Pilots, mechanics, controllers, and employers, talking about the work. Anyone can read. You need an account to post, comment, or react.
Found a cracked exhaust stack on a King Air during a routine 100 hour. Hairline, maybe an inch, tucked behind the heat shield where you would never see it without pulling the cowl all the way. Owner…
I SOLOED. three laps, all mine, and the airplane climbed like somebody had taken 170 pounds out of it, which they had. my instructor stood by the fence with the radio and didnt say one word the…
spray season started. up at 0400 wind was 3 knots and the sun came over the shelterbelt about the time i turned final on the first pass. 47 acres before most people had coffee. people ask if its…
From the other side of the radio. When I ask you to say airspeed, I am not testing you. I am trying to fit you into a gap that closes in ninety seconds. Fast readbacks and honest numbers save…
I gave four practical tests this week and disapproved one. The applicant flew well. What ended it was that he could not tell me why he had picked his alternate; he had picked it because the software…
Picked up light rime out of 6000 over Indiana last night. Boots worked, everything was fine, but there is a specific loneliness to single pilot IFR at two in the morning when the ice starts talking…
Charter is half flying and half hospitality. Today I loaded bags, made coffee, and found a car seat in Knoxville at five in the morning for a family whose plans changed overnight. Then I flew a…
customer wants full glass in a 1978 Baron. wiring is original. some shop in the 90s spliced pitot heat into the nav light circuit and never wrote it up. found it because the ammeter twitched when i…
Twenty-eight years flying the line, four years teaching it in the box. What fails people in the sim is almost never their hands. It is letting the airplane get ahead of them and then trying to catch…
Two interview invites in one week off the rewritten applications. Whoever told me to put PIC and turbine PIC in the first three lines of the message field, that was the change. Nothing else moved.…
Eight years writing software, and now I am 41 and chair flying approach plates at my kitchen table. Instrument checkride is next week and I have never been worse at something I wanted this badly.…
Reminder from ops control. When you call and say you want more gas, give me the number. Not "a little more". I have to refile it, the fueler has to load it, and the ramp window is 12 minutes. "A…
Gravel bar landing on the Talkeetna today. Water is higher than last week so I used less of it than I wanted. The Beaver does not care about my opinions. Sixty year old airplane and it still gets in…
Class date. September 8th. Two years of instructing, 1,510 hours, four applications and one interview where I told the worst day story that Marcus told me to prepare. Somebody get me a hotel…
Turned down a flight tonight. Ceilings were legal on paper and not legal in my stomach. Ground crew drove her instead and she is fine. Hardest part of this job is you never find out if you were…
Hit 1500 last Thursday. Applications out to four regionals. I keep refreshing my email like that changes anything. If anyone has interview prep worth doing beyond the usual gouge, I am listening.
Six years ago I said I flew drones and people asked if I did weddings. Today we mapped 900 acres of orchard for a crop stress survey and the client had a manned quote at four times the cost. I still…
I read every application that crosses my desk at a 135 shop. What gets my attention is not total time. It is whether you wrote anything at all in the message field. Three sentences about why us puts…
Landed Newark at 5am after nine hours and thirty two minutes, most of it over water in the dark. People imagine long haul as glamorous. It is discipline about sleep, water, and not letting the quiet…
Took on an apprentice this year and it has changed how I work. You cannot skip a step in front of somebody who is writing down what you do. Half the shortcuts I had built up over twenty years turned…
11 years, 2,900 hours, most of it heavy multi. Terminal leave starts in March. Turning a military record into a civilian application has been harder than any checkride I have taken. Nobody at the…
Commuting is the part of this job that never makes the brochure. I live in Denver, my base is not Denver, and I spend roughly a day a week in a jumpseat or a gate area getting to work for free.
Practiced the low show today at 500 feet with a 15 knot crosswind and the box felt about half its usual size. The airplane was fine. The airplane is always fine. What you are actually practicing is…
Someone asked what instructing pays. Honest version. I bill six to eight hours a day, get paid for about four, and the rest is briefings, debriefs, and rescheduling weather cancellations. I would…
Spent two hours today sourcing a fuel drain that costs eleven dollars and has a nine week lead time. This is the part of aircraft maintenance the A&P schools leave out. Half this job is knowing who…
We closed 10L for six hours on Tuesday to repair a crack and I took 31 phone calls about it. The NOTAM had been out for nine days. I understand that nobody reads NOTAMs. I am asking anyway. Nine days.
studying for the general written and my head is full of weight and balance formulas i will probably never hand calculate again. my lead says thats fine, the point is knowing when the computer is…
First trip into Toluca with the CJ3. Handler was excellent, customs took forty minutes, and the performance charts at 8500 feet on a warm day are not a suggestion. Ran the numbers three times before…
Filed for Louisville and got Lexington instead. The line was moving faster than the TAF said it would, and there is no freight worth pushing into that. Told dispatch the same thing I would tell a…
Ferried a Caravan from Maine to Newfoundland last week with a bladder tank strapped in the back and a survival suit I could barely sit down in. Four hours of grey water and one HF check that mostly…