This month, I want to highlight some of the newest contributing writers joining the T &T roster in the last year: Elliott Cox, Matthew McDaniel, Lance Phillips and Brian Sagi. All active pilots, the group collectively brings to the table advanced knowledge across several areas, specifically aircraft maintenance, training, safety and sales. Below you will find expanded bios and backgrounds for our new authors. Welcome to the team!
Elliott Cox
elliott@thewritingflyer.com
Elliott Cox is an A&P, IA, and Commercial-Multi Instrument-rated pilot. He got his start in aviation as an F-16 avionics tech in the US Air Force before taking a contract job in Holland working on the Dutch Air Force’s F-16s. Once Elliott returned to the US, he worked as an avionics/maintenance tech at the Cessna/Citation Service Center in Greensboro, NC. He’s currently the Director of Maintenance and type-rated pilot for a corporate flight department operating a Dassault Falcon 900LX. He lives near Charlotte, NC, with his wife and four kids.
Matthew McDaniel
matt@progaviation.com
Matthew McDaniel is a Master & Gold Seal CFII, ATP, MEI, AGI, & IGI and Platinum CSIP. In 32 years of flying, he has logged over 20,500 hours total and nearly 5,800 hours of instruction given. As the owner of Progressive Aviation Services, LLC (progaviation.com) he’s specialized in Technically Advanced Aircraft and Glass Cockpit instruction since 2001. Matthew is also a Boeing 737-Series Captain for an international airline, holds eight turbine aircraft type ratings, and has flown 123 aircraft types (and counting). He was raised and learned to fly in southern Indiana but has called the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area home for the past 22 years. There, he lives with his wife and their two teenagers.
Lance Phillips
lance@phillipsaeroservices.com
Lance Phillips is an aviation professional, writer, pilot and photographer. In addition to managing aircraft and flight operations, he has held management and executive positions for FlightSafety International, Hawker Beechcraft, Textron Aviation, Mooney Aircraft and Lancair. He is now executive director for the Pinnacle Air Network and operates Phillips Aero Services, an aviation consulting services provider. Lance was born in Dallas, Texas and currently lives there. He is type-rated in the Gulfstream G100 and flew the Beechjet as a corporate pilot. But nowadays, he’d rather stay in the low knots than mach numbers.
Brian Sagi
bsagi@cerian.com
Brian Sagi is an airline transport pilot and certified flight instructor. He has flown military, general aviation, business and transport category aircraft in test flights, ferry flights, business flights, instructional flights and personal flights. Brian instructs turbine and piston transition and recurrent training, upset recovery training, and aerobatics at Enhanced Flight Instruction (eflightinstruction.com) in San Diego and throughout the world. He holds three engineering degrees, a business degree, and an airframe and powerplant mechanic certificate with inspection authorization. Brian has owned various piston and turbine aircraft and is passionate about aviation and aviation safety.
And, of course, a sincere shout out to our esteemed and longstanding contributors David Miller, Dianne White, Kevin Dingman, Rich Pickett, Joe Casey, Grant Boyd, Kevin Ware, Thomas Turner, Stan Dunn and Dale Smith. Thank you for sharing your real-life insights and experiences (the good and the bad) and evident passion regarding the GA industry and aircraft ownership.
In 2023, readers can expect to continue seeing articles from this team covering a diverse range of ownership topics, along with content from our ongoing “Pilot Confessions” and “Owner’s Corner” series. Stay tuned for January’s issue where I will unveil a couple of new series in the works.
As always, should you have a story idea, feedback or comments, please feel free to email me at the address below. From all of us at T &T, Merry Christmas and
Happy New Year!
