Ram Air Flight Training

Zephyr said:
Interesting hearing how Ram Air works and trains... I'm thinking of applying there in a few months. Just one question for you regarding the lack of GPS, etc. Does the company encourage, discourage, not care, or don't-ask don't-tell, about the use of handheld GPS units to aid in situational awareness when flying minimally equipped planes like you described?

~Z
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Ram Air does not have any policy about discouraging the use of handheld GPS devices for situational awareness. You cannot use them for doing approaches, but you may use them for situational awareness.
 
BrianNC said:
Any fallout from the decision not to take that plane to Wilmington?
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The dispatcher that I dealt with was a little bit short with me over the phone, but other than that no fallout. It looks like the only fallout from this was a pissed off dispatcher. I can live with that. :)
 
pilot4500 said:
The dispatcher that I dealt with was a little bit short with me over the phone, but other than that no fallout. It looks like the only fallout from this was a pissed off dispatcher. I can live with that. :)
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So do you know what run you are doing today yet?
 
pilot4500 said:
Ram Air does not have any policy about discouraging the use of handheld GPS devices for situational awareness. You cannot use them for doing approaches, but you may use them for situational awareness.
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That's good to know. If I end up at a 135 operator, Ram or Flight Express hopefully, I'll certainly invest in AnywhereMap + WX.
 
pilot4500 said:
The dispatcher that I dealt with was a little bit short with me over the phone, but other than that no fallout. It looks like the only fallout from this was a pissed off dispatcher. I can live with that. :)
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Good on you for making the right decision. You can always live with a pissed off dispatcher. Normally when something like that happens, they aren't personally pissed at you, they are just pissed that they actually have to do something besides surf porn, play fantasy football, chat on the phone, sleep, etc.
 
EatSleepFly said:
Good on you for making the right decision. You can always live with a pissed off dispatcher. Normally when something like that happens, they aren't personally pissed at you, they are just pissed that they actually have to do something besides surf porn, play fantasy football, chat on the phone, sleep, etc.
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Is it safe to assume that many dispatchers don't know jack about bad weather, iffy plane, and launching yourself into a casket.
 
Frank_Rizzo said:
Is it safe to assume that many dispatchers don't know jack about bad weather, iffy plane, and launching yourself into a casket.
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Was that a question??

If so, it depends on whether or not you're talking about a real, certified dispatcher, and your typical freight company dispatcher (who usually isn't even a licensed dispatcher).
 
Frank_Rizzo said:
Is it safe to assume that many dispatchers don't know jack about bad weather, iffy plane, and launching yourself into a casket.
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My experience with dispatchers is that all they care about is making sure that the cargo gets to its destination on time. They don't care how you get it there, and they could care less if you launch in a questionable airplane.

And what Lloyd said is absolutely true. Most dispatchers that work for 135 operators are not licensed dispatchers.
 
I completed my second week on the job. It has been interesting. I was doing run 140. This the JQF FTY MCN CLT JQF run. I am scheduled to do the same run next week. I gained a lot of good experience doing that. Flying into CLT was great experience. I had never flown into a class B airport before going there, but now I feel very comfortable flying there amid a sea of US Airways jets. That was a great confidence booster for me.

I have doubled my actual instrument time since I have worked here. I had 10 hours when I started, and now I am up to about 20. I did a GPS approach down to minimums at Fulton County aiport two days ago, and that was also a first for me also.

All in all it was a pretty good week except for how it ended yesterday. On my last flight of the day from CLT to JQF I had my first real life engine failure. I was flying a Piper Lance and coming for a landing in JQF. Just as the wheels softly touched the runway in Concord, I pulled the throttle to idle and the engine immediately quit. I had enough speed to coast off the runway. After a couple of minutes I was able to restart the engine and I taxied to the hangar.

After I parked the airplane, I pulled the throttle to idle again to see if I would have the same problem and again the engine quit. Needless to say, I squawked the airplane. I did not have this problem during my other flights during the day, just on this last leg. The engine ran fine up to that point, and I still had 3 hours of fuel in the tanks. All I can say is, thank God the engine did not fail 30 seconds earlier. That made for an interesting last flight of 2006.

I will continue to write about how things go here at Ram Air. Y'all have a Happy New Year!
 
Glad to hear the engine failure was pretty uneventful. Sounds like your gaining some good expierence over at Ram Air.
 
ditto on what IFLY85 said....definitely gaining some good experience from the sounds of it. I'm sure you could say your instrument skills have gotten better too :-) Keep up the great work enjoy the flying.
 
Well I just got the call yesterday for the Jan 15 class date. Looks like I will be seeing you real soon. How's your upgrade time looking?
 
PacMan4x4 said:
ditto on what IFLY85 said....definitely gaining some good experience from the sounds of it. I'm sure you could say your instrument skills have gotten better too :-) Keep up the great work enjoy the flying.
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I have been gaining some excellent experience here, and my instrument skills have improved dramatically in the two weeks that I have been online so far. The engine failure after a landing was a little bit unnerving, but at least it happened after the wheels had touched the ground.
 
C310_pilot said:
Well I just got the call yesterday for the Jan 15 class date. Looks like I will be seeing you real soon. How's your upgrade time looking?
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That's awesome! I will look forward to seeing you here. So far I am still looking at about 2 to 3 months to upgrade into one of the twins. I will take the first twin run that they offer me, that is why I don't want to sign a lease on an apartment right now.
 
I'm just south of JQF. I'm working weekends all this month, lemme know if you're ever off during the week and I'll buy you a beer. If you're still here next month we're having a big party around Valentine's Day live music and all.

If you want I can ask around about crashpads, you could probably get a place for 100-200 bucks a month. Nothing to write home about, but also not living in a hangar.
 
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