Flying for Fun and for Money

Well folks, it’s been more than a year since my last post. This might be the conclusion of my blog. We’ll see.

It’s a cold December night here in Nebraska, I’ve got the Talib Kweli station playing on my Pandora account, and I feel like writing. Let me fill you in on the background.

I’m still managing the flight school I’ve been with for the past two years. I still love it. This year has been shaky at times, but the future now looks brighter than ever. We managed to pay all our bills through the recession, made the right moves, and have positioned ourselves in to a great spot for growth. We’ve got the right mix of aircraft, staff, facilities, and marketing to really crank out pilots in 2010.

I’d never thought I’d say it, but I enjoy the office work almost as much as flying. Maybe management is my niche after all. You know the feeling a pilot gets when he navigates through weather, locks on to an instrument approach, rides the needles down to minimums, sees the runway materialize through a blanket of fog, and greases the landing? It takes complete focus. It spins together all the technical skills, judgment, and a little luck to result in an almost magical outcome. It’s a challenge that tests the pilot’s skills, and reassures him that he really does know how to run his flying machine to the limit.

I’ve found the same satisfaction in managing a flight school. When I come up with marketing ideas, take our customer service to a new level, mentor other instructors, and keep the paperwork for everything squared away, I feel stretched to the limit. Then I see the business turning a profit, customers passing checkrides, and the whole operation running like a well oiled machine. It gives me the same, “Ahhhhhh….I made it. Maybe I do know what I’m doing after all,” feeling the same as rolling wheels to pavement after a tough instrument flight.

So what does this have to do with ending my blog?

I’ve found most of what I think about nowadays doesn’t belong on a public blog. I spend a lot of time dealing with staffing issues, looking at the internal budget of our school, etc. It wouldn’t be appropriate to post my candid thoughts on these topics publicly.

When it comes to my flying, I now deal almost exclusively with…I’m not sure how to say this…high end clientele. Many of them are successful business people who fly very valuable aircraft. Within the past few months I’ve trained a man who owns an island in the Bahamas, another who owns a group of car dealerships, another who runs a large construction company, while another runs a software development company. Contrary to popular belief, *real* money is not made by doctors or lawyers.

Although I have plenty of stories from my adventures with these individuals, I don’t feel comfortable sharing them in such a public format. It’s one thing to joke about the terrible flight I went on with an anonymous college student, hammering their way through an instrument rating on the way to an airline career. It’s another thing to talk about the challenges of training a middle-aged business owner who is highly respected by their employees, the community, etc. The latter expects a different level of privacy during the ups and downs of their training.

Now, what does the future hold? I don’t know.

Last night I went out to a bar with a couple charter pilot friends of mine after we all finished flying for the day. As I sipped on my Sprite and they sipped on whatever mind-impairing beverages they’d ordered, we started talking about the ups and downs of life. Neither of them hate their jobs, but neither are thrilled, either. They fly nice big turbine-powered aircraft a couple hours/day and sit around in dirty old pilot lounges in random towns the rest of the time. They’d have to work at a regional airline for five years to equal their current pay for flying King Airs and Citations. So it’s not bad, but not good. Same could be said for schedule. And there’s no room for advancement. What they have is what they’ve got, take it or leave it.

Living the dream? That’s no dream I want to live.

As I reflected on my job, I didn’t have much bad to say. It struck me that this week will be the 5 year anniversary of my initial flight instructor checkride. I’ve been playing this game for five years. The people, the lifestyle, the challenges, the room for advancement…I haven’t found anything I like better yet. Airlines and charter definitely aren’t for me. Cargo would be lonely. Ag spraying is too monotonous. Bush flying is too much like real work. The way I see it, that leaves Part 91 corporate flying, air ambulance work, and teaching. I’ll keep drifting along in my current track for now.

To close this blog, I’ll quote myself. Here is something I wrote under the “Advice” discussion on my college flight program’s Facebook page, giving advice to students currently in the program:

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Happiness doesn’t come from the airframe you’re flying. Most of my time has been spent in piston singles, but I’ve flown everything from vintage taildraggers to SR-22 G3 Turbos, and frankly, they’re all just machines. Really fun machines, but still machines. Happiness comes from friends, family, God, making a difference in the world, and similarly deep causes. No matter what you fly, eventually you’ll have to find happiness in something beyond the machine you operate.
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Will this be my last blog? Honestly, I doubt it. Just don’t hold your breath for the next one. It might be awhile.

Until next time, blue skies and tailwinds.

Is that like saying a girl is a little pregnant? I don’t know. As soon as I wrote that headline I realized how nonsensical it is.

But it’s fitting. I haven’t blogged in months and it’s because I’ve been pretty ridiculously busy. I miss blogging though. So here goes an update…

Flight instructing is a lot like farming. During the good season, flight instructors have to work sunrise to past sunset to keep up with the demand. Then, in the winter, business naturally gets a little leaner, if for no other reason than the lack of ample daylight to train in.

So that’s what happened to me. During the peak of the summer I was at the airport 10, 12, sometimes 14 hours/day, working Mon-Fri at the flight school, with another 9 or 10 hours every weekend flying skydivers at the dropzone on Sundays. I moved in with a couple new roommates at a new apartment during this time and they honestly didn’t see me for 3 days straight one time. I was always up and out the door before they woke and didn’t come home until they were already in bed most nights.

In July, the owner of the flight school talked to me about restructuring our whole system. He asked me to cut back on my flying in order to take on more of a manager/recruiter/chief instructor role at the school. I talked it over with him for a while and ultimately decided to go for it. It meant higher pay, more stable pay (salary!), and in the long run, a better schedule of something other than the 10-14 hour days I’d been putting in recently.

The thing that kept my life so crazy was my plan to not abandon any of my current customers. Although I immediately stopped accepting new students, I still billed out 100-120 hours/month in an effort to finish off all of the people I was in the process of working with.

By August I started my final semester of college and finally started seeing a drop in the hectic pace of flying. Then my problem became balancing my class load with working 40 hours/week as the flight school manager. In fact, that’s the issue I’m still facing as I type this blog.

I have to be honest. I’m torn about how much I like this position. On the one hand, it offers higher pay than I could get at almost any other job at this point in my life. It’s made me seriously consider becoming a career instructor. I work with great people, fly nice planes, and I’m home every night. I never have to worry about getting furloughed or having my base closed. It’s an all around good, secure job that affords a comfortable life. I feel like I’m finally viewed as a true professional as opposed to “just” an instructor, out looking to build time and collect a pay check before moving on to the next great thing.

The downside is that I’m so worn out right now. I’m always running. I can’t remember the last time I left the office before 7 p.m. and a lot of times it ends up being 8 or 9 p.m., or even later. Part of me says a job that allows me to be home every night isn’t worth much if I’m only home for a few hours. I hope that’s just the fatigue talking and I’ll think much better of the job once I’m done with college in December and can have a more relaxed schedule.

Another issue that scares me is the fact that this actually is a good spot to be in, yet I’m still not certain this is what I want for my life. There’s a big world out there with a lot of opportunities in it. That little voice in the back of my mind sometimes says, “This is it? This is the best you can do? Manage a flight school in Nebraska? That’s how you want to spend the rest of your life?” I can’t help but wonder what I’m missing out on. At the same time, I know the grass is always greener on the other side. And I don’t want to mess up a good thing, chasing after the next big thing that might not be so great after all.

Hmmm…lots to think about. I’ll post more later, including stories and pictures from my trip to Tucson, Oshkosh, Denver, and all kinds of other entertaining things I’ve crammed in to the past several months. At least you know I’m not dead yet. Thanks for reading!

I’ve been having way too much fun lately.

See, it all started when I told one of my students we could go wherever he wanted for his cross country training.

“My buddy’s dad owns a little private strip a ways from here, you think we could go there for one of our flights?” he asked.

“Sure, yeah, that sounds good,” I said, always one to encourage having fun with a plane. “Just make sure to find out how long it is and if the grass is in good enough shape to go in at this time of year.”

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On the morning of our planned trip I asked my student about the strip again. “So can we make it in there?”

“Yep, it’s long enough, about half a mile long my buddy says, and the ground isn’t too soft.”

“Ok, great, where is it on the chart?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s not charted. I know where it is though. My buddy’s dad used to fly cropdusters off of it. It’s just to the southwest of this little town,” my student explained, pointing to the chart.

“Oh…ok. Cool.”

But on the inside I was thinking, “Haha, great, what am I getting myself into? Well, can’t hurt to take a look…”

After computing takeoff and landing distance data because my student’s girlfriend was riding along, off we went.

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55 miles later we rolled over Plettner’s Aero Spraying Field. I guess that’s what they call it. At least that’s the name of the company, even if it’s not printed on any charts anywhere.

We made two low passes to confirm the field’s condition and check the wind. The strip looked a hair on the narrow side, but not bad. Also looked a bit tight on obstacles to the north end of the strip, but with 2300 feet of runway to play with, I figured we could afford to land a touch long if necessary.

My student executed a beautiful short/soft field touchdown, dead on centerline, about 200 feet down the runway. Nice work. That’s the way I like to see it.

Here is a shot as we came down final approach:

And here is a shot of taxiing in after landing. I figured the strip was about 30 or 40 feet wide of usable surface, with about 10 feet of gravel down the center of the north half:

Who says late model Cessnas can’t get down and dirty? Here we are, parked on the farm:

My student’s buddy met us and we ran in to town for a cup of coffee.

After hanging out for an hour or so, we let the farmers get back to doing whatever they were doing, and we got back to doing whatever it is we do. Here we go, lining up for takeoff:

Later that day, while hanging out with my boss in the office, I said, “Hey, Bill, you’ve gotta check out this sweet little strip Patrick and I flew in to this morning. It’s not charted or anything, just a cropduster strip that doesn’t get used much anymore.”

“Ohh…ummmm…yeah. Cool. Umm…just so you know, I don’t think we’re insured for that…” Bill hesitantly said.

He wasn’t upset with me. He knows I’m used to flying at places like that, so he wasn’t especially worried about this particular flight, in fact he admitted it looked like fun. He just told me I probably ought to stick to at least using charted strips in the future.

No problem. Point taken.

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Too bad there aren’t many “challenging” strips near us here in Nebraska. Until it gets to be less than 2500 feet long or under 40 feet wide, it doesn’t seem to take any particularly good piloting technique and leaves me feeling kind of empty as a pilot. Having 3500 foot paved runways everywhere is nice in a way, but I think it makes pilots get complacent over time, too.

The planes we fly are capable of safely handling sooooo much more than we give them credit for. When a pilot gets really, really comfortable with the operating envelope of a particular model, it’s amazing the performance that’s possible out of relatively modest aircraft like the 172.

But I guess we aren’t insured for that. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Talk to you later!

My insurance broker recently contacted me in order to get updated flight times for my Cessna 140’s insurance.

When I first purchased insurance, last year, I had 18 hours of tailwheel time with 10 hours in the 140. It cost me $1,100 for $1 million of liability and $22,000 of hull insurance.

At the time, my broker estimated there would only be a slight drop in rates after a year. She thought I could plan on $1,000 the second time around, even after getting some time in my plane, so that’s what I budgeted for this year.

After submitting my flight times to my broker, he passed it on to the various underwriters for bids. I have 120 hours in my 140 now, with 136 hours in tailwheel aircraft. Today my broker informed me of the best bid.

Get this–only $700 for the exact same coverage as last year! I couldn’t believe it. That’s cheaper than my ‘93 Ford Ranger’s auto insurance.

Needless to say, I told him to lock it in and I’ll mail a check tomorrow.

Coupled with my $900/year hangar and 5 gallon/hour fuel burn, this flying stuff can be pretty cheap. Of course, I might be singing a different song next month after paying for my annual inspection, but for now, I can’t complain.

See ya!

Life is good. This morning the owner of the flight school told me he appreciated the work I’ve been putting in and that I’d be getting a raise beginning next pay period. I won’t say how much, but I can tell you it’ll be a noticeable amount, not an insulting, “Why did you even bother?” kind of raise. I once had a friend get a $0.25/hour raise and I told him he should’ve quit on the spot and told his boss to keep the change. My raise wasn’t like that.

Coupled with some recruitment bonuses I get for bringing in new students to our school, I figure I’m able to make about $25k-$30k/year as it stands now. If I can persuade the owner I’m worth another raise in a few months, I might actually be able to get my pay up to $35k/year or so. I think it would cap out at about that level, but even if it does, $35k/year is not shabby.

I hope this doesn’t come across as bragging. I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that I’m so excited I can actually make a fair living at teaching. Historically, CFIs have been at the bottom of the pile, living below the poverty level no matter how hard they worked.

When I asked $20/hour from a previous employer, they told me it couldn’t be done, that I was expecting too much. It wasn’t realistic. Flight instructors shouldn’t get paid that much. Screw ‘em. I do. It makes me want to photocopy my pay stub now and mail it back to that place, just to prove it’s possible to run a successful flight school and still pay instructors enough to have a decent life.

Even more satisfying than the raise though, it really impressed me that my boss is a man of his word. I’m so used to the “us against them” attitude pilots oftentimes have to take towards their employers that it’s a refreshing change to be recognized as an asset, not a liability.

When I first started working for this school, the owner told me I’d start at a certain level, but if I worked hard he promised he’d move me up in pay. He wouldn’t promise a timeline, he only said if I worked hard he’d make sure I was rewarded.

I was just thinking last night about how I needed to ask for a raise. I was beginning to think I might have gotten suckered by an empty promise that would never come true.

I was willing to accept less than ideal pay to start with in order to prove myself, but I’ve always thought I deserved more. I had been pondering the evidence I would present to my boss–how many hours I’d billed, how busy I’d gotten, how experienced I am–along with figuring out the right time to ask for the raise, and how much of a raise to ask for. Then out of nowhere, he upped my pay without me saying a word. It was a moment that made me go, “Shoot, maybe all managers aren’t sleezy, after all.”

So now I’m contemplating what it would be like to stay at this school for another year or two. I mean, really, I have a heck of a lot going for me. I set my own hours, all of my students are fantastic, the planes are well maintained and nicely equipped, and I’m living in a city surrounded by friends. It might be tough to give that up for a lower paying job with a worse schedule that I’d have to move to another city, away from my friends, to get.

I doubt I’ll keep teaching forever, but it’s days like these that make me think I might last longer than I originally planned.

I don’t know what the future holds. But it certainly looks brighter than before.

Now, since I don’t want to have yet another blog without pictures, I’ll throw one out there for you:

In the past four days I’ve solo’d two students. This was a shot of one of them on his first solo flight. I thought it looked cool.

Now I need to go hit the books again for some college classes. Geeze, I hate school. Oh well, only five more weeks until I’m out for the summer and can really crank up the flying.

Thanks for reading!

Hello faithful readers,

Sorry for not writing many blogs lately.

The reason for my absence has been my extremely busy schedule. I flew about 40 hours and billed 55 hours in the past month through the flight school and things are only looking to get busier in the future. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I bill 60 or 65 hours in the next month…that’s pretty darn busy considering I’m still a “part-time” instructor and college student.

To give you an idea of why I say “billed” hours, that’s because it’s a reflection of my paycheck, but not necessarily time spent at the airport. Personally, I don’t bill for time spent signing logbooks, scheduling the next lesson, etc. So I reserve 2.0 hours per lesson, but generally I only bill for about 1.6 of that. That’s approximately 24 minutes I’m at the airport per flight that isn’t recorded on my time card.

Then of course there are “dead” spots in the schedule. That’s time that I can’t really leave the office, but it’s not recorded anywhere. For instance, one lesson might end at 9 a.m. and the next might not start until 11 a.m. I can’t do much useful for two hours, so I’ll hang around the office, prep for the next ground school session, call some prospective clients, etc.

Before you know it, 60 “billed” hours can easily equate to nearly 100 hours spent at the airport. That’s why I say I’ve been so busy.

I have five students now and I think that’s about all I can handle until the school year ends at the first week of May. On top of my flying duties, I’ve been teaching a ground school class one night per week and flying jumpers at the drop zone on the weekend a lot more now that the weather is warming up.

The good thing is that all this work means I’ve spent a lot more time in the air lately and have been having a blast. I haven’t taken many pictures recently, but I’ll try to post some pictures and stories soon.

Thanks for reading. That’s all for now.

This morning I was browsing the discussion forums on the Cessna 120/140 association web site.

One of the posts talked about all the interesting information we can find by Googling our own tail numbers.

So I thought, what the heck, might as well try it. There probably isn’t anything on my bird, aside from my registration information, right?

Turns out, at the top of Google’s listings is a picture of my plane. It’s dated from the week when I first moved to Nebraska, when I had to park outside, before I had a hangar lined up. The same photographer who shot my plane has also shot a lot of others around the area.

I don’t mind that he posted a picture of it online. In fact, I think it’s kind of cool. I don’t have enough high resolution pictures of my plane so I appreciate adding this one to my collection. But at the same time, it’s a little creepy what’s out there floating around on the internet that we have no idea about…

Here’s a link to the site I’m referring to:

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/118216.html

but haven’t had the time for.

Good grief, it’s been too long since I updated this blog. I’ve had tons of great ideas for things to write about, but been too busy to put any in to the computer.

First off, some good news, I soloed my first student at the flight school a couple weekends ago. Here he is, blasting off into the wild blue for the first time alone:

The only problem was that it was literally about 10 degrees out. Here I am, trying to fight off frostbite while I watched my guy loop around the pattern a few times:

But it still felt great to send a new student out solo again. He was the first guy I’ve soloed in about ten months I think, so I’m glad I broke the trend.

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Another benefit I love about flight instructing is the flexible schedule and good times it offers.

A couple weeks ago I started cross country training with a student. We decided to fly down to Kansas City’s Downtown airport, KMKC, and get some food. My student brought his brother along for the ride and the three of us set out to find some of KC’s world famous BBQ.

Since I knew we’d be out late, I blocked off my schedule in the morning, slept in, and didn’t roll in to work until almost noon. Then we left on our trip about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

Here we are, climbing out of Lincoln on a beautiful, glassy smooth evening:

We went out to a place called Jack Stack Barbeque. Apparently it’s one of the best BBQ joints in KC:
‘

After eating there, I can see why. The place was fantastic. Nice atmosphere, good service, and of course high quality BBQ. Ten bucks got me a huge sandwich. I intended to document it for this blog before eating it, but it looked so delicious that I completely forgot to grab my camera and snarfed the sandwich as soon as they brought it out. By the time I took a picture this was all that was left:

Then we had a smooth trip home and landed about 11 o’clock in the evening. What other job pays a guy to sleep late, fly to another city, have dinner, and fly home? For all the downsides at times, this can really be a sweet gig.

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And my last bit of news for the moment is that I’ve finally filled up my second logbook. It contains my previous 900 hours or so of flying. After filling it up, I couldn’t help but slowly thumb back through it and re-live many of the flights from the past couple years.

It reminded me of how fortunate I am. While looking back over those flights, it made me realize how many awesome things I’ve been able to experience as a result of being a pilot.

I’ve flown all over the country, in all different kinds of planes, with all different kinds of people. To be honest, there’s simply no way I can do it justice in this blog. Literally dozens, if not hundreds, of stories could be told.

How can I describe watching the sun set over the snow-capped mountains of western Montana, or the feeling of rolling a taildragger’s wheels on to a lush grass runway in Pennsylvania? How can I sum up all the friendships made with students over the past three years of teaching, or the lessons learned while taking checkrides from five examiners who have a combined experience level of more than 75,000 flight hours? How do I put in to words the sickening feeling of winds forcing me in to a mountain ridge line, or the joy I get from seeing a friend smile during their first ride in a small plane?

I can’t. And those are only a fraction of the things I think about as I flip through those pages.

I decided to take a few minutes and figure out some stats from my logbook though. I found that I’ve flown with more than 120 people over the past five years. 16 of those were instructors teaching me, more than 50 were students who I was giving instruction to, 5 were examiners I took checkrides from, and about 30 were friends who I took up for a ride just for the heck of it.

I’ve landed at 125 airports literally from coast to coast and logged time in 22 unique makes and models of aircraft, everything from taildraggers from the 1940s all the way up to a 2005 Cessna 172 equipped with a G1000 glass cockpit.

Geeze…I’m a lucky guy. What more can I say?

Thanks for reading.

One of the most satisfying things I’ve found about flying is the feeling I get after a well-executed flight during which I faced obstacles, came up with creative solutions, and “worked the system” in order to accomplish my mission.

Such a flight happened to me a few days ago.

A new student signed on to my schedule last week so we met together this week to go up for his first flight. Although he’d flown in small planes a few times before, this was his first true flight lesson, so I treated it as though we were working from the ground up.

Before leaving the office, I checked the weather. The forecast called for lowering ceilings and marginal VFR conditions to arrive shortly, but there was no mention of IFR conditions predicted for the area. I figured as long as we could fly around for at least a few minutes the flight would be worth it.

As we slowly worked our way through the preflight inspection, examining each detail of the aircraft, a cold, blustery wind whipped around us. It wasn’t a pleasant day to spend much time outside, but I needed to make the point that a thorough preflight inspection is always required, regardless of the weather.

Towards the end of our preflight, a fellow instructor came out and informed me the latest METAR reported ceilings overcast at 2900 feet and a visibility of 5 miles.

“You still going?” he asked.

“Ok….umm…yeah, no problem, we can go out for a quick hop over the city,” I replied. He shrugged and walked away. I doubt he’d be flying in this, but that’s his choice.

After getting an excited student out for a first lesson and trudging through a preflight in nasty weather, I wasn’t about to scrub the flight because of poor visibility. Sure, it maybe wasn’t ideal for learning basic attitude flying, but taxiing, learning checklists, talking to air traffic controllers, etc. could all be useful regardless of the weather. If nothing else, I didn’t want to disappoint my new student by having him go through all the work of preparation without the reward of getting in the air, at least for a short while.

So we loaded up, fired up, and prepared to copy a VFR clearance out of our Class C airport.

The controller issued our clearance and we prepared to taxi. Only a few seconds before calling for our taxi instructions, the controller radioed us back:

“Cessna Four Sierra Papa, cancel your departure clearance, visibility is dropping quickly and the field just went IFR.”

Crap. Ok. What now? I’m sure as heck not going to give up that easily! We’re fired up and ready to taxi. Let me pull a trick out of my bag. Work the system…

“Clearance, Cessna Four Sierra Papa, any chance we could get a Special VFR clearance for a quick flight over the city?”

“Four Sierra Papa, standby, I think we can figure something out for you…”

After a few moments the controller returned with a Special VFR clearance and we began taxiing to the runway.

After completing an engine runup, we pulled up to the hold short line and called for our takeoff clearance.

“Cessna Four Sierra Papa, we have multiple IFR aircraft inbound for approaches, including a regional jet currently inbound on the ILS. It looks like it’ll be about a 10-12 minute wait before we can release you, and even then we’re going to need to keep you in the local traffic pattern.”

Think fast, Mr. Instructor Man! It’s time to make decisions. Should we pack it up and head home before we even get off the ground, chalking it up as a lousy day to fly, and hanging our heads in shame? I don’t think so.

So if we’ve decided to fly no matter what, are we going to sit here for 12 minutes, idling at the hold short line, looking fat dumb and stupid? That’ll cost the student an extra $32 in case you were wondering about the math. Not a very nice option.

Quick, key the mic…work the system…

“Tower, we’d like to shut down on the runup pad and restart in about 10 minutes in order to save fuel, would that be alright with you?”

“Will you be able to monitor this frequency while shut down?”

“Yes sir, we’ll be standing by.”

“Roger, approved as requested. I’ll give you a call when you can go.”

And sure enough, after chatting with my student in a silent, cold cockpit for ten minutes with only the Comm 1 radio powered up, the tower informed us we had two minutes until our release.

A few switches flipped, knobs turned, and buttons pushed later, the engine roared back to life. Soon thereafter we lumbered up to the hold short line.

Right on cue the tower cleared us for takeoff. With a bit of coaxing my new friend pushed the throttle in to the wall, steered with his feet, and eased the nose upward. As we lifted off, I looked across the cockpit to find him grinning from ear to ear.

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” I said.

“Haha…yeah it is,” came his simple reply, still through a huge grin.

“This, right here,” I thought to myself, “is why I love working the system.”

You see, a lot of instructors might have canceled the flight immediately after seeing the forecast for marginal conditions. Other instructors might have given up after the preflight in worsening weather. Still, others might have scrubbed the mission after hearing the field go IFR shortly after startup. Finally, others might have thrown in the towel after hearing of a 12 minute delay. All of those would have resulted in a disappointed student, now less enthusiastic about getting their license.

I didn’t do any of the above because I knew how to work the system. When I saw the look on my student’s face, I knew it was worth it. It’s that “I can’t believe this is so cool!” look that most flight instructors have seen many times before.

After going around the pattern twice, in two miles visibility, we called it a day and returned to the parking ramp. 0.8 hours on the hobbs meter, two takeoffs and landings, and one happy customer who’s coming back for more. That’s what I like to see.

Take it easy and enjoy the ride folks!

I’d like to share a story that I’m not especially proud of, but hopefully it will give you some insight into the small-scale ethical temptations that professional pilots can be faced with on a regular basis.

First, the background…

A few weeks ago I went to work at the dropzone. Frigid winter weather prevailed that day–about 20 degrees fahrenheit at the surface, with clear, sunny skies above.

As most pilots know, cold air is more dense and therefore offers improved performance for flying. Aircraft can climb more quickly, and higher, on a cold day versus a hot day, all other factors being equal.

And as most skydivers know, frozen air isn’t especially appealing to jump through. Therefore, only a few skydivers showed up to the dropzone on that particular day.

So these two factors–excellent climb performance and few loads of jumpers equated to little flying for me. I could race up and down through the thick sky in record time. That’s all fine and good if setting records is the goal, but frankly, I get paid by the hour, not by the record. I’d much rather fly on a 90 degree day than a 20 degree day simply because I can log more time and get paid more on a hot day than a cold one.

Now, I must mention however, that regardless of other factors, I take a certain amount of pride in my work. I work quickly, safely, and efficiently, no matter what, and I think that’s cool. It’s something I’m always pushing to get better at. From the moment the engine turns over, that ever-present clock is ticking and it’s time to do business.

In the world of jump piloting, that means the wheels never stop rolling from startup to shutdown. Fly with minimum fuel loads, climb at best rate of climb speed, reach your top of climb precisely at the start of the jump run, descend at speeds in the yellow arc, taxi fast, and get the job done. Thanks to this philosophy, I’ve been able to turn impressive times in, oftentimes requiring less than 25 minutes, from startup to shutdown, to perform drops from 10,000 feet. I’ve been told I’m one of the fastest pilots currently working at the dropzone.

But enough of the background. Here’s my story now…

On this cold winter afternoon, the last load of the day happened to be optimized for climbing quickly. I had the bare minimum fuel available (about 16 gallons), the air was as dense as it will ever get around here, and the four jumpers were fairly small guys. If the Cessna 182 could ever be considered a rocket ship, this load would be it.

The skydivers had signed up for what is generally considered a full altitude jump, with an exit altitude of 9,000 feet above the ground, or 10,500 MSL.

As we hiked out to the plane, I joked that we could go as high as they wanted. Needless to say, they wanted to go as high as we could get.

“But…ssshhhh…you know how that is, right?” winked one of the skydivers, implying the need for secrecy when sliding on a little extra altitude to a jump run. I knew what he meant.

I confirmed that they wanted to go as high as possible and then said, “Sure, let’s go.”

You see, the issue at hand is one of money. Skydivers pay for their jumps by altitude. At my dropzone, it’s a base rate of $8 per jump + $1 per thousand feet of altitude, so for instance, a jump from 9,000 feet costs $17 ($8 + $9).

If the pilot takes them higher than they paid for, it’s like getting “free” altitude–although that extra altitude comes at the dropzone’s expense of extra gas for the plane and extra fees for the pilot’s longer flight time.

At the time, I justified it in my mind using several reasons. Mainly, it’s just a little extra, so what’s the big deal? Nobody will know the difference.

Then I also thought, “I’m one of the fastest pilots out here. I’ve saved this place a fair amount of money by being a sharp pilot, and what’s my thanks? Less flight time and less pay, all while the company takes bigger profits. I’m screwing myself over by working hard. Screw the company, I deserve a little extra every now and then.” I didn’t see it as a big deal to burn another tenth of an hour’s gas since I’d saved them cash in other areas.

On top of all that, I didn’t view myself as a policeman over anyone. Sort of an, “If I take these guys higher and they don’t pay for it, that’s not my problem, it’s between them and the dropzone,” attitude. I thought, “I’m just the hired hand. I just fly the plane. The jumpers tell me what to do and I do it. I don’t get in to enforcing rules.”

As we lifted off, the VSI indicated an impressive 1,200 foot per minute climb rate. As we gained altitude, I could tell we would blast through the originally planned exit altitude with ease. As we approached the jump run, I stopped the climb at 14,000 MSL because I did not have an oxygen bottle with me, although we were still rising at a respectable 400 feet per minute. The jumpers laughed with excitement, put a finger to their lips to indicate our silence about the activity, then dove out the door.

Fast forward to this morning.

I came in for another day of work, having completely forgotten about our little 14,000 foot secret. As I grabbed the aircraft dispatch clipboard, the dropzone manager confronted me.

“Hey, we busted you with the wing cam from a couple weeks ago.”

“Huh? I don’t get it. Who busted what?” I was honestly confused.

“Your altitude. Going to 12,500 with those guys. The wing cam caught a shot of Roberto’s altimeter as he was going out the door.”

“Oh. Ummm….yeah…..”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t even sure how big of a deal they thought it was, so I jokingly played it off, saying I’d screwed up my timing and the wind had taken me farther from the dropzone than I planned, so I just kept climbing instead of leveling off. That legitimately was a factor to some degree, but would never account for more than a few hundred feet. This “error” we were talking about was 3,500 feet worth.

We joked around a little, but I could see how management didn’t view slipping in extra altitude as an entirely laughing matter.

Throughout the day today, I thought a lot about the implications of such a seemingly small error in judgement. The fact is, even if there was peer pressure to give extra altitude, I’m the one in charge of the plane. Nobody was sticking a gun to my head, telling me to climb higher. I made the choice.

And what was it worth? An extra couple bucks in pay? A little extra “cool factor” with the skydivers? Are those things worth losing my reputation, and possibly a great job, over? Not even close.

No matter what my opinion is about my pay (or lack thereof), I’m hired to do a job the way my employer wants it done, and it’s not my place to be adjusting the rules to suit myself.

I want to be able to use the dropzone as a positive reference for future employers. If I screw up my reputation as a good, honest guy, that’s going to hurt me more in the long term than any little gain in flight time, pay, or popularity in the short term.

So I made sure to privately apologize to the manager later in the day, and I think I smoothed things over. He didn’t place all the blame on me, saying skydivers will do almost anything to get extra altitude. He said some hot chick skydivers have gone so far as to flash the pilot in order to get an extra thousand feet for free. I made it clear that I’m won’t be slipping on extra altitude in the future, no matter what.

Ironically, even today, after deciding all this on my own, some jumpers asked me for extra altitude. I told them, thanks, but no thanks. I’ve played that game before and it’s not worth it. Now, if only I could tell that to a hot girl after flashing me, that would be especially entertaining…

———————————————–

In other news, I found out a few days ago that I won’t be going to Cirrus Standardized Instructor Program training after all. It’s a long story, but basically it boils down to the aircraft owners being more comfortable training with an instructor they already know, versus training with me, who they’ve never met before. They will be sending an instructor they’ve worked with the past, rather than me. I don’t blame them. No hard feelings.

However, this only supports my philosophy that I’ve grown accustomed to over my time in the aviation industry:

I never believe somebody’s getting a plane until I see it parked on the ramp, and I never believe I have a job until my first day of work.

Literally, that’s how aviation is. If I had a dollar for every “maybe, possibly, might, not sure if it’ll happen or not,” opportunity I’ve ever had, I’d be a very rich man. Arrangements fall through right and left in this competitive, complicated line of work. I guess that’s the nature of the beast.

Thanks for reading!