Phenom 300
First Officer
Pilot, musician, drone operator, creative. These days I fly the Embraer Phenom 300 as a First Officer. Scroll down and the years run backwards.
Charter and corporate flying is where I'm headed for the long term. I came to it after twenty-plus years making music for film and TV.
- Position
- First Officer, Phenom 300, since September 2026
- Certificates & ratings
- ATP AMEL, EMB-505
Commercial ASEL, ASES
CFI, CFII - Flying club
- VP & Programs Chair, Fort Myers Flying Club
- Baron 58TC
- Bonanza A36
- Cessna 150
- Cessna 172
- Cessna 182
- Cessna 210
- Cessna 414
- Cessna P210 turbine
- Cirrus SR20
- Debonair
- Diamond DA40
- Eclipse 500
- GlaStar
- King Air 350
- Mooney M20
- Mooney M20 turbo
- P210 Centurion
- Phenom 300
- Pilatus PC-12
- Piper Arrow
- Piper Cherokee / Warrior / Archer
- Pipistrel Sinus
- SD-4 Viper
- Saratoga SP / Lance
- SeaRey
- Seminole
- Skyboy
- Turbo Saratoga
- Twin Beech 18
- Twin Comanche
- V-tail Bonanza
- VL-3
- Van's RV-10
- Van's RV-12
- Van's RV-6
- Van's RV-9
Turbine Multi-engine Single-engine · bigger means more hours · Full experience list →
FlyHedral
FlyHedral (fly·HEE·drul) is the family of aviation apps I build: Study, Weather, Charts, Checklists, CFI and Career, all on one account. I started it as a working CFI who needed every one of these tools.
My study guides have moved there. Ground school, checkride prep and the ACS, free to use.
Tap an app to see it work
The training and teaching years
Instrument and commercial at Paragon, a seaplane rating at Jones Brothers, then CFI and CFII at the Fort Myers Flying Club. Then I worked as an independent CFI at Page Field.
I taught private, instrument, commercial and CFI students, plus discovery flights for anyone curious.
- 2023Instrument and Commercial, single and multi · Paragon Flight Training
- 2023Commercial Seaplane · Jones Brothers
- 2024CFI and CFII · Fort Myers Flying Club
- 2024–26Flight instructor at KFMY
- Pilots
- 88
- Flights
- 485
- Hours of dual given
- 819
Each dot is one pilot. Bigger dot, more hours together. Tap or hover a dot.
Eyes in the sky
Aerial camera work for TV and film, from chasing cars on Top Gear America to feature films, flying with Furious Pugs.
Here the music and the flying meet. The drone reels are scored with my own library cues, so the footage and the soundtrack come from the same person.
- Company
- Furious Pugs, co-founded with Rick Ringbakk
- Role
- Pilot / Aerial DP, gimbal and FPV
- Certificate
- FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot
Four hundred cues
It started with The Phone on MTV, my very first show. Next came Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, a prime-time series on ABC, and that was a big deal. Over the years I wrote more than 400 cues for the Whatnot and HMX libraries, used on shows like King of the Nerds, Bet On Your Baby, Duck Dynasty and The Hero with Dwayne Johnson.
Rick Ringbakk and the late Craig Armstrong gave me my break and fostered my music career. I owe them a lot. There were also scores for documentaries and features.
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution · ABC
The Hero · TNT
King of the Nerds · TBS
Bet On Your Baby · ABC
Wake Up Call · TNT
The Ostinato Project
In September 2015, Philip Sheppard and I visited the music class at Big Sky School District during the HATCH gathering. We came away with a simple idea: show kids that they can compose real music, and make it pay for their music program.
Every week, small groups of middle and high school students wrote an ostinato, a short repeating figure of a few notes. The class voted on the best one. Their teacher, John Zirkle, filmed it and sent it to Philip in London and me in LA. We each built it into a finished, professionally produced piece and had it back to the kids by Friday.
Then they took it apart in class to hear how their four notes had become a whole track. Parents told us their kids were excited to go to school on Monday because of it.
Those twelve pieces became the album Hatch Ostinato Project, Vol. 1. Sales went back to the school's music program, and the tracks were licensed for television to keep it funded. Two were placed in a national TV show while the project was still running.
Hear the album: Spotify · YouTube Music · Explore Big Sky story (2015)
Olompali: A Hippie Odyssey
In 1967, Marin County businessman Don McCoy grew a beard, dropped out, and leased Rancho Olompali, an old estate north of San Francisco. Friends, kids and strangers moved in, and the commune they called the Chosen Family lasted until 1969. The Grateful Dead had lived in the same mansion the summer before, and they shot the back cover of Aoxomoxoa there.
Gregg Gibbs directed it and wrote it with Don's daughter, Maura McCoy. Peter Coyote narrates. It premiered at the DocLands festival in 2018. It's a story about freedom and how fast that dream came apart. I wrote the score, from the opening fire to Don's requiem.
mamaSutra
Where it started. Sax, guitar and flute in mamaSutra, playing the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, the Knitting Factory in Hollywood, rooftops and weddings.
- Band
- Molly Boyles (bass, vocals), Ben Martin (drums), Russell Spurlock (sax, guitar, flute). Ray Messick (guitar) in the early years, then Arlan Schierbaum (keys) after Ray left.
Still playing
I'm a creative person first, and a musician at heart. Alongside every era above, there has always been a band, a jam or a project going, and I hope there always will be.
A gathering of friends and, as we like to say, too many guitars. We've played Hanano's in Venice for years, and it's where our close friends come together for the jams. It still happens from time to time.
Ben Martin drums · Tom Ciaponi bass · guitars by Russell Spurlock, Rob Veve, Robby Staley, Ted Lizee and Jude Canon, sometimes with Brent Canon and other special guests.
Recordings still to be found.
Live shows, including the Fais Do-Do.
Get in touch
Send me a note and I'll get back to you.
Or email russell [at] russellspurlock.com · save my contact card