From The Flight Deck (eBook)

Plane Talk And Sky Science

Doug Morris (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2011 | 1. Auflage
184 Seiten
ECW Press (Verlag)
978-1-55490-765-6 (ISBN)

Infos

The ultimate flying companion, perfect for informing the aviation enthusiast and calming the fearful flier. From the Flight Deck explains everthing a reader could want to know about commercial airling travel: the physics of flight, how airplanes work and what they're made of, how pilots are trained, route planning and the importance of the ground crew.

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The ultimate flying companion, perfect for informing the aviation enthusiast and calming the fearful flier. From the Flight Deck explains everything a reader could want to know about commercial airline travel: the physics of flight, how airplanes work and what they're made of, how pilots are trained, route planning and the importance of the ground crew.

Textauszug

You could say the transportation industry is in my blood. My grandfather worked for the Newfoundland railroad, and my father took to the sea. My career choice came easy and early in life: I declared in my grade-nine yearbook that I wanted to be an airline pilot and geared my studies toward the sciences. Without a mentor to direct me in becoming a pilot, I figured having a university degree was a good stepping-stone. I pursued aBachelor of Science with a major in physics from Halifax, Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University and began taking flying lessons at age 18. I found some well-paying summer jobs, such as planting trees in British Columbia, to pay for flying lessons and university. Now when descending over the Rockies into the Vancouver airport, if I glance from the flight deck I see tree plantations checkerboarding the terrain below. It's hard to imagine that 25 years ago I was one of the many planters busting my back, throwing thousands of trees into the ground, making money to chase dreams. Tree planting builds a person's character. (If it didn't, it would crack you.) There's a saying among tree planters, 'If you survive this job, you will go on to successfully achieve your life goals.' From my planting group two others also became airline pilots. Walking on campus during my final year of university, I realized Iwould have a commercial pilot license and a degree at age 20. I had everything figured out, or so I thought. Canada's economy was in a recession, a time at which the airline business is one of the first to suffer and one of the last to recover. Landing a job as an airline pilot proved tougher than I thought. Flying for the military was my second choice, but I decided to give it a try. So did many others, and life as a military pilot did not pan out for me. With no pilot job in sight, back to university I went, this time to Montreal's McGill University to studymeteorology. I hoped this would give me an edge, as well as an opportunity to learn French. Upon graduation, I learned that Environment Canada needed meteorologists, so off I went to Toronto to get certified. The course was tough, with a 60 percent failure rate, but luckily having a commercial pilot license kept me from getting the ax. The instructors saw that I appreciated weather as a user and they respected that I was a pilot. I forecasted weather in Halifax for over three years. The job entailed around-the-clock shifts writing public, marine, and aviation forecasts for the Maritimes at the Maritimes Weather Center. We here on the east coast experience lots of weather and one way to describe it is 'variable' so it was a great place to learn the ropes. I also worked as a civilian forecaster for the military in Halifax. Weather forecasting is both a science and an art. When weathersystems didn't behave as predicted, I took it personally - maybe I was too conscientious. As the joke goes, it's one of the only jobs out there where you can be wrong so manytimes and still keep your job. That being said, I believe meteorologists do a great job and they are right more often than you may think - or at least that's my biased opinion. The pull to become an aviator persisted. I threw in the weather map and began flying for a small charter cargo company. Then Air Atlantic, a commuter airline based in Halifax, took me on - my first real airline job! This milestone also led to my marriage, havingtold my girlfriend for 10 years, 'Let's wait until I get established in the airlines.' Then another economic slowdown took hold and my career progression stagnated, until Air Canada's east coast connector, Air Nova, began expanding.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.1.2011
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe ► Luftfahrt / Raumfahrt
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Technik
• ISBN-10: 1-55490-765-9 / 1554907659
• ISBN-13: 978-1-55490-765-6 / 9781554907656