Dave Cook PAY7571

In August 2018, Dave wrote this column for the Pacific Journal - In his own words.

From the Desk of the Airline Chief Pilot

I joined Pacific Airways (PAY) in February of 2010. I had read about the airline in Computer Pilot magazine and the one thing made it of interest to me was that there was no requirement to fly on VATSIM. The main thing the airline did for me when I joined was to give some structure to my flying. There were flight tables with routes to follow which made things interesting for me.

After a couple of years of flying with PAY, I got interested in VATSIM flying as I was always seeing fellow pilots flying online with VATSIM. I was a little nervous at first getting sweaty palms each time a controller was online. Now I have almost 4000 hours of flying on VATSIM. I would encourage you to give VATSIM a try if you have not flown online.

I am based in the LAX Hub which is where I have been for all of my time with PAY. I was Chief Pilot there as well for a few years before becoming Chief Pilot for the airline and then renamed as Senior Chief Pilot recently.

I try to send each new pilot a personal welcome from me and to let them know about forum, VATSIM events and also about our communications tool, TeamSpeak. I also send out occasional emails to all the PAY pilots advising them of special events and of items on the forum that might be of interest to them.

Dave Cook, Senior Chief Pilot

                    Dave and COO Tom Detlefsen                                                                  Dave and his wife Georgina with Rich Haney CEO

                          Dave with our IT tech Anand                                                                         Dave and CEO Rich Haney

                                 Dave and a PAY pilot                                                                        Dave and Tom having it their way

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