[pilot4500]

Here is my synopsis of how my first week of being a line pilot at Ram Air went. The first day was stressful being that everything was new to me. I was scheduled to do run 250, which is the RDU RIC PHF ORF JQF RDU run. At Ram Air we have a book of “flight essentials.” This tells you where to go, the flight planned route, and very importantly, where to taxi after you land.

The plane that I was flying was a T-tail Lance. It was one of the very few planes in the fleet that did not have a GPS, no DME either, and not even an ADF. Not a big deal. I learned how to fly instruments with only the most basic equipment. The training at Ram Air focused heavily on GPS procedures though. It really should have included some old school non-GPS instrument flying as well.

Ram Air uses “canned” flight plans, which means that same flight plan is filed every day. One thing to be careful of though is that all flight plans are filed with an equipment code of /G, when in fact it should have been /U for my airplane (no GPS, no DME, transponder with Mode C). I should have called flight service before launching and changed my equipment code. ATC kept clearing me direct from one airport to another, and I could only go VOR to VOR or be given radar vectors. The controllers were very understanding and pretty much vectored me where I needed to go. The first day was pretty uneventful.

One thing the flight essential said about the run to Norfolk (ORF) is to park on the UPS ramp after landing to meet the bank courier, load up and then go to JQF. This seemed strange to me. I’ve been around enough UPS ramps to know that they don’t like little planes parking on their ramp unless it is to load or unload UPS cargo. I spoke to one of the Ram Air pilots who had done this run before, and he told me to park between the hangars at the FBO, not on the UPS ramp. This made more sense to me. The bank courier met me there and I was off to JQF and then RDU. I am glad that I found out where to park before I left. It probably saved me from getting chased off the UPS ramp by security. They really need to update their info in the flight essential.

I did the same run the second day with the same airplane it was pretty uneventful as well. I really started to enjoy it. Friday is where things really started to get interesting. I was scheduled to be on standby from 1600 to 2300 in RDU. About half an hour into my standby shift dispatch told me to ride down to JQF with a Baron pilot and sit standby there. That was the only place where they had an available single engine airplane. The ride down to Concord was uneventful despite the heavy rain showers and 400-foot ceilings. I sat standby there for about two hours and then got a call from flight ops. They wanted to know if I was in Wilmington (ILM). Of course I said no. They said that I was supposed to be doing run 275, which is a UPS run. You fly empty from JQF to ILM, pick up UPS cargo, fly to Greensboro (GSO) to unload, and then fly empty back to RDU. It is a pretty simple run.

The only problem was that nobody told me that I was supposed to fly it. Communication at its finest. I ran out and preflighted the plane. It was a Cherokee Six, which is quite a bit slower than the Lance. As I looked through the maintenance log, I saw that the plane had been squawked a day earlier because the engine failed after landing. That got my attention. The airplane had been fixed but it still had me a bit concerned.

As I looked at the equipment in the plane, I realized that I got another plane with no GPS, no DME, no ADF, and it had an engine failure the day before. And I was about to take this plane into solid IMC. Somebody there in flight ops must really love me. *sarcasm*

After doing the runup I had another problem. The left magneto dropped 300 rpm and sounded really rough. I tried to power up and clean off the spark plugs, but that did not work. I thought carefully about my go or no go decision. I was about to launch into 300 foot ceilings in pouring rain at night with a minimally equipped airplane, a rough running mag, a recent history of an engine failure, and hardly anytime to figure out where I was going after takeoff. As an old flight instructor of mine would have told me, I had already written ¾ of the NTSB accident report. I taxied back and squawked the airplane. That was probably the first smart decision I had made that day.

I called flight operations to let them know. Needless to say they were not happy at all about it. I am pretty sure that I got myself on the flight ops ##### list. For those of you expecting UPS packages from Wilmington, NC, they will probably be coming in late. Sorry about that but I have to put safety first.

Starting next week I will be based on Concord and I will be on standby for the week. I will be living in the airplane hangar until I find a place to live. They do have a bed and a shower there so it should not be too bad.

I am not trying to put down Ram Air. I am just being honest. I think overall it is not a bad company to work for. It is not the kind of place where I would want to work forever. I should be able to upgrade to the multi in a few months, fulfill my six-month contract and then hopefully move on. The best thing about this company is the quick upgrade to the multi. The pay isn’t bad either. About $26,000 per year.

I will continue to keep y’all posted about my adventures here at Ram Air.