Native Amer Air Ambulance ????

[cl65@350]

hello

curious if anyone has any info....standard bio on native american air ambulance in az...

pay
sched
advancement
overall quality compared to other air ambulance outfits

also...anyone fly the pc12? what is it like?

thanks a bunch

 

[100-1/2]

There is an excellent article on these guys. Either in 2001 or 2002, I believe it was Professional Pilot Magazine that had an informative write-up on their operation as they integrated the New Pilatus airframe. You have to be a Class Act to end up in Pro Pilot Mag. You can do a search on the website: http://www.propilotmag.com. If the article is not achived on the site, you can request a copy of the article or volume issue for that month. I can't remember how recent it was, but I would be suprised if it was as far back as 2000.

100-1/2

 

[Swaayze]

This is 3rd hand info from a buddy who interviewed there about 8 months ago. I believe he said they start out in the mid-high $30k range. Sked was 7 on 7 off, with 12 hours of duty sitting ready at the airport. Don't know what you mean about advancement, it's single pilot 135 ops in the Pilatus. I think he said benefits were pretty good as well, and there was talk of more expansion at the time. He went somewhere else while waiting for a slot to open for him there.


Good luck

 

[xrated]

I worked for Native for three years and had done some contract flying for them as recently as 5-6 months ago. It was a great company to work for and I really enjoyed the flying, the people and the management. I was in the first class of PC-12 pilots at Native and the plane was a blast to fly. I flew the Jetstream for them before they got the Pilatus so I lost out on multi time but it was still a good gig. (Native also operates a Grand Caravan and a Citation Bravo). We flew into a lot of small strips including dirt and gravel. I think starting pay now is in the 33k-36k range. When I left we worked a 16 day a month sched. We were on for 12 hours and hung around waiting for a call, similar to a fire station.

Now for the bad news. Fixed wing flying seems to be slowing down. I guess the helicopters are where the money is so that side of the house is expanding. From what I can tell Native seems to be over-staffed with fixed wing pilots. I believe at the moment they have four furloghed airline guys flying for them. I think all the pilots are on edge not really sure what the future has in store but I do hope it all works out because it is a great company to fly and work for. Hope this info helps :-}

 

[cl65@350]

thank you all so much for the info...sounds like a great company but not a lot of growth going on now...bummer!

did the pilatus ever "hint" of an engine failure....at night? can you dead stick it easily?

does seniority dictate the citation bravo flying? thanks for the info...

 

[xrated]

As it is now, the four most senior guys are flying the Citation and I don't see them hiring into that plane.

As far as the "single engine" deal on the Pilatus, as far as I know there were never any failures on either the PC-12's or the Caravan. They both use the PT-6 which is as reliable as a prop engine can get even though they do fail on occasion. I know of one incident (during the day) where a couple of guys made a precautionary landing because of an oil pressure issue. At night, in paticular, I'd fly higher and try to plan a route with a suitable landing area within gliding distance in case the one enigine did burp. Pilatus claimed the plane had a teriffic glide ratio and was very survivable in a forced landing. Fortunately I never had to test that claim.

 

[flydog]

If you are in AZ you might want to try Sun Care at YUM (air ambulance) - They also do contract work for Native Air - About 12 airplanes mostly Navajos and some 421s. They just converted a Navajo over to Walther turboprops. Most of their pilots are retired military. I think their mins are 2000 TT. They seem to stay pretty busy