JetRide

[Heavy Set]

From the inside:

Schedule, 3 pilots per airplane, You make the schedule up between the 3 of you and submit it to Matt (C.P.). He doesnt care when you work as long as the plane is covered. Most crews do 2 weeks on 1 week off. If you need a day off then you work it out between the 3 of you. Two weeks vacation per yr.

Pay, good luck with that one. It makes no rime or reason what everyone is making. Everyone knows what each other is making because - as it was put to me - "thats how we know who is getting screwed and who isnt."

Bennies, We are switching to Atena, Cant complain about this area at all. 401k included.

Airplane, Maint is great, you write it up, it gets fixed. the 3 pilots take care of it like its their own. You clean it, you stock it. Hanger depends on the base. In Dallas and Lancaster we have our own hangers and you stack and pull your airplane. The other bases we are at FBOs.

Trips, the majority of our trips are backing up Flexjet. Most of them will be 1 day trips in my experience. They will normally have you sit at an fbo until about 10-12 duty hours and then send you home if they cant find anything else for you to do. The dallas base does a lot of island trips. scottsdale does some mexico. stl does a lot of misc. lancaster goes up and down the east coast a lot. not sure what mdw trips are like. Crew meals usually only when you do a flex trip. Otherwise your on your own. $30 a day per diem.
You are home a lot.

Upgrade, depends on your experience and if your willing to move or can commute to the new base. Most folks can upgrade from 6 months to 1 year.

Growth, who knows. They say we are approved for another 5 Lear 60s next year. Im not sure where else they would put them. The northwest is the only area we dont have covered. Believe it when the airplane shows up on the ramp and your taking off on a trip.

training contract. I hear they are starting to have a 1 yr training contract. Not sure what it costs.

Open bases, it usually changes from the time you interveiw to the time you start work. sdl is no longer open.


did i get everything.

Great post. You answered a lot of questions. Did you have previous Lear 60 experience? I have heard a lot of great things about the Lear 60 and that it is a blast to fly.

 

[payton]

Yes, I had prev exper. Yes it is a blast, if only they put a better wing on it. still, not many airplanes will make it to 410 in 12-13 min.
The type rating is not a requirement for jetride.
good luck

 

[Lear70]

Thanks for all the info Payton, a few more questions if you don't mind:

Do you know if the 601 guys are getting the same amount of time back at home like you said the 60's were getting during their working rotations and if they are a mix of 1-day trips like the 60's?

Is upgrade time the same on the 601 (the 6 months to a year you were talking about)?

I was also wondering what the match is on the 401k?

Thanks for all the info!

 

[payton]

wow, and I thought I got everything.
Match on 401k, not sure, I want to say 1.5 %, but I really dont remember.
601 and 604 guys?, not sure what the schedules are like for them, I have not heard. Upgrade to those two airplanes, In my veiw, will be very slow (longer than a year). These are managed aircraft. Im not sure airnet will ever buy 604s. I think they would fly a lot for flexjet and Netjets, but they are at least a 15 million dollar risk. And right now they are can buy 2-3 Lear 60s for the same price.
This info is not fact based, and only the line pilots view. So I could be completely wrong.

 

[Lear70]

Thanks again Payton, I think you got it all now!

From what Craig told me, the 601 schedules are similar with the two weeks on one week off scenario but that's a lot of time to be gone from home if you have a family and don't touch base for a few nights in between. When I flew for Flexjet and you went out on a rotation, you didn't see home for your six days out and getting only 8-10 days off a month without seeing home the other 20-22 days would be pretty rough (I know... that's how I spent the last 3 1/2 years on reserve at Pinnacle).

I figured the upgrades would be in the 12 - 18 month range, he hinted that way and told me the company's plan is to not add any more airplanes for the first quarter or two of next year and let the company get used to what they've got for a little while before growing again but he also told me that the company has said that before and keeps adding airplanes anyway so it's still a "crap shoot", not to mention the first two quarters always seem to be the busiest in the charter world.

Just trying to make a difficult decision: whether to leave the airline world while getting 11 - 12 days off as a CRJ Captain making $65k a year but working my tail off to do it (14 hour duty days flying 7.5 - 8 hours a day is the norm) with 8 - 9 hours rest every night (where are those cool layovers?) and knowing that any decent major airline job is probably 5-7 years away and will only cap out at $150k with the concessionary contracts that are getting passed around, or go back into the charter world in the 601 at roughly the same money I make now (maybe a bit more) with a large increase within a year or two when I upgrade and then after another couple of years in the left seat the possibility of a corporate position down the road.

Given the way the airline world is playing out and after my unplanned stop at the regionals the last four years, I've about had enough...

 

[psysicx]

I would wait at least untill you 1000 hours turbine pic.Also don't forget to apply to UPS and Fedex.

 

[Heavy Set]

I would wait at least untill you 1000 hours turbine pic.Also don't forget to apply to UPS and Fedex.

Great point. Lear 70 - heed his words - don't leave Pinnacle until you have at least 1,000 hours PIC on the CRJ. That will give you more options later. That being said, if you can get PIC time on the 601, that wouldn't be such a bad deal.

 

[Lear70]

I guess every once in a while it's useful to have your flight times over there on the left...

I'm sitting on about 6,000 hours total time and 3,600 or so jet PIC, about 2,000 of it is in the RJ, another 1,500 in the Lear series (24's, 25's, 35's, 31's and 55's) and about 100 in the 727, but thanks for the advice, it's good advice for someone who doesn't have that time.

As far as UPS and FedEx go, I've had my stuff in there since '99 and haven't heard a thing, even though I was a Capt on the 727 flying USPS Priority Mail and other freight - you'd think it'd be a no brainer but I guess you have to be married to the chief pilot's ugliest daughter or something to get in there...

 

[hyper]

Without intent to hijack the thread; in your experiances and point of views, how do most employers consider 1000 hrs PIC in turbo-props (fast P180s) as opposed to jet time? Is it generally thrown into a turbine time "bucket" or is there a definite preference for the jet time?

Thanks

 

[Lear70]

It depends on who you're applying to. Most airlines don't care, they just have that magic 1,000 turbine PIC requirement to apply, then they hire people with much more time than their "minimums" in most cases.

Charter operators? Who knows, depends on the operator, but 1,000 PIC turbine seems to keep the insurance people happy (or at least it did at the last couple charter places I worked before I came to the airline world).

Corporate? I don't know, haven't had a purely corporate job (I don't think Flexjet counts even though it was almost all Part 91), but most of the want ads seem to be more interested in PIC time in TYPE than overall turbine PIC, maybe someone else can chime in?