From CFI to Assistant Chief Pilot

Brandon Morton is the Assistant Chief Pilot at Castle Aviation. He entered the role in 2022 after flying for Castle as a professional pilot for a little more than a year. He got his start flying in 2015, while attending Edinboro University, and he worked as a Flight Instructor for some after, in both Erie, Pennsylvania and Saint Augustine, Florida.

You may hear some pilots say they don’t like flight instructing, but according to Brandon, some sense of purpose can be found in doing so. He says, “What I like about flight instructing is helping people become pilots and getting to see them walk through the doors knowing nothing about aviation and by the time they leave they know so much more, and it is because of what I did for them and the training I provided them with.”

When he joined Castle in August of 2021, he began to fly cargo on the Cessna Caravan and the Saab 340B. According to Brandon, he likes flying cargo at Castle because he feels it is a terrific way to build time along with experience in a variety of aircraft that most people don’t get to fly. To low time pilots that may be considering Castle, he says, “working in the 135 world as a low time pilot benefits you with the experience it gives you, and it also lets you see a side of aviation that some pilots never get to see.”

He says, specifically, “Castle is definitely a good place to come work because you truly learn how to fly well in adverse conditions and it prepares you more for real-world flying compared to the flying you do while you flight instruct.” Brandon’s big aviation dream is to someday fly a 777 somewhere that he can travel a lot with employee flight benefits with his wife and kids and ideally, he’d like to retire by the age of 50.

But until then, Brandon’s new role, as Assistant Chief Pilot keeps him very busy. In the role, he is responsible for supervising all flight crews, conducting flight and ground training (he teaches a few days per month in our in-house ground school). He assists with formulating procedures and policies, as our fleet and staff are ever-changing. Additionally, Brandon ensures that all flight crews are kept up to date with all information pertaining to routes and company policies, and he’s also in charge of keeping all pilot records updated and current.