This week has been more than
easy. Pure VFR weather and relatively
calm winds aloft the entire week resulted in little stress in my flight
schedule. I did AMF 452 to Lakeview
every day except Wednesday, when I flew AMF 414 to Burns for a little
variety. I flew just over 4 hours each
day.
I got a little surprise on
Monday. Actually, it’s a big one. Continental Express, who offered me a job a
few weeks ago (see my May 4 report),
decided to crank things up a notch.
Previously, I was assigned a September 10 ground school class date in
the EMB-120 Brasilia, a 30-seat
turboprop aircraft. Apparently, through
some form of chance or magic, as I was enroute from Klamath Falls to Lakeview a
voice mail was being left on my cell phone asking me if I would accept an
earlier class date of July 9. But the
really cool thing is that the July class is for the EMB-145 Regional Jet.
Mr. Goertzen, would you mind
advancing your career by two months and come fly a brand-new jet for us instead
of a turboprop?
Gee, I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. (Yeah right)
I called back and accepted
the new class date and equipment about 30 minutes after I picked up the
message.
The Embraer RJ145 is a 50-seat, highly
efficient and advanced twin-turbofan powered airplane. It cruises at 520 MPH as high as 41,000
feet. For reference, that is 30 MPH
faster than the Boeing 737-300. It is
COEX’s largest and fastest aircraft.
There is a very cool virtual tour
of this aircraft available on Continental’s website including the cockpit,
cabin, and even lavatory (all unoccupied).
It’s worth downloading the plug-in to view it.
There are arguments to be
made for flying turboprops instead of jets, but they are few. The primary reason is that I would have seen
the captain’s chair sooner. At
Continental Express (COEX), the time to upgrade in the Brasilia is about 10-12
months, whereas the jet takes about 18-24 months. However, because the jet pays considerably better and a number of
other factors, including COEX’s upcoming phase-out of the Brasilia aircraft,
being assigned to fly the jet is a much better deal overall.
Up until the phone call we
had almost decided on Mesa Airlines.
Now we are seriously leaning towards COEX. Still waiting on aircraft assignment and class date from Mesa,
but I don’t think they can beat the new offer from COEX, even if I was assigned
to a jet there as well.
Since the jet is flown out
of all three COEX hubs, Houston would no longer necessarily be my base. It will actually more likely be
Cleveland. I won’t know for sure until
after I begin ground school, so I’ll be rolling the dice a bit. That’s OK, I did that when I left Jeppesen
for Ameriflight. If based in Cleveland,
the airline will have me flying regularly to airports like New York (JFK),
Washington DC – Dulles (IAD), and Chicago-O’Hare (ORD). The experience gained while flying in these
congested areas will be great, especially in the winters. I don’t yet know much about Cleveland as a
place to live. It’s certainly not
Portland, but Stephanie has a friend who lives there and likes it very
much. We would live there for several
years so this will be important to us.
I’m still in disbelief. I never dreamed I’d be flying a jet at this
point a year ago. With ground school
beginning in July, I can probably expect to carry my first passengers sometime
in September or October of this year.
I reached a milestone this
week and broke the 1500-hour mark on Thursday.
