Much needed update

Well here I sit again in Arlington, Texas, not the most exciting place in the world.

Instructing back home has been great and recently I've been flying more and more. Still, instructing seems to be quite inconsistent. For this reason, I've been looking at expediting my journey to an airline. Many regional airlines have been lowering their minimums because they are so short on pilots. My ATP partner, Jon, got a job with Colgan Air, and he has been trying to get me an interview. They aren't my number one choice, but I'll keep them in mind just in case. I was able to get in contact with a captain for American Eagle who lives in Morro Bay. Fortunately, we were able to meet and we talked about Eagle and what my potential was. He said he'd talk to the hiring people there and I also told him about a program ATP does where you go through a regional jet course and then an interview preparation course for Eagle. He said he'd ask about that as well. When he called me back, he said that with my hours, they would strongly recommend me going through this program. So after much prayer and consideration, I thought it'd be worth it.

So here I am, in Arlington, Texas, doing a week-long course learning to fly the CRJ-200. We're using a CRJ-200 FTD (Flight Training Device). Although it's not a full motion simulator, it's pretty fun to fly. Learning the systems, flows, call-ours, profiles and how to fly the plane is proving to be a lot of work, but extremely fun. Our instructors are current airline pilots, and the two we've had so far have been great. The downfall, yet again, is that I'm forced to spend a week away from my wife. But hopefully the week will go by quickly and I'll be back home. Then I'll probably come back for the interview preparation for Eagle and hopefully a real interview shortly afterwards.

On a side note, I haven't been able to sign anyone off for their PPL checkride. My brother is on his last flights before his, so hopefully I'll be able to sign him off. I have a couple of other PPL students which I enjoy. I'll keep you updated, whoever reads this.