Delta chief check airman to speak at my school today

flyboywbl

flyboywbl

3rd regional in 1 year
Delta's Chief Check Airman for the 747-400 is speaking at my school today. Sorta excited to hear what he has to say. Ahhh to ask or not to ask about the airliner over MSP incident?

Hopefully he will give me some glimmer of hope of ever being an airline pilot. Or just flying something with more than 4 seats.

I flew with a FSDO guy the other day who was spouting off that there is no point in flight training for a career any more. "Do it for fun if you can afford it but don't expect to make a living at it."

I was like "Thanks man, way to shatter all my hopes and dreams." Not to mention that but he was saying this in the lobby of our flight school. Good thing there were no aviation program students sitting in there at the time to hear that!

-Matt
 
I flew with a FSDO guy the other day who was spouting off that there is no point in flight training for a career any more. "Do it for fun if you can afford it but don't expect to make a living at it."
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At least he was being honest, as brutal as it may be.

Better get used to having your hopes & dreams shattered and/or changed on a yearly basis if you plan this field as a career.
 
flyboywbl said:
Delta's Chief Check Airman for the 747-400 is speaking at my school today. Sorta excited to hear what he has to say. Ahhh to ask or not to ask about the airliner over MSP incident?

Hopefully he will give me some glimmer of hope of ever being an airline pilot. Or just flying something with more than 4 seats.

I flew with a FSDO guy the other day who was spouting off that there is no point in flight training for a career any more. "Do it for fun if you can afford it but don't expect to make a living at it."

I was like "Thanks man, way to shatter all my hopes and dreams." Not to mention that but he was saying this in the lobby of our flight school. Good thing there were no aviation program students sitting in there at the time to hear that!

-Matt
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Since you're in MT, I'm assuming it's S. Smith? Very very good guy. He went the civilian route and got hired very young at NWA, and made it to the 747-400 at a very young age.

Remember that guys in FSDO's many times are guys that got hosed by this industry through furloughs or some other reason. There is a reason they are a groundpounder... which may or may not have been their doing. Just understand that there is bias.
 
Prodrive555 said:
At least he was being honest, as brutal as it may be.

Better get used to having your hopes & dreams shattered and/or changed on a yearly basis if you plan this field as a career.
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Oh i agree. I'm going back to school for this reason to finish my Bachelor's Degree in Economics. I don't think my Associate's in Aviation Science will take me to far if i lose a medical or can't get a job in the industry.

I was mainly perturbed with him that he would be saying that in a flight school where people are paying A LOT of money to learn how to fly. Not only is it a downer to them but, as i pointed out to him, we would not be in business if people quit learning to fly.

-Matt
 
flyboywbl said:
Oh i agree. I'm going back to school for this reason to finish my Bachelor's Degree in Economics. I don't think my Associate's in Aviation Science will take me to far if i lose a medical or can't get a job in the industry.



-Matt
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Excellent!!! If you are going to do that based on what the Fed said, then good for the fed. Everyone needs to get real degrees instead of these BS aviation degrees that mean nothing. That way, when the industry goes south, there's a real job you can do, besides home depot.
 
Boris Badenov said:
*shrug*. Half empty or half full, why shouldn't the FSDO guy be heard? One suspects he's probably been around a little longer than most of the sunshine merchants taking the students' money.
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Unless he's a retired airline pilot or a high time guy that got furloughed, he's a career groundpounder that's just whining to whoever might listen. It helps to know the full story.

edit: FWIW, I had plenty of people that "knew it all" feed me the exact same line. I'm very glad I didnt listen.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
Unless he's a retired airline pilot or a high time guy that got furloughed, he's a career groundpounder that's just whining to whoever might listen. It helps to know the full story.

edit: FWIW, I had plenty of people that "knew it all" feed me the exact same line. I'm very glad I didnt listen.
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Didn't say the guy's word should be taken as gospel, just said I don't see why he should be silent because he's in a place where people make money from hopeful pilots. And I've never known an FAA guy who's had less than a few thousand hours, maybe I've been lucky.
 
Well the guy who spoke was Rick Nelson. Because he was a friend of our aviation safety teacher his lecture was based on aviation safety in the 121 air carrier world. i found it very interesting.

He also talked about his story. Where he got his start ext. He did admit to it being a lot of luck. He stressed this though. If it's something you want to do, don't ever give up. Gave me a lot of hope for my future. After flight instructing for 3500 hours in three years he said he was done, and never wanted to teach another student. It took him 8 months of getting rejected before he got a call from Big Sky airlines. He told me he almost did not take the job. He almost went to law school instead.

He really stressed the importance of education beyond they aviation world in case factors out of your control end your career early or don't even let it begin.

He did talk about internships at the airline. I was really interested in this. Have any of you done this? Pro's? Con's? He said you used to be able to jumpseat as an intern but not any more.

I know there are not a lot of jobs like this available but it was good to hear a positive aviation career story for a change.

-Matt
 
flyboywbl said:
\
\ I was really interested in this. Have any of you done this? Pro's? Con's? He said you used to be able to jumpseat as an intern but not any more.

\/QUOTE]
A guy I know did it about 3 years ago and was able to jumpseat. Not sure what's changed since then.
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I wouldn't ask about it, however one of my professors is a lawyer who's primary client is NWA and he was asked to defend them. He seemed a little sketchy on how there were even going to do it, but he didn't offer up a whole lot of info.

RD
 
flyboywbl said:
He did talk about internships at the airline. I was really interested in this. Have any of you done this? Pro's? Con's? He said you used to be able to jumpseat as an intern but not any more.

-Matt
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At one time it was a way to get hired by an airline with less flight time. It remains to be seen whether or not the new min flight time legislation that passed the House will change this. This isn't a concept (hiring with lower time I mean) that I support but that's another thread. Regardless, you would certainly learn a lot and make great contacts for future jobs.

As for jumpseating I don't believe you can do that anymore as an intern.
 
I was told last night by Rick that a jumpseating intern was video tapping the ride and then posted it on YouTube. The feds got wind of it and shut it down. Not sure if thats true or not but thats what he said. Nonetheless interns can't jumpseat anymore.

We had a FSDO guy down here in Bozeman investigating a YouTube video shot here in our valley last month. Lesson? Don't do illegal things in the first place and especially don't post them online! The fed would not tell us what or who was involved but some one notified the FAA about the video. Not sure what was happening with the intern that the feds got mad.

Rick was saying that he used to take interns with him on the 747-400 too and from Tokyo. That would be cool to travel the world for free. Probably pretty boring over the ocean though.
 
Don't ever take career advice from anyone working for the government.

Yeah man, I want to get my private and work at the FSDO. Hoo hoo!

Flying to Prague and spending 48 hours with my wife and a fantastic cockpit crew REALLY sucked. :) :sarcasm:
 
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