Corporate Aviation

Some differences of corporate careers as compared to the airlines is that it seems like you become more diverse in the type of aircraft you fly, no structured schedule, and upgrade faster. As compared to the airlines where you only fly one type of aircraft with possible switching to another type of aircraft if there are positions, have a structured schedule and the airlines promise that you will be upgraded in a certain amount of time, but it seems to never work out like that. So just going off of these basic differences I would chose a career in the corporate field.

 

Do corporations need their own private planes to travel around? There are people who don’t think that the corporations should and they should travel like the rest of the general public. I think the images of the auto industry CEOs showing up to Washington D.C. asking for money to bail them out of bankruptcy didn’t help this issue. However, the corporations actually save money by having their own planes, because they can go to airports of their choosing as long as the aircraft can land and takeoff; and not just where the airlines go. And in the business world TIME is MONEY. So if the corporation’s management can get to more places without having to go through security or waiting during a layover than they are saving money. I think that the corporations are saving money by having their own planes.

 

McDonald’s back in 2012 was rated the best flight department. The department at that time was operating a Bombardier Global 6000 and Challenger 300 to get their executives around the globe in a safe, secure, and efficient manner. They were scheduled to replace the Challenger 600 with a Challenger 605 later that year. The headquarters is based in Oak Brook, IL. They have subteams that are responsible for each aircraft. The McDonald’s pilots log an average of 30-35 flight hours and 3-5 overnight trips per month. And most of the trips are overseas.

 

http://www.propilotmag.com/archives/2012/December%2012/A2_McDonalds_p1.html

NextGen

NextGen is a satellite-based radar system that is supposed to improve safety, capacity, and efficiency at the airports and in the air. NextGen is to be implemented in 2020. There is a deadline of January 1, 2020 to get all aircraft equipped with new avionics to work with this new radar system. NextGen will improve safety by improving the radar reports to the air traffic controllers with more accuracy instead of the current ground-based system with a 4 to 5 second delay. NextGen uses a system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), which is the avionics that are to be installed on all aircraft by the January deadline. ADS-B equipped aircraft will broadcast their position to air traffic controllers and other airplanes in the air, which increases situational awareness and safety.

 

NextGen Implementation Plan report had projected a reduction in delays by 41 percent by the middle of the implementation period in 2020. There are benefits to this new system like reduction in carbon emissions and fuel burned that are due to delay. A 2013 article stated that carbon emissions are projected to be down by 16 million metric tons and fuel consumptions to be down by 1.6 billion gallons. And that is 7 percent reduction in fuel consumption as compared to the reports for fuel consumption in 2011.

 

The FAA had first deployed the ADS-B system in remote areas of Alaska that has no radar coverage and equipped over 300 aircraft with the ADS-B system. And with more radar coverage for controllers and improved situational awareness created a 47 percent decline in fatal accidents rates with ADS-B equipped aircraft. That is a tremendous result and that is a huge positive, but with the downfall of this system is money.

 

I think that the fees and taxes should be applied to anything that is needed for the operators, especially for making them getting a whole new avionics system. If every aircraft has to get this ADS-B system, then that is a lot of money for companies like Delta or Southwest, etc. to switch. If the fees and taxes were going to make this system more affordable for the operators, so the operators would not have to raise their prices to pay for this system. I think that is a big question for the FAA, because one of their jobs is to promote the aviation industry, and how are they promoting the aviation industry if the airlines are forced to raise their prices to pay for the ADS-B system.

 

This new system will affect my career by possibly having to go through more complex systems training. Also, this system will help improve my situational awareness and safety so that there will be less mid-air collisions or TCAS resolution. It just seems like this system is taking a bunch of system that we currently have and putting them into one system. Which I think is stupid, because what happens when the system crashes and that is something to think about.

 

 

Links

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-international-news/2013-08-01/nextgen-implementation-update-signals-further-progress

 

http://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/11693826/faa-calls-on-the-aviation-industry-to-equip-for-nextgen-and-help-increase-safety-and-efficiency

Flying Cheap

The specific job that I would like to end up with is being an EMS Helicopter pilot for like University of Michigan Survival Flight after I get out of the military. According to http://www.med.umich.edu/survival_flight/transport/index.html they transport patients from accident scenes to hospital and other care facilities by helicopters, airplanes, and ambulances. University of Michigan Survival Flight leases 3 twin-engine Eurocopter EC-155B, two of the helicopters are on call 24 hours a day and the other is used for organ transportation. Also one of the helicopters is based at the Livingston County Airport 24 hours a day.

            The safety concerns of this job is flying in bad weather and trying to land at an accident with obstacles are just some of the safety/liability concerns with this job. How I would mitigate these concerns are to trust my training and my instruments as well as the crew that I am flying with. With the bad weather you just have to trust your instruments, training, and what you have learned from previous experiences. And for the obstacles at your landing zone, that you have to trust your crew and the ground personal to help guide you to a safe spot and if you can’t land safely at the accident site then I would have a few backup landing zones before I go out to the accident site.

            Professionalism is someone who has the skill or competence to do their job correctly and make very little mistakes or take unnecessary risks. The lack of professionalism in the documentary was demonstrated by management because they were promoting pilots to captain that had very little experience and hours that should not have been promoted yet. And the lack of professionalism on the pilots for taking a promotion, because it was more money and them not being fully aware of the consequences of them not being ready for the responsibility of captain seat. The two ways that I am would expand and maintain my professionalism is by continuously learning and trying to become a better pilot each time I go up and also if I do not feel comfortable with my skill in a certain situation then I would let someone take over who is more comfortable than I and try to help them as much as possible.

 

http://www.med.umich.edu/survival_flight//aboutus/index.html

Introduction

I am from the Thumb of Michigan and grew up in a small farming community where everybody knew everybody. I have always been interested in aviation ever since I was like 5 years of age and I lived under an MOA and when I heard the military flying around my house I would always try to find them and I always thought it would be cool to fly around to where ever you wanted to go. And with living under that MOA it is what else made me think about flying for the military. And when I was like 8 or 9 I went to an air show at Selfridge ANG Base and seeing all those cool aircraft is what made me make up my mind that I wanted to fly for a living and I have always thought about flying for the military.

As of right now I am thinking about joining the military after I graduate, but for the mostly I am usually undecided about what I want to do, because I will see something that I think is really cool like the Red Bull Air Races or seeing pilots doing some cool aerobatic maneuvers and I am always like I should do that instead, but for the most part I usually go back to setting my goals on joining the military. So I think that is probably where I will end up going. But I want to fly helicopters so I am thinking if I can get the military to pay for me learning to fly helicopters than that would be better than me paying for the lessons. And if I do go the military route then after I get out I am thinking that I would want to fly the EMS helicopters.

There are so many different avenues in the aviation world that I there are a lot of topics that you can talk about. And I always like to learn about different topics in the field. But there is usually on a couple of topics that I like to really learn about and the first one is the military, because I have always been interested in the military. The other topic is issues that are being addressed by the FAA, because I like to stay informed in what our government is doing so I know how the rules that they are making are going to affect me in the future.