Maintenance Woes & The Benefits of Living Thomas Paine's Philosophy

I have been getting maintenance cancellations on a 3:1 ratio to actually flying. The Seneca I's that my school has in it's fleet are TIRED OLD BEATERS. Seneca's aren't really stout enough for training as it is, add in over 20,000 hours and you get a maintenance nightmare.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad when an aircraft is squawked. At least someone is diligent enough to make sure nobody runs in to trouble. However, Rube Goldberg couldn't piece them together. If it's not the governor, it's o-rings, landing gear, breaks, fluid leaks or an electrical failure. I could go on and on.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm getting frustrated. There are two Senecas in my campus' fleet. One is always down for maintenance and many times both are. Why they don't use workhorse Seminoles is beyond me. Other students are becoming frustrated too. If things don't change, they might find themselves short on students and long on broke-ass Senecas.

What's even more frustrating is a new policy that's been enacted by the school's new chief flight instructor. If you're scheduled for an early a.m. flight and the aircraft you've been assigned has gone down for maintenance, they no longer call you to let you know. This DOES NOT fly with me. I work full-time, raise a family and limp through flight school. My schedule gets very tight. How dare some place that I'm spending THOUSANDS of dollars at have so little regard for my time. A simple phone call costs nothing and just might keep a pissed off student from going elsewhere. Nothing sucks more than showing up to fly, after carefully scheduling around work etc., only to show up and be told the aircraft went down the night before and you were not called ON PURPOSE!

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Maybe I should focus on getting rich for the time being. There are so many opportunities right at my finger tips that I'm beginning to doubt my reasoning for becoming a pilot. Just this morning, I've had at least 20 opportunities to become filthy rich. Maybe it's time to reach for the brass ring. Here are just a few of today's great opportunities that I've been too lazy to respond to:

1. My email address won the Netherlands International E-mail Lottery. How come my email gets to go to Amsterdam and I don't? Now that's my kind of gambling. I didn't even enter!

2. Dr. Reginald Smyth-Worcester, who unfortunately has no heirs, is dying. The poor bastard has no friends to share his millions of Pounds with and wants to give it all away to US charities and needs an agent. He's heard what an outstanding individual I am and wants to pay me 8% of his fortune and choose the charities, in exchange for being his US Agent.

3. I also received an email from a friend. All I have to do is forward the said email to everyone I know and Microsoft will pay me a $224 advertising fee for every message. Sounds crazy, but it's true! The person who sent the message swears to it.

4. BofA, Chase, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, WaMu and a whole bunch of Credit Unions have each offered me $100 cash just to answer their survey. All I have to do is send them my personal information and they'll transfer the money right to my bank account! I must be the ultimate target consumer.

5. I can't pass the symbols on to you, but rest assured, I have some great inside information about a bunch of penny stocks that are about to explode, I mean EXPLODE! I'm thinking about turning $20 into $400,000. Why don't more people know about or buy these explosive growth stocks?

I could go on, but I don't want anyone make anyone envious of my status with such fine organizations. Not just anyone gets offers like these. And trust me, there are many, many more individuals waiting in line to make me rich. To quote Thomas Paine, "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

It's also good to know how safe the Internet is. Today alone PayPal (5 times, no less!), Amazon, Bank of America, eBay, Chase and Compass Bank have all asked me to confirm my account for safety reasons. It only took a minute or two, but now I know my information is safe from intruders.

Wait a second, do I have an account with Compass Bank?