The past two weeks have
actually been quite uneventful. After a
whirlwind of activity with the whole job search, things have settled down and I
am just flying my route until I finish my time here at Ameriflight.
My last day will be
Thursday, so I have only four days left to enjoy flying piston aircraft under
VFR. I will miss the type of flying I
have been doing. No more 45-degree banked
turns to look at something interesting on the passing terrain. No more talking to boxes. No more synchronizing of propellers. No more flying by myself. No more wearing an oxygen mask above 10,000
feet. No more duct tape. Actually, maybe I won’t miss it that much! Seriously though, it has been fun and I will
surely miss the freedom I have had in my flying that you don’t have when you
are flying passengers. (Bags and boxes
don’t complain when I descend at 2000 feet per minute to see how fast I can
make the airplane go).
Mesa Airlines called yesterday
to finally offer me a class date. They
wanted to put me in class on Monday (three days from now). I told them I didn’t think that would work
out too well so instead they gave me a July 9 class date in Phoenix. Oddly enough that is the same date as I have
with Continental Express. My aircraft
assignment is uncertain – it would either be the Embraer 145 regional jet (the
same as COEX) or the Canadair Regional Jet, which is very similar to the
EMB-145 and is made by Bombardier Aerospace in Canada. The CRJ has comparable cruising speeds,
altitudes, and also has 50 seats. I
have no real preference for one or the other so I would be happy in either one.
I actually spoke with the
pilot recruiting manager at Mesa for a good 30 minutes and discussed with her
my situation of choosing between the two airlines. She was quite helpful but really couldn’t offer any compelling
arguments to choose Mesa over Continental Express. The facts are, COEX is larger, more stable, has a better
reputation, and is taking delivery of a brand new jet every 10 days. And from all indications, their pilots have
a very good quality of life for a regional airline. And the planes look cool.
The only real advantage Mesa
has is the possibility of being based in Phoenix or possibly Las Vegas, two
places we would enjoy living. That’s
what really attracted me to Mesa in the first place. However, those locations are chosen by Mesa’s senior and career
pilots. That means I couldn’t be based
there as a new hire, so we would have to go somewhere else first on the east
coast, then move to Phoenix after I gain some seniority, then probably go back
to the east coast again when I upgrade to captain. I don’t think it is worth all that moving to live in the
southwest for at most a year or two. We
have the rest of our lives to live where we want and I don’t think spending a
few years in Cleveland or Houston would be so bad, and would probably broaden
our horizons anyway
So, in three weeks I will
pack up and leave on a long road trip to Houston. Training will last at least two months which includes ground
school, simulator training, and aircraft training. We’ll make our choice of location the first week of ground school
and will know where we’ll be based shortly thereafter. At this point we are still leaning towards
Cleveland.
In the meantime, today is my
last Friday at Ameriflight. That is
only significant because on these bank runs we take off an hour later on Friday
nights, so I have seven hours in Lakeview instead of six. Lakeview was pretty cool at first, but now
that I have spent a month here, I think I have pretty much had my fill of the
small town. Next week I’ll do the
Lakeview run four more times before hanging up my hat. Wait, I don’t have a hat.