Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career

Jason Harris attended the Air Force Academy, planning to be an attorney. Instead, after meeting original Tuskegee Airmen, he became interested in flying. He participated in the glider program, as well as free-fall skydiving five times. After graduation he attended Undergaduate Pilot training and then flew the C-130, flying four combat deployments in the Middle East. After his C-130 assignment, he flew special operators in Cessna Caravans on classified missions, often landing on unimproved surfaces, at night using night vision goggles. He flew seven combat deployments in the Caravan. Then he became an Instructor in the Military Training Department at the Air Force Academy and also an instructor pilot in the powered flight program. After two years he separated from the Air Force and joined the Reserves, serving as a T-1 instructor pilot at Laughlin Air Force Base. He now works at NORAD as a Joint Planning Logistics Officer. After separating from the Air Force, Jason was hired by a legacy airline, where he curre

From Skybrary In commercial operations, it is highly desirable that the most direct route between two airports be flown whenever possible. Where that route involves the overflight of extensive areas of high terrain, it is critical that escape routes and procedures be developed and used in the event that an emergency requires that the aircraft must descend to an altitude that is below the Minimum Obstacle Clearance Altitude (MOCA) (MOCA). In many parts of the world, aircraft are routinely flown over terrain that has minimum obstacle clearance altitudes (MOCA) exceeding 10,000'. In most areas, however, the relatively short exposure time to the high terrain negates the requirement for predetermined escape routes and procedures. There are several exceptions to the premise of minimum exposure time. These exceptions include central Asia due to its very extensive areas of high terrain. Avoidance of these areas by transiting aircraft could potentially add hundreds of extra miles to a given route and result in a sub

From the Phillips 66 website: As a 39-year veteran for a major Chicago airline and Line Check Captain on the globally flying B-777, it is no wonder Gerry has over 30,000 hours of flying time. Being a Certified Flight Instructor, former three-time US Advanced Aerobatic Champion and Captain of the Gold Medal Winning 1997 US Advanced Aerobatic Team, it only makes sense that Gerry serves as President Emeritus and current director at the International Aerobatic Club. Gerry is type rated on the Lear Jet, Lockheed Jetstar, DC-3, B727, B737, B757, B767 and B-777. Before becoming a Phillips 66 Aerostar, Gerry flew the Sukhoi Su-26m, which is now on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Gerry is a proud alumnus of St. Louis University – Parks College.

Here are some of the incredible black aviators we've met on this podcast: RFT 015 Brenda Robinson - Brenda was the first female African-American to earn gold wings as a navy aviator. RFT 017 Donnie Cochran - Captain Cochran was not only the first black member of the Blue Angels naval aerial demonstration team, he later returned as the team's commander. RFT 045 Dick Toliver - Colonel Toliver was the first African-American to graduate from the Air Force Fighter Weapons School. RFT 068.5 Karl Minter - Airline Captain Minter is the Advisor Chair to the Organization of Black Aviation Professionals (OBAP). RFT 073 Brian Settles - After serving in the Air Force, Brian flew for Eastern Airlines, then had an on-again/off-again relationship with several airlines, in addition to being an author. RFT 099 Lawrence Chambers - Admiral Chambers was the new skipper of the USS Midway when South Vietnam fell and evacuating pilots were flying helicopters to every American ship they could find. A solitary two-p

Megan credits her life’s passion to one day: July 3, 2015. That’s the first day she took an introductory flight at Sporty’s Academy (flyGIRL’s partner in crime for the scholarship program). Before that day, she was, like many young people, unsure about what she wanted to do with her life. “I remember walking away from the airport thinking, ‘everything just changed; I want to be a pilot.’” When she first heard about the flyGIRL opportunity, Megan had already earned her Private Pilot’s License. She spent most of her free time (and money) on flight training, even thinking about her paychecks in terms of flights. (“If I sell this account at work, that will equate to 5 flying lessons.”) She was so committed to achieving her dream of flying professionally for airlines, cargo, or a corporation that she had recently quit her full time job to begin training full time. Talk about commitment! Matt, her Private Pilot instructor, wrote a recommendation letter for Megan. In it, he describes her as a determined, attentive,

When it comes to aviation, there is no such thing as useless information. If you've read this story on my author website, you will read how seemingly useless information saved my life 50 years ago. A recent episode of Air Disasters highlighted the crash of Atlantic Airways Flight 670. In that accident, the BAE-146 aircraft was attempting to land with a slight tailwind on a short damp runway which had a major drop-off at each end. The airplane was unable to stop, and went off the end of the runway into a ravine and burst into flames. Four of the 16 passengers lost their lives. The accident board found that, when the spoilers failed to extend upon landing, the Captain selected the emergency brakes. A relatively innocuous entry into the airplane flight manual notes that when the emergency brakes are engaged, the anti-skid system is deactivated. What you may remember from your studies is the phenomenon of reverted rubber hydroplaning. When a lock tire skids over a damp surface, it heats up and the heat turns th

From Ric's Website: Ric Hunter is a 27-year combat veteran of the Air Force; he retired as a colonel. He has 4000 flight hours in high-performance aircraft including the F-4 Phantom and F-15C Eagle. He commanded an Eagle squadron and was a 3-time Top Gun. After active duty service, Ric became a freelance writer/photographer for magazine feature articles in aviation, and hunting and fishing magazines. He was founder and president of the Panama City, Florida, Writers Association. After attacks on 9-11-01, he returned to serve his country once again as a civil servant for eight years. He took over world-wide program management of the Air Force’s 50-million dollar fighter aircraft flight simulator program, thus freeing young pilot staff officers to return to cockpit duties for the war on terror. Ric recently completed FIREHAMMER, an historical fiction novel, based on a true story, that puts the reader in the cockpit of an F-4 aircraft during evacuation of Saigon and then in the last battle of the Vietnam War,

From the LeRoy Homer, Jr. Foundation Website: LeRoy Homer was a soft spoken man with an ever-present smile; his friends described him as having a heart of gold. He grew up as one of nine children, seven of them girls. LeRoy had dreamed of flying since he was a young boy. As a child he assembled model airplanes, read every book he could find on aviation, and at fifteen began flying lessons. He completed his first solo flight at 16 and by the time he entered the US Air Force Academy, he had a private pilot license. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy and then began his military career flying C-141s. He served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm and received commendation for flying humanitarian operations in Somalia, an assignment that put his life at risk. During his active service in the US Airforce, LeRoy achieved the rank of Captain and later became a Major after he entered the US Airforce Reserves. In 1995, LeRoy joined United Airlines. It was that same year that LeRoy met Melodie, his future wife. Int

Allyssa is a successful salon owner. She was initially not interested in fixed-wing flying - she wanted to fly helicopters. A family friend invited her to go along with him in his Cessna 150, so she went along. What started out as a few trips around the pattern on a Friday turned into a three-hour flight, and Allyssa signed up for flying lessons the next Monday! She scheduled three lessons a week, and received her Private certificate in about six months. Six months ago she purchased half ownership in a Piper Cherokee 160, which she keeps in a T-hangar. She discovered that there are occasional maintenance issues involved in owning an airplane, so there may be occasional times when she wanted to fly and a maintenance issue prevented flying. Allyssa flew her plane to Oshkosh with only 85 hours, and read all 30 pages of NOTAMS before takeoff! Once there, s he slept under the wing, the way REAL pilots do it!

From CBS News: For the first time, a new network of satellites will soon be able to track all commercial airplanes in real time, anywhere on the planet. Currently, planes are largely tracked by radar on the ground, which doesn’t work over much of the world’s oceans. The final 10 satellites were launched Friday to wrap up the $3 billion effort to replace 66 aging communication satellites, reports CBS News’ Kris Van Cleave, who got an early look at the new technology. On any given day, 43,000 planes are in the sky in America alone. When these planes take off, they are tracked by radar and are equipped with a GPS transponder. All commercial flights operating in the U.S. and Europe have to have them by 2020. It’s that transponder that talks to these new satellites, making it possible to know exactly where more than 10,000 flights currently flying are. Tucked inside the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that was blasted into space on Friday are 10 advanced Iridium Communications satellites, each the size of a Mini Cooper. On

Charles Doryland was an Eagle scout who attended West Point, intending to be an Infantry officer. During his senior year, while walking to the hospital to take his commissioning physical, he went to the Air Force line, thinking that he could choose either the Army or the Air Force. He passed his physical, and was offered a pilot training slot. He ended up flying F-86s after pilot training, then B-47s. Then he was selected for Test Pilot School, and was subsequently stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Later, after attending graduate school, he was assigned to Edwards Air Force Base. Charles was the pilot of "Balls Eight", B-52 number 8, on flights carrying the X-15s on their journeys into space. He volunteered to fly RF-4s in Vietnam, and achieved 100 missions over North Vietnam in five months, then served in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. Charles went back to graduate school for his Doctorate, and taught at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). Following his retirement from the Air Force h

  Increased navigational accuracy can place several aircraft on the same course in the same lateral position Strategic lateral offset procedure (SLOP) is a solution to a byproduct of increased navigation accuracy in aircraft. Because most now use GPS, aircraft track flight routes with extremely high accuracy. As a result, if an error in height occurs, there is a much higher chance of collision. SLOP allows aircraft to offset the centreline of an airway or flight route by a small amount, normally to the right, so that collision with opposite direction aircraft becomes unlikely. In the North Atlantic Region pilots are expected to fly along the oceanic track center-line or 1 or 2 nautical miles to its right, randomly choosing one of these three offsets on each entry to oceanic airspace. The aim is to not achieve an overall even distribution of one-third of all flights on each of the three possible tracks, as one might assume. When the procedure was originally developed, 4.9 percent of aircraft in most oceans cou

From Natalie's website: The flyGIRL mission is to encourage and inspire women and young girls to open their hearts and minds to their potential. We want every girl and woman to dream big, aim high, and fly! Natalie Kelley launched flyGIRL after she earned her pilot’s license. The experience of pushing her own boundaries, challenging herself, and succeeding as a woman in a male-dominated industry completely changed Natalie’s life. She gained confidence and a sense of independence that she had forgotten in adulthood. With her own money, Natalie launched flyGIRL and self-funded the first $5,000 flyGIRL Scholarship to finance a portion of the cost to send another woman to pilot training. Today, flyGIRL has helped dozens of young women explore their potential and change their lives through scholarships, a supportive network, motivational articles and speaking engagements. Contact flyGIRL to learn how to bring our mission to your organization, community, or school!

From Wikipedia: An engineered materials arrestor system, engineered materials arresting system (EMAS), or arrester bed is a bed of engineered materials built at the end of a runway to reduce the severity of the consequences of a runway excursion. Engineered materials are defined in FAA Advisory Circular No 150/5220-22B as "high energy absorbing materials of selected strength, which will reliably and predictably crush under the weight of an aircraft". While the current technology involves lightweight, crushable concrete blocks, any material that has been approved to meet the FAA Advisory Circular can be used for an EMAS. The purpose of an EMAS is to stop an aircraft overrun with no human injury and minimal aircraft damage. The aircraft is slowed by the loss of energy required to crush the EMAS material. An EMAS is similar in concept to the runaway truck ramp made of gravel or sand. It is intended to stop an aircraft that has overshot a runway when there is an insufficient free space for a standard runway safe

The road to becoming an airline Captain starts long before you get hired by an airline. You should start planning on earning the left seat in the same way you plan a cross-country flight: SELECT YOUR DESTINATION. This might be the left seat of an airliner, a business jet, crop-duster, whatever. Know where you want to go, and, just like on a cross-country flight, you may have to divert around unexpected weather or even land at an alternate. CHECK THE WEATHER. Be aware of conditions along your route and at your destination, and be sure to check NOTAMS. In this case, learn about hazards along your route and be ready to change destinations (airlines) if conditions aren't favorable. CHECK THE DESTINATION FACILITIES. Just like knowing your airport destination runway lengths and widths, elevation and available services, you should know what the airline expects of its pilots. Specifically, airlines are VERY conservative, and plan ahead to not have ear-rings for men, visible tattoos, or extreme appearance. Get that d

Visual illusions are familiar to most of us. As children, we learned that railroad tracks—contrary to what our eyes showed us—don’t come to a point at the horizon. Aerial Perspective Illusions may make you change (increase or decrease) the slope of your final approach. They are caused by runways with different widths, upsloping ordownsloping runways, and upsloping or downslop ing final approach terrain. Pilots learn to recognize a normal final approach by developing and recalling a mental image of the expected relationship between the length and the width of an average runway. A final approach over a flat terrain with an upsloping runway may produce the visual illusion of a high-altitude final approach. If you believe this illusion, you may respond by pitching the aircraft nose down to decrease the altitude, which, if performed too close to the ground, may result in an accident. A final approach over a flat terrain with a downsloping runway may produce the visual illusion of a low-altitude final approach. If

Taught to fly in high school by his father, a combat-decorated Air Force pilot, Greg has gone on to fly professionally in aircraft ranging from crop dusters to corporate aircraft to airliners and has piloted more than 50 aircraft types (and counting).  His immediate family includes pilots for the Air Force, Navy, Army, and airlines, as well as a NASA Space Shuttle Commander.  What another company might refer to as a board of aviation experts, the Bristol founder just calls the dinner table. 

The first step in planning your cross-country VFR flight is to check departure, enroute and destination weather to confirm that you can safely, and legally, conduct the flight. Remember, VFR weather is 1000/3 and you must remain at least 500 feet below, 1000 feet above, and 2000 feet laterally from clouds. Now, mark your departure airport and your destination on your sectional aeronautical chart. Consult the Airport Facility Directory for both airports to determine runways and other airport information. Check NOTAMS for both airports to see if there are any changes to the Directory information. Now, use your plotter to draw a straight line between the departure and destination. You may need to alter the course around restricted airspace and other areas you need to avoid. Place your plotter on the course line you have drawn and measure the course with respect to true north by measuring at the mid-meridian - the true north line closest to the middle of your route. The reason for this is that the meridians conve

From Jeff's website (http://berlincreative.com/aviation/):  Jeff Berlin began his creative career chasing models down the streets of New York City… with a camera. They knew he was there, it was cool. He liked this so much he spent five years shooting in Milan and Paris before moving back to NYC to continue his career. Over the years, he’s collaborated with top fashion magazines and brands like Vogue Italia, L’Oreal, British Elle, Estée Lauder, Esquire, Bloomingdale’s, Miss Vogue, Macy’s, Vogue Pelle, Madame Figaro and many others. Recently, Jeff transitioned to motion pictures. He was producer and camera operator on the feature film Three Days in August, which played at multiple film festivals and ran in select theaters nationwide. It’s now available on major streaming platforms. Jeff has both shot and directed an online spot for the Professional Bull Riders (PBR), a fashion brand film for noted designer Norma Kamali, as well as a number of short films and online spots for Sony. His latest film project, Storm

Before you brief your instrument approach, WAIT! W - obtain the Weather, typically from ATIS, and confirm that it is suitable for your approach. A - perform your Approach Checklist I - set up your Instruments for the approach, and load it into the FMS T - now Talk about the approach Confirm you are on the correct approach page. Confirm the proper localizer frequency and approach course are entered into the FMS/navigation system. Confirm the airport elevation and runway elevation. Verify your flight path to the final approach course. Confirm the glide path angle. A normal glide path is 3 degrees. Confirm the minimum safe altitude and any obstructions. Confirm the Outer Marker or Final Approach Fix crossing altitude. Confirm the Decision Height or Minimum Descent Altitude. Brief the Missed Approach. Brief the runway exit plan.