dtuuri
Final Approach
...settling into a nice soft leather chair at the United Airlines Training Center in Denver back in July, 1979. As I looked around at the other eleven new-hire pilots around the conference table doing the same, a feeling of indescribable relief came over me. "I made it," I remember thinking. My life's ambition had been finally realized.
As everyone took turns introducing themselves I found myself wondering how I managed to even make it after all. There were two former captains for Apple Airlines (EDIT: I think these two may have been in a later class after my recall), which had gone out of business. One NASA test pilot. One captain for the fortune 500 company AT&T. One former military pilot who was also a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. A C-421 corporate chief pilot (and real nice fellow) from Michigan, who's father was an active member of the Flying Physicians Organization and who's mother was the head of the State Department of Aviation in that state. And, well, you get my drift. It was a privilege to be in their company. I, on the other hand, had not even graduated from college. Nor had I been a captain for any company. I was almost too old to have been hired at all.
Until the previous year, sometime in 1978, United had gone for ten full years without hiring a single pilot. Most of the other major airlines were the same. I remember being on a corporate trip to Denver in 1974, as a Learjet copilot, and taking a tour of the very same training center. The tour guide said United hadn't hired a pilot in five years and didn't expect to hire again for another five. My hopes faded and I resigned myself to a life as a corporate pilot.
When the World War II pilots began to retire, word of openings here and there started filtering through the grapevines. No internet back then. Instead, Kip Darby created Future Airline Pilots of America and hopefuls like me sent him $100 for a newsletter every month that ran articles and the latest rumors, airline by airline, from feedback gained by others who managed to land an interview or even be hired. Soon, some of my younger friends with aviation degrees were landing class dates at Southern Airlines, then one at American Airlines. Until that, civilian pilots like us were pretty demoralized because most decent jobs always seemed to go to the ex-military guys--even the corporate jobs. The Viet Nam war produced a lot of pilots who wouldn't have been in the labor pool otherwise, making the competition fierce.
As it turned out, I was rejected by virtually every airline in the country except the very one I always wanted to fly for since I was in junior high school--United Airlines. But getting in the door of their personnel office wasn't any easier than breaking into Ft. Knox. It was a thin line line I walked between being a pest and being persistent. After months of sending in updates and making phone calls, I was finally brought in for employment testing. It was two days at the regional employment office in Cleveland and then another day in Denver for a simulator test and a second medical evaluation including a stress test.
The Stanine Test in Cleveland was quite a thing to experience. Questions like, "What's the aspect ratio of a flying saucer?" And, "What are the ingredients of Chicken Cordon Bleu?" Then there was tracing a pencil around a maze without hitting any of the printed lines and reading instrument presentations of altimeters where the small hands were hidden behind larger ones, etc. The two days capped off with a personal interview with a management pilot from operations in the presence of a Human Resource manager.
The other applicants I met and ate lunch with in Cleveland were military pilots. Sharp looking. Athletic. Articulate. As we ate, I was struck by their naivete toward civil aviation. These guys were impressive in many ways, but not people I'd let fly my plane.
In Denver, the sim session was graded by a computer. The briefing was timed, so every applicant had exactly the same amount of time to study the same flight plan. Each segment of the flight was paused for a second briefing by the IP. Once it was finished, if there were no questions, the IP's lips were sealed until the next segment was completed. There was a written test too, about things like upslope fog and other off-the wall trivia that doesn't usually get a lot of attention.
The sim scores were added to all the other points assessed for everything from college credit and FAA licenses to total time vs age. I can't stress enough that if there were any skeletons in the closet, like drug usage or motor vehicle arrests, they'd have been docked from the totals in some way. The totals of each applicant went into a floating pool for a set period of days. During that period, they would skim the highest scoring applicants from the top, 12 every week when I was in it, for the new-hire classes. At the end of the period, if you weren't picked by then, you were purged.
Some here at POA, most likely those who were never interested in an aviation career, don't seem to distinguish between being "self-rightious" and being driven toward a goal. The competition for these jobs is fierce. You will be lucky if you even get the chance. I knew many good pilots who applied, but didn't make it. Not that that's the end of the world. One friend of mine eventually became the chief pilot for Rockwell. United lost a good one there. So, my point is not to pontificate, but rather to motivate behavior that will enhance your chances of realizing your dream--an airline pilot job.
I didn't stay at United, btw. After being furloughed within the first year I landed a job as chief pilot for a small private company and chose to resign when they called me back. Not the smartest financial decision I ever made, as things turned out, but I can live with it.
dtuuri
(The recent threads in the medical forum here at POA about the implications of using marijuana caused me to reflect on what I went through to get there, in Denver, so I thought I'd toss it out here for those eager young beavers who'd like to someday fly for a major airline like I did. I wouldn't be surprised if healthy youngsters don't spend much time reading the back and forth about medical issues over in that forum, so here goes.)
As everyone took turns introducing themselves I found myself wondering how I managed to even make it after all. There were two former captains for Apple Airlines (EDIT: I think these two may have been in a later class after my recall), which had gone out of business. One NASA test pilot. One captain for the fortune 500 company AT&T. One former military pilot who was also a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. A C-421 corporate chief pilot (and real nice fellow) from Michigan, who's father was an active member of the Flying Physicians Organization and who's mother was the head of the State Department of Aviation in that state. And, well, you get my drift. It was a privilege to be in their company. I, on the other hand, had not even graduated from college. Nor had I been a captain for any company. I was almost too old to have been hired at all.
Until the previous year, sometime in 1978, United had gone for ten full years without hiring a single pilot. Most of the other major airlines were the same. I remember being on a corporate trip to Denver in 1974, as a Learjet copilot, and taking a tour of the very same training center. The tour guide said United hadn't hired a pilot in five years and didn't expect to hire again for another five. My hopes faded and I resigned myself to a life as a corporate pilot.
When the World War II pilots began to retire, word of openings here and there started filtering through the grapevines. No internet back then. Instead, Kip Darby created Future Airline Pilots of America and hopefuls like me sent him $100 for a newsletter every month that ran articles and the latest rumors, airline by airline, from feedback gained by others who managed to land an interview or even be hired. Soon, some of my younger friends with aviation degrees were landing class dates at Southern Airlines, then one at American Airlines. Until that, civilian pilots like us were pretty demoralized because most decent jobs always seemed to go to the ex-military guys--even the corporate jobs. The Viet Nam war produced a lot of pilots who wouldn't have been in the labor pool otherwise, making the competition fierce.
As it turned out, I was rejected by virtually every airline in the country except the very one I always wanted to fly for since I was in junior high school--United Airlines. But getting in the door of their personnel office wasn't any easier than breaking into Ft. Knox. It was a thin line line I walked between being a pest and being persistent. After months of sending in updates and making phone calls, I was finally brought in for employment testing. It was two days at the regional employment office in Cleveland and then another day in Denver for a simulator test and a second medical evaluation including a stress test.
The Stanine Test in Cleveland was quite a thing to experience. Questions like, "What's the aspect ratio of a flying saucer?" And, "What are the ingredients of Chicken Cordon Bleu?" Then there was tracing a pencil around a maze without hitting any of the printed lines and reading instrument presentations of altimeters where the small hands were hidden behind larger ones, etc. The two days capped off with a personal interview with a management pilot from operations in the presence of a Human Resource manager.
The other applicants I met and ate lunch with in Cleveland were military pilots. Sharp looking. Athletic. Articulate. As we ate, I was struck by their naivete toward civil aviation. These guys were impressive in many ways, but not people I'd let fly my plane.
In Denver, the sim session was graded by a computer. The briefing was timed, so every applicant had exactly the same amount of time to study the same flight plan. Each segment of the flight was paused for a second briefing by the IP. Once it was finished, if there were no questions, the IP's lips were sealed until the next segment was completed. There was a written test too, about things like upslope fog and other off-the wall trivia that doesn't usually get a lot of attention.
The sim scores were added to all the other points assessed for everything from college credit and FAA licenses to total time vs age. I can't stress enough that if there were any skeletons in the closet, like drug usage or motor vehicle arrests, they'd have been docked from the totals in some way. The totals of each applicant went into a floating pool for a set period of days. During that period, they would skim the highest scoring applicants from the top, 12 every week when I was in it, for the new-hire classes. At the end of the period, if you weren't picked by then, you were purged.
Some here at POA, most likely those who were never interested in an aviation career, don't seem to distinguish between being "self-rightious" and being driven toward a goal. The competition for these jobs is fierce. You will be lucky if you even get the chance. I knew many good pilots who applied, but didn't make it. Not that that's the end of the world. One friend of mine eventually became the chief pilot for Rockwell. United lost a good one there. So, my point is not to pontificate, but rather to motivate behavior that will enhance your chances of realizing your dream--an airline pilot job.
I didn't stay at United, btw. After being furloughed within the first year I landed a job as chief pilot for a small private company and chose to resign when they called me back. Not the smartest financial decision I ever made, as things turned out, but I can live with it.
dtuuri
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