My year of flying a Boeing 727

Way back in 2006 I had the adventure of flying as a First Officer on board a Boeing 727. The airline was a small cargo outfit out of Miami called Amerijet. The experience was quite an eye opener for me. It was real grit flying to some very exotic places in Central and South America. Most 727 operators hire new flight crew as Flight Engineers, but not Amerijet. Amerijet, due to pilot attrition, was looking at new hires as potential Captains a year down the line. The Flight Engineers were basically Mechanics first and Flight Engineers second. We were hired after attending a Pilots Job Fair at Aeroservice in Miami. New hire pilots and FE's started school together and finished together, the only difference was our simulator time. Pilots in the right seat and FE's on the panel (Filight Engineers station). Commonly referred to in the business as "sitting sideways". After school was over, a month, we went to do our "Line Checks". Certain Captains had the distinction as Check Pilots, they checked the First Officer candidates. And certain FE's were Check FE's, they watched and checked the FE candidates. This "Check Period" lasted for 25 grueling hours. If you passed this milestone you became a Line Pilot. Some did not make it through school or the Line Checks. A friend of mine was fired during the Line Check, a guy I had met in class, nicest guy in the world. That was a bummer. It didn't help my level of nervousness at all either! Anyway, 16 hour Duty Days were pretty much the norm for us there at Amerijet. Typically we had around 3 to 5 legs per trip. Loading cargo was the duty of the First Officers and it was a critical task. FE's were busy with fuel loading and planning, while the Captain was busy in the Flight Room and shooting the shit. I left Amerijet before I finished a year to fly for a charter outfit out of Ft. Lauderdale in the Lear 60, but if you would like to see what a landing looks like from the cockpit check me out on Youtube.

Me flying the 727

Trent