[00:00:00] Robert DeLaurentis: I was actually in Dakar, Senegal, fueling the very, very highly modified turbine commander 900 that I flew around the world over the poles.
And one of the fuel tanks let loose the number one tank and it started spraying jet fuel, jet A1 into my eyes, my face, my shoulder. I was falling backwards out of the plane because I was expecting it just to blow up, you know, all the hot equipment. I just landed. And as I was falling through the air, I was thinking to myself, well, thank God it's over.
[00:00:35] Intro: Welcome to Hangar X Studios, where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
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And today I'm really excited. I met Robert De Laurentiis when I was out in California, in Hollywood, at the Living Legends of Aviation. It was an incredible event. But at the night before, Robert and I were able to have a conversation. And the things that you've accomplished, Robert, you guys are in for an incredible ride hearing Robert's story. But Robert, first of all, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:58] Robert DeLaurentis: Thanks, John. It's great to be here. I think we actually met at Verticon, didn't we? Just briefly.
[00:02:04] John Ramstead: That's right. We actually did meet at Verticon. You were there and we met there and then we saw each other at Living Land. I'm like, boy, you look familiar.
Yeah, that was a great evening. So here's a little background on Robert, guys. He circled the planet both literally and philosophically.
So we're going to talk a little bit more about that. Navy veteran, author, adventurer, founder of the De Laurentiis Foundation. He's known as the peace pilot, which has been turned into a movie. We'll talk a little bit about that. And your mission is unite humanity through the spirit of flight. It's just a. It's a beautiful mission that you're on. You've survived force landings.
You're building the next urban air mobility hub in Washington. We're going to definitely talk about that.
You just have this bold vision and what I would call a hard won wisdom that you bring into the world. I got that just talking with you. And you have this calling to do good through business, which completely aligns with myself, what I do. And you're doing that through aviation.
So we're going to buckle up, folks, for just this great conversation.
And I'd like to talk about one of the things you're probably known for. It's kind of this penultimate thing, but you flew pole to pole and this was an incredible feat. And we were talking a little bit before we started and you said, you know, what happens when that mission becomes more important almost than your life, Right? When the mission becomes to accomplish this, you're going to do it no matter what. So could you talk to us about that entire chapter, what led up to it and what it was like?
[00:03:40] Robert DeLaurentis: Well, the moment that it happened, I was actually in Dakar, Senegal, fueling the very, very highly modified turbo commander 900 that I flew around the world over the poles. And one of the fuel tanks let loose the number one tank and it started spraying jet fuel, jet A1 into my eyes, my face, my shoulder, you know, shoulders, groin, legs. And I was falling backwards out of the plane because I was expecting it just to blow up, you know, all the hot equipment. I just landed.
And as I was falling through the air, I was thinking to myself, well, thank God it's over. You know, I had made the South Pole.
That was going to be the hardest part of the trip. I had delivered to my 95 sponsors and you know, I'm falling through the air, I impact the ground and I thought, oh my God, I'm still alive.
[00:04:34] John Ramstead: Where were you falling from? Were you flying at the time?
[00:04:38] Robert DeLaurentis: On the ground, inside the fuselage of the plane where the number one fuel tank was kind of like a header tank. Okay, fueling it and the fuel was going in much faster than usual was a, you know, big truck with used to fuel, bigger planes. And I could hear the tank sort of creaking and that's when it burst.
So, you know, I hit the ground and I'm yelling for water for my eyes because jet fuel in your eyes is not a good thing.
And I could see the fuel just spraying out of the plane. And in that moment, that's when the mission became more important than me because I jumped back into the plane to try and save it for the rest of the mission.
I realized that I was going to do everything I physically could to complete the Mission, complete the scientific experiments and maybe most importantly, deliver on my word to the sponsors because I had been promising so much to so many people and, you know, I'd taken, you know, money and goods and products and all kinds of stuff, you know, to make that plane capable of a 18.1 hour flight when it was designed to fly six.
So yeah, we were pushing the limits in every way possible. I would say, okay, it's funny, go ahead.
Oh, I said, it's funny. When I watch, you know, the, the movie Peace Pilot, I'm sort of sitting there going, God, who is this crazy guy? Because it can't be me. You know, no rational person I think would do that stuff. But it's different when you're immersed in it, you know, especially for the 18 months it took to prepare. And I was about halfway through the eight month, you know, 23 day journey. So yeah, there was no going back.
[00:06:32] John Ramstead: Rewind a little bit. What prompted you to say, this is something I'm going to do?
[00:06:38] Robert DeLaurentis: Well, I had completed in 2015 an equatorial circumnavigation in a Malibu Mirage. Again, that was highly modified. That was the topic of the book Zen Pilot, Flight of Passion and the Journey within and the audiobook. And after that was completed and those records were set, I just started getting a little bit restless.
You can sit for a while and things start to calm down. And I started to think, well, what would be the next thing? What would be even more difficult?
My father sent me an article about how the only places on the planet where peace existed was the north and South Poles.
So I thought, wow, flying the north and South Poles would be a lot more difficult.
I now say it's about three times harder.
So then I just, it kept coming into my mind in my quiet moments it would come up like, what would it take and how hard would it be and is it even possible?
And then I just finally decided it was time to take on that project.
[00:07:50] John Ramstead: What made it three times harder?
[00:07:54] Robert DeLaurentis: Well, one, you know, getting a plane that's designed to fly for six hours, it's one thing to double the range. You know, ferry pilots do that pretty regularly. But to go beyond three times, you know, you're stretching the material capacity of an aircraft way beyond what it was designed for.
Temperatures -60 Celsius, when jet A1 gels at -47, you know, how do you heat the fuel and get it into the engines without it gelling the rain or the terrain? It's the most remote part of the planet.
Pilot fatigue.
And then just technically, you Lose GPS at the poles.
So now you're going to be dead reckoning, taking lines of position on the sun.
Navigation is a huge issue and yeah, and weather changes. So you could think you had enough fuel and then you could hit 100 knot headwind and be forced to land somewhere short of where you had intended. And there aren't a ton of places in Antarctica to land. Right. Or you can land anywhere once.
[00:09:04] John Ramstead: Yeah, you can land anywhere once, but not where somebody can come help you.
[00:09:08] Robert DeLaurentis: That's right, you would be dealing. Actually, I talked to a guy from the British Antarctic Survey because the Brits are down in Antarctica quite a bit and he said, you're just setting yourself up for prolonged suffering.
And he says, do you really know what you're getting yourself into?
So, yeah, no, there was a lot of concerns, but I always felt, and some people very close to me that are very intuitive would come to me and say, you're going to make it. It's not going to be easy, but you're going to make it. And I had just the opposite on the first trip. I had a girlfriend of mine said she had a dream that I died a terrible death alone in the Pacific.
My best buddy said, hey, why don't you wait till you can afford a turbine powered aircraft because it's too dangerous doing this in a piston for the first trip.
And my dad said, you're just going to get yourself killed. Why don't you just go join a country club and, you know, leave this stuff to somebody else.
So yeah, you know, reading the science.
[00:10:11] John Ramstead: Well, you know what, we talk about being on a mission, you know, and there's so much happening in aerospace, air mobility, there's so much incredible entrepreneurship going on, but also there's a lot of really inspiring people in the world. I mean, you know, if you stop watching the news and you actually follow, you know, everyday people that are doing extraordinary things, there's so much, in my opinion, you know, just reason for, for hope and to see the good. But I think part of that is not only it's personally being on a mission and having a purpose, but also bringing that into your organization. So how did you connect to that personally? Because I know that everybody started calling you the peace pilot and you kind of had this vision to bring global unity through aviation. So talk to me about how all that came together for you.
[00:11:01] Robert DeLaurentis: Yeah, that started really in 2013, 2014. I had completed my graduate work in spiritual psychology and I had an advanced degree in consciousness health and healing as well. And I was sitting through These classes, you know, inherently a business person, I think going, wow, how can I use this in my business?
And I wrote a book called Flying Through Life and the through is T. HRU and it was about incorporating 19 spiritual practices in my business.
And super fast read. I actually reread it the other day. I felt like I wrote it for myself, just to remind me of what my correct path was in Life.
And these 19 principles that I incorporated tripled the size of my business.
And I thought about the fact that we go to good schools, we all study the Harvard business cases, and then we're all competing on the same level. I felt like I needed some inherent advantage, you know, to do better than everyone else who has trained the same way as me. And that's when I started, you know, using some of those concepts.
So, you know, that started me off. And I had three major challenges in my life at the time.
And I sort of made a contract with the universe and said, hey, take care of these three things, and I'll take a couple years off and, you know, dedicate my life to giving back.
And the three things where I had a building that had burned down, that was a major issue. I had some vacancies, and I had a house that just would not sell.
And within two weeks, the house sold all cash. The insurance company wrote me a check on the building.
My vacancies went to zero. And then I had some other financial windfalls, two or three other ones that just rolled in at the exact time. And I thought, well, that's very clearly a message to me that, okay, now I need to fulfill my side of the bargain. And then that just continued on. Once I started doing that, I just kept rolling with it. And that's the basis of where the foundation started.
[00:13:15] John Ramstead: Yeah, you got the foundation, and I know a lot of the work you're doing also with young kids and pilots, but tell us a little bit about what you're doing to turn your airport into an advanced air mobility center and how that came about.
[00:13:31] Robert DeLaurentis: Yeah, that's a great question, John.
First of all, I like urban air mobility. I think it's the future. Right? These vertical takeoff aircraft, either piloted or unpiloted, will connect Whidbey island, which is where De Laurenis International is, to Seattle, to Canada and to the rest of the San Juans.
So in a way, I came to realize that where the airport was was this perfect hub for so much potential activity in the state of Washington.
And, you know, we have at the airport 40 extra acres.
So once we rolled through it, Took about two years to make the place safe, clean it up, make everything work, and then repave the Runway, which was an enormous undertaking, and widened it as well. And then we went, well, what's next?
And looking out at this field of 40 acres, we started brainstorming and thought, wow, this could be a great urban air mobility hub. And I ended up talking to the state of Washington.
We continued to make upgrades to the infrastructure so that it would be a very, very easy thing to put the hub there. They were thinking about doing it at a ferry terminal, and I convinced them that, no, you really need it at an airport. Given the airspace and the movement of aircraft, it would be very hard to start from scratch at a ferry terminal when you have an airport that has space.
Even my board has already approved it.
So we have a lot of things that have stacked up in our favor. I'm now reaching out to some of the bigger aircraft manufacturers, saying, hey, this is a great place to do testing.
And we realize that you want to be in Los Angeles and New York first, but Seattle's no joke. You know, there's no.
[00:15:25] John Ramstead: It's a big play. Have you reached out to, like, Beta or Joby or. Who are you talking to right now?
[00:15:30] Robert DeLaurentis: I have a meeting with Joby next week.
[00:15:32] John Ramstead: Okay.
[00:15:33] Robert DeLaurentis: They're going to come visit the site.
That may be nothing. It may just be a conversation, but we've identified all the major players and have sent out information, and that's why I was at Verticon, was to try and make some connections and just let them know what we had. So, yeah, fingers crossed. And, you know, the airport makes money, ignoring the initial investment, which was a donation for me, but so we're set to go. You know, the foundation is set up in a way that that airport will be operating for the next hundred years.
But we really want to give back. And a lot of people that buy airports, they want to divide it up and sell housing, space or land.
And from the beginning, we just said, no, we want to contribute to aviation, and selling houses on airport property is not the way we're going to do it.
[00:16:24] John Ramstead: Exactly.
What do you think makes this so important right now? Where do you see this, what you're talking about?
Avert a port at your airport on the island connecting Seattle. But where does this.
What does this do to humanity over the next three, four, five years as this kind of. This technology and infrastructure matures?
[00:16:45] Robert DeLaurentis: Yeah, I don't think it's going to be mainstream in three to five years. I think it's going to be maybe 10ish.
[00:16:52] John Ramstead: That's fair. Yep.
[00:16:54] Robert DeLaurentis: I think one, you know, the technology, it's kind of like electric cars coming into, you know, the automotive world.
So these vertical takeoff aircraft, which originally they had hoped would be electric in an hour, turbine hybrid, just because batteries are not advancing fast enough. I think it'll be great for the environment.
Hopefully with mass production it'll be cheaper than helicopter transportation.
It's just the latest, greatest in automation. Just like my Tesla is self driving, it's not that far afield to have an aircraft do the same. And what it'll do too is it'll free up the airways because they'll establish new air routes probably much lower, you know, back and forth to the islands in Canada, to Seattle. So that'll take a load off the air traffic controllers that are operating now with, you know, outdated equipment. We all know that.
And I think it's just the next iteration in aviation too.
[00:17:59] John Ramstead: Well, you know, it's interesting.
I wish I could find this study, but somebody looked at all the traffic patterns here, just in Denver and the traffic's real bad, but you're flowing, everybody's flowing through these arteries.
If 20% of the people could go point to point, you know, if we had, you know, let's say sometime in the future, you would have no traffic jams on the highway and as you're flying you would barely actually see the other airplanes. Because if I'm going from here to here and here to here and there's a way to deconflict that. There's so much technology that's coming into airspace management, but I really do believe it's going to be something that's a standard and it's going to be transformational for not only how we commute, how we connect with people, how we provide emergency services, how we respond in emergencies. With some of these, especially These longer range VTOLs that are more traditionally powered, there's a lot of. And I think there's some use cases around EVTOLs and I think the more of the extended range VTOLs that we haven't even thought of yet, that in the future are going to become just. Yeah, that's how we do it.
[00:19:02] Robert DeLaurentis: Yeah. I hear there's this aircraft, the xti that's supposed to be really shit hot too.
We'd love to get them out at our airport as well.
No, I think it's the coolest thing.
[00:19:14] John Ramstead: Well, they're supposed to be having a demonstrator flying here hopefully in the next two years and it'll have a thousand mile range go to 25,000ft.
It'll cruise at about 270, 280 knots and land vertically. So, you know, and that's a completely different mission than the air taxis. And they're not competitive. I think they're complementary. And there's other entrants in that exvtol space also.
[00:19:40] Robert DeLaurentis: Yeah, no, I think it's the latest greatest thing. And I've been sort of infatuated with electric RC cars since I was a little kid. I've got a handful of RC planes, you know, at the airport that I fly almost every day.
So yeah, no, this is kind of like a kid's dream coming true to see this stuff developing.
[00:20:01] John Ramstead: Yeah, it's going to be pretty amazing. And you know, just also, hey, you mentioned the movie Peace Pilot before. Tell us a little bit more about what it's about and where people can watch it too. Because it's out there right now. Took you four years to make and produce it.
[00:20:17] Robert DeLaurentis: Released December 3rd of last year. It's on Amazon prime, it's on Google TV and Apple TV and it's really, I think, well done. We had a Nat Geo cinematographer, a guy named Jeremy Lizelle that shot all the footage. We started with 72 days of footage and edited down to 1 hour and 52 minutes. So we have the best of the best in there.
The storyline is basically the polar circumnavigation, but it's much more in depth than that. It's a way to connect humanity because it's flying over the two places where peace has always existed on the planet. You know, there's definitely the cool factor of a modified Turbine Commander 900 with Predator B drone engines. There's the science experiments, the NASA wafer scale spaceship, the plastic particle experiment that I hope will get a Nobel Prize for the lead scientist.
There's biofuels, there's ADS B tracking over the poles and then there's this piece that's very, very relevant now which is, you know, we can't trust everything on our computers. So you need to go out into the world and see for yourself. And in this case, you know, I go out and talk to people about what does it mean to be a citizen of the world, which was the name of the plane and how do you find peace in the world?
And you know, as we're on the verge of World War 3, or at least if you believe everything the politicians and the media are telling you, I think the timing for it is absolutely perfect. Right. And what it does is it shows the human connection between people. And, yeah, people can have different religious views, political views, socio and economic views, but ultimately, we're all human and connected in that sort of oneness.
And one of the most important things that I learned on the trip when I was suffering, quite honestly, like running low on fuel over the Drake Passage or having mechanical failures or the burst tanks, is that all living things suffer. You know, animals suffer, plants suffer. And it's the one thing that connects humanity.
So while it was all happening, you know, I was trying to figure out, why is this so hard? You know, what am I being prepared for? Why do I have to suffer? In fact, I referred to it as cosmic suffering or torture at one point. But it became clear, clear to me once I got back to the States and could sort of, you know, reflect on all this. So I could ask you the same thing. You know, when you went down in that SR22, you know, there was a immense amount of suffering. Like, why did that have to happen? Did you ever figure that out? I'm just curious.
[00:23:03] John Ramstead: You know, looking back on that, actually, it was a horse accident, so. But I haven't. I have the same number of landings and takeoffs, but it was three years in the hospital, 23 surgeries, severe traumatic brain injury that, you know, it took me almost 10 years to completely recover from.
You know, life happens. And you know what? You have a choice every day. Do I choose to actually try to make a step forward? Do I see myself as, you know what? This is something I can get through for me, you know, there's a lot of faith elements in there for myself, Robert.
Or do I start or do I cast myself as a victim of circumstances and everybody I know who's gotten toward the victim mentality.
It's a scary place for me.
So what is the purpose on it? You know what? It helped me refine and make the important things in life important.
It helped me to actually, at this age of my life is, you know, I'm 58 years old now, to get really focused on what do I. You know, here's the way I'd sum it up. I want the use of my life to outlive my life.
And I think that is kind of how I now see the world and people in the world. So I see good in everybody, and I see good in everything, because there's always there, if you look for it the right way, and whether you're building an aerospace company or you're volunteering down at the homeless shelter, whatever it is, there's a place for you to, I think, make the world better, or even if it's one life, even if it's one relationship. But I think that's what it's helped me to kind of see, going through something like this.
[00:24:39] Robert DeLaurentis: Would you say that that's legacy?
Like you're creating a legacy for yourself?
[00:24:45] John Ramstead: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, somebody asked me this because I was supposed to die many years ago, and they came in to tell me I was going to die. And I remember the first thing I thought about was, is my family going to be okay? Do they have enough?
And I'm thinking, well, you know, that's an inheritance. An inheritance is what you give to somebody.
But then I started thinking, you know, what have I left in my kids?
What have I left in my friends? What have I left in this world that's gonna outlive me? That actually, you know, is somebody 20, 30 years from now gonna be like, you know what? I'm a better person. Cause I knew John back then, and I believe that's a legacy. A legacy is what you leave in people and leave in the world. And as I started to actually understand that concept, I got excited, and I've leaned into that as a way for me to live.
[00:25:34] Robert DeLaurentis: You know, it's funny when you say, you know, people were telling you you were going to die.
I've had that happen, you know, close experiences where you survive, you survive, you survive. And I like to say, if it happens once, you're lucky. If it happens twice, you're really lucky. Three times, you're really, really lucky. And anything more than that, you're here for a reason.
[00:25:56] John Ramstead: Other, you know, with all my flying experience and other crazy stuff I've done, I'm well past four. My kids are like, dad, slow down. I think you have one life left, so be careful.
[00:26:08] Robert DeLaurentis: It's sort of beyond probability. Right. That's where the spiritual component, I think, has to come in, you know, without question. Because nobody could rationally explain it.
[00:26:18] John Ramstead: No, they can't. So for you, I guess, as we kind of land the plane here, you know, just doing incredible missions that pushed your body mentally, physically, spiritually building infrastructure, running companies, starting nonprofits. What's next for Robert?
[00:26:36] Robert DeLaurentis: A relaxing summer.
[00:26:38] John Ramstead: Hey, I love it.
[00:26:40] Robert DeLaurentis: You know, the airport is pretty much completed, so we're on hold until the state of Washington says, go on the urban air mobility hub.
We're probably going to do a voice or an audiobook on flying through life. The other two books, Peace Pilot and Zen Pilot, are already in audiobook format.
I've been doing a lot of traveling. I just got back from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan about a month ago.
Antarctica cruise this November back to San Diego for the winter.
But in the immediate next couple months, I'm going to fly as much as I can here on the Puget Sound. I've got a boat.
I love the RC planes and driving cool cars. So I'm going to just try and take my foot off the throttle or off the gas pedal and enjoy myself.
It's easy to get caught up in a new project, and my goal is just to be open to receive what comes next.
[00:27:46] John Ramstead: I love that, man. Well, you've done some cool stuff in the world. I've really enjoyed getting to know you. Robert and I look forward to our next conversation that we're going to have. I'm sure in the near future.
[00:27:56] Robert DeLaurentis: Yeah, come visit, too. We'll go flying out here in the Puget Sound.
[00:28:00] John Ramstead: Yeah, I got, you know, I need to get my float plane rating, so that's always something. I'm actually getting my helicopter rating now. So I got my tail. I got all my endorsements except float plane. That's. That's the.
That's one I'd like to get next.
[00:28:12] Robert DeLaurentis: Yeah, this is a great spot for that, too. So, yeah. Look forward to chatting with you more, John.
[00:28:17] John Ramstead: All right, see you, Robert.
