Reflection

In this chapter, I intend to do a review of the entire blog, so far.  But first, I want to address something I have observed about myself, compared to many other pilots.

I have seen and heard many pilots express that they are tired of the job of flying airplanes.  They become tired, bored or jaded.  Sometimes they seem to think they are just too cool for the job. 

As I neared retirement age, some of my friends talked about how they were looking forward to retirement.  One friend was going on and on about that and then stopped and looked at me and said, "You don't feel that way, do you?"  I quietly said, "No."  

When I first went to work for UPS, I quickly learned not to be the first to tell my sob story, about how hard it had been to develop my career to that point.  There was always someone in a group who had more challenges.  However, I had many challenges and it took a lot of time, with twists and turns, to get to an airline job that met my original goals.  When I was still in the struggle, it would piss me off to see or hear those who had gotten the type of job I was seeking and then act like they could not give a shit.  I believed they did not deserve it.

Granted, most of my challenges were of my own making.  Not going to college was the biggest obstacle and that was my fault.  I always thought that was a bullshit requirement, but it was a big and well known requirement.  Some airlines liked to brag that, they had only college educated pilots, but it was primarily a way to thin the herd of applicants, when supply exceeded demand.  I had 12 years of Catholic education, which was very rigorous and I have seen the results when I have read things written by some of those college educated pilots, with grammar and spelling errors that the good Sisters of St. Joseph would never have tolerated, not to mention that much of it was simply incoherent.

The subtitle of the blog is How Not To Build An Aviation Career and I  would not advise a young person to do it as I did.  My success, despite my self created challenge was the result of hard work, perseverance and luck.

Now, let's get to the review.

As a child, I loved vehicles, from scooters, to tricycles, to bicycles, to cars, to motorcycles.  I thought everyone did, but have learned over time that not everyone has the same love of controlling a vehicle that I do. 

At first, I did well in school, but in high school, I really began to get tired of it.  After high school, I was just drifting and existing.

I was drafted at the beginning of the Viet Nam War.  1965. 

On a nasty winter night, as I was flying to my next phase of training in the Army, I made some important changes in the way I viewed the world.  I decided to try to be all I could be. 1966.

I had an opportunity to attend several classes in the military, including the drill sergeant school.  With the help of the Army, I turned myself from a mild mannered young man into a drill sergeant.

After the Army, I tried several jobs, not doing well enough to be successful, because I needed to have something to hold my attention and inspire me to work hard.  I needed something I could love to do. 1967.

I married a flight attendant and that planted the seed that I should be an airline pilot, but at that point in time, getting there looked like a nearly insurmountable obstacle.  It would take lots of time, work and money. 1968.

For a few years, I kind of messed around, but eventually, after many stumbles at my other jobs, I decided I was going to be a pilot come hell or high water, even if it meant not being an airline pilot.  My experience in flight training told me I could do it and I knew I would be happy doing it.  I could be happy as a flight instructor or crop duster, but I would always work toward my goal. 1972.

Shortly after this, my flight attendant wife decided she didn't want to be married to me anymore.  I used my anger about that to power my efforts to build my career.

There were 5 great years of accumulating flight hours, knowledge and experience at Butler Graham Airport.  We put in long days there, flew under equipped airplanes in lousy weather and had as much fun as young men can have.  I was also acquiring lifelong friends. 1973 to 1978.

Airline Deregulation was coming and 2 of those friends talked me into breaking out of the rut.  I kind of landed in another rut, but was gaining a level of knowledge about transport category jet airplanes that probably exceeded what most pilots know.  I was actually teaching systems and procedures to airline pilots.  When a new entry airline sent its pilots to the school where I was teaching, I latched on to them like a tick. 1979 to 1982.

My efforts were rewarded when I got my first airline pilot job with Pacific Express.  My new wife and I moved to California and our daughter was born there.  I gained great experience there.  Flying in the West was quite a bit different from what I was used to.  The mountains were higher and more beautiful.   I had some issues at first, but was getting the hang of it and had upgraded to captain, just before my first airline bankruptcy. 1982 to 1984.

I had friends in management at another new entry airline in Orlando.  I got the job and moved my family down there, as I assumed the position at the bottom of my second seniority list at Florida Express.  It was another low paying, hard working job, but was probably the most fun job I ever had. My son was born in Orlando.  Florida Express began to struggle and was bought by Braniff Airlines, what we called Braniff II.  1984 to 1989.

The Braniff II bankruptcy was much tougher than the first.  I was unemployed for 3 months, the longest such period since I got my Social Security Card at age 15.  I now had a wife and 2 children and was very long in the tooth to be getting hired by an airline, but I had 7 years of airline experience, flying jets to go with my 5 years of flying in General Aviation professionally, nearly 10,000 hours total time.  There were a few opportunities for a guy like me, but there was a reason for that.  Some friends had gotten hired by UPS and were reporting that it was not a great job.  However, I needed a job and life experience told me it had to be a flying job.  I managed to get my defecation in sequence long enough to get through the interview process with UPS and they hired me.  December 27, 1989.

It didn't take me long to learn not to be the first to tell my sob story.  It seemed everyone else had a much more interesting one.  It reminded me of what an old boss used to say, "The first liar doesn't stand a chance."  Anyone who could, was leaving UPS for greener pastures.  I moved up the seniority list rapidly, because pilots senior to me were moving on.  We were working under a contract negotiated as members of the Teamsters, when the company held all the high cards.  We had 3 month bid periods, reserve was a 24 hour per day nightmare (when do you sleep?), and the pay was low, with no hope of even getting back to the atypically low airline pilot pay at the 3 new entry airlines where I had worked previously.  I was a flight engineer on the DC-8 my first year and took the first opportunity to bid to the right seat of the 747, even though I was still on probation.  1991.

I spent the next 5 years flying the Whale to Europe and Asia, as well as to Alaska and Hawaii and a few cities in the USofA.  They were basic trunk routes, carrying lots of stuff between hubs in the hub and spoke system.  It was great fun and experience and I came to admire the captains who could take someone like me, who was not experienced in international flying and go anywhere in the world.  During my first year doing this, we were flying military flights in support of Desert Storm.  During this time, the pilots were able to form their own, independent union, the Independent Pilots Association and negotiate a much, much better contract.  We were now earning a significantly improved amount of money and working under far better conditions.  It was not quite what the traditional airlines were paying, but it was working in the right direction.  Fewer pilots were leaving.  1991 to about 1996.

It became apparent that I was getting close to being able to upgrade to captain and that the junior airplane was the Boeing 757.  I had heard stories about the challenge for geezer pilots, like myself, who had spent their careers flying what we called "steam gauge" airplanes, trying to learn the new generation airplanes with flight management systems and glass cockpits.  I decided to bid to the right seat, as a first officer, on the 757, before I was able to upgrade.  I wanted to learn the plane on someone else's ticket.  Training was a challenge, but my instructor got me through it.  I learned that flying the plane was actually easy, it was a terrific airplane.  The problem was all the computer stuff, but I eventually figured it out, with the help of patient instructors and captains, while flying the line.  My logbooks are currently 1000 miles away at this time and I am guessing this was about 1996 or 1997.

By the time I upgraded to captain, I knew the plane well and felt very comfortable flying it.  I think it was around that time the B-767 was added to the fleet and it was included in the 757 type rating, so all that was required to fly it was some differences training and some time with an instructor in the actual airplane.  The computer stuff was the same, the big difference with flying the 76 was that the cockpit view was higher during landing.  There is a radio altimeter that talks to you during landing and it helps a lot, telling you your height above the runway.  I had a few opportunities to fly the 767 across the North Pacific, from Anchorage to Tokyo.  It was different having only 2 engines, but I flew the 757/767  twice as many years as the 747 and never had to shut down an engine.  There were 2 shutdowns on the 747 that I can remember for sure and maybe a third.  The difference, of course, is that losing one engine out of four is not a big deal.

60 was the retirement age for airline pilots when I reached that age in August 2005.  For many reasons, I could not afford to retire at that time.  UPS still had DC-8s and B-747s, that required flight engineers.  There was no mandatory retirement age for engineers, so I decided to continue working and downgrade to second officer on the DC-8.  The plan was to work for 5 years.

At about 2 to 2 and a half years, the retirement age changed to 65.  There was much anger among younger, junior pilots on our seniority list about that. They wanted the older, senior pilots to just go away.  To them, this meant 5 more years to wait for upgrade and quality of life improvement to occur.  

I could see their point, but had my own concerns.  Because of the setbacks of multiple bankruptcies, with furloughs from which there were no recalls and very low paying years, I had to work as long as possible at the best paying position I could hold.  I was getting close to retirement and had to build up my pile of money as much as possible.  In the debate, I eventually told those who were angry, that I was as concerned about their issues, as they were about mine.

We weren't sure what the company would do with regard to upgrades.  Would they allow an actual upgrade when a position became available that I could bid for in seniority, or would they just award the position for pay purposes and keep us in our previous position, without training for the upgrade.  UPS decided to allow the actual upgrade, probably because they knew of the division within the pilot group.  Regardless, I had to bid for the increase in pay.

It took some time before an actual vacancy bid, but when it came, there were so many pilots in my category as flight engineers who were senior to me, that a captain position was not available to me.  I was able to hold a first officer position on the B747-400, based in Anchorage Alaska.  After discussion with Doreen, I bid for that position and got it.  I had about 2 years to go to age 65 retirement.

The plane was easy for me to learn, because I had flown the B747-100 and was used to the size and weight and because the 400 had basically the same technology in the flight management system to the 757/767.  My simulator partner had never flown any of the electric airplanes and had similar experiences to my own when I first learned the 757. 

I loved the international trips on the Whale and was able to return to my favorite international layover cities, Cologne and Hong Kong.  Hong Kong had been turned over to the Chicoms by the Brits since I was last there, but not much had changed by 2009.  

We began flying a trip that went around the world, albeit only in the Northern Hemisphere.  It began in Anchorage, flew to Louisville, then to Cologne.  From there it went on the longest leg I had ever flown, 12 hours + from Cologne to Hong Kong.  After that, the version I flew was back to the west to Dubai, layover, then to Cologne.  We did the Cologne to Hong Kong leg again, then on to Anchorage to finish the trip.  We flew one really long leg per day, then had a layover of some multiple of about 24 hours, waiting for the next Whale to come back.

The big issue was commuting.  I had never really done that for very long before.  I was looking at 2 years to age 65 retirement and considered buying a condo in ANC, but ended up just getting into a crash pad with several other commuters.  I had to be careful in planning my commute and jump seating on UPS was the preferred option of travel.  It was a 6 hour flight each way and I brought a sleeping mattress and sleeping bag to catch a few Zs for the trip.  It worked out better than I thought it would and I really enjoyed the flying.  

After about a year, I was able to hold a captain bid on the Airbus A300.  The automation was a bit of a step back from the Boeing system, but I stumbled and bumbled my way through my last year on the Bus.  

I was beginning to sense that it was time to hang it up and I had done the best I could do to facilitate a reasonably comfortable retirement.  

I am looking back on all that now, with 13 years of retired perspective and frankly still don't understand those who are so hot to retire.  I absolutely loved everything about my career and in retrospect, would not change any of it.  There were several times in my life, when something that seemed like the worst possible thing that could happen, turned out to be a very good thing.  A few examples would be, getting drafted in the Army, getting divorced from my practice wife, not getting hired by USAir and the Braniff II bankruptcy.  All of those turned out for the better, after several years of letting things work themselves out.