My career aspirations have changed slightly over the semester I would say. I still want to fly for a living but recently, I have highly been considering accepting my ATC offer coming up in April 2015. I think it would be a good start to pay off my college loans, and if I happen to not like it, I can always quit and go back on my pilot certificate's and fly for a living.
I applied through USA Jobs back in September of last year randomly because other guys were at eagle flight center, it was a 100 questions test on "what if's" and I happened to pass and get a call back. I went to Chicago and took the ATSAT, happened to pass that, then got an offer for a job in April. After listening to the DTW ATC that came into class, it seems like a pretty cool job. I was always considering doing this throughout the summer when I received my offer, I just didn't know if I would pursue it.
Four career goals for me over the next five years are to:
1. Finish up my CFII and get my MEI
2. Go to OKC and pass the three month ATC training program
3. Continue to flight instruct while working in the tower
4. Pay off all my student loans
5. Own a little piston-pounder airplane
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Little Airlines, Big Ideas
Two new
airline business model concepts that are discussed in Little Airlines, Big Ideas, are by companies like La Compagnie and
WOW. La Compagnie is an airline company
that had a pretty smart idea of making their international flights with
airplanes that are fully 1st Class.
They lose the amount of people that can fit on the plane but gain in
revenue by not charging some $9,000 per ticket but by charging around $2,000 to
$3,000. WOW Airlines is cheap for the ticket, due to them predominantly
operating smaller planes. They make sure
that all of their seats are filled in the plane, which usually isn’t a problem
due to the price of their tickets. Even
though WOW Airlines has very cheap tickets, they add charges for services like
meals, bags, etc.
WOW Airlines
is based out of Iceland, where they operate A320’s predominantly to Europe and
a few East Coast major airports here in the U.S. LaCompagnie is based out of
Paris, where they operate 757’s completely equipped for all first class
seating. They fly from Paris to New
York.
I think WOW
Airlines will be more successful out of these two due to operating to almost
all of Europe. I feel that although
people do love luxurious treatment of first class like La Compagnie offers, but
ultimately they will go after cheaper prices and tickets to get them from point
A to point B.
I don’t
think these airlines will have a huge effect on the global industry due to not
many people even knowing that they exist right now. The major legacies know that these ultra low
cost carriers exist but I feel that they are fearful of them. They honestly dwarf them and if it comes to
the point where more people give a company like WOW Airlines more business it
will force the legacies to match or come close to their prices. I’d much rather fly with a company like Delta
where I know maintenance, pilots, etc. is highly kept up and is a well known
company verse a company like WOW Airlines or the new Baltia Airlines that all
the Flight Technology people know about hanging around Eagle Flight Center.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Space Tourism
The Virgin
Galactic Spaceship Two plummeted about 10 miles to earth on October 31st,
2014 after it broke apart in midair. The
crash killed the co-pilot Mike Alsbury and left the captain Peter siebold severely
injured but alive. After doing some
research, I found that crash seemed to result from pilot error. The aircrafts moveable wings were set in a
position close to Mach 1, which caused the airplane to break apart and fall out
of the sky.
Space tourism
is an idea to commercially take people up into space and tour it. Space tourism is right around the corner for
the U.S. even though the Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two crashed. The problem will be resolved eventually and
flights into space commercially for people will be here before we know it.
After
searching for space tourism regulations I could not find much accept that on
the FAA website there are mentions of vehicle operators, safety related information,
medical qualifications for crew and passengers, and life support systems.
I see space
tourism being a reality for the American public in the near future, by 2020
perhaps. I think it will completely accessible
to the American public eventually, but obviously not right away. Plenty more test flights will be done before
that happens I believe.
Qualifications
to work in the space tourism industry from a pilot’s perspective are the pilot
to have a bachelor’s degree and have some experience under his belt in flying
jet powered aircraft of at least 1000 hours PIC. I believe these are bare minimums like
anything else and the amount of highly qualified pilots applying will leave the
standard higher than this I believe.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Cargo
Before the
Colgan accident flight requirements for an F.O. were a Multi-Engine Commercial
Pilot’s Certificate Instrument Airplane, which requires a minimum of 250 total
time hours and 30 hours multi. Companies
were hiring these pilots and typing them in mostly turbo props, but some of
them in jets. After the Colgan Air
accident a minimum flight time of 1500 hours total 100 night and 250 cross
country came about for the F.O. requirements.
Rest rules have also came about as well that require flight crews to
receive certain amounts of hours off for rest for the certain amounts of hours
they were working. Rest times start when a pilot checks into their hotel room
where as it use to be when the engines shut down.
Cargo
carriers follow the older FAR rules of their rest time starting when the
engines shut down. Their rest time is 8
hours from the time they get out of the plane and until the time they start
that engines back up. I believe cargo carriers have been excluded from these
changes due to them not flying passengers but boxes. With less lives being at risk there isn’t a
huge driven factor to require these new FAR rules to cargo pilots. The public perception on this is probably
un-known considering people outside of aviation only follow major passenger jet
flights and I would bet 90% of non aviation folks don’t even know there are new
rest rules and hiring minimums.
I do
believe cargo carriers should be included in the new rest regulations. Flying an airplane being tired and unrested
is dangerous none-the-less whether or not there is passengers or boxes on
it. However, I do not think they will be
followed if they are implanted into the cargo world. Working 3 years at an FBO and seeing all the
freight dog pilots, they’re stories, etc. I can say that the rest rules they
are under right now and duty hour regulations are not being followed with they
way they are now. If you give them even
higher restrictions, who’s to say those won’t be followed? The old rest rules I believed worked fine, I don’t
believe it was rest that caused the Colgan accident. It was two pilots that didn’t know what they
were doing.
If these
new rules are inputted into the cargo world of flying this would raise the
hiring minimums to young pilots. They
would have to wait until 1500hrs total time to be considered but right now most
of them are around 1000 anyway. I don’t
think this would affect my career that much, I’ve seen plenty cargo sides of
flying and don’t think I would want to do that type of flying anyway.
LINKS
http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/recently_published/media/2120-AJ58-FinalRule.pdf
Sunday, October 19, 2014
NAI
Norwegian Air Shuttle is a low-cost carrier, and the third
largest one in Europe. Norwegian air has a non-stop flight from the US to
Scandinavia. They have 416 routes to 126
different destinations ranging from Europe, Africa, Middle East, USA, and Asia.
Their fleet consists of Boeing 737’s and 787’s currently.
US carriers are opposed to NAI operating in the US, because they
are simply trying to undercut and fly routes for cheap. They are “scabbing” the industry and if they
get a hold of routes in the US, it could eventually drive US carriers flying US
routes to become extinct and only be done by foreign airlines. That is an extreme condition but it’s
possible that it could happen if NAI is able to operate within the US.
I absolutely agree with the decision of the DOT to deny NAI
to operate in the US. It would drive “our”
airliners out of business and become a major problem. These companies have employees willing to work
for little pay, have different regulations ranging from rules to maintenance,
etc. Not only would a company like NAI be stealing our routes, but they would
also need to start having hangars, mechanics, and bases over here in the US,
driving out other US companies besides just airlines. If NAI was granted
permission to fly in the US a major ramification that would happen to our
industry is US Airliners would have a very difficult time competing, rules and
regulations would have to be changed.
The industry would start from a slow change to a major change as more
foreign airlines came and gained US routes until no US airliner was able to fly
a route.
http://www.norwegian.com/us/about-norwegian/our-company/
Sunday, October 12, 2014
UAVs
UAVs are currently being used with our military for spying
airstrikes. I don’t exactly know if UAVs
are regulated but after looking up some information I found that UAVs are
restricted to fly in certain areas only by the government and are highly
regulated only to be used by the military on the scale of bigger bomb equipped
drones.
I do see
UAVs being integrated into the NAS, it’s just a matter of time to see when it
will exactly happen in the future.
Problems I see resulting from this are simple issues that may have to be
worked out in the beginning like communications with ATC which I don’t see as
that big of deal. What I find to be a
big deal and an issue are the “what ifs”.
What if the aircraft loses signal or malfunction and someone needs to control
it from the plane. What if the aircraft
gets hijacked through our defense system, etc. People and the general public
will really have to be trusting to hop on an airplane that is controlled by a
guy sitting in a basement.
UAVs have
transformed military strategy by not risking a well-invested military pilot for
risky missions. UAVs, though expensive,
can be spared over an American pilot and his fighter jet or bomber. UAVs are also a lot smaller, therefore giving
them the possibility to be able to fly a lot quieter and higher in the air
making them less recognizable. Their consideration has been beneficial I would
say. UAVs do coast a lot of money, yes,
but from a financial reason, they may be cheaper by the time you compare all
the training coasts invested into an F16 pilot and the coasts invested into a
UAV and Pilot for that. UAVs I find to
be ethical as well, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be. They can perform missions and if something
goes wrong, it’s better then losing a human being.
Most UAV
jobs that I found were all for the military, but there were a few UAV jobs with
major companies like Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing, and Airbus on the internet that
I found. I don’t know if they were
exactly for UAV pilots but they requested UAV pilot experience. They seemed to be more geared towards
research and development jobs.
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