Hello everyone, my name is Dodd Bailey Allen Jr. and I am from Dallas, TX. Many of you may remember me from the journals I wrote this past summer about my Continental Airlines internship. My dream of flying began when I was in second grade. I knew I wanted to be a professional pilot the moment I flew on my first airliner. From then on, I built models and studied pictures of every airplane I could get my hands on. When middle school came around, I continued my journey towards the wonderful world of flight when I began my hobby of remote controlled aircraft. I began with the simple stuff, and now I own 9 r/c aircraft and I have flown anything from a small electric airplane to an r/c jet that flies at over 280 mph! My favorite personal aircraft is a 1/3 scale sukhoi. This aircraft has a 10 hp engine on it and has a wingspan of 8 ft. I perform extensive aerobatic demos for students and enthusiasts around Dallas, TX. Finally, flying r/c aircraft was one of the many things that piqued my interest in teaching. I worked at my local hobby shop for 7 years and I was the chief flight instructor all throughout high school. I was teaching people 3 times my age how to fly r/c aircraft.

The real success story began in my senior year of high school. This is where I flew a real airplane for the first time. I began my private pilot training at a local airport by my high school. I received my private pilot license the summer after my senior year and I was hooked! I then began my fall semester at one of the best aviation schools in the world, Embry-Riddle. Here I finished all of my licenses in my first two years. I am now a fully certified commercial, multi-engine, single-engine, instrument rated pilot. I am also a certified flight instructor, certified flight instructor instrument, advanced ground instructor, and instrument ground instructor. I continued my dream of teaching junior year when I became a part-time flight instructor in the flight department at Embry-Riddle. I still can’t believe I am getting paid to fly! Finally, last summer, I received the privilege to work with Continental Airlines during a summer internship. Here I learned what it was like to fly $80 million jets and how an airline truly operated. I received 30 hrs of flight training in a Level D 737-800 simulator. Wow, what an experience! Now, I sit here today beginning my senior year of college! Wow, time flies when you are having fun. I look forward to telling you about all of my classes and what a normal day at Embry-Riddle is like. I will also enlighten you about the joys of being a flight instructor at one of the top flight schools in the world. Until then, I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the fall semester. Time to start my homework for the night.