| Had the interview end of August 2000 and made the September 11th class
date.
Great Lakes has moved their base to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Address and stuff is
on their website at www.greatlakesav.com.
Interview
Get as much paperwork done for the interview ahead of time as possible. You
will need the usual stuff. 10 year work history, references from all past
jobs (they call and check them out), etc. Paperwork takes about 1 hour or
more to fill out if you have all the information at your fingertips.
You will take an 80 question "psychological evaluation" test. Can't study
for this one. Just be consistent with your answers.
My interview was scheduled for 11:00am, but it didn't happen until 2:00pm
or so. Typical from what I hear. Guess they like to make you wait and sweat
it out.
The interview lasted all of about 30 minutes. Basic questions like the
accuracy of DME, VFR cloud clearances, what would you do if your captain
was going to attempt an approach with the weather below minimums, etc.
He asked about my goals. Be honest. They know you don't want to make a
career out of flying the Beech 1900. I told him I wanted to be with a major
airline in the left seat of the biggest airplane they would let me fly. He
smiled. They know you are only around for a short time, but they want your
best while you are there. He also asked me why Great Lakes. Just be honest.
My interview was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but I have heard of people going to
different places lately. Largely because they do not have a sim in Cheyenne
to evaluate prospective pilots (I did not have a sim eval as part of the
interview). They were getting people with poor flying skills, so they have
been doing interviews at other places with access to a sim (AST 300). I
recommend getting some time in the AST 300. 5 to 10 hours and you should be
good to go. The sim can be real squirrelly if you're not use to one.
Ground School
Got the OK for the September class.
Lakes is somewhat known for hiring low time pilots, but their ground school
is one of the hardest. It's extremely difficult because of lack of quality
training materials.
First comes basic indoc: 5 days of company policy, operational
specifications, in flight procedures, etc. Most of it was really boring,
which made it that much more difficult. Study hard. We had a 50 question
quiz on the first day. Sort of a wake up call. It was first thing in the
morning. It covered part 61, 91 and the AIM. Class was from 8:00am to
5:00pm. We had quizzes every day. Each quiz was about 20 questions and
covered material from the previous day(s), material that you were going to
cover in class that day, and anything from the FAR/AIM was fair game all
the time. We had Sundays off, if you want to call it that. You better make
use of your time wisely.
After one week of indoc, we took a 50 question test. You have to make an 80
or better on it before you can continue on to systems. Most of the test was
multiple choice. The last few questions were fill in the blank. Study like
there is no tomorrow and you will do just fine. Spend your evenings at the
hotel bar and your wasting your time. I know, I watched it happen to
others.
After indoc is two days of CRM training. It's a nice break. Nothing to
study in CRM, just watch a bunch of videos, participate in class
discussions, etc. Trust me, you will enjoy it after what you have just been
through.
After CRM come systems. Hold on for this one. Systems lasts only 8 days.
Just 8 days to know the Beech 1900 systems in detail. Here is where it gets
difficult. The training materials they use (at least for our class) was
from Flight Safety, which is great. The problem is they are a little stingy
with money. So instead of having nice color diagrams, all of ours were
copies. So, when you take a color diagram and copy it in black and white,
guess what happens? Yep, all of the items supposed to be different colors
for easy interpreting just became the same color. It was a pain to follow
some of the systems without having it in color. They were in a transition
stage, so maybe they will have color stuff soon. You better hope so.
Systems covers about 5 times more stuff than indoc, so it's intimidating.
But I think it was actually a little easier for me, since it was dealing
with an airplane. Once you understood a system and could make sense of it,
it went a little better. Indoc was just memorizing a bunch of information.
If you can get your hands on the systems for the Beech 1900D, do it. Most
people got only 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. You just study, study,
study.
You need to pass systems with an 80 percent also to stay on board. The test
is much more difficult. It is between 80 and 120 questions, with few, if
any, multiple choice questions. About 15 or so fill in the blank and the
rest short answer / essay type answers. Again, study hard and you will do
fine. My class had just over 30 people and we only lost about 3 in ground
school. Another 2 or 3 washed out or quit during flight training.
Sim Training
The sim training was done at the Centennial Airport on the southeast side
of Denver. The company that owns the sims is Techniflight, but Lakes uses
their own instructors. Sim training is 4 sessions, with 4 hours per
session. You and a flight partner are paired up for sim and flight
training. Each person gets 2 hours in the right seat, while the other one
sits in the left seat. Don't think you don't have to do anything while
sitting in the left seat since you're an FO. You'll still be put to work.
The sim is very difficult to fly. If you can fly the sim well, you will
have no problem in the airplane. My first sim session had altitude
deviations of +/- 500 feet. Which was average I was told. Thankfully, it
got better. The sim is full motion with visuals. The better you do the more
they give you. No matter how good you are, you will come out of the sim
feeling pretty small. They load you up, so don't let it get to you. Do your
best to make it fun and you will do fine.
Flight Training
Now comes the fun part. Finally getting to the airplane. I finished sim
training on a Friday night at 10:00pm. I had to get up the next morning and
drive down to Alamosa, about a 3 hour drive south of Denver for flight
training. Lakes only has one airplane almost exclusively for training, so
the other training is done in aircraft that are parked overnight elsewhere.
Which means your flight training is most likely going to be in the middle
of the night. After driving to Alamosa that morning, we got to the hotel
and studied some. Our instructor shows up about 9 or 10pm and we go fly. We
flew to about 5 in the morning. Needless to say, we were tired as hell.
That was the drill for the next two nights. Sleep during the day and meet
our instructor at 6pm to go over what we were going to do. We then head out
to the airplane about 8pm and fly until 4 or 5 the next morning. It's
tough, but it only lasts a few days.
I had three flights in the airplane and was signed off for the checkride.
They will give you more flights if you need it, so long as you are making
progress. If you get to a certain point and keep making the same mistakes,
they will tell you to hit the road. Make sure you know instrument flying
like the back of your hand. They are there to teach you to fly the 1900D in
a two pilot 121 environment, not to teach you how to fly instruments.
Check Ride
After flight training comes the checkride. It will most likely be done in
Cheyenne by one of the check airmen at Lakes. Some are cool, some ride you
hard the whole time. I got the one that rides you the whole time. Figures.
The checkride is very thorough. He has a list on his clipboard, and he just
goes down the list. One thing to remember, the person is a Check Airman,
not an instructor. He is there to evaluate you, not teach you. If you mess
up just one thing one time, he can bust you. Most try to help you, though.
They need you and have invested a lot of time in you. They want to see you
succeed, but it will take an enormous amount of effort on your part.
Overview
Overall, it was the most difficult thing I have ever done, and the most
rewarding. Making the transition from part 91 flight instructing to 121 was
a huge leap, at least for me. I would make sure I prepared much more before
showing up for class if I had to do it again. I've never studied harder in
all my life. It made college look so simple. If you have weak areas,
sharpen them up before you show up, because you will not have the time to
do it there.
Great Lakes has gotten kind of a bad rap, but it really isn't a bad place
to work. It used to be bad, but it has changed, and it is still changing.
You still fly a small plane, and don't get paid much, but you get as much
121 turbine time as you want.
FO starting pay is about $15.35 an hour or so. I think Captain pay is about
$26.00 an hour. There is talk of a 30% increase in pay, but it probably
won't happen for a couple of months or so if it goes through. Your
guarantee pay is 75 hours a month. You can expect to get about 80 hours a
month or more as an FO or Captain, but you can always pick up trips. Many
people get 100 hours a month easy, if you want to. You can upgrade to
Captain as soon as you hit 1500 hours total time, and they want you to.
They need captains bad. They need pilots in general, but who doesn't.
Lakes has a lot of great people. Sure, there are some bad ones out there,
but who doesn't have that. All of the captains I have flown with have been
great.
Flight times for people in my class ranged from 350 hours total to a 1300
hour C-130 pilot. I was in the middle with about 850 total and only 70
multi. I was almost bottom of the list as far as multi time goes, but I got
the chance and here I am.
Lakes used to out station base most people. But they are hub basing now.
Hubs are Denver, Chicago and Minn / St. Paul. Most people, myself included,
get based in Denver. That's where most of the flying is and the other bases
are usually senior. I love Denver International. It's new, all the runways
are 12,000 feet with an ILS to every one. And not one NDB!
The 1900D is great to fly. Has lots of power and climbs like hell. Our
planes don't have auto pilots, though. So I hope you enjoy hand flying.
|
