Freight Puppy

October has well passed and quickly moved on, leaving us with November burrs, chills, and Thanksgiving dinners with friends and family to keep us warm. With the deer hunting season quickly approaching, my family becomes discouraged due to the over populated state of NJ. There are woods here yes, but there are too many houses built upon the previous farm land that once gave a transparent meaning to the Garden State. In short: NO HUNTING SPOTS AVAILABLE. I can’t wait to get out of the northeast and make the move back west!

 Flight instructing has grown on me somewhat. Yes I do fly the same approaches and teach the same maneuvers over and over and over again. No matter how random I mix it up it is what it is. However I can’t complain, they raised the salary a generous amount, and I picked up a new ACP. If your curious about what ACP stands for take a look into this. I did just finish reading my last two posts and could not get over at how inaccurate I was in estimating how many hours I would have logged by now. Since then I logged a good 10hrs of instruction given. Very, very minimal.

 The bright side of my life, miraculous as some would call it, yet most people refer to the old saying of, “It’s a small world.” It is a small world indeed! As my story continues it begins with a student I had from OSU, and may I add was, and yet still is the best pilot I have had so far! This student’s roommate is employed by a company I recently interviewed and was offered a pilot position for. If it wasn’t for my student I probably would have never received such a strong recommendation! There is more to the story than that and if you would like to hear it, email me and i’ll be more than happy to share it once more! So as I am still in the grind of instructing I’m patiently, yet anxiously awaiting a pilot class date with AirNet. I have always wanted to fly cargo instead of living souls, call it a goofy passion of mine to think, “boxes don’t bitch!” Finally, an opportunity to live my dream! At last I get a break with an unbelievable 320TT! I couldn’t be happier and yet more prepared to contribute  my 110% with AirNet as much as I contribute it to ATP. What an opportunity, “It’s a small world!”

 A quick 4hr ATP student of mine has his ATP checkride scheduled for tomorrow morning, as does an ATP written prep guy. I’m starting to feel my eyes gravitating toward the floor, my body paralized at the thought of my own soft and warm bed calling my name at 0240. 0240?!? You’ll be flying with AirNet at that hour, you can’t sleep!!! Well i’m not flying for AirNet, yet. For now i’ll just have to accept the fact that I’m still a flight instructor, and worst of all….  a day person. Time to me is and will always be a lifestyle. Time is not just a calibrated numerical system we utilize, no no it has alot more meaning than that. Time is a lifestyle.

I am finally in the grove of instructing. It was a new and different process to get used to but I’m finally doing it! I have had 5 students so far and all 5 have passed their checkrides on the first attempt. I am told i’m a very good instructor and that I have alot of patients, which is highly appreciated by many. When I’m not flying I am proctoring FAA written exams, mostly are ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) practical written exams. Most of my students fall under the ATP category, many military and airline FO’s come to me for a checkride endorsement for the highly coveted license. It’s a thrill to be training and doing business with such great pilots and overall good people. It’s great for the networking!

 My goal is to log at least 100 hours by Thanksgiving, that’ll put me 100hrs short of 500. My plan of action then is to apply to an operation as a freight dog. Flying 135 operations is attactive to me. I hear there are challenges in that route, that 135 is the “real deal.” I really want to fly cargo, I want to fly at night sitting in a real airplane, anything prop! That was my original plan before I began flight training, that is the road I will pursue. Well that is all I can say for now, tomorrow I will be flying the great circle again, I have a brand new ATP student, and another student lined up to fly 5hrs cross-country with. This will be a fun week for the logbook.