Podcast: The Unconventional Gulfstream Pilot Inspiring Others To Become Part 91 Pilots

Thomas Remo, better known as “Gear Down” to his friends and followers, has found a new calling: inspiring the next generation of pilots by showing them the world of possibilities that come with pursuing a career as a Part 91 private jet pilot.

As someone who manages and flies Gulfstreams on A-list music tours, Remo provides his audience with backstage passes both inside and outside the airport environment, proving an airline is not the only route to living out one’s aviation dreams.

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Rush Transcript

Matt Orloff:

Hello and welcome to the BCA Podcast. I'm Matt Orloff, Associate Editor of Business Aviation at Aviation Week, and I'm here with Thomas Remo, otherwise known as Gear Down. And we're here to discuss his story of how he got to where he is. And if you don't know, Thomas has quite an interesting and very inspiring story to get a bunch of people into aviation. I know a lot of people when they're in the cockpit with somebody new for the first time, a common question is, well, how did you get here? And Thomas's story is quite unconventional and entertaining. So Thomas, thank you so much for being here.

Thomas Remo:

Yeah, I'm super glad you were able to make it up and spend a little bit of time with me. It's pretty crazy how we got into this. Essentially, I started flying back in 2012. I bought a little Piper Cherokee. I bought it on eBay, $21,500. Bought it on eBay, terrified because I didn't see it, I had no idea what I was doing, first airplane ever. And the background to that is I own a music studio. I've owned a music studio here in Orange County for the last 12 years now. And I had automated my music studio to the point where I can run it basically absentee.

So I've always wanted to learn how to fly. So I bought this little Cherokee, started learning how to fly. Basically, the way it kind of penciled out is, so now I own this music studio and I have all these clients that fly private all the time. And now, even though I have this little Piper Cherokee at the airport, I have all these friends have jets and charter companies and I'm like, wow, I can put one and two together. I have friends that need to charter. I have friends with charter companies. Let me make you call you and I'll make a little bit of money in the middle. So,  the next thing you know, this thing just starts multiplying and growing, and I'm brokering flights all over the place for all these musicians. And I have actor friends and stuff like that. I'm brokering stuff and I'm making money. I'm like, this is crazy.

Matt Orloff:

It almost sounds like an accident.

Thomas Remo:

Yeah, it was not intentional by any means.

Matt Orloff:

But just from the sheer passion of learning how to fly yourself, naturally, it kind of turned into something a lot larger for you?

Thomas Remo:

Yeah, as time went on again, as I said, I was kind of an absentee owner of my studio, which I still own. I wound up going to a A&P school because I had nothing but time and I had this airplane and the FARs say, as a normal person without an A&P, there's very limited stuff you can do to your plane. Very mechanically inclined. I've owned an auto business before and so I decided to go to the local college for A&P school to get my A&P certificate.

Matt Orloff:

Interesting. I got to tell you of all the parts of learning how to fly, for me, the mechanical stuff was my biggest roadblock. So I don't understand how you have the capacity to own a music studio, broker flights and have the brain to be a mechanical guy as well. So that's pretty amazing. So anyway...

Thomas Remo:

So I'm going to A&P school mostly because I wanted to learn how the engine worked on my airplane. Not so much the fact, piston slamming back and forth, but there's these things called magnetos, I'm sure what they are. And as a guy that just, my brand new first airplane, I mean all I've ever owned is cars with carburetors and distributors and stuff. But what is this magic that's a magneto? I don't understand it.

Matt Orloff:

I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Thomas Remo:

Me too. Okay, this is 12 years later for me. So I go to A&P school and I wind up having a really great relationship with the college, and I'm not your typical student there. Most of these guys are trying to go to Delta, get jobs and go work for a union or whatever. And I'm just a guy with an airplane trying to figure out how the magnetos work. And so I wound up having a really good relationship with the admin at the college, and next thing you know, they have a flight training program there and they were having difficulties with their provider.

And one day we were out for lunch and they basically told me, hey, you should open a flight school. Have you ever thought about opening a flight school? And I was like, no, it's never even crossed my mind. I'm a private instrument pilot, I'm not a CFI, I know nothing about this. They're like, well, if you can figure out how to get a 141 school and if you can figure out our RFP process, we're going to open bids in about nine months and you might get the contract.

Matt Orloff:

And what caused you to be interested in actually pursuing with what seems like a pretty crazy idea?

Thomas Remo:

The money involved with it. It's a public school here, it's a public college, so the funding's insane. So this can be a cash cow. So I went from absolutely never having any experience with a flight school to full-blown part 141 certified flight school, that I started from the ground up in six months.

Matt Orloff:

That's amazing. And now that I think about it really does make sense. If you have the university funneling you business, it's a no-brainer, right? Because the flight school industry is really competitive and it's really tough.

Thomas Remo:

So something that was very unique. So I wound up getting the contract with the college. So they cut ties with their previous provider. I got the new contract and part of my deal with the college is, I said, I will never accept any students off the street. My flight school only exists to service you and that's it, nobody else. So hands-on a 100%, everybody will get, your students will get a 100% of all of our attention. And they loved it.

Matt Orloff:

That's brilliant. Because if you do it the other way, the way that most flight schools do it's a tough business. I see it at Van Nuys. Flight schools are coming and going all the time.

Thomas Remo:

I had a very sweet deal with them also because the college here, they owned all their own aircraft. I didn't have to buy any planes. So I had my plane at this point, I had a twin Comanche. So I had my Cherokee, a twin Comanche, and then I had four or five airplanes that the college owned, and that was it. It was extremely lucrative. I stuck out the contract for about two years, bolted off, and somehow or another, slid into a Gulfstream. It sounds crazy.

Matt Orloff:

So let's jump to that part.

Thomas Remo:

So when I started the flight school, it was a very crazy time in aviation. It was impossible to find a CFI. I was paying CFI's 60, 65, 70 bucks an hour. It was nuts. And this is like 2015. At that time, CFIs were making 20 to 25 bucks an hour. I was literally paying triple to get them. I wanted the best for the college because I didn't want... I just wanted to give the college the most experienced. So I wound up hiring, who's now one of my best friends, a guy, he's an aviation attorney, practicing in the day, but he's also CFI. So he was moonlighting as a CFI. So I hired him to be my chief CFI.

Well, a friend of his, he lives down in Laguna, so pretty affluent area. His friend owned a couple of Gulfstreams that were doing contract flights for the government, for the State Department, Department of Defense and Department of Justice.

And right after I sold the flight school, my friend who was also flying Gulfstreams. So now he's an aviation attorney flying Gulfstreams and CFIng for me when he's home. So I sold the flight school and he calls me and he goes, "Hey, do you want to come fly Gulfstreams?" I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm just multi instrument private." And he's like, "Well, figure it out."

At this time though, I was right on the brink of 1500 hours. I've now owned my own airplane for almost a decade, flying all over the West Coast for my own business. And so I fast track, I do an accelerated single engine commercial, accelerated multi commercial ATP CTP and then the full G4 type rating. I did it all in two months.

Matt Orloff:

Unreal.

Thomas Remo:

Yeah. It was like my eyes were crossed at the end of it. It was nuts.

Matt Orloff:

Did you ever sleep?

Thomas Remo:

Very minimally. It was crazy. But once I passed that checkride, right, next thing you know, now I'm zipping in Gulfstreams all over the world. I've been to, I've flown a Gulfstream to almost 60 countries now. And so that's how I got into the Gulfstream world.

Matt Orloff:

And it goes to show you, you don't need to do things the normal way. Thomas here is not a CFI. The way he got into this game really seems to be all through who he knew and the network. And there's many different ways to get to the same destination ultimately, or in this case, a much cooler destination. But I think a lot of people think they have to do things a certain way. I need that 1500 hours, I need to go to flight school. There is a script to this story here and it does work, but it isn't necessarily for everybody.

Thomas Remo:

Absolutely. And I'll further on that a little bit by saying that, even if you don't have the 1500 hours, at that operation I was flying for when we were contracting for the government, sometimes there would have right seaters that had 600 hours, 700 hours. And again, the reason they were in it was because somehow or another, they knew the guy that owned the planes and he pushed on the insurance, said, "Hey, we're going to let this guy in, let's send him to type school and he's going to come fly." And so I've been in Africa, flying with people in the right seat that have had 600 hours, 700 hours, and we're in a Gulfstream in Africa.

Matt Orloff:

A Gulfstream in Africa with an SIC with 6, 700 hours.

Thomas Remo:

Yeah, well, no, no, no. This person will have a full PIC type. At that time we were sending them to school and they're coming out with a full PIC type, but they're only able to act as a second command on the airplane. But they're building multi turbine time, in a heavy jet with worldwide operations.

Matt Orloff:

It seems almost unheard of. But nonetheless, it does exist, and that's what's crazy. And in today's day and age, as you know, pilot shortage, not everything needs to be done the same exact way that it's been done for a long time. In fact, I'd argue that the system in which it has been done for a long time is a bit broken. But this is just another fun way to make things happen for yourself and a way to appeal to a different audience who may have never even considered flying before.

Thomas Remo:

Yeah, absolutely. There's so much opportunity out there. And that's one of the big reasons, one of the big things behind my YouTube is kind of showing people that you don't have to go the cookie cutter way that we've been doing it for the last 40 or 50 years in this country. There's a lot of options out there. It's crazy. So as we moved into COVID, another opportunity popped up for me, which again, this is kind of a who you know type thing. I'm really good friends with Floyd Mayweather's pilots, right? I'm friends with all of them over there. And one of the current owners, that I own, and I manage his aircraft and I fly for him, they had just bought a G4 and they flew it and he didn't get along with the pilots that came with the plane. And for whatever reason, these guys would butt heads. I think the pilots were maybe a little bit more old school, a little bit from that previous generation.

And so they called Floyd, they called Floyd, "Hey, we're stuck in Miami. We just bought this plane five days ago and our pilots walked off the plane. They're mad at us. What do we do?" And Floyd says, "Here, let me call my guys." He calls his pilots and they're all busy. So they reach out to me, "Hey, can you go help move a Gulfstream?" And I was like, yeah. I had no idea who it was. So I go flying across the country. Turns out I get there, I show up in Opa-lacka and it's Post Malone's manager, Dre London and the artist, Tyga. And they're like, "Yo, are you the pilot?" I'm covered in tattoos. I show up. I don't wear uniforms when I fly. And so I show up and they're like, "Yo, are you the pilot?" I said, "I can go home." They're like, "No, no, no. Please stay."

And so the next thing you know, I flew them back to LA and by the time they're getting off the plane, they're up in the cockpit talking to me and stuff. By the time we landed in LA they're like, "Hey, we just bought this airplane. We don't know what to do. Can you manage it for us? Can you help us? Can you be our pilot and this and that?" And I said, "Yeah." I said, "Let's do a few more flights. Let's see how we all mesh together and figure out how to squeeze you guys in with what I'm already doing. Let's do that." And the rest is history. So through that came Post Malone, Scott Disick, Leonardo DiCaprio. It's insane.

Matt Orloff:

Amazing. I didn't realize you had those guys as well. Well, if you want to check out all of this stuff, Thomas here has just launched a YouTube channel relatively recently, and I highly recommend everybody go check it out if you want to see this lifestyle, more on how he flies, how he got into this. And I promise you won't regret it. It's Gear Down. In fact, he's known as Gear or just Gear Down, not Thomas. So I'm a little formal here, but yeah, go ahead and check out Thomas on YouTube at Gear Down. And also-

Thomas Remo:

My aircraft management company is called Trident Aircraft Management. We're based out of Florida. I'm here in California right now. I've got homes on both coasts. I go back and forth. But yeah, if anybody needs help with an aircraft out there, feel free to reach out to Trident Aircraft Management.

Matt Orloff:

Well, you heard that from the source, and I'd be interested in maybe hearing about your thoughts on the market out there at some point in the future. But that's all the time we've got for today. Don't miss the next episode by subscribing to us in your podcast app of Choice. And one last request. If you're listening to the BCA podcast in Apple Podcast and want to support this podcast, please leave us a star rating or write a review. Thanks again. Bye for now. We'll see you next time.