AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - June 2020 - 30

PILOT BRIEFING
PEOPLE |

CAPTAIN Roger Victor

(left) chats with Technical Editor Jill W. Tallman
during a 2019 visit to
AOPA.

'Never forget to be silly'
Captain Roger Victor, a pilot (and puppet) for today's times
B Y J I L L W. TA L L M A N

30 | AOPA PILOT June 2020

and radio etiquette. He also dispenses
career advice about how to choose your
first regional airline; whether to get turbine PIC time or a Boeing 737 type rating;
and how to pack food for a trip, among
many other topics. His musical recitation
of all the abbreviations and acronyms in
aviation, which includes a shout-out to
AOPA, racked up nearly 77,000 views.
While mostly humorous, Captain
Roger Victor does not shy away from
controversy, such as the 2019 Ethiopian
Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 crash that
contributed to the grounding of the Max
aircraft series. He condemned the notion
of pilots judging other pilots.
The puppeteer's artistry dates to when
he was 10 years old. He would entertain
his sister with an "OK" Kermit the frog
voice. Years later, when he left home
to join the Army, a neighbor gave him
a Kermit puppet with a card that read,
"Never forget to be silly."
"I've had him now for almost 18 years,"
the puppeteer said.
Captain Roger Victor was a thrift store
find, originally a boy doll wearing orange

overalls. "I thought, I can make a pilot out
of this," the puppeteer said. "I went to
another thrift store, I got a tuxedo jacket
for a 3-year-old boy, a toddler T-shirt cut
to make it fit, gold striping from Joann,
and a hat from Amazon." Pilot wings
from Trans States Airlines complete the
uniform.
The puppeteer began making short
videos, and one went viral. He's created
Facebook and YouTube pages. Captain
Roger Victor has become a minor celebrity in the industry.
"People think that I work for every
airline out there," the puppeteer said.
"Everyone thinks I work for their regional
or their mainline airlines." Captain Roger
Victor's unfiltered takes are what makes
him a hit, the puppeteer said. "The issues
are industrywide, which is why he's so
popular."
EMAIL jill.tallman@aopa.org

YouTube Captain Roger Victor
Facebook facebook.com/
CaptainRogerVictor

DAVID TULIS

HE'S A CYNICAL, world-weary captain for a
struggling regional airline. He's seen it all,
done it all, and ready to share his worldview with the rest of the aviation industry.
He's 2 feet tall and doesn't have legs. He's
Captain Roger Victor, and he's a puppet.
Captain Roger Victor works for fictional Speedtape Airlines, along with his
flight crew: Louie, a racoon who's also a
dispatcher, and Bernard, a flight attendant whose resemblance to a certain
former presidential primary candidate is
coincidental.
In the tradition of Jim Henson and
other puppeteers who remain behind the
scenes so that their creations can take
the spotlight, the actual human behind
Captain Roger Victor asked us not to
reveal his identity. Suffice to say that he
knows all about the business and is qualified to dispense flying wisdom, which
Captain Roger Victor does. In hilarious
videos that keep two-legged pilots guessing as to which airline he's supposed to be
representing, Captain Roger Victor talks
candidly about hotels and bedbugs; the
delicious cookies at DoubleTree hotels;
http://www.facebook.com/captainrogervictor http://www.facebook.com/captainrogervictor
AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - June 2020

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