In this episode of Oddball Pilot Radio, we pick up our conversation with Jim “JD” Dale, who has made a 30-year career of flying, restoring, and maintaining warbirds.

We caught up with JD in a phone conversation after the Reno Air Races. In this second of a two-part episode (here’s part one), we talk JD about:

• Planes other than warbirds … as in several historical planes … that JD owns
• Documented proof from John Glenn that he never flew one of JD’s airplanes … what’s that all about?
• Opening doors: How antique/nostalgic airplanes start conversations that lead to opportunity
• Why a Cessna 120 often gets preferential treatment over a Lear jet
• Exactly how many airplanes does someone need to own? And why that many?
• His experience of buying Canada’s last T-33’s before they were retired
• Why JD feels that owning airplanes can be a legitimate financial investment
• How the math works to make money owning an airplane
• How nostalgic airplanes create networking and job opportunities
• The story of how barnstorming in a Tigercat can get you in the door at a place like FedEx
• Air racing: how he got involved in some wild, very well-known race planes
• The Pond racer, and the cutting-edge technology it brought to air racing
• His insights about the ingenuity behind some famous race planes at Reno
• How race planes continuously evolve … like moving a wing 9 inches or bolting 130 pounds to the propeller to fix CG
• How maintenance rather than pilot skills got him the opportunities to fly so many Warbirds
• How to get into flying at the races if you don’t have a mega-dollar checkbook … and the metrics/perspective that becomes important when you can’t compete against the mega-buck competitor
• How his skills make him an aviation financial advisor
• What makes the Warbird restoration market go round … it’s not always cash
• How big is JD’s “bank”
• The benefits in his oddball pilot career … the people you associate with and keepers of history, to start
• His career path from chief pilot at the Palm Springs Air Museum to Lewis Air Legends
• His father’s admission about the measures of success
• JD’s parting advice … how to get where you want in the career you want

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