Charles is a flight instructor and ATP rated corporate pilot. After a 20 year career as a professional musician playing hotspots all over our great nation, including Dick’s Bar in Winner, SD and the Ooh- La-La club in San Antonio, TX, he learned to fly and began instructing. Charles eventually became the chief CFI at Wright Flyers Aviation where he managed the activities of up to 35 cheerful flight instructors, wrote experimental part 141 syllabi before it was fashionable, and birthed an accelerated training program for international aviators.
A DPE from 1999 to 2014, he flew his Long-EZ all over the vast San Antonio district to conduct practical tests for Private Pilot through ATP. He published a training and testing informational website, Flight Training Coalition, for over a decade and earned from his constituents the unwanted moniker “Two-Ride Charlie”, or sometimes just, “That old guy with the hat”. Charles has had several articles published by AOPA Flight Training Magazine and continues to lobby for common sense, attitude based flying concepts and techniques.
With over 10,000 hours of flight time logged in addition to over 2400 practical tests given, he is currently on sabbatical from teaching. Charles lives in San Antonio, TX where he helps his wife Madeleine care for other peoples dogs, writes about flying and flight training, composes and records music, and serves as chief pilot for a busy part 91 flight department.
