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New plane at work: G58 Baron... Gold wings!

After 30 years in IT, I switched careers. ATP checkride is Friday. Here's my new ride.

Ben Diss wrote:

After 30 years in IT, I switched careers. ATP checkride is Friday. Here's my new ride.

Nice! Did you already have pilot's license or did you start from scratch?

Sugs wrote: Nice! Did you already have pilot's license or did you start from scratch?

I'd been flying all my life. With the current pilot shortage it finally became a viable option.

Ben Diss wrote:

After 30 years in IT, I switched careers. ATP checkride is Friday. Here's my new ride.

Go get em Ben, Good luck on the ride!

mensor wrote:Here’s a cool one for the rotorheads. Fire fighting sky crane was helping out with the wildfires here a couple weeks ago. Talk about a sweet looking naked engine.

got to watch one of those Sikorsky jewels in the OEM orange setting ski lift towers @ Mammoth Mtn, CA back in about 1990 (this photo is not that day, it's a stock shot I found). I sat there in awe, jaw agape, for several hours, driving back and forth from the parking lot where they were refueling & picking the towers to the parking lot at MMSA main Lodge where I could watch him set the towers.

It was one of the best afternoons of my life.
it's simply a beautiful thing to watch a 19,000+ lb machine, carrying 40-60 ft. long steel tubes, dance in the sky.
and those Pratt & Whitney's make some beautiful music.

We had a Sky crane overnite a couple of years ago...

no ride, but towed and fueled it a bunch...

Oldewing, I just realized we may have crossed paths some years ago. Delivered a friend’s da40 (below) from KOSU in 2015 (?) and swear I clocked a newer GL in the parking lot.

May well of been,

been there most days (or and nights) since the very early 90"s


The wing in the lot is a A&P mechanic, I get to park in a hangar

Holding my Grandson (who just Graduated High School!) at my Retirement Ceremony in front of one of my Helo's. I worked and flew (Enlisted Crew in the back) in 3 different Models of H-53. This was the newest at the time. USN Designation was MH-53E built for Minesweeping. Yes that is one of the Fuel Tanks on the side. Maxed out she would carry 21,000 pounds of JP-5. I also flew in Huey's at the NAS Brunswick Maine SAR Detachment and worked on several H-3 Variants.

The CH-53K model is in flight testing now for the Marine Corps and is quite a bit bigger and stronger. The MH (Super Stallion) shown here grossed out at 74,000 pounds. I believe the K model (King Stallion) is advertised at 90 thousand plus.

mensor wrote: Go get em Ben, Good luck on the ride!

Done. The examiner took a screen shot of the simulator's tracking screen for me. Very cool of him to do. This was my single-engine approach/landing.

Ben Diss wrote:

mensor wrote: Go get em Ben, Good luck on the ride!

Done. The examiner took a screen shot of the simulator's tracking screen for me. Very cool of him to do. This was my single-engine approach/landing.

Well done! If you should ever run into an RJ captain at Eagle named Faiz Ahmad, tell him Matt says what’s up.

This is me and my Mom leaving for Malton Airport (now Pearson International Airport) in 1957, to board a Lockheed Super Constellation airliner. I was 10 years old. We flew to Gander, Newfoundland to re-fuel, and then on to Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland. We were in the air for 12 hours.
Three things about that trip stick out in my mind. One is how noisy it was inside that aircraft. I had a window seat right next to the engine. Another was, when on the return trip, we hit some air turbulence. A soccer ball that I had purchased while in England, and stashed in the overhead luggage rack, bounced out and then bounced right off this bald guys head. But I got my biggest thrill when the stewardess took me up to the flight cabin, and I got to stand behind the pilot and the co-pilot. Try doing that these days. That was a better time!

...Dave

mensor wrote:Well done! If you should ever run into an RJ captain at Eagle named Faiz Ahmad, tell him Matt says what’s up.

I know Faiz Amin. We were in the same class, so it must be a different guy.

Ben Diss wrote:

mensor wrote:Well done! If you should ever run into an RJ captain at Eagle named Faiz Ahmad, tell him Matt says what’s up.

I know Faiz Amin. We were in the same class, so it must be a different guy.

Yeah, dude I know’s been at eagle for years. Funny though, I thought Faiz was a rare name