You know how a lot of people will say they never envisioned themselves doing the job that they do now as their career? Well, I can say that I not only did want to become a commercial pilot since I was a little guy, but I never envisioned myself as a pilot on passenger carrying flights. My goal was to join the Air Force, then after the required 11 years (your commission starts at the end of your first year and you have a 10 year commitment) I wanted to fly for FedEx and stay in the National Guard so I could draw a military retirement and a retirement from FedEx. Well, a recruiter screwed me over - and it wasn't until it was too late that I discovered I could have got a waiver for his failure to turn my paperwork in on time. A quick sidebar on that - You can only take the AFOQT twice. The first time I took it he didn't tell me you couldn't use a calculator on the test. The math isn't too hard, but it is time limited and without practicing I almost passed it the first time. I passed all other sections but I missed the math by one point and there was no way the review board would take me with a math score that was any amount under passing. So the second time I passed it, and I scored well in all of the subjects. He sat on his hands, apparently, and didn't turn my packet in on time... Then the review board sent me a letter saying that I would have been accepted if my paperwork had been received on time, and in that letter they asked me to hold the paperwork and resubmit for the next review board. Well, the test results are only valid for a 6 month period, and the next review board was going to be a few days after that 6 month limit. The letter also told me about the 2 attempts they allow. So, that was it for me.... I was stupid and didn't say anything to my parents until later, and then Dad told me he could have helped me get a waiver by contacting a friend of his. Oh well.... Everything happens for a reason.
Flying with my Captain this month has already been a great experience for me. I mean experience as in learning, LOL. He likes to hand fly the plane a lot more than the others I have flown with. I decided to do it also, and it has been great for quickly developing a feel. Just like with any family of aircraft, each SAAB has a different feel to it. Some will land soft even if you plant it on the runway, and some will feel like a hell of a hard landing even if you are super soft on touchdown. It has to do with the wear of the main gear struts. The differences between the aircraft can be enough that it takes a flight or two before you have all the little nuances worked out. At the same time, hand flying these planes has really helped me to go from that in-between stage where you still make one or two errors in a month to that point where you feel very comfortable with the plane. Comfort levels really help you fly a plane well.... at least in my experience people who are a little nervous during landing have more difficulty with landings. It is almost like squinting when you are at bat when playing baseball. If you are afraid of the ball hitting you, you won't get that home run you want. You'll end up striking out more times than not. On that day when you realize that getting hit is very unlikely and you feel confident standing in the batters box then your batting average and home run total start to skyrocket up.
For the pilots out there.... The SAAB's we currently fly are /A equipped aircraft. To save you some time in case you don't have the entire equipment suffix table memorized... that means we have a mode c transponder and DME capability. Having DME is required for us since we do occasionally fly above FL240. Often we will bracket our courses instead of allowing the autopilot to track them. The VOR signals are often weak, even within their standard service volumes - No, we really don't have the time to look up and see if each VOR we use has an extended service volume, LOL. The weak signals cause a lot of scalloping, or in autopilot layman terms - it can't find the center of the course and keeps going from side to side to try and find that center. So if you are ever aboard a SAAB 340 and notice the plane keeps making shallow turns every 20 mins or so then that is the reason why.
Going back to the subject of feeling very fortunate... I say this for many reasons, but for the short term reasons here is why! I have not had a month of reserve yet. I have been fortunate enough to be a line holder since my first month off IOE. The other, most recent and most exciting reason is that I saw that I will be able to upgrade to Captain within a few more months. I was awarded an upgrade with our last vacancy bid, however they forgot to account for those who were currently in training to upgrade to Captain. I was near the bottom of the list, but that does mean I am close enough to making the list that I should be able to upgrade in February or March.
How about a little tour of Houston?
Here are a few pictures of the ramp, note that we currently use buses to bring the passengers to the planes, but you can see the extension to the terminal they are currently finishing. Hopefully in the next month they will finish the extension and we will be able to board in a more convenient and modern way at IAH:
Here are a few pictures of our crew lounge:
Have a great day and safe flights
Bob
Your story really is a great one and you've managed to work your way into an awesome career even with some setbacks. Thanks for sharing on here and congrats on the almost-Captain status!
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