Cargo vs Pax Flights

[brucek]

Other then no F/A to bring meals and coffee, the bathroom facilities, and the lack of pax briefings, what's the difference in flying freight or pax around? Schedules, routes? Anything else?

Thanks,

Bruce.
BJC, Jeffco, CO

 

[tcoll777]

Cargo doesn't complain!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[nosewheel]

Pax VS Freight

If you flying part 121 there is no difference in the flight rules as for flying either pax or cargo.Flying freight is done primarily at night and the rules as far as duty and rest seem to only apply if you get caught. The Fed's dont seem to be so concerned about freight dogs and there well being as much as the people haulers.TCAS is not required on the freighters cause freighters don't crash into other airplanes in the sky.Getting abused by the employer is quite normal and as for coffee and such the crews provide there own.On the three man ships, the FE (if he's in a good mood and likes the crew) normally makes the coffee.In some of the better scumbag operations, catering is provided on the longer hauls. All in all its not a bad life but getting pampered by flight attendants once in a while is a nice change... of coarse thats going away quite fast as well. As for me, I've had the pleasure of flying with some of the best aviators in the world..haulin freight.

 

[nosewheel]

Pax VS freight

I forgot about the washroom's. Peeing in a porta poti behind the forward bulkhead that hasn't been cleaned in months or years is also quite romantic. Especially if a hole hasn't been drilled in the flapper valve and after you do your thing and try to flush (pressurised and at 350) and the whole poti seems to blow up in your face with that wonderfull scent of blue water and months of ...of.....Oh...Oh The Memories!!!!

 

[dsee8driver]

If you flying part 121 there is no difference in the flight rules as for flying either pax or cargo.Flying freight is done primarily at night and the rules as far as duty and rest seem to only apply if you get caught. The Fed's dont seem to be so concerned about freight dogs and there well being as much as the people haulers.

Not exactly true...I think industry has changed quite a bit regarding rest rules since the introduction of the FAA Hotline.. The major difference is that usually contracts from people hauler airlines compared to other 121 freight dog outfits with the exception of UPS and Fed Ex have some good limitations as far as crew duty and pay that a 121 adhoc carrier doesn't have. In recent times the feds have been know to go in and basically shut you down (Emery) if maintenance is not to par.

TCAS is not required on the freighters cause freighters don't crash into other airplanes in the sky.

Tell that to DHL! It's not a requirement YET...It is coming! In Europe it's pretty much a must have, same with the RVSM requirements.

Getting abused by the employer is quite normal and as for coffee and such the crews provide there own.On the three man ships, the FE (if he's in a good mood and likes the crew) normally makes the coffee.In some of the better scumbag operations, catering is provided on the longer hauls. All in all its not a bad life but getting pampered by flight attendants once in a while is a nice change... of coarse thats going away quite fast as well. As for me, I've had the pleasure of flying with some of the best aviators in the world..haulin freight.

Getting abused....again depends on how strong a contract you have....On our international flights we get catering. Our FE's are pretty helpfull in the coffee department. In domestic flights we get water and ice and fed at the hub. We also fly combi operations with 2 FA's and I don't know if it's representative of the FA's but for the most part they are pain in the Buttee! It's cold, it's hot, it's cold, it's hot, are we there yet! As far as the flying I think it depends on what you like and get used to. Some people swear by daylight flying and thunderstorm avoidance in the day, long lines for take off at major hubs and 4 legs a day. I can't complain about 1 possibly 2 or at most 4 legs a night. Take off from Chicago get cleared direct EL Paso. I guess it all depends on what you will enjoy and get used to.
I have flown to places I would never get to go if it was not freight. We have flown from Kentucky Derby horses to Dolphins for a theme park. You probably will not retire a millionaire (Excpt FED EX or UPS) but it beats working for a living!

 

[jsoceanlord]

you can be a little heavier on the conrols, etc.

one guy told that, in general, people can be a burden. another thinks that the passengers is what keeps it interesting.

it's true you have to make sure you've got life jackets for everyone, etc, etc, etc

a few weeks ago i said caravan pilot was suspended 90 days for going through a cloud and unknowingnly having an inspector in back. that wasn't true; it turns out that he had a passenger up front who questioned why he was on a 1200 code and just went through a cloud.

the caravan is high performance enough that it's not realistic to stay 500 feet away from some clouds, in my opinionn.

 

[nosewheel]

dc8driver

Can't quite figure who your with if you do drive an 8 . Not too many DC-8 combis out there flying. I agree about which union you belong to however after youv'e been furloughed a few times and the companies you work for file chapter 11 it really doesn't matter what union you belong to. I must admit when we brought the Teamsters on the property we were not quite as abused as before. Yes... now for eg; we could turn Lax- HNL with a 6-8 hour rest period in HNL and still be legal. Thats only a 22 hr. day when all went well. Shooting an approach with a Heavy into LAX at 0600 in the fog after being up for 22 hrs was quite safe as we all know, except if you screw up!!!.. then "Watch those Teamsters Fly To Your Rescue" Or how about "Heavy Crewing" a 747 a DC-8 or an L-1011 and spending 30 Hours on it flying around the world... cause its Legal... International Duty Regs. Several years ago a DC-8 Freighter plowed into the ground in GITMO with some freinds of mine at the controls. This accident was used as an example of crew fatigue in CRM classes worldwide. Did it really change anything ?

 

[cvsfly]

[the caravan is high performance enough that it's not realistic to stay 500 feet away from some clouds, in my opinionn. [/B]

I don't know what C-208 you have flown. Must be the one with JATO bottles on it. Definately not "high performance" as far as speed or climb rate goes. Most pilots that fly VFR and can't keep out of clouds are just lazy and have a big disregard for the rules and the see and avoid concept. I know the Caribbean is a different world with less traffic, but please don't carry that attitude to the States. Thank god I have TCAS!

 

[dsee8driver]

Well....

Can't quite figure who your with if you do drive an 8 . Not too many DC-8 combis out there flying.

We actually have the only DC8 combi operation left, Part 121 that s. I'm with Air Transport International.

I agree about which union you belong to however after youv'e been furloughed a few times and the companies you work for file chapter 11 it really doesn't matter what union you belong to. I must admit when we brought the Teamsters on the property we were not quite as abused as before.

Ahhh the teamsters....We have the Teamsters and we have to admit we are not all that happy but as you know a Union is only as good as its membership, and what's the alternative...ALPA?? For a small carrier and freight operator with PFE's ALPA sucks...they really did a number to Emery...(I was there 2)

Yes... now for eg; we could turn Lax- HNL with a 6-8 hour rest period in HNL and still be legal. Thats only a 22 hr. day when all went well. Shooting an approach with a Heavy into LAX at 0600 in the fog after being up for 22 hrs was quite safe as we all know, except if you screw up!!!.. then "Watch those Teamsters Fly To Your Rescue" Or how about "Heavy Crewing" a 747 a DC-8 or an L-1011 and spending 30 Hours on it flying around the world... cause its Legal... International Duty Regs. Several years ago a DC-8 Freighter plowed into the ground in GITMO with some freinds of mine at the controls. This accident was used as an example of crew fatigue in CRM classes worldwide. Did it really change anything ?

I started my Aviation career at Violation Air (AKA Fine Air..they just could not fit Violation on the fuselage (Joke, HAHA) and the duty days were sometimes very long and reserve 24 hrs a day. Here at ATI we have a pretty decent schedule and our contract has improved the quality of life a bit. I really enjoy the flying we do and the schedule. The crewmembers are all pretty great to fly with as always there are exceptions.

I read about that accident and it is often used in CRM training. We still go to GITMO once a week and even the approach has changed since the accident. Like I said in my previous post, the FAA Hotline has been called a few times and the feds have come in with clarifications that have improved things a bit also.

 

[dsee8driver]

I have to agree with cvsfly...

The fact is that whether you are on a 747 or a Piper cub if you are on a VFR flight plan BY CHOICE you need to adhere to the rules and stay away from clouds. Whether it's the caribbean or the States, you do it there and you will build a bad habit. I have flown Caravans for UPS and Airborne and although it's a turboprop there is no reason except arrogance if you decide to go in and out of clouds. The guy that got the 90 day suspension not only endangered his life but that of his passenger and other guys that follow the rules.

 

[nosewheel]

dsee8

Had some good freinds at ATI. I used to fly the green tails out of Toledo and of coarse the famed Emery hub in DAY. Back then I was with Rosie and ATI were the scum bags ( like we were not) ha ha .Lots of folks thought that they would never last. Wish I had a Crystal Ball back then!!!...Or now!!! ... for that matter. Your absolutley right about ALPA. As for Local 747 PS... Is Kinky still there? He was one heeleva great stick and a great guy.

 

[PilotoHalcon]

as a furloughed ABX guy...

The old adage, however tired, defines the business of flying planes as long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Moments of sheer terror AND RIDICULOUSNESS, maybe, are equally as harrowing. One young pilot, when he was twenty-two and a flight instructor out at Hanscom Field,
just west of Boston, and trying to impress the pretty Christine Collingworth by taking her up for a twilight sightseeing circuit in a friend’s Cessna, highlighted the seduction by whacking his forehead into the jutting metal pitot tube hanging from the 172’s wing. Earning himself a famous "Cessna dimple," so he chose to think, would be the stupidest thing he’d ever do in or around an airplane. That was more than a decade ago, and a long way from this same pilot’s mind during a recent cargo flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Cincinnati. It’s eleven p.m. and the airplane, an old DC-8 freighter loaded with fifty thousand pounds of pineapples, is somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle. The
night is dark and quiet, void of moonlight, conversation, and for that matter worry. The crew of three is mesmerized as usual by the calming drone of high-bypass turbofans and the deceptively peaceful noise of five-hundred knots of air cleaving past the cockpit windows. Such a setting, when you really think about it, ought to be enough to scare the living crap out of any sensible person. We have no business, maybe, being up there, participants in such an inherently dangerous balance between naïve solitude and instant death, distracted by paperwork and chicken sandwiches while screaming along, higher than Mount Everest and at the speed of sound, in a forty year-old assemblage of machinery. But such philosophizing is for poets, not pilots, and also makes for exceptionally bad karma. Neither poetry nor any kind of mystical rumination is in the job description for these three airmen, consummate professionals who’ve long ago sold their souls to the gods of technology and luck.
One of these consummate professionals is a 34 year-old from Massachusetts.
He’s been flying planes since he was 16, but has seen his career stray oddly
from its from its intended course, his visions of flying gleaming new
passenger jets to exotic ports-of-call have giving way to the much coarser
world of air cargo — to sleepless, back-of-the-clock timetables, the greasy
glare of warehouse lights and the roar of forklifts, realities that have
aroused a low note of mild disappointment that rings constantly in the back
of his brain.
He gets up from the second officer’s seat and walks out of the cockpit,
the door. Here he enters the only other area accessible to the pilots in
flight, the small entryway alcove containing a lavatory, oven, cooler, and a
life raft. His plan is simple enough — to get himself a Diet Coke, or, to be
international about things, since we’re coming from the land of
paycheck-fattening "override" pay and a king’s ransom worth of per diem, a
Coca-Cola LIGHT, the extra-sweetened, less-carbonated version of our own
domestic product. The soft drinks are in a cardboard box on the floor, a
six-pack strapped together with one of those clear plastic harnesses so
dangerous to sea turtles and small children. These plastic rings, he
recalls, are banned at home, but apparently perfectly legal in Puerto Rico,
where there are, of course, lots of sea turtles and small children. The
pilot is thinking about this, weighing the injustices of the world,
philosophizing, daydreaming, ruminating — things that, again, his manuals
neither command nor endorse for perhaps good reason.
He unstraps a Coke and decides to put the remaining ones in the cooler,
where they are supposed to be in the first place. The cooler, a red,
lift-top Coleman that you’d buy in Sears, sits in front of the lavatory and
is packed with bags of ice. The pilot drops in the cans, but now the cooler
will not close. There’s too much ice. One of the bags will have to go. So
he pulls one out and shuts the lid. Decisions, decisions: which checklist do
I initiate? Which shutoff valve do I yank closed? Which breakers do I pull?
Which buttons do I press to keep us alive and this contraption intact? What
to do, now, with an extra, sopping wet bag of ice? Well, the pilot will do
what he ALWAYS does with an extra bag of ice. He will open the bag and dump
it down the toilet. This he has done so often that the sound of a hundred
cubes hitting the metal bowl is a familiar one.

continued...

 

[PilotoHalcon]

Part deaux...

This time, though, for reasons he hasn’t realized yet, there are no cubes;
or, more correctly, there is one huge cube. He rips open the bag, which is
greenish and slightly opaque, and out slides a single block of ice, probably
three pounds worth, that clatters off the rim and splashes into the bowl.
There it is met, of course, by the caustic blue liquid one always finds in
airplane toilets, that strange chemical cocktail that so efficiently, and
brightly, neutralizes our usual organic contributions to bathroom plumbing.
The fluid washes over the ice. He hits the flush lever and it’s drawn into
the hole and out of sight. He steps out of the lav holding the empty bag and
worrying still about the dangers of plastic rings, picturing some poor
endangered hawksbill choking to death. It’s just not fair. And it’s now
that the noise begins.
The pilot hears a deep and powerful burble, which immediately repeats
itself and seems to emanate from somewhere in the bowels of the plane. It’s
similar to the sound your own innards might make if you’ve eaten an entire
pizza or, perhaps, swallowed Drano. It grows louder. The pilot stops and a
quick shot of adrenaline pulses into his veins. What was THAT? Then there’s
a rumble, a vibration passes up through his feet, and from behind comes a
loud swishing noise.
He turns and looks at the toilet. But it has, for all practical purposes,
disappeared, and where it once rested he now finds what he will later
describe only as A VISION. In place of the commode roars a fluorescent blue
waterfall, a heaving cascade of toilet fluid, thrust waist-high into the air
and splashing into all four corners of the lav. Pouring from the top of this
volcano, like smoke out of a factory chimney, is a rapidly spreading pall of
what looks like steam. He closes his eyes tightly for a second, then reopens
them. He does this not for the benefit of unwitnessed theatrics, or even to
create an embellishing detail for eventual use in a story. He does so
because, for the first time in his life, he truly DOES NOT BELIEVE what has
cast itself before him.
The fountain grows taller, and he sees now that the toilet is not actually
spraying, but BUBBLING — a geyser of boiling, lathering blue foam and thick
white fog. And suddenly he realizes what’s happened. It was not a block of
ice, exactly, that he fed to the toilet. It was a block of DRY ice.
To combine dry ice with ANY sort of liquid is to initiate the turbulent,
and rather unstoppable, chemical reaction now underway in front of our
unfortunate friend. The effect is similar to dumping water into a Fryolator,
an exciting experiment those of you who’ve worked in restaurants have
probably experienced. The boiling oil will have nothing to do with the
water, discharging its elements in a violent surge of bubbles. Normally, on
those rare occasions when the caterers employ dry ice, it’s packed apart in
smaller, square-shaped bags you can’t miss. Today, though, an extra-large
allotment was stuffed into a regular old ice cube bag — three pounds of solid
carbon dioxide mixing quite unhappily with a tankful of acid.
Within seconds a blue river begins to flow out of the lav and into the
entryway, where a series of tracks, panels, and gullies along the floor split
it into several smaller rivers, each leading away to a different nether
region beneath the main deck of the DC-8. The liquid moves rapidly along
these paths, spilling off into the corners and crevasses. It’s your worst
bathroom nightmare at home or in a hotel, clogging up the **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ter at midnight
and watching it overflow. Except this time it’s a Technicolor eruption of
flesh-eating poison, dribbling between the floor seams of an airplane at
33,000 feet, down into the entrails of the beast to freeze itself around
cables or short out bundles of vital wiring. The pilot once read a report
about a toilet reservoir somehow becoming frozen in the back of a 727.

continued...

 

[PilotoHalcon]

part tres

A
chunk of blue ice was ejected overboard and sucked into an engine, causing
the entire engine, pylon and all, to tear from the airframe and drop to
earth.
And the pilot knows his cataract is not going to stop until either the CO2
is entirely evaporated or the tank of blue death is entirely drained.
Meanwhile, the white steam, the evaporating carbon dioxide, is filling the
cabin with vapor like the smoke show at a rock concert. He decides to get
the captain.
Our captain tonight, as fate would have it, is a boisterous and slightly
crazy Scandinavian named Jens. Jens is a tall, square-jawed Norwegian with
graying, closely cropped curls and an animated air of fiery, charismatic
cocksure. Jens’ is one of those guys who makes everybody laugh simply by
walking into a room, though whether or not he’s trying to is never made
entirely clear. He is sitting in the captain’s chair. The sun has set hours
ago but he is still wearing mirrored Ray-Bans.
"Jens, come here fast! I need your help."
Jens nods to the first officer, unbuckles his belt and moves quickly
toward the cockpit door. This is an airline captain, a confident
four-striper trained and ready, whatever pretensions of insanity he might
provide for the sake of a good time, for any assortment of airborne calamity
— engine failures, fires, bombs, wind shear. What will he find back there?
Jens steps into the entryway and is greeted not by any of a thousand
different training scenarios, but by a psychedelic fantasy of color and
smoke, a wall of white fog and the fuming blue witch’s cauldron, the outfall
from which now covers the entire floor from the entrance of the cockpit to
the enormous nylon safety net that separates the crew from its load of
pineapples.
Jens stares, then turns to his young second officer and puts his hand on
his shoulder, a gesture that is one of both fatherly comfort and surrendering
camaraderie, as if to say, "Don’t worry son, I’ll clean all this up," or
maybe, "Down with the ship we go, my friend." Then he sighs, gestures toward
the fizzing, angrily disgorging bowl and says, with a tone of surprisingly UN
ironic pride: "She’s got quite a head on her, doesn’t she?"
But what can they do? And in one of those dreaded realizations pilots are
advised to avoid, that insulation between cockpit calm and atmospheric
anarchy looks thin indeed, the blue juice eating away at the thin metal
barrier. An extrapolated vision of horror: the riveted aluminum planks
bending apart, the wind rushing in, explosive and total depressurization,
death, the first airliner — no, the first vehicle — in history to crash
because of an overflowing toilet. Into the sea, where divers and salvage
ships will haul up the wreckage, detritus trailing from mauled,
unrecognizable pieces while investigators shake their heads. At least, he
thinks, odds are nobody will ever know, the cold ocean carrying away the
evidence. He’s good as dead, but saved, maybe, from immortal embarrassment.
A dash of mystique awaits him, the same that met St. Exupéry at the dark
bottom of the Mediterranean, another lousy pilot who got philosophical and
paid the price. Maybe he blew up the toilet too. Probable cause: unknown.
"Call flight control," commands Jens, hoping a dose of authority will
enact some clarity into what is obviously and hopelessly absurd. "Get a patch
with maintenance and explain what happened."
He rushes back to the cockpit to call the company’s maintenance staff in
Cincinnati. He fires up the high frequency radios, small black boxes that
can bounce the human voice, and any of its associated embarrassments, up off
the ionosphere and halfway around the world if need be. He will announce his
predicament to the mechanics, but also to any of dozens of other airplanes
who happen to be monitoring the same frequency. Even before keying the mike
he can see the looks and hear the wisecracks from the Delta and United pilots
in their state-of-the-art 777s, Mozart soothing their passengers through Bose
headsets, flight attendants wiping down the basins, while somewhere in the
night sky three poor souls in a Cold War relic are trapped in a blue
scatological hell, struggling helplessly with a flood of excrement and
chemicals.
"You say the TOILET EXPLODED?" Cincinnati is on the line, incredulous but
not particularly helpful. "Well, not sure. Should be okay. Nothing below
the cabin there to worry about. Press on, I guess." Thanks.
Jens has grabbed the extension wand for the fire extinguisher — a hollow
metal pole the length of a harpoon — and is shoving it down into the bowl
trying to agitate the mixture to a stop. Ten minutes have passed by now, and
a good ten gallons have streamed their way onto the floor and beyond. Up
front, the first officer has no idea what’s going on. Looking behind him,
his view mostly blocked by the circuit breaker panels and cockpit door, this
is what he sees: a haze of white odorless smoke, and his captain yelping with
laughter and thrusting at something with a long metal pole.
Our pilot stands aside, watching Jens do battle. This was a little kid
who dreamed of becoming a 747 captain for Pan Am, the embodiment of all that
was, and could still be, elegant and glamorous about aviation. And poor
Jens, whose ancestors ploughed this same Atlantic in longboats, ravenous for
adventure and conquest, a twenty-first century Viking jousting with a broken
toilet.
So it goes, and by the time the airplane touches down safely, it’s
plumbing finally at rest, each and every employee at the Cincinnati cargo
hub, clued in by the amused mechanics who received our distress call, already
knows the story of the idiot who poured dry ice into the crapper. His socks
and hundred-dollar Rockports have been badly damaged, while the cargo net,
walls, panels and placards aboard N806DH are forever dyed a heavenly azure.
The crew bus pulls up to the stairs, and as the pilots step on board the
driver looks up and says excitedly, "So are you the guys with the toilet?"

 

[ceo_of_the_sofa]

wow

 

[dsee8driver]

Wow..

And I thought draining our Sears potty at altitude was exciting!

Nice story!

 

[PilotoHalcon]

Guys, I would love to say that I actually wrote that fine piece of literary art but I saved it from a story I read long ago. If it were actually mine I would not be where I am this very minute. I would be sipping margaritas someone off the coast of Honduras, listening to James Buffet and looking for that elusive green flash while floating on turquoise blue water. Of course there would be a dark eyed beauty waiting for me in the aft cabin with nothing more on but a smile. (This is my fantasy so hush) But reality sets in, it is 2213 here and I am just back from Bahrain with a bottle of warm water and a Dixie Chicks CD. Reality bites. Buenos noches ustedes.
j

 

[Purple Haze]

QUOTE: Originally posted by brucek "Other then no F/A to bring meals and coffee, the bathroom facilities, and the lack of pax briefings, what's the difference in flying freight or pax around? Schedules, routes? Anything else?"

Copied or not, PilotoHalcon's post was beautiful -- thank you. And, it described my life on a FedEx 727 (minus the blue excitement).

The few differences I have observed: Food is a big difference. Our catering is similar to a USAF box lunch, plus a cooler full of water, juice, & soda, and a thermos of coffee. I believe our widebodies have ovens (frozen meals) and some can brew their own coffee.

Our lav is same as our passenger friends (not as clean).

No stroll thru the terminal & thru terminal security. Also means: no jetway (wait for stairs & walk outside).

No contact with the public, but good camaraderie amongst pilots.

Our schedules and routes are similar, I think, but clearly we do more at night.

To me, it resembles USAF trash hauling, but with a shorter work day and better (much better) conditions. My favorite part: when the engines are shut down, we are on the bus within 5 minutes -- done.

No hats.

My impression: Flying for a major pax carrier would be more posh, but with the tradeoff of terminal hassles and an increasingly less appreciative public. I love my job and will not consider anything else. Also, cargo ops seem comparatively stable. To me either job is livin' the dream.

 

[PilotoHalcon]

"Cleared direct" is a big difference.

Lack of transportation, taxi drivers are clueless as to where the cargo side is. Not that I blame them.

ATC is lessed stressed.

"Who is Airborne Express? You look just like Greyhound bus drivers".

Still the best flying job I had though.
j