First Officer

With his formal training complete, Patrick is officially a First Officer for Sky West Airlines which is a regional carrier that flies under the banner of most (or many) of the legacy airlines.  His first tour of duty (they have a different term for this but I can't remember what it is...let's just call it a senior moment) is with a Training Captain (a captain with specific training and a lot of experience in this particular plane) on a sequence of flights that bounce him all over the west (California, Nevada, Arizona, Vancouver...to name a few).

He flies one or two legs each day with a hotel stay in whatever town their day ends and will end up back at his base (in Los Angeles California) after about four days.  Then he can catch a jump seat back home to Phoenix for a few days before doing his second "tour of duty" with the Training Captain.

Once these two tours with the Training Captain are complete, he will be released to general scheduling and will just be a regular First Officer on the schedule, ready to fill the second seat of any flight to which he is assigned (no further need to ride with a Training Captain).

I had a nice chat on the phone with Patrick yesterday.  He had completed three or so of the flights in this tour and is clearly enjoying what he's doing.  He commented about being part of the crew and how the flight attendants and pilots move as a group (to and from the hotels and airports) and clearly show signs of workplace friendships that form over time.  The days of being in intensive training with other students and the stress of wondering if you're making the grade have given way to...doing the job...with other professionals who are also doing the job...from the cockpit pilots to the flight attendants to the ground crew fueling the plane and loading the luggage.

As he talked about his first experiences in a real cockpit in a real plane with real push-backs and real taxiing instructions, and real lift off with real people on board (he's spent a few years in simulators so doing the "real" thing is special), I was surprised by the emotion I felt; excitement for this new and fun phase of his life, and pride in his success at getting to this point.  Oh, I've been proud of him before - great soccer saves as the goalie, first place for a great guitar competition, Deans List, college graduate - but for some reason this one is different.

He sent us this picture from his first "tour of duty".  My "baby" is a pilot...and flies that plane!  Whaaaat?! (that's for you, Mom 😁)