The Comair interview went very well, in my
opinion. It was an overall pleasant
experience consisting of a regular two-on-one interview, a personality test,
and a cognitive skills test. The
cognitive skills test was probably the most interesting – a 45-minute
computerized test really designed to see how well your brain works, I
guess. For example, it would flash a
sequence of 6 numbers in succession, then ask me to type them in backwards. Some parts were easy and some were
difficult, but I think I did pretty well on it. The interview questions were standard questions that I had seen
before from previous interviews and I didn’t have any trouble with them.
I should know if I got the job
by letter in about a week. For now, I’m
keeping myself as busy as possible so I don’t go crazy thinking about it.
The less-than-entertaining
part about my interview experience was trying to get home. They gave me a space-available travel pass
to get to the interview and back.
Getting there was no problem, I even got a first-class seat. But the problem was trying to get back to
Las Vegas on Super Bowl Weekend. I had
to connect in Atlanta, but my flight out of Cincinnati was late so I missed my
connection. There were no more flights
to Las Vegas that night but there was a flight to Salt Lake City, so I hopped
on that one just so at least I’d get closer to home. We landed in Salt Lake at 2300 so there were no more flights
anywhere, so I had to spend the night at my expense and try my luck in the
morning.
Well, I didn’t have any
luck. Every flight to Las Vegas was
full so I couldn’t get on any of them.
After spending all day in the airport missing flight after flight, I
finally got on a flight at 1630 to St. George, which is two hours northeast of
here. Stephanie was nice enough to come
pick me up there by car. The whole
thing was a total nightmare. It took 8
flights and 30 hours to not even get home, and several times I faced the
prospect of spending the entire weekend in Salt Lake and having to cancel all
my flight lessons. Really makes the
idea of commuting from Las Vegas to Cincinnati very unattractive if I get this
job.
I’m continuing to flight
instruct about 6 days a week at First
Flight. Sometimes the days are long
but generally it’s worth it. My four
primary students fly with me about twice a week and one is getting close to his
first solo. I’ve been doing a number of
aircraft checkouts and the occasional scenic flight.
Last Saturday evening a guy
called the flight school looking for a flight instructor to fly his Cherokee
Six down to Carlsbad, CA and drop off his kids. Carlsbad is just north of San Diego. It’s kind of strange flying an airplane you’ve never flown before
at night to a city you’ve never been to with people you’ve never met, but it
was a very enjoyable experience and I got over 4 hours of flight time. I flew the flight IFR at 12000 feet on the
way there an 11000 on the way back. Hopefully
I will be able to fly his plane again sometime – it is like a big station
wagon, 6 seats, and performs very well on its 300 horsepower engine.
This Thursday I’m flying
with a guy and his three friends to Death Valley National Park in our Cessna
182. He needs me along as an
instructor, and while we’re there I’ll play tour guide while getting paid as a
flight instructor. Death Valley is a
really beautiful place so I’m looking forward to it.