While based in Jacksonville, Florida went to an airport in town and signed up for flying lessons at North Florida Flight Center to earn a private pilot's license. I became a private pilots in about 6 months.

A few months later, my commitment to the Navy was complete in June of 1990 and headed back home to Minneapolis. I plan was to find a part-time job, learn to fly and begin college.

Within a couple weeks, I got a job at a flight school in Minneapolis as a dispatcher. The dispatcher answers phone, schedules rental aircraft, and billing for customers. I also enrolled in school at a community college that offered a 2 year degree program in Aeronautical Science. I went to school in the evenings so I can work and continue with the rest of my flying lessons.

By July 1991, I became a Certified Flight Instructor and the flight school I had been working at for the past year, hired me on as a CFI. Our flight school also had a contract with a local radio station to fly a traffic reporter around in the morning and afternoons which I was involved in as well and that was 4 hours of flight time a day. The downside to all this is that I overloaded myself. My day began at 4:30am so I can be ready to fly at 6am for the traffic report. I had students from 8am until 5pm and then off to night school from 6:30pm until 9:30pm, Monday through Friday. But it all paid off. After about 1 year of flight instructing, I had 1,200 hours total time and 151 multi-engine.

Mesaba Airlines Saab 340

With the help of some friends, who had written letters of recommendation for me, I was hired by Mesaba Airlines/Northwest Airlink in December of 1992. I flew a Fairchild Metroliner III which is a 19 passenger turboprop. After flying as first officer for 2 1/2yrs, I upgraded as captain in the Metroliner and got my first type rating!!

A year later, Mesaba Airlines began phasing out the Metros and I was retrained as a captain on the Saab 340 and earned another type rating! The flight time you receive flying as a captain (turbine PIC) are some of the things major airlines look for when screening resumes. Like every other pilot, I applied to all the big named major airlines as well as some of the smaller ones.

After about 5 years with Mesaba, I was hired by America West Airlines in Phoenix flying my first jet; the B737! It's true what they say, they get easier to fly as they planes get bigger. The big difference between flying a turboprop and flying a jet, is that a jet doesn't slow down and descend simultaneously very well. You have to learn to stay ahead of the plane. Landing is the easy part!

America West Airlines Boeing 737-300

Later that night, United organized a very nice dinner for all of the new pilots and spouses. I was very impressed! My class consisted of 26 new hires. Experience ranged from retired military pilots, corporate pilots, freight/cargo pilots, commuter airline pilots and pilots from other major airlines.

United Airlines 737-300

Not everyone was hired into the same airplane. It is all based on seniority. I was number 5 out of 26 pilots in my class, so based on the airplanes that had openings, I chose the B737. Other pilots chose flight engineer or first officers on the B727. In a class prior to us, they actually had a few new hires assigned to the B757/B767. Flying for a major airline is everything I expected it to be. I couldn't imagine doing anything else!

Michael Orensteen
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United Airlines