A Saab Story

I haven't been too active on the site lately since I've moved to Dallas. I'm enjoying it immensely though. It's great to be back with Alison and out of the cold. I've loved having 3 weeks off after working non-stop for the entirety of 2007. I'm finally at American Eagle and today was my first day of training. I got placed as a First Officer (co-pilot if you must) on the Saab 340. It's a 34 seat turboprop that does a lot of short hops each day. I was one bloody god damn spot away from getting the Canadair-CRJ 70 seat jet. Then some guy decides to change his base at the last second to DFW and since he's older than me (and even worse had fewer hours than I do) he gets seniority and picked the last spot away from me. I was pretty mad for a while but I figured that in Dallas I would be on the Saab anyways, and I don't think I'll be on it for long. Plus everyone who has flown it loved the airplane and I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

In aviation they call it "Shiny Jet Syndrome" when a low time pilot will do anything and take any pay scale to fly a jet even though they would be better off in a prop somewhere else. I tried not to succumb to that and pick a stable company with decent pay. The pay on the jets goes up much more significantly in the jets than the props after the first year and was my main reason for wanting the jet. I'm sure the saab will be just as fun as everyone says and I won't be there for long.

Anyways here's a few pics of my new toy after 6 weeks:

I took some pics of my apartment and new computer setup which I may post later. I should have posted it sooner because now in training I don't have a lot of time.