So the month of July has been awesome… and we are only halfway through right now. The month started with working 10-11 hour days to get the cars ready for the big trip up to Boston for the Buick Nationals 2011. July 5 marked the first day of the trip, when we loaded up the trucks and pulled out for the 12 hour drive to Danvers. We made it up there before the severe weather hammered Massachusetts. As the days went by the show field started to fill up with amazing cars, the group I was with brought up a total of 4 cars. We had our 1987 Buick GNX – 1 of 547 ever made out on display for the show and friends had their cars up from the Maryland area. When Saturday came around they had around 300 cars on display ranging from the early 1900’s through present. Our car was originally ordered by a dealer in Ohio, I had the pleasure of meeting the owner of the dealership who had actually ordered our car new. For those of you have never been to a car show, we had our car in a 400 point judged class where all the cars are judged based on a standard set of categories. We were shooting to receive a BCA Gold – you would have to score between 385 and 400, which for the first time out with the car is hard to do. We had a great time showing the car and had a chance to show and talk to others about the car who shared an interest. That evening, we attended the awards dinner where we received a BCA Gold award for the GNX… turns out the car scored a perfect score with 400/400. Very hard to bring any car to a show and the judges not find a single thing wrong. Our family friend took top award with his 1931 Buick; he won the Best Pre War award which is equivalent to Best in Show. We had several more shows to travel to before school starts back up next month, most are local shows in the VA/MD area.

From July 5th through July 10th I was in Boston, MA then I traveled up Maine for a week with friends. Sunday morning I took JetBlue from Boston Logan to Portland, ME via Kennedy in NYC. Flights were great… never had an issue with JetBlue. So I arrived into Maine ahead of schedule and was ready for another great vacation. My friend Jen picked me up from the airport and we headed for Sokokis Lake/Limerick Maine. The trips served as a much needed break from Northern VA where it seems we are always running around. I was supposed to come home that Tuesday, turned out coming back home Friday the 15th. The extra days in Maine made the trip SO much better. Monday night I was thinking to myself; “I really, really don’t think I am ready to go home yet ha”. Monday night we all went down to Old Orchard Beach and spent the night between the Pier, rides and all the shops on Main Street. We hung around the house and Lake Tuesday… Wednesday we spent on the water and then one heck of an epic night. We drove back up to Portland and hit up LL Bean – the Flagship store, the World’s Largest Rotating Globe in Yarmouth, ME and back down for a quick stop at Old Orchard for food. Our last day in Maine was a blast out on the water… full moon + midnight tubing = awesome night! So the week spent in Maine turned into one of the best weeks of the year so far and I made some great friends. It was awesome to spend a week just relaxing and having fun without having to worry about when I was supposed to be at work, what needed to get done around the house and just enjoy being with friends. Friday we headed out of Maine and pointed the car towards Virginia, making it home in pretty good time.

So, I will be home for a week before I head out to Oshkosh with fellow ERAU student Eric. We leave the 24th and will be out there for a week surrounded by aviation. If you are headed out to OSH for the show, make sure to check out the Embry-Riddle booth(s) set up at the Air Show.

I left off saying that I just began intern pilot training at Continental Airlines. Now three weeks later, I’m writing to say that I’ve successfully completed that course. I learned a lot during training and enjoyed it as well. It was certainly an experience that I will never forget.

My first week, as I mentioned earlier, consisted of ground school classes and procedures training in FTDs. Starting there, I was able to learn some skills necessary to operate safely in a multi-crewmember environment.

When learning to fly small aircraft, students are taught to fly the airplane by themselves, as many require only one pilot. However, many large transport aircraft require more than one crewmember, in most cases only two. There are many factors as to why more than one crewmember is necessary, but mainly it is to assist with the high workload. There is much more happening in the cockpit of Boeing 737 than in a Cessna 172, as you can imagine.

Duties such as Pilot Flying (PF) and Pilot Monitoring (PM) were discussed and practiced during each activity. Many times the monitoring pilot will contact Air Traffic Control (ATC) and retract the gear and flaps on command by the pilot flying, regardless of who is the Captain or First Officer. However, when the monitoring pilot is diagnosing a problem, troubleshooting, or briefing an approach, the pilot flying will take on the extra duties such as ATC.

Many of our procedures, or how we operate, come from accident/incident studies and statistics. So before we learn an action, such as how to dialing in the altimeter setting, we study accidents and incidents where pilots failed to properly set it. By learning from the mistakes of those aviators before us, we can better prepare ourselves to not make those same ones. This proves that studying history is very important, even if its aviation history!

The remaining last two weeks I spent in a Boeing 737-800 Level D Full-Flight Simulator (FFS). I kept the same partner as I had during the FTD training and similar to that, we rotated Captain and First Officer roles. Each unit, of which there were seven, consisted of a four-hour flight session, with a two-hour briefing before, and a fifteen-minute debrief after. During each ‘sim’, we would each spend two hours in both Captain and First Officer seats. All of our flying, for the most part, took place in the right seat, which I didn’t think was all too different. Which means in most of our scenarios, the pilot flying (PF) was the First Officer and pilot monitoring (PM) was Captain. According to our instructor, it takes about 30 seconds to get used to flying in either seat; however it could take years to be upgraded from First Officer to Captain.

Tasks we learned and demonstrated in the simulator included (but were not limited to) Low Visibility Takeoffs and Landings, Stalls, Steep Turns, Unusual Attitudes, Engine Failures/Fires, Engine Failures/Fires at V1, Rejected Takeoffs, Go Arounds, Windshear Recovery, Hydraulic Failures, Precision & Non-Precision Approaches, Circling Approaches, Single Engine (Instrument and Visual) Approaches & Go Arounds, CFIT Training, as well as normal procedures and various scenario-based training. I felt that my partner and I made good use of our time together in the simulator, as we were able to experience many aspects that were not covered in the syllabus, courtesy of our instructor.

Now I’m currently headed back for a week at the Chief Pilot Office. I will be visiting The Boeing Company in Seattle next week and also will be relocating to Denver, CO for an upcoming company project. Such exciting opportunities! I will write about these in the next entry.

Over and Out.

Hey everyone! How are you guys doing? I am doing very well here, just enjoying the summer. The weather the past few days has been awesome, so I have been trying to take advantage of that as much as I can.

Not all that much is new with me, so I am sorry that this entry may be a little shorter than some of my previous ones. Work really takes up the most of my weeks, and on the weekends I like to relax as much as I can. But, I do have a few neat things that I’ve done recently I can share with you.

As my readers from the previous year know, one reason I enjoy working at airports is because of how unexpected things pop up randomly and without warning, and I have to respond to that situation and resolve it. Well, one such situation happened a few days ago on a taxiway that had been closed for construction. The airfield lighting there was not working, so several manhole covers and ditches had been opened or dug to try to locate the faulty wiring. Having these open next to a taxiway is in violation of FAR Part 139, so the taxiway had to be closed as a result.

That taxiway is primarily used for the airline as it runs from the terminal ramp across the main runway 2/20. When one of the airline flights called the tower for taxi, they were told to bypass that taxiway, but they accidentally turned down it instead. Because it was closed, they could not legally continue. The tower called me and asked what they should do. Knowing the aircraft couldn’t turn around and that it would be difficult to push it back, I expedited out to its location and just inspected the area to ensure it was safe for them to continue, and authorized the aircraft to taxi down the taxiway. It was a fun thing to do and everyone was very appreciative.

Then, this past weekend, a good friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a while asked me if I would like to fly to Block Island for the day. Block Island, for those who don’t know, is a characteristic New England literally saving 2 and a half hours from driving. I love flying there and hadn’t been there yet this summer until that day. It was a great trip and we had a great lunch out there as well. We walked around almost the entire island, too, which was a little tiring but fun to see everything. It was a good day.

I am assuming now that some of the readers here are now looking to join the Embry-Riddle Class of 2016. To those individuals, welcome! I hope my journal will help you with your decision. Please read back through my earlier entries this year and let me know if you have any questions about anything. If you can find any time at all this summer to take a campus visit, I highly recommend you do so!

Other than that, I really don’t have that much more to share! Sorry again for the shortness of this entry. I will fill you in further next time!

Take care and talk to you soon!
Pete

Hey everyone. I hope everything is going well for you and that you are enjoying your summer thus far. Things are good for me and I am really enjoying the time off from school. While I have been working a lot, I have been making sure to relax a bit as well. Summer is definitely important for that.

Not all that much new has really happened since I last wrote regarding work. There have been a few interesting moments, as always, but on a day-to-day basis, things have been running relatively smoothly, which is good. This summer at work, I have really been trying to learn as much as I possibly can so that I can add it to my bank of knowledge going forward. I do this primarily by getting involved in everything I possibly can get involved in, which is sometimes tiring but definitely worth it in the long run.

I mentioned in my last article that I had a good friend named David that owns some restaurant franchises. As if I wasn’t busy enough, I have taken a job with him on the weekends helping out with his staff and stores. This is not that tough of a job, but it gives me the ability to see David more often while I am home and to get to know some of his employees and customers as well. So far, it has been a lot of fun and it is neat to learn some different food preparation techniques than what I had learned in my earlier days of working in the foodservice industry.

Last weekend, I went over my friend Mike’s house for  4th of July fireworks. He lives right on the water in East Haven, so this afforded a fantastic view of the festivities. Also at his house were several friends of mine who I hadn’t seen since I have been home from school, as well as some of my other co-workers and associates at the airport and some new friends who I met. It was a great night.

A few days later, I went with some of my co-workers at the airport to meet with AngelFlight Northeast in North Andover, Massachusetts. My airport is hosting a large airshow in October to benefit this organization and we took the 3 hour drive up there to iron out some details with them. All in all, the meeting was extremely successful. They took us out to a really nice restaurant for lunch when we got there and during this time I got to know some of the leadership for the organization. They are a great group of guys and I look forward to working with them more in the future.

Just yesterday, I returned home from Florida where we spent a long 4th of July weekend. If you have been reading my journal, you know that my parents recently purchased a home in South Florida, so we went down to that house. It was a great family vacation. We spent a lot of time at the pool, but we also went to Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, the beach, and just looked around the area a bit. At this point, most of the house is decorated and it really feels like a second home. I really look forward to visiting again.

On the way back home at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, I noticed a lot of commotion at the gate across the concourse from my flight. The flight, going to Haiti, apparently had some baggage checked on it that wasn’t associated with a passenger. Because the flight is already considered high-risk, all of the bags were pulled off and an abundance of law enforcement and airport officials were on hand. It looked like quite a sight.

When we landed back in Connecticut at Bradley International Airport, my good friend Eric who used to be the Operations Manager at the airport I work at now was there working. Last summer, he took a job in Operations at Bradley, a much bigger airport. He stopped by the gate to say hi as I hadn’t seen him since Christmastime. It was good to see him and I am sure I will see him before I leave again for school.

Well, that’s all I have guys! As always, don’t hesitate to e-mail me any questions you might have.

Talk to you soon!
Pete

Hi everyone,

I have now been working for the Naval Surface Warfare Center for two whole weeks! Things are going great and I am really enjoying my internship. There has still been quite a bit of paperwork and training that I had to complete as a new government employee. Now that I work for the United States Navy, I feel an incredible sense of pride and patriotism. There’s a banner in the stairwell that I walk by multiple times a day that has a quote from Calvin Coolidge, “Patriotism in America is easy to understand; it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.” If the choices I make have the best interest of my country in mind, then I will inherently be looking out for myself.

For the past two weeks, I have still been helping my classmate run participants for her thesis. I’m glad I have been able to assist her with this process because it has given me insight into what all goes into conducting a scientific experiment. We often talk about the research process in class, but actually setting up the experiment, running participants and analyzing the data yourself is a different ballgame. There can be pitfalls along the way. My classmate had run half of the participants she needed the first week, but had to make a change to the design of the study and was forced to start over. I believe she is on her fourth week of data collecting now. She’s doing great and should be able to defend her thesis by the end of July.

The most exciting thing I have done so far on my internship is take a tour of a Global Response Cutter 43m. A group of people from our Human Systems Integration (HSI) department traveled up to Washington DC to experience the cutting-edge technology and innovation of this boat built by Westport Shipyard, Inc. We were able to get underway (which means we left the dock and traveled through the water) and observe the operators demonstrate its capabilities. Being a young, eager Human Factors student, my fellow interns and I explored the boat and were able to make suggestions and recommendations for improvement.

I have never really known what I want to do for a career, but I want it to be something where other people will think, “Wow, that’s cool!” This job definitely has that ‘wow’ factor.

It is hard to believe that summer is halfway over, before long I’ll have to be packing up for the drive back down to Daytona. Until then I have plenty of traveling to do before the semester starts. At the end of last month we made a quick day trip out to Minnesota, Indiana, and back home (HEF-RST-IND-HEF) to pick up a new car trailer before our trip to Boston next week for the Buick Club of America Nationals. Like all the other trips, this one was amazing and a friend and Embry-Riddle Grad (Kevin G.) was sitting in the front seat flying! We left out of Virginia in the morning and rocketed out to Minnesota for a quick stop before heading down to Indy to spend the afternoon. The new trailer looks amazing… it is a 2 car trailer able to securely transport cars to and from locations. With the new  trailer hooked up to the truck, it pulled out for the long drive back to the east coast and we were headed back to the airport. As we pulled back into MillionAir a surprise arrival passed overhead. What was it?? The new Boeing 747-800 made about a 15 minute stopover in Indy before headed back to Seattle, WA – landed, taxied back and took off. Not really sure what the reason was behind the stop, but it was awesome to be in the right place at the right time to see it. From there we boarded the plane and headed back home after a great day crisscrossing the Midwest… awesome to say we went out and back before dinner.

Now that we are back home in Virginia we had to get going on cleaning the cars up before the show next week. My dad and I started the in-depth cleaning on the 1987 Buick GNX. The GNX is a unique vehicle because it was the only year of production, only 547 were every made and this one…. only has 680 miles on it (yes six hundred). It spent its 24 year life sitting on the dealer showroom floor and then sold in 2011. After changing all the fluids and getting the vehicle serviced we began the detailing for the concourse show. If you haven’t dealt with old cars, they will fight you all the way to the end but when finished the car looks amazing. In addition to our car, 3 more cars are making the trip to Boston for the show. Our friends are bringing their cars from the 1930s and 40’s. With a total of 4 cars going, we are sure to have a great time and hopefully we can bring some iron home in the form of trophies. After a few long nights in the garage, we are wrapping up the cleaning and we are starting to wind down before making the drive to Danvers, MA (north of Boston) for the week starting Tuesday (July 5).

So, looking towards the month ahead… as I mentioned earlier we are going to Boston for a week then I am headed to Maine for a few days. From there I come home and then start preparing for the flight out to Oshkosh for AirVenture 2011. A friend Eric Florence and I are taking a 2008 Cessna 182 Turbo featuring the top avionics Cessna/Garmin offers for the trip. Like the other trips this summer this one is bound to be a blast – let’s hope for great weather. Between trips I we will have about 2 weeks to prepare and get some flying in before making the weeklong trip to Wisconsin. This summer is combining everything I enjoy… cars, airplanes, friends and, of course, the occasional Nationals game.

If you have any question about Riddle or anything else feel free to shoot me an email or Facebook message and I will be happy to answer the questions you have.

Talk to you later,
James

The long holiday weekend is here. This journal will have to speak for itself with pictures and a link to more on this amazing water craft I was able to tour as part of my internship:

Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division

Hey everyone. I hope everything is going well. I’m doing great here in Connecticut, just enjoying the summer. I’ve been working a lot, but I have also been trying to relax as much as possible and enjoy the time off from school. I think it is really important to allow yourself time to relax when you can so that you can re-focus your energy when you need it most. Summers are great for that.

Summers are also a good time to visit colleges. While when you attend the various universities, you may not see many students around, it is still a great time to go and visit as you are not tied up with school and the other extracurricular activities you partake in during the school year. I highly recommend visiting as many schools as you can now, so that your final decision can be made easier and more effectively later on.

That is easier said than done, however, as I have spent most of my days thus far working. Really, though, for me it is not work as I look forward to going in every day. When you do something that you love, it is like you never “have” to go into work—you want to.

My brother graduated from high school last week, which I find really hard to believe. He will be going to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service next year, a perfect fit for what he is interested and wants to do. It is kind of funny that both my brother and I will be following our dreams, which not all that many people get to do. We are very fortunate indeed.

The graduation ceremony itself was nice, but I could tell that it was sad for my brother as he had so many friends at school. Probably the most difficult thing for him though, was having to officially step down as Student Council President, something that he cherished the whole year and worked hard for. That weekend, we had a graduation party for him and it was a nice end to his high school career. Congratulations, Sam!

Things are going well at the airport, in any case. I really enjoy being at my “home” airport as everyone has a bunch of things that they need me to do and have saved since I went back to school in December. This may sound tedious, but I like being given specific jobs to do because of my various abilities above and beyond aviation-related work. Not all that much out of the ordinary has happened on that front, except for a few things.

For one thing, one of the Dash 8-100’s was stuck on the ground in New Haven for a full two days. It was probably the longest maintenance delay I had ever seen, but it was justifiable as one of the engines was simply not producing over 50% of thrust. The pilots attempted several times to troubleshoot the issue with a mechanic, but were unable to fix the problem. One of my friends was the first officer on that flight and it was nice to be able to catch up with him for a while, but eventually they flew the pilots home on another flight. The Dash 8 then sat there for another day and a half before mechanics finally came to replace the faulty engine component—in the middle of the night. They then decided to do a full engine run-up on the ramp, a few hundred feet from neighbors’ houses that already hate the airport. Needless to say, that did not go over well. Finally, the next day, the aircraft was flown out.

The other thing is on a much sadder note. A week or so ago, a 20 year old Connecticut soldier was killed in an explosion in Afghanistan. One night at work, I got a call from a charter company asking for an exemption from our noise ordinance to allow the aircraft carrying his remains to fly in. Of course, I authorized this, and volunteered my time on the day he came in to assist in whatever way I could. I ended up helping to lead the police escort off the airport and on their way. I’ve seen several of these situations before but it never gets easier. Seeing the family as the flag-draped coffin is unloaded from the aircraft is too much for me to handle. Rest in peace.

I was also in attendance as one of my best friends, David, received the Businessperson of the Year award from his town’s government. He is a franchisee of Bruegger’s Bagels and Jamba Juice and a very hard-working guy. He received a citation signed by the governor and a nice plaque as well. He really deserved it.

Other than that, I really don’t have too much else to say this time, guys. I hope you keep enjoying your summer. Please, contact me with some questions!
Talk to you soon,
Pete

I had the opportunity to travel with an assistant chief pilot on a B737-800 flight to Boston, MA and back. What was especially neat was that the First Officer was a former Newark intern. They both taught me a thing or two and gave me advice, which has helped me thus far in training.

Just before I left Newark to come to Houston some changes took place. United began operating internationally from the Continental’s Terminal C. In return, Continental began flying international routes from United cities. With these aircraft swaps also came additional routes; Continental now flies from Newark to Stuttgart, Germany. The inaugural flight took place a day before I left and I got the opportunity to attend the pre-flight celebration.

Since I last wrote I’ve temporarily relocated to Houston, TX for Boeing 737 training at the Continental Airlines Pilot Training Center. I’ve been staying at a hotel at the airport, courtesy of the airline. The experience so far has been very parallel to new-hire training.

So far I’ve taken two classes on the 737 Flight Management Computer (FMC). The FMC, also known as “the box”, is an interface found on all modern airliners and therefore a highly valuable system to learn.

I’ve also completed two Flight Training Device (FTD) activities that consisted of learning normal & non-normal procedures. For all activities I am paired up with another intern. In the simulators each day we switch roles [Captain & First Officer] to make sure we have equal amount of time in each seat. The first FTD activity was a simulated flight from Atlanta to Cleveland, with a diversion back to Atlanta. The second was a flight from Cleveland to Houston. Both flights demonstrated use of the FMC, autopilot, navigation displays and various other systems and components. The use of checklists and flows were practiced during these units.

The upcoming week will consist mostly of ground school classes. Crew Resource Management (CRM) and Extended Operations (ETOPS) will be the topics.

In other news, I travelled this weekend to Los Angeles, CA to visit my cousins. While there I got a chance to visit Hollywood! I saw the Kodak Theatre, Guinness World of Records, Capitol Records, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood sign, and ate at the famous In-N-Out Burger.

With each week being such a thrill, I look forward to the next even more!
Over and Out.