Some of you may recall I wrote a journal on this site about a year ago as a freshman. Since then, I have completed my second year of college, now hold junior standing, and still pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Science. In addition, I also now hold Commercial Pilot certification for Single and Multiengine Land Airplanes.

For the summer months ahead I will be writing about my internship at Continental Airlines. I’m currently based at Newark Liberty Int’l Airport (EWR), working in the NYC Chief Pilot Office. During the month of June I will be in Houston, Texas receiving training for Continental’s Boeing 737 fleet. I am very excited and appreciative to have been accepted to such a program.

I applied through a link made available by the Career Services department and within two weeks received a phone call about an interview. The interviews were conducted in Houston and Continental flew me out there from Orlando. Upon arrival I was greeted by the current interns, had breakfast with them, and had some time beforehand to ask them questions.

I was told shortly after the interview that I had been accepted for the position. I was so happy to hear those words. Afterwards, I was taken on a tour of the pilot training center. At the end of the day, I returned to Daytona Beach to finish the spring semester and began working one week after final exams.

So far, I’m completed three weeks and I’ve learned so much! Most importantly I have enjoyed every minute of it!

On my first day, I got settled in at my desk and began some of my daily tasks. These daily tasks include distributing mail to pilot’s mailboxes or v-files, collecting and storing international flight envelopes, and various other office tasks. I occasionally get assignments from the Chief Pilot and the Assistant Chief Pilots as well.

On my second day, I assisted at a meeting with Continental’s Boeing 777 check airmen. Afterwards I was invited to join them out to dinner, where I got to meet all of them and ask them about their experiences and very extensive careers.

 While at Newark, I’ve attended some classes taught by pilots, for pilots, about common topics and upcoming issues. These classes were so neat to attend because they offered lots of insight about working as a pilot, and more specifically at Continental (soon to be the new United).

I got a chance to visit the operations tower at Newark’s Terminal C, which has a great view of Manhattan, as well as the ramp it controls.

After a week into the position, I travelled to Houston, TX for corporate orientation, where the other interns and I got to meet executives, including the Chief Operating Officer.

The following Monday, I returned to Houston again to take advantage of an Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) tour/demonstration. It was quite amazing to see how sophisticated their trucks really are. Interns at Continental are given opportunities to tour many facilities. Some of the tours I can setup myself while at Newark. But others are setup for me, by our coordinator, and take place in Houston. For those tours I can commute or ‘deadhead’ to attend.

As Continental and United merge to become the world’s leading airline, many changes are taking place. It is certainly an exciting time to be a part of this company! During this past week, I was in charge of handing out the new crew IDs.

The best part about working in the Chief Pilot’s Office so far is meeting all the pilots as they pass through and listening to their advice and stories, which are invaluable.

All interns at Continental are given standby travel-privileges. Just this past weekend I travelled round-trip to Geneva, Switzerland in Business First. All I needed to pay was a departure tax when returning to the US. I hope to travel to more countries and cities throughout the summer and I am very appreciative to have this opportunity!

That’s all for now!
Over and Out.

Hey everyone! I want to start out with a little introduction of myself. My name is James Dingell, and I am headed into my junior year at Embry-Riddle in the Business Administration degree program with a focus on Air Transportation. I am happy to have the opportunity to write for the program and hopefully give you a glimpse of what it is like to be a student at Embry-Riddle.

I am from Oak Hill, Virginia – about 20 miles west of DC, where I have lived all my life. If you have been to the area, you know that we have a ton of history and activities year round… which is great. Since I can remember, I have had a major interest in cars and airplanes. In 2003, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center – Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at nearby Dulles Airport opened its doors, and I was one of the first persons through the doors at a private preview. Since then, I began volunteering at the age of 14 with the Education Department where I did many events and activities with the public.

The largest is the annual Fly-In “Become a Pilot Family Day” where we have had more than 100 aircraft from all different backgrounds attend. At nearly the same time, I began working at Dulles Jet Center, a private aircraft facility at Washington Dulles International Airport. As a line service worker I was exposed to the great world of business aviation. I had known since middle school that I wanted to attend ERAU, but my high school classes combined with my work at Dulles Jet Center made me quickly focus towards Business and the business aviation industry.

Getting closer to graduating high school, I made it my goal to have my Private Pilot Certification before coming down to Embry-Riddle. After a long winter packed with cold weather and snow… July 20, 2009 came and with it came my check ride. Mission Accomplished! High school also brought with it a new look towards my future in aviation. I created Dulles Jet Management, a sales/management company that specializes in corporate aircraft. I have continued to grow the company, now listing a total of 4 aircraft.

My freshman and sophomore years at Riddle were packed full of memories that I wouldn’t have had at a different school. The first thing you will notice is the weather. It gives you more opportunities to get out and do things, even in the winter months when your friends are stuck in their dorms back north with snow on the ground. The friends you meet freshman year will become some of your best friends. To this day, we pull out our sectional charts and find a new place to fly to and explore on weekends. That is one of the perks of having a ramp packed full of Cessna’s and good weather (for the most part).

Of course not everything has to do with airplanes, aviation and being pilots. Daytona Beach has a ton to offer off campus. Being so close to the Daytona International Speedway, I have attended the Rolex 24 Hour race, Daytona 500, Nationwide Series and club sponsored race weekends each year. This is a great plus for me since I am really into cars and automotive-related events.

The Daytona 500 is a huge event for the Daytona Beach area. I was able to get a unique perspective of the 500 this year working at SheltAir Aviation – Daytona, the FBO over at the airport, where we had several hundred… yes several hundred airplanes ranging in sizes. Both working at Dulles Jet Center and SheltAir has given me contacts in the industry that I will have when it comes time to graduate, you will notice networking is a key to success in the aviation industry. Working during the Daytona 500 gave me the chance to see and meet drivers, crews and owners.

Over the past two years we have made plenty of trips back and forth from Orlando to visit Disney World and Universal Studios. My roommate Pete and I went down to Disney World last August and purchased our Annual Park Pass that gave us access to the Disney Parks year round. It is a great feeling to work through the week with classes and course work knowing that your hard work during the week will lead to a stress free weekend of fun at Disney World. Now, I want to say that I thought at first that having the ability to go down to Disney so often would wreck the experience – boy was I wrong, it takes me back to my childhood visit of the parks. You don’t want to sit around the dorm room and play your Playstation or Xbox 360 – remember we are in Florida… get out there and have fun. v

So, by now you are probably wondering what I do when I leave Florida. I decided to stay a few extra days in Daytona to finish moving from the dorm to my new apartment. My friend Pete and I decided to move off campus for the next two years. This summer, I have now returned home to Virginia where I am continuing my volunteering and work combined with several big trips. I didn’t waste too much time; I arrived home on a Thursday and was back at the airport Friday morning for a day trip down to Wikesboro, North Carolina with my dad and friends.

As I mentioned earlier, I am interested in cars in aircraft, I have several car and air shows to attend around the country. I will be in Boston for a week in July for the National Buick Club of America car show and Oshkosh towards the end of the month for AirVenture. A good friend and fellow Embry-Riddle student, Eric and I are flying from Winchester, VA (KOKV) to Oshkosh, WI (KOSH) in a Cessna 182 Turbo for the EAA AirVenture show. It is the first time I am attending Oshkosh so I am very excited. It will be a great week of camping, airplanes, friends and memories. Other trips include several trips to Pennsylvania and other states and several trips to Nationals Park for MLB action.

Well, that pretty much sums up a lot about me and my future plans for the summer. If you have any questions with regards to ERAU, student life or anything, don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail or via Facebook. I will be sure to keep you all posted on summer events and my travels.

Sincerely,
James Dingell

I flew to Nashville to give myself a mini-vacation and to get on the endangered species of a bird, the DC-9-40. It was pretty cool to get on one of seven remaining aircraft in the world. I got to fly one of four remaining DC-9-30s on the leg back. It brought me back to my days of being 18 years old, pre-Riddle and doing what I did best and loving every minute of it.I start my final chapter at Embry-Riddle on Tuesday. It is kind of scary actually. I remember walking through the doors as a freshman trying to find every loophole to drop out and go back to flying 7 days a week, but now it’s here and I’m not sure I’m ready.

I found a lot of people I care about here and people who care about me (or they would have let me drop out and not finish my education).Further, when I went to Oklahoma, I was surrounded by employers who were very impressed with my photographic memory of accidents past, specific safety-related events and ideas for ways to improve safety. So I think that my education paid off at Embry-Riddle and I will be put into a position where I cannot only say that I did something to help change, I think I’ll actually achieve it.

Speaking of change, Friday the 27th will be four years since Delta Connection Flight 5191 impacted the ground during its takeoff role. Within four years of the accident I will be a college graduate in the field that was inspired after this accident. I can’t believe that the time just kept marching on and I am four years older and wiser.On the 26th I will be flying out to Kentucky with a friend who works for Comair and he will be working the 0600 departure back from Lexington to Atlanta on the 27th. It will be a mirror of the accident flight four years earlier, but it was something he needed to do for himself, and he asked me if I would tag along for moral support. The one thing that we were talking about was how back in 2006, on the 26th, flying seemed fun, safe, and a way of life, but on the 27th we woke up, and it had all changed.

Editor’s Note: Waverly’s entries are posted on her blog, which may be found here.

I went out to Oklahoma City and went to the FAA Cabin Safety Research facility and worked on some interesting projects with airline professionals from all over the world. We did evacuation drills and saw that even the most experienced in the industry still have trouble evacuating a smoke filled aircraft. The fire exercises were the most difficult for me emotionally though. The flight attendant trainers made an interesting comment. “This is a step up from initial” I nodded and we talked to the FAA facilitator. She told us that this is a better simulation of an actual crash. I definitely have a new respect for smoke inhalation victims after doing this exercise. As I exited the aircraft and saw the light, and fresh air, I needed a second to recover. The rest of the night was a little difficult for me as well. The next day we did fire exercises to test the effective use of the flight attendant vs. fires. Later that night we all went into downtown Oklahoma City and did some of the touristy stuff such as boat tours and local restaurants. We had such as great time together. I would have to say though that the pool day was the best. The life raft drills were the best to show how flight attendants and passengers really need to work as a team to make sure that no one falls overboard or gets out the plane. I loved my “Crew” for the week and it was so hard to leave them. Luckily, I impressed the crowd with my ability to counter argue anything that was thrown at us by being able to photographically layout any accident or piece of information from research that was thrown at us. In the end it looks like I will have an internship lined up in a cabin safety-related field to better educate the future of flight attendants forever!

All I can say is sometimes you cannot help it, the action gets to you and you can’t tell the difference between reality and research or simulation. You start to believe that the events unfolding around you are real, the sounds of screeching metal, the smell of fire and burning furnishings, and the sounds of the screaming. You can forget how scary a deceleration process and post crash environment can be and there’s only one thing you can do…fasten your seatbelt!

Hello, and welcome to my… I lost track of what installment this was, but at least you’re here. As expected, I will recap my last two weeks with you so sit back, relax, and well… read my entry!

Just as any other week in my life, as if you expected any different, my schedule has been very busy with “things”! I will attempt to cover them all, but I don’t think I will be able to remember everything. Thankfully, my internship at the Prosecutors Office has kept me extremely busy. I have been able to experience some amazing things and I have to give all the credit to my boss, who is an exceptional person. If it was not for him, I am positive this internship would not be nearly as great. The format for this internship is definitely not typical. Since my boss is so tied into the Law Enforcement community, he has been able to send me out every few days on little assignments.

For instance, I have participated in three ride-alongs with three completely different law enforcement agencies. For those of you who do not know, a ride-along is when you shadow a police officer, by riding with him or her in their car, observing what they do for a shift. These ride-alongs have been invaluable for information and I have really enjoyed every minute I have spent with each officer. My appreciation goes out to each officer who allowed me to be with him or her that day. Although the three ride-alongs were great, the best one of the three was with the New Jersey State Police Marine Bureau.

Since I can remember I have always wanted to be a New Jersey State Police Trooper. As with many young boys, they dress up for Halloween as firemen and policemen. For me, every Halloween I was dressed as a policeman. In many cases, many kids grow up and realize they want to be something else. But, for whatever reason with me, I have been unable to shake the desire to be a cop.

That being said, having the privilege of being able to ride with the State Police was one of the greatest opportunities of my life. In addition to the ride-alongs, I have also been sent to a few training classes for law enforcement personnel. These classes include search warrants, emergency management, and gang recognition. These classes have been great for both educational purposes and networking. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for you, I will have to cut this journal entry short, as that I need to get some sleep for my assignment tomorrow, SWAT Training. Stay tuned and check in next week! Until then, stay safe.

I’m preparing for my last month here at MTU in Munich! The end of my internship seems to be the exact opposite of the beginning…I’ve got so much work! Now that I pretty much know what I’m doing with UniGraphics, TeamCenter, SAP, and all the other various MTU software that I’ve had to learn I’ve been getting more projects (mostly because the other engineers don’t really have to explain much to me anymore). I’ve also been trying to help the new intern in my office, Anne-Christine, learn some of the programs but she’s been mostly working separately from me. The FAA Audit is next week! Herr Schnellbach still hasn’t mentioned if I’ll be able to sit in like I sat in on the Pratt and Whitney audit, but I think I’ll be able to. MTU is crazy insane about security. I’ve been moving from workstation to workstation this past week because an engineer from Poland has usurped my spot and apparently he’s not allowed to sit in any of the other three offices because of the military projects they work on there. Being from the US does have its perks (though I’m not sure that I’d call this particular one a perk…). The type of work is pretty much the same, edit the drawings, create the programming files, analyze this data and make a presentation with your conclusions (my excel and powerpoint skills are amazingly honed). I think that I (finally!) almost speak German as well now. Herr Schnellbach and I have meetings every other week with the engineer responsible for collecting the data about the Process Control software MTU is thinking of upgrading to (I mentioned it in my last entry) and our second meeting was last week. A representative from the software company was there, and they both were explaining everything in German…and I understood nearly all of it. I was even able to ask some questions of my own (but I spoke in English…). Getting to participate in meetings isn’t a daily thing for me, but I love it when I get the chance to give some input. It’s much better than doing just grunt work. Next week the engineer and I have arranged a meeting so he can explain some things to me in English (I’m supposed to be helping with the decision process about this software so there’s a few things I need clarified…)

I’ve also been busy outside of work. I remember when I first came here I knew no one, and spoke no German. I’d spend weekends wandering aimlessly around Munich by myself…now it’s great that I have a group of friends at MTU that I can do things with on the weekends. Unfortunately I won’t be able to go hiking with them this weekend because I’d already booked a train ticket to Köln (Cologne), Germany! It’s my first time seeing northern Germany, and I’m stopping in Frankfurt on the way back! Köln has a chocolate museum, I so can’t wait. But there’s a bunch of summer festivals here. I was last weekend with some work friends at a festival in Olympia Park, so that’s where the pictures are from this time…I’ve never before seen a real Olympic stadium before, the field (and park itself) is massive. I’m really sad Chicago (my home-town kind of) lost the 2016 Olympics, it would’ve be great having one of these by me. (We have a giant shiny bean so it’s ok though). I booked my train tickets for Prague today too! I’m going the third week in August when MTU has a vacation week. I know about three words in Czech and this is the first time I’m going there by myself so it should be interesting…It’s strange because everyone at MTU thinks it’s really neat that I get to go back to Florida in a month, and I keep telling them that Florida is nothing compared to all the things I’ve seen/done here in Europe…

This past Saturday, July 25th, was my birthday. I took a train to Kaufbeuren to visit my family here. It was so nice to see everyone again. My cousin (actually my third cousin) has her birthday the day before mine, so we got to celebrate together. She’s literally one day older since we were born in the same year. We went to a nice place to eat and I got to see the town where she lives with her husband. I was speaking German the whole time so hopefully I didn’t make too many mistakes…

In two weeks it’s actually the birthday of one of my friends in MTU (the other American girl). She’s turning 21, which means absolutely nothing here where the beer drinking age is 16 (you have to wait till 18 for the hard liquor, sorry high schoolers), but we’re going to pretend anyways that it’s just as significant as in the States. We’re mostly likely doing a massive barbeque in the park, which should be amazing. More to come on that next entry…Tschuess!