I am warning you now. This is going to be a long one. I’ve got lots to say, so lets get started….

The last many days have been some of the best days I can remember. Not for any reason external to me. In fact, many elements of my life right now are in a state of decay. Certainly the chief element right now concerns my position as an airline pilot. I’ve posted multiple entries here on PA describing the details of this industry and I am not planning on spending undue time rehashing these things. So, lets summarize all of these posts by stating a simple line: unless professional aviation can someday provide this worthy professional a respectable quality of life, respectable pay, and respectable and reliable professional advancement, I will not be coming back. The last many days have been great because I am smiling again at the opportunity to excel on my own determination.

I have noticed a steady decline in my happiness level over the last year and it does stretch that far back. What I have endured, with paralleling hardship endured by my favorite person in the world, my wife, is not something that many couples could have endured as well as we have. Even the strongest I-beam can be bent with the proper force and our relationship is no different. The last 18 months have seen me home about 40% of the time on average, much of that time while my wife was working. As people longing to survive, we have adapted, and I am afraid that the results of this adaption have resulted in an increased independence on both parts and a resulting loss of an appreciation for what the other provides. I cannot speak on behalf of my wife, but I can say with relative certainty for every unit of hardship that I have endured during the loneliness of the cumulative multitude of months away from home and family, she has experienced a hardship of greater weight. This woman to whom I am married is a source of life for all of us at home. Our little dogs, our cats, our stray cat that sleeps on the door step (a.k.a Special Kitty), and the occasional Australian Shepherd foster dog all rely on her for their survival and she dutifully fulfills those needs. As they look to her for survival, I do in suit. I can prepare my own meals and can use the bathroom on my own, however, the reliance is still there in a different form - a mental form. And as the old adage says, one must continually create a relationship for it to endure. Nothing endures without continual creation. It is not impossible, but is difficult to continually create a relationship from 1,000 miles distance. Sure, I come home on occasion (and lately, considering the commuting as well, occasionally has been all it has been), but it is a struggle to fit a week of love into a day or two and to rinse and repeat that same ratio for month after month after endless month.

Examining the lifestyle, it could be conceived that if it paid appropriate dividends, then it could be endured. And so it goes that there are many professions that require one to travel frequently, work many many hours, etc. I am not afraid to work for something for working for. However, it is my opinion, and a very educated opinion I might add, that working a fruitful career as an airline pilot is becoming more and more a gamble - and I choose that word wisely because in gambling you become addicted to throwing away your assets (money, time, family, spouse, etc) in the hope that it will eventually pay off. In a seemingly endless sea of stripes all yelling, “mine, mine, mine” at the relatively few piloting jobs available, coupled with the fact that my airline and many others at the regional level are filled with “lifers” who have tried and tried and failed and failed to get out because they didn’t convey that elusive magical element that the “destination” companies were looking for during the interview. Even if one could blaze the path, it could be argued with great effectiveness that the goal still isn’t worth pursuing. In fact, like in my gambling analogy, it could well be that for a young guy like myself, still on the south side of having children and with my entire career ahead of me, that when this profession does finally pay off, I may just have put more precious assets into the slot than what the payout would be, resulting in a net loss. I am speaking of lost nights with my wife, lost forever in the past, unrecoverable, lost holidays with my family and missed birthday parties, all unrecoverable. And, sadly, when my kids are moving out of the house to college, what will I have missed in pursuit of this apparition?

It has been the decision of all decisions to muster up the courage to walk away from this dream. This is the strangest career I can imagine. From the outside, it has sex appeal, I do admit. I tell people I am an airline pilot and inevitably get a look that says, “cool”. Its a neat thing to say that one does it. To be responsible for hundreds of lives a day, to fly a multi million dollar technical marvel of the 21st century is addicting. To command thousands of pounds of thrust and grease in a 45,000 lb chuck of awesome is tough to let go of. To take off into the cloudy murk at 6:00am, only to climb out of it into the clear blue sky and see the sun rising to the east above the overcast is tough to let go of. In the evening, to look out the cockpit window and see the Milky Way stretched across the sky, satellites in orbit, and the occasional shooting star is hard to let go of. Shooting an instrument approach in the pouring rain, covered with ice, and breaking out 200 feet above the runway before completing a successful landing is tough to let go of. Flying over the spine of Florida at 37,000 feet and being witness to the entirety of the state in one sweep of the eye, west to east coast, the big lake and all is tough to let go of. So in these regards, I honestly do get why the line outside the door is so long. And like all of those folks, it was (and could be argued “is”) my dream to do and experience these things. For some reason, I was planted with the aviation bug. I cannot put words onto why I am addicted to it like I am. Only those who are infected can truly appreciate the feeling.

On the other hand, I am a fairly smart guy. Despite all of these things, they ABSOLUTELY pale in comparison to feeling the love of the one who truly loves me, the feelings that I can only imagine that I will feel when I hold my first born (and second too) in my arms and look into the eyes of my post labor wife with the humility that must have been felt by thousands of fathers after witnessing one of the most amazing miracles in this world. Watching my child succeed at something and knowing I will be there to witness it first hand, to see him/her blow out the candles on their birthday cake - ON THEIR BIRTHDAY… These are things that I cannot and WILL NOT not give up. When I am on my deathbed reflecting back on a life lived, I will not be lying there in a dying body wishing I could have the multi thousands of nights back to spend in my own bed next to my wife that I otherwise spent in endless hotels around the country.

Faced with this direct conflict of interest between this profession and the other more worthy things in life, I just cannot turn a blind eye to what I feel is the right thing to do. And it has taken me a good while to convince myself that it is the right thing to do.

However, I mentioned I was a smart guy. This is debatable, I guess. I’ve been thinking and I do see some very real possibilities in my future where I can potentially blend these two interests into something worth pursuing. Visions of sitting in the captain seat of an airliner buried in 1040s while the F/O flies the leg come to mind. However, I just don’t see this as a viable option, and it still finds me enduring all the same pressures that I just pointed out. My thoughts are more along the lines of opening my own accounting business in the not too distant future and focusing a segment of my business on aviation matters. I can see myself being one of the premier tax adviser/preparers among working airline pilots in the area. I believe that pilots would trust a CPA (will be one soon), who is also an active flight instructor, airplane owner, and who has worked and has an appreciation for matters regarding the aviation industry. Furthermore, I could get into advising up and coming companies who are looking into creating a flight department. Perhaps they could be looking to acquire a King Air or similar; I could go in and sift through their records, and advise on how to go about it, how to structure the purchase or lease in the most cost effective way. I realize most companies have internal accountants for this, but perhaps a specialization in the area would be appreciated. Perhaps I could even get partially involved in the actual sale of the airplane, perhaps in an agent’s role - just thinking out loud here. And of course, just for the raw revenue, I wouldn’t restrict myself to this side of the business - I am open to everyone’s business.

Being my own person, knowing how to do my job, doing it well, building client relationships, and being in direct control of my success or failure - unlike anything that is possible in the airline industry - would be a worthy goal in my estimation.

I am well aware of the sizable ravine that exists between my present location and where I’d like to be at the peak of my career. WORK is what lies between here and there. The key to success is to take it one step at a time. Its akin to climbing the side of a mountain. Should you look up, you might get dizzy and fall off. And standing on the bottom looking up, there is no way to know exactly where all the footholds are. But, one must take the first step, and upon succeeding at that, look around for another foothold and take that step. In time, one reaches the top.

The first step for me is to wrap up my involvement with this airline. I have decided that the best time to resign will be Dec 20th, give or take a couple of days. My schedule for November, as grueling as it is, will allow me to pass the 1,000 hours in type that I am looking to achieve before I exit. Once that goal is reached, any further involvement with the airline (i.e. in the first half of December) is strictly to receive a paycheck one last time.

The second step is to get started on the CPA requirements. My plan is to take 5 classes in the spring, FULL TIME!! The cost to this is that I will be unemployed for a little while. At first glance, some may say, “WHAT!!??”. However, it is as much a blessing as it is a slight risk. View it in this light: If I were employed at an accounting firm, say I had been since day one, there is no way that I would be allowed to hang my hat for 5 months to go to school full time. I would have had to go in the evenings, significantly slowing my progress, while balancing the issues at work with my studies, etc. Perhaps I could have arranged a leave of absence, but I am pretty sure it would have been akin to pulling teeth to ask for that. Furthermore, if this airline job would have taken off (no pun intended), again, there is no way I could have taken this amount of time off to pursue a material portion of these requirements. However, with the industry collapsing around me, and the timing of it all, and reaping the benefits from our sound financial management so far, I believe the planets have aligned here and are telling me that now is THE time to do this, if there ever will be a time. With savings and my wife’s diligent work, and zero credit card debt going in, we can coast long enough to achieve one semester in the bag. Mid May will see me complete the first semester, cutting the 9 classes I have to take as of this moment, down to 4 remaining classes. I do not think that we will be able to coast any longer than one semester and as such, I am anticipating the need to get employed again come summer. But that employment will be in line with the primary objective that I have the necessary time available to finish the remaining 4 classes by year end. Early 2010 will see me in intense prep for the CPA exam and it is my goal to finish it by summer 2010. I will be 28 years old and my wife will be 27, the perfect age to begin a family. I anticipate that around the time the first child begins school, the second about 2 or 3, I will begin building my business up to speed.

Assuming something along these lines - which I have COMPLETE control over, unlike a gamble on the airline industry - I see myself running my own profitable business by the time I am 32-34 years old. Thats still a young a guy with a hell of a future ahead.

But, the task at hand right now is clear. The end result will be amazing. The filler is WORK and STUDY!

Having my CPA, running a fruitful business as my own pursuit, flight instructing on the side, being an airplane owner, and having a family life seems to be a life worth much more than living under the constant pressure of hoping for a break in the airline industry.

In an effort to continue to broaden my knowledge of aviation, and to be the best flight instructor I can be, I have ordered this book from Amazon.com. Supposedly, it explains aerodynamics in much greater detail than the cursory explanation given in the private/commercial prep books.

Admittedly, there is large gap in my understanding about why wings are swept on jets (I understand some basics), and why winglets increase the effective wingspan, why vortex generators are so damn cool, etc.

Thus, I will read it and will post a review when I am done. Considering the techincal material involved, don’t hold your breath.

I’m working on developing an arrangement with a fellow EAA club member to rent his Cessna 150 on occasion. I just have a voracious thirst for general aviation. Airline flying just doesn’t do it for me in the same way. Too scripted and structured.

Today, I met up with him at the airport, and took a shot flying the 150. Its been well over a year since I last flew a 150. I believe that within the last 18 months, I’ve logged 4 or 5 hours in small piston airplanes. Needless to say, its quite a change from flying the EMB-145 around.

By and large, I did well. I began in the right seat, as that is what I am most comfortable with. The owner of the airplane is most comfortable in the left seat, so I figured this was the best arrangement for the first flight. Besides the very sensitive controls compared to what I have gotten used to, it didn’t feel very strange at all. My first landing left a bit to be desired, but the next one was well in the green.

We landed at ZPH to refuel and switched seats. From the left seat, it was surprisingly familiar. In fact, I performed just as well in the left seat as I did in the right seat. Two decent landings later and we were back at Lakeland airport.

It was a short flight, but great to do to work towards getting my small airplane feel back. We are talking about pricing and other details right now. But hopefully, within a short period here, I will have an airplane that I can fly when I have the itch to head out.

Also, I am so used to saying “Waterski” on the radio (our call sign for Trans States), I said it twice while talking to tower. Oh well.

Should I go back to accounting (which is likely going to be the case really soon), I will be looking to buy my own airplane. It brings a huge smile to my face to think about it!!!

I just set up this twitter account. If you like what you see here on PA, set up a Twitter account and follow me. I’ll send out links to my posts as I post them.

As a public service announcement to those who haven’t gotten the memo:

The FAA announced this week that effective July 24th, 2008 14CFR 61.23(d) is being changed.

The 1st class medical certificate is now valid for 12 months for those pilots under age 40. The previous duration was 6 months regardless of age.

The 2nd class medical certificate hasn’t changed. It is still valid for 12 months, as it always has been.

However, the most significant change is to the duration of the third class medical if under 40 years of age. It is now valid for 5 years if you are under 40 years old!! However, if over 40, nothing has changed. You’ve still got 2 years between butt probes.

I couldn’t have asked for better weather Friday April 11th. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky the whole day, it wasn’t too hot, it was very nice.

My purpose for going to the fly-in is mainly to just bask in the glory of aviation. I am not particularly more interested in one thing than another. I try to see everything if at all possible. It was basically the same this year as in previous years. The airshow seemed to go ON and ON and ON and ON. It lasted some 5 hours this year. The star of the show was the US AirForce Thunderbird Team and they certainly were entertaining, but after 20 or 30 minutes of their 75 minute show, I was looking to get on with it.

The exhibits were basically the same, although I didn’t see Rod Machado’s booth anywhere this year. I heard to the grapevine there was some disagreement between his team and Sun N Fun a few years back and at that time he had decided to not attend anymore, but still had his troop plugging and selling his books. (Hey, even Sun N Fun money is green). But, this year, perhaps he has pulled out completely. I’ve always been a fan of Rod’s stuff and recommend his private pilot book to all of my new students.

I am always in awe at the skill and dedication of many of the pilots there at the fly-in. Every year, no matter how big my ego is in the morning, I always walk away from Sun N Fun humbled. I’m a pretty good pilot and my passion for aviation rivals anyone’s, but I can’t hold a stick to some of these guys. Of course, I am only 26 years old and have my whole life ahead to keep trying :).

My wife and I stayed for the night show as well. There is only one night show per year and it usually falls on the Friday. It was basically the same as previous years except that they added a Twin Beech 18 act and deleted the “Gyro Pyro” act (A gyrocopter loaded with pyro usually flies around and blows roman candles out and things). The Beech 18 act didn’t go as planned, however. Apparently one of the generators (or alternator, not sure which it has) blew out and it wasn’t able to light all the fancy lights, so they ended that act as soon as it started. Manfred Radius did his usual glider routine and it all ended with a fireworks finally.

All in all, 2008 did not disappoint. It was a great day out in the sun immersed in aviation. However, after 12 hours of it, I felt satisfied and am ready to hit the ground running during this next year. I am already looking forward to 2009. I’ll be there as usual!

The Sun N Fun fly in is wrapping up tomorrow. I feel sort of incomplete about the whole thing, but am satisfied. My wife and I attended on Friday, April 20th. We hit the usual sights and had a great time. One of the highlights to me was to sit in the captains seat on a KC-135. My wife took a photo on her cell phone and we are in the process of getting it formatted to post to the website. It just solidified my hopes and desires to get my career moving along.

Business at the flight school has hit an all time low. I am beginning to get concerned about whether I can continue to make enough money in my current situation to keep the lights on. If business doesn’t pick up quickly, then I may have to abandon ship and move on to another position.

I really feel that with my current qualifications and resume output, that I am mere months away from the next big move. My hope is to stick it out until then…

Every year that I go to Sun N Fun, I walk amongst such accomplished pilots and often feel inadequate. Though I did have some minor thoughts along that line this year, the basic situation was much improved this year due to the incredible strides that I’ve made during the last 12 months. I was able to walk around with my head a little higher this year and I feel that this next upcoming year is going to be the greatest yet in terms of advancement.

One of the mottos of Sun N Fun is “Kick off of the aviation year”. Now that Sun N Fun is over, its time to roll up my sleeves and see what I can pull off this time around.

In my quest to learn about jet engines, I’ve come across this interesting site.

http://www.keveney.com/Engines.html

It gives animated graphics of different types of engines and what makes them tick.

Here are some useful links that I found out there on the internet.

Roy Epperson’s Instrument Trainers

Alternative Instrument Trainers

The Sun N Fun fly in is kicking off in about 3 weeks. As a guy obsessed with aviation, Sun N Fun is a great thing. It motivates me to keep going and be the best that I can be. I’ve gone just about every year since I’ve been alive. And every year is pretty much the same as the previous, just a tad larger.

I love everything about it - except maybe the hot weather. My wife and I go and pack lunch (we hate waiting in those crowded lines) and walk around and see all the airplanes. We can both sit on the flightline and watch airplanes come and go for hours.

This year is the first year that they aren’t requiring an FAA certificate to enter the flightline. I have mixed feelings about this, but I guess its all good.

I will probably go two days. I haven’t decided which ones yet, but I’d like to go perhaps the 2nd day, and then Friday. I am not sure what the demands will be at the flightschool during that week. I’ve heard its pretty busy. However, going to Sun N Fun will likely instill in me a voracious appetite to FLY FLY FLY. So as long as I can get my two days in at the show, I’ll fly like a mad man the rest of the days.

I just got back from a 2 day hiatus building some time in a Beech Duchess. I do admit, it is quite a bit different than flying a single. At first glance, its just an extra 3 levers. However, its really a higher caliber airplane all together. The cockpit is larger, the airplane is just heavier and flies like it. The controls are heavier and the approach speeds are much faster.

When I first walked out to the airplane, it felt very foreign to me. 600 hours of flying singles has a way of getting you used to simple airplanes. There is more to preflight on this thing, more switches to deal with, etc. After a good preflight, I felt I had a pretty good grasp of the basic systems and architecture of the airplane. Since I am working on my MEI, I began straight away from the right seat. Its a bit different cranking up two motors, but it feels very cool - a REAL airplane :).

Besides having to do everything twice, the run up is basically the same as any single. The takeoff roll was a bit different because on this particular airplane, the right engine doesn’t spool up as quickly as the left and so it takes some rudder control to hold the airplane on the centerline. However, once the power passes 20″HG, they even out and its straight forward from there. Rotate at 71 knots and climb out at 90 knots, 5 knots above Vyse, RPM back to 2500 on both sides and hold pitch for 90 knots. That gives about 1300 feet per minute climb, which is at least half again your typical 172 - more like twice.

It took me about 2 to 3 hours to get “completely” comfortable in the airplane. I am far from a multiengine pro, but the foreign feel of the airplane began to die away after a bit.
Over the last two days, I did Vmc demos, engine shutdown and feather, and restart, single engine approach and landings (turns both into and opposite the operating engine), single engine instrument approaches and single engine go arounds (bad choice in most situations - POH prohibits a single engine go around once full flaps have been deployed).

I find that just flying (with both engines) a heavier and faster airplane is just as much of a challenge as dealing with assymetrical thrust issues. During final approach, I feel like I am smashed on the front of a jet or something as compared to the usual sight picture that I am accostomed to in the 172. And it seems that part of the multiengine procedures is to keep slightly above Vyse on final until there is no doubt that the runway is made. However, Vyse and touchdown speed are about 15 knots apart. Therefore, there is a tendency to float a ways as the airspeed bleeds off. Certainly spot landings can be done, however, you’d have to come in below Vyse which isn’t really a good idea should you lose a motor.

In summary, I’ve got a much better grasp of what it is like to fly a multiengine airplane. I hope to take my MEI checkride next week or early in the following week. I’ve got some detailed reading to do of the POH and I am going to “armchair fly” (and teach) all of the various multiengine training points several times until they are more or less second nature.

I had a multiengine rating even before this bit of flying. However, if I’d been faced with the prospect of having to solo one somewhere, I would have been quite nervous about it. However, after these many hours of practice, I wouldn’t hesitate to fly any light twin if called upon to do so. I’d need an hour or so to read through the POH to familiarize myself with the systems. But, I believe after that, I could fly safely and competently.

As to the money issue…. it HURTS…..bad. As a poor flight instructor, at the end of a long hard day, I am lucky to hit 3 figures. Flying this damn thing sucks my money so quickly, it feels like I am screwing all my hard work and my wife’s too. But, this is really the last bit of training I will need to do, short of a little ATP work. I am going to just suck it up, make the best choices that I can and get it done. After that, I’ll just pay off bits and pieces as I make money.

I am now entering the region in my advancement where multiengine time is beginning to get more and more important. Here is the cold truth: As advised to me by a mentor…

“The bottom line is unless you want to be a career single engine flight instructor you need to get multi engine time. No one is going to give it to you so sooner or later you are going to have to belly up and just do what ever it takes, borrow money, get a loan, sell your car I don’t know what it is you have to do but I do know you just have to do it.”

I’ve put together a spreadsheet to compare costs of various schools. My problem is that multiengine time is just so far from my finger tips it seems. I have 17.6 total hours of multi, but only 1 hour PIC. To get the MEI add-on, I need to have at a minimum 15 hours PIC. So, that means in the course of training, I will need to fly 14 hours before I can qualify for the rating. If I have to pay for every hour myself, then doing it at a local school here is the best way. The total cost of the program will be $3850. For a flight instructor….OUCH!!!!!!

But, looking at that above statement, I don’t have any other choice. The only other choice that I could have is if I can fly some multi time with some people (I do have a few leads), by just riding co-pilot, or giving IR instruction in, then I can chisel away at some of those hours, then run over to one of those quicky schools and bust out a 4 hour MEI course and do it. That would be cheaper.

We will see how it goes. The bottom line is that I cannot afford to sit around passively about multi time anymore. So far it hasn’t paid any dividends. But I need to be smart about it, run my spreadsheets, and make the best choices as I go forward with my VISA in hand.

If anyone has a twin in Central Florida and needs a co-pilot or CFII, I am available. I am NOT looking for handouts!!! I will instruct for FREE in exchange for the time, or will pay a fair share of the operating expenses.

I’ve had the great fortune to log about 10 hours (and I am not done yet) flying a student’s Diamond DA40. The airplane is very cool, but the coolest thing about it is the G-1000.

I am certainly no pro with the G-1000. In fact it could be said that I don’t even know what I don’t know. However, with that statement in mind, I believe that I understand about 60-70% of what it does.

My very first experience with the G-1000 was a loud audible beeping noise that ended up grounding our first flight. It didn’t seem we were off to a good start. I kept telling myself, as all we were doing was local VFR flying just for the student to get the feel of the airplane again, “its got wings, and is a perfectly good airplane and we can’t fly because of a stupid computer glitch”.

The owner of the airplane, after some research, concluded that there was a database mismatch between the 2 displays. The PFD (primary flight display) and the MFD (multifunction flight display) both require a database of aviation information and the versions didn’t match. Each display has a separate GPS receiver.

After that was fixed, we finally got airborne. As a steam gauge pilot (so far), I found the PFD to be very difficult to interpret. I am used to seeing an altimeter needle, not an actual altitude readout and it seemed that the artificial horizon was way more sensitive than its steam gauge counterpart. The tendency was to porpoise a lot in an attept to chase the altitude and VSI readout, but eventually we worked it out. After 10 hours, I can more or less take or leave the PFD. I’d rather have the standard six pack. However, as I log more time in TAA (technically advanced aircraft), perhaps I will change my mind about this. Operating the G-1000 feels like trying to tie your shoes with gloves on. To tie a shoe with your hands is an easy menial task, put on the gloves and…. you get the point.

However, the MFD…..that is a little gem. And as a flight instructor, that is what I get to play with the most. I wasn’t blessed with an amazing sense of direction. It is workable, but requires I stay ahead of the airplane at all times. The MFD allows me to stay alert as to situational awareness at all times. It will actually plot an instrument approach graphically, and will show all terrain features, other traffic, etc. And the screen is HUGE compared to most of what I am used to. It would be very tough to get lost with that thing.

I am not really a computer guy. I like the valuable final product of computers and what they allow you to do. However, I don’t get any joy at all in just playing with and on a computer. That being said, it concerns me just a little bit that lives are relying upon a computer. It reminds me of “Hal”. However, thinking about any modern airliner makes me think twice about that statement.

Everytime I fly with the G-1000, I learn a bit more and am a bit more confident with it. The reality is that for an aspiring professional pilot, such as myself, this is the way that career flying will be done. Just about every modern flight deck out there is equipped with a glass cockpit. Even though my initial thoughts on the G-1000 were just so-so, stepping back three feet, I know that this is good for me as a professional pilot. Flying with this type of setup is going to be the norm for me moving forward into this industry.

Perhaps when the student’s instrument training is completed, I will be 100% fluent with the G-1000. That is my goal.