I have some college, no degree and I didn't come from anything crazy so basic...
you know, you can do it because as long as you just persevere and just don't let anybody tell you
“no one, you just keep working at it. Nothing can stop doing that.”
Daniel McBride is an aviation maintenance expert entrepreneur in the owner of North Texas aeronautics. He helps aircraft owners and operators maximize safety, reliability, and performance through expert maintenance, inspections, and technical excellence. He did eight years in a Navy and then I did six years in that Texas Army National Guard and when I got out all of a sudden I have a wife and two kids and then I had to figure everything out on my own. I had so many different
jobs and then that's when I realized it couldn't really find happiness and anything that was doing but what I was happy doing was aviation so I found my way back to aviation and now I'm gonna look forward to going in the work that we've been. What would be your like number one key to success for anybody out there that's listening? If you want success, it spans the globe, like a super high school internet Elvis. Today Apple is going to reinvents the globe.
It's our home hotel, our weird. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Welcome back everybody to another episode of the living your legacy podcast. I'm your host Jason Tyler and today I am joined by someone who shares a name with a particular actor, Mr. Danny McBride. Yeah, Daniel McBride. Daniel McBride. Everyone asks if I'm related to the Danny McBride.
“You must get that pretty often. I do but I go along with it so. Just run with it.”
Yeah, I just run with it. As with most things in life, just just run with it. Absolutely. So we're about to go into filming your episode of Operation CEO. What would you say is like the
key takeaway that you want people to get from your story? Basically, I try to tell people,
you know, I have some college, no degree, and I didn't come from anything crazy. So basically, if I can do it, you can do it because as long as you just persevere and just don't let anybody tell you knowing you just keep working at it, nothing can stop you in life. As long as you just run with it. Yeah, just run with it. Now, you know, for Operation CEO, that's our show for our veterans. Can you tell me a little bit about your time with the military and just kind of, you know,
this is one thing that I see a lot with our guys for Operation CEO is a lot of them talked to me about their transition back into the civilian world. So tell me a little bit about that. Well, so I did eight years in a Navy, and then I did six years in a Texas Army National Guard. You know, in the military, everything is so structured. You really don't have, you don't really have to think about a lot of things. So when I got out all of a sudden,
I have a wife and two kids, and then I had to figure everything out on my own. No one was telling me what to do and when to do it. So it was kind of a shock just trying to figure life out after the military. Because I went in when I was 17 and after eight years, mom and dad isn't telling you what to do. The military isn't telling you what to do. And now you're just kind of left on your own. Three of your figured out. So that was, that was the hardest part for me.
Do you find that it's like a kind of a period of like self discovery? Like, all right, I don't have any directions coming from, you know, above me. What would, what would I tell me what to do? You know what I mean? Yeah. I just really didn't know what to do when I got out. Why thought I had it all planned out? I worked on helicopters. So when I got out, I was like, "Well, I'm just going to work at the helicopter." They're going to hire me. I know everything
about helicopters and I called them and they asked me if I had a certain license. I didn't have it. So I called other helicopter places. They asked, "Also, if I had this certain kind of license, I didn't have it." And so then all of a sudden I realized, well, maybe I'm not going to be able to work on helicopters. So then all of a sudden, I was just looking around. I had to live with the end loss for about a month, just trying to figure out where we're going to live if we're going to
live in an apartment. So I just had to kind of do it old school, print out some resumes and just start
handing them out face-to-face. And so what were some of those first experiences going back into,
“you know, the civilian workforce and then how did it lead to the founding of your company?”
Well, I had so many different jobs. I started working a good year for a little bit and then I worked at a F-16 place for a few years. I sold guns at a gun dealer and then I was a jailer
For a year, a cop for three years.
explosives. And then that's when I realized that I really didn't, I couldn't really find happiness
and anything that I was doing. But what I was happy doing was aviation. So I found my way back to aviation and now, I mean, I look forward to going into work every day. It's the, it's the prodigal son story, right? And it's like, I went out and to your credit, like, that's a broad, you know, a lot of different industries that you've been a part of, right? But you can't, you what you're, while you're in the military, you're working on helicopters. You found a passion in that.
Went on this whole journey and then now that you came back to it, talking to me about like the day that you made the decision to sort of found your own company. I was working for an aviation
company. And I had some friends that they saw that I flipped the plane and they said, hey,
“I think we could all do this together. You want to do it. And I was like, yeah, sure. So there's”
one other guy. I didn't really know, but he was really interested in aviation. So he came in the work one day. And I was like, hey, I had two other friends that want to flip airplanes. Would you be interested? He said, let's do it. And so right then, about three weeks later, I ended up putting in my notice at work and I went off on my own. And that's when stuff really got real. I mean, because after I quit, all of a sudden, I was on my own, all by myself, realized there was no,
we didn't have any planes to currently flip. And so I remember doing one oil change on a customer's plane. I was so nervous doing it because again, I was by myself. No one's looking after me. You know, I didn't want to mess up. I didn't want anything to go wrong. And then, shortly, after that, I found myself in an empty hanger with just some tools realizing, you know, what did I do? What did I just get myself into? And shortly after that, one of my, one of my buddies,
he, my business partner, Michael, he ended up buying two planes. And then all we did was, we put him in a flight screen. I was just working on those planes nonstop. And then we ended up getting
“more and more planes. I think we had up to like 13 airplanes. I was working on them all by myself.”
Just around the clock seven days a week. Sometimes 18, 20 hours a day. Just to try to keep them in the air, flying for the flight school. And then what happened was it didn't, we couldn't flip planes anymore. So my other two friends, slash business partners, they stepped out. So then it was just me and Michael in. And then from there, we had an opportunity to buy this hanger. The one that I was working at. And now we went from just me being by myself to now. I think we have 13
or 14 employees working there. And now we're working on, we just got the working on
Arnold Palmer's very first citation. It was zero number zero zero zero one. It's a first citation
650 ever made. And we just got that out of our hanger a few days ago. And now we're just kind of working on pretty much anything that has wings on it. For like my background, like before I ever got into production work, I started off as a car mechanic. And so I was like my first job at
“high school, love cars. And like you, I got into flipping cars. So by the time I was, I think by the”
time I was 20, I had owned just seven cars at that point. And then I just just kept a buy and old like 99 Honda Civic, build it up, get the motor running real nice, flip it, do it over and over and over again. And there was a, you know, just to talk, speak to the, having that Arnold Palmer in the hanger, there was an opportunity that I got while I was working for Acura where you, you ever watched Pulp fiction? Oh yeah. All right. So you know the wolf has that silver NSX that he drives in. Oh yeah.
So as I was working at Acura, that exact car from the movie drove in and drives into my bay. And it was just for a routine oil change. Okay. But the owner came out and was telling me the story of the car. And I'm a big movie. I'm a big movie nerd at that point. And I was like, this is the Pulp fiction NSX. Like, I was losing my mind. I was losing my mind. I think that having those moments makes it all like worth it at the end of the day. Would you say so? Yeah,
absolutely. You know, most of my shop worked on the plan. We did from avionics to a land and gear tire changes. We removed the oxygen bar. We did a whole bunch of stuff to this plane. And then it wasn't until right before it left, the owner came out and said, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I ever told you the history, this is a world famous plane on a bomber, you know, sessna sponsored them. And he did all these different trips with it. And, you know,
it was kind of after the fact. And I had to tell my whole shop that or, you know, everyone that was working there. And, you know, I kind of wish we would have known that from the beginning.
Nobody got to take a selfie with the plane.
group. That's like the worst thing. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it will come back and I'll definitely get a
picture with it. Yeah. For the people out there, guys, if you're watching still at this point, I want to just, you know, make sure that you guys check out Daniel's episode of Operation CEO because it's going to be coming out shortly after this podcast episode drops. And what I want to ask is for our audience, you know, our audience is super entrepreneurial. The very business minded, what would be your like number one key to success for anybody out there that's listening? Here's
“the thing is, uh, if you want to be successful, you have to go out and get it. I always thought that”
somebody is going to give me something. I thought I was just going to, like, find a bag of money.
This never going to happen. If you want success, you have to go out and get it. And you have to
spend everything you have all the time that you have and just constantly work for it and just don't ever let anything stop you. You're going to have some bad days. You're going to have some really, really crappy days, but you just got to keep putting one foot forward. Eventually, eventually you'll
“make it as long as you keep putting one foot forward. At some point on your journey, you will, as long”
as you keep putting one foot in front of the end, you will get out of what I like to call it the suck. And in the beginning, it's almost all the suck. But as you kind of persevere your way through it, that's the whole thing. As you're able to persevere and just keep pushing forward, as long as you know what direction you're going, you're going to get to your destination. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, Daniel, for the audience, where can people find you if they want to
learn more about your story? Find your own social media. If anybody's out there that has a plan that they need work on, where can they find you? Yeah. So it's called North Texas aeronautics. We have a website, iflynta.com. We're all over social media on Instagram on Facebook. My wife, she does all of our social media and she's constantly putting out some great stuff. So we're all over. We get celebrities that come in through our hangar. We get a, we actually sponsor the next gen Eagles or an aerobatic
team that goes all around the United States and performs in all the different air shows. And so yeah, social media is the main place you can find us. That's sick. I didn't even have aerobatics. I haven't even heard that term before, but I know of it. I can stop playing. Yeah, I know. I just
never, I had never heard the term aerobatics, but it makes it's like acrobatics, but for the air.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. There's some people call them like stunt plans or doing stunts in the air, but I guess our lingo's aerobatics. I do want to say it has been a great pleasure having you on
“the show. So thank you for stopping by with us. And I believe we are ready to go and record your episode.”
You're ready? Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Of course. Of course. Let's go do it. All right. All right. Guys, this has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. Again, I am your host Jason Tyler, and I will catch you guys in the next one.
