Geek in the Cockpit

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The last two years have flown by….pun intended

October 8th, 2009 by Geek Pilot
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Two years ago (today I think) I interviewed at my airline.

Prior to the interview I studied gouges on line (I used the Will Fly For Food gouges), bought a suit (haven’t owned one since I was a kid), a red tie (not solid red…but red was the main color) and a soft briefcase. I also made a ton of copies of my licenses (pilot, radio, etc), passport you name it. The day of the interview I ate the same breakfast I had prior to every check ride…a McDonalds Sausage, Egg and Cheese McGriddle. Healthy? No. Good luck? Yes! I passed every check ride the first time after eating this. I attribute this feat not only too my skill but also to the heart attack wrapped in syurp that is the McGriddle.

There were 25 pilots initially in the waiting room. The age range was wide. Some looked barely old enough to drive. Others could have been my father. We were all placed in a room and then called out one at a time for various interviews. There was a simple “get to know you” interview along with a situational interview, technical interview (reading Jeppesen charts and questions about an aircraft listed in your logbook) interview and a documentation interview. Long day. I arrived at 7:30AM. We broke for lunch at 11:30AM and finished THIS SET of interviews around 3PM. Throughout the day the numbers of waiting pilots dwindled.

I remember one pilot who didn’t make it. He went to ATP like I did, but had a very negative attitude. He never got his CFI ratings as he “didn’t need then”.  While sitting in the waiting room he openly talked about how horrible ATP was for him and how ATP did him wrong. He then discussed how he knew the airline would hire him because he is such a great pilot. He was gone before lunch. I later saw he was hired by another airline, a quick check of his FAA records showed he never passed training (those who pass training on a jet at any airline have a SIC type rating on their FAA record).

There was another pilot who was in a bad spot. He was young (23 if I remember). He got hired on by one regional. Hated it. Went to (the now defunct) Champion Airlines and was hired as a Flight Engineer. When he was hired upgrades to First Officer were quick. Then the economy started tanking. He had not flown at the controls in 6 months. He failed the technical portion.

After all of those interviews it was off for a simulator test. I was nervous as it was in a plane I have never flown before. This wasn’t important. They just wanted to see if I could read an approach chart and fly the approach. I could and did. After a few days I was hired.

Saying I was on cloud nine would be putting it lightly.

This month will start my third year. The pay increase is just over 10%. Very nice. Not as nice as Captains pay….and no where near as nice as my salary at my IT cubicle job….but still nice.

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Two days of jury duty

September 22nd, 2009 by Geek Pilot
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I showed up for Jury Duty yesterday…waited around for 3 hours…got picked for a Jury that was called in at 9 AM today. I was initially worried about losing money. Once I got home I checked my contract….I get full pay for each day. After a quick call to crew scheduling I was cleared for day 2.

This morning I arrived at 9AM to an overfull room…not enough seats. After an hour we were released. I was paid a whole $46 for the two days of service. Of course I spent $40 on parking. The county has free parking….but it’s in an isolated and unsecured lot. No thanks.

I did feel a little guilty not going to work. I could have made my 2PM standby. Eh.

Tomorrow I have reserve at home from 4AM until 7PM.

Next month I have a week of vacation. Since most of my reserve stints are 6 days long my 7 days of vacation covers 6 reserve days. One thing I don’t like about my airline is how vacation is assigned. I have to bid on vacation a week at a time. Most line holders work 4 on/3 off. Thus they burn 7 vacation days when they only had to burn 4. It can get really complicated. As is I only have  13 work days next month. I am going to try to “bundle” them to have more time off together. Eh.

I am sending out the videos tomorrow. I had a few people express interest.  The fair way is first come first serve. The first person I believe is still working on his private. The second is getting ready to take his private.

I decided to ship the first person will get all the videos dealing with getting the private pilot license and basic flying. The second person is getting IFR videos, Commercial videos and CFI videos. I am also throwing in some Jeppessen charts in the box as they can be hard to come by unless you know someone.

My wife and I are taking another trip this weekend. I have Friday and Saturday off so we looked all around for open flights…and then tried to find a city we wanted to visit. Should be fun.

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Does it help to get trained at a big name flight school?

August 20th, 2009 by Geek Pilot
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Flight schools don’t issue pilot certificates. The FAA does. The FAA could care less where a pilot recieved training. As long as the pilot meets the standards imposed by the FAA examiner, they get the certificate. The proof is in the pudding.

When people choose schools, they do so for a multitude of reasons. There is no perfect school. The quality of the education and access to resources can make one school more attractive and arguably better than another. I could get my MBA from Montana State or The University of Chicago. The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business is a (if not the) top learning instituions to get a MBA. The tuition cost are indeed higher than Montana State. I bet, on average, that graduates from the University of Chicago are more well rounded and prepared than those from Montana State. A similar argument can be made when it comes to flight training.

I  did a lot of research before selecting a flight school. Weeks were spent comparing local schools/instructors with national “big name” schools. It’s true I could have spent less money to earn the same certificates, but I wanted a quality, well thought out program that fit my needs. ATP fit my needs.

At the time I was working a 40 hour a week cubicle job, troubleshooting software for a Point of Sale company. I worked 7AM to 4PM Monday thru Friday. Three days a week I would leave work and train at the airport from 5PM till whenever. On Sundays I trained all day. I finished both the private pilot and career pilot programs in 10 months.

ATP had the resources to make sure I had an instructor and required resources (classroom, computers, aircraft etc) each time I drove to the airport. In my 10 months of training there was only 2 occassions where I didn’t have access to a plane at the scheduled time. Both were due to other students checkrides going longer than planned.

ATP training is very structured, just like my training at the airline. The checklist used at ATP (which seemed like overkill at the time) are guess what….just as tedious as the checklist I use everyday. The transition was easy.

During my training I met the owner of ATP, just once. He was a great guy. We had a nice conversation during my turn at flying the Cessna Citation. Several months later when I met him again (after being hired to be a CFI) he remembered my name and the details about me and my family. He isn’t this rich guy who owns a lot of planes and wants to relax on his yacht while other people run this business. He is deeply involved with day to day operations. He makes sure no expense is spared when it came to safety, mantanence or training.

I did take the ATP Regional Jet Course and went on (after being hired by my airline) to go instruct the course. Guess what? The training in that course is just like training at the airline.

While training at ATP does cost more than similar training at a local/smaller flight school, the training, equipment, and access to resources make up for it. In my opinion at least. I’ve seen people price out the same training offered at ATP and come out $3,000-$7,000 cheaper. That’s a lot of money no doubt. But there is truth to the old saying, “you get what you pay for”. Just visit a few pilot forums to see the stories from people who got ripped off by flight school X, or were overcharged (by dragging out the training) by flight instructor Y, or having trouble learning because the flight school keeps changing aircraft (going from a Piper to a Cessna to a Diamond isn’t good when you’re just starting out). It happens.

In full disclosure I am not and have not been paid/compensated by ATP for anything I have written on this blog. I’m just discussing my own opinion and experience while going there.

With that said, ATP recently posted a new video/commercial.

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RNAV departures

June 18th, 2009 by Geek Pilot
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GPS (Global Positioning System). Those three letters have changed the way we live our lives. Twenty years ago most planes got from point A to point B by flying along airways created by ground based radios (VORs or NDBs). Ten years ago most people in the United States got from point A to point B with paper maps and coffee. Today both planes and cars use GPS to get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible.

With GPS on board we can go direct to a VOR that is 500 miles away (too far to be picked up the old fashioned way). Additionally we can go directly to a fix that is either created by the intersection of two airways, a distance from a VOR or just exist in open space. In the old days a plane would have to fly directly to one VOR then follow the airway until they arrived at a set distance or intersection of two airways to get to a fix.

With ground based navigation, the airways are 4 miles wide on each side of the centerline. The margin for error is huge! This margin is due to slight variances in the radio equipment onboard airplanes.

With GPS, airplanes are able to fly an EXACT route. This really helps move traffic in and out of busy airports.

DPs or Departure Procedures, are used to route airplanes from an airport to an airway and onto their destination. DPs have been around for years. Most are still designed around ground based navigational aids and RADAR vectors. Due to the higher workload on the controller and pilots, fewer aircraft are able to be funneled through a given space.  Increasingly many are being designed solely using GPS.

These new DPs are called a RNAV Departure Procedure (aRea NAVigation…hey I didn’t make it up!). With RNAV DPs, planes can be routed to very specific routes and to a very specific space and then onto their destination.

Many RNAV DPs are designed down to the departing runway. One RNAV DP might have 3 different routes depending on which runway a plane is departing from.

When loading a RNAV DP I have to be very careful to load the correct runway. Before takeoff the runway assignment is checked (via checklist) at least three times. Why? Well look at the RNAV DP from LAX called the Oshnn Three Departure.

oshnn3.jpg

Assume the airport is in a west flow. Planes taking off from the 24R will proceed to FABRA as the first fix. Planes taking off from 24L will have DLREY as the first fix. Planes taking off from 25R will have DOCKR as the first fix and planes from 25L will proceed to HIPR as the first fix. Got it?

LAX is a busy airport. They typically launch one plane from each side of the airport at the same time. Let’s assume they use 24L and 25R as the departing runways. If the plane taking off from 24L accidentally loaded 25L as the departing runway, upon takeoff the plane would veer to the left toward HIPR instead of heading toward DLREY. The plane taking off from 25R would be proceeding to DOCKR. The two would likely mate if no one intervened.

This sounds far fetched…but it happens often. I have had runway assignments changed on me numerous times. Each time the Captain and I take the time to verify both the new runway and the RNAV fixes.

To combat planes having the wrong runway loaded, many airports have another hurdle for pilots to cross. Here is a new exchange that happens when a plane is cleared to takeoff.

LAX tower -”Geek flight 398 cleared for takeoff, runway 24L RNAV to DLREY”

Geek 398 – “Cleared for takeoff runway 24L, RNAV to DLREY Geek flight 298″

By confirming the first fix in the RNAV DP the tower helps the pilots make absolutely sure they correct RNAV DP is loaded and they are lined up on the correct runway.

While flying in the terminal area, the GPS routes are just .3 miles wide….1/3 of a mile. Pilots hand flying while at 250 knots can easily be off course while turning if they don’t pay 100% attention.

Some pilots have been reprimanded for making turns too shallow and overshooting the course. They turn shallow for passenger comfort. Using the same DP, look at the sharp turn made when taking off from 25R between WEILR and SHAEF and SHAEF and PEVEE. RNAV DPs are designed to be flown by an autopilot. Pilots, for the most part, like to actually fly. When I fly a RNAV DP my eyes are inside focused on the flight director and the CDI needle the entire time. Even a momentary glance outside can cause me to fly off course. When I want to look outside I click on the autopilot at 600 feet and let “George” do the flying.

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