Things are moving

It's sounds like this maybe the month that I return to doing what I love on a regular basis. More details to follow.

Good Stuff Coming

Changes are happening...more to come.

I'm back

Things are starting to move. More details to come.

It has been awhile

I haven't updated this blog in quite sometime. I wish I could say that I have found my dream job flying new equipment, for a decent paycheck. But I can't. That doesn't mean that I've given up. I haven't. I continue to look for "my job" on a daily basis. I have my hopeful days and my not so hopeful days. If anything transpires I will be sure to include it on this blog.

Update 3

My new site www.mcblairaviation.com is up and running. Yes it will be a work in progress, much like this one. I will continue to update this one as normal.

Update 2

The job search continues. There have been a few leads and I've started thinking outside of the box. I have applied for several overseas jobs flying the Lear 60. A few in Europe, a few in Asia and one in Nigeria. They are all contract gigs, requiring me to be out of the country two or three months at a time. The good thing about these contract gigs overseas is the high pay ( one was paying 8500 euros a month ). There's heavy competition for those jobs as well, so I can only wait around and hope for a call back and continue applying.

Starting next week, I will begin marketing myself as a flight instructor and an independent contract pilot. I have experience operating in Part 91/Part 135/Part 121, so I want to use that experience. To help with that marketing, I have begun www.McBlairAviation.com . Currently there is nothing on the site, but soon there will be.

I have been staying somewhat current by doing some Baron flying for a friend of mine. Great airplane, I highly recommend tyring it out.

Well, that's all the news that isn't from the heartland.

Update

Well, I'm still searching. I have a legitimate shot at a couple of positions, but nothing that is for sure. While I'm in this searching period, I thought it would be good to update my creditials. So, I got my CFII reinstated ( I haven't taught a single student in 5 years ) and I'm checking into getting my MEI ( Multi-engine Instructor ). I'm doing these things to keep myself in the game, for it is a game that I love.

I'll update this if something positive happens.

There is a reason.

I haven't really posted much of anything lately. The reason is, I haven't been flying. I was told just a few days before Christmas that I, along with another pilot, were being down sized. So the search to find a new flying position started. Not a great time to look for an aviation position.

My time involved in corporate aviation was challenging and interesting. I hope to find something similar to that in the future. Flying the Lear 60 was an absolute joy and I would love to find a position flying something similar. At this point, however, I'm considering everything. I have applied at regional airlines, other corporations and cargo companies. Nothing has appeared, but I remain hopeful.

I will update this if and when something in my career changes.

Merry Christmas

To the readers of this blog, all three of you, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Updates

I have fallen short of my goal to update this blog on a weekly basis. From this point on I will try my best to reach that goal. Currently, my schedule is a little slow.

I recently logged on to the FAA's website: www.faa.gov to update my address. An address change has to be accomplished at least 30 days after you officially have an address change. I noticed some while I was on the site. First, there is just a lot of information on the site. It would be worthwhile for a pilot to go to the site on regular intervals and see whats going on in the world of aviation, it may affect you. Secondly, you can review the information that the FAA has on file about you, which would definitely be a good thing to do on a regular basis. I know that I will be hitting that site every so often to see whats changed or is going to change.

Logbook review

As with most things today, insurance companies run the show. That is no different in the aviation biz. All of us pilots at one time or another have had to fill out insurance forms to see if we qualify for a particular aircraft or can get a better rate on the premuims that we pay. If you own an aircraft ( which I don't ), these forms are probably very familiar. The same holds true for corporate aviation departments. We have to fill out forms listing our experiences and flight times. I have just completed mine. Here are my totals as of yesterday:
Total Time: 4265 Jet: 481 Turbo-prop: 1269 Multi-engine: 844 Cross Country: 2537
Actual Instrument: 255 As Flight Instructor: 1619
Lear 60: 205 King Air 200: 190

As a corporate pilot the flight times, as compared to the airlines, can be somewhat lower. I know a lot of airline pilots that are flying 80-100 hrs per month. In the last 12 months I've only logged 190 hours from corporate flying. Like all jobs, there are some good and bad things associated with corporate flying.
Bad Things:
Low annual flight time. On call 24/7.
Good things:
Good starting pay. Good equipment. Lots of time at your destination for sightseeing. And most importantly, in my experience, you're treated well by management members and passengers.

Yeah, I would like to log more time in the air, but I will definitely take the bad with the good.

Just back from King Air Recurrent

Well another King Air recurrent session has come and gone. This time around I went to recurrent training for the King Air at Flight Safety at the Atlanta Training Center. I have attended King Air training elsewhere, but this training was something else. It was outstanding. I had an excellent instructor and the King Air simulator was in fine form.

This time around the flight portion had the extra challenge of being single-pilot training. I had the usual emergencies, engine failures on takeoff, single engine go-around, and stuff like that. The Flight Safety instructors have the ability to put actual smoke in the cockpit, which is something mine did this time around. I faced a windshear event and various system malfunctions.

It can be challenging operating a King Air with two crew members, and as you might expect, flying with just one can be even more interesting. CRM with two crew members typically means communication between the two. The use of CRM with one crew member means using a lot of resources outside the cockpit. It's refreshing to think about different options. It's something that private pilots have to do on a regular basis.

So my training in the King Air is over for now, but I came away from that training with a renewed desire to keep up with my system knowledge and the procedures that I use on an a day to day basis.







The King Air Panel








The simulator line at Flight Safety International, Atlanta.

Labor Day

It's Labor Day and, for as long as I remember, that has meant one thing to our family, the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. Most of you know that my brother suffers from muscular dystrophy. Let me say that the disease is as terrible as they say. It robs a person of the use of their body while allowing their mind to be strong. My brother is, without a doubt, the sharpest person that I know. He is extremely smart, very witty and quite possibly the funniest guy I know.

So this day is my day to reflect on this disease and it's impact on families all across this nation. My brother, thankfully, is now 33 years old and is living a good life in Colorado. However, some families never get the chance to see their loved ones have a full life. When I was a teenager I attended a MDA camp. I was a couselor to a child that had muscular dystrophy. It was my job to help this child do things that their disease would otherwise not allow them to do, fish, canoe, swim, and things like that. The camp is a week long and it can be a life changer. The Muscular Dystrophy Association makes this camp possible. Yes, MDA does great disease research, and they are closer than ever to a cure, but they also provide the smaller stuff, stuff like the camp, that allows children to have a better existence.

Labor Day is my day to give, to pray and to hope that there is a cure to this terrible disease that has taken so much from my family and the families of others. Please look in your heart and give.

James, I love you.

Monday update on a Thursday

As normal, I'm running several days behind on my post. What I can tell you is I have some big trips coming up as well as King Air recurrent training. My King Air recurrent training will be at the end of the month at Flight Safety in Atlanta. I have never attended King Air training at Flight Safety, in the past it has always been CAE. In my experience King Air training is a little less intense that Lear 60 training, but not much. I'm hoping that Flight Safety gives me a good training experience, I think that will.

I have an itch to get back in a Cessna 172 or possible a 210. It has been awhile since I've been in a single-engine and I miss it. There is definitely a desire on my part to fly around the local area at less than 250kts, and remember that freedom that comes with flying a light aircraft. I have a picture of my favorite light single-engine, one I used to fly, N761FT a Cessna T210. I will include it at the bottom of this page. If I do get back into a light airplane I will be sure to write about it.

I will see you on Monday ( yeah right ) if not sooner.




N761FT, this one is special to me.

Okay it's Tuesday

I have been at DFW and unable to post until now. Doing a little King Air flying over the past few days.

It's been too long.

I haven't been keeping up with this blog like I wanted too. That will change. I have a few pictures to share from trips to Salt Lake City, Sun Valley, and Florida. I will upload them now.

Stay tuned, because I will start posting every Monday at a minimum.

On approach to Sun Valley, Idaho

Coming over the mountains toward the valley that leads to KSLC

Fire in Florida

Nice Clouds

Approaching a cell

Maintenance Time

Occassionally, we pilots are required to take the aircraft we fly in for checkups, just like cars. Since the corporation I work for doesn't have "in-house maintenance" we rely on service centers to take care of our equipment needs.

So for the past couple of days I've been parked in Wichita, KS at the Bombardier Factory Service Center. The Bombardier plant is kind of cool to see. Not only are there several types of Lears ( 31's, 45's, 55's and 60's) being worked on, but right next door they are rolling out new CRJ's. There seems to be quite a bit of activity at the service centers and that seems like a good thing.

Flights to the service centers can be different because we have no passengers and we WEAR SHORTS AND T-SHIRTS !

Recurrent Rehash

Well Lear 60 recurrent training at Flight Safety has ended. This time around my sim instructor sort of specialized in the FMS or Flight Management System. He was a wiz at working the magic box. The training had all the usual stuff, including stalls, steep turns and assorted emergencies.
The emergency training included engine failures before V1 and after V1. Basically prior to V1 you try to stop on the runway and after V1, you're going flying.

During one session I had an engine failure right at V1 on a slushy runway and windshear. That was plenty challenging. Having a thrust reverser deploy on takeoff (treat it as an engine failure) can be a fun experience as well.There was of course the high,hot,and heavy departure from Reno.

The Reno departure is interesting because of the steep climb gradient and, of course, the tall rocks nearby. And sim instructors, being black hearted creatures, have nasty things planned for you to take care of during the departure. In fact. the instructors have plenty for you to do during all phases of flying. Their job is to prepare the student for the unexpected, and they do it well.

On the way to San Francisco from Reno ( and yes the entire flight takes place ) the crew experienced a loss of pressurization at FL320 ( 32,000 ft ) and an emergency descent was warranted. The crew has to don the oxygen mask and try to communicate all while trying to attend to the simulated passengers and run the appropriate checklist. It's demanding.

However, for this recurrent session, the most demanding thing for me was the elevator jam while trying to fly the ILS to minimums. The pitch of the Lear 60 is very, shall we say, touchy when thrust is applied or removed. Having to land using just slight power adjustments and trimming was definitely not easy. In the end, I was able to put it on solid concrete, touching the ground at a descent rate of 700 ft per minute. So it worked out.

There were other challenging things, as you might imagine. Dual generator failure, total hydraulics failure and others. Of course, the weather was always crappy ( see blackhearted comment above ) now matter what kind of approach was going on. I performed ILS, VOR, and GPS approaches throughout.

I had a great time and I really like Flight Safety. Looking forward to the next recurrent training date.

Recurrent Day 1 Complete

The ground school and Sim session went pretty much as advertised today. No super cool things happened during the actual sim ride. Started with an engine starting malfunction, then a RNav departure, a GPS approach, a go around, an engine failure, a single engine approach and an ILS approach. Just a standard sim ride. More fun coming my way tomorrow.

Here we go

Well I finally leave for recurrent today. My schedule is fairly busy for the next four days as you might imagine. My ground courses each day start each day at 0730 and run through 1115. The schedule looks like this:

Day 1
0730-1045
Intro/Fuel System/Power Plant/Aircraft General/Lights/Master Warning
1045-1115
Specific Situations/System Integration
1530-1600
Sim #1 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim # 1 Full Flight Simulation ( Flight Safety's Lear 60 is a Level D simulator )
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

Day 2
0730-0800
CRM
0800-1045
Electrical System/Hydraulic System
1045-1115
System Integration
1530-1600
Sim # 2 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim #2 Full Flight Simulation
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

Day 3
0730-1115
Avionics/Flight Controls/Pneumatics/Pressurization/Air Conditioning
1530-1600
Sim # 3 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim # 3 Full Flight Simulation
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

Day 4
0730-0800
Performance/Weight & Balance/Flight Planning
0800-1115
Ice & Rain Protection/EXAM
1530-1600
Sim # 4 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim # 3 Full Flight Simulation
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

As you can see they pile a lot of stuff in short periods of time. You'll notice that on the last day there is only 30 minutes available for performance, weight & balance, and flight planning. It might take slightly longer than that, but believe me it moves rapidly. Lots of info to absorb and re-absorb. The simulator portion of this training holds most of the stress and work. The instructors can and do throw multiple scenerios at you during the flight. I think the thrive on putting the students through pain, but that's their job.

My "favorite" sim flight happened to me during my last recurrent session in 2008. The instructor put the aircraft in Reno on a hot day ( of course ) and the aircraft was right at gross weight ( of course again ). After rotation, at about two hundred feet, our aircraft encountered birds. The right engine spooled down and the left engine caught fire. It was asses and elbows as the co-pilot and myself worked on restarting one engine, then shutting the other down, all while trying to keep the aircraft from hitting high terrain. Did I mention that the airport visibility was at 1/2 mile and the ceiling was 200 feet. After we got the aircraft stabilized we had to position ourselves for the ILS. As we were coming out of the 200 ft overcast there was an aircraft on the runway ( of course for the third time ) which meant that we had to do a single engine go around, again avoiding terrain. This was a busy part of that flight. That's right, we had to do other things during this flight, including windshear ( microburst ), stalls, and steep turns. It was great, although not at the time I was doing it.

Believe me, at Flight Safety it's always a "good time". The instructors and equipment are great and I can't wait to get started. I might not be able to sleep tonight.