March of the Penguins

I have a number of things to write about, so instead of saturating you in one post, I will break them into two back-to-back posts for your reading pleasure. In this one I'll talk about the interview process, or as I've chosen to call it, the "March of the Penguins". Allow me to explain...

After completing the checkrides for my multi engine and instrument instructor ratings, I had to make a beeline for home to catch a 4pm flight to Charlotte. This in and of itself was silly, as I was only an hour and half drive from Charlotte as it was. As I was sitting in traffic in Chapel Hill, NC, sweating, worrying about getting a number of things printed in time for the interview, and being hungry, I decided that I would instead drive to the interview. This gave me time to grab a bite to eat and find a Kinko's, and take my time driving to Charlotte. The flip side is that it would be a long and lonely drive home the next day after getting the boot from the interviewer, or so I thought....

4:30 am rolls around early, especially when you are up until midnight unable to sleep. There has long been an unwritten rule that when you attend an airline interview, you wear a black suit with a dark red tie. I swore up and down that I would break tradition, but here I was, wearing my black suit. I had a striped multi-colored tie on, but nonetheless, I looked like...well...a penguin. Since I had my car, I drove to the training center, and sure enough I was first. The recruiter came downstairs to collect the victims, and I was the only one there. I don't know if that helped, but I met him first. About 5 minutes later I hear noise around the corner, and sure enough, 8 more penguins march around the corner, sporting their finest black suits. Whose funeral was this exactly.

I'll spare most of the details, as you can find them on any airline interview gouge site. We started with the written, and then were broken up into two groups for the sim and human resources interview. I am still grateful that I was in that first group. I completed the HR, which was a breeze compared to some panel interviews I had in the IT industry. As a rabid flight simmer, the sim ride, given on a PCATD (basically a personal computer with a commercial level flight simulation software package installed), was like being at home. Of course, when I play at home, I'm not a nervous wreck with a sim instructor breathing in my right ear. But I must have passed, because shortly after that, the recruiter collected me and together we walked to his office, where he extended me a class date of May 12th. Of course this is what I've always wanted, but I never, never thought it would happen this soon. Three weeks later I'm over the shock of it and the realization of the impending challenge of flight school has fully taken hold. My flight school and students are disappointed and sad to see me go, but I'm going to get my three most active students as far as I can before I go.

Next up, getting ready for airline ground school...