OT: any pilots / aircraft owners / airplane geeks?

[GregL]

Originally Posted by Seramount

they had a pretty decent fleet of aircraft...Dassault Falcon, Sabreliner, two Lears, two Cessna 421s, and a Helio Courier used for pipeline patrol...

I got my first type rating in the Sabreliner. Every airplane after the Sabre simply wasn’t as much fun. The Sabreliner handled like a dream, had gobs of straight-pipe turbojet power, and was very reliable based on pure simplicity. I highly recommend searching YouTube for “Sabreliner aerobatic.” You can thank me later

Greg

[donevwil]

This has been a great thread to follow, thanks all.

Aviation nut here thanks to my dad and uncles. Dad was Air Force during Korean War and FAA thereafter so I was fortunate to have some good access as a kid. While I was growing up he'd take vacation every summer so we could jump in the car and travel throughout the western US hitting every air museum, aviation graveyard, air base, whatever, we could find. We'd pack lunches and go watch B-52s and KC-135s do touch and goes at Castle AFB, head to Edwards to watch the shuttle land or go wherever the Blue Angles were performing.

My first job while still in high school was creating rib drawings and a parts and service manual for the Weatherly 620-B (pic below). My last job in aviation, prior to my last year at college, was working on the team performing the FEA of the horizontal stabilizer for the PC-9 during a seven month stint with Pilatus, that was a blast. The airshows Pilatus would put on for visiting dignitaries were awesome.





Completed ground school during my last semester at college, but the cost and time requirements stopped it there.

Originally intended to apply my degree in mechanical engineering (aeronautical emphasis) in the industry, but turned out to be bad timing. Instead career started in aerospace/defense, missles, supersonic wind tunnels and four year projects that would have the plug pulled 6 months before completion.

The last airshow I attended was in El Toro (SoCal) when an F-86 crashed while performing aerobatics. That was sickening to watch.

[Yoshi]

Lot of cool stories. Thanks for sharing.

[oldpotatoe]

several of the mechanics and I were all sitting around one day watching a flight of military jets landing...the last plane to touch down shot past our hangar going WAY faster than any of the others.

we saw a couple of puffs of smoke come off the brakes, then the plane went off the end of the runway, thru a chain link fence, across a 4-lane highway and go nose-down in a drainage culvert.

USAF no doubt...

[cloudchaser]

Originally Posted by earlfoss

It's interesting to read and hear what the real story is regarding employment in the aviation industry. At times it seems to contradict other statements that there's a shortage of pilots. Which one is true?

I have a friend who is quite young and flies commercially for a big airline. He loves it, and comes from an aviation background. He loves his job.

The pilot shortage is both real and imagined. The years after 9/11 are referred to as the lost decade. The attacks combined with the economy resulted in the airlines severely contracting. Most major airlines fourloughed large numbers of pilots for a very long time. Regional pilots were stuck in low paying jobs with no hope of moving up and many left the industry. That has now all turned around. You can become a Captain at a regional as soon as you have the minimum hours with the company.

The real:

The big 3 major airlines combined are hiring several thousand pilots a year and have no shortage of applicants. The regional level is tougher. The lost decade plus the experience of air travel has changed the appeal of this job to millennials. Old timers still think of air travel in the prism of the golden years, like Leonardo DeCaprio strutting through the terminal in Catch Me If You Can. Now air travel is something to be endured, and a job that had a questionable payoff for such a long time. The pool of entry level pilots is smaller than in the past. The Colgan crash changed the law on the minimum number of hours to get licensed and that raised the cost of training which has further restricted interest. Additionally, many of those being hired by the majors are coming from the regionals who they have keep replacing at quickening pace.

The imagined:

It only takes two pilots to fly a commercial airplane. Whether it is an enormous Airbus 380 or tiny Embraer 145. The business model has decided on frequency for passenger convenience. You replace 10 commuter jet flights a day in a market with 5 mainline flights and you just cut your need for pilots in half. Easier said than done with capital expenditures being so high for aircraft, but it can be a long term transitional solution. The retirement age has already been raised from 60 to 65(during the lost decade, which hit the furloughees even harder). In Japan, domestic pilots can fly up to not 68 years old. The future of drones and automation merging into commercial aviation may lead to a transition from 2 pilots to single pilot to pilotless over the next decades.

All that said, as my career winds down, I can't imagine having done anything else for a living that would have made me happier. Flying fantastic airplanes with an amazing group of professional pilots is a dream come true.

[redir]

Originally Posted by Seramount

when I was 17, got a job as a ramp rat for a natural gas transmission company's corporate air force.

they had a pretty decent fleet of aircraft...Dassault Falcon, Sabreliner, two Lears, two Cessna 421s, and a Helio Courier used for pipeline patrol...

my first assignment was to take a .22 rifle with bird-shot and blow away the sparrows in the hangar that were crapping on the planes. after that, I got to prep the mini-bars, wash/wax planes, use a tug to tow planes to to the fuel dock and gas them up.

they wouldn't even have needed to pay me to do the work.

several times I got to sit right-seat on test hops...even got to take the yoke on a Lear once. I was in heaven...the salad days of my youth!

several of the mechanics and I were all sitting around one day watching a flight of military jets landing...the last plane to touch down shot past our hangar going WAY faster than any of the others.

we saw a couple of puffs of smoke come off the brakes, then the plane went off the end of the runway, thru a chain link fence, across a 4-lane highway and go nose-down in a drainage culvert.

saw emergency crews get the pilot out of the cockpit...the plane was seriously damaged. pretty exciting to watch, doubt it helped the pilot's career advancement tho.

Interesting and bike related story back then was the president of Cannondale at the time, Joe Montgomery (if I remember his name correctly) had a Cessna Cheyenne in a hangar at the FBO. He used to ride his bike to the airport, lock it up on a chain link fence and hop in his plane and take off to meetings. He took me for a ride in the Cheyenne once. We also had some one with a T6 trainer and he took me for a ride in that.

Then there was one guy, Arnold, he was sort of shy but was a great guy to talk to, who was a King Air pilot and was taking some printing company executives to a meeting and went down over Wisconsin I believe. It was shocking. All of a sudden he was just gone. They think the left wing just broke right of the plane in flight.

[azrider]

My future pilot. Recent trip to PDX earlier this month and Capt let my little guy sit down for what felt like 15 minutes.....very cool of him




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