NastyGirl said:
So how does a mere poor mortal get to fly a BBJ or my dream airplane the G-V (or any G plane)? Is amputation involved, tell me oh great ones?
Most GIV/GV jobs come through networking. However, being in the right place at the right time with the right qualifications sometimes works as well. Last time I went to the sim one of the guys in the class had just gotten out of the Air Force where he had been a C-5 driver and was hired as a FO for an East coast corporation. One of my friends was a C-12 driver in the service and just happened to be sitting next to a G-IV chief pilot on a commercial flight home who liked the cut of his jib. At one of the flight departments where I worked we had one FO that was hired from FSI with a type and no time and another who was hired from FSI Ab Initio training. One Midwest department recently hired a P-3 guy fresh out of the Navy who was just looking for a job in his home town. My Chief of Stan-Eval in a European assignment decided that 10 years was enough to give the Air Force, got out and went to live in Cincinatti where her husband was flying for DHL. Although she had only flown the C-141 and the C-21 after UPT, she applied at a large flight department in Cinci that was operating Gulfstreams and was hired.
One thing that all of these people had in common was that they represented themselves well, had a professional appearance, interviewed competently and showed a sincere desire to work for the company where they were applying. And, of course, they were lucky.
At Netjets, it is Executive Jet International at Bluffton, SC that operates the GV's.
Good luck...
By the way, the GV is a gas to fly. It's very powerful, very responsive and technically up to the minute. Many pilots hand fly it a lot because it is so satisfying to fly. On Wednesday, we made it from BOS to SFO in 5:17 against the wind. We went initially to FL470 and later stepped up to FL490. Normal cruise is .85 mach although we could only make .84 at 49,000 feet. We could have gone to FL510 for the last two and a half hours of the flight, but there was no need, most of the wind was gone at FL490.
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