Careers

It’s a crisp December morning in Las Vegas, and hundreds of the world’s top aerobatic pilots gather. None of them are flying, despite clear weather. Instead they pack the Rio Hotel and Casino’s Brasilia ballroom to listen to a motivational speaker. “Live lives of adventure and purpose,” the speaker encourages them. “Stretch yourself beyond your […]

Is it possible to love two professions beyond reasonableness and be unable to distinguish which one delights you more? This romantic dilemma can occur with humans, but among professions? A recent “recurrent” gave new instruction about such a love triangle. I thought I had enjoyed a 40-plus-year career in surgery about as much as anybody […]

Here are the facts: Pilots rely on meteorologists, the people who observe, report and forecast the weather. That’s what the aviation meteorologists who staff the National Weather Service (NWS), The Weather Company, NOAA and, yes, even NASA are in the business of providing you. Where do they get the skills and information that make predicting […]

Are you searching for a career in aviation that better suits you and your family’s lifestyle? Do you enjoy teaching? How about working with sophisticated computers and some of the top pilots from all over the world? If these questions intrigue you, then you may want to know more about the rapidly expanding realm of […]

It is a parent’s greatest quest: finding an activity that a parent and teen can do together. If the activity benefits the community, builds character and promotes usable skills, well, even better. If it also happens to fascinate both the parent and teen, well, then you’ve got an experience they’ll both cherish. The United States […]

It’s easy to forget one of the reasons I became an airline pilot in this age of aviation technology that includes FMS, RVSM, ADS-B, RNAV/RNP, ACARS, VNAV and CAT III, plus the effects of 9/11, bankruptcy, retirement plan terminations, contentious contract negotiations and the normal stresses of a professional aviation career. Not that I completely […]

In what must have been a desperate attempt to meet gender quotas, the FAA hired me as an inspector in the Chicago O’Hare Air Carrier District Office in 1980. Six months later, somebody realized I knew absolutely nothing about jets or air carrier operations and farmed me out to the DuPage General Aviation District Office (GADOs then, […]

“Everybody should learn how to fly aerobatics, because it makes you a better pilot, a more disciplined pilot,” Oracle Aerobatic Pilot Sean D. Tucker believes. Tucker’s own fear of flying inspired him to become an aerobatic pilot.

“Let’s go. It’s time.” With this self-admonition, I stood up, glanced in the mirror, straightened my tie and left the hotel room. It was only a quarter to 7, but there was no way I was going to risk being late today. To my surprise, the lobby was already filled with 22 men and women […]

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, […]