Josh The Flight Instructor

Right now Tink is on her way to Arizona for a week-long writing fellowship, so I will be stepping in once again as guest contributor until Memorial Day. Here's a little something I've been working on...

Last month I passed my FAA Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) test. This has little to do with my career as a controller, other than I work for the agency that has certified me to teach people how to fly. I found this to be a nice little advantage during the test. The examiner, Jerry, and I spent the first hour of the oral (sounds dirty but isn't) portion of the test discussing how much money and time is wasted by our agency's bureaucracy. I think this rapport made him less inclined to fail me, like most people do the first time they attempt the CFI test. I'm expecting a conflict of interest lawsuit anytime now.
Actually, there are many controllers like me who are also pilots and/or flight instructors. We simply have to make sure we don't use our position as controllers to gain an advantage over other pilots. For example, while we're flying we can't ask our controller co-workers to give us priority handling over other pilots.
I've waited almost four years to get this certificate. It was five years ago that I passed my Private Pilot test and it took me a year after that to get my Commercial Pilot certificate. Ever since then I've been training to be a CFI. It usually doesn't take this long, but on two occasions I had to put my training on hold for many months at a time, so each time I resumed I was basically starting all over again. I finally have it, and I am very appreciative that now when I fly I'm getting paid instead of going into debt!
In the coming days I'll post some pictures of the airplanes I'm flying. The great thing about being an instructor is I get to fly about four different airplane models. I'm truly beginning to understand how each airplane has it's own personality. Thankfully so far I'm getting along well with them, except last week one of the Cessnas threw a fit (the radios were static-y), so I punished it by not letting it fly. I'm supposed to fly that same airplane again tonight; hopefully it's done sulking and will be ready to fly right.

Clear prop! at: josh_hunter04@yahoo.com