I was supposed to start IOE on Monday, but that didn’t happen. I did manage to start on Tuesday.

My IOE instructor was exactly the sort of guy you want teaching IOE—he’s the most senior guy on the airplane, been with the company for years, very knowledgeable, by-the-book, and patient. He had me fly the very first leg.

Takeoff wasn’t terribly smooth, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. The plane feels a lot like flying a very heavy Cessna 182. It’s twitchy in pitch, but very slow to respond in roll. I’d brought my leather jacket with me for some silly reason, despite the fact that it was well over 90ºF in Arizona. The plane wasn’t cooling very well at all, though my instructor insisted that wasn’t normal. The ILS was out of service is Tuscon, but it was a clear day and we had the field in sight from pretty far out. The Dash flies slow enough, that I immediately felt a lot more comfortable on the approach than I ever did on a visual in the jet. In the jet, I was constantly convinced I was going to screw it up, and everything was so twitchy. I had no trouble hand-flying the Dash all the way in. We started off impossibly high—had we been in the jet, we would have needed to go around. No problem in the Dash. Pull the power back, put the gear down, the props at full speed and it comes right down. I had to add power in no time to keep from getting slow.

Everyone says the plane is very hard to land. The landing gear are like giant stilts, and they don’t give at all. My instructor talked me through the landing. It’s strange because we fly the Dash at 120 knots on approach, even though the ref speed might be as slow as 85. At 200 feet, I pulled the power back to around 12% torque and held it off the runway until it wanted to land, but still pretty flat, just like he told me to do. It rolled right on, just like I knew what I was doing.

The flight attendant was astounded that it was my landing and congratulated me on it. I also flew the leg back to PHX from TUS, then my instructor flew the last leg which took us to Yuma for an overnight.

The hotel in Yuma had a “social hour” where they served free beer. I had my free beer, then managed to go straight to sleep, even though the sun was still up. This proved fortunate, since I had to wake up at 4am the next morning to start my 5 leg day.

As we were preflighting the plane, my captain’s telephone rang. It was crew tracking, notifying us that the 4 legs after we returned to Phoenix would be downgraded to a jet. The flight attendant still worked them, and they had nothing else for me to do.

So I flew us back PHX and had another good landing. I’d just missed a flight to COS, and the next one wasn’t leaving for hours, so I rode Southwest back to DEN where Jonah picked me up. In 3 days I wound up with a little more than 4 hours of flight time, and spent nearly twice that going back and forth to PHX. I should be done with PHX flying unless they send me out there on reserve or I voluntarily pick up a trip.

I had Thursday off, and went back to work on Friday. For the first time in my airline pilot career, I drove to work! That was terribly exciting. I parked in the employee lot, rode the bus directly to the concourse and didn’t even have to go through security. I did have to spend some time getting my fingerprints in the system.

I found my airplane, and an older male flight attendant was stocking the galley. I introduced myself, and started a preflight. I was completely unable to get the power cart to supply power to the airplane, but I felt a bit better when none of the rampers could help me either. My Captain eventually showed up, and another ramper figured out how to get the power cart going.

I have to do paper weight and balance on the Dash. It’s probably good for me to add up some numbers now and again. On the jets in JFK I also had to do a paper weight and balance, but I only had to add up 3 numbers at once. Now I have to do 6.

The flight to Jackson Hole from Denver yesterday was excellent. The skies were mostly clear with a thin cirrus layer somewhere above us. We were cruising at 24,000, which means the view is a lot better than in the jet at 34,000 feet. There was the occasional small puffy cumulus cloud below us, casting shadows on the snow-covered Rockies. I’d left my camera in my bag which was in a closet on the other side of the flight deck door, so I didn’t get any pictures.

We’re staying at the Snow King Resort in Jackson Hole, WY. I feel at home in the west. I don’t feel terribly out of place wandering around with BDU’s and flannel shirt. My captain and I got lunch and beer at the Snake River Brewery. The beer was okay, but the buffalo burger was excellent. After happy hour ended, we were going back to the hotel, but the captain talked me into stopping by another bar, 43º North. Despite being a Friday night, it was pretty dead. Jackson Hole is busy during the ski season, which is over now, and the summer tourist season, which hasn’t started yet. We left after a live band started playing “soul/funk” covers. The singer was the only black member of the band. In fact, he was the only black person in the entire bar. Maybe the entire city. So it was funny watching him sing, “Play that Funky Music White Boy.”

I walked back into town this morning in search of breakfast. I didn’t see anything promising until I turned down a street and started meandering back to the hotel. It was a very small establishment with no indoor seating, but some seating outdoors, and a window at which to order. I paid $5 for an absolutely wonderful breakfast burrito. Eggs, fried potatoes, several kinds of meat, several kinds of cheese, peppers, and who knows what else. The name of the place is “D.O.G.” which stands for “Down on Glen”. I’ll definitely go back.

I’m off to DEN and then Gillette, WY now…. Supposedly one of the least favorite DEN overnights.