The prelude to a cool job

I thought, while I'm sitting on the ground waiting to go flying again, I would give a run down on my aviation career up to this point. I finished a two year Aviation Diploma program in Kelowna BC in the spring of 2000. At the time I had been working on the Ramp @ the Kelowna airport for about two and a half years. I continued to work the ramp there while I was looking for work. I talked to many of the crews that flew in about where I should go. One Dash 8 captain recommended Skyward in Thompson, telling me to give the chief pilot his name. Using my passes, I flew up to Thompson to talk to Skyward. The Chief pilot gave me 20 minutes of his time and made sure I got a tour of the facility, however, he told me he had lots of friends with friends that need jobs. In the spring of 2001 I embarked on a road trip that took me across Northern BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and finally up to Thompson again. The trip took me one whole week, I put 7000kms on my car, talked to some nice folks @ many different companies, but didn't have any luck finding work. In the fall of 2001, Westjet announced it would adding Thompson to it's network. I thought, seeing as I tossed bags for Westjet and knew many of the Westjetters in Kelowna, I should apply to be a CSA in Thompson and join the many "lurkers" in town waiting for ramp jobs @ Skyward. With the help of the Westjet folks in Kelowna I managed to land the job. I moved up to Thompson in December of 2001.

I worked @ Westjet and Rogers Video until March of 2002 when the Chief Pilot called me up to offer me a job grooming. My job was to clean aircraft, offices and help maintenance. The shift was four on then four off, 2030 till 0830. During the summer I actually didn't mind the midnight shift so much as there was only 4 hours of darkness. In the Wintertime, I hardly saw the sun, and it was always consistently cold, so I didn't care much for working midnights. The job itself was pretty easy, there was enough work each night to keep oneself busy so the time usually flew by. I got along with the maintenance guys pretty well so a lot of fun was had. Fourteen months later, in May of 2003, I was told that I had a position flying the piston singles, the Cessna 172, 206 and the 207.


Early morning on the ramp in Thompson