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

Final checkride

Finally on September 12th 2012.. I had my last checkride with Mr. Fred Houston.. my CFI single engine add-on.. I did my best checkride ever and even the examiner noticed that I probably had more time than the other ACPP guys because my maneuvers were flawless.. That was a very nice compliment and I felt very excited.
We went up and I did chandelles (both right and left), lazy eights, slow flight, accelerated stall, power-off stall, he simulated to be a student and asked me to guide him to a power-off 180 to the 1000 footers. We also did all landings, eights on pylons, etc..
It was a very fun flight.. I really enjoyed it and I felt more confident than any other checkride. It is not easy and you need to be focused on what you are going to teach your student. The guy who took this checkride before me failed and that really made me focus on the game.. exchange of controls, detailed pre-flight, use of checklists, I was talking and talking every single thought that I had and explaining every movement that I did. That is what CFI checkrides are all about.
I'm happy to be done now.. Next step is to take a small brake, I need to take care of some personal and some work stuff and probably by the end of the year I will be applying to flight schools or looking for SIC opportunities on Charters or Part 91 operators.. Right now I feel amazing because I have accomplished the hardest part of the dream; but the journey continues.

The last few miles for the finish line..

After I got my initial CFI downt at Ft Lauderdale, I came back to Atlanta and went on a business trip to Bogota, Colombia. I had a great time down there working at the car racing circuit in Tocancipa.
When I came back, things were not very easy.. the reason is that you only get one training flight before your instrument CFI add on (CFII) which lasts basically 2 hours. I wanted to have my checkride with Mr Clyde Shelton down at Hunstville because I got my instrument rating with him and I was more familiar and felt more comfortable.
 When you sign up for the Career Program at ATP, you have a structured program with each lesson description and duration, the total flight time that you end up with is 115 hours.. which is what you paid for..At this point I had only 106 hours on the seminole, I have been on top of the game at all times and being ready for my checkrides before I finish each phase. ATP flight ops agreed that I had time remaining to fly down to Huntsville with a cross country student and take my checkride.
On September 7th 2012 I was at Briscoe Field with the other student ready to go up to Hunstville for my checkride..I haven't filed an IFR flight plan in a while, but , with this Foreflight app is a piece of cake. We flew down to LZU and another ATP airplane was there. I went inside the FBO and a student was there with a very dissapointed face.. I went ahead and ask him.. - "which checkride did you take?".. "Commercial" he replied with a very uncomfortable voice... I then continued.- "How did it go?"...
He just nodded and said.. "not good, we didn't even fly... systems, systems, systems,... I blacked out on the oral on systems and I'm pissed off at myself now"..
It looked that he really wanted to talk to someone so we chatted a little bit and I gave him some tips next time he came for his re-check.. I took my commercial checkride with Clyde as well and It went very good.
Then Clyde stepped out of his office and told me he could take me earlier and so I went inside.. after we went through the paperwork, we started talking about IFR regulations, aeronautical experience, primary controls for pitch, bank, power; he had me give him a class on holds and interceptions.. It went pretty good and then we went out flying.. It was very very hot, but I did good and I left MDQ being a CFII... one more to go and I'm done!