My first solo

It was a very special day.. I took my student down to Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW). I have trained this student for about 3 weeks. I taught him how to preflight the airplane and I remember how scared he was at his first takeoff, his first power on stall and his first slip to land.

During his first 5 or 6 lessons he kept the taxiway center line on one side of the airplane.  Now it was a different story; my student is able to call ground, taxi the airplane on the center line  do the run-up, call tower, takeoff, take me to another airport do the required calls, land and taxi back with me sitting on the side with my arms crossed!!

We landed at Alliance Airport and taxied back to the runway.. we did that four times and at then I asked the tower for parking instructions since my student was flying solo for the first time.

This is my second student I endorse to solo.. but this one is special because my first one was already trained and was assigned to me to give him retraining. I started with this one without him having any experience;  the feeling of seeing him making decisions, communicating, flying, etc.. it's amazing because he learned all that from me!!

I was very very scared.. but he was excited.. very excited and that made me feel better.. he did his three takeoffs and landings and I will definitely keep that day in my mind just as I remember my first solo.

My first "dual given" hours

I was able to pass the standardization class, written test and flight test.. after the flight last week, which was done in a Cessna 172R, I was pleased to hear those words I have been awaiting for .. "welcome aboard".. The night before my flight test, I couldn't sleep well, I was extremely nervous. My mind was just thinking.- "Abraham, you are under contract with the apartment complex for 14 months, you left your comfort zone, you brought your family here, you are the head of the house.. if you don't pass this flight test and therefore, don't get hired.. you will be working probably at Jack in the Box for a while.."
I know there are ways to do things.. there are extreme risks, and there are "calculated risks". I could have taken some time off my job, and give a two week notice after getting hired.. I could have stayed in a cheap motel during my training here and if I get hired, then I would get the apartment.. why didn't I do that? I don't know! It was extremely risky but at the same time, it was my cheapest option!! The apartment complex had a special where for only US$99 I could sign up and stay for the month of February for free! My father in law was here visiting from Uruguay as well, so he was an extra hand to help us move.
Maybe in my mind; knowing that it was all or nothing.. that was maybe part of the booster I needed to stay up late studying, chair flying, and doing my best to pass my standardization class and fulfill my dream.

After I passed, I have been checked out in a variety of new airplanes for me.. one of them is the Cessna 152.. I love it! Is like a go-kart with wings.. very easy to maneuver but they are older than who knows what!! But it's good that we have great maintenance  Then the Diamond DA-40 Diamond Star.. holly cow.. that is so much fun to fly I fell in love with it. This Saturday I am getting checked out in the Diamond DA-20 Eclipse, which is a smaller version but I've heard is pretty fun as well.

This past week, flying has been scarce at the school.. the winds we are getting in Texas are just insane!!! One METAR reported wind shear at 1200 ft of 50 knots!! And normally we have had a crosswind of more than 20 knots, which means "no flying".

But today was probably the most beautiful day we've ever had. I have already been assigned some students and have had to reschedule them due to weather.. well, now I was pretty excited to get a private student who is ready to solo. When I get to the little 152, there was a significant oil leak under the front wheel.."this can't be happening" i thought.. now that I get the best weather. I called maintenance and was told to write a report on it and squawk it.. which means, it is not permitted to go up until maintenance takes a look at it. So my student and I wen't back to the front desk pretty disappointed.. I returned the keys and the girl from dispatch just said: "I have another airplane, do you want it?" I was already one hour late on this flight and had an instructor meeting in one hour, I went to the program director, who is my boss and told him the situation. He just said.. don't worry, you can be late to the meeting.. go fly!! So I went find my student and we went up!
I definitely love instructing, we did slow flight, stalls, steep turns, and simulated engine failure. Then we went back to the airport and did 3 touch and goes... It was great. The student is taking his stage check now and if he passes, he will be able to solo. I already got lined up a couple of private pilots who are working towards their instrument rating.. and from here, hoping the weather gets better, the countdown for 1,500 hours will start. Today I signed my first 1.4 hours of flight time as a flight instructor.

New city, new everything

A lot has changed since my last post.. I quit my well paying job to follow my dream.. everything has worked perfectly so far.
I had my interview for a CFI position, I passed the interview to go to standardization class.. I gave a 4 week notice at my older job in order to have someone trained.. I was able to get some bonus from my last year sales, so that really helped me for all these extra expenses that moving will bring.
I was able to rent my house in the last minute.. it is, as most of the homes in the United States, underwater.. not by much but enough not to be able to sell it. I really had my hopes down there, specially because the day that we put it for rent, the house in front of mine went foreclosure and it was selling at half price of what I bought mine. So anyway, the planets aligned in the last minute and a renter signed a lease for one year.. I am so glad that it happened, I didn't want to go through all the headache of a short sale and I would not like the bank to be behind me if I had decided to walk out of it.
Last week, on February 15th, I rented a 16' truck with a dolly to bring all of our stuff and my car to Denton. It is really tough to move from a 4 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment.. most of our crap went to Goodwill and a lot of it just went directly to the trash. If we haven't used things in a year then most likely we don't need them.
The day before the standardization class I get a message in one of the pilot forums, from a guy who was supposed to start standardization with me.. he said that they told him that instead of February 18th, it was moved 2 weeks after to march 4th, so he went back home, but wanted to know if I have heard anything about it.. and I did not get the memo.
I showed up the next morning and the lady at the front desk was confused of why was I showing up for standardization  since it was not scheduled.. she told me to call the assistant chief pilot and so I did. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one that didn't get the memo and they managed to start a mini-standardization class for both of us so we didn't have to be waiting two weeks after driving so long. The other guy came from Utah and drove about 20 hours.
We are now on day 4th of standardization; we are not hired yet.. the past 4 days have been intense. We were assigned 25 topics each and we had to give class on each of the topics.. we are done today with the classes but I am tired.. at the same time, I love it! I am learning a lot, and I definitely love Texas. My commute has been reduced from 50 minutes in Atlanta to around 12 minutes here. The people at the flight school are very friendly and willing to help and they are flying a lot of hours every month.
Tomorrow we will have a written test and a flight test.. and I believe that after that we will be told If they will take us or not.
Wish me luck!

Job hunting...

The past month has been all about looking for an instructor job.. I don't care if it was part time or full time.. I just want to teach people how to fly! And I want to fly!

So I have been sending resumes to some flight schools in the Atlanta area, I have visited some schools, I called others, most of them have more instructors than they actually needed.. at least that's what they said.. or it probably was my low time what they didn't like.. one of the Chief pilots openly told me: "we don't hire people from ATP".
I also became a member of willflyforfood.com, an aviation job posting site.. 56 bucks for a year to look for an aviation job.. ughh! Jobs are posted everyday but nothing around this area.
I started applying at larger flight schools outside of Georgia.. but nothing..
Then I bought a great book from Greg Brown called The Savvy Flight Instructor..I started reading it and it's pretty good. Then one day I got a call from a large flight school in Texas.. they told me they saw my resume and were interesting in interviewing me! Then I got another call from another flight school! Then an e-mail from another! 
So long story short, I flew down to Texas yesterday in the morning, I had my interview, which lasted about 3 and a half hours; and I passed! Now, I don't have the job yet; I was accepted to start standardization class on mid February and then I will be having a flight check with a Chief flight Instructor; there is when they tell me if I get hired or not. I am very excited, I am going to give my best at this flight school. I also went apartment hunting in the area and I flew back to Atlanta at night.
So this will be a new phase.. I am leaving the office work and all this stuff that keeps me not motivated at all. 
I am looking forward into this new adventure and we will see how it works!
Wish me luck.

The aviation job hunt starts

It has been a little over 3 months since my last checkride and I haven't flown since then. I am still IFR current but I can't carry passengers unless y do three takeoffs and landings. 
These three months have been a lot of work, I traveled a lot because of work. I went to San Juan, Santo Domingo DR, Villahermosa MX, Campeche MX, Monterrey, Mexico City.. I have flown thousands of miles as a passenger and everytime I was at any airport, I would just stare at the airplanes, looking at the pilots, and wishing I was not traveling to visit customers, but doing it as my job. 
I wish I was taxiing that 737 to runway 5L at Mexico City Airport.., or even flying those Cape Air or Air Cargo Carriers at San Juan..  
My next step is definitely to make use of my flight instructor certificate, I have all 3! CFI, CFII, MEI; but where do I start? I am on 245 hours of flight time (+53 hours on the Sim). I have sent resumes to a couple of flight schools but I don't really think that is going to work, I bet they are getting lots of resumes and December is not a very high season for flying. 
I'm going to go to the local airports and start knocking doors. The ideal plan is to work part time as an instructor during the weekends and eventually move to full time and quit my job.That would be the perfect plan which would let me save some more money and build some hours.. but the world is not perfect. I might get a full time job in Atlanta or even out of state and there will be some decisions to make. I am not scared (well, just a little).. I know these are big steps to take,  and I won't wonder what if.

I am dying to teach people how to fly, I enjoyed taking friends on cross country flights and some of them actually started taking lessons. It is a huge impact you make on a friend who has never ever been on a single engine airplane. I want to learn everything I can about aviation and I know that while I instruct I become a more professional pilot.

I just renewed my 1st class medical certificate just in case a school asks for it. I also got my FCC Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit..  I also contacted my CFI from my Private Pilot School and we set up a flight this coming Sunday so I can remain current at the old flight school to rent airplanes and to get my high performance endorsement. We will be flying a Cessna 182 RG and that will add another line to my resume. 
There is a checkout quiz for that airplane that I already answered. 

What is a High Performance Endorsement?

To fly any aircraft that has an engine greater than 200 horsepower, a student or licensed pilot must obtain an endorsement from a certified instructor verifying that he/she has received flight and ground training.
The Piper Seminole, which is the twin engine airplane that ATP uses for training, has a Horsepower of 180; so you don't need a High Performance Endorsement to fly it, the Cessna 182 has 235 HP.. yeah baby!

I'll post how the job hunt goes.. Thanks for reading.

Cessna 182 RG

Follow me to the 2012 Salute America Air Show!!!

After almost a month since I finished flight school.. I am in a break to start looking for a flying job. Basically during the rest of this year I am trying to save money so I have a reserve for next year when I start to make little money flying and try to pay as much as possible to that loan I took to go to ATP.
I always try to read and try to keep up as much as possible with aviation; so I can stay sharp anything when I get interviewed for my first instructor job. Use it or lose it! Learning law of exercise! (you 'll know what I'm taking about when you get to CFI school)
I really can't afford to rent a plane and fly wherever I want now; the only reason I will do it is to get my high performance endorsement, which I will get at Superior Flight School hope pretty soon.

The airport at my hometown, the Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport (KPUJ), hosted a fantastic air show on October 20th and I was very fortunate to be a volunteer there. I was assigned the duty of the "follow me" cart, so I had all access to the airplanes and pilots. I met some fantastic people who I worked with and everybody related to aviation, from guys with a recent pilots license to experienced 777 first officers.
This was really a very nice experience and here are some pictures, enjoy!

That's me waiting for that Steerman to follow me. 

Focused on the job after I got yelled at for taking pictures while driving :)

The Aeroshell guys were just unbelievable.

The Corsair became my favorite war bird.. It was awesome!!

Pancakes and Eggs Fly-In at Paulding Airport

Today I went to the Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport, which is the closest one from my house, for a FAAST seminar together with a "pancake fly-in". As the name states, you fly in and there will be pancakes. yumm

The seminar was about "General Aviation Accidents and How to Prevent Them!" given by Mr. Naji Malek from Berkeley Aviation. 

It started at 8:30 am and It was good to see a lot of different airplanes and people at the airport, I think the ramp was at its busiest since the airport opened back in 2008.  The pancakes were super fantastic, along with the eggs, bacon and coffee.

The seminar was very informative and interesting, we learned about how accident investigations are made, what equipment is taken, what to look for when investigating an accident and Mr Malek showed us some previous accidents where we would determine the probable causes and how could those have been prevented. 

I hope that the airport does this kind of events more often. 

The FAA Safety Team mission is to improve the Nation's aviation safety record by conveying safety principles and practices through training, outreach, and education. At the same time, FAASTeam Managers and Program Managers will establish meaningful aviation industry alliances and encourage continual growth of a positive safety culture within the aviation community.

If you are interested in attending one of these seminars go to http://www.faasafety.gov