I'll take the freight pilot

[210FR8DOG]

these views are not......

Let it be known that the above mentioned opinions of quigs are not neccesarily(sp?) the views, beliefs, or opinions of the general freight dog community, its members, or any portion thereof. (trying to sound like FAR/AIM)

Anyway, you guys defending our country have my deepest respect. After watching an F-18 take off from LIT the other day, and after wiping the drool off my chin and wringing out the towel, I was reminded anew what you guys are made of. Thanks.

As for an above mentioned post, " it is just a BAD job so you can get a GOOD job. Well, thats all in your opinion. Of course I would much rather fly a jet and newer FMS/EFIS equiped airplanes. But for now, I'm at least making about 35k I have EVERY weekend and holliday off, I see my wife and daughter EVERY night and I WILL NOT be furloughed. I'll keep saving my money though, so I can take the 50% paycut at a regional. I am aiming for the long haul with hopefully Comair, ASA, Skywest or Airwis because I know the captain slot will be worth the low pay, crap schedules, etc. for the first few years. Until then, I kinda like being an overpaid 210 pilot ( I'm finally next for the Baron, yaahhhoooooooooo) at my "BAD" job!!!

Jeff

 

[WrightAvia]

Freight a bad job? not all of em.

My current job in freight salaries out at about what you're getting, 35,000 a year for second year pay. 27 a day in perdiem. Medical and dental. 30 cents on the dollar towards the 401K up to ten percent. Plus no holidays or weekends and a killer schedule to boot. 10-15.5 hour, duty days a month. Yea count em, 10. The schedule for the run I have been on for the last two years has been Monday, Wednesday, Friday on one week and Tuesday, Thursday the next week. Pull out a calendar and you can look 6 months into the future and plan on being somewhere on a day off and know it. All of my duty days start and end at my base airport, unless I get wx'd out. The duty day includes about 4 hours of flying, 6-7 hour daytime layover at a nice hotel. Another 1.5 hour layover, then off to home. We don't touch the freight. Just the paper work. It is a long day, it starts at 05:45 in the morning and ends at 21:00 in the evening.

I usually get a 5 day weekend when the holidays fall right and in the worst case scenario, I just wind up with a 3 days off, 1 day on, 3 days off, 1 day on, 3 days off...then back to the normal rotation. Our top pay is currently limited to 55K. So it's not glamorous like flying at a National, where the company is mortgaged to the hilt and a 3 cent a gallon increase in fuel is going to bring the place down like a house of cards...but then again not everybody was born to have a secure flying job and be home every night and all weekends. No pagers or cell phones are required or necessary where I work either. We don't do on call freight...and since it's all scheduled I can't be assigned duty the next day anyway.

Yea...someday they will find a way to screw me into one of the 5 day a week jobs we got, but by then the hiring will have picked up again and I'll have an excuse to add the ATP rating and move out to a good fractional or national. But till then, I'm staying right here.

good luck and best wishes to all pilots out there...and hey, what the hell started this thread anyway?

 

[100LL... Again!]

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and hey, what the hell started this thread anyway?
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Like sands through the hourglass...

 

[learjetguy]

ignorance is bliss

Flown with military guys, flown with guys who
had to get a GED because they dropped out of
high school. Some were good, some were bad,
but they all were fun at the debrief sessions!!

 

[HA25]

Folks, I wouldn't get too worked up over the original poster's remarks.

Those of us that have "been there, done that" eventually come to discover that no one sector of aviation has a monopoly on good and/or bad pilots. I want to fly with a good pilot and I personally don't care what his/her background is as long as they can get the job done and does it safely.

I'm sure the AF folks had valid reasons to flight plan the way they did and it was probably dictated by procedures and protocol unlike that of the civilian world.

That is a fact....

I've flown with crapy civil and militry pilots... fighter jocks and freight dogs...

some of us were born to fly and some of us weren't..... we (speaking in general terms) just have a lot of friends and connections.