UPGRADES

The first few months at Airborne Express were rather uneventful, although I was aware that some pilots were not passing their probationary check rides and were being fired. Knowing that I was going to have to take a probationary check ride as my one-year anniversary date approached, and with the desire to move up to the jets, it seemed reasonable to me to go ahead and bid the DC9 before my probationary period ended. Kill two birds with one stone. One check ride instead of two. It made sense to me.

The reality was that the training was tough. Extremely tough. A lot of people washed out. I would have been much wiser to take a recurrent probationary check ride in the YS11, and only then go ahead and bid the jet. Learn the hard way.

My training experience was a nightmare. I knew that I could do it, but I was struggling to get through the program. I needed help and wasn’t getting it. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

I was so concerned about the consequences of failing that I was having trouble staying focused on the task at hand – flying the simulator. I went to a hypnotist and asked him to teach me some relaxation techniques. He told me to imagine myself sitting on top of a mountain overlooking a peaceful valley.

“You notice an eagle soaring over the valley. He rides the air currents effortlessly, without thought. Flying comes natural to him. Wayne, you are just like the eagle. Flying comes natural to you.

“Wayne, when you go into the simulator for your check ride, you will take a moment before you begin, and close your eyes and remember that you are the eagle.”

So, eventually I am brought out of this state of total relaxation. I pay the guy and thank him. He wishes me luck, and I’m on my way. A couple days later, I’m driving up I-71 to Wilmington, Ohio to take the check ride. The sun’s not up yet, and I decide I’m going to take advantage of the opportunity and review all my check ride maneuvers. I imagine myself flying everything to perfection – steep turns, stall recoveries, instrument approaches, engine fires while entering a holding pattern – everything – to perfection. At the end I take a deep breath and exhale heavily. I mean, I am totally relaxed. In the zone.

The sun is starting to come up, and I begin looking around. “Hmm…I don’t remember that barn…When did they build that house?” I have no idea how far I’ve gone, and I have maybe half an hour to get there for my check ride that will determine whether I will get to keep the job I’ve worked my entire life for, or be flipping hamburgers next week.

I blew a tire, and just kept going on the rim. I was now so focused on getting to the check ride on time that I forgot all about worrying how I would do once I got there.

I got in to the simulator, barely on time. I was anything but relaxed. Somehow, though, I managed to tell myself that I hadn’t come this far in my pilot career just to be sent home empty-handed. I got it done.

Finishing simulator training and check ride meant that I was now ready to go on to the next phase of the game we called “You Bet Your Job!” at Airborne, that being IOE. As before in the YS11, my training had all been during the daytime, and now I would be flying at night. Longer trips in the jet = longer hours before getting to the hotel. I was totally fatigued, and my performance reflected that fact. Eventually, though, I got through it.  I was signed off as a right seat jet jock.

I had no sooner finished IOE and gone home to enjoy a few days off, when the phone rang. It was the head of DC9 flight standards to schedule my probationary check ride.

What? I had just finished IOE. The whole idea was that I would do it all as one training event. That’s why I hadn’t stayed in the YS11 until the end of my first year. Now I have to do yet another check ride?

Yes.

Once again I jumped back into the books, studying constantly for the next three weeks. When the check ride came around, it went fairly well, except that near the end, the check airman decided that he didn’t like the way I was doing a missed approach with a failed engine. He had some cockamamie procedure that wasn’t even in the book that he wanted me to do. This, from the head of a flight department that fired people for not going strictly by the book!

He was shouting at me. At this point, I had taken all I was going to take. I no longer cared if they fired me or if I kept my job. It was time to draw the line. I ripped off my headset and turned in my seat to face my attacker. I then proceeded to let him have it. He, being a bully, was not prepared to have someone shout back at him, and he wisely backed off. The other pilot in the simulator with me, a captain named Gary, later told me he thought the check airman and I were going to go at it. I know I was certainly more than ready and willing. 

It was clearly understood from that day on that the check airman didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him. That point would be driven home a couple of more times in the years to come.

 I flew the DC9 as First Officer for about a year. Toward the end of that period of time, I was paired up for a month with a captain named Marty. He was a mean-spirited little prick, and I swore that if I was ever paired up with him again, I was going to call in sick. That week, a proffer for YS11 Captain came out, and I bid it.

YS11 Captain upgrade training went pretty good. Having flown the airplane previously, it was more of a review than anything else. The only new thing about it was transitioning from the right to the left seat, and that was no big deal.

I flew the best check ride of my life, with an FAA Inspector observing. Afterward, the flight standards pilot who administered the check ride said to me, “Wayne, that was outstanding! I’m really impressed.” Those are words that few ever heard at Airborne Express.

A year in the left seat of the YS11 and it was time to bid DC9 Captain. I’d like to say that the training was better, but it wasn’t. The only way I got through it at all was because I had flown the airplane before, and I had myself to rely on. The training department was still of no help. Quite the opposite.

Although my testing experience it was not conducted by the head of the training department - the check airman I’d quarelled with before - it was conducted by a standards pilot who worked under him. Time for some payback. Wayne Baker was going to have a very interesting day when he came up for his type rating. The check ride lasted more than five hours in the simulator.

Before we even taxied, I had the following abnormal procedures during engine start: No APU; Start valve would not open; Start valve would not close; Hung start; Hot start; virtually every starting abnormal in the book. It was going to be one of those days.  At the end of the check ride, they managed to bust me on a no flap, no slat non-precision approach because my airspeed was one knot faster than the maximum allowable. I came back a couple of days later, did a repeat with a different check airman, and passed.