Basic job hunting advice
 

I can't believe it's still coming up - "my #1 choice hasn't hired me yet. Should I pursue others?"

You need to be pursuing your top #1 - #x. Not just #1. Not right now...yesterday.

If "your not #1 hires you first" you go there *unless* you're at the cusp of a known requirement, like upgrade to the left seat/TPIC, getting 500/1000 hrs TPIC, etc. Is your current job your FINAL job if #1, in your case Alaskan, doesn't call you? In that case there's no need to apply to anyone else except #1. But for the VAST majority their #1-x (5? 8?) major 121 choices are better than their current job. Don't take you foot off the gas because airline xyz gave you an interview but an airline lower on your desired list gave you a CJO or class date. Grab anything that's on your destination list or improves your resume. Keep chasing the jobs higher on your personal list. Get a destination job and continue pursuing higher choices until it doesn't make sense for you to leave ABC for XYZ.

True story - guy I was mentoring. Had wanted to fly for AA since he was a kid. AA gave him a CJO. Delta called. He wasn't going to go there. Why bother, AA had given him a CJO and a class date would follow shortly? I said "go talk to Delta. AA's promise is like a girl at a bar saying she'll be back next week. Uh-uh, we're talking about tonight! Another girl walks over...you holding out for next week's promise or going to deal with today first???" He went to DL. AA started taking back a bunch of furloughs and AA didn't contact him for over a year. He said it was tough turning down AA because for maybe 30 yrs that had been his goal. "But it didn't make any sense to quit DL by then. Delta was too good to me to go to AA and start over." Bingo.

Another guy had AA as his first choice. UA gave him an earlier class date. "Go. Don't wait." He said that was what every airline advisor was telling him. Had his type rating ride 2 weeks before his AA class date - "You'd better not bust it." Passed, walked down the hall to give his 2 weeks notice. He was told he wasn't the first.

Guys are cross-polinating as a better choice for them contacts them. Each airline is poaching from each other. Don't feel guilty.

Put your application in BEFORE you think you meet the minimums. Let them decide if they want to call you. Update at least every 3 months, I'd highly recommend monthly, and I'd recommend twice a month as they're often filling two classes a month. You never know when you reached the magic combination of experience where they decide to call you.

Good luck.

Yeah pursue all top tier jobs which you'd be willing to accept. Unless commuting is intolerable to you and you need to live in a specific domicile.


Give that some time (months? one year?) and then apply to all second-tier you'd be willing to accept. I suggest the delay because there's a good chance you'll get called immediately, which you might not want to do until you throw your hat in the top tier ring for at least a while. Although second-tier hiring might be slowing a bit.

Also, apply to all you are willing to work for. Even if it is a lower rung than you wished. You take the first offer, and if you get more than one offer you take the best option for you. You never know why one company may or may not call you personally. Lots of opportunities out there.

Wait—but what if they have “always wanted to work there?” Aww man!

In all seriousness...

The only time to ever consider something like that is if you have CJO's in hand for multiple legacies.

Commuting IS intolerable.

SpaceX is hiring! Ad that showed up this morning.

Wanted, retired NASA engineers, competitive pay and benefits, bring slide rule!

Their vehicle blew up. Maybe they should spring for the slide rule. And the vehicle that doesn't blow up. Stop buying discount stages at Rockets R Us. Then again, Elon did say they'd be lucky to make it to stage separation.

Downside: working for Elon.

I believe the launch was a resounding success. It acheived its primary goals and then some. Incremental advances, I think Falcon 9, Dragon and Heavy all speak to their ability to solve a problem.

See if you can catch a ride on the next one. I'm sure it will be just fine.

Yes. Given their very ambitious goals with this project, they are doing just fine.

The next launch may not fly the full mission profile either, but it will most likely go further than this one.

I think they are striking an excellenet balance between caution and progress. The government (and to a lesser degree big public aerospace companies) are conservative to a fault, taking years or decades of delays in development and spending hundreds of millions (or more) polishing the apple to a fine gloss before daring to light the candle. Why? Because of the bad public optics of exploding rockets, and political/bureaucratic ramifications.

SpaceX history with their commercially operational launch systems bears this out. They literally turned the entire industry on it's ear with low costs and reusable vehicles.

If you don't like Elon, I suppose there's always boeing space systems... taking Max design philosophy to new heights :rolleyes:

Fourteen of the 355 people to ever fly on one of the space shuttles died due to basic engineering inadequacies or operational mismanagement (depending on how you want to define the Challenger out of temperature envelope launch). That's a job (or pax) related STS mortality of 4%. Which, granted, is only one-fourth the mortality of playing Russian roulette one time, but certainly not something that most people would consider to be safe.

So we are moving the goal posts of you absurd argument now, ok got it.

I, nor anyone at SpaceX said anything about people riding one of these test flights. I have no doubt people will be riding on them before the decade closes though.

The plan is to put men on the moon by the end of 2025 using the space x Rocket. They don't have much time.

...and returning them safely to earth.

When President Kennedy said that in the early 1960's, that plan was not a foregone conclusion.

30 astronauts were selected for Apollo. Afterr killing the Apollo 1 crew without their ever leaving the launch pad the program had several mission failures (Apollo 13 for instance) but no further fatalities. Three dead out of 30Apollo astronauts was a 10% mortality. Not as bad odds as playing Russian roulette even once, but even so...

It didn't blow up, dammit!

It was a "rapid unscheduled disassembly".... 😁

I know you said nothing about putting people on board. I said that. You quoted me saying it, brightspark.

No one will get on the god damn vehicle because it's not safe. Call that a god damn success if you will.

The ****ing thing blew up. Go figure.

No, it wasn't unscheduled. Elon said, before the launch, that they would be lucky to make it to stage separation. They fully expected it to explode, and explode, it did.

The plan is to put women on the moon or anyone that’s not a white man. Their mission goals actually say something along those lines.

Well, just saw my first United Aviate commercial. SR-22s huh? Alright! Well, see ya!

I do not recall any other mission failures other than Apollo 13. Can you name any specific ones?

I did not read about them in the textbooks. I remember watching them.

Feeling a bit replaced? Do ya?

You don’t remember them burning on the launchpad? Sad stuff.

The original post said several failures AFTER Apollo 1.

Totally missed the original.

11 almost was (several times)

- the computer started throwing error codes on decent that had not been simulated before. they were about to abort when one of the interns happened to know what they were from memory. Apparently as part of a “haze the new guy” ritual was they made this intern memorize all the computer error codes and he was able to give that info in real time.

-they almost had to abort the landing due to fuel. they landed 25 seconds above their abort fuel

- they almost got stuck on the moon. When re entering the lunar module they damaged the circuit breaker that armed the accent rocket. When troubleshooting they figured out the tip of their pen fit in the slot where the breaker was and were able to arm the rocket that way.

How many times does autopilot do strange things, and a pilot kicks it into manual and does a safe maneuver? Sounds like common.

The Apollo 1 crew was less than a success. Apollo 8 was originally supposed to be a test of the LM in Earth orbit, but delays in testing of the LM precluded that, but it was politically decided to launch it into a lunar orbit to beat the Russians in doing so. Apollo 12 was hit by lightning after takeoff, ruining their telemetry until they coukd figure out the problem and switch to an aux system. On the same mission Alan Bean accidentally pointed the TV camera directly at the Sun, frying its circuitry and limiting the lunar videos taken - perhaps one reason that few remember Apollo 12.

It was an engineer who'd worked in the simulator trying to trigger every code/failure they could think of. They triggered 1201/1202 faults and were told to write down every fault code there was. They put a laminated chart of the fault codes under the glass at a console. Second link below has his first hand account of what occurred.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2019/07/16/apollo-11s-infamous-landing-error-code-1202-offers-earthly-lessons-for-self-driving-cars/?sh=6b07a2f034bc

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-092016a-obituary-jack-garman-apollo11.html

well then I stand corrected. I thought I had read the intern thing in one of the books on the subject.

Best book on the Apollo project up to Apollo 11: Apollo Race to the Moon by Charles Murray (yeah, THAT Charles Murray). Get the Audible, it's worth the listen.

Best Movie: APOLLO 11 - Best movie I've ever seen on an Imax. Uses cleaned up original footage from news and NASA. Incredible.

"Astronauts" for rockets today are like "pilots" today: mostly systems managers and going the way of the dodo. "Stop!". "Go!". "Expand your team!". "Hey, I "flew" for almost 5 minutes on my 9 hour flight!".

These men were incredible. (So were their Soviet counterparts - Soviet Space Race. Ho. Lee. Cripe. Also women, in their case. Soviet astronaughts tradiotionally ****ed on their rockets before liftoff. LOL.)

I remember these missions as they happened. Apollo 4 through 17.

The discussion was about the boosters. The Saturn 5 was as far as I can find 12 for 12. Super Heavy is now 0 for 2.

Never seen it. I engage it during the takeoff roll and close my eyes. I open them when the first passenger say "thanks," and start waving "buh-bye."

It always works. We're in a jet. What could go wrong?

Depends. Elon said in advance that he expected them to fail, and given that it was his project, his company, and his money, that would make both outcomes a rousing success, achieving the stated goals.

In all fairness, however, in the bigger picture of what they have done, a rocket than land itself vertically on a platform on land or in the water is pretty damn impressive. Plus, they've managed to introduce new sparkles in the night sky that cause some conspiracy-minded first officers to launch on rants at night about UFO's and government coverups. One just can't buy that kind of stupidity.

At Atlas? :-)

What makes you think I work at Atlas?

No biggie. I'd read several books on the subject and had listened to a great podcast from BBC '13 Minutes to the Moon' and didn't recall the details. So I looked it up.

Niece asked me for pictures from my military time. I said I think the only ones I have are from over Panama. But I remembered the flight lead had been based in Panama and we went sight-seeing to view the Japanese mini-sub that had beached itself vs attacking cargo ships waiting to transit the Panama Canal. I had the picture and went on the internet to find an article about the 'Japanese mini-sub.'. Oh, the sub is there...but it was one of the first subs ever built and had sunk around 1870. So much for the 'Japanese mini-sub.' Flight lead buddy had flown there in the late 1970's/early 1980's and the real story, even then, had morphed into a WWII urban legend.

The 1 million miles I commuted in first class were really not that bad

Ahhh the good old days of the real PAN AM, TWA and EAL (pre March 1989) to name a few... It got to the point, when commuting East or West... to decide... do I want the Crab Cakes or Sachertorte?

Amen. Those were the days.

Carved prime rib.