THIS ^^^^^^^^^^:D

I buy the beer every night we have time. Unless your a douch, then no beer for you! If you are a proby you will get your morning starbucks too.

The thing about the Abbots jacket is that it has this quilted lining that is really hot year around. After about 3 minutes, you can just about bake a potato.

Don't forget to get the Velcro mod....

Nu

Abbotts SUCKS
 

I had a completely horrible experience with Abbott's. Pretty much the worst customer service on the planet. I got hired in '07 and made it a point to ask the individuals that got hired around me if they received the same treatment. I know this is anecdotal, but the overwhelming majority had the same experience. I was forced to get a full refund when they couldn't manage to get me my uniforms despite the 8 week lead time. I ended up buying them from the Navy Exchange, which is a good option for the mil guys. Also, the seamstress that I dealt with was as rude as they come and the workmanship on the tailoring looked like is was done by a 3rd grader in home economics. If you want good quality, another great option is marlowwhite.com . The Navy Exchange has two options including a very high quality uniform made by Brooks Bros. All you need to do is take the Navy Blues uniform to the Flight Station off VA ave and have them sew on the buttons and the stripes.

My 2 cents.

FWIW, update from the early rumor that they'd end interviewing around Aug 2nd- a guy a friend of mine recommended just got a Aug 4th interview date.

It'll be interesting to see, however, if anyone gets an Aug 9th and after interview. Then they're going longer than they had initially planned which was rumored to be at the end of July.

Yep, I'll second that.

The only thing Abbots has that is worth the hassle is the blazer. Their shirts are the worst fitting shirts ever made and their pants are triple the price they should be.

Blazer from Abbots
Shirts from pilotshirts.com (I like the Jetstream shirts by Elbeco)
Pants/belt/socks/shoes from Kohls
Hat from Premier Hat Company (low profile Dry-Fit model)
Tie and brass items from the store by the lounge in Atlanta

You'll come in well under $500 for all the stuff you need and it will fit. If you buy it all from Abbots it'll run you about $900.

Glad to see invites still going out.

Are they still going out?
I heard that all classes were filled with: Off the street, recalls, and flow ups. Hope I'm wrong.

Reference highlighted text below. ;)

Abbots and my sad uniform story
 

The only thing good I can say about Abbotts is that the girl working was hot. Other than that, I had the same experience you did.

I deadheaded down to ATL to pick up my uniform. Unfortunately, the jacket and the pants were too little. No, I didn't get fat. The jacket looked like I was Chris Farley (Tommy Boy) trying on a little coat. The coat was extremely too small for me. The pants were too long. What was disappointing was that the staff tried to convince me that they were ok. I couldn't believe that they were really going to try and convince me that they were ok. I told them to start over and fix it.

To make a long story short, they got my jacket right but I ended up never picking up my pants because after two redos they never got them right. I've never been back either, nor have they called me to say that they're done.

Here is a true but sad story about DAL and LCAs. A week after completing my checkride during OE, I received a phone call from a LCA at the CPO in ATL. The LCA wanted to discuss my uniform wear. I politely asked what the problem was. The conversation went exactly like this ... [] used for emphasis...

LCA: Did you read your FOM?

ME: Of course I did, what's the problem sir?

LCA: We have received word here in ATL that you've been wearing cotton pants. Where did you purchase your pants?

Me: I bought them at Kohls. Is there a problem???

LCA: Yes there is. If you've read your FOM like you said you did, then you would know that it [clearly] states on page 11-6.7 that the pants will be made of a 55%/45% dacron/wool blend. Why did you think you could wear cotton?

Me: (I'm laughing at this point because I think it's a joke). I'm very sorry sir, I didn't know that.

LCA: Well, if you would have read your FOM, then you would know.

Me: Sir, I'm very sorry. I bought my pants where all my buddies who also work for DAL told me to. That's why I went to Kohls.

LCA: If you would have read your FOM, like you said you did, then you would have noticed that it [clearly] states on page 11-6.7 that they must be a dacron/wool blend.

Me: I'm very very sorry sir. I didn't mean to do this on purpose. I will correct the problem as soon as possible. (as I am saying this, I am opening up the FOM to page 11-6.7 .. and what do you know, he's right!)

LCA: You need to read your FOM again because it [clearly] states that you must wear a 55%/45% dacron/wool blend. The cotton pants are too shiny and don't look right. (ok, at this point, I'm getting a little angry at his condescending tone).

ME: Ok sir, I will fix the problem asap. I'm very sorry about this, I didn't mean to do this on purpose. I thought I was wearing the proper uniform becuase none of my OE LCAs said anything to me and my buddies told me they bought the same pair of pants from Kohl's. (at this point, I realize that I am deadheading to ATL tomorrow for a trip, it's 6pm and theres no way for me to get a new pair of pants)

LCA: Well, if you've read your FOM, then you would have known what's expected of you. We can't have pilots wearing anything they want. (as he is saying, I'm trying to figure out where I can buy a correct pair of pants ... I see that the FOM says "contact your Chief Pilot's Office for a list of authorized approved vendors or tailors)

ME: Sir, I am on a trip tomorrow starting in ATL. Wear can I buy the right pair of pants?

LCA: You can go to the Flight Station or other uniform vendors. They'll have the correct pair of pants there.

ME: What's the Flight Station and where is it? (I thought he was talking about Abbotts)

LCA: It is a store next to the ATL pilots lounge. They have the style of pants you need.

ME: What time do they open because I'm not sure if I'll have time to buy a pair of pants, have them hemmed before I start my trip? My trip leaves at 9am in ATL. Is there another place that sells the right pair of pants?

LCA: All you need to do is go to a flight uniform store and they'll have... (ok, I am very angry now at this guy and I rudely interupt him)

ME: No, according to the FOM, it [clearly] states that on page 11-6.6 to contact the CPO for a list of authorized vendors and tailors. Can you [please] tell me where to go to buy a pair of 55%/45% dacron/wool blend pants? It [clearly] states to contact the CPO for the vedor list...

LCA: Uhhhhh ... ughhhhhhh.... welll ... you just need to go to the Flight Station ... (I interupt him again)

ME: I can't do that nor do I have time. Can you please tell me what the other approved vendors are because it [clearly] states on page 11-6.6 to contact the CPO for a list of approved vendors ...

LCA: (he interupts me) First Officer XXXXXX, I don't appreciate your tone with me. Just get the right pair of pants! Have a good night. CLICK

I called my friends to make sure it wasn't one of them. It wasn't. They laughed at me. They bought their pants from Kohls and all had cotton blend pants. They said, "it must be an 88 thing" (they were in the 75/76 program)

After making some phone calls that night, I found out that Mens Wearhouse has the exact pair of pants, style, and die that is referred to in the FOM. It is called the "J & F" pant. I have no idea if they are an approved vendor, but nobody from ATL has called me again. :mad:

Any Prop Drivers Getting The Invite?
 

Does anyone know if any of us Prop Drivers are getting called for interviews? Good friend was hired little over 2 years ago at Delta just before the merger with just B1900D and DHC-8 Q200 time. He was an LCA on the Dash.

I have about 4200 hours on the DHC-8 Q200 and I'm an LCA, OEO, and simulator instructor w/ 2 internal recs (Delta Pilots) and a 4 year degree. About 2200 hours of TPIC in the Dash. I do not have any jet time and I'm wondering if Delta may weigh my application differently as a result, despite my other qualifications. FWIW, I have been udating the application fairly regularly while keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks,
The Duke...

The first group of off the street newbs just started getting the cleared to train calls, first class with off the street newbs is officially scheduled. August 16th

A guy in my new hire class in 07 had never flown a jet. Great guy, but he had in in, 3 brothers that were Delta pilots. He went from the Dash to the ER. Super dude and well deserved. Is he the same guy you know? TW?

I know exactly who he is. We had 3 guys around that time from the Dash 8 here at Mesa get on at Delta. 2 of the 3 only had prop time. Hoping that I can be as fortunate.

If you can fly the -8, you can fly anything DAL has. I've got some time in the -6 and it was very challenging compared to what I do now, which is the 73N. Good luck!

sounds good. Top 20 CPZ also guys got packets this week for an Aug 16th class date. They will be held back for up to 90 days.

Prop time used to be all you could get at a regional. It does not matter.

excellent!! I cant wait to finally not be the "new" guy after almost 3 years :D

is that how you get to all your favorite surf spots buzz?!?...

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/a...id/temp-53.jpg

you show off!

:D

I've seen this before, but where, oh yes...

http://resource.blog.spigit.com/reso...%20reports.png

Notice the similarities:

BILL
Hello, Peter. What's happening? Uh… we have sort of a problem here.
Yeah. You apparently didn't put one of the new coversheets on your TPS
reports.

PETER
Oh, yeah. I'm sorry about that. I, I forgot.

BILL
MMMM..YEAH. YOU SEE, WE'RE PUTTING THE COVERSHEETS ON ALL TPS REPORTS
NOW BEFORE THEY GO OUT. DID YOU SEE THE MEMO ABOUT THIS?

PETER
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got the memo right here, but, uh, uh, I just
forgot. But, uh, it's not shipping out until tomorrow, so there's no
problem.

BILL
Yeah. If you could just go ahead and make sure you do that from now on,
that will be great. And Uh, I'll go ahead and make sure you get another
copy of that memo Mmmm, Ok?

Hahahah...I think I dealt with the same guy over shoes.

Heyas KC10,

On the opposite side of the spectrum...

When I was a newhire at NWA, we all were shuffled down to the basement of Building B (the old North Central/Republic HQ, off of 494 across from the MOA).

There, in the basement (decorated oddly, so I thought at the time, with "Severe Weather Shelter" signs) were very nice, but rather elderly women who took our measurements. They had seemingly been doing this since Col. Brittin had first opened the doors back in '26.

At the duly appointed time, my uniform showed up, and I went to pick it up. Same older ladies were there. One insisted that I tried on my new rig, which I did.

The "dressing room" was on the complete opposite side of this rather large room. Yet despite the distance, when I stepped out, I was confronted by my octogenarian seamstress from a distance of no less than 30 feet giving me the stink eye.

I inquired her of her troubles, and she told me that my right sleeve was 1/8 of an inch too long. I thought this a rather wild estimation considering her distance from me (among other envriomental factors).

Yet she walked up to me, and with a sleigh of hand produced a small metal ruler, seemingly out of the ether, and lo and behold, my right sleeve was EXACTLY 1/8 of an inch too long.

At that point, I was left with only one course of action: I handed her my jacket, I sat down, and I shut up...as it was obvious to me that I was WAY out of my east coast "yea, it looks OK" element. In due time the jacket was returned to me, and to this day, the sleeves are still perfect, no doubt to within a thousanth of an inch.

As I later found out, the "Severe Weather Shelter" signs are no joke, at least not in the midwest (the REAL midwest, not Ohio).

While this story might seem a quaint relic of some bygone era, I was also quite satisfied with my leather jacket from G&B some 10 years later. It was true to size out of the box, and they obviously tracked the shipments, because I was called, unsolicited, the day after it was delivered, where they asked me how the fit and finish was (it was perfect), and to emphasize their guarantee and I could call them anytime if I had any problems with it. While some might scoff at it, on the DC-9, it was VERY much appriciated, as it simplified things immensely (considering the sliver of space that the jokesters at Douglas called "the closet"), lightened your load, could be wiped clean with a damp cloth, and made a VERY serviceable pillow on the commute home.

Nu

Sorry you had that experience from a LCA. I'm a LCA on the 320. I'm not the hat police and I'm not the uniform police. I just want to validate the training you recieved in the sims and provide some travelling tips.........that's all:cool:

What he said....

Going from mountain hopping in the Dash to ocean crossing in the ER was a huge learning curve for him but his success is a testament to the quality of applicant Delta hires and the ability of us former new hires to "be here" in the ER. Wish I had a nickle for every time I heard, "new hires shouldn't be in the ER, the program's not designed for new hires."

Even a penny would pay off the mortgage....

Not yours, you high highfalutin living swinger that you are!:D

Somebody gotta do it.....:D

Oh hell, I mean no disrespect to the LCAs at DAL. Truth is, most of them I've flown with are very cool guys.

This guy had an attitude problem. He couldn't in a nice way tell me that I had the wrong pants and to fix it. That's all was needed. Instead, he made this big deal about it.

But at the end of the phone call, I turned his condescending nasty attitude back against him when I pointed out that he was the one who was supposed to give me the approved vendor list. Once he hemmed and hawed, I kept saying "but it clearly says that you will provide me a list".

It was funny. Just to CYA, I stopped by and told my CPO at LGA. Everybody laughed about it ... and I was in my cotton pants at the time. :cool:

Left Coast Anyone???
 

Are there any west coast KC-10/C-17/C-5 drivers getting interviews / hired?

The east coast has had several interview, but the hiring ratio is extremely low.

I'll take a nickle also for every time I heard, even while on the 88, "did you find going straight to the ER hard?"

Why would it be harder than flying any other airplane in the fleet?

The RA still counts down "50, 40, 30, 20, 10" so you know when to pull and whats hard about coloring a map, using HF, being diligent over the plethora of rules crossing the ocean and watching every other airline in the world fly right by on the tracks.

Heck, my buddy that sat next to me in indoc was also on the ER and two months after hitting the line we were on a JFK-GRU trip together poking through the thunderstorms while the Captain was on break. Its the same thing you've always done except now you had a much better st. elmo's fire show going on. The windshelds on the 767 were entertaining.

Now, he, there was one thing hard about flying the ER. And that was hearing the words "Delta" while over France and oh I did call Scottish by the name London once. Thought the Captain was going to jump across the cockpit to stop me but by then it was too late. :D

I will say, I think training was a real gentlemans course but there were a lot of gaps in it and I just plugged in previous RJ training and everything worked great, but I was surprised that there would be gaps on this level. And it also doesn't hurt to go to the training center and jump in the CAPT trainer after hours when nobody is around.

Little surprised to see a LCA do this work on the behalf of the CPO, FWIW.

Well ACL, he just said "Hi this is Capt so-and-so from ATL CPO ...."

So perhaps he wasn't a LCA. I just assumed he was.

Ah, probably a Asst CP then.

------------

FTB;
Some of this sentiment comes from pilots who started on steam guages, then got a single FMS, then got glass with 2 FMS's, then got international qualified. IOW it was the stepping stone approach from mostly military folks who had no glass, no fms, no int'l experience.

I had a buddy go from 727 eng to the -er. It was such a giant transition for him, he was on the 6 month extra training program. Now we dont have the panel, and very few new folks will have zero glass experience. So, times have changed.

RJ folks didn't have to be befuddled by glass and the FMS, so all you had to do was get aircraft and int'l qualified. I still call them TVs, not pfd/nd by the way.

I'd suspect most military folks are glass masters now too. However, I think wat I have explained previously in this post is where those questions about difficulty came from.

I jumpseated on a -9 a few weeks ago and looked in the cockpit, man I was a dog watching TV. I cant do that stuff anymore.

You would be amazed how quickly it comes back. :)

Scambo, it's funny you mention that. Captain I was flying with was an F15 driver, he said he came to Delta thinking he was coming to the latest and greatest everything when he got here... he then was on the 727 panel and amazed of what a dinosaur it was- and no INS??!? The jumpseater was a P3 guy that came in 85, he said he was blown away by the 727s technology.

Funny. Everything is relative.

Btw, never met so many 1985 DALS hires until I did the ATL-DFW shuttle. I'm usually slack jawed meeting a 1988 hire, but 85?!? Whooooa.

-------------
I was also pretty surprised how behind DAL was on technology - INS' not in every jet, darn few GPS', etc.. Some of you folks came to the party a little later than me, but it is a relatively recent development that the company actually has been run like a business.

It is my opinion that it can be run like a business and still preserve most of the elements of the DAL family. Sadly, the DAL family approach is non-existent in many parts of the company.

Apparently you never flew a 7ER ATL trip! :eek:

I heard they were avoiding KC-10 guys because they're afraid they might accidentally hire "Tanker Clown" from flightinfo...