A Pilot's Journey

Now is not the time to be thinking about going to the airlines as they are furloughing pilots and cutting their fleets and routes. It is also probably not the best time to go into Flight Instruction full time as most students are probably discouraged with the outlook of the airlines right now. I am about 3 months away from being able to leave the company I am working for but the things I was really hoping to do are not viable options at the moment. I will continue with my flying and get my instructor certificates and will most likely do some flight instruction on the side but not full time. So I am starting to look at other options for work. I have been burned out on writing code for the past couple of years and I definitely want to move out of that as soon as possible. I have a couple of ideas for other jobs I could pursue, one if which I have applied for already. I will not give any details as to what it is as I do not want to give that away just yet, some people who are closer to me already know what I am referring to. I will just say that it is in the aviation industry and leave it at that until I have more details. Till next time, fly safe...

As most people are aware the airlines are in a serious situation right now due to high oil prices. Most of the major airlines are cutting back capacity and dropping routes as well as furloughing a fair number of pilots. Due to the actions of the majors, many of the regional airlines are suffering as well as they usually fly code share for the majors. Now is not a good time to be trying to get a job with an airline as most are probably not hiring now. The airline industry is a very cyclical industry with ups and downs. The best time to get in would be on an upswing and try to get your seniority secured before the next downswing so you are less likely to be furloughed. I am still a year or more away from looking to the airlines so I am hopeful that they will be starting an upswing by then. I have not been doing the type of flying I did last year to get my ratings completed, but at this time with the state of the airlines I am no longer in a huge rush, I will still continue and complete all my ratings and start instructing, but I may only instruct part time at least until I get a feel for whether or not there are enough students to warrant going full time. In the mean time I will continue to work away in my secure little cubicle and fly whenever I can to finish up my ratings and perhaps someday I will escape this box forever to dash around the skies during better times. Till next time, fly safe...

Due to the high price of gas I have been looking for the past couple of weeks for an alternative travel method. I have seen a lot of little 50cc scooters around the area as gas continues to climb higher. I have ridden motorcycles in the past and decided to start looking for another one. I expect to get around 50mpg with a motorcycle and in doing so save a lot of money over getting 16mpg in my truck. After watching Craig’s list like a hawk for a couple of weeks I finally found a great bike for a great deal. I bought a 95 Kawasaki Ninja ZX6 E3 for $1500. I should be able to make that back in gas savings in a short time. In the past I owned a Honda shadow cruiser so having a sports bike is new to me and I never thought I would like the way they sit, but after checking it out and test driving it I found that I am not laying over the gas tank as I thought I would be. The only problem with the bike is that it was laid down by a previous owner and the right side has several scratches, I might get new fairings and fix the damage at some point, but for know I will just have to live with it. And now for a picture, this picture is of the good side which has not been laid down.

I finally called the Chief Flight Instructor and had him assign me a new flight instructor. I am scheduled to fly Friday afternoon as long as the weather holds up. I am just planning on running through all the commercial stuff and getting some feedback from my new instructor. Hopefully just a couple of flights will be all that is needed and then I can take the checkride then start on my CFI. Saturday I fly out for Washington DC to spend five days there on a business trip. I get back on Thursday evening then fly out again on Friday afternoon for Branson MO to visit family over Memorial Day. Once back from that trip I have a free weekend that will most likely be spent packing getting ready to move to a new apartment. We move on June 7, after that date my calendar clears up a bit and I should be able to do more flying or studying depending on where I am at that time. Till next time, keep the greasy side down...

Well, I have not done any flying now for about a month or a bit longer. I have been really busy with work and other activities and have just not had the chance to get to the airport. On the plus side, this time off has allowed me to save some money for flying so I should be able to plow through my CFI/CFII without any slowdown due to money. I also need to get a new instructor assigned to me as my old one is not really flying with the school much anymore. Next month is a busy month as I will be going on a business trip to Washington DC and then spending Memorial Day weekend in Branson MO visiting family. Well, I just wanted to update everyone on what has been going on and why there have not been any posts. Till next time, dream of clear skies and happy landings...

Must have a lot of time on their hands. My old flight instructor sent me this image last week showing the flight track of a cessna Citation X on Flight Aware. The aircraft averaged 500 Kts and was airborn for over 4 hours.

Don't you wish you had that kind of time and money to burn. On a side note, I have been able to get about 3 flights in so far this year due to crummy weather. Hopefully things will start looking better, but it just snowed last night so we will see. Till next time, fly safe...

I did not get as many comments on the Plane on a Conveyor Belt post as I thought I might. But I was glad to see that the majority of the posts came to the correct conclusion that the aircraft will take off. As was said in many of the comments, the wheels being free rolling will not impart any of the reward force of the conveyor belt to the aircraft. The aircrafts propulsion system (prop or jet) will propel the aircraft through the air regardless of what the ground is doing and the wheels will just spin twice as fast. I think there are several points where people get hung up on this; one is that they are thinking in terms of a car on a conveyor belt in which case the car will not move forward. There are others that think the question states that the aircraft will not move forward through the air and will therefore not take off, but again that would be assuming the aircraft acts like a car on the conveyor. There are still others that believe speed is the speed of the wheels (like a car measures speed on its speedometer). The speed of the wheels argument presents an impossible situation due to the way the question is worded. It says that the conveyor automatically adjusts its speed to match the airplane, but if we are going by the wheel speed it is not possible. Since the plane applies its force to the air, when it starts to move forward, the conveyor tries to match the speed in the opposite direction but all it does is cause the wheels to spin faster, so the conveyor has to speed up again, and the cycle has started. The conveyor has to accelerate to infinity and yet it would never catch up to the speed of the wheels. Now in reality the bearings would eventually fail, but the point is that the conveyor could never match the speed of the wheels even in a theoretical world of frictionless bearings, there is simply no way for a conveyor belt to prevent an aircraft from moving forward and taking off.