Are the 135 minimums set in stone?

[FN FAL]

With the highly competitve nature of flying jobs right now, getting hired at 135 mins for a PIC job must be pretty tough.

I'd love to see a guy who pencil whipped 500-600 hours of fake flight time try to pull off the fallacy of imitating a frieght dog. You might squeeze past the interview, a log book scrutiny, the background check and the checkride, but when it's 6 o'clock on some blustery winter evening, pitch black and snowing to beat the bandit outside and the windows and sheet metal of the hangar are rattling in the wind and pireps are few and far between...you are the one that is going to have to get the balls to pull the plane out of the hangar and go to work...if you haven't wet your pants by then.

135 mins are there to protect the public at large, to protect commercial aviation, to protect the customers (whether they be sending peeps or boxes), to protect the plane manufacturers and anybody else that could be hurt if 135 operators could get away with putting 250 hour pilots behind the wheel of an aircraft in air carrier operations.

Do what you want to do...pencil whip, whatever...it's your life. Maybe the feds won't catch you, but you better be flying 5 knots faster than the angel of death...

 

[FracCapt]

when it's 6 o'clock on some blustery winter evening, pitch black and snowing to beat the bandit outside and the windows and sheet metal of the hangar are rattling in the wind and pireps are few and far between...you are the one that is going to have to get the balls to pull the plane out of the hangar and go to work...if you haven't wet your pants by then.

Spoken like a true freight dog. Ya know what the 2 rules are for freight dogs?

1) Never go below minimums.

2) Never go missed approach.

Been there, done that....glad to be out of the all night flying. I was pretty dang excited about 18 months ago when my DAY flight time finally exceeded my NIGHT flight time for the first time in many years.

 

[wingnutt]

Never go missed...

...im with ya on this rule, but im not so sure on that "other" one

 

[T-Gates]

You can never forget the Freight Dog "Breakfast Minimums" conversion..... And then there are CAT II Breakfast Minimums ( 2 for Tuesday at IHOP).....But I've already said too much...

 

[FracCapt]

...im with ya on this rule, but im not so sure on that "other" one

I didn't specify WHOSE minimums.....

 

[wingnutt]

I didn't specify WHOSE minimums.....

lol...touche

 

[FN FAL]

Spoken like a true freight dog. Ya know what the 2 rules are for freight dogs?

1) Never go below minimums.

2) Never go missed approach.

Been there, done that....glad to be out of the all night flying. I was pretty dang excited about 18 months ago when my DAY flight time finally exceeded my NIGHT flight time for the first time in many years.

Rodger that! Bad thing about that tub o' bolts I fly is, you better be assured landing is in your future because with icing, you may not enjoy the missed.

I hear what you're saying on the night flying...fortunately for me, I'm on the ground by 8-8:30 PM.

 

[flyinlow67]

Amen. I doubled my actual, night, and dang near everything else that can kill ya in about 2 months working freight. I love doing it, but am still not looking forward to winter in the midwest......

 

[bluelake]

when first reading, this does appear to be a silly question, but there is a loophole that Freight Dog caught.

if you do not meet the IFR rules (by whatever margin) you could be brought in under the VFR rules until meeting the IFR mins. the only caveat to this is that you will be trained, and the checkride will be under IFR, but the 8410 will be noted "VFR ONLY until IFR minimums met" in the remarks section. then once you do meet the IFR mins, you are good to go, with no additional checkrides necessary...unless of course, it took you 6 months to reach mins.

or they could do like Airnet did and have you ride along until you meet the IFR mins.

this was exactly my experience... I was hired VFR only with 850 hours or so and assigned to a route that is severely VFR last May. By the end of summer, I had my 1200 and got checked out for IFR flying as well. This worked pretty well, but there were some times I thought my limitations might impact operations, so I am surprised that my employer offered it to me.