A Day in my Life @ STC

5:15. The alarm goes off and I roll over to extinguish the aural assault. The dull glow of dawn is just beginning to creep over the horizon. In an hour I’ll leave to pick up the Moody Aviation student I carpool with and we’ll head for Felts Field airport for daily chapel at the Moody Aviation hangar at 6:45.

7:20. Chapel is over so I make the drive to the other end of the airport to Spokane Turbine Center (STC). I have a little less than an hour to make sure everything is ready for classes to begin at 8:15. The students, missionary pilots and mechanics from varying organizations around the world, will begin showing up around eight, about the time we have our morning staff briefing. I fill up a coffee cup and make my way to the Garmin G1000 classroom. (pictured below)

8:15. It's class time. I've been teaching a couple of sections of the G1000 (see January 30th, 2010 post) avionics class which has been a great experience, forcing me to really dig in and know the material. When I've finished the first couple of sections, another instructor takes over and I retreat to the back of the classroom with my computer, taking notes to further my own understanding of the system, as well as noting anything needing to be modified or improved in the course presentation.

12:00. Lunch break is from 12 to 1. It gives me a chance to catch up on e-mails, chat with the students who always have interesting insights and experiences from all over the world, and, oh yeah, eat some lunch.

1:00. I usually head to my office at this point and work on any number of tasks from G1000 courseware development to various customer service needs to studying technical publications relating to course material for my own furthering education. Sometimes my afternoon is consumed with maintenance on our Kodiak 100 training aircraft (pictured below) of which I was recently appointed crew chief. Other days my afternoons are consumed with working on various projects around the facility that will improve our operational efficiency and/or effectivity. If we happen to be teaching a Pratt & Whitney PT6 turboprop class that week, my entire afternoon may be spent teaching starts, runs and shut-downs on our live engine to students who have never operated a turboprop engine before.

5:00. Technically, this is go-home time, though this rarely happens until 5:30 or later. There's always a thousand details to attend to before tomorrow. In some cases, they may not even be small details. For example, one afternoon the plane came back from a training flight with an inoperative alternator. Not an emergency (particularly on the Kodiak), but something that definitely should be fixed. I spent some time diagnosing the problem, determined what parts were needed, and then flew a Moody Aviation Cessna up to the Quest factory in Sandpoint, ID to pick up the parts. Thankfully, it was a clear, beautiful night for the 40 minute flight to this small town nestled next to Lake Pend Orielle in north Idaho's Selkirk Mountains. So peaceful.

Sometime in the evening I head back over to the Moody hangar to pick up my car-pooling buddy (who works at the hangar after school) and eventually get home, relax a little, eat some dinner and head for bed. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?