The Infernal Revenue Service,
Acts of Congress,
Acts of Congress,
and
Why I'm Going Back to Work
Eric Paul Nolte
Just before Christmas, I was sitting at the kitchen table with our financial records and concluded that I should go back to work, at least for a couple more years.
Doing what? Flying is my best shot at finding work that pays anything worth talking about, of course.
The United States Congress, operating in their usual mode that says, "We know better than you how to run your life," passed an Act of Congress that mandates the retirement of airline pilots when they turn 65 years old. So I had to retire from United Airlines in January 2017.
It is infuriating and absurd that Congress has dictated airline pilot retirement. We have to pass a stringent medical exam every six months, and we must undergo flight proficiency tests several times a year. We get a line check in the airplane on a regular flight, and they put us in the flight simulator several times a year during which they throw every dirty, rotten, nasty life-threatening problem at us, and we have to be able to handle every airplane problem you can imagine (and many that you probably would never imagine!)
So if we pilots are physically fit and proficient at handling all the emergencies, and if we want to work and our employers want to keep us on the job, then what the hell business is it of the federal government to impose this further layer of regulation on an industry that may already be the most highly regulated business in the economy? Maddening.
I can still work as a pilot, so long as I have a medical certificate, but the jobs available to retired airline pilots mostly require us to work twice as hard for half the pay.
All looked well when Terri and I retired in June 2017 and we moved to our beautiful new home in Arizona with a magnificent view out the back window wall of the whole Santa Rita mountains with their majestic twin peaks of Mounts Wrightson and Hopkins.
We retired with no debt, except for the mortgage on a house for which we put down half the cost. We would be able to make ends meet on our social security and a little pension.
I have a smallish account for trading stocks and options, and now I can earn significantly more money than I lose, thanks to the trading system I've been studying for two years at the Online Trading Academy, but it will be a while before I can hope to grow my account enough to replace our income from the profits of my trading.
Then we ran afoul of the Infernal Revenue Service.
Oh, Brother! Big Brother! It turned out that we owed them an impressive amount of back taxes. (I am at least partly to blame, so I won't bore you with the details.)
We took out a Home Equity Line of Credit to pay the IRS, and now it is clear that for some time to come we are obligated to spend a little more money than we are taking in.
So, hi ho, hi hee!--
It's off to work with me!
I'll spread my wings
For the cash this brings,
Hi ho, hi hee!
A week ago, I saw online that Flight Safety International's Tucson branch was advertising for a flight instructor.
On a lark, I drove out to the airport and just walked up to the FSI reception desk and introduced myself. I said that I knew about the job opening and that I just happened to be in the neighborhood--would anybody be around who could talk with me now?
I carried under my arm a cardboard box about half-again the size of an ordinary shoe box, filled with all my pilot logbooks--13 of them! That's how many it took to log my 26,861 hours in the air as a pilot.
Hold on, the receptionist said. A moment later, the Director of Human Resources walked up to the desk and invited me back to his office.
In the office, I put down the cardboard box with my logbooks, pushed it slightly to the side, and then pulled out my various pilot credentials.
With a flourish, I laid these credentials down on the Director's desk as if I were dealing a hand of playing cards.
Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap!
Airline transport pilot's certificate;
certificated flight instructor rated for airplanes, instrument and multi-engine flying;
ground instructor, rated for advanced and instrument flying;
flight engineer's certificate, rated for turbojets;
aircraft dispatcher's certificate;
FCC radio operator's permit;
Airline Pilot's Association union card; and
my FAA airman's First Class medical certificate.
The Director's eyes widened a little at this display. We talked for half an hour and he said he thought that I am just what they're looking for.
I had my interview yesterday at Flight Safety International's Tucson learning center, which has a staff of maybe 80 flight instructors and a gaggle of flight simulators for the Bombardier Challenger 601 and 604 (a bizjet version of a regional jet airliner, the Canadair RJ), and a few kinds of Learjet.
In a classroom, I gave a 30-minute presentation to four FSI instructors and the director of HR. I believe that my subject is among the most important ideas for air safety, namely, the matter of the atmosphere we create on the flight deck when operating as a crew. The essence of this Crew Resource Management is to deal with each other in a way that will enlist the active minds of everyone in the cockpit. This atmosphere is in contrast to the traditional attitude that one might call The Captain as God school of crew resource management, in which the captain is the boss who dictates everything while the underlings comply without comment. In effect, when the captain discourages challenge or comment, the airplane is in the hands of just one brain, and this limitation has led to some spectacular catastrophes in the air. I cited three of these accidents. I also spoke from my personal experience in the bad old days, flying with many of these old imperious World War Two captains when I was a wet young pup in the co-pilot's seat of DC-3s and Martin 404s (these are cantankerous, big old hairy airplanes dating back to the Second World War and slightly after, equipped with radial engines as big as battleship anchors.) It's so much better these days! So much safer! Not to mention a far more pleasant work atmosphere.
This week I had to learn how to use PowerPoint to put together this presentation, but it was easy enough to make a rudimentary set of 20 slides from which to speak. The business of actually speaking in the classroom was easy-peasy-- just like the old days when I was an instructor for years.
After my presentation, we had lunch together (designed so that the prospective instructor--that would be me) would interact with the staff in a more informal atmosphere. After lunch, I was grilled by the four instructors and the director of HR with a set of formal questions.
I think my interview went well.
They have to do a background check before they will make a job offer, but I think this should go well because I was a Federal Flight Deck Officer for my last ten years at Continental and United Airlines, and for this--becoming a pistol-packing pilot on the flight deck--the background check was formidable! It was a process that included a search of everything in my life back to childhood and a two-hour interview with a psychologist. (Incidentally, my training was at the same facility in New Mexico that trains all the Secret Service agents, all the Border Patrol agents, the Federal Air Marshals, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Bureau of Indian Affairs--just about all the armed agents of the federal government except for the military, the FBI, and the CIA.)
I should know by the end of the week if Flight Safety will offer me a job.
I really want the job!
Flight Safety looks like a great place to work, it's in my field, it's close to home, and we could really use the money!
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2019.0109
rev.0208
rev.0208
c. 1,400 words
