The upside

So, there is an upside to being tech support. Not everyone is an idiot that should be beaten for being a retard :) Some people have serious issues that require someone specially trained to fix the issue. Additionally, some people just don't know what they need to do but realize they need help and are willing to meet you halfway.

The people who have serious issues can drive you insane because you need to leverage everything you know about the product. It's strange little tricks and backdoor ways of doing things results in you getting the problem fixed. Yes, it takes time and effort to deal with these people but ultimately it's satisfying when the problem is fixed. The customer doesn't always appreciate it but unless they are annoying it's satisfying to complete one of these calls.

The people who just aren't technology literate can be fun because you are opening their eyes to a wider world. You don't try to self diagnose when you have a medical problem, you pay for a specialist. Ditto for technology, I'm a specialist with technology and let me show you what I know and how to best use it in your situation. Often times, just asking what they want to do on the device results in an interesting conversation and they will thank you for taking time to help them do what they want to do. Some simple 'how to' from the user guide makes their interaction with Tech Support the highlight of their day (often time Tech Support has a bad reputation and I'm happy to break that cycle)!

Tight Play

I will always remember a friend that during Standard with Lorwyn Block legal he would leave a filter land untapped without anything to filter. I always laughed when he couldn't pump Figure because he only had colorless available due to a mistap.

I have another friend forgets on board tricks. It's doubly true when I used them a few turns ago, he just doesn't remember and runs into the same trap. There was one multiplayer game where someone literally talked about the on board trick if this friend attacked, I casually mentioned he was going to fall for it anyway, my friend got all huffy and said he wouldn't fall for it, and then walked right into it 30 seconds later!

When keeping your play tight, you have to remember that life is ultimately a resource. Can you trade blows and win a long game? Is it more advantageous if you just trade? Sometimes just trading your life for more resources to be used later is helpful. I've seen games where the opponent tries to save their life in unprofitable trades and later on down the road wishes they had those resources.

Tech Support

Yes, because Blogger wants to fuck with you for your views and do it publicly... It's almost as bad as This guy and his Dell and how he goes accusing Dell of bad service.

Difficulties happen. It's especially true for a large company with tons of different things interconnected. Althouse happened to get flagged when blogger was going down the tubes and their tech support was very busy. It'll be a while before they start digging through their flagged folders to separate the pedophiles from inappropriately flagged blogs. Rob just happened to hit telecom difficulties and then threw a hissy fit when they didn't immediately respond to his requests for support.

I admit that both could have been handled but when you are dealing with overworked Tech Support and/or being a pain in the ass and demanding IMMEDIATE satisfaction, you are going to turn your best resources (the techs you are working with) into enemies (or at least they aren't going to go out of their way to above and beyond their normal duties).

Unemployed

So, as the aviation world turns, I have gotten put on the street and am no living ~1500 miles from 'home' and am stuck in a $600 per month lease until early next year. Obviously, not my year. First job put me on part time and the second job fired me.

Personally, I have little interest in continuing to fly. The pay is low, the hours are bad, there is little stability, and the responsibilities are enormous. Why bother when I can do tech support and have more upsides with none of the downsides. About the only thing I will miss is flying regularly, I will admit that flying is fun.

Signoffs & Success

Today, I was looking through my files and realized that I have signed off 10 students in the last 2 years. Of which 9 passed on the first try! I feel pretty good :)

Plus I've signed off another 11 students for solo (some of which passed with other instructors).

Goodbye LORAN

Seems that LORAN is no more. As someone who has used LORAN in the aviation world, I say it will be missed. Yes, it was inaccurate and outdated but it was the emergency backup system.

Let us hope that GPS never fails else we will be in deep shit.

Interview

So today I found out that I got an interview! The first part is an online quiz, followed up by a demonstration of teaching, and finally followed up by a simulator flight. We'll see how it all goes (I need a new job)!

Interesting Tidbit

So I was teaching groundschool today and ran across an interesting question.
Q: On a Surface Analysis Chart, what does a square indicate?
A: An automated weather station.

Who says you can't learn something new

Airlines to cut 60 million seats for Christmas

I love the comments of this news article:

Any other industry would raise prices in response to increasing costs. The airline industry is the only one that decides to quit rather than compete.

Any other industry (except maybe the MSM, I guess) would improve the product it offers before blaming everything and everybody else.

My question is, since the airline industry is made up of several different and supossedly independent companies: How is this not illegal collusion?

In keeping with the line of comments, ANY OTHER INDUSTRY woudl be facing massive antitrust suits for signaling each other on restricted output to increase profit margins. I still don't understand how the airlines get away what is an obvious attempt to establish a cartel.

ANY OTHER INDUSTRY would see the CEOs who approved this sort of garbage facing serious jail time.

Let's see how these are idiotic. Raise prices... or just charge $7 for a pillow and $20 for each bag? Isn't that another way of raising prices without charging more for the upfront fee? Hell, it's charging for what you actually use on the airplane: space and weight.

You pay for what you get. How would they improve the product without it costing more? Oh ya, you want your free food/beverage/admirals lounge and not pay for it too. Also, there is are costs associated with trying to keep a tight schedule (and miss a few flights) compared to keeping excess airplanes (and all the stuff that makes airplanes go) in stock sitting around.

Lastly, the CEO's aren't colluding. In the airline world, the profits so razor thin and consumer loyalty so lacking/useless that any cut by any airline is met with cuts at other airlines. You win when there is a price war, you lose when the market is saturated.

Right now, there is excess capacity that needs to be cut. Airline pilots are all looking at plan B. There are at least a few thousand ex-airline pilots on the street looking for jobs. I have seen requirements for jobs go from "do you have a commercial pilot's certificate" to "1000 hours of Multi-turbojet time required". If you are thinking that the airlines are adding jobs, you are woefully mistaken.

And the sad fact is that there are rumbles that a major airline is going to die. the NWA/DAL thing was simple survival in many ways and UAL/Continental was about saving their collective bacon...

Professionalism

I feel I'm a professional, but I don't know the nitty gritty details on how I should react in certain situations. And the problem with being a professional is that if I set standards, I can't let them slip even with my favorite student.

Let me give you an example.

No-shows: A no-show is where the student doesn't show up. It can also mean they didn't cancel within 24 hours. How do I differentiate between a student that overslept, a student that is on call and has to go perform surgery on short notice, and a photographer that forgot to cancel the flight? I'll never see the photographer again and who knows how I'll get paid (or if they will pay). The doctor student has a very valid excuse and warns me in advance if she is on call so I will have advance notice. The student that overslept should be billed (not my fault).

But as a professional I feel I should treat all these situations the same...

Vacation

Took 3 days off for EAA: Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday. Monday and Tuesday were fun (ROCKET RACING! I'm still psyched about that but I think it's going to fail). Saturday I'm not going to go because I saw rocket racing on Tuesday (kewl).

Spent way too much money on the bars and at EAA, but that's what a vacation is for. Wednesday sucked (meh).

I can't wait to get my 500 hours X-C and can do charter work.

Then get a freaking fraction partnership

I see posts/articals like this or this.

My response is get your own fractional. Buy your own jet. Oh wait, you complained about turboprops (puddlejumpers) and now Regional Jets (RJ's) and still fly the unfriendly airlines. You can't pony up the $50,000 it takes to hire your own airplane so STFU.

The airlines are the greyhound bus of the aviation world. The pilots don't give a shit about you anyway (let's be honest, they want to get to the fractional world so they can get treated like professionals and be paid like professionals instead of the greyhound bus driver they currently get paid and respected like). The Flight Attendants only want travel and a decent paycheck. The Maintenance guys don't care (hahaha, they START at $50k at a corporate jet job - the airlines can't compete on that score). I don't know how the customer service reps care (oh wait, they don't and especially when you treat them like shit).

As it currently stands, the night cargo guys are almost respected (and paid) more in the aviation business than the airline guys. It takes skill and balls to fly a piston twin in rough weather without radar or decent equipment. The last redeeming quality of the airlines is they fly turbine equipment, and it's valued in the aviation world.

Pony up the $50k a year and sit back and enjoy your catered meal and lack of lines or don't and enjoy the smell.

Sorry

Busier than all hell. Life is hitting the fan on so many fronts:

Professional - I passed 1200 hours of flight time. For those of you keeping score, that's 50 days of non-stop flight time. I can now be PIC of a charter flight :) I think I'm going to fly past 1300 hours here in a little bit and then destroy the 1000 hours of dual given mark. [Dual given is how pilots log instruction given to other people]. Now I need to have two students pass check rides and I'll get the gold seal and finish my last CFI goal (I am 6 of 8 check rides for students at the moment).

Also, I am trying to get my MEI checkride done. My schedule is so full I can't get time on it 3 weeks in the future to take the freaking checkride. Plus the airplane is broken :( Oh well, it can always be worse. I have no rush to get it done, but the price of the airplane is going up (it was $205 when I started at the employee rate, now it's $260 per hour only 7 months later. Damn fuel prices!).

Work - I have billed 30 hours of time this pay period. We started the pay period on Monday... 4 days of work and I've billed 30 hours, and flown ~20ish of them. That's 5 hours of flight time a day and ~8 hours of billing a day. CRAZY CASH $$$$ BLING BLING!!! Oh, the logbook thanks me too.

Personal - I have zero free time. EAA is coming up and I plan on laying off work a little so I don't get run over by a supercub in the practice area. Plus I've taken off a few days to relax.

I am getting back into Magic the Gathering (damn that game, it's like gamer crack) and have spent some mad cash on old school cards. I'm building a turbo sliver Elder Dragon Highlander deck with crazy ass mana acceleration, infinite loops, and old school broken cards. E-bay is my friend (and worst enemy of my bank account)!

Hopefully it'll slow down next week, and I'll get a chance to post some. Have a good one.

Memorial Day

A few people know it, but I'm not the first pilot in my family. The first pilot title in my family goes to Grand Uncle Guido. He was an instructor for the AAF before and during WW2. Sadly, he died on duty during 1944 near Independence, KS due to a crash shortly around D-Day along with another pilot.

Sadly, I don't know many details but hopefully I'll find out what happened eventually. I just need an exact date and I found out the location just recently (going through the WW2 records I inherited from my Grandfather). Then I'm going to write to the military and get official records of the crash and whatnot.

From what I've put together, he and a buddy were flying at night during a cross country flight for the weekend and hit a mountain (but in Independence, KS?). Since they were two of them and since he was an instructor, I figure they were flying a T-6.

Independence Kansas airport: http://skyvector.com/#35-20-3-1416-2703
Airport Data for Independence, KS: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KIDP
T-6: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-6_Texan

I'm lazy

Just redo-ing my room. There is too much stuff stuck in the crannies that I need to clean out.

Work has been nuts. Lots of demo flights and people trying to kill me. Thus far, they have failed :)

Don't pick up the phone!

Often times, we get a call at work that goes like this: "Hi, I'm Mr. Smith. I want to become an airline pilot, can you train me to fly an airliner?" At this point, I've lost interest.

First, do some research. You need to earn your Private Pilot Certificate. Then you need to earn your Instrument Rating. Then you need to earn your Commercial Pilot Certificate. Then finally, you need to earn your multi-engine certificate. Notice, I said EARN.

Second, you just don't show up for a 4 month class, and go off flying airliners. Airline training is 6-8 weeks long, that's about 2 MONTHS! And that is training highly experienced pilots to fly airliners, not going from welder to airline pilot. If you do flying full time, you will get your multi-engine commercial pilot's certificate in a year. That's working your ass off and doing 40 hours a week of aviation related stuff.

Third, this is going to take MONEY. I'm taking $30,000 or MORE. If you are making $25,000 a year as a welder or auto mechanic, that's more than a full years worth of savings! You might be able to get loans, but how to pay them back? You are now an inexperienced pilot and will make less than $25,000 a year for your first 5 years of flying.

Do you have a family? If so, how are you going to support them while you go full time flying? If you do it quickly, do you have the money saved up to support them even if the flying is paid with loans? Will you have time to do this 40 hours a week or will family obligations get in the way? Are you dedicated enough to keep at it?

If you are single, do you have the money to do this? Are you willing to dedicate the time and effort to doing this? I would put aviation as the equivalent of a masters degree. Are you willing to move to anyplace on the planet for a job?

I would say that less than 5% of the people who start on the path make it all the way. It's nowhere near as fun or glamorous as it sounds or looks from the outside. This week, I've been up at 7AM and getting home at 8PM from work. Oh, and the pay sucks.

I wouldn't want you to spend your life savings or emergency fund ($2,000 most likely) and then get nothing out of it, but I'll take your money because I need to pay rent. If you call me up and ask if we train people to fly airliners, you aren't serious about this and while I'll take your money, don't expect much.

Pilot Pay - the Realities

I get paid $13 an hour. Per flight or ground hour. Not a bad pay if you are figuring on doing 2,000 hours a year (as in a typical 9-5 job).

The problem comes in when you get down to the nuts and bolts. The typical lesson schedules 2 hours and I get paid for about 3/4ths of it. If it gets canceled due to weather, student reschedules, or any other reason, I get paid nothing. Any preparation/setup isn't typically paid.

For instance, let's take today: a 3 hour groundschool and a demo flight. A solid 4 hours of pay, I'm officially there from 9AM - 3:30PM (at the office 6 hours, 30 minutes). That neglects to mention I have to spend time coming up with lesson plans (90 minutes) before the groundschool (unpaid). So now we are from 7:30AM - 3:30PM, still the same 4 hours of pay. Then the demo flight canceled due to weather. And the person behind the desk tried to schedule me for a sightseeing flight. I can't do sightseeing flights (legal reasons, I'm not covered under the waiver). So I spend 2 hours trying to free up the demo flight from my schedule and put it on someone who can do demo flights.

So the final result was 7:30AM-3PM (7 hours, 30 minutes), and I get paid for 3 hours. Sadly, it doesn't get any better at the airlines or most charter companies. The only time pilots get paid is when they are flying, usually non-flight hours are not paid... It's very easy for pilots to end up working a 12+ hour day and get paid for under half of it.

And people wonder why pilots are fleeing from aviation jobs. With the skills and responsibilities that they have and the hours they work, they can easily make more as a manager of Burger King or another job that has less responsibilities and duties and requires less time.

At times I'm responsible for $100,000 worth of equipment and a million dollar insurance policy plus a 4 year degree and $30k worth of specialized training, do you think getting paid $25k a year is enough?

Stability and Flexibility

If you don't like being flexible, don't become a pilot. Your schedule changes on a whim. Planning 5 minutes in advance is planning for the future, planning an hour is long term planning.

I can't tell you the number of times my day has gone to shit and I've spent more time doing what wasn't on the plan for the day than what was on the plan.

Whitman Tailwind

Got to fly in a W-10 for a Flight Review yesterday. I'm glad we don't have one.

First, it's small. I barely fit in the aircraft and if I was 2-4 inches taller I wouldn't fit (I'm 68inches tall). Plus side to side it was more cozy than the 152. And the yoke was VERY poorly designed and took up most of the room.

Second, it's fast. I'm talking 160kts in the cruise fast. The Seneca II flys that fast. Sadly, it the Seneca II takes off faster and uses less runway. It's a pretty big runway hog. Climb is decent, but I think it should be flown at a slower climb speed to get closer to Vy instead of 140kts.

Third, it's twitchy. Like REAL twitchy. The small elevator controls result in being thrown into the ceiling (refer item 1). Roll is a little faster than a C152. And in non-issue turbulence in a 152/172, it's throwing you around the cockpit.

Fourth, you can't see squat. There is a window, but has the airframe supports running through your sightliness and you can't see to either side.

Fifth, the rudder is connected to the brakes. Every landing resulted in massive breaking on landing. Decent ground control, but takeoff/landing definitely resulted in using brakes as you kept it on the centerline.

Sixth, the instrument cluster is a cluster fuck. There is NO logical flow of instruments, and even the guy didn't know 100% where they were all. It's almost designed as a vertical 6 pack, except that there was room for a normal 6 pack if you moved stuff around. Plus I had the throttle/mixture sticking out at my face (glad to know I'll impale my forehead on it if we crash).

Overall, I'm not impressed. And I got some ideas of what not to do when I build a Sonex. But it's an airplane and I got to fly another type. Why won't anyone let me do a Flight Review in their G550? ;)

Got to fly a Cessna 414

Talk about a fun experience. Fast, sleek, spacey, great avionics, pressurized, DAMN I want to fly it more :)