MORE GOVERNMENT?!?!

I tend to keep this blog focused on aviation. Even though I do not have a "personal" blog where I talk about whats on my mind. I like flying, no I love flying. If I were one to talk about non-aviation things I most certainly would speak about my Faith. I am a completely sold out follower of Jesus Christ. I do write about it sometimes on another blog, that I'm contributor on for a church group. So I do not think of it as mine. But I have a rant today. I'm so sick of our new administration trying to ram all this useless and wasteful garbage down our throats. Tonight abc aired an infomercial of obama (guess who paid for it, not him!) talking about HIS desire for a national health care. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I was at the post office today trying to by stamps at 230pm. Not lunch time or some other time you would think would be busy. There were at least 30 people in line. this location ALWAYS has a huge line. You watch the "workers" as they move in super slow motion obviously not giving a single care in the world. Last month I had to go pay my tax on my car (which I already paid tax on when I bought it...hmmm they should have some kinda rule about double taxing people) it was the same scenario. They move at a snails pace, they could care less. Their hours m-f 8-5. I have never had hours like that in my life. There is no such thing as customer service when dealing with the government. They act like they are doing you a favor by even looking at you, and now this guy wants to turn our medical system into another government institution. HELLO, ask a Canadian what they think of their health care. Find out why they come over here for health care! I just cannot believe people would want the government in charge of their health care. Guess what you will NOT get something for nothing! Our Country is broke, there is no way we can continue to waste and spend and build even bigger government!!! If this happens, if he get this shoved down our throats i can only begin to imagine what will happen to our economy then. God help us! I want our Country to recover and for business to pick up. I'm ready for aviation to recover. If you cut your arm you don't stop the bleeding by making the cut bigger! You need to wrap it up and stop the bleeding.
No I'm sorry we close in 10 minutes, please bring your severed arm back with you tomorrow. when you return you need to have these forms filled out, and notarized. Please bring your photo id, ss card, passport to prove citizenship. Yes the service is free, but there is a $200 processing fee for the paper work. and there is a users fee for the operating room. There is also a clean up fee, if you spill any blood we have to bring in the haz-mat clean up team and there is a user fee for that too!

ok rant off. Seriously I hope we as a country can focus on getting our economy running again, getting people back to work, and start enjoying what we love the most...Flying!

Welcome to the web.

Well, I finally broke down and created a website. The flight schools are not hiring here and I need work, so I figure its time to go freelance. I also teamed up with a couple other cfi's and an A&P so we could offer a more full service product. be sure to go by and check it out. www.victoryaviation.net Now the huge task of "linking" it with other sites. From what I have been told its easier to be "found" on the web if you are more linked to other sites. I'm very much a newbie to the whole website thing so this is a huge learning experience. But hey, if someone moves your cheese you have to go find new cheese! OK, if you have never read the book "who moved my cheese" you don't get that last statement, if you have not read it, you should! It should be required reading by all high school students in my opinion! So here we are in a bad economy, what do we do? I don't know about you but I keep moving forward. Take flight training, it has moved to a crawl. If one was a smart person right now is the time to begin flight training. WHY you ask, because in a year or year and half when you are done flight training, and you have built some time hiring WILL be back to full swing. Ask the guys who got hired on at the beginning of the last big hiring swing what they think, and then ask the guys who hired on at the end. They are the one who are now furlough and are looking for jobs, or are now going back to school and jumping out of the aviation industry. Now is the time. Yes it stinks not having work, but when the next hiring boom happens, I will be ready!
For now I go look for the next piece of cheese

Where are the students

Where oh where are the student's tonight, why did you leave me here all alone....Ok, I don't know why but that silly Hee Haw tune popped into my head today. I know, many of you are saying what in the world is Hee Haw? It was this horrible show that my father loved to watch when I was a kid.
I'm sorry now you have it stuck in your head too, don't you?

In all seriousness, It is amazing how quickly flight training has dropped off to nothing. My flight school is barely getting by, and I know several others are in the same boat. One of the big reasons our school is slow, is that the Indian market is drying up. Hiring by the airlines in India was very strong, and now its dropped to nothing. I'm still optimistic that things will turn around. I'm not sure how quickly, but it will turn. In the mean time, it's time to get creative. I need to start working the local market a little harder. I figure you can sit around and feel sorry for yourself, or you can try to make something new happen.

So, anyone in San Antonio need a flight instructor, personal pilot, or anything else? :-)

I have a friend in Oregon, his school is doing quite well. I am curious how schools around the country doing. I know my Friends In Kansas city could use a little more business. We just have to hang in there, be ready to change. Just like planning a flight, You have to be ready to change the plan at any moment. Fly Safe everyone.

MEI...Finally!

I was in Kansas City again last week. I had to go back and finish my MEI. Now I'm a Multi Engine Instructor!!! WOOHOO! It really was pretty uneventful. My Multi flying was a little rusty, and I felt like a beginner again (truth be told in twins I am a beginner) but it went well enough that the examiner felt I could teach others to fly twins. I was flying good ole N125RJ
I like the Twin Comanche, they are a fun plane to fly!
I like the airport (GPH) Midwest national (except for the name). It's in Mosby Missouri. I did manage to swing over to the St Louis side of Missouri and visit my parents for couple days.
I have to say that the guys at Career Pilot School are really good guys! I have been there three times now, I had some bumps in the road , but Michael who was the owner stands buy his word! He is smart enough of a man to know in this industry a good name is absolutely necessary! Aviation is to small a world, and word travels fast when you have a bad name. He is also a good instructor. The new owner of CPS was also good enough to honor the previous arrangement I had with Michael. I flew with Patrick who was able to get me done in three days! I took the exam with Ron Albertson, who is a great guy, with a load of experience. I like taking check rides with him, because I guarantee you will walk away having learned something!

So, Now I am all done CFI, CFII, and MEI. NOW WHAT? Thats the million dollar question right now. Every body is so slow, not even flight schools are hiring. Just a year ago they were begging for CFI's. What a difference a year makes. Its a catch 22, you have a commercial license (Multi and Single), you have all three CFI's, but you don't have enough hours to get a job (other than a cfi). So what do you do? Seriously any suggestions???? :-) The big picture is I'm not worried about it, My Faith in God makes me believe He is in control, and He will meet my needs!

I'm just really excited to be done with formal training for a while. I guess the next thing I will prepare for in the next 1000 hours is the ATP. I have a little time to prepare for that!

So lets look at where I was and where I am. 2007, decided to pursue flying as a career after 17 years in transportation. Working part time on IR, Feb of 2008 decided to go to school full time to finish and try to catch the last hiring wave. I finished up my CSEL CMEL, Cfi, Cfii in just a couple months, started working as a CFI, and to step away from flying for a while (but made my goal of being a commercial pilot by the time I was 40). It really Stinks to be in this slow time right now with no work, but I'm still very excited about my future! For those who might read this and are either in training, or would like to become a pilot. DO IT! There is a lot of negative talk out there right now, but it all boils down to this, If you want to fly, if that is your passion, just do it! Good luck!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Where is your hand? between two pillows...THOSE AREN'T PILLOWS!!! John Candy and Steve martin. What A great movie! So why am I talking about Trains, Planes, and Automobiles? I had a guy who wanted me to drive to Alpine Texas with him, so I could fly his Mooney back to San Antonio. Sounds like a nice trip. I had never been to that part of west Texas.



So of we go in his vehicle on a 5.5 hr road trip. I had some second thoughts about going.


The plane had just come out of "annual". I have worked on and around airplanes long enough to know a fresh annual doesn't mean a thing. Well, When we arrived to the Hanger, I realized my reservation were well founded. The plane had obviously not been touched for a long time. You could tell by the solid coat of dirt over the entire plane, with not recent marks in the dirt. I wont bore you with the other details, but lets just say the plane was not airworthy! After some attempts in trouble shooting and fixing issues the owner decided it was best to park the plane and try again another day. So...now I'm 5.5 hours from home, in the middle of nowhere Texas and He was not going home for some time. What options do I have? Only one, a Train stops in alpine. Ok, so I have never been on a train...legally! After the arrangements were made I found out it was an 8 hour train ride. I'm still thinking it sounds like an interesting adventure. So there i was waiting at a train station in middleofnowhere Texas waiting for a train.



I was surprised to find the seat are comfortable.



Very wide, reclines nicely, and even have leg, and foot rest. I was one car behind the lounge car, which had big windows and seats that sat sideways.



Great for watching the scenery go buy.





The length of the trip was a bit long.




I did not get back into town until 1030pm. all in all it wasn't bad. It reminds me of why I like aviation...you just NEVER know what will happen next. You always have to be ready to make new plans!

Poll anyone?

My friend Rand recently did a poll on who was reading his blog. Honestly I do not know who comes by here and reads this. I do have a counter so I know it gets hits, but I have not really looked at the history of visits in months. At one time I knew this blog had hits from 13 different countries. I never really thought this blog would have any "followers" since its just my random thoughts about where I have been so far in my short aviation career. I wanted to be able to keep track of what is going on. Kinda like a log book. I go back every now and then and look at my old log book entries. It triggers memories of past experiences and flights. I try to add information in my log book entries not just about flight details, but where I went, with who, did we go for a $100 hamburger...was it any good? Was it their first flight? It is interesting to read those older entries. So back to Rand, He was curious who was reading his blog, and it made me curious too. I would like to know about your aviation background. If you care to share check out the poll to the right. Feel free to leave a comment if you would like to share in more detail your flying experience...or non-flying as I am sure there might be a pilot to be reading the blog too :-)

In Memory of...

First I want to offer my condolences to the friends and families of the victims of flight 3407. God bless you. You all will be in my prayers. I was shocked to wake up and see the news on the web that a Dash-8 had gone down. For those of us in aviation, especially General Aviation we know and understand that accidents can and do happen. We never like to see it, but obviously we do learn from it, and it continues to make aviation the safest form of transportation. With each accident we learn something new. Just today I watched a video produced by NASA talking about tailplane stalls due to icing. I had never heard of this before and the stall characteristics and recovery of a tail stall are completely different then for a wing stall. There is speculation at this point that icing is what cased the accident of 3407. we will not know for sure for some time. I know crashes like this make big news. There is a lot of false information being reported, and there are even those who publicly are saying horrible things about the crew. The simple fact is there was a crash. We lost brothers, and sisters, moms and dads, and sons and daughters. Let the pros do their job, figure out what happened, and lets all learn from it. Now let's honor the memory of those who perished.