Wow the last few months have sure been a whirlwind. I must first start by apologizing for my lack of posts and information over the past few months. Since this summer ended, I have been heavily involved with my activities and roles in my organizations, as well as taking a full class load, and continuing to work towards becoming a flight instructor. That being said, I guess I will start with some catch up as to what I have been doing. Since August, I have been fulfilling my role as the Chief Pilot for the Golden Eagle’s Flight Team for the ERAU Prescott Campus. The team has been well underway preparing for our regional competition which begins the first week of February. As the Chief Pilot, I am essentially responsible for the oversight of all of the team’s flying activities. It is my responsibility to create flying schedules for all of our pilots, ensure they meet the recent flight experience needed to fly, coach and teach members for competition, and prepare all of the aircraft for competition. On top of this, I am also the coordinator of the aircraft recognition event, where I teach members how to identify and differentiate the differences between aircraft for the tests that we take at competition. In addition to these responsibilities, I compete in a total of 7 of the 11 events at competition and have to put in a minimum of approximately 15-20 hours a week. As competition grows near, my responsibilities and dedication will increase exponentially. ERAU is hosting the competition this year, and approximately 12 other schools will be attending to compete including the Air Force Academy, Utah Valley University, San Jose State, Mt. San Antonio College, and several others.
Taxiing in one of the Flight Team Cessna 150’s.
Well enough about competition and the team, the biggest time commitment that I have had lately as an Aeronautical Science (Pilot) Major has been flying of course. I was recently hired by ERAU as a flight instructor, and have been working vigorously on my flight instructor training. In addition to working towards completing my instructor certificate, I am also conducting my “New Hire” training as they call it. This training is a system that is used by major aviation companies such as the airlines to familiarize all the pilots that they hire with the standards and methods of operation needed to work for that company. So between these two programs, I have had my hands full to say the least. I cannot wait to officially be given flight students and share my passion and knowledge for aviation with them! Also attached to this post I will include a video that I recently created that shows all of the flying I had the pleasure of doing during my multi-engine upgrade and the flight out to Oshkosh for the EAA Airventure 2013.
Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqa6DkZjH4g
