Almost to Space – The #LogTenLife of Brandon Jones

Meet cargo pilot Brandon Jones. Dedicated and enthusiastic, Brandon is the kind of pilot who will always greet you with a big smile. He’s a particular favorite of ours at trade shows and aviation events because he always makes sure to come by our booth to say hello.

Brandon loved the idea of flying as a child, but the cost to get into aviation seemed daunting. Once he was old enough, joining the Air Force seemed like the natural choice. When he finished at the academy, they sent him to flight training where he was finally able to earn his private pilot’s license. He explained that while learning to fly in the Air Force solved the issue of affording flight school on his own, it was a very intense experience.

One story Brandon told me about his time in the military will have you at the edge of your seat. He and another pilot were practicing in a T-38 jet trainer, which was very rudimentary with no advanced avionics. While waiting to take off, they both got quite sucked in watching other planes coming and going. When it was their turn for takeoff, things all went smoothly at first—but very quickly they noticed they weren’t climbing nearly as fast as they should in a supersonic jet. The treeline was coming up fast. Suddenly they realized that despite all their experience and training, they’d gotten distracted and completely forgotten to put out the flaps! Thankfully, they were able to fix the mistake in time and narrowly avoid the trees. Laughing, Brandon finished the story with, “That was definitely a lesson I’ve never forgotten. I might make a lot of mistakes, but I don’t think I will ever forget the flaps!”

When I asked Brandon if he would ever fly to space, his response was immediate. “Hang up the phone right now and I'm there. That was my whole dream. My entire life!” While it may not have quite been space, he was excited to tell me about getting to wear a spacesuit (pictured above) and fly the U-2 at 70,000 feet—high enough to see the curve of the earth. He wistfully added, “I was just born in the wrong twenty or thirty year span. If I was twenty or thirty years older I could have caught the end of the shuttle, and if I was twenty or thirty years younger, I could have been in on this new wave. But I’m lucky I did get to fly.”

Brandon’s enthusiasm for his logbook comes in as a close second to his love of space. He’s a huge advocate for electronic logbooks and keeping all of his flight data neat. He explained, “It’s a no brainer because of the ability to correct mistakes, to have a uniform-looking product and a professional-looking product, devoid of white outs, crossed-out entries, coffee stains, and bad penmanship. Your logbook represents everything you’ve done as far as aviation.” He then proceeded to launch into a sales pitch for LogTen Pro that most of us couldn’t top. He’s so passionate about pilots—and especially other ex-military pilots—getting their logbook data into digital format that he regularly helps friends and colleagues set up spreadsheets and import those into LogTen Pro. He may truly be our biggest fan.

When he isn’t flying, Brandon loves basketball and is on a mission to convince his precocious five-year-old daughter to follow in his footsteps one day and learn to fly. He said, “I figure if I can make it, anybody can! ’Cause I was not Top Gun. I wasn’t anything special. I had issues at certain times in training, but I made it through.”