It's been quiet here. I've reached the point where I've gotten into a groove. I continue to learn new things every day and try to get my students finished in a very timely manner. An email is sent out asking if anyone wants extra work, I send a reply. I'm here to work and that's what I do. It is, however, a grind.
Last week was a rough one. As you may have seen, we had our first Tropical Storm to hit land for the 2012 Hurricane season. The first storm, born merely a week early, spun harmlessly off into the Atlantic. Subtropical Storm Beryl, however, started spinning off the coast near Miami, meandered off-shore until it reached just north of St Augustine, and came barreling into the peninsula. By storm standards, it wasn't any more rainy than a particularly bad spring day in Ohio nor any more windy than the Chinook winds than blow off the front range in Montana. It was my first experience with a tropical system and it definitely got my extremely geeky Meteorologist side revved up.
What wasn't fun about the weather was all the flights I had to cancel. It was fun to look at the radar and read forecast discussions but depressing when the storm stalled over Northern Florida. The stalled system brought persistent heavy rain and thunderstorms to the area and prevented all but end of course instrument flying. I had one such student and that was my only saving grace.
I had to make up for the time spent on the ground staring at the radar and rain torrents by working 14 hour days. On May 31st, exactly 6 years after graduating from the US Air Force Academy, I passed 500 hours of total time. Now, it isn't as big as getting hired by Delta or FedEx but significant still. In order to be touched by any company wanting to hire you to fly anything larger than small training aircraft, you need at LEAST 500 hours. This doesn't mean that I am going to get a job tomorrow nor will there be airlines knocking on my door. This milestone does take me out of the range of rookie commercial pilot into novice. I still have plenty to learn and experienced to be gained but the milestone remains significant along my journey. As I look back at where I was a year ago, I am amazed at how far I've come. When I was flying through the mountains in Montana, I had a measly 85 hours. When I think back at how little I knew about aviation and flying back then scares today's me. I was never in danger by any means but if you told me that my students were doing what I was doing, it would make today me very nervous.
So, where do I go from here? I keep learning. I just bought software to start preparing for my ATP rating. I still have 1000 hours before I can even attempt it, but most companies now require you to pass the written before you can be interviewed. In all honesty, I'll probably won't take it for quite sometime but it's good to keep studying. Like I said in the beginning, I learn something new every day. Until then, I wait. The next big milestone happens at 1200 hours. After that, I could be eligible for single-pilot cargo flying. As you can imagine, that's still a ways away. Until then, I just grind away.
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