Network,
It’s bittersweet for me to announce that I’m ending my term as TPN’s Editor in Chief. TPN Senior Correspondent Will Graff is taking over for me, and I’m excited because he’s going to be great!
Why am I leaving? I got a good deal at my airline that ended up being a Conflict. (Yes, with a capital “C”). This opportunity offers decent pay for less work and increases my overall scheduling flexibility. It lets me work directly on a mission I care about, and opens doors for future opportunities. I don’t know whether I’ll take advantage of those opportunities…I love flying the line and working less. However, I’d rather have options than not.
I’ve been writing for TPN since 2015. Although the organization was able to start compensating me when I took on the role of Editor, most of the hundreds of thousands of words I published here were written completely for free. I feel like I’ve said a lot of what I wanted, and deserve a chance to try something new.
I still believe in TPN’s mission of helping each of you achieve your flying goals. I appreciate how TPN helped me land my dream job, and some great side-hustles. I hope some of my efforts here have helped you get where you want as well.
Will and his team of Correspondents are going to keep putting out great written content to help you. Matt & Adam are working harder than ever to expand TPN’s reach in your favor. TPNx this year is going to be, well, epic. The major airline players present will represent the best of the industry, and you’ll see companies that haven’t shown up at a 3rd party conference in years.
TPN has to charge for tickets for TPNx. I wish that wasn’t the case, but the cost of putting on something like this are just astronomical. (Seriously, my wife and I did two weddings and only spent a fraction of what TPNx will cost this year). I believe they’re going to make it far more than just the mini-interview meat market you see at so many other events in our industry. The education and networking will be top-notch. It’ll be worth your time to go. If you search here on TPN Pro, you can find several articles by Anthony Felix about how to get free airfare and hotels for the conference. You should be able to get there for very little out-of-pocket cost.
I don’t know if my new opportunity will prevent me from attending TPNx or not, but I look forward to seeing you there if I can make it.
I had ambitions of writing a few final posts, scheduled to publish automatically over the course of a few weeks. I’m having too much fun flying the line, building a fireplace in my living room, and hanging out with my family, so I’m going to leave you the cliff notes versions here:
Jumpseating – No Honor Among Thieves
I hereby declare that when it comes to commuting, we’re all on the same team. I don’t care what company you work for, or used to work for, or whom you love or hate…if someone asks to ride your jumpseat, the answer is an enthusiastic “Yes.”
When you’re the person approaching the Captain, hat in hand (at least at Delta), please do the right thing to make it easy on him or her. Shave your ugly face (unless you’re lucky enough to work at UPS, Allegiant, or ATI. Then I hope you’re rocking one!) Wear a uniform or a credible rendition of business casual. Have your ID, pilot certificate, medical, and boarding pass in hand. (The captain isn’t a tool for asking to see them. He or she is required to do it by both company rules and the FAA. You’re the tool for not having it all ready when you step onboard.) Treat everyone with upmost courtesy and respect. Tear yourself away from your phone and be part of the crew. That means observe sterile flight deck rules below 10,000, and at least consider chatting with the people giving you a ride. If you’re going to chat, plug in a headset.
Basically, keep karma on your side.
Should I Stay in the Military?
One of the first articles I wrote for TPN was: Should I Give Up Retirement to Join the Airlines Now? My answer at the time was, “it’s a wash,” but only because I hadn’t truly seen how good life is on the outside. As I’ve spent more time in the airlines and gained more perspective I can state with conviction that: “YES!!!, you should absolutely leave active duty as soon as possible!”
I’ll go so far as to say that there is almost no reason to stay in the military beyond your initial ADSC/ADSO. The lifetime earnings you’d give up by staying on Active Duty are staggering.
Financially, you’re cheating your family if you stay in.
Even accounting for health care.
Even if the pilot bonus were to increase dramatically.
And that doesn’t even address the superior Quality of Life you have after leaving active duty.
This doesn’t mean there’s never a reason to stay in. If someone in your family has chronic health issues, then you probably should stay in because the health care situation is just easier. Also, if you truly love what you do and you can’t do that job anywhere else, then you can stick around without feeling bad.
However, you can do almost anything you love in the Guard or Reserves. Unless you’re in an extremely unique opportunity, you should follow what I call The Ideal Military Pilot Career Path.
Some of the few military opportunities I’d consider staying in for include:
- The Thunderbirds or Blue Angels
- 89th AW
- U-2, B-2, etc.
- 160th SOAR(A)
- Test Pilot School
Other than that kind of thing, there’s no excuse. Want to be a General? Want to push paper on the staff? You can do all of that in the Guard or Reserves too.
Stop trying to tell yourself that you’re indispensable or that you owe anyone anything. Like it or not, you are nothing more than a widget to the US government. They’ll use you until you wear out and then replace you without a thought. (The airlines will do this too, but they offer far better pay and QOL in the meantime.)
You don’t owe America anything more than what you’ve already contracted for. You will (hopefully) be with your family far longer than you’ll be with the military. Prioritize them. This does not make you a bad patriot. If anything, neglecting your family to pursue a military career is one of the greatest disservices you could do to our country.
If your personal sense of patriotism demands that you serve longer, you can do so in the Guard or Reserves.
If you’re a young aviator looking at joining the military, there’s an even better option that I call The Ultimate Military Pilot Career Path. Do not sign up for an active duty flying slot until you’ve exhausted every option in the Air National Guard, USAF Reserves, and perhaps the Army National Guard.
This path can get you the military flying you’ve always dreamed of, with better Quality of Life and less stress at UPT, and get you a seniority number at a major airline years ahead of your peers.
VA Disability
While we’re on the topic of your expendability, if you are or want to be a military aviator please read the 4-part series I wrote on VA Disability for BogiDope!
This isn’t weak people whining about boo-boos. It isn’t bums mooching off the system, Lebowski. It’s part of the contract that the American people make with their military…and what is more American than two or more parties honoring a voluntary contract?
If you’re a military commander, you really need to read my articles and then start taking the time to educate your people on this process. Encourage them to go to the doc when they have problems and get every little thing documented. If they don’t, you are guilty of failing your people and their families.
Every single one of my military commanders, even the fantastic ones, failed in this respect.
Please be better!
Military Pilot Retention
The Air Force (and the rest of the military) is having a hell of a time recruiting and retaining pilots right now. The reason is that they’re treating their people poorly. Too much bullshit, not enough flying, too many bad leaders. Who wants to be an F-22 pilot if you only get to fly it 100 hours per year? Who wants to command a C-17 crew when your CYA-only OG will Q3 you for honest mistakes entirely out of your control?
There are two things that make military aviation awesome:
- The flying – awesome aircraft doing awesome missions
- Being part of a flying squadron – a very special environment you can’t legally get anywhere else (The next best thing is true a motorcycle gang involved in all kinds of criminal activity. At its heart, military aviation is about breaking the laws of other countries to murder their people and blow up their shit. The military must embrace and celebrate that reality.)
A lot of the yes-men and yes-women in the military are nodding their heads right now for bosses who think that COVID solved all their retention problems. Those same bosses think that airline hiring and pay are the only significant factors in retention. That institutional, willful ignorance is truly shameful. The military will never come close to competing with the airlines on compensation. If you think otherwise, it’s because you’re uneducated or bad at math. People would stay with lower pay if Quality of Life were better.
The worst military bosses harp continuously about how you’re an officer first and a pilot second. One fundamental levels, yes, this is absolutely true. However, any officer can be trained to push paper in just a few minutes. You can’t just toss an infantry officer or a submariner onto a flight deck and have an effective combat asset.
Aviation is an expensive skill, developed over years and decades. A 10-year pilot is a significantly more potent weapon than a fresh UPT graduate. A 20+ year Guard pilot is better than both of those put together. The idea that pilots should focus on administrivia before aviation shows a fundamental lack of understanding about what aviation and air warfare are. Hone your aviators until they’re razor sharp. Keep them focused on that. Yet ensure they have balance in life so they don’t burn out. Administrative queep has no place in that existence.
The only hope the military has for retaining pilots is to focus on, support, and advertise it’s only two strengths. There need to be commercials, TV shows, YouTube channels, movies, video games, and more lauding life spent in a flying squadron doing those missions.
And you have to actually make those two things the focus of every military pilot’s existence. Hanging out, talking flying and the mission, and having fun as part of a balanced life. Time to take care of your family. Getting to go fly awesome jets. Anything that detracts from those is a useless (borderline fraudulent) waste of taxpayer dollars and needs to be eradicated from pilot life. Chaff it off to enlisted administrative techs or civilians until your pilots tell you it’s too much, then give them back only what they ask for.
Some of this will mean people get rowdy from time to time. That has to be okay. If you’re part of those traditions, you can help ensure it happens without anyone raping each other or offending people beyond redemption. However, you must let them cut loose. It’s not unprofessional; it’s part of that culture. In fact, the best professional soldiers in history have always done that kind of stuff. Embrace it. Protect it. Find ways to let it happen safely without feeling like Big Brother is watching, poised to fire people if one little thing goes wrong. (And things will go wrong. And you must empower your people to handle it and get on with the mission.)
To the senior leaders in our military: I don’t care if you agree with or believe what I’m saying. Your opinion doesn’t matter because the realities playing out in your flying units tell you I’m right.
Progression and Airline Nomenclature
Every airline is hiring like crazy right now, and there are not enough pilots in existence to meet our industry’s global demand. Although the hiring process appears to lack some consistency and would certainly benefit from giving better feedback, you pretty much have your choice of where to work. At the very least, you get to choose the type of place you want to go.
Regional airlines are the worst in the industry, and will be the most desperate for pilots. They’ll never offer pay or work rules as good as anyone else. However, you’re better off logging multi-engine turbine time at a regional than flying smaller stuff or not flying very much. Be careful of flow-through programs and bonuses. They can be good deals, but they’re designed to trap you at a regional for a few years to help mitigate their staffing problems.
This isn’t to say that regionals are always a bad option. If you can get lots of flying, upgrade quickly, collect good bonuses, and not commute, a regional could be the right answer for you.
A great alternative to regionals right now is our industry’s bevvy of Ultra Low Cost Carriers (ULCCs). At a regional, you may fly 6 legs in a day, but if they’re all short you might work for 12+ hours and only log 2.5 hours of block time. At that rate, it takes forever to get enough hours to be competitive at a major airline.
ULCCs fly bigger jets on longer routes. You’re more likely to do legs in the 3-5 hour range if you’re flying an A320, B737, or A220. The pay and work rules at these companies are usually better than the regionals.
In fact, life at a ULCC can be so good, especially if it offers the ability to not commute, that many of us could be happy making a ULCC into a forever home. That said, those companies will never offer the same opportunities as what I consider a major airline.
(Some voices on the internet have made much ado insisting that “ULCCs are major airlines!” No, they aren’t. I haven’t been entirely unsurprised to see some of the people behind those voices moving from ULCCs to major airlines recently, in contradiction to the things they’d been recommending to others. Beware loud voices spreading hype in the guise of help to generate web traffic for their own gains.)
For me, the fundamental definition of a major airline is that they own widebody jets and do international flying on at least five continents. The pay at these companies is significantly better than what you’ll get any ULCC.
I’ve heard of some ULCC pilots who like to boast how they earn as much as a pilot at Delta. That may be true; however, in order to make that much money the pilot has to spend all month at work. I probably make the same amount of money, or more, working an average of 10 days per month.
When you hear people making this assertion, ask them how many days they had to work that month to hit that number. Then, call up a friend at a major and ask them the same thing. The difference will be stark.
Life is about more than money. Yes, you can make the same money at a ULCC, but your QOL will suck. If you want the best QOL and pay in the industry, you need to go to a major. There’s nothing wrong with staying at a ULCC forever if it allows you to maximize QOL. In fact, I have greater respect someone who takes a little less money for those reasons. However, there’s no reason you can’t aspire to and continue making yourself more competitive for a major as time goes on. (More on that in a second).
Based on my definitions thus far, there are 5 major airlines in the US:
- American
- Delta
- FedEx
- United
- UPS
In general, I also consider Southwest to be a major airline, even though they only fly the worst narrowbody jet in the industry. Overall, they’re a great company that I respect.
The size of their company is pretty close to the majors. They own more B737s than a lot of companies own total aircraft. They do significant international flying within this hemisphere, and could use the capabilities of the B737MAX to expand that.
Although shitty European and Asian ULCCs have repeatedly shown that the ULCC model doesn’t work well for long-haul widebody flying, if anyone could make the concept successful it’s Southwest. God forbid they ever decide to buy B787s and my company has to compete with them!
So, if you want the best of the best airline careers, you should do everything in your power to get to one of America’s 6 major airlines.
Required vs Competitive
Although the major airlines are desperate for pilots, they still have fairly high standards for hiring.
Delta recently made the news when they dropped the requirement for a 4-year degree. Many bad influences are now advocating young aviators skip college altogether and start flying ASAP “because you don’t need a degree anymore.” That’s really terrible advice.
If you look at the hiring website for major airlines you’ll also see that they require as few as 1,500 total flight hours including at least 1,000 hours of fixed-wing turbine time to be hired. If that’s all you need then it should be easy to get in.
And yet it isn’t, is it?
It turns out that just because you meet the minimums that doesn’t mean you’re competitive for the job. Just because something isn’t required, that doesn’t mean you’ll be competitive without it.
My union sends us basic demographics for every new-hire class. In one recent class, the average number of total flight hours per pilot was more than 8,000! That’s the highest I’ve seen, but this number is still normally above 4,000.
When you hear people telling you that you don’t need a college degree, you don’t need PIC time, and that you don’t need anything else interesting or unique on your resume, you’re getting bad advice.
Yes, on forums throughout the internet there’s always some dude who knows some guy who was in class with this one pilot who didn’t have a degree, or PIC time, or whatever. However, I promise that you have never heard the full story on any of those very unique cases. Something else made that one individual pilot competitive. Airline hiring uses the whole-person concept.
If you want to skip a college degree or some other kind of hard work in your pursuit of a professional flying career, then be my guest. Put in your apps, and if you get hired I’ll be excited to buy your drinks on our layovers. (My FOs don’t pay for drinks). However, you’re not allowed to complain if you hear crickets from the majors while you’re friends are getting scooped up left and right.
If you want to start flying before you finish college, fine. However, you’d better be doing classes online during layovers and days off. I got a master’s degree while spending half my life deployed in Afghanistan on a base where the only internet access was a shitty connection at the USO. You have no excuse.
You also need PIC time, and your flight instructor ratings, and simulator instructor or Line Check Airman at your airline, and seaplane and glider ratings, and volunteer time, and whatever other leadership or noteworthy accomplishments you can come up with.
Yes, this means you will have to put in some hard work. That’s how the world works.
This also means you may need to put some effort into making your own stars align. Toward the end of my time in the Air Force I realized that my assignments flying the U-28A (Pilatus PC-12) and T-6A had left me with a lot of single engine turboprop time and a grand total of 300 multi-engine hours. I knew I needed more multi-engine time to be competitive at the airlines so I went out and found an opportunity to get them. It involved a 6-month deployment away from my friends and family, and that was a sacrifice. However, my family has been reaping significant rewards in pay and QOL ever since.
Around the time I was getting out, I heard from a friend who’d flown the U-28 with me and was looking at a similar pile of less-competitive single engine hours. Instead of finding a way to get the hours he needed, he chose to take the pilot bonus and stay on active duty.
I would not have questioned his choice, except that he chose to complain that was forced into it. The Air Force had screwed him, and didn’t give him the multi hours it owed him. It was the Air Force’s fault he didn’t have the option of going to the airlines, and that was his big reason for staying in.
That mentality is lazy. He had the power to pursue different assignments flying something with two or more engines. He had the power to get out and go to the regionals, or a corporate job, or even just get some partners to go in on a Twin Comanche and fly his tail off. Plenty of other people from our squadrons and year groups took one of those options and are now flying at major airlines.
His family suffered from worse QOL and lost out on millions of dollars in lifetime earnings because he wasn’t willing to do what it took. The fault for that does not lie with the USAF or anyone else. It was 100% his choice.
Do what it takes to be competitive for the job you want. Don’t blame anyone else.
If you’re not getting the calls you want now you have two choices:
- Change nothing and continue ensuring you won’t get what you want, or
- Do something, anything, different to try and make yourself more competitive
I’m not promising that the new thing you decide to try is guaranteed to succeed, but it’ll give you a much better chance than doing nothing while you sit around and whine about how unfair your life is. If you’re out of ideas, read this.
Beware Complacency
I think complacency is one of the greatest threats to aviation safety. One of the reasons I only wanted to work at a major airline was that they have a variety of aircraft for me to fly during my career. I believe it’s important to occasionally try new things, to force yourself to learn and think in different ways.
I’ve flown with pilots at my airline who had spent 10+ years on the same aircraft. Sure, they knew that jet well, but their lives were somewhat stagnant. The threat of this is highest at the ULCCs who only have one or two types of aircraft. You may have no choice but to stagnate on your airframe.
If you feel this happening, do something to wake yourself and your skills up! Upgrade or apply to for your company’s Line Check program. If nothing else, go fly a GA aircraft. I promise that it makes a difference. I land significantly better in the B737 when I’ve been flying the Icon A5 or Fairchild PT-26 recently.
If you’re an airline pilot, you can afford a little GA. If you think you can’t, get some partners. Then, you have a built-in group of friends and an excuse to hang out with them instead of mulching your yard this weekend.
Complacency is a threat to you, your crew, and your passengers in the short-term. However, it’s also a threat to our industry overall. There are a lot of powerful forces trying to replace us with robots. I firmly believe our world is decades away from making that a reality. However, every boneheaded mistake we make out of complacency encourages them.
Please be better than that. Challenge yourself. Learn something new every few years. Take the time to make this a profession, rather than a job.
With Great Power…
As airline or military aviators, we get a significant amount of time free from the tyrannies of everyday life. You can’t mow the lawn or cook your family dinner from a layover or deployment.
How do you use this gift of time?
I love books, music, movies, and good TV shows. I believe there’s a place for consuming art and entertainment in life. However, it’s easy in our society to over-do this.
If all you ever do on a layover is sit around passively consuming content you’ll end up fat, lazy, and dissatisfied with your career and your life.
At the very least, take time to go to the gym, go for a run, get out and walk around, or even sightsee. Definitely meet up with the other pilot or your entire crew to eat dinner and enjoy a few beverages.
More importantly, I wish more people would consider using their time to create instead of consume. Every one of you has stories and knowledge that others would love to hear. It doesn’t have to be about flying…you probably have expertise in a variety of interesting areas.
Use the time you get on layovers and deployments to make something the rest of the world might want to see or hear or use. Write an article, or even a book. Learn to play some music. Heck, you could even start a business.
Putting your time to use in these ways will make your layovers precious. It’ll give you things to look forward to, and may generate some side income. It’ll also open up doors for networking your way into new and interesting opportunities.
You don’t have to be actively creating or working every minute, but don’t waste all your time in mindless consumption either. If you can find a balance between those two things, you’ll stay engaged and enjoy your career even more.
Emet’s Writing
For a while in the pursuit of my new opportunity at my airline, I’d convinced my new boss that I could protect the company’s interests while continuing my work with TPN. Something about having a history of protecting classified information as a military officer resonated with her.
Unfortunately, some unknown 3rd party saw my name on a list of people in this new job and complained. They own some type of airline career consulting company and whined that it wasn’t fair how I got access to sensitive information at my airline if they couldn’t get similar access.
For the record: I do not consider my work at TPN to be a career consulting business. I don’t own any part of TPN, and there is no way it could ever compensate me adequately for the time and effort I’ve put in to helping my fellow aviators. If TPN is business for me, then I’m the worst businessman in history. Also, I have no intention of starting my own airline career consulting or prep company. Frankly, I kind of hate that such an industry exists at all.
I hope the writing I’ve done here merits classification as a service for many of you. If you’re at all disappointed that I won’t be contributing to TPN anymore, you have that shadowy 3rd party to thank for it.
To that person/company: I hope I never find out who you are.
You may have noticed over the years that I’ve discovered a passion for writing about pilot personal finance. Thankfully, my new boss agreed that this writing doesn’t represent a conflict of interest, as it doesn’t use or require any inside information from my particular airline.
Last year I started writing a weekly column for Flying Magazine’s website called High Finances. I’m enjoying that writing and you’ll be able to find my ongoing work there for the foreseeable future.
If you’ll forgive another shameless plug, I’ll mention that I also wrote an entire book on this topic: Pilot Math Treasure Bath.
I believe that many of the problems in our country stem from people trying to live beyond their financial means. Yes, I’m asserting that we’d have less political infighting, less social strife, less pseudo-religious extremism, and less violence if people learned how to support their own physical existence.
As aviators, we make unbelievable amounts of money. Too many of us squander that money on meaningless things and end up no better than anyone else…one missed paycheck away from financial disaster. My book covers a lot about personal finance, but at its heart it’s about mindset.
If you can get onboard with the principles and ideas from that book, and implement some very straightforward habits, you will reach a point of complete financial independence in a shockingly short amount of time.
Once you hit that point, your Quality of Life skyrockets. You no longer have to care about how your company treats you, what this or that politician wants to put into law, or what the activists marching down the street believe in. Sure, those things affect you tangentially. However, you can rest easy knowing that no matter what is going on in the world around you, your family’s needs are taken care of forever.
At that point, you also get the freedom to spend less time at work and more time with friends and family doing other things you love. All of humanity would be better off if they had the time for these priorities. Don’t waste the blessing you have as a pilot. Be smart with your money, fill up your Treasure Bath, and free yourself from the tyrannies of debt and worry. Enjoy a better life doing things that matter to you.
My book has failed to make me rich, which is fine because that wasn’t the goal. If you want a copy, but can’t afford one, let me know and I’ll send you one for free.
Spending less time writing and editing for TPN will also allow me to focus on some projects that have spent years on the back burner. I have ideas (and even some drafts) for other books including: stories from my military flying career, some fiction, and even a religious/political commentary with the potential to solve the vast majority of our country’s social and political strife from a non-financial angle. I’m also working on a second edition of PMTB and an audiobook version. Keep an eye out.
Perspective
As a pilot, I’m an avid sport bitching enthusiast. As a chief pilot, I always said I’d know if things were going wrong if my pilots stopped complaining.
I believe that that my airline is the best passenger carrier in the world to work for. It may even be the best overall airline employer. And yet, there are still things here to complain about. There always will be. As members of pilot unions, necessarily at some odds with corporate management, each of us should always be working to improve our contract.
And yet, it’s important to keep our complaining in perspective.
Our industry, and even my company, are full of whiners who appear completely unacquainted with actual hardship. They act like even the most minor inconvenience is a unconscionable violation of their fundamental first-world entitlements.
These are people who live in a ridiculously free country, with earnings in the top 10% of all Americans, if not all humanity.
I have no patience for these people.
There is nothing wrong with a little difficulty in life. No matter how badly you think you have it, if you work as a pilot I promise there is someone on Earth worse off than you. In fact, the vast majority of humanity has it worse than you.
Appreciate what you have.
The pilots I know who seem truly unhappy in their lives and their careers are those who have nothing better to do than obsess over the constant injustices they suffer. Social Media only intensifies this unhappiness. If you’re stuck in this cycle, get out! If you know someone who can’t realize or won’t admit they’re stuck, help them!
One of the most effective ways to counter this soul-crushing mindset is a philosophy called Stoicism. For years I’ve wanted to write an article about Stoicism for pilots. Will Graff gave a good intro here, and I’ve been unable to finish a draft that did the subject any further justice. Instead, I’ll refer you to Mr. Money Mustache’s post: What is Stoicism and How Can it Turn Your Life to Solid Gold?
This philosophy isn’t a religion and it doesn’t have to be an extremist lifestyle. It’s easy and straightforward to apply these principles while still living a modern life. I promise that if you take the time to understand what the ancient Greeks were getting at, you’ll be able to find great joy in your career as a pilot. You’ll be able to endure (and perhaps barely even notice) the hardships that come with this profession. Then, you’ll be able to focus your energy on doing fun and/or meaningful things with your life instead of sitting around all day complaining.
(If you’re interested in a masterclass on this subject, using source material, the incomparable Tim Ferriss has put together a free, 3-volume set of PDFs containing letters from Seneca, one of the OG Stoics. He calls his collection the Tao of Seneca. Fair warning: I find these to be heavy reading. However, they’re pretty amazing for a free resource. They may or may not live in GoodReader on an EFB that frequently finds itself in my presence on long flights.)
If you aren’t into things like reading or thinking, you can also put your existence into perspective through simple action. No matter where you are, I promise that within 50 miles of your current geographic location there are people living lives that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. There’s probably also an organization trying to help these people that would welcome volunteers like yourself. If you spend even just a few hours helping that organization care for some of your fellow human beings, I promise it will cure you of any petty bitching you can’t otherwise shake.
Enough Already
I could keep going, but this is already too much for one post. Thanks for reading and for all your feedback over the years. I hope I’ve been helpful. If you ever get the chance to pay it forward and help someone else, please take the opportunity!
Though I’ll probably lurk here I don’t expect to participate actively. Part of that is letting new experts run their own show, and part of it is making sure I don’t run amok of my new boss or any jealous consultants.
I’m still happy to help and give advice. My new job will preclude me from being able to weigh in on certain subjects, but feel free to ask. I don’t expect to check my messages here on TPN Pro or on FB much. You can definitely find me on LinkedIn or using this form.
Other than that, I hope to see you at a pilot watering hole on a layover or at a GA airport soon.
Fly safe Network!