Careers

(December 2011) It is ungodly hot. Sweat cascades off of me; rivulets of perspiration form at the temple, and when I look down, they coalesce into drops that drip into my glasses. I am raining myself into a pair of bifocals. As an unhappy result, I can’t see, much less organize, the flight management system […]

After several dismal years for employment-seeking pilots, it appears that the airline industry has made a major turnaround. Airline Transport Professionals (ATP), an airline pilot training academy in Dallas, reported a 170 percent increase in placement of its students for the first six months of 2011 as compared to the same time period last year. […]

In my 45-year flying career I have been fortunate to experience many of the different ways to earn money as a pilot. Occasionally I am asked what the best flying job is. I have to answer, “That depends. … It depends on the kind of person you are, what kind of flying you like to […]

I always look forward to flying with pilots new to the 767/757. These individuals are usually fresh from simulator training at our flight academy. They have suffered the lacerations of being whipped to proficiency. They have spent over a month in the stale and frigid climate of our classrooms and simulators. They are eager to […]

I have noticed a number of letters to the editor over the years that lament the fact that most of the training and safety articles seem to be about accidents. A few people have even indicated they were scared away from flying by the many accident stories. There is a very important reason many articles […]

Fractionals is the informal name for companies that operate shared ownership business jets, a service that is rapidly growing. An owner purchases a fraction, typically one-sixteenth or more, of an airplane and is entitled to fly a set amount of hours in that airplane or any of its companions in the fractional fleet. The fractional […]