Flying the San Diego Coastline at 15 Knots | Chancy Arnold

Pilot to Pilot

Justin Siems

Aviation, Leisure, Flying, Pilot

4.8 • 997 Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever wonder what it's like to fly slower than freeway traffic — on purpose? Chancy Arnold is a banner tow pilot flying a Super Cub up and down the San Diego beaches, and in this episode he breaks down everything about the job. From the dive-and-hook pickup technique to four-hour flights strapped into a tiny seat with no breaks, Chancy gives an honest look at one of aviation's most unique time-building gigs. We talk about what it's really like flying at 50 knots indicated (and 15 knots ground speed in a headwind), how he built connections on the FBO ramp that got him the job, the territory system between banner towing companies, and flying over Padres games, golf tournaments, and gender reveals. Chancy also shares why he skipped the CFI route, why IFR was actually his favorite phase of training, and how he's stacking hours toward the airlines. Plus — look for Chancy in Volume 2 of the Pilot to Pilot Magazine with a full spread on building your time through banner towing.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Episode 353 of the Pilot the Pilot Podcast takes off now.
0:09.4	The Pilot to Pilot Podcast is brought to you by Ground School from the Finer Points,
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0:17.0	Visit LearntheFinerpoints.com, backslash Justin Justin to save 10% off your first year.
0:21.6	Fly with Garmin avionics, then grab your mobile device and make the Garmin Pilot app your cockpit companion.
0:27.6	Get advanced functions you'll use before, during, and after every flight, including updating your aircraft's databases and logging engine data, plan fly log with Garmin pilot all pilots need
0:41.4	the big weather picture and i use serious xm aviation to check the fronts airmets segments turbulence
0:47.2	pyreps and more while i'm pre-flighting and en route all to give my passengers and me the most
0:51.9	comfortable flight possible and now with the latest offer
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1:00.0	portable receiver to bring SiriusXM and ADSB weather plus traffic into your cockpit.
1:05.8	Hey, it's Justin. Quick question for you. Is your portfolio built to handle market swings?
1:10.4	Because the thing is, volatility doesn't care about your retirement date. All worst planning experts are hosting an exclusive webinar breaking down the strategies that are working right now from smarter diversification and downside protection to tax smart moves and liquidity planning. And it's designed for investors like you. If you've built significant
1:28.3	wealth and want to stay ahead of the market shifts, this is time well spent. Check it out at
1:32.7	allworth airline.com slash Justin. My name is Chancey Arnold. I'm a Bannerthill pilot here in San Diego.
1:38.9	And I love what I do. Aviation, what is going on and welcome back to the pilot the pilot podcast.
1:45.0	My name is Justin Seams and I am your host. Today's episode is with Chancy Arnold. Chancey is living out in San Diego. He is a second career as a pilot. He was in law enforcement. He was in law enforcement. He said, hey, let's be a pilot. That is awesome. went through his training and now he is currently a banner towing pilot, which is so cool. We always talk about so many different ways you build your time, so many different ways you can do anything. And I don't really think I've talked to the banner towing pilot before. So it's great to hear the insight, how we got the job, what the job's like, how slow they actually fly, how they're actually flying 15 knots,
2:17.9	which is just insane. I mean, I guess an hour is an hour, but I don't know if I want my hours to be
2:23.0	15 knots long. Crazy. Aviation, thank you so much for listening. As you'll hear at the end of this,
2:29.1	he's actually going to be on for the volume two of the pilot the pilot magazine maybe coffee table book because apparently
2:36.0	it is too nice to magazine based on the reviews I've gotten um I'm doing a massive spread of how I
2:41.6	built this how you built your time um and Chancy comes on to talk about how he built his time
	...

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