All of the new airplanes will be equipped with Garmin G500 glass cockpit avionics suites. Dual 6.5-in. LCDs, mounted side-by-side in the bezel, put both Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Multifunction Display (MFD) capabilities directly in your field of view, to help streamline instrument scanning and enhance situational awareness.

Combined with the 30 new, multi-engine Piper Seminoles currently being delivered, this fleet purchase underscores ATP’s commitment in providing you professional flight training, with a modern, safe, and reliable fleet. To be used in the airline-sponsored Airline Career Pilot Program during your primary and combined private-instrument stages of training, the Archer’s modern flight deck and proven dispatch reliability make it the idle training aircraft for the fast-track, airline-oriented flight training ATP offers.

There’s no better way to prepare for your professional pilot career than with ATP. Learn more atATPFlightSchool.com, and give me a call when you’re ready to get started.

The agreement contains 40 firm orders for 76-seat E175 jets, to be flown for United, and a conditional purchase of 60 more pending operating agreements with other major airlines, SkyWest said today in a statement. The deal includes options for 100 E175s, giving it a value of $8.3 billion at list prices.
United Airlines joined American Airlines and Delta Air Lines in crafting labor terms with pilots in recent months to allow for the placement of larger aircraft with Regional Airline partners.

The firm deliveries will begin in next year’s second quarter and run through mid-2015, SkyWest said. The planes will feature two-class cabins.

United Airlines has also signed a deal that will have SkyWest Airlines fly 40 of the new planes under the United Express brand.

The Embraer 175 is the first regional jet in the United Express fleet. The plane is anticipated to provide more comfort to travelers, with wider seats and aisles and bigger overhead bins.
The 76-seat aircraft are expected to be delivered in 2014 and 2015.
The 40 planes are in addition to the 30 Embraer aircraft that United previously said it was buying that will be run by a United Express carrier.
SkyWest Inc. said that it plans to buy 100 Embraer jets, with the remaining 60 aircraft considered conditional until it enters capacity purchase agreements with major airlines to run the planes.

SkyWest will be taking in new interns every month from ATP’s instructor group and bringing them into the Enhanced Internship Program. SkyWest Interns will be expected to perform duties for SkyWest while they build hours instructing at ATP.

SkyWest is reaching into ATP’s Flight Training Pipeline to recruit the best pilots being trained for the U.S. aviation industry today.

SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines’ revenue passenger miles, or how many miles all paying passengers flew during the month, totaled 2.6 billion, up from 2.45 billion in the same month a year ago.

Available seat miles, or capacity, increased 8 percent to 3.27 billion from 3.03 billion a year ago.

SkyWest has about 750 planes and operates SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines and flights under the United Express, Delta Connection, American Eagle and US Airways Express brands.

Brazil-based Embraer is the world’s third-largest commercial airplane manufacturer. The Chicago-based airline currently has 324 Embraer aircraft in its Express fleet.

The Embraer 175 will be United’s largest regional jet with a 76-seat configuration. Embraer predicts it will make its first delivery to United in the first quarter of 2014 with the complete order being delivered by the end of 2015.

“At United, we are focused on modernizing our fleet,” said Jim Compton, United’s vice chairman and chief revenue officer, in a news release. “With a large first class cabin, wider fuselage, and larger overhead bins, this aircraft brings an improved regional flying experience to our customers.”

Continental Airlines carried over the relationship with Embraer during the 2010 United-Continental merger.

“With this order for the new enhanced E175 jet, we are delighted to reinforce and extend our long-standing partnership with United Airlines, which was the ERJ 145 launch customer back in 1996, known at that time as Continental Airlines,” said Paulo Cesar Silva, President and CEO, Embraer Commercial Aviation, in a news release.

According to Embraer, Monday’s agreement with United included options for an additional 40 aircraft of the same model. The total estimated value — if the additional 40 are purchased — is $2.9 billion.

Early mornings or late nights – pick one. Often, multi-day trips tend towards one side of the clock or the other and this has the expected pros and cons. On the negative side, trips can pass through a few time zones and a New York 4AM alarm can feel like cruel and unusual punishment to a west coaster the first night. Equally, an 11:30PM landing in San Francisco is not always music to the ears of an east coast based pilot.

Coffee can sometimes semi-seriously be referred to as a critical safety item in many cockpits. While flying days are sometimes long and overnights can at times be fairly short (8 hours now, subject to certain increases with pending FAA rule changes), there is still plenty of variety in types of flying and overnights are also often longer. Some trips will start late and end early making them commutable to/from home for a pilot, and sometimes overnights of over 24hours are scheduled into a trip, great if you want to explore a city or have friends/family there – I’ve known pilots who find time to ski in the Rockies, surf in Southern California or catch a ball game on a long overnight. With increasing seniority pilots gain greater control over selecting specific trips, or types of trips (early, late, commutable, specific cities, maximizing flight hours per day, specific days off, etc) they prefer.

There can also be some unexpected bonuses on those early or late days. Pilots definitely see their fair share of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, stunningly bright constellations from 7 miles up, and the occasional “close up” of a shooting star tearing by. Flying above an overcast layer at night, clouds glow orange from city lights below. The Milky Way can be almost bright on a moonless night, and satellites occasionally cruise past high above. Saint Elmo’s fire is worth a quick internet search as it has a rich history amongst mariners, and in an aircraft certain atmospheric conditions at night can bring faint violet electrical static to flicker across the cockpit windows.

One of my favorite rare sights on those early and late flights is unquestionably the green flash. Having spent a fair amount of time at sea in the Navy, it was not uncommon to keep an eye out should a green flash occur – With a clear horizon – typically the ocean – and perfect (i.e., uncommon) atmospheric conditions, the sun’s very first rays at sunrise or final seconds of sunset will sometimes refract into a soft neon green flash – this is visible as the tiniest sliver of sun, and often for just a very brief moment. With about 5 years at sea I searched often and am only half convinced I saw it once, but have since found that catching one is a bit more likely up in the flight levels.

A recent early morning flight from New Orleans to Washington D.C. allowed me the most unique view of a green flash I may ever have “control” of. We left New Orleans in the early morning well before sunrise, climbing out in the dark, and settling into a smooth cruise as we monitored our progress and enjoyed some good New Orleans coffee with the sky gradually lightening to the east. The sun was nearly up as ATC requested our initial descent out of flight level 350 (about 35,000ft). We had the crisp sort of horizon that could possibly bring a green flash and I realized that our rate of descent might just be able to match the sunrise, effectively pausing it – for a given latitude and longitude, elevation lets you see a more distant horizon, and pulls the sun higher in the sky, so our descent would reverse the sun’s progress.

We began down just as the sun’s first rays shone and I set our descent rate at about 1500 feet per minute, slightly tweaking it as we descended. After a little bit of trial and error, my FO and I were rewarded with an absolutely perfect and steady green flash that we were able to hold in view for several minutes before we leveled off. A green flash is supposed to bring good luck – so I’m not sure what several minutes’ worth means, though I’m satisfied with the simple luck and pleasure of witnessing something like that, and would have to add it to the perks of the “other” side of the clock where pilots sometimes find themselves.

SkyWest will be flying ATP Instructors positive space to Salt Lake City based on ATP’s recommendations. While there, SkyWest will provide an orientation for the Instructors, as well as finger printing and drug screening. SkyWest will also take employee photos and provide the new SkyWest employees with their Employee IDs.

The orientation will serve as the date of hire for the new employees, and they will retain that Date of Hire while they are in the Bridge Program. They will also have travel benefits on SkyWest’s network while they are in the Program.

“The aviation industry has been working to try to solve concerns about hiring shortages for qualified candidates,” said Vice President, Jim Koziarski. “As a provider of training for over 4200 pilots each year, ATP is uniquely able to consistently supply airlines qualified candidates. This program can help partner airlines develop stability in their pilot sourcing and provides a direct path to success for ATP customers in their professional aviation careers.”

ATP continues to expand its working relationship with airlines, many of whom have selected ATP as a preferred training provider to build their pilot pipelines with the best training available in the fastest time possible.

Pilot placements are coordinated and managed through ATP’s online recruiting tool PilotPool.com. Free to all pilots seeking airline employment, PilotPool.com helps airlines visualize the pilot pipeline and access real time pilot qualification data.

Professor Kent Lovelace, Chair of the University of North Dakota’s Department of Aviation, presented the results of the fourth version of the United States Airline Pilot Labor Supply Forecast developed by UND. The study polled 1,700 Certified Flight Instructors as a means to determine whether there are truly current and future trends that will lead to a pilot shortage.

According to the study’s predictions, there will be a potential pilot shortage of 35,000 pilots in the United States by the year 2031 unless there are mitigation efforts made to reduce this trend, Lovelace said. One of the more telling trends from the CFI survey was that only 53.67 percent of these current flight instructors surveyed reported that they intend to fly as a long-term goal. Other study results revealed that 58 percent of the CFIs said that they are willing to go to other countries with low flight hour requirements and more that 32 percent are rethinking their plans based on the pending 1,500- hour rule.

Jim Winkley, Vice President of Flight Operations for American Eagle Airlines, reported that his airline plans to hire from between 300 to 400 new pilots in 2013. He also cited significant factors that could prevent the airline from reaching this goal in the future. One is that in 2011, American Eagle had a pool of 500 qualified applicants, but that in 2013 there are less than 100 pilots in that pool. The major airlines are beginning to recognize the potential for a pilot shortage, Winkley added. “We are seeing no relief in the future,” Winkley summed up.

Paul Preidecker, Chief Flight Instructor for Air Wisconsin Airlines, said that the airline industry needs to a better job of marketing an airline career, to be the “Ambassador of Aviation”, to help overcome the decline of interest in pursuing an airline career. He also said that airline human resources and flight department personnel need to establish meaningful metrics together to increase training success. He also recommended that regional airlines move to Advanced Qualification Programs requirements to assure new pilot qualifications. Jason Griswold, Managing Director of Brown Aviation Lease, pointed out that airlines should adopt more modern marketing strategies to appeal to younger people.

Captain Darrin Gruebel, Manager of Line Operations for ExpressJet Airlines, stated regardless of the debate, he feels that the predicted pilot shortage is already here today. He based his opinion on the facts that airlines job fair attendance is down by 50 percent, his pool of pilot applicants is “nil,” and that of every new 100 pilots interviewed by ExpressJet, only 30 are qualified enough to be offered a position. He also pointed out that his airline’s pilots attrition to major airlines is 32 percent.

Captain Mark Sawyer, President and CEO of Aerosim Academy, echoed Gruebel’s comments by saying that the combination of the pending 1,500-hour First Officer Training requirement, pilot retirements and the student pilot funding crisis is leading to “the perfect storm” of a pilot shortage.

“The real numbers are irrefutable,” Sawyer emphasized. “There are 21,000 pilots who will be retiring in the next 11 years, and there are only 21,000 regional pilots. If some studies show that here will be no pilot shortage, just ask them, where are the pilots today?” He further said that most of their students are foreign nationals and will return to their respective countries when trained. Captain Sawyer said that he projected that for the year 2013 they would only graduate 28 to 32 domestic students who will fly in the United States.

The perfect storm that is causing the present pilot shortage, and is deepening it, is upon us. It creates opportunity for anyone who wants to be an Airline Pilot, but the time to get started with flight training is now.

What about job seekers? More specifically Pilots looking to be hired by an airline. Can having a blog, or an account on a social networking site negatively impact your job search? It could. In one post on Facebook that I read recently, a man reports that he lies in interviews. Kidding or not, that wouldn’t thrill an airline recruiter if they knew about it. Another job seeker’s page mentions that she loves to party all night, drinks to excess on a regular basis, and steals on occasion. Again, this is not the type of profile that will win you a good flying job.

Should prospective employers be reading your personal information? Maybe not, but whatever you put on the Internet that’s readily accessible, they can and they might. Before being invited for an interview, airline recruiters will do a Google search of you, and your Facebook account is usually the first thing that pops up. Be mindful of what you post online or photos of you that are being tagged with your name.

Be very careful what you put online. If you have a Facebook (or any social media) account, people you won’t want to be reading your profile may be able to access it, even if you think nobody will read it. Make your account private, so only your friends can access it. Be extra careful, and don’t post anything that you don’t want a prospective employer (or your mom!) to read.

Airline Transport Professionals (ATP), America’s largest flight school, specializing in airline pilot training and pilot career development agreed to initially purchase a fleet of 15 Piper Archer TX single-engine piston-powered advanced training aircraft for delivery in late 2013.

In addition to the firm 15-aircraft fleet order, ATP has options for 85 additional Archers for delivery in the future. These will be the first single-engine Piper training aircraft in ATP’s fleet as it transitions to predominately Piper training aircraft.

In Addition to 30-airplane Seminole Deal

The latest order is in addition to a 30-airplane Piper Seminole fleet option placed with Piper by ATP in 2011. The 15th aircraft delivered in that transaction is on display at the Piper Booth #MD-18 at SUN ‘n FUN.

All Equipped with Garmin G500

All of the new ATP airplanes under the agreements with Piper will be equipped with Garmin G500 glass cockpit avionics suites. The G500 is a PFD/MFD dual-screen electronic flight display. Dual 6.5-in. LCDs, mounted side-by-side in the bezel, put both Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Multifunction Display (MFD) capabilities directly in instructor and student field of view to help streamline instrument scanning and enhance situational awareness.

“This large follow-on fleet transaction clearly shows continued confidence on the part of ATP in Piper Aircraft. Our training aircraft have proven themselves with millions of hours of rugged flight school training around the world,” says Piper President and CEO Simon Caldecott.

“ATP is transitioning our fleet to Pipers because these airplanes offer rugged dispatch reliability, technological flexibility in cockpit avionics and instrumentation and operational economy,” said ATP Vice President Jim Koziarski. ATP currently operates 107 Piper Seminoles, five Diamond DA40s, 93 Cessna Skyhawks and a CitationJet.