A Conversation with Smokehouse Pilots Club at Sun 'n Fun 2024

While exhibiting at Sun 'n Fun 2024, our Marketing Manager John had a chance to sit down with our booth neighbors, Smokehouse Pilots Club, in Hangar D during some downtime while waiting for the very little rain we experienced this year to pass.
It was a wonderful experience discussing Aviation Oil Outlet's humble beginnings entering the e-commerce space, offering exceptional aviation products and services for pilots and aviation enthusiasts nationwide, to having the opportunity to exhibit and experience airshows across the country, meeting customers and building new friendships.
Take a listen below, thanks again to the Smokehouse Pilots Club for the opportunity. Learn more about them and their mission here: https://www.smokehousepilots.com/

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Background of AviationOilOutlet.com
• 02:52 Types of Aviators Using AviationOilOutlet.com
• 05:16 Benefits of Ordering from AviationOilOutlet.com
• 06:13 Selling Smoke Oil for Air Shows
• 08:04 Desire to Become a Pilot
• 08:34 Where to Find AviationOilOutlet.com

Transcription

SPC: Welcome to Hanger Flying, the ultimate aviation podcast brought to you by Smokehouse Pilots. Join us as we soar through the skies with fascinating stories and experiences through our incredible guests who share their aviation journey. Our mission is simple. Aviation plus community equals opportunity and impact. Fasten your seatbelts. This is Hanger Flying.

SPC: Welcome to Hanger Flying. It's brought to you by Smokehouse Pilots. And so thank you for joining us today. So, what brings you to Sun & Fun?

JOHN (Aviation Oil Outlet): Well, we are down here exhibiting as aviationoiloutlet.com. Basically, we're an online oil distributor. We sell aviation oils for Phillips 66, AeroShell, and BlueSky Lubricants.

SPC: Okay, very cool. How's the show going for you so far?

JOHN: It's been great. Yeah, it's been great. The weather’s been great up until today, but we're still doing well.

SPC: (Laughs) Right. So how did you get into this? Like, so what's your story?

JOHN: So, my story is I've actually worked for our parent company. Our parent company is Petroleum Service Company. So, we're a large oil company up in Northeastern Pennsylvania, which is, we're in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, just outside of the Poconos. The company I work for, PSC. They've been around since 1930.
So, we were always a regional oil distributor up in our neck of the woods. And about 10 years ago, the other great idea to say, hey, let's try to sell this stuff on the internet. Well, it blew up basically is the best way I could say it. It was a big deal. So, we pride ourselves in being the pioneer of online petroleum sales. With the success of Petroleum Service Company, a lot of that business was pilots and aviators buying aviation oil on that site.
Because PSC is a, overall, it's a… we sell commercial lubricants, industrial lubricants, automotive. But the pilots were a big part of it. We said, well, we should break out the aviators and we should build them their own website. And that's where aviationoiloutlet.com came from.

SPC: Got it. That's pretty cool. So you said North.. Pennsylvania.

JOHN: Yes, sir.

SPC: Okay. So not too far from us, right? So we're in Virginia.

JOHN: Yep.

SPC: And so we're in Leesburg, Virginia. Have you heard of that?

JOHN: Yes, I have.

SPC: Have you? So what do you, do you fly?

JOHN: I do not fly. Love flying. I'll get into planes, but yeah, I don't, I don't.

SPC: That's good.

JOHN: I’ve even jumped out of them!

SPC: Have you?

JOHN: Yes, I have.

SPC: Ah, that's something I don't ever want to do if I just don't have to.

JOHN: It was a bachelor party. Kind of had to do it, once the buddies did it, like, there was no turning back.

SPC: Hah! Peer pressure, right?

JOHN: Yes, sir.

SPC: Well, that's great. So, what types of people are using aviation oil out there? Like, types of aviators, I mean, whatever.

JOHN: The neat, I mean, we get everybody because we sell the mobil jet oils. We sell your radial piston engine oils. We sell your, you know, your standard engine oils.
The unique thing with us is we have reached throughout the entire country. So because of the internet and everybody's shopping that way, we have access to everyone, it’s kind of cool. Go online, do a Google search, and there's a good chance you're going to find us.
And then we do free shipping. So if you can get an order $99 or more, we'll ship it anywhere in the country for you. It makes us kind of unique, gives us an edge on other people, but we use the power of our parent company, Petroleum Service Company to pull off things like that.

SPC: Got it. Okay. Very good. What have you learned this week at Sun ‘n Fun?

JOHN: It's a lot hotter down here than it is up in Northeastern Pennsylvania. No, not that we learn so much, what we love doing down here is coming down and seeing our customers. Not everybody is always here to buy from us, but they’ll at least swing by and say hi.. “Hey, I've been buying from you guys all year.”

SPC: Yeah.

JOHN: Stop by, they get a t-shirt or something, some kind of swag.

SPC: Yeah.

JOHN: But no, it's just a great event. You know, we always have a great time down here. We've been coming down since 2019.

SPC: 2019.

JOHN: Yeah. So, yeah, it's been really good.

SPC: Okay. That's, as a matter of fact, that was my first Sun and Fun. What was your first Sun and Fun? Last year. Last year. Yeah. Okay. So, 2019 coming down. So, James and I flew, did we fly down last year? I'm blanking on when we did. No, we did not. No. No, that was Skylar. That was you and Skylar. I came down with Rob. That's right.

So, James and I do a lot of flying.

James is a pilot, is, of course, James, your story.

JAMES: My story. I'm also a pilot. I fly general aviation and then I fly professionally.

JOHN: Okay.

JAMES: Fly 737s for a living. Very cool. But the most fun is the GA stuff. Flying helicopters. Helicopters and Cirruses and whatever anyone will let me fly.

JOHN: That's awesome. That seems to be, you know, to answer your questions. You're our customer. You know, usually guys that are doing it, that's their day job, but then it's what you enjoy doing on the weekends and then you're off time and play with big boy toys.

SPC: Yeah… So what is the benefit of ordering from you?

JOHN: Honestly, again, we've been in the business for a long time. We've been doing this since 1930. Not that people that have been there the whole time, but they're just the knowledge. You know, we've been in the industry forever. I myself, I've been there 25 years. I've got guys who work for us that say: “I've been there 20 plus years.” So, there's just a lot of knowledge. So, you know, people calling in and they have questions, you're going to get answers. You know, if we don't have the answer right away, we're going to find you the answer.
Just really the customer support, the customer service, the tech support, and just to hopefully the overall experience, you know, we try to build a user-friendly platform where people can go on there like yourselves and find what you're looking for easily, smooth process, right, and actually get your oil, you know, get a tracking number within 24 hours, and receive your oil in a timely manner. So, we pride ourselves in that.

SPC: You sell by the quart, by the case, by the drum?

JOHN: Yeah, it's dependent on the product, but for the most part, you're going to find your 12/1 quarts, your 4/1 gallon, your 2/2.5 gallon, all the way up to your 55-gallon drums. Another thing that's unique, we also sell smoke oils.
We have our own house brand smoke oil, which is BlueSky Lubricants (White Lightning Smoke Oil). So that one, we started as a 55-gallon drum, and due to demand coming to shows like this, people will say, you know, wish we could get that in 5-gallon pails. So we started offering that in a 5-gallon pail last year, because not everybody wants 55-gallons in their hangar, so.

SPC: Right. I was just looking at the smoke oil, right, just behind us. We're just across the aisle here from you. So, do you happen to know a gentleman by the name of Doug Rosendahl?

JOHN: No, I don't know that one.

SPC: He's an airship pilot, flies P-51s and all the stuff, but I think he uses smoke oil from you all as well.

JOHN: There's a neat story behind our smoke oil, so we have a former retired Air Force Thunderbird, lives in our area, and he kind of teamed up with our company and was helping us, kind of guiding us, and he's the reason why we actually started exhibiting down here in 2019. He's like, you guys need to be down there.

SPC: Yeah.

JOHN: The guy’s named John Baum, John “Slick” Baum, and he was the one that brought light to smoke oil, and the need for smoke oil for air shows, because, you know, the big jet teams, you know, the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels, you've got to use their approved oils, but there's a lot of people out there that don't really need to pay the money for that oil that's been approved for the big jet teams. They just want something for their use, so that's where blue sky-white lighting came from. So, it's a very inexpensive smoke oil, but it doesn't have the approvals for the big jet teams.

SPC: I got you. Okay. Very cool. Well, this has been awesome. I mean, I've learned something. So, one of the reasons that we're launching this podcast and that we have these podcasts is to bring people together, learn from each other. And, you know, this is really interesting.
So thank you for doing what you do and providing the oil to the aviation industry. Do you have any desires to become a pilot?

JOHN: I always wanted to do that. Something I've been wanting to do since I was a little kid, and then like life kind of takes over. But I have a lot of other expensive hobbies. So, I don't know that I need another one. But I'm not saying I won't do that. You know, it's something I may end up doing at some point in my life, because I do enjoy it a lot.

SPC: Yeah, it's an interesting thing. Because as you're talking with, you know, hundreds or thousands of people as it goes for you over the week, right? It's just interesting to kind of, you probably hear a lot about planes.

JOHN: Oh, yeah,

SPC: More than you probably… you can go take your check ride.

JOHN: You're right.

SPC: Well, thank you for joining us. James, anything else?

JAMES: No, sir. Nice, very nice meeting you.

SPC: Yeah, where can we find you guys?

JOHN: So our website is aviationoiloutlet.com. We are currently exhibiting down at Sun of Fun and in your Hangar D, Booth 4. We also have our social channels, Aviation Oil Outlet on Facebook, and you can find us on Instagram as well.

SPC: Well, John, thank you. Yeah, we will definitely put that in the show notes as well. And thank you for having a quick conversation with us today. And I hope you have a great rest of the show.

JOHN: We will. Thank you.