Wow... must have some great stories..!!!
Well like anyone who's flown that long for a living, he has some "I have no idea how we survived that" ones. I take his phrase, "If the trend is towards a crash, fix the trend, immediately." very very seriously.
I'm also amazed at what he either pretends doesn't rattle him or he knows I could go just a little bit further with the mistake before he'd have to correct it. A couple of my landings in the Seminole seemed pretty damned hard to me (pulling the throttles to idle on a three bladed twin while still ten feet in the air to try to stick a landing spot, without pitching hard, is like sticking two trash can lids out there as air brakes and falling out of the sky), and as an aircraft owner, I apologized for beating up his airplane. He just looks over and says, "I've seen worse."
I really enjoy flying with him and learning from him. He doesn't miss much. When I didn't know him I asked around to see if other CFIs I knew did know him and one responded, "I flew on the DC-10 with him. That guy has broken in more green FOs than number of people you'll ever fly with. Tell him I said hi."
Only part about flying with him that I regret a little bit is the guy works too hard in "retirement", but I know he wouldn't have it any other way. He's not only a gazillion hour instructor but he's also an A&P and AI. If he's not flying them, he's working on them.
I can only hope I'm that motivated to go do stuff at the airport every day at 75. I think he's 75 this year.
Was talking to him the other day and he said he had a a student doing an ME add on not too long ago (I don't know the student's name and don't want to know) who when he said the guy needed two more half days of flying and ground prep, the student looked him right in the eye and said, "I don't need that." Guess who failed his checkride three days later? LOL.
I have found it's unwise to argue with him about much of anything, especially when it comes to knowing when someone is ready for a checkride. Hahaha. I've only won one minor argument with him and it was on something completely non-aviation related. Ha. And I'm not even sure I won. We'll call it a draw. Haha.
He had his wallet open one day to give a lady his ID for a crew car at a remote airport and his old airline badge was showing. About as far as I'll take it with him is, "Hey, who's that guy with no white hair on that card?" He gave me a look, and I busted up laughing and said, "I've got some of my own now. No worries. Probably students like me that gave it all to you."