Cessna 208 Caravan ?'s

[Hawker1]

Curious as to what certificates one needs to get a pilot job driving a C208 for a frieght company or carrying packages from say one hub to the other or something? How many hours are they looking for? I've heard of thes type of jobs just being like 2-5 hours a day with pretty much the same route. Sounds like a pretty simple and good time-raiser job. Can anyone explain? Thanks.

 

[00Dog]

You would need a commericial single-engine certificate with an instrument rating and a high performance endorsement (over 200 hp). You will also need flight time not less than the minimums for IFR Part 135 which are 1200 hours total time, 500 cross country, 100 night and 75 instrument.

 

[WrightAvia]

Places that hire at 135 mins, pay mins.

If you are looking to build time flying Caravans, you could put a resume in by us. Aside from meeting 135 mins and the ratings and signoffs mentioned by the previous poster, you will need to have a log book showing 2,500 total PIC time. A 135 Background. A hundred or so of your own multi PIC time. Also have some serious INSTRUMENT time.

You will start at about 33,000 a year, with medical, dental and vacation. Perdiem. Top pay is 55,000 a year. We don't usually work weekends and you are usually on the ground by 8:00 PM. In the air by 6:00 AM.

You could work for one of the entry level caravan places and probably start out with 135 mins in your log book. They will pay less, but at least you will be raising some time there. You should get it through you head that just because it's single engine, don't make it an easy day. The plane climbs slow, flies slow and has lots of frontal surface to gather ice on. It can't out run thunderstorms, like a fast jet can either. Picture being trapped in a DC-3 without a radio operator, navigator, co-pilot, flight engineer or loadmaster. You have be a captain to fly this plane and you have to think like a captain to be a Caravan Operation Specialist. Give it a try with low time to raise the hours in your log book...I actually enjoy flying the Caravan myself. But then I like base jumping and skydiving too.

Here is a link to a story of raising time in C 208.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20020326X00397&key=1

 

[Hawker1]

Thanks for your responses.
WrightAvia, you said

We don't usually work weekends and you are usually on the ground by 8:00 PM. In the air by 6:00 AM.

Do most pilots fly the same routes or are they scattered from week to week?

 

[WrightAvia]

domiciles for freight...

depends on how your company does business.

If you are with one of the Fedex, UPS or other express freight feeder operations...you most likely will be "out based". That means that you will be expected to live in the town where you take the freight TO. At night, you will return with the outbound freight to the HUB. Spending the night in a hotel room or a company provided apartment at the HUB. Then flying out again in the morning.

I'm actually based at the hub and live near the hub airport. They hired me because I lived near the hub airport. I fly out in the morning with freight to same airport every time I fly. I then lay over there in a hotel for about 6 hours. Then I meet the freight drivers back at the airport and they load the out bound freight in the plane. I fly to another airport and pick up some more freight, as an extra flight. (there are 3 planes actually out based at this location and that location produces more outgoing freight than incoming...so I have to stop by and pick some of that freight up). Then I head back to the HUB.

My day starts at 5:30 AM and usually ends by 9:00 PM, but can go almost as late as 9:30 PM. Since this day is so long, I can't fly the run the next day...so me and another pilot split the run. Kind of nice to work every other day. This type schedule is very rare and most pilots are out based and fly 4 to 5 days a week, shacking up at night at the hub and spending the weekend and days off at the outbase.

We actually have one pilot at our operation that gets to the hub in the morning, flies one hour to his destination. Drops his freight and then flies one hour home. So he starts at 5:30 AM and ends his day by NOON! 5 days a week, mon thru friday. Not bad for full time salary and benefits.

The other type of freight operations are the "UNSCHEDULED ON DEMAND" places. Those places don't have routes to fly, they just run all over and pick up freight where ever it is and take it to where ever it has to go. I think pagers and cell phones are part of the uniform there. I don't even have a pager or cell phone. I know my shedule a year in advance.

Caravan time is not a real career builder, but I think if you have a job you like and already have lots of 135 piston twin time under your belt, turbine 135 PIC ain't bad time to log either. We didn't lay off all during these bad economic times and I doubt we will.

I guess to answer your question really short... almost all of our pilots fly the same assigned run every day, every week. You bid for the run, then the run is yours. We do have "floater" pilots that work the vactions and fill in when people call in sick or are on training or when they have extra freight. But we don't do any outside "ON CALL" on demand type freight flying. It's all what you could say...."scheduled" freight flying.

good luck to you in your endeavors...

 

[Hawker1]

Thanks for all of your replies. It has been very informative.