1200 hours

[feedervan]

The only good van job is a Fedex van. They all require around 2000 hrs. I'll be making close to 40 grand my second year, and I make 35 grand now. Thats more than amerifligh's starting pay. The van has better avionics than any cargo navajo, 99, and even some metros. But it is slow and ATC still confuses you with a piston. And don't start me on Ice.
P.S. Hey dirty beech, did you fly SAT, I used to be Martex 555.

 

[RefugePilot]

Fedex feeders

I just found that out. Getting stuck behind some Vans recently and getting ticked off, wondering what kind of loosers would be wasting their time in a Turbine Skyhawk. Then my roomate told me the setup. Within a few years they are making $50k, work 2 weeks and have 1 week off.

I have confirmed the superior pay, but have not been able to confirm the 2/1 schedule it seems too good to be true, getting a real pilot's schedule while flying freight.

So its not like they are building time to move on, a lot of them are right where they want to be. And now with the new icing issue they have every reason to turn around when it gets ugly in winter. We were told recently just because the Van drivers are sounding anxious does not mean we have to turn around.

 

[feedervan]

I've never heard of that schedule. I have the usual Monday night through friday night or saturday morning. You are home every night or everyday. It depends if you live at the hub or outstation.

 

[RefugePilot]

I've never heard of that schedule. I have the usual Monday night through friday night or saturday morning. You are home every night or everyday. It depends if you live at the hub or outstation.

Sounded too good to be true, but I can dream of such a schedule and pay. I am sure some on this board couldn't imagine how to survive on 50k, but I would enjoy figuring out what to do with all that extra money.

 

[DirtyBeech]

The only good van job is a Fedex van. They all require around 2000 hrs. I'll be making close to 40 grand my second year, and I make 35 grand now. Thats more than amerifligh's starting pay. The van has better avionics than any cargo navajo, 99, and even some metros. But it is slow and ATC still confuses you with a piston. And don't start me on Ice.
P.S. Hey dirty beech, did you fly SAT, I used to be Martex 555.

Yeah, I spent about 6 months down there a couple of years back, and still wander down there from time to time when the customer is in a bind. I couldn't tell you which flight was 555, but if you ended up in Laredo or McAllen a lot then you might have run into me. The only flight number I know for them is 666, the Abilene plane.

 

[Gorilla]

I can't help with the original poster, but I do have a van story to share.

In Belize, we drop off tourists, who are processed like tuna and then shoved into dozens of caravans for the flight out to the many barrier island resorts. These guys have a job that would be cool for about 2 days, then boring and sometimes scary.

The setup: Normally you land East at Belize, and there is no parallel taxiway. You have to roll out and backtaxi to the ramp. The caravans swarm like gnats, and are so used to 737's, their speeds, etc, they set up their visual spacing so that inevitably, you're doing your backtaxi, lights on bright, and the van on base is jockeying his throttle and doing subtle maneuvers so he gets landing clearance at 100', and is touching down exactly as we clear. Then, they stomp the brakes and make the same turnoff we have to backtaxi for.

They all use visual ground point callouts, and the tower crew and the caravans are so used to each other, the points come out as abbreviated grunts.

Caravan: "Be Islair Tweyank 1"
Belize: "Repba"

<translation: "Belize, IslandAir flight 20, over the tanks, 1,000' " "Roger, report base">

Normally the wx is good. One day, we barely made it in with low vis and driving rain. As we taxi in with a sigh of relief, we see a caravan on downwind, had to be 300', scud-running like a pro through virga, executing a TIGHT pattern to keep the field in sight.

Interesting operation!

 

[mcjohn]

What blows my mind is how far some of you have come before 1200 hrs. To have all that multi and turbine time before 1200 is odd. I must have missed something along the way (of my path.) Shortbus, did you get hired into a Shorts in the 400 hr range like some do every now and then? To the other Alaska guy, maybe you started at LAB with like 5 or 600? I just don't get it. I need to get my arse out of this little mountain town or something.