Aviation BS and Photo Thread

Figure on spending $60-$75k to get your CFII and finish flight school with around 200 hours. The next step would be spending another two or three years as a flight instructor in R22s/44s making $20-$30k a year while paying back the loans you probably took out to pay for flight school. Once you have 1500-2000 hours you’d probably move on to flying tours somewhere making maybe $35k a year and hoping to find a company to give you a turbine transition you don’t have to pay out of pocket for. After a few years of that you’d have the 3000-4000 hours required for the HEMS job you want but might not have the other qualifications they want.

 

Those are mind boggling numbers!

I flew a 737 internationally once - from Malta to Dublin. I wasn't used to such a small plane for international use. But, it makes perfect sense for smaller, less populated countries/areas.

 

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

 

It’s also not a long international flight, less distance than a cross country flight in the US which is common on a 737.

 

But it's Europe, so "international" is a little misleading. That is shorter than a flight from Kansas City to LAX.

 

I realize this.

The point was, it was odd to me to be on a 737 "internationally".

However, it was really nice to depart from a small airport - no crowds!

 

Ryan Air (European Air Taxi basically) tried to petition EASA (the Euro FAA) to permit standing seats so they could fit more people on their short hop flights. Basically backboards with harnesses. Shockingly, and thankfully for passengers, that idea was shot own. For a hop from Dublin to London, etc I could understand the logic though.

 

Makes sense from the airline point of view. The planes probably do not have a lot of baggage weight, so replace that with more bodies.

I wonder if all the backboards would recline at once? LOL

No thank you. Although, leg room would not be a problem. (Speaking as one whose knees live on the seatback in front of me.)

 

Thank god our company has a corporate account with Delta so I can get the premium/comfort seats. Even as a 6 foot guy, that extra inch or two really makes the whole flight WAY better.

 

Years ago, American added 3" to each row in the cattle car section. It made a big difference. I think they have since removed the extra space.

Since I very rarely fly in the front seats, I try for an exit row. Costs more, but the legroom is worth it.

However, I don't fly often any more - once or twice a year is about it. Not complaining - a couple of times a month gets old after a while.

 

The key is to drink enough that you don’t care about the lack of legroom.

 

Man, this would suck for business travelers in that some employers would surely insist that their employees accept the cheaper fare or pay out of pocket for upgrade.

 

Yep, most have travel rules. But the good ones get a corporate agreement so we get better seats. My comfort upgrades are gratis in exchange for basically having to fly Delta or American in a pinch. But i can inly book business if it is overseas, and not transatlantic.

My last job's travel policies were ruthless, despite building like 80% of the damn 737 we flew on.

 

https://www.boeing.com/company/about-bca/

 

Interesting.

The 747 out prices all but one version of the 777.

 

Just watched them pull a brand new UPS 747-8F over to the delivery stall a bit ago too. It's not every day you get to see someone pick up the keys to one of those things.

Edit: I find it funny that they have the 767-2C and 767-300ER listed. The -2C is the commercial configuration of the KC-46 before it gets handed over to us on the military side to add all the goodies and as far as I have heard most of the tooling for the -300ER is gone.

 

I fly SWA whenever possible for personal travel, but it's next to impossible to get approval for government commercial travel. I still don't understand that, but my God I hate American's Super 80s/MD-88s they fly from Austin to Dallas. I want Thanos to show up, snap his fingers, and those bastards all be in the boneyard.

 

My office yesterday. We just put in a new interior in this Legacy and upgraded the avionics and added wifi.


Evening return-to-service flight before handing her back to the owner:

 

Oh wow, that interior is beautiful!

 

A local planespotter emailed me some photos he got of me the other day...here's one of them. Kinda cool, I didn't have any photos of the Cardi in the air