Originally Posted by PDTPILOT

Looks like there's 4 upgrades after all...only 6 FO's, the class started with 13 I believe. Better than 50% washout rate

Originally Posted by SupaLosah

The following is a totally free form, free for all, exercise in lucid dreaming led by Taco Bob (a fictional character) which regrets any hurt feelings caused by itself but attempts to release negative energy which if contained would certainly result in really bad consequences for the author… not to other persons or property, but to her/himself. Your causal attention is appreciated but not required and please remember that no aspect of this possibly/probably fictional diatribe has any connection to any individual, living or deceased whom may or may not be mentioned by name or initial. Translation: I’m just letting off steam, but it’s based in truth. Concretely for reality but loosely legally….. Enjoy or curse it, or make up your own ****e…….

DashGirl has a well thought out view of reality. 2 to 5 years? Only thing I disagree with. 2 years at the outside. You've been warned. Not her, she knows; all the rest of you... WARNED!

Wisconsin, PSA and Mesa mirror our destinations with a very few exceptions. Look at CLT or PHL on any day, 35 RJ's, 6 Dash8's. People say Mesa is going away; contract is up, Airways isn't happy. People say Wisconsin is gone, contract running out, Airways isn't happy. Folks, grow up... Mesa is like a cockroach. Mesa planes will be flying around a cooling earth following it's incineration by an exploding sun with 19 year old captains working for $8.00 an hour and asking "how high sir?" And taxiing like slugs right along the taxi line no matter what happens in the real world. For Allah’s sake, don’t let that nose wheel deviate from THE LINE!!! And taxiing faster than your grandmother sleeps is VERBOTEN…

Back to my story… In a heartbeat we are vaporized and replaced by a more efficient use of Borneman software, let the solutions run a couple more times and we're gone without a ripple in the dismal statistics we all put out every day. They can duplicate our operations with hardly a burp, except - alas, maybe HHH won't have service until they stretch the asphalt a bit...

Look at our schedules now... letting Borneman run for an extra day would solve 70% at least of our woes. In case you're not familiar, this is how your schedules are made. Jim S (possibly/probably a pseudo-abbreviation) inputs a bunch of crap into Borneman, and then hits GO!! It spits out a solution. If left alone it spits out another, and another and another, each better than the last. If you let a computer figure stuff out for 24 or 48 hours rather than 2 it fixes problems, it's a computer, it's what it does. I've used it, it is easily programmed with max days working in a row, earliest report, latest finish, max days/month, max block, min block, min legs, max legs, longest break, shortest break, swaps, etc, but this costs $$$ in the long run. It's an archaic program but even so if left alone to solve the crap that Airways sends us it would do much better. Jim S takes the first solution it throws out, massages it a bit for all the b/s Airways wants and shazzam, we get 4 days of 0400 reports followed by a day off and then 5 days of 1500 reports. As DashGirl said, the new work rules will (almost by themselves and independent of other economic pressures) shut this commuter down.

John Leonard please rot in discontent for realizing your dream of turning a once successful regional airline (late 80's and early 90's) into a ground handling company. It's coming, this writing has been on the wall for a very long time, Leonard was proud of it and professed it. Farrow/Buchanan/Johnston are at retirement's doorstep now, Farrow has been playing his fiddle to Airway's music for a couple of decades, he has no reason now to take "his" airline anywhere. It’d be a blessing if he could figure a way to divorce Airways and go off and seek independent financing for a “real” fleet of RJ’s with which to service ANY major airline… that’s our only hope and it’s a false hope.

Scrubby will be sucked up into Airways or American Airways (if they merge) like an un-descended testicle, they'll take care of him. The rest of us will just be wandering around like the zombies on Walking Dead (good show, check it out,) wondering what happened and where's the rug they pulled out from under us?


Mr. Henson has a circular coffin lining from all the rolling he's done in his grave over his nephew's mismanagement of this airline. If Henson hadn't died when he did WE would have been launch customer for RJ's, Jetstream (PSA) would have withered and died and his goal would have been to crush Airways anyway he could. There’s a lot of bad blood between Colodny (the original Allegheny/USAir) and Henson, look up the history if you have a rainy day in a hotel and a laptop. The merger with ALG (commuter flavor) wouldn't have happened (not that it's good or bad, it just wouldn't have happened.) Henson would have KICKED ASS. Sad he died when he did. One of the last visionaries, Juan Trip, Tom Branniff, etc... He was one of them. Yes, he was hard to work for but it was worth it. Not always tangible in the sense of $$, he swore he’d cut his hand off before he’d sign an ALPA contract (but he did, sign, not cut) BUT he had vision and the testicles to make his vision reality. Look at other commuters at the time flying around in 402’s and Shorts, Beech 99’s, Metro’s, etc… and his jump to the Dash 8. At the time it was the Cadillac of short haul flying. Phenomenal vision and drive. Adding a Dash or two a month for years, long before an RJ was even a concept.

Steve has the right idea from a business model standpoint, he's the KING of cheap operation, damn morale and full speed ahead, but he missed the class on vision and dreaming in college. He's made money virtually nonstop through all this economic turndown and before it, he's to be congratulated for that, but it's not a "self-supporting" system, it has a launch point, a zenith and a crash. We are in the crash phase now...

Hooking PDT to Airways as a wholly owned signed our death certificate, it's just taken a few more years than expected for the coroner to pronounce us dead. Well, hooking us up to the real Piedmont may have worked, but once USAir bought the “real” Piedmont we should have run like we were dipped in honey and dropped in a fire ant mound. We didn’t, we just let the MAN turn the heat up slowly on our frog asses in HIS cool water pot. Frogs don’t jump out if the water temp goes up slow. If you throw a frog into a boiling pot of water he says “what the f..K” and jumps out. Our quality of life has slipped very slowly from tolerable to unbearable, slowly enough that we’ve put up with it, and we’ll be led into the showers without protest if we continue down this path. Compare what we used to have to what we have now and we’d jump out and say “what the f..k”

Get an upgrade while you can, get some turbo prop (what are they? propellers?? and you want to work here??) time if you can, but the writing is not just on the wall, it's crushing the wall. Party is over, pop the balloons, drain the pool. Was a good run but we've nothing to merge with but a pilot group a bit top heavy (although only 11 active captains with 30+ years Phuz) a weak middle, cause smart people leave or have left, and a farm team of Perdue/UND/Riddle new hires who have huge hearts and dreams but are a dime a dozen to companies like PSA who's entire pilot force is junior to 100 or so pilots here (not so sure on that, have to check the numbers)

Wall says clearly, SAVE YOURSELF AND BAIL WHILE YOU CAN. Keep some form of income constant and don't wait until you have to beg a job with only some prop sic or 35,000 hours of it (and why, Capt. Z, didn't you "move on" 25years ago??)

DashGirl, you rock, keep up the no b/s posts.................