Posts by Berck

I’m getting a bit lonely here and missing Joanna, but it feels like the end is actually in sight. With any luck, I should be on a plane headed to Colorado Springs on Friday evening.

Finally got our tests back from Friday. Everyone passed, and I did indeed get another 100%. One more 100% to go, but it’s a heck of a lot possible questions.

We were supposed to go work emergency exits this evening, but it turns out there wasn’t an aircraft available. So we went over the 10th and 14th stage bleed air systems, pressurization and air conditioning, with the hope of hopping on an aircraft sometime tomorrow.

I did laundry at Todd’s for hopefully the last time and ate too much Indian food. I’ve been trying to do a lot of studying this afternoon, but there’s so much of it, it’s hard to even know where to start. I think I’ve got a good basic handle on things, but there’s still a long way to go. And I don’t think I’m going to be doing much of it tonight, what with it being 8pm and class in the morning. He was nice and pushed it back to 7:30am just for tomorrow, so hopefully my alarm won’t seem so insanely early.

I’d forgotten how much I hate shaving.

I’ve got all 100 pieces of information memorized. I’ve taken the test every night this week, and scored 100% the last three times. I don’t think I could be better prepared. If I miss one, I just might shoot myself.

The more difficult test will be the 60 question multiple choice test next friday. I plan to spend most of Saturday studying. We’ve got a couple hours of class and emergency door pulls (where we go out to an airplane and open all the emergency exits) on Sunday. Even on that test, I only need an 80% to pass, which can’t be too hard. Of course, my goal is to ace it. Studying enough to get an 80% and studying enough to get 100% are two entirely different levels of studying. The latter requires some insanity, I think. But, I’m going to have to pass a long oral examination just before sim training starts, so the better prepared I am now, the better I’ll do for that.

I haven’t even started on learning the Emergency Procedures checklist, but it doesn’t look like that’s at all required until our oral exam. So Joanna will be helping me with that one:) Having someone to quiz you makes these things easier.

A local ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association, ie, our union) rep met with us this evening. An hour long presentation with a question and answer session in one of the banquet rooms in the hotel, with a nice steak/salmon/pork dinner. I went for the steak, which wasn’t burned, but wasn’t red in the middle either.

Our rep is, of course, a Mesa pilot. He’s an FO currently finishing up captain upgrade training. He confirmed many of my worst suspicions about how bad working for these guys is going to be, and even pointed out ways in which its going to be worse than I could have imagined.

To sort of illustrate how bad it’s gotten: our contract became amendable (it doesn’t really ever expire) in September. The union let management know in June that they wanted to begin negotiations and got no response. The company finally responded, but hasn’t let union negotiator-pilots on their union-required leave to negotiate.

I suspect I won’t be at Mesa when the new contract is finally hammered out.

And I get to carry all of them around with me.

but is this in English?

Each AHRS computer (AHRS 1 and AHRS 2) receives true and vertical speed from the applicable (on-side, either left or right side) air data system, magnetic flux sensor input from the on-side flux detector and compass compensation values from the on-side remote compensator. This data together with rotating piezoelectric accelerometer/sensor data is processed and output to the integrated avionics processor system. This data is routed to the TCAS, GPWS, fuel system and stall protection systems. It is also routed to the flight data recorder through the data concentrator units (DCU).

As one of the guys in our class asked, “So how many flux capacitors are in this thing, and where do we get 1.2 jiggawatts?”

Washington, D.C.
It’s paradise to me
It’s not because it is the grand old seat
Of precious freedom and democracy
No, no, no
It’s not the greenery turning gold in fall
The scenery circling the Mall
It’s just that’s where Mesa wants me
That’s all.

This doesn’t necessarily mean a whole lot, since training takes so long. It’s entirely possible I could get awarded JFK or or ORD before I’m done with training and I’d never have to actually see DC. But I won’t hold my breath either way.