Live Stream - Cockpit Interviews with Adrienne Lauren & Savannah Vinson

Hi everybody, Michael Schneider, Pilots to Rescue Top Dog, with Adrienne Loren.

Hi, I'm Adrienne Loren.

We are 5,000 feet right now. We have— we're headed to, uh, Biddeford Airport in Portland, Maine, and in the back we have 18 cats and one lucky dog, Ralph.

We love Ralph. He's being a really cool dog, very content, loves the Super dog.

And so yeah, we're here with Adrian. Adrian, tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit of your background, where you're from, what you do, a little bit about the cats that you have.

Cool.

Yeah.

So my name is Adrian Loren. I am a full-time actress and model. I live in New Jersey. I'm the oldest of 5. I went to Rutgers University, university, but this was something I've always wanted to do. To do, and in the back of my head I always knew I wanted to do it. Um, so after I graduated, I moved closer to this city and just kind of went full throttle, no pun intended, or pun intended. Um, so I do TV, film, commercials. Um, I've been— my first gig was on Law Order. I played a murder victim, so that was fun for my mom. And, um, yeah, I've been trying to work hard ever since, and I'm currently Shooting an independent film. I shoot that another season.

Tango, contact New York Approach 120.85.

So I recently—

hold on one sec, AJ. 120.85, 8203 Tango. New York Approach, Saratoga 8203 Tango, 5,000.

Saratoga 8203 Tango, good afternoon, I'm 2980.

2980, good afternoon. Okay, continue.

Uh, so what was I saying?

Okay, so I moved in November and I, uh, because of quarantine and being stuck inside a lot, I—

New York, good morning, November 7, Impact Flex Sierra 82 climbing 1,000.

Direct tow climbing to 1,600. Direct tow up to 1,600. Impact Flex Sierra.

All right, you're good. Talking to Kilo Kilo, contact New York Center on 134.26.

346 Kilo Kilo, good day.

Go ahead.

So I recently moved in November and I, because of quarantine, I adopted my first rescue and my sister actually found these 3 kittens living on the street. She took them in, made sure they got healthy, got all their shots, got neutered, everything. And, but her fiancé is super allergic to cats, so they couldn't keep all 3, barely could keep one. So I adopted my little Toby from her And a month after having him, we decided, me and my boyfriend decided that we wanted him to have a friend, so we rescued Taz. He's a little tiny tuxedo and he was 10 weeks old, so he's so small. And I love him. And I'm, you know, having those cats and like having, like, I don't know, and knowing what you guys do here, it was really cool to partner up and come on this mission and save, you know, it's just unbelievable. The work that's going on. So I've had even, you know, I love being in this plane. So it's a really cool experience. But yeah, I'm acting full-time and auditioning every day. A lot of self-tapes. You know, there's no more really going into the city to audition. It's more all at home. So I have this huge setup, but you know, I'm a person that loves creating, so that's why I do what I do.

So yeah.

Well, thank you for coming along on this mission today. Thank you for rescuing 2 cats, not just 1, because we all know that cats probably would like the company. I mean, we're all home right now, but before, yeah, you've seen videos of, of these animals and what they do when we're not there. So having your cat—

Tango, copy. You're for sure on 135.9.

135.9, 8203 Tango.

Giant 2678 Heavy, 2,100 climbing 5,000. Giant 2678 Heavy, departure radar contact, turn left heading 090, climb and maintain 17,000. Climb and maintain 17,000 heading 090, Giant 2678.

New York Departure, Saratoga 820, tree tango, 5,000.

120.85.

We'll try again. New York Saratoga 8203 Tango, 5,000.

Number 8203 Tango departure Kennedy, altimeter 2981.

2981.

Japan Air 5 Heavy, contact departure 120.85.

We're in New York, Saratoga. It's a little bumpy at 5,000 feet. We're going to be crossing over JFK at 5,000 feet. Really cool thing to see. Oftentimes you'll see a line of jumbo jets, big jets coming in, almost looking like they're going to go right into you, but they always clear. So it's a cool experience to see. We can see downtown Manhattan.

Yeah, I mean, just like, so I live, I can see the skyline from my apartment building. To see it from this perspective is really, really cool.

Yeah, so Adrienne, tell me a little bit about your experience today. Like, we started out in New Jersey. Tell the folks, from someone who's not an aviator, what the experience was like for you, the feeling of flight. Now that we have the animals here, we're on our way to Maine. Like, what was that like for you?

So I love adventure and I love being on a plane, so this is really awesome for me. You take one of my sisters up here, I'm not so sure, but yeah, I've had A great experience so far. It's so exciting, you know, just going on these, like, the fact that we're doing a few flights today is really, really cool. Um, you know, and the anticipation of getting to these animals, um, was amazing. And, and the view from getting on the first flight and going through the clouds, um, you know, it's really cool to hear everything from you and hear everything about the plane. And, you know, you're letting me know everything you're doing, and I think I'm so interested in that. And like I mentioned earlier, my father loves flights. He has his own flight simulator. So like, this is really cool to like see it and hear it. But yeah, arriving and going to see these guys here was a really, really cool, like, you know, you can't even put it into words that we're like doing something so great for these animals. And, you know, now having them on board, I feel like my energy is up and we're ready to go get them home.

Yeah, it's a lot better having these passengers on board. But today we brought down some much— passengers— today we brought down some much-needed supplies thanks to Cuddly and, uh, all our donors. So Cuddly allowed us to do a, a raise, not just financially but also supplies that are much needed. And it's such a shame to have this cabin empty, so we brought down hundreds of pounds of food and leashes and collars and bowls And these animals come from Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania, Virginia. It's a county-run shelter and their budget is limited, so they really appreciate it.

November 03 Tango, climb and maintain 7,000.

03 Tango, 5,000, climb and maintain 7,000. Now we're going back up to 7,000.

Woo!

You can see JFK right in front of us.

All right, over here.

Yeah, how cool that the city looks really cool.

That's awesome. Yeah, so we're climbing up to, uh, we're at 5,000 feet. We're climbing up to 7,000 feet, which is our assigned cruising altitude, and we're going to go right overhead of JFK. Um, we're just over— what is this— Sandy Hook. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, there's Sandy Hook.

Sandy Hook is a, um, a beach that my mom used to take us all when we were kids.

Nice.

Because it's, you know, they go by the carload.

That's cool. Yeah, and we're crossing the Long Island Sound, right? Atlantic Ocean, Long Island Sound.

I mean, it's just, you know, it's—

Giant 2678 Heavy, turn left heading 010, contact departure 120.85. 120.85 and turn left 010, Giant 2678 Heavy.

Well, anything else you want to say last minute or so?

Um, I just think that, um, if you guys aren't— I mean, you guys are following us, but just, I don't know, it's, it's so hard to put it into words what they're doing. Is just, you know, any support is welcomed and awesome, and you're helping these little lives get to somewhere safe and happy. And I don't know, I can get emotional talking about it, but I think You know, just knowing that and being in this seat is really cool to see up front what's going on. So it's cool that you guys can share this with us and, um, yeah, just keep following and keep supporting. And I'm grateful for being a part of it.

Well, we're grateful to have you. It's really important to engage with influencers such as yourself because it helps spread our mission, and you guys do such a great job at taking this raw content that we film and shoot and making something of it, uh, so our message gets out there. We really appreciate it, Adrian, and I appreciate all you guys, all, all our donors that make this happen. Um, no donation is too small. Uh, we— I couldn't do this without you. And, um, you know, all these guys thank you in the back. 19 furry souls that have— that are saved today.

19 fur babies.

That's all right. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Bye now. See you. Hey guys, Michael Schneider here, founder and top dog of Pilots to the Rescue. Another amazing day. We have Savannah Vincent here today.

What's up guys? I'm so excited to be here. A lot of fun.

Oh yeah, we had Today was a pretty interesting day. I'm going to let Savannah talk about her experience as she saw it, but it was, it wasn't your typical rescue by any stretch of the imagination. But I want you to hear from Savannah first. Savannah, tell me about your experience today. Even before that, tell me a little bit about yourself, some background about yourself.

Yeah, so I moved to New York 2 years ago from Cincinnati. So I always had the dream of being a model. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to graduate high school a year early and move out here by myself. My family was so scared. They're like, you're not going to make it, da da da. So I took that leap, and it's 2 years later, and now I model full-time. I'm signed with 5 different modeling agencies. I've had billboards in Times Square multiple times. I've modeled for Marc Jacobs fragrance, L'Oréal, Macy's, Grey Goose, book bags. The list goes on. So it's crazy. So I want to just show people, like, if you come from a small town, You can make anything happen. It's just hard work and dedication. I love what I do because I get to meet amazing people like you and get to travel, and I love it.

That's awesome. And Cincinnati— I lived in Cincinnati for 3 and a half years. It's actually where I got my pilot's license. So it's a really small world. I don't run into a lot of people in New York City that are from Cincinnati.

It's right— actually, recently I've been coming across more more Cincinnati people.

Yeah, because a lot of Cincinnati people, they leave and then they come back, from what I understand.

Yeah, that's true. I feel like a lot of people, like, they think it's going to be easy and then they give up and then go back home. But you have to stick through. Like, when you fall, get right back up.

I'm sorry, northeast.

Awesome. And I'm, I'm at Savannah through Cheryl, our last influencer that we had.

Well, in November, Cheryl is amazing. She's so sweet.

Cheryl Martinez. Amazing woman, beginner cooking.

I need to watch some of her videos.

Oh yeah.

I love cooking, so making it vegan is like a whole different lifestyle.

Absolutely.

So Savannah, tell me a little bit about your experience today so far.

Yeah, so at first I honestly had no idea what to expect, and this is my first time actually hearing about something like this. So when I came, we came all the way from New York to Jersey. And it was so cool hanging out. We do call it like the hangar. The hangar, yeah. Yeah, the hangar. It's very different from seeing an actual airplane to being in this hangar just because I'm not used to it. In an airplane, it's so smooth and, you know, you have like your snacks. And then here you can literally feel the wind from the window. Like you can feel every little bump. It's insane. So I was sitting in the back before. This is my first time sitting in the front. I was so scared. Now I feel like I'm becoming a little bit of a pro. Um, but we just got all the dogs. As you can see, all these crates have— how many do we have in here?

I lost track. There's probably at least 25.

Yeah, we have a lot of dogs. It's dogs and puppies and one pregnant on here as well.

On Daniel's lap. Daniel, Mau Mau, the co-pilot usually sitting here, is actually in the back of this plane right now. He can't hear us, he can't see Yes, he has a pregnant dog in his lap.

Yeah, so it was a little like worrying at first because we didn't know if we were going to be able to fit, you know, all the animals, but the majority, we got all of them, which is amazing. And like I said, I grew up on a farm, so I've always been around animals and I love just being around them. So moving to New York, you have city, it's, you know, it's walls everywhere. So now I really got to do this. I think it's amazing. To help out and, you know, find these animals good, happy homes finally so they can be safe.

Yeah, and we really wanted to have Mars sit on her lap, but we couldn't identify— I identified the puppy before. Mars is a dog, a 3-month-old puppy or 3-week-old. So cute that my mother-in-law adopted, Olga, sight unseen, just from one picture, and it's the cutest dog. And I identified the dog before, but then it kind of got away from me with all the chaos and We couldn't get it out. But, uh, cute as dogs, so we'll follow up with Mars.

You'll see him shortly.

Yeah, that's right. So we hit quite a bit of turbulence on the way down there, including at one point where we hit a pocket of air and it nearly knocked the headset off of my head.

It was so scary!

I hit my head so hard, I was like, we're crashing, we're crashing!

And you were falling asleep a lot.

I know, at first I got comfy, I was like, okay, cool, this is nice, and then when I woke up, then that's when— That's when it really got serious.

Yeah, it was very choppy for a significant portion of the flight. And the landing was difficult too. It was very windy.

How do you think the landing will be when we get back? Because I know it's snowy there, because where we were there was no snow.

Yeah, I think the landing is going to be a little challenging there also. It's a gusty day. Look at that little plane up there.

Oh! Crazy how everything looks so tiny.

Traffic at site 8203 Tango. Tango. Yeah, so there's a plane 1,000 feet above us and we're overtaking him right now. Just so you guys know, we're over Richmond, Virginia right now. We left from Tyler City, North Carolina. We're in Richmond. We have just under 2 hours left in our flight and we're at 7,000 feet. We can see the city of Richmond down there, Richmond, Virginia.

I was actually just in Richmond 2 months ago.

You're really good at it.

I know.

Like, she's been to Caldwell Airport before. Yeah, she's been to Siler City. I've never been to Siler City. I'm like twice your age.

Oh my gosh, no, I was there for a music video. That's why I was there for one day.

It was literally like the life of a talented model and influencer. So just for you guys, the reason why we're leveraging these influencers like Savannah and Cheryl is because we have a message to talk about that we want to get out there. And it's about this horrific problem we have in our country of euthanizing animals. Many of these dogs today would have been euthanized if we didn't rescue them. They have a very— they have a terrible problem down south. They just don't do as well as we do in the Northeast with getting animals adopted. So this life-saving flight today of 25-plus dogs, they're all going to be adopted. Oh, and think about all the love and loyalty that all these families are going to get that adopt these dogs. That's why we do this work today. And the influencers, coming back to the reason why we use them, they help spread our message. Savannah has a pretty big reach on different social media platforms, and she's going to tell this story from her perspective, her experience.

Yeah, I'm going to blast it out on all my social media platforms to hopefully get tons of people to realize to not go buy dogs, and so, you know, go adopt.

That's right, adopt, don't shop! Adopt, don't shop! Adopt, don't shop! Cheryl started that rap.

That is so funny.

Yeah, we're gonna challenge Cheryl with coming up with a, like, maybe a TikTok rap of adopt, don't shop. She's good at those. Yeah, so we're really looking forward to, uh, live streaming this video later and answering all your questions.

So I'm curious as well, the viewers are as well probably. So when we land back in Jersey, what's like the process?

Like, what's the traffic now? 1 o'clock, 1.5 miles northeast down at 7.

I don't think that's us. No. So what's the plan?

Yeah, so like what usually happens when we get back?

Oh, when we land at Caldwell?

Yeah.

Yeah, so when we get to Caldwell, it's a, you know, it's a bit of an orchestration with the people that are arriving at the airport. They want to take the animals. We have someone coming today interviewing us from NewJersey.com. We also have a donor coming to visit us, Claire. And this is very interesting because Claire was a donor in New Jersey who saw our article, the one they wrote about us in the Prospect, I think it's called, with Constantine Maroulis, another influencer we used. And she called me and said, I just saw your article, I'm a donor. So she's coming today because she wants to check out what we're doing. Very cool. Yeah, it really is a small world.

It really is.

Yeah, we're all connected. I mean, it's amazing doing this work and giving back because you attract people that are like-minded. And, um, I've made so many great relationships through doing this work. It's a pleasure. I mean, I love flying and saving animals, but the give back is the ultimate.

For sure.

So rewarding. Yeah. So tell me about the animals you had when you were growing up. Like, in Cincinnati, you lived on a farm, right?

Yeah, so my family, we owned a little bit of everything from buffalo to Scottish Highlanders, Arctic wolves, rabbits, cats, dogs, llamas, ostriches.

Ostriches?

Yeah, we literally owned everything, so it was like a petting zoo that we did. So like I said, it was completely different moving to New York. I had to adjust everything. I had to learn how to kind of be tough Um, because New Yorkers are very tough and straight to the point, so I had to definitely learn how to be a rock.

That's for sure. Absolutely. You said ostriches?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, we have some crazy animals.

Now you have a, uh, you adopted an animal, a cat recently, right?

Yes, Moto. It's his name.

Moto?

Yeah. Have you watched, uh, Penguins of Madagascar?

I've heard of it. I haven't seen it. Good.

Yeah, it's I got the name from there. There's like a hippo from the show and he like gets out of the water. He's like, "My name's Moto Moto. It's so nice you say it twice." So I was like, "Oh, I like that." But yeah, it's a Scottish straight and literally it takes my stress away. Like, helps me so much because at first I was scared I wouldn't have time just because I travel so much. But complete opposite. Pets are not, you know, they're not that difficult to take care of. You know, people, you know, make it seem like it's so much work, but it's not. And it helped me at the long run, like, so much.

Crazy.

I love Moto.

Yeah, and that's very true. Pets are de-stressors big time because they have undeniable love and devotion and loyalty. No matter what is going on in your life, that pet will be there for you, and they're not going to talk back. They're, they're not going to give you a hard time. And when you pet the pet, when you stroke the animal, it is a huge de-stressor. They've done all kinds of studies. It lowers your heart rate. A lot of seniors that are lonely or widowed, you know, they get the pet and it just— they love it. It's just very comforting.

Oh yeah, they're like little humans, honestly.

Right. It is a responsibility, but think about all that we do, how much money we spend, all the things that we do to de-stress. Stress. Right. Getting an animal, I would— for those of that, that you don't have, don't have animals, I would, uh, ask you to consider to get a pet as a de-stressor.

Definitely.

One would not think that, as long as it's not a puppy or kitten. Everybody wants puppies or kittens, but if you're willing to adopt an adult dog or a cat, it could be 1 year old, 6 months even. They, they're already be fixed, they'll have their shots. A lot easier. I mean, puppies are a big responsibility, and I think sometimes people don't understand how much responsibility are. They pee and they poop everywhere. You constantly walk them. They tear up stuff. So get one that's already trained. Plenty of them.

So do you have any pets?

Yes, I have a 90-pound black shepherd mix named Sydney, and she is the best dog. She's from Tennessee. We got her from North Shore Animal League.

You have to show me a picture.

Oh yeah, she's a big girl. She's so good with our boys. We have 4 boys, 4 and under. He's really good, really gentle with her.

So cute.

He's awesome.

766 Bravo Alpha. Affirm, November Sierra Alpha. What altitude are you descending to?

Yeah, yeah, because when you're in a big plane, you don't get to see the views from these heights.

Yeah, you're usually like higher up. This, you can like literally see like the little squares of everything.

Yeah, I wish you guys could see this, but I took video. Oh great, yeah, well you'll be able to see Savannah's all, all her things that she's gonna—

yeah, you guys will see the real insight of like what happened today, right?

And we'll put those on Facebook, and, uh, she's also on Instagram and TikTok.

Yes, @_queen.sav_ is my—

hitting some turbulence now—

is my Instagram, and then Savannah Vincent with two N's is my TikTok, so you guys can check me out there.

Awesome.

So I just checked the turbulence.

Up to 8,000 feet. We're at 7,000 feet, but we can't go above 8,000 feet because the animals become hypoxic, which means they're starving oxygen. They'll start to have trouble breathing above 8,000 feet.

Oh my God.

Otherwise I would climb. We don't really get that till above 10,000 feet. So we want to take care of these animals and keep them safe. So 8,000 feet is our ceiling. So we're dealing with a little bit of turbulence. There's nothing we can do. We can't— if we go down, it's going to be the same. Yeah.

So what's like the craziest, you know, flight experience that you've had, you know, taking the animals from one place to another?

There's a lot of— earlier in my career doing this, we had a dog that got away on the runway. So it got out of the crate and it started running all over the airport environment. So that's a difficult thing because if you're taking off or landing and you're dealing with this dog that might be running on the runway, it could become a problem. So we had to inform the airport operations and they got in the truck and they went and they caught the dog.

Wow.

So they do get away. It's happened to me more than once. They're slippery little guys, especially when they've been in these crates. This long. I keep forgetting that Daniel is back there.

I know.

I really hope he's okay.

He can't even communicate with us because the headset wasn't—

the headset was not working. I can't see him. I hope he's okay. Hopefully he's just eating his wrap. I know he used the bathroom.

I think I can see—

I can see the light is on.

I think I can see like a little bit of his hat.

Yeah. The light is on back there.

That's—

I didn't even know there was a light back there.

Yeah, there's these little map lights, you know. Could be all fancy in our plane here. Not fancy at all. The heat broke. It's cold in here. I wish I had a fur coat right now like these dogs.

I know.

Yeah. So, um, I don't know, is there anything else that you want to talk about? We've been on for 15 minutes. Anything you want to leave with our viewers before we sign off. Um, maybe to— are you— talk a little bit about how this makes you feel doing this rescue, knowing that you were involved rescuing all these animals. How does that make you feel?

It makes me honestly feel amazing, just because I would— like, not a lot of people get to have this full experience, you know. Like, I literally went through it all. Like, I saw them, I'm taking them back, and now, you know, people— you said donors and stuff are going to be there. So like, I think that's so cool, and Hopefully I can know in the future where they all go to their homes, and it's just really nice to know, like, that's because of us, you know what I mean?

Like, absolutely.

I'm just really excited to see what happens, and I feel good. I feel good.

Well, thank you for joining us. I'd like to say something in the last minute that we have. Yeah, um, I would like to do a contest where we give one of our fans an opportunity to come along on our rescue flight. Wouldn't that be awesome?

That would be amazing.

So if you If you hear me right now, you have to send me a message, a direct message, either to Pilots to Rescue or Michael Schneider on Facebook or michael@pilotstorescue.org and tell me that Sydney sent you, my dog Sydney, S-Y-D-M-E-Y, to be entered into a chance to go on a rescue flight. And thanks again everybody for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Bye guys, good