A Day or Night as a Cargo Pilot

[KeroseneSnorter]

From years back, doubt it has changed.

3:30 pm show, 4:00pm takeoff, 30 min, first stop, load, fly 1.0 stop unload, take 2 hour nap or watch movie, load, fly 1.5 stop unload and load in 20 min or so, another 1.0 then a quick turn , about 10 min on the ground, another 1.5 or so etc...etc... Get done at 4:00 AM. Normally 4 or five nights a week. 7.5 to 8.0 a night flight time.

Questionable equipment, get used to failures. I personally had 4 engines quit in my 1.5 years of freight. Mostly due to poor maint. The company I worked for has addressed that problem since then . Radar is something that that 737 you are following has, and an autopilot is the poor trainee that you have occasionally with you.

Good experience, you become a very good inst. pilot or you become dead. Knew two guys from a different company that bought it.

I never had to do freight in a single, was always in a Baron. Looking back, A single in all that would give me the heeby jeebies, but that is mostly due to our crappy maint. at the time.

It was great training for the regionals. When I got there most of the others had never had a problem at all so all that single engine time paid off. The emergencies in the sim were a cake walk compared to what I had been doing.

Although an engine fire in a Baron with no fire supression is something that I do not want to repeat. Needed a new pair o shorts after that one!!

 

[starchkr]

It sounds like i have it pretty good compared to some of you guys.

Show at 11:30pm (i don't care about zulu) depart at 12:30 for 0.8 to DAL. 20 mins to load and unload and then 2.0 to CMH. Usually less than 30 mins for unload and load then 2.2 back to DAL. Another 20 mins to unload and load and then 0.9 home. All said and done i am checking out by 7:30 in the morning, so 8 hrs duty with ~6 hrs of flying every night mon-thur.

 

[wingnutt]

It sounds like i have it pretty good compared to some of you guys.

ditto...my last freight job was a floater. get paid a decent salary only to wait for the phone to ring, zip to the airport, fly whatever charter that operations scammed in order to get their bonus, return to home after ~4 hours, sleep...rinse, lather, repeat the following day. i averaged 10 hours a week duty time (2-3 days a week) for almost exactly the same amount of flight time... *sigh*

P.S. Aerosurfer, you cracked me up...ah, the memories

 

[pilotyip]

What next?

Typical trip, just take this turn around to SDF, you will be home tonight. Check in after dropping at SDF, find out you are not coming home, you are going go to STL, They say we have trip out of there tommrow, like any one books 12 hours in advance, Get there, go the hotel at STL get there at 1230 AM CDT 0530Z, sleep all night, guess what, no trip the next day, stay up all day, go to bed at 2200L CDT, 0300Z, paged at 2300L CDT, 0400Z, pick up in TYS, get the cab go to the FBO at STL, the one man on duty at the FBO is fueling FedEx, UPS etc and not in the FBO. Guard at the TransState gate will not let you on the ramp unescorted, it is raining, he will not let us wait in the guard shack. Its August so the rain is kinda warm, 30 wet minutes later, the lone FBO guy escorts us to the airplane, runs off to fuel another airplane. Our Falcon is deck locked, we try to push the DA-20 out of the pack, but it won't budge, so we push a C-421 about 10 feet fwd and taxi out, get to TYS at 0300 EDT, 0700Z. Pick up 5 skips of brake rotors 4200#'s in steel tubs, bitch to load, CG is out of fwd CG, so load more fuel to bring the CG back in limits. Get to YIP at 0800L EDT, 1200Z, ready to go to bed, ask to be released, Told can not release you, you have 6 hours of duty left on you. We have one more trip a real easy one, DET to GYY, you guys should be back in a couple hours. Blast off for the .2 hr flight to DET, well one bin of transmission gears, turns into they are going to send 2 bins. The truck will be leaving the plant any minute, at 1030L EDT the bins show up it is 4200#'s instead of 2100#'s, we are 1200#'s over weight for the takeoff at DET. So start the engines, spend 30 minutes on the off duty runway burning off 1400#'s. fly to GYY, off load and home by 1300L 1700Z, as you are released you hear "We are really short of crews, you can plan on being back in here at 2300 L EDT 0300Z". Such is the on-demand flying business.

 

[SenorSpielbergo]

pilotyip:

Let me guess...that was all legal, and therefore "safe" because they claimed a "freight delay". Been there, done that.

 

[bandit110]

Of course it is legal, you only get 14 hours of duty, but no one said they have to be consecutive. You can interupt duty with a 2 hour nap and then fly some more. Trust me, I've heard this logic play out many times.

Wake up at 11am, call begging for a trip. 1pm call back, no trips. 3pm call again. They have a customer on the line. A definite maybe. Drive to the airport because you can feel the trip comming and you want to be way ahead of schedule to impress the customer so your company can get more trips. 3:30 pm trip is booked: 2500lbs of screws from GYY to MQY. You have the plane fueled and ready to go at 3:45. Durring before start check cell phone rings you like a Dumb A$$ answer it and dispatch tells you the trip is cancled because the customer needs "jet speed" to get the stuff there faster. 3:47 get out of the plane. The customer calls their jet opperator who takes another 30 minutes to get the crew to the plane. The Jet is in the air at 4:30 from YIP to GYY arives at 5:15. The cargo is there for them and they are back in the air @ 6pm arive MQY @ 7pm. You watch this play out on Flight Explorer and do some basic math, in the air at 3:50 pm, GYY at 4:30 in the air at 5pm. MQY @ 6:45. You could have beat the Jet... Then you go home disgusted. No trips the rest of the day 7pm you fire up the grill and get ready for dinner.... phone rings go! go! go! the new trip is a 9 pm pick up in PDK going to EWR. Put the steak back in the fridge and run to the airport. Arive PDK at 8:50 and get told the cargo is running late. Sit there till 3am (Duty started at 7:15pm right, wink wink, nudge nudge). Cargo shows up and is 1000lbs more than expected. Do magic math then get to EWR at 6:50am. Wait 2 hours for Ogden to come over and fuel you even though you could have been fueled by Signature right away but were afraid to explain the bill. 9:15 am depart "Part 91" for home 1pm get back to base go to the bar and drink for an hour then in bed by 2:30pm. Back on duty at 12:30 am.

I do not miss the on demand world. But I do hold the highest regard for those who can live the life and keep it safe at 4am. The most dedicated and selfless pilots I have met were on demand drivers.

 

[speedbird1974]

Pilotyip,

You are not the only one. Im so feed up with this on demand bs. I thought JUS was better than MUA, but I guess not. Im allergic to freight these days!

P.S. ItNs almost better to take your time on the first trip so you run out of time for a second trip.

 

[falcondriver]

All those delays are legal in the eyes of the company until something bad happens and the feds want to see the duty times. Then there is a problem for the crews.
FD

 

[speedbird1974]

Its easier to blame the crews.

 

[SquirrelDog]

Pilot Yips Duty day was only a 13 hour day. What is everyone crying over spillied milk for, it was legal and typical anyway you put it.

The fun is when you go over 20 and hadn't slept for 30 hours.
I contest to the studies over sleep deprivation, it is euphoric, you both start laughing at each other on the way to hotel. Oh yea, cargo delay its ALL LEGAL. Blah blah blah!

If I had a dollar for everytime they tell me the frieght is going to be there in 30 min (especially in Mexico) I would have mucho dinero.

fly safe,
SD