Padilla to Fleet Captain

Based on my eight and a half years of flying for St. Paul Airlines, I would say that there are two big promotions in any SPA pilot's career. The first is the first promotion, from Commuter First Officer (CFO) to Commuter Captain (CC). That happens when a pilot has logged 30 hours of flight time with SPA. It is important because many (in fact, most) pilots who sign up with SPA never get there. So the first promotion signifies that the pilot is serious about the flight sim/ VA hobby and is likely to stick with it.

The only promotion which is more important is the last promotion, to our highest rank, Fleet Captain. To attain this rank, a pilot has to log 500 hours with SPA. It is important for a lot of reasons, it shows serious dedication to the hobby and, most of all, to SPA. It also means that a pilot has "the run of the house". That is, he can fly and log any flight on any aircraft -- no limitations.

So it is always a big deal when a pilot attains the rank of Fleet Captain. Particularly when he does so after a long, steady career flying for SPA. Earrin Padilla is our newest Fleet Captain. I don't know when he started with SPA (our record keeping system doesn't go back that far), but I do know he joined before October 2003. I know that because that is when I joined, and Earrin's serial number (43) is lower than mine (48).

So my heartiest personal congratulations to you Earrin on this promotion. There aren't that many of us left on active status with the time we have in SPA.

Mike Daugherty
SPA 48
MSP Hub Manager

Welcome to the club Earrin! Glad you're enjoying yourself here at SPA. The next 500 will "fly by," pun intended.

Congratulations, and I'll have a double!