.

But we still have like six weeks

before aerosol or five weeks before aerosol.

So I think we'll fill it up.

The show the show is coming together really well.

We've got quite a few attendees.

A lot more than we did registered.

I know it's prior.

I know we're not given as many freebies

because it was packed beyond the leaf last year.

It was so I'm hoping we'll see everybody there this year.

Reminder, it is May 20 through 22nd.

I finally got it right.

I think calling it the day after.

Holy add a year to repair that one.

I know.

I think it's because last year was the other day.

Toy first through 22nd.

Yeah, yeah.

We're not saying that out loud though.

Beep.

Carson just got beeped.

You said the wrong day.

Okay, back to our discussion on smelly people.

Smelly people.

Smelly people.

But yeah, I mean, just in people need to have some some basic respect.

And what do you do?

Like this not an easy conversation to have.

If you have a student or you have a flight instructor that smells bad.

It's not an easy conversation to have with anybody.

You bring up to anyone.

No.

What if you're on a big plane and you have to tell somebody

tell your flight attendant by the way this guy smells really, really bad.

What are they going to do at 35,000 feet in the sky?

The general rule is you don't point something out to someone

unless they can fix it like five minutes.

Like don't point out someone's acne.

But if they have a huge white head that's like blowing up,

you can be like, hey, it's okay.

So it's kind of ground.

But you know, you don't say, hey, your face is ugly.

That's not, that's not something you could just bring up.

So if they can't, I bring it up to you all the time.

I know, but you're different.

But if someone's callers messed up, you can bring that up.

Yeah, you can't.

That's easy.

Just like you go fix it.

But when someone's got a deep, deep rooted issue,

why do you address that?

Well, I'll tell you this first, Carson.

If I ever walk into a room and I don't smell good,

please tell me immediately because I will literally leave and go get the odor in.

I know you keep it in your car for weeks.

I keep the odor.

I actually keep the odor in my desk.

I keep the odor in my car.

I keep the odor in my bag for the gym.

And I keep the odor in my house.

All the places just in case you need it.

You're starting to get the old man smell.

The mung beans?

No, I have not done any old man smell.

I do.

I mean, I take, I take hygiene a little, maybe,

maybe there's no such thing as too seriously for hygiene.

But I take hygiene very seriously.

I think you need to be clean.

I actually have hand sanitizer.

I've had hand sanitizer in my car before it was cool in COVID times.

Like literally for 20 years, I had it in my car.

And pump, pump, pump.

For as cool before it was cool.

Back to this, though, I mean, if somebody smells,

you can't really tell them if you're in like a,

if you're in a big airplane,

but if you're in a small cockpit,

you probably need to deal with it the first time.

And then on the second time,

because the first time, okay, maybe they,

they came from the gym and they were running late and

although they shouldn't take a shower at the gym like I always do,

uh, maybe they're running late or something and they had to get there.

And maybe they just ran out of the other and maybe they're feeling all

self-conscious about it anyways.

And it's a one-time thing.

If it's a one-time thing,

okay, suck it up, buttercup.

Gotta just deal with it.

It's a persistent issue.

If I was a CFI,

I would not want to be the bad guy to address that.

I would want someone on the school level to address

like the manager, like the flight school manager.

I would say, yeah,

I would say the ask the flight school manager to talk to him.

But how, how, how, how should they address it?

I would bring somebody into my office,

as a corner of a mess.

You're right in my door outside of my number.

No, I would give them the respect even though they actually smell.

And I would probably tell them something along the lines of,

hey, I just want to give you a heads up.

I know it's a little bit embarrassing now in this conversation

that I've had some complaints about, about hygiene.

And I just want to make sure that you,

you take care of yourself before you,

you come into the, the flight school.

I know you might have to go to the gym,

or you might be doing something right before.

But just please make sure that, that you put on some extra

to the order before you come in.

It's just, it's bothering a few people.

And I don't want to call them out.

I just want to, to let you know,

that way you can, you can solve it.

Because we'd love having you as a student here.

And, and you're fantastic.

And, and all these other things.

And it really will make that student feel better.

So if you notice, you bring,

you, I do the compliment sandwich, which it works out really, really well.

If you do the compliment sandwich, you start off with,

oh, hey, how's it going?

You give them the horrible news and really gentle way,

but you make sure that you're really direct about it.

And then you solve the problem for them at that same exact time.

You don't just come at them with a problem.

You come at them with a solution.

And with assumptions that it's not,

not their fault.

Like, you come at them with assumptions like,

oh, they just didn't realize it.

Because they just had Indian food right before.

I love Indian food.

There's possibilities that that happened.

And then you have to finish it off with being very, very,

complimentary.

Because otherwise you're going to tell them this,

and they're never coming back to the school.

Then they go smell up someone else's plane?

No.

Oh, sorry.

No, no, not as the owner of an manager.

You know what time it is, Carson?

Time's a brand.

It's time to talk about one of our favorite companies.

Which company would that be?

Aviation Mentors is excited to be sponsored by

the one and only,

Stratus Financial dedicated to supporting the next generation

of future aviators.

You know, Stratus Financial really understands the financial challenges

that students face in pursuing their aviation dreams.

That's why they offer student loans specifically tailored

to aspiring pilots.

With competitive rates and flexible repayment plans,

Stratus Financial helps take your aviation education to new heights.

So go visit their website today at www.stratus.finance.

Just to be clear, that is not.com, it's.finance.

And mark on your journey towards the sky full of possibilities.

Carson's time to get back to what we do best.

The show.

The show.

Now, if you're a CFI, you need to take that same exact way as a professional person.

I have had CFIs that do not take the professional route and just say,

Hey, man, you stink.

I can't fly with you anymore.

I can't fly today.

And they say it like that in the rude.

And all I want to think about Mr.

rude CFI that maybe you don't even think you're rude just because you're so irritated

the situation.

You just might have ruined somebody's entire love of flying that they may have had since

they were a child.

Hey, usually it takes one bad experience.

I mean, and that would be a really bad experience.

As much as we all hate smelly people, me being one of the biggest haters of smelly people,

you need to really, really, really be gentle with people, especially in aviation.

They are very, very opened up to you, especially when you're with a CF,

if you're a brand new student and you get in an airplane with somebody you don't know,

or you barely know three or four hours in, you literally have been trusting this person

with their with your life, with their life.

Every time you get into that airplane,

when you're further along, you've been trusting with your life longer,

longer, as well as open up.

You guys talking in the cockpit.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, especially when you start getting across countries and

yeah, there's, there's a little bit of downtime.

You're just kind of talking, oh, yeah, you turn into friends, usually, you barely do.

But it's, it's a distraction, I think overall, right?

You don't want your CFI or vice versa, your student to be distracted by

smell, a look, if you're not put together, that shakes confidence, especially if you're not

put together and someone, someone brand new is coming to fly with you for the first time.

Oh, as a, as a flight instructor, you need to, you need to be put together.

I don't subscribe to this thing where you get to wear the epilots and all that other stuff.

But, but you should be put together.

I mean, wear, wear slacks or, or nice jeans and make sure you have shoes on,

make sure, and I used to be the flip-flop flyer, but I own the company I could do whatever I wanted

on. Now my feet get too cold. But you need to be, we're in a collared shirt if some sort.

I mean, we talked about the guy, let's see if I was wearing pajamas.

Oh my god, I always like, I mean, that guy's team it.

We should revisit that. That guy, that guy crashed one of my airplanes,

wearing pajamas to school off. That guy was terrible.

I wonder if he flies for anyone right now. Okay, with podcast matches, we could not find it.

I really tried to look and apparently there's a lot of people with that guy's name

along the US. And I tried looking up state of California.

And we would have had a click like 50 people without me remembering his middle name or looking it up.

So I don't know. But if he's flying still, that scares me.

Crash, crash my favorite plane.

I know he did. I forgot to put the gear down as a flight instructor.

I should have let him go at that point. And then,

If you didn't let him go after that.

No, I gave him another chance.

That's great. Well, I take that back.

I gave him another chance. I did let him go after that.

I gave him another chance on the pajama thing.

After I told him not to wear pajamas and they came in wearing pajamas.

And then he ended up crashing the arrow and I should have fired him with pajamas.

I fired him like, I gave him a week leave.

And then he came back for a few days and then I thought about it.

I was like, I have to fire this guy. What does that say?

No way. Yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, just, but I had to also have like the evidence on why I need to fire him.

I'm sure it would jack up your rates.

Oh, yeah. Rates one out.

Should I burn insurance later?

Yeah, we we aren't talking about insurance later.

You have to say that. That was that was my lead up.

That was my gentle today.

Today we're not today. We're not.

We should talk about if it is a male versus female dynamic.

How do you feel that might might might cause issues, Carson?

I don't think it would unless it was a a female CFI or female student.

Because I think a female CFI to a male student who smells.

Girls, girls got better noses.

I don't know. I have dead nose in the world.

Okay, bloodhounds. So not everyone could be you.

I think just in general, you don't want to be my name in your phone now.

Bloodhound.

For a lot of reasons.

No, but I think there could just be medical reasons,

you know, conditions or medication.

And there are some medications out there that generally just make someone smell or people have

a genuine just there. I have a just like a disposition to to not smelling grade.

I know my dog has a disposition to not smelling great.

And I have to get that time around your dog that damn dog cleaned every week right now

with special shampoo that cost $70 for shampoo.

Yeah, yeah, I don't even want to go around me.

I like petting him all the time and then he smells.

I'm like, oh, my hand smells.

No, I can't pet him.

I know it is. That's why it's clean now once a week.

What's a week once a week?

That's a lot of money left.

I know. I know.

I'm going to start cleaning him every other week after he's done with his treatment.

You like the solution?

He came to dip him.

No, that doesn't work.

I would like that though.

I think that would work.

Yeah.

But what about when someone smells not just in general,

but like a specific powder?

Like, what if they come in smelling like marijuana?

Oh, well, that's another.

If they come in smelling like marijuana, that is a,

it's kind of a serious issue.

I've actually had this issue with people that worked at my front desk before several people.

And I would have to tell them, hey,

when you work the front desk, I really don't care what you do on your free time.

I absolutely hate the smell of marijuana.

I don't like it.

It smells like skunk.

I mean, it doesn't even smell like skunk to me.

It's just like, I don't know.

Like when I was in high school, maybe I like the smell of it every once in a while,

right out of high school.

And now I hate it.

It just bugs me so much.

It bugs me as much as cigarette smell.

And that's also another thing.

Somebody could walk in smelling like an ashtray.

And you're going to have to have a conversation like,

hey, it's bothering me.

Now, if they smell like marijuana,

that's a big issue.

Like, you're not allowed to smoke weed.

As a pilot, as a pilot.

What if there's come in those passenger there if they're doing a demo flight?

I would, I would have a lot longer convert.

If they're coming in for a demo flight as a passenger or something,

I mean, not really passenger.

I would have a long conversation before

and make sure they're not high because you're not legally allowed to go fly them if they're high.

If they are high, you have to cancel the demo flight and tell them the reason.

And then the second thing is, if they're not high and they get,

and maybe there's their car smells, I would have the conversation at the end and say,

hey, FYI, if a doesn't allow that, I don't know if you were just in your friend's car

that happened to smell like a lot of weed or whatever it might be,

but you cannot smell travels.

You know, imagine they get in your cockpit because you determine that they're not high

for in whatever way.

Yeah.

Then you're ramp checked.

Who's that thing going to look at?

They're not going to care about your passenger, not just like,

they're going to look at you.

That's true.

And that's going to be an issue for you.

I didn't think about that part.

You know, you're probably right.

I would probably say, if they smell anything like any sort of drug, don't let them in.

Say no way.

Don't let them reschedule.

For a time, they don't smell like that.

They're not under influence.

That's guaranteed.

And I think that's a pretty easy conversation.

It's not the smelly thing.

It's like, hey, your habits outside of this are going to impact.

There's a lot of other regulations that I have to follow.

Yeah.

And I don't want to get in trouble.

It's always nice where you can glance at them on regulations.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's way easier that way.

Yeah.

So I have those conversations early.

But if somebody smells like cigarette smoke, I would, I think it's disgusting.

I think I think that the smelly we use way worse.

It is way worse.

And it lingers and all that other stuff.

Now, if somebody smells like a cigar, I'm going to be like, come with a cocktail.

Oh, classy.

Yeah, it's classy.

Yeah.

I got my hanger after.

It's got a cigar after.

For my four cigars a year that I have.

But Christmas, the birthday.

No, not even.

I don't use smoke.

It's just randomly.

You're just randomly helping.

Yeah, normally with my friend Steve.

He's like, uh, we're at hot runs and just, oh, let's go have a cigar.

Sure.

That's good to me.

Probably the smell can just go away and wash off.

No, it doesn't go away that easily.

No, I mean, you have to wash it.

You have to shower.

I mean, I think that smelly we just permeates.

Exactly.

Well, I think we've talked enough today about smells.

Uh, I'm wondering if you actually enjoyed this, uh, this episode.

If you did, please like comment, share all the things, um, below.

Don't say anything.

No, if you didn't, please tell us how much you hated it.

Oh, just not the comment.

No, I wanted the comment section.

I want to know if, like, I want to know if you have ever experienced

somebody in the cockpit that smelled absolutely atrocious.

I also want to know.

Yeah.

I want to know if you smelled somebody sitting next to you

on a Boeing 737 that smelled absolutely horrendous.

Leave it in the comment section below.

Oh, I can't even imagine.

Smelling people.

I have the reason why I like to sit at first class, Carson.

I had this lady.

She was like, he was like 450 pounds.

And uh, it was a frontier flight.

The only time I were flown frontier.

Instant next right to you.

So right next to me.

And then she decided after she buckled in that

that was the time to start taking off her big winter coat.

Hit me in the face with it.

And she pulled out a foot long tuna sandwich

from Subway in the airport.

Which why why why would sell that at the airport?

First of all, that's awful.

And my eyes are watered.

Think about it.

It smells to the sandwich.

And she opened it before we took off.

So my smell was still perfectly fine.

You have a sound effect for that?

Yeah.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

That's the what?

Oh, it's awful.

So, you know, I think I think the closing line should really just be.

This can happen to anyone, anywhere, any kind of blame.

Good.

Oh my goodness, lord.

Don't let you be the one happening.

Terrible.

I forgot.

I forgot about the sample.

How extensive it is.

Are you serious?

It's it's gotten better.

You know, we need some new ones, Mark.

Add them over to us, please.

So I look up some awesome ones that are like new sound clips from social media.

So this makes sure if you're clearly labeled super random,

you can find them.

Yes.

Really quick.

Really quick.

All right.

Well, thank you everyone for listening to the smelliest episode we've ever recorded today.

This was a lot of fun talking about this.

I hope you have as much fun listening as we did talking.

Don't forget, I mentioned it earlier in episode.

Aero Summit is coming May 22nd, 2026 at the JW Marriott Turnberry in a Ventura, Florida.

I am so excited to see you there.

It is coming very soon.

We are going to have panelists.

We're going to have awesome people for you to see.

We have, of course, the one and only golf tournament.

And you're going to be able to network extensively.

I know that Navi's got a track for flight instructors.

We've got things for new and upcoming pilots.

So you can learn more about the industry and hopefully connect with some airlines and maybe

get a job in the very near future.

So I'm hoping you as a pilot as a future airline pilot or, of course,

our main audience as a flight school owner or manager will be there at Aero Summit,

2026.

Again, May 20th through 22nd,

Adventura, Florida at the Marriott Turnberry.

We're hoping to see you there.

If you'd like to reach out to either one of us,

you can reach us on our emails, brandedaviors.com,

Carsonat or for producer market is producer at.

Don't forget to hit like, follow, subscribe, share,

all the things you're supposed to do on social media.

It is a huge part of growing our show, the social media community.

And of course, helping other pilots find us.

So thank you so much for being with us today.

We really, really appreciate it.

Thank you, everyone.

As we wrap up for the day, remember we're here to guide you

and your aviation journey.

Fly safe, and then go to our ad.

See ya.