Commuting

This is my second job that I have had to commute for. My first job involved a 120mi round trip 5-6 days a week. It wasn't so bad when I first started, gas prices were still around the $2.00 mark, but when prices started getting over $3.00, that's when I decided that it was just too expensive to drive everyday. I absolutely loved my job, but spending $600 in gas a month was really putting a hurt on my wallet and moving up to the city where I was working was not an option anymore, so I had to find another job closer to home.

My current job has me even farther away from home. Its a 330mi, 6 hour trip, one way. Not fun. With my guzzler, its mega bucks in gas to go home, over $150. So I'm pretty much forced to play the commuter game. Thankfully I have had some experience with non-reving. I worked for an airline as a bag tosser which allowed me to learn how to play the non-rev game. It basically comes down to being super nice to all the gate agents, ticket agents and anyone else involved with the flight. Bribery gets you everywhere. Its the American Express of the non-rev world. If you make a good impression on the gate agents, they will help you out and make an effort to get you on the plane. On the other hand, if you make one mad, you'll have a snowballs chance in hell of getting them to help you out. I've seen first hand the power of the almighty gate agent. I was a lowly bag tosser with a really low seniority number. I was last on the list for a full plane going to MCO (Orlando). I knew who the gate agent was from previous trips and I had bribed her quite well with some Cinnabuns (another gate agent favorite). The flight was pretty full and I didn't look like I was going to get on, but I got my chance when the gate agent recognized me and bumped me up the list. I was the only non-rev on the flight.

Thankfully the company I work for now has what are called "Jumpseat Agreements" with some of the other airlines out there. JA's are agreements between companies that allow pilots to either ride in the cockpit or in the back of another airlines aircraft. Jumpseating is what pilots use to commute from home to the airport where they are based. I myself have to jumpseat from DTW to MKE. This past weekend was my first attempt at jumpseating with Air Tran. It went great. I met some really cool pilots and flight attendants and made all of my flights. This was the first time that I have ever worn my "monkey suit" (the full pilots uniform) in the terminal. I must say, the amount of respect you get from people (passengers, employees, TSA, ect...) is way more than you get when just wearing regular clothes. I noticed that fellow pilots give the head nod and smile, gate agents were nicer than usual and the TSA didnt bug me on my way through security. Completly different from non-reving with regular clothes. I still have no desire to be an airline pilot, but wearing the uniform at the airport is pretty cool.

The First Trip

Today was my first trip as an FO for my company. I must say that it went really smooth and I had a blast. We were on time and everything went like clockwork. Thankfully I flew with a awesome Capt. who was a great help by showing me some more tricks of the trade and being patient when I wanted to run through checklists. He showed me a few things that I can do to speed up my flows and get the cockpit prepared faster. Overall I was pretty quick, but he had some better ways of doing things that were quicker. His tips are valuable in making me a better pilot.
The day started off around 8:45am with a page from dispatch saying I had a trip. I was pumped. I was packed and out the door to check out in record time. I met the Capt at his hotel and we headed off to the airport. After some bickering with the rental car people about gas in the rental car, I grabbed our flight plan and headed to the plane to get ATIS, our clearance and set up the aircraft. By the time the Capt. came out everything was set up and we were ready to fire up the engines. He was pleased that I had all our "numbers" and the plane was set up for the flight. I did ask him to help me with the GPS because its not something I've had much time playing with, but he showed me how to set it up and we were ready to go. It was his leg so he flew and I handled the radios and checklists. It was a smooth and quick flight to DPA where we picked up our freight.
The second leg was my leg. I was pretty excited to finally be flying. But I had to calm myself down and run through the flight in my head before I got back in the plane. I made sure I went over the departure procedure so I was prepared for what ATC (air traffic control) was going to throw at me. After we loaded up our freight, I got our clearance and we started em up. Taxi out was normal, but all I could think about was how cool this was going to be. My heart was racing. I was excited to be flying a jet and didn't want to mess up and look like an idiot on my first trip. Thankfully everything went awesome. I pushed the throttles up, set take off power, made all my callouts and had a perfect first take off. We climbed out and were on our way to Indiana.
Enroute to our destination the Capt looked over and asked if I wanted to use the autopilot. I looked over at him with the perma smile (permanent smile on my face all day) and told him I was too selfish to let the autopilot steal my fun. He laughed and said he was the same way on his first trip. He showed me another trick to put in my arsenal. This one was for descent planning. I tried it his way and it worked out perfectly. It was servere clear out so we flew a visual approach into our destination airport. Flying patterns in jets is going to take some getting used to. We fly higher, faster and farther from the field than what I'm normally used to. My pattern was a little closer to the field than it should have been, but it was still good. The Capt. was helpful with tips on power settings and what I could expect for pitch settings and airspeeds. I flew the final right on glide path and Ref +10 which was right on the numbers. I reduced to idle over the numbers and made what I thought was a pretty decent landing. The Capt. agreed with my assessment and was extremely happy with how the flight went. Overall and awesome day, I cant wait to do it again.

I.O.E

My IOE has been quite an experience. Its been a baptism by fire. I've gotten the chance to see several different aspects of how my company operates and learned a great deal from the guys I'm flying with. I had many firsts on this trip. My first time dealing with dispatch, first time airlinin' out to meet a plane, first time to see an "abnormal" event (aircraft did not pressurize), first time I had to divert for a maintenance issue, first time into DTW*see note*, first time having to overnight and first and last time I'll ever stay at the Airport Inn in CYHM, what a dump. I've learned a lot from the guys I'm flying with. This trip has shown me lots of new things. I'm learning a lot and having a blast doing it.

DTW, an interesting thought. At 10:30am I was sitting in the back of a UAL 737 on taxiway M waiting for takeoff. By 2:30am I was in the exact same position on taxiway M, only this time I was in the cockpit of a Falcon 20 taxiing over to customs. My job brought me full circle that day.

Howdy

Seeing as how this is my first post, I'll include a little background info on me and what I do. Currently I am a high lift device and undercarriage technician, otherwise known as a First Officer. I am a very new hire with a jet cargo company. In fact, I have yet to complete my IOE (initial operating experience). This is going to be my first jet job and I'm very excited about it. I'm currently sitting at my crash pad staring at my pager waiting desperately for it to go off and send me on my first trip.
Its been a long and winding road to get me to my current position of sitting on the couch waiting for a trip. I started my aviation journey 13 years ago in western NY. My dad and I signed up for flying lessons at the same time. I eventually got my private license and decided to make aviation my career. I packed up my stuff and headed off to a large well known aviation college in the upper midwest. After I got my commercial ticket, I took a summer off from class to fly for an aerial photography company in my native NY. That was a great first job that afforded me a great opportunity to build a lot of hours and gain some valuable experience. A summer later I worked hard and completed my CFI and promptly went to work for the university flight instructing. After graduation I landed a job with an airline tossing bags (great job, loved it) until I could find a flying job. Luckily there was an engineering firm not too far away from where I was living that needed a pilot. So I landed my third flying job and first job flying multi-engine planes. Again, a great job, great people and company but due to a new addition to the family, rising gas prices and a long daily commute, I had to leave that great job and take one closer to home. So Part 135 here I come. Time to switch gears from flying in severe clear doing aerial photography, to the rough and tumble world of 135 On-Demand charter and box hauling runs in hard IFR. Most definitely the hardest job I had up until that point. Had to knock the cobwebs off my instrument skills and prepare for single pilot flying in some of the worst weather the midwest can throw at you. This was a great learing job. I got my first taste of on-demand charter, first real hard IFR flying with plenty of approaches to mins, holding and diverting. I feel that this job fully prepared me for taking a position with my current company.
Well I plan on keeping a pretty up to date blog on whats going on in the world of auto parts and the jets that fly them around. Hopefully in the near future I'll get a new camera so I can post some pics of where I'm going and what I'm doing. Later......