Want To Fly?

Have you ever had the thought or want to be a pilot? It seems like a career that does not seem easy to get into, but there are many opportunities everywhere. Pilot training can be costly but there is a cheap way as long as you have a degree.

If you want to fly the military where pay for all your training, whether you want to be in the Marines, Air Force, Navy, Army, or the Coast Guard. If getting a degree is too expensive for you, each branch has scholarships that will send you too school. If the military is not a route you want to go, Many Universities have Aviation programs, University of Oklahoma, Embry-Riddle, University of South Carolina, and more. These programs give you a degree in professional pilot that opens the door to any pilot career.

If you are not interested in getting a degree most local airports, like Wiley Post, have flying lessons that can get you your pilot licence. It may seem hard to get started but who ever you call whether it is a recruiter, an airport, or University, there will always be someone there wanting to help you.

Social Media, Less Social?

Social Media is supposed to increase the way people communicate but has this technology backfired? People are still communicating though Facebook, Twitter, and even Myspace but are people actually socializing? To socialize is to associate or mingle with others. Would one really say that typing on the computer or through a mobile device can be considered as mingling with others. Since the "social" media has become popular it has allowed people to communicate to others without any effort.

Has this evolving technology tricked people into thinking that they are actually socializing just because they put the word social in the name. How has this social media convinced many people that it is okay to communicate solely through the internet. There are people who will still pick up a phone, send a letter through the post office, and meet up in person to talk but this will be even less popular if we continue to use social media as a primary use to communicate. This new social media really is not that social.

Reflective - Just Do Your Best

Everybody has a past, a story, a history that allows them to discuss their point of view from past experiences. To me the definition of ethos is having a history that relates to a topic that allows people to trust that the person speaking has an understanding due to a previous experience. Everything I do and stand for is because of who I am and where I came from.

One thing my mother always says to me is “just do your best.” My mother had ingrained a valuable lesson in my head since I was little, because to me doing my best means constantly doing everything to the best of my ability. When I do my best in everything ranging from school, to work, and even hobbies, it allows me to be proud of what I have accomplished. My father raised me to work hard and always told me that I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to. Together my mother and father taught me to do my best and instead of taking the easy route I should constantly challenge my limitations.

When the fall semester started I had been out of school for four years. Separating the military and transitioning to the civilian lifestyle, while getting back into the swing of school, was going to be a difficult. I did not know how I was going to get back into the learning environment and thought that my grades this fall semester were not going to be what I had hoped them to be. With continuing to do my best I surprised myself and I am proud of everything I have accomplished this first semester in college. I had some tough assignments this semester that at times made me regret picking a harder topic that challenged me.

My first essay in my English Composition class is an essay about information and communication technologies and I decided to write “Fear of Drones” explaining why people should not fear drones. I picked this topic for two reasons: writing about military drones was going to challenge me and with my past military experience I could better explain why people should not be afraid of them. My second essay was another challenge because it was an argumentative essay about political propaganda. I am not that involved in politics so I found this essay in general to be a challenge.

Growing up with a family that is completely against discrimination, to help my ethos in the second essay I wrote about racial propaganda "propaganda; good and wrong" debating how although it is effective, it is unethical. Both of my essays were challenging but I continued to do my best and I was proud of my essays. (To view my essays and get more information you can click on the title of my essay and it will direct you to my website.)

There were times that I did not want to stay up all night finishing an essay but I know that if the essay was not finished I could not forgive myself. If I did not get the grade I wanted and I have done everything that I can and I did my best, I cannot beat myself up over it. There will times that I may have completely forgot a small assignment and when that happens I may be a little too hard on myself, but that is because I strive for my personal best and cannot let mistakes like that happen. This semester was definitely a challenge due to the transition in lifestyles and going back to school. What helped me get through this adventure is that I hold myself to a high standard. If I fall short of what I want to accomplish as long as I do my best I cannot be anything but happy because I pushed myself and did my best.

Airline Pilot Shortage

There are three things that are going to cause a pilot shortage over the next few years. According to The Wall Street Journal they are: Thousands of pilots are coming close to their mandatory retirement age, a new safety rule that will give airline pilots better crew rest before flights, and the FAA mandating that airline pilot must have 1500 flight hours before they can be hired. The next few years are going to be tough in the aviation industry.

The mandatory retirement age for pilots per FAA regulation is age 65. There are many senior pilots that are about to be forced to retire. This usually would not be a problem if the FAA did not mandate the 1500 flight hour rule. According to the University of Oklahoma Aviation Program one can graduate with a Professional Pilot degree with approximately 250 flight hours after paying about 35,000 dollars in flight fees alone, not to include tuition at OU. Normally this degree program would not be a problem because the airliners use to be able to hire pilots with only 250 flight hours. It will be tough for pilots because it will cost them a lot to make up the 1,250 flight hours needed to meet the minimums for airliners. Aerosim Flight Academy post their prices online for flights per hour. On average a one hour flight cost 140 dollars, totaling the cost for the additional flight hours out to 175,000 dollars. The cost for flight hours may stop people from wanting to be pilots. Spending about a total of 200,000 dollars in flight fees without a job guarantee is difficult for anyone.

Effective in 2014 pilots will be given more crew rest before a flight. AinOnline posts that it will put limitations on how much they can fly and how much rest they are allotted for sleep. The new safety regulation will increase the amount of pilots that airliners need to hire. With Pilots retiring and the new safety regulation there will be a demand for pilots within the next few years, but with the 1500 hour flight rule there will not be enough pilots for hire.

Colgan Flight 3407

Colgan Flight 3407 is a well known plane crash. Flight 3407 was coming into an approach for landing and then suddenly fell out of the sky, crashing into a house. Every time there is a crash an investigation is undergone. The national geographic channel did a documentary about the investigation Air Crash Investigation Colgan Flight 3407. After the investigation was complete they said that it was the lack of training and fatigue that caused this accident. Family members of the passengers who were killed were not satisfied with just figuring out why they have lost a loved one.

The family members made a stand and wanted something to change. Congress decided that the Federal Aviation Administration will make a regulation increasing the minimum flight hours required for airline pilot crew members from 250 to 1500. Although this sounds like a problem solved but inexperience was not the problem in this case. The name of the pilots were released along with their total flight hours on the WIBV Channel 4 website.

Captain Marvin Renslowof (left)had a total of 3379 flight hours and his First Officer Rebecca Shaw (right) had a total of 2244 flight hours. The video went into detail and showed that these two pilots were talking about everything and anything, but flying the plane. The two pilots were both talking about how tired they were, promotion, and where they could work out of. These pilots are experienced but are not disciplined.

The plane fell out of the sky because it went into a stall. Correcting a stall is a basic procedure that is one of the first thing a student pilot learns. When a plane stalls the correct action is to increase power (throttle up) and nose down, to increase airspeed. The investigators found that when the stall warning sound came on the Captain did full throttle and pulled back on the yoke causing the nose to pitch up instead of pitching down. The First Officer followed her Captain and pulled back as well. This was an easily preventable accident that killed 44 passengers, 4 crew members and 1 person who was in the house. This is not due to lack of hours, since they both had way above the new required minimum hours. This is a lack of discipline and poor decision making that can not be trained or taught and especially not calculated by total of hours.

In memory of Flight 3407