Been a while since my last update.  No time spent working on the plane since the last update.  As I neared my military retirement, I began to focus on spending the second half of my life as a commercial helicopter pilot.  I cleaned up the log books, polished the resume, and flew out to Texas to do a few hours training and take my ATP-Rotor check ride.  Simultaneously, this was happening:

Granted this shot was taken after getting $1 off from all the Christmas gift cards I bought at Kroger (yes, I'm a crappy holiday gift buyer), but still, $1.73/gal...  While this is great news for most consumers (although will be less great as time goes on and the OPEC shenanigans affect our global economy), it is not great news for a newly retired military helicopter pilot looking to begin his civilian career.  A large employer of helicopter pilots is the oil and gas industry.  Almost all of those companies are laying off, or, at the very least, on a hiring freeze.  Initially, I had hope that this would be a tiny, short-term blip.  That hope was dashed in the past several months.

So, one option was corporate America.  With a passion for aviation and a particular disdain for cubicles, water-cooler gossip, and meeting after meeting listening to the talking heads drone on and on, this was not a particular appealing option.  Fortunately, as poor as the civilian helicopter industry is at the moment, the civilian airplane - specifically part 121 regional air carrier - industry is the antithesis.  This is mostly due to the ATP rule that went into effect last summer which now requires airline first officers to also have an ATP rating - previously, only the captain was required to meet ATP minimums.  The regional airlines are now struggling to find pilots able (and also willing due to the horrendous - although getting slightly better - first year pay) to fill the right seats of their cockpits. While the majority of my flying time is in helicopters, I have enough airplane time - from part 91 personal flying - to meet FAR 61.129 minimums - ATP, airplane multi-engine.  The exception is that I do not (or did not I should say) have my multi-engine airplane rating.  Surprisingly, and for sure a sign of the state of the industry, I interviewed with an airline and received a conditional job offer before I even began my multi-engine training.  

December 27th was my last day in the military.  1 March is my official retirement, but I am on leave until then.  I scheduled the month of January to complete my multi-engine training at a shake and bake school in Florida.  Side bar rant --- a few days before heading to Florida, I noticed this beauty on the hood of my truck.  This is a clay packing from a firework that landed on my hood on New Year's Eve.  Thanks neighbor - whoever you were.  My truck is 10 years old, but I try to take care of it and keep it nice - hope to drive it another 10 years.  While only cosmetic, and petty to complain about, it did kind of wind me up - grrrrr....

Time to get into my newly dented truck and head down to Florida.  Someone did not want me to leave:

First flight - from the back while another student is flying (also a recent mil retiree).  Beautiful weather as can be seen:

I love flying, but would be lying if I said it is easy to get back into the studying side of it.  I better get used to it; I have a lot more of it in my future:

So more of that good Florida weather rolling through:

Gave me time to fly this instead of the real thing.  While boring, the cockpit procedures training is a good tool to save time (and money) in the aircraft - even in a simple, light twin.  Learn it here for free rather than fumbling in the airplane with the hobbs running.

Side note on the above pic.  It's funny how uncomfortable I was initially wearing the monkey suit to fly - especially the tie.  After 20 years of not wearing a tie, putting one on for longer than an hour here or there on a Sunday, etc, drove me nuts initially.  Better get used to it, as it will be the new uniform for the foreseeable future.  Hard to believe I felt more comfortable in all of this...

Setting off  on the  required long cross-country flight.  Warning: another mini rant follows.  Why on earth, as a commercial/ATP helicopter pilot do I need more CC training????  Yes, I know, because FAR 61.129 says so...  Oddly enough, even if I was a single-engine airplane commercial pilot, I would still need to complete this requirement.  Yup, flying straight and level for hours is way different in a helicopter/single/multi-engine airplane.  Nonetheless, a beautiful evening - dead calm:

On the way, I made it a point to use Jumbolair as a check point.  I had read that this is where Travolta keeps his 707.  There it is - tough life when all that is sitting in your driveway ;)

My destination was back to my home airfield.  Had to take a pic of this:

To match this:

Crazy to think that my little RV (along with my mil helo time) is what is allowing me to enter the airline industry - thanks Van!

While I had already secured a conditional job offer with an airline - beginning 1 February - there was another airline that had recently caught my eye that I was interested in.  Ironically, the second day that I was in Florida, a recruiter from that airline was at the school to talk to the students.  The recruiter grabbed myself and the other mil retiree and gave us a separate briefing on his airline.  Again this piqued my interest in that particular company.  After several days of waiting out weather, I successfully completed my check ride.  Unfortunately in my haste to hit the road back home, I neglected to take a victory pic with my DPE.  Without a doubt, he made the ride as enjoyable as a check ride can be.  Thank you for your professionalism, Pierre!

Arriving home late Sunday night, with my airline training set to begin one week later, I had a short window to interview with this other airline.  Due to the massive winter storm rolling through the NE a few days earlier, I wasn't sure if the flight would work out.  Landing in Dulles - snow, snow, and more snow.  As much  as I complain about the humidity of SE GA, give me the heat over this any day:

One successful interview later, I have secured a position with this airline and leave for training the end of next week.  As I said in previous posts, the RV-10 will have a significant delay in forward progress.  However, it is worth the delay, and I am excited to begin my new career in part 121 operations.  With the coming week off, I hope to get some time on the build and get one more build post in before leaving again.