Roehris Aviation Pages

	Full Name	Markus Rohrer
	Birthdate	22. February 1976
	Location	Switzerland
	Full time Profession	Air Line Pilot (active) Engineer/Mechanical Engineering University Degree (at the moment inactive)
	Part time Professions	Sailing Instructor (inactive)
	Hobbies	Everything that has to do with flying, model aircraft, every aspect of railways, music (piano and drums/listening), sailing, inline skating and hockey, fotografy, website programming
	Likes	Good food (I could die for Mousse au Chocolat), good friends, good cinema movies (especially IMAX movies), all kinds of music - smooth jazz preferred, sunrise/sunset flights, dramatic weather.
	Dislikes	Snooty snobbish people, bad food, shitty movies.
	My Bio - First steps	I grew up in a mid-sized town on the shore of Lake Constance (Bodensee) in eastern Switzerland. Living this close to a lake was a key factor for me - I loved being around water, and still am very attracted by water, as you can see if you check my "non aviation"-hobbies. And then there was St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport... this small regional airport was just a few kilometers from my home. My dad owned a pilot's license at these times and did occasional sightseeing and taxy flights with prop planes. Every now and then I had the chance to occupy a free seat, which I enjoyed really much. As a matter of fact I am sure that today's "holy fever" for flying is closely related to these flights. Years later, when I already attended high school, a pal of mine obtained his private pilot's license after succesfully passing two government-sponsored initial courses (FVS, an former institution in Switzerland which gave young people of all backgrounds the opportunity to learn to fly after passing demanding entry tests, and eventually being recruited for military or air line pilot courses if grades were good). I was a regular passenger and "wannabe copilot" on his Cessna 172/182 flights, dragging along friends and relatives as paying "passengers" for him, training my navigation skills and occasionally operating the radio. These were the times when I made my final decisions to become a pilot, but not before completing a university degree as a backup.
	University years	So I ended up entering the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) in fall 1996, just after completing my military service with the Swiss Air Force (nota bene not as a pilot but as an intelligence service guy). One of the first actinos was to establish an academical aviation group at the university, which immediately gained about 60 members. Internships and semester papers were compulsory, and I tried to complete as much as possible of them in the fields of aviation. I succeeded: My first paper was about fear of flying (which interested me very much, because I wanted to know why other people don't like flying). This lead into several successful "lose your fear of flying" flights with colleagues of my "flying pal" and mine: After a discussion of stress coping strategies, our passengers were invited to join us for a flight: We took the aircraft from the hangar, inspected every corner and technical aspect of the machine, continued with the flight preparation and briefing for a routing according to the passengers' wishes, fuelled the aircraft, and conducted the flight accordingly. Most of them were really happy afterwards and asked us when they will be able to fly with us again... My second semester paper was an economical study of the possibility to acquire a single engine aircraft for our academic aviation group by means of sponsoring or advertisement on the aircraft. The paper proved that it could be made - but the organisational efforts were to high for such a small group, so we kept on flying other group's airplanes. As the second chamber of my heart beats for railways, the host for my half-year engineering internship was the Swiss alpine railway Rhaetian Railways (RhB). I spent my time primarily with my project of constructing a railway snowblower. But because I was at least as interested in the daily operation as into my project, I was "on the road" many a time, accompanying engine drivers into the most beautiful corners of alpine Switzerland "up front" in the engine cockpit. Further on in my project, I was assigned to test runs, because one of the engineers left Switzerland and emigrated to Canada, and I was handed over some of his tasks. It was fascinating doing emergency brake test runs in the brand new Vereina tunnel. Another task was the engineering in concjunction with oversize transports. I had to calculate how large excavators, transformers or wooden roof elements for a ice hockey hall should be transported without touching anything during their travel to the destination. After the approval, I joined many of these slow moving oversize transports which mostly travelled during night in order not to disturb daytime traffic. And last but not least I was given driving lessons in all of the electrical engines, and joined the crew of a RhB railway enthusiasts steam train as a second fireman. It was a great time! In the meantime - the end of the five year degree came closer - I applied for the Swissair Aviation School in Zurich, passing the six days full of heavy tests, as I wanted to know if my target of becoming an airline pilot was within feasible range. I succeeded, and was asked if I want to join immediately. But I could resist, and asked them if I could join Pilot course 4/01, starting in fall 2001, after completion of my degree. I was glad to hear this was possible. Fully motivated, I finished the university with a diploma paper about revenue management software for regional airlines. I was assigned to the Swisswings Airlines in Bern, Switzerland, a small regional carrier operating five Dornier 328 aircraft and chose one of five existing Revenue Management software packages for them. It was a great time as well, although the airline does not exist anymore due to management problems and heavy financial loads due to bad leasing contracts.