Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
CBJSprague24
Dec 5, 2010

another game at nationwide arena. everybody keeps asking me if they can fuck the cannon. buddy, they don't even let me fuck it

That 747 crash video is surreal in the most horrific way possible. It's like something out of a nightmare.

I've been at the site of two crashes, but was fortunate enough to have my back turned to both (2007 Dayton Air Show & a Fly-in last year). Seeing that sort of makes up for both. :(

Picking up where I left off a couple pages back (and Figby, unfortunately I don't have PMs):

two_beer_bishes posted:

My wife is a dispatcher for a 121 carrier and has dispatched/flight-followed for an international cargo carrier as well. I would be happy to forward any questions to her if you's like.

Figby posted:

I am a dispatcher for a 121 supplemental carrier right now, and have done some time dispatching at regionals and another 121 supplemental. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

b c n u posted:

I'm a scheduler at a regional....ask away.

I guess I'm curious about a general overview as to "Day in the Life"-type aspects of the jobs: What might a normal day/extreme day (weather's gone to hell, other operational nightmare.) entail, how do the companies schedule your work hours, lifestyle, do you get much use out of any travel benefits your employer might provide, is it a position you'd recommend if one has the choice? (I had a Citation X captain tell me during one of my days at NetJets that "You really don't want to fly. Find something else to do.", not messing around in the least, so I'm fine with hearing both sides of the coin if they're out there.)

The reason I ask is the school from which I earned my Associate's in Aviation Technology also has a Dispatch program, from which I took several of the classes as requirements and/or electives anyway. One of the remaining classes, an IFR Flight Planning course, would be waived because I have my Instrument rating. Thanks to that, I'm considering taking the last handful of classes, getting the Dispatch ticket, and maybe even going that route for a career. I also have an option where I could finish things through an accelerated program, which I think gets you done in six weeks or something to that effect.

CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 17:10 on May 4, 2013

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Animal
Apr 8, 2003

Ferris Bueller posted:

Which club are you joining? Been thinking a commercial glider rating would be a fun add on.


Sandhill Soaring Club at Richmond Field. I plan to join in July or August when I start doing 2nd year pay and can actually afford it. Let me know if you are interested, we can get together. There are other airline and former airline pilots there, seems like a great place for networking and having fun.

The fact that there is no engine and you have to make the most of your control surfaces and energy management appeals to me greatly as an airline pilot, precisely for maintaining those stick and rudder skills.

quote:

1000x this, plus in the US I could hand fly 100% of the flight no matter the conditions depending on how much I like watching my PM working.

Kodiak, in all seriousness start hand flying the airplane, start hand flying it all the way to cruise altitude, and to conquer the visual approach dread just start doing them. Some tips I give my IOE guys are imagine an ILS overlayed on the twisty course you are going to take to get to the runway, and then pick out visual reference points along your course and make little mental gates, speed, alt, and config wise to be at these points. If you're flying with a captain that's cool, just tell them you're trying to get better with visuals and see if you can't steal the visual legs, or get in an extra. If a guy told that to me I would gladly give up a few legs to see if I could help out. The visual approach is where pilots can show off their talent, so a bit of practice is worth it.

I think what Kodiak is going at is that his company policy is that you fly the precision approach profile regardless of whether you got a visual. In my first months on the CRJ700 I was terrified of the visual approaches, but I just started forcing myself to hand fly every chance I get, up to FL180, and on approach, as soon as I hear "cleared for the visual RWY XX" I am thumbing that autopilot disconnect and turning the flight director off. Its so much fun once you are used to it. Its a matter of not overcorrecting either with your yoke or throttle. Just put the nose where you think it should go and make small adjustments from there. Fly a regular ILS, observe where the attitude indicator normally goes and your power settings, and emulate that on the visual. I am actually forcing myself to use automation more often now because I'm starting to suck at that :)

KodiakRS
Jul 11, 2012

:stonk:

Animal posted:

I think what Kodiak is going at is that his company policy is that you fly the precision approach profile regardless of whether you got a visual. In my first months on the CRJ700 I was terrified of the visual approaches, but I just started forcing myself to hand fly every chance I get, up to FL180, and on approach, as soon as I hear "cleared for the visual RWY XX" I am thumbing that autopilot disconnect and turning the flight director off. Its so much fun once you are used to it. Its a matter of not overcorrecting either with your yoke or throttle. Just put the nose where you think it should go and make small adjustments from there. Fly a regular ILS, observe where the attitude indicator normally goes and your power settings, and emulate that on the visual. I am actually forcing myself to use automation more often now because I'm starting to suck at that :)

This. I actually hand fly quite a lot. Still, a departure with a whopping 2 turns in it, or a "visual" approach that starts on a 10 mile straight in really isn't all that challenging. There are a few approaches we do that are what I'd consider true visual approaches (LGA expressway, river vis in DCA) but the VAST majority are the 5+ mile final "ILS in VFR conditions" style approaches. I guess a lot of this comes from the fact that >80% of all the flying I do these days is at major class B airports.

From a safety and passenger comfort standpoint this makes a lot of sense but it is dulling a skill set that may prove to be useful someday.

babyeatingpsychopath
Oct 28, 2000
Forum Veteran

Well, I went to take the Private Pilot written test today, and the proctor had to cancel. Oh well. My CFI forgot to endorse my logbook anyway, and had to fax the endorsement over. Now I get the endorsement in the logbook. I'm 5.1 hours short of my checkride, so he's just going to let me take the plane down to the testing center. Some part of me thinks it's badass to fly into a place to take the FAA pilot exam.

So close now! Two months of flying three or four times a week, four months of maintenance downing the aircraft, three weeks of twice a week, and I'll be a pilot! If those four months hadn't gotten in the way....

edit: I fly out of an Air Force Base through their Aero Club, and tower LOVES putting us on 7-mile straight-ins. A 7-mile final in a C-172 takes a long, boring time.

MrYenko
Jun 18, 2012

#2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

edit: I fly out of an Air Force Base through their Aero Club, and tower LOVES putting us on 7-mile straight-ins. A 7-mile final in a C-172 takes a long, boring time.

One of my instructors out here has a story about the Goodyear blimp asking for, and getting, a GCA from a military base out west. He tried to come up with a valid reason not to approve it, but couldn't, so he got to spend the next forty-five minutes giving GCA commands to an aircraft doing maybe 25kts over the ground. He finally called it off when the blimp was over the outer marker, because he had inbound military traffic.

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Hell our bases often deny approaches to other military trainers of the same branch that are based elsewhere.

b c n u
May 9, 2004

"We've got rectal bleeding." "What, all of you?"

CBJSprague24 posted:

I guess I'm curious about a general overview as to "Day in the Life"-type aspects of the jobs: What might a normal day/extreme day (weather's gone to hell, other operational nightmare.) entail, how do the companies schedule your work hours, lifestyle, do you get much use out of any travel benefits your employer might provide, is it a position you'd recommend if one has the choice? (I had a Citation X captain tell me during one of my days at NetJets that "You really don't want to fly. Find something else to do.", not messing around in the least, so I'm fine with hearing both sides of the coin if they're out there.)

The reason I ask is the school from which I earned my Associate's in Aviation Technology also has a Dispatch program, from which I took several of the classes as requirements and/or electives anyway. One of the remaining classes, an IFR Flight Planning course, would be waived because I have my Instrument rating. Thanks to that, I'm considering taking the last handful of classes, getting the Dispatch ticket, and maybe even going that route for a career. I also have an option where I could finish things through an accelerated program, which I think gets you done in six weeks or something to that effect.

Normal days like we are having tonight are pretty boring. We mostly just handle day-to-day issues like sick calls, rest issues, missing crewmembers and the like. We also have daily reports to do like deadheads and hotels.

Weather days can be really lovely. When you're trying to deal with cancels, pilots timing out, and limited hotel rooms, it can be frustrating for all involved. It's part of the job but it still sucks. Most of the crews are understanding but some of them fail to understand that they aren't the only ones we have to work with.

Our schedules are done per month and we normally know what they are by the 20th. We do 4 10-hr days and 3 off every week, and we can usually get overtime pretty easily as our manager is pretty laidback.

Pay sucks but the benefits aren't bad. I use my travel benefits pretty extensively but I'm the minority in my department for some reason. I'm actually doing a day trip to philly tomorrow which I'm excited about.

Overall I wouldn't recommend scheduling but dispatch seems like a pretty good gig. I am hoping to start dispatch school in June actually.

Tommy 2.0
Apr 26, 2008

My fabulous CoX shall live forever!

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

edit: I fly out of an Air Force Base through their Aero Club, and tower LOVES putting us on 7-mile straight-ins. A 7-mile final in a C-172 takes a long, boring time.

Where at? Definitely doesn't sound like what I did with our aero club guys that would get in the way during wing flying. :)

babyeatingpsychopath
Oct 28, 2000
Forum Veteran

Tommy 2.0 posted:

Where at? Definitely doesn't sound like what I did with our aero club guys that would get in the way during wing flying. :)

Holloman AFB. KHMN. We do our patterns out at KALM. If you don't turn final for 21 at KALM, you're 7 miles out for 25 at KHMN. At pattern altitude. So they just tell us to "establish 7-mile final" which is just "turn to 250, make sure you see a runway in front of you." When we report established, they say report 2-mile, and just do whatever else they want with other traffic. There are three ~10,000ft runways there, and if we land on 25, we can do a 180 and exit at the numbers, or exit on any of a few taxiways before the first intersection.

The best part is the military is all UHF comms, and the tower is simulcasting VHF and UHF, so we only hear half of tower conversations.

"Roger XXX, cleared inbound 16." "Affirmitive XXX, traffic inbound to 25 at five miles." "White Cessna, 100kts ground speed, affirmitive." Then we see some F-22s blow in, do an overhead approach to a touch-and-go, then leave. We're down to three miles now....

Tommy 2.0
Apr 26, 2008

My fabulous CoX shall live forever!

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

Holloman AFB. KHMN. We do our patterns out at KALM. If you don't turn final for 21 at KALM, you're 7 miles out for 25 at KHMN. At pattern altitude. So they just tell us to "establish 7-mile final" which is just "turn to 250, make sure you see a runway in front of you." When we report established, they say report 2-mile, and just do whatever else they want with other traffic. There are three ~10,000ft runways there, and if we land on 25, we can do a 180 and exit at the numbers, or exit on any of a few taxiways before the first intersection.

The best part is the military is all UHF comms, and the tower is simulcasting VHF and UHF, so we only hear half of tower conversations.

"Roger XXX, cleared inbound 16." "Affirmitive XXX, traffic inbound to 25 at five miles." "White Cessna, 100kts ground speed, affirmitive." Then we see some F-22s blow in, do an overhead approach to a touch-and-go, then leave. We're down to three miles now....

I've worked F-22s. Why did I just picture a F-22 going VRROOOOOOMMMM over the top of a C-172? I don't know why, but I'm glad I did.

edit: I mean like literally, the plane saying "VRROOOOMMM".

Ferris Bueller
May 12, 2001

"It is his fault he didn't lock the garage."

Animal posted:

Sandhill Soaring Club at Richmond Field. I plan to join in July or August when I start doing 2nd year pay and can actually afford it. Let me know if you are interested, we can get together. There are other airline and former airline pilots there, seems like a great place for networking and having fun.

The fact that there is no engine and you have to make the most of your control surfaces and energy management appeals to me greatly as an airline pilot, precisely for maintaining those stick and rudder skills.

I'll let you know if I can get the time and the schedule to match up gliding let alone another regional pilots. Sounds fun though.

Sucks that your airline's policy is like that Kodiak. Of course the Emb-145's passenger comfort sometimes suffers when the autopilot flies an ILS, so I guess I come from a bit of a different experience.

The Slaughter
Jan 28, 2002

cat scratch fever
I gave my 2 weeks notice today, moving to San Jose (well, somewhere in the bay area at least) to fly Cessna 206s for an aerial survey operator. Woot!

Problematic Soup
Feb 18, 2007

My soup has malfunctioned?



CBJSprague24 posted:


I guess I'm curious about a general overview as to "Day in the Life"-type aspects of the jobs: What might a normal day/extreme day (weather's gone to hell, other operational nightmare.) entail, how do the companies schedule your work hours, lifestyle, do you get much use out of any travel benefits your employer might provide, is it a position you'd recommend if one has the choice? (I had a Citation X captain tell me during one of my days at NetJets that "You really don't want to fly. Find something else to do.", not messing around in the least, so I'm fine with hearing both sides of the coin if they're out there.)

The reason I ask is the school from which I earned my Associate's in Aviation Technology also has a Dispatch program, from which I took several of the classes as requirements and/or electives anyway. One of the remaining classes, an IFR Flight Planning course, would be waived because I have my Instrument rating. Thanks to that, I'm considering taking the last handful of classes, getting the Dispatch ticket, and maybe even going that route for a career. I also have an option where I could finish things through an accelerated program, which I think gets you done in six weeks or something to that effect.

Good weather days can actually be flat out boring, although there's usually a few flights with interesting operational quirks to keep you on your toes. You learn to appreciate the boring days though, as things can get really intense on bad days, especially when you have a bad weather event take down one or more of your hubs. What I found is that once you get some experience, the bad days get a lot easier to deal with.


Scheduled carriers aren't permitted to schedule you for more than 10 hours of work, and it's pretty common to work 4 10-hour days and have 3 off, although some carriers do things differently as far as days off, and a lot of the major airlines have 8 hour shifts, not 10 for dispatchers. Supplemental and charter air carriers don't have this restriction on dispatcher duty times and often do 12 hour shifts, usually 4 on 4 off. There is talk of rule changes going into effect and making supplemental carriers go by the 10 hour dispatch shift limitation, but it probably won't happen for another few years. The shifts you get are pretty much always bid on in the order of seniority, so you can expect a lousy work schedule until you've been with the company a while--how long can vary greatly, but if it's a decent place to work, you're probably talking a few years of bad schedules. This also tends to be a 24/7/365 kinda job, so get ready to work through holidays and possibly have to deal with overnight shifts.


I don't use my travel benefits much, but this is much more of personal thing for me. I work with folks who are jetting off across the country/world every other weekend.


I'd say dispatch is a great job. I make a comfortable living doing something I really like, and unlike flightcrew, I get to sleep in my own bed every night. If you can deal with the following things, this job may be a really good fit for you:

1) Be prepared to put in a few years at a poorly managed, low paying regional airline for experience.

2) Be okay being really limited as to where you can live-- this means pretty much close by to the city your airline is headquartered in, or you deal with commuting to work. Commuting as a dispatcher is really lovely compared to commuting as flightcrew, but I know people who have made it work.

3) Be interested in dispatching as a career by itself. If you've tended to geek out when it comes to flight planning and weather at your school, I'd say there's a decent shot that you'd be interested in doing this for a living. If you want to use this job as a fallback or stepping stone, there isn't anything wrong with that at all (and I know some really good dispatchers that fit this description), but the folks I see doing this tend to have way less job satisfaction than those of us who like the job for its own sake.


Feel free to ask more questions if I didn't cover something else you want to know here.

Mikojan
May 12, 2010

Can't believe I only found out about this thread now.

I was so bummed out about the Aeronautical Insanity thread to be all shooty :(

Add me to the list and AMA!

Mikojan - EU frozen ATPL, A320 FO

sellouts
Apr 23, 2003

A320, cool!

What did you fly previously? Anything interesting or challenging about transitioning to Airbus?

AWSEFT
Apr 28, 2006

Mikojan posted:

Mikojan - EU frozen ATPL, A320 FO

Added. Welcome!


Also updated myself. Lost the SIC restriction on my type rating.

Mikojan
May 12, 2010

sellouts posted:

A320, cool!

What did you fly previously? Anything interesting or challenging about transitioning to Airbus?

I posted just before leaving for work earlier this morning, I'll introduce myself to the thread briefly :)

I'm 24 years old and live in Belgium, which is a small country in the middle of western Europe.
I finished flight school about 3 years ago and managed to trick a resident charter airliner (Thomas Cook) into hiring me about 1 year after graduating.

My school flew PA28's, on which I accumulated about 250 hours before starting my A320 type rating.
Other than those 2 types I have no experience, apart from some odd hours on a slingsby T67 for some Aerobatics required for my FI licence. (I became an SEP VFR instructor just after my normal training in case I couldn't find any work with the airliners. In the end I have given 0 hours of instruction which is kind of dumb considering the extra cost of the rating...)

It's probably a good thing I didn't have too much experience on other types because A320 fly by wire is something different.

I often have captains complaining to me that I use too much pulsing inputs on the stick (causing mild passenger discomfort), which is a left over habit from flying conventional controls. I'm conditioned to make small short inputs to correct on heading during turbulence etc. However, fly by wire works differently, in the sense that any deviation in roll rate / load factor is automatically corrected by the computers between the stick and the control surfaces. (A neutral stick will make the airbuss maintain 0 roll rate and 1g load)

Basically you shouldn't touch the stick when you have the correct attitude, which, ironically, is really hard when turbulence starts messing with you.

Though my company is really small (5 planes) and promotions to left seats are really scarce I'm very happy to be flying with them. It is one of the few remaining airliners in the world that promote hand flying and intensively trains basic piloting skills.
Most companies only allow you to disconnect the autopilot around 1000 feet final on the ILS.
I often revert to manual flying at FL100 during descent and visual approaches are pretty much SOP to save fuel :)



This is the beauty I got to play with this morning.



I'm happy to have found a chill thread about civil aviation. I used to frequent PPRUNE but that site has filled up recently with xenofobia and snarky comments.

Mikojan fucked around with this message at 16:26 on May 8, 2013

Rolo
Nov 16, 2005

Hmm, what have we here?
Hey guys I passed my multi checkride today!

Stupid Post Maker
Jan 8, 2008

The Slaughter posted:

I gave my 2 weeks notice today, moving to San Jose (well, somewhere in the bay area at least) to fly Cessna 206s for an aerial survey operator. Woot!

I think I know someone that flies for them currently. I always get jealous when I look on Facebook. What kind of minimums do they require?

Amy Pole Her
Jun 17, 2002
Just stumbled upon this thread. I worked for an aviation law firm in toronto and I even assisted on several big crashes including air France. I'm a lawyer.

I guess I could do my best to help you pilots with some legal issues. Have handled a couple of international transactions as well. Private pilot out of hollywoods American flyers

AWSEFT
Apr 28, 2006

Updated you Rolo.

AAA DOLFAN posted:

Just stumbled upon this thread. I worked for an aviation law firm in toronto and I even assisted on several big crashes including air France. I'm a lawyer.

I guess I could do my best to help you pilots with some legal issues. Have handled a couple of international transactions as well. Private pilot out of hollywoods American flyers

Wasn't sure how or where to add that to the OP so I put you under "more resources". Unless you have a rating. Maybe you own a V-tail Bonanza? =O

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
Just became fully certified today at KCRP. This is my second ATC facility and I've now been with the FAA about 4 years, I'm pretty stoked. And nervous. But, working a busier facility has already made me so much better than I was before, and I look forward to continuing to improve.

Rolo posted:

Hey guys I passed my multi checkride today!

Congrats!

kmcormick9
Feb 2, 2004
Magenta Alert

AWSEFT posted:

Updated you Rolo.


Wasn't sure how or where to add that to the OP so I put you under "more resources". Unless you have a rating. Maybe you own a V-tail Bonanza? =O

he said lawyer, not doctor

Animal
Apr 8, 2003

The Ferret King posted:

Just became fully certified today at KCRP. This is my second ATC facility and I've now been with the FAA about 4 years, I'm pretty stoked. And nervous. But, working a busier facility has already made me so much better than I was before, and I look forward to continuing to improve.


Congrats man. Its a nice airport, how do you like working there?

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck
It has its ups, and downs (haha, it's an Up/Down, ATC joke....nevermind)

I like it well enough. The added traffic volume and complexity has been rewarding to deal with. At the same time, it's very hit-or-miss. We spend a lot of time with very little to do, our bread and butter is the Navy training wings. If the Navy flies, we're busy as hell and it can get hectic (they're all student pilots too). If they don't fly, it can be very boring.

The most frustrating thing about the inconsistent traffic, is that is makes proficiency difficult. If you work for an hour where you are constantly turning airplanes onto final, one after the other, you can observe and adjust and really starts to achieve some tight spacing. However, at CRP, it's more likely that you'll spend entire shifts working very little traffic. Then one day, in the middle of your week, it blows up and all of a sudden you have to remember how to hit gaps and tighten up your sequence. There are guys here that have been doing this job quite successfully for 20+ years and they still have a hard time switching gears when the traffic ramps up.

It's frustrating, as a new person, because we don't see enough consistent moderate-heavy traffic to really cut our teeth and get a feel for it. It becomes more about having a good overall grasp of the operation, so you can work routine light traffic with ZERO issues. Then, when it starts to get busy, hopefully you've built up enough good work habits to keep up.

Also, coming from a smaller facility to a bigger facility, this became apparent: The bigger the facility, the bigger the egos. Even if they're completely undeserved.

The Slaughter
Jan 28, 2002

cat scratch fever

Stupid Post Maker posted:

I think I know someone that flies for them currently. I always get jealous when I look on Facebook. What kind of minimums do they require?

Their mins:
Commercial Pilot Single Engine Land
• CFI preferred
• 20hrs in type preferred
• Total Time: Prefer 800hrs (500 min)
• PIC: 400hrs
• Instrument (actual or simulated): 50hrs (Must be Instrument current and proficient)
• Hours last 12 months: 120hrs
• G1000 experience preferred
• Current First Class Medical
• Pilots must live within 2hrs drive time of San Jose or be willing to re-locate
• Must sign 6 month commitment

They hired me with 920TT, I meet about everything except for G1000 and the time in type.

Stupid Post Maker
Jan 8, 2008

The Slaughter posted:

Their mins:
Commercial Pilot Single Engine Land
• CFI preferred
• 20hrs in type preferred
• Total Time: Prefer 800hrs (500 min)
• PIC: 400hrs
• Instrument (actual or simulated): 50hrs (Must be Instrument current and proficient)
• Hours last 12 months: 120hrs
• G1000 experience preferred
• Current First Class Medical
• Pilots must live within 2hrs drive time of San Jose or be willing to re-locate
• Must sign 6 month commitment

They hired me with 920TT, I meet about everything except for G1000 and the time in type.

Yeah, I think that's the one. Seems like a really fun job. Maybe after I graduate next year I'll try getting a job though I'll have less than 300 hours total time.

Mikojan
May 12, 2010

The Slaughter posted:

I gave my 2 weeks notice today, moving to San Jose (well, somewhere in the bay area at least) to fly Cessna 206s for an aerial survey operator. Woot!

How many block hours per month can you expect to do in this line of work?

Animal
Apr 8, 2003

You may leave the flight school, but the flight school will never leave you. It will follow you around forever like a warm cloud of halitosis.

Tommy 2.0
Apr 26, 2008

My fabulous CoX shall live forever!

The Ferret King posted:

Just became fully certified today at KCRP. This is my second ATC facility and I've now been with the FAA about 4 years, I'm pretty stoked. And nervous. But, working a busier facility has already made me so much better than I was before, and I look forward to continuing to improve.


Congrats!

One of your previous co-workers is at my facility.

Butt Reactor
Oct 6, 2005

Even in zero gravity, you're an asshole.
What do you guys think of the pilot mills like TransPac (Phoenix), and US Aviation (Denton/Sherman TX)? I ask because I was canned last week from another 141 flight school. Awkward story, I'll PM if someone reeeeaally wants the details. Anyways I'm looking for another instructing gig but I'd really prefer something a little different...Slaughter, is that aero photo firm hiring still? :haw:

Stupid Post Maker
Jan 8, 2008

Butt Reactor posted:

What do you guys think of the pilot mills like TransPac (Phoenix), and US Aviation (Denton/Sherman TX)? I ask because I was canned last week from another 141 flight school. Awkward story, I'll PM if someone reeeeaally wants the details. Anyways I'm looking for another instructing gig but I'd really prefer something a little different...Slaughter, is that aero photo firm hiring still? :haw:

Bang your student?

Butt Reactor
Oct 6, 2005

Even in zero gravity, you're an asshole.

Stupid Post Maker posted:

Bang your student?

No I wish, never had any hot students. It was in regards to pass rate on stage checks at a 141 school.

Which job sites do you guys recommend? I'm debating between signing up for Climbto350 or WillFlyForFood, I'm loathe to the idea of paying a job search but if it's what gets me ahead in this drat industry...

Butt Reactor fucked around with this message at 04:29 on May 10, 2013

azflyboy
Nov 9, 2005

Butt Reactor posted:

No I wish, never had any hot students. It was in regards to pass rate on stage checks at a 141 school.

Which job sites do you guys recommend? I'm debating between signing up for Climbto350 or WillFlyForFood, I'm loathe to the idea of paying a job search but if it's what gets me ahead in this drat industry...

I went through the same thing with my last instructing job (I quit instead of being canned though), so I know how that feels.

If you aren't totally burned out on instructing, you might want to look into some part 61 schools. The workload can be more inconsistent than under 141, but not having to deal with the BS of pass rates and absurd TCO's is worth it.

As for job sites, jetcareers.com is pretty good, and free. They don't have quite as many postings as the paysites, but the quality of stuff tends to be much better than paysites (which have a reputation for recycling postings multiple times), and there tend to be more of the low time/entry level flying jobs posted there as well.

Mikojan
May 12, 2010

I personally like http://www.pilotcareercenter.com/

You can list job openings by region / type. Also its free.

The Slaughter
Jan 28, 2002

cat scratch fever
Butt Reactor: they will be hiring for another class in 2-3 months. As for US aviation/that other one you mentioned.. I don't know much about US aviation but as for the phoenix one, I would say no, don't go. It's not a good time which is why I need a change. The students are, as was so aptly put by I think somebody here, communist muppets that can't make an aeronautical decision to save their life... And they all have dragon breath so bad it'll make you want to vomit.

Entone
Aug 14, 2004

Take that slow people!

Butt Reactor posted:

What do you guys think of the pilot mills like TransPac (Phoenix), and US Aviation (Denton/Sherman TX)? I ask because I was canned last week from another 141 flight school. Awkward story, I'll PM if someone reeeeaally wants the details. Anyways I'm looking for another instructing gig but I'd really prefer something a little different...Slaughter, is that aero photo firm hiring still? :haw:

I looked into getting my license through US Aviation, but I ended up choosing another school because their corporation doesn't really go with my personality and they were slightly more costly. US Aviation in Denton is a huge school that hosts mostly international students. They have some pretty big contracts with Chinese airlines and a bunch of work probably similar to slaughter's experience go with it. They also have a mandatory uniforms for all their students getting ppl and above...

Edit: Denton also sucks as a city to live in if you're older than 24. All the real entertainment and places you'd actually want to live around DFW are a couple miles from downtown Dallas or Fort Worth. You'd end up commuting an hour to do anything fun or going to work depending on where you wanted to live. That is unless you enjoy the fundamentalist Christian lifestyle that is everywhere north of loop 12.

Entone fucked around with this message at 16:55 on May 10, 2013

babyeatingpsychopath
Oct 28, 2000
Forum Veteran

Well, according to the proctor of my FAA test, I studied "way too hard." 87% on Private Pilot (Airplane). Anything over a 70% means I did too much work.

I'm glad I didn't go to their ground school.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

Your proctor is a loser. Congrats on your pass.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Rickety Cricket
Jan 6, 2011

I must be at the nexus of the universe!
Did a few instrument training flights (simulated) over the last few days. Yesterday flew my first VOR approach (overloaded my brain) and LOC approach. Today was great, got to do my first ILS approach which was boatloads of fun! :D Can't wait to get out and do it again! Oh yeah and some simple RNAV approaches. Seriously though there was just so much going on with that VOR approach. I know it was my first time and it will get easier but man at this point I couldn't imagine doing that in actual, single pilot, and talking to ATC.

  • Locked thread