Shot at a legacy

[Dan Roman]

Thanks 808! I enjoyed your attitude too. Hawaiian Airlines is awesome and I really like the people I work with. I flew back and forth to LAX with Dan Roman over the past couple of days. This company is full of good people; we definitely landed the ultimate job. Great people, great equipment and great routes.

I look forward to flying with you again.

~Kuma

and how was that for a coincidence, I saw 808's post and thought , That's pretty cool, it would be interesting to fly with an ex U2 pilot....and lo and behold, the very next trip the FO introduces himself, says he's just off IOE. I ask what were you flying and the answer is ...U2's!

Great flying with you Kumu and pretty impressive making the jump from a U2 to doing such a great job fresh out of IOE in an A330.
Beating a dead horse here, but, just one more example that all kinds of different backgrounds can be good airline pilots. It's all in the attitude.

 

[scoreboardII]

I'm not going to read all the posts, my take is, if you can be happy making a living doing something other than being a slave to the man for your dream of sitting there stairing out a window while a computer flies the jet, do it. I've been inside this dream job for ten years and it's not at all what it was sold as. This industry has not even started the recreation of itself, we are just begining to set ourselves up for round two of "who can charge less".

 

[BentOver]

I've done a wide variety of corporate, 135, airline flying.. I thoroughly enjoy doing long haul over the Pacific, straight and level, seeing nothing but ocean for 5 hrs.....

1 leg out, 1 leg back... Scheduling is easy to work with, nobody seems to get into my personal business.... Working for a major is everything I'd hoped it would be:beer:


Or could be that at the end of every trip I return to paradise

 

[aa73]

I've done a wide variety of corporate, 135, airline flying.. I thoroughly enjoy doing long haul over the Pacific, straight and level, seeing nothing but ocean for 5 hrs.....

1 leg out, 1 leg back... Scheduling is easy to work with, nobody seems to get into my personal business.... Working for a major is everything I'd hoped it would be:beer:


Or could be that at the end of every trip I return to paradise

exact opposite for me... the Europe/long haul flying was the absolute worst type of flying I've ever done. 8+ hours, jet lag, trying to sleep, awakening in a fog of confusion and tiredness, screwing around with crew breaks... UGH!

I'm now a Pilot of the Caribbean. Flying the 757 out of Miami to the islands is just about as close to the best job I've ever had. No jet lag, same time zones, sleeping when you're supposed to sleep, lounging around at the pool/beach. And it's up and down flying which is what I signed up for, lots of hand flying.

Just goes to show that the legacies has everyone's type of flying. One man's trash is another's treasure!

 

[Dan Roman]

Aa73 that does sound ideal, we (Hawaiian)have some really nice trips and I really enjoy our SYD and JFK layovers, and Taipei and Auckland are coming up. But I dare say you've got us beat. I don't mind the time zones we do so much because you can do just 4 3 day trips a month and be done, but island hopping the Caribbean in a 757 sounds like a blast and staying in one time zone has to be an added plus. When I was starting out, one of my dream jobs was flying the old tramp freighters out of corrosion corner in MIA, I came close flying Electras out of YIP but never got to fly the Caribbean. How long are your trips and how many legs a day do you fly?

 

[Dan Roman]

I'm not going to read all the posts, my take is, if you can be happy making a living doing something other than being a slave to the man for your dream of sitting there stairing out a window while a computer flies the jet, do it. I've been inside this dream job for ten years and it's not at all what it was sold as. This industry has not even started the recreation of itself, we are just begining to set ourselves up for round two of "who can charge less".

Well, I've seen this industry all the way through since deregulation so I have to disagree that even greater change is ahead, however I remember telling my wife once that I thought that the industry was finally starting to stabilize .......that was in 2000....
That said, despite all the turmoil, it's not a bad gig flying airliners around. With all the turmoil over the years I still say it's been a pretty entertaining way to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. Liking to fly airplanes helps, but my perspective comes from the fact that, if you have to work, what we do is quite satisfying. But it's my life away from work that counts.

 

[HA25]

exact opposite for me... the Europe/long haul flying was the absolute worst type of flying I've ever done. 8+ hours, jet lag, trying to sleep, awakening in a fog of confusion and tiredness, screwing around with crew breaks... UGH!

I'm now a Pilot of the Caribbean. Flying the 757 out of Miami to the islands is just about as close to the best job I've ever had. No jet lag, same time zones, sleeping when you're supposed to sleep, lounging around at the pool/beach. And it's up and down flying which is what I signed up for, lots of hand flying.

Just goes to show that the legacies has everyone's type of flying. One man's trash is another's treasure!

having spent some years, with two different carriers that fly non-sched ACMI and DOD.... one in a 3 pilot (IRO) plane and the other in 3 "man" FE plane... I can agree to some extent with you that the long and ultra long haul is tiresome and boreing overall.... We also didn't have the luxury of knowing when we were assigned a trip in most cases until maybe a day prior.. then had to plan our rest for what in most cases was a late PM type depature or very early AM... fly as much as 3 legs, inclusive of a trans oceanic leg..

The worse ones were when you had to transission the lowe Asian subcontinent and all of the "Stans"... usually in the middle of the night with a chart out diging thru the dozens of FIR boundries and trying to work out ATC transitions due to the fact that NONE OF THEM talk to each other since the end of Soviet rule, so TRUST me, I am looking foward to 1 leg at Hawaiian, that in most cases will be no longer than 10 hours... My record at the prior carriers is a 14 hour leg with IRO, and a 12hr+ leg with an FE that included ZERO rest time.... with duty days upwards of 24 hours, and in some cases, 3 legs and 12 hours of flying with lots of sit time... as the FAA sees the addition of an FE as somehow magically able to give you more viability to stay awake... sigh.

I think these new rest rules (as intended, and we'll see how they play out) are meant to soften this timezone and duty day length issue a bit, as well as address proper rest and rest facilities. The irony is they specifically carved out the non-sched's and cargo companies, the two that need it most!

The odd thing is most airlines seem to be in denial as to their starting inside of 1 year now since they don't seem to be preparing for it.

 

[HA25]

I've done a wide variety of corporate, 135, airline flying.. I thoroughly enjoy doing long haul over the Pacific, straight and level, seeing nothing but ocean for 5 hrs.....

Pacific was always way better than Atlantic... even when you're on a publshed route, the workload and "room to move" around weather and such was night and day to Atlantic and even South Atlantic.

 

[aa73]

Aa73 that does sound ideal, we (Hawaiian)have some really nice trips and I really enjoy our SYD and JFK layovers, and Taipei and Auckland are coming up. But I dare say you've got us beat. I don't mind the time zones we do so much because you can do just 4 3 day trips a month and be done, but island hopping the Caribbean in a 757 sounds like a blast and staying in one time zone has to be an added plus. When I was starting out, one of my dream jobs was flying the old tramp freighters out of corrosion corner in MIA, I came close flying Electras out of YIP but never got to fly the Caribbean. How long are your trips and how many legs a day do you fly?

Hi Dan, MIA is so big that there is a ton of variety. Unfortunately with the BK and the new TA, the lines have taken a turn for the worse... we now have more than a few lines with 3 on, 2 off. However there are still many Carib lines that are 3 on 3 off, which is about the best I can get. Tends to be 1/2/1, 1/1/3, 2/1/3, and the like with regards to legs per day. Line values are anywhere between 75 and 90. Like I said, a lot of up and down hands on stuff, which I personally prefer - keeps me proficient. This month I am doing mostly a 3 day trip with STT/BGI layovers which is a 3/2/1(legs) trip worth almost 18hrs, and it's 3 on 3 off. Next month I have UIO/SJU which is 1/2/1 worth 15;30, 3 on 3 off. I don't even bother bidding the Deep South trips (SCL, LPB, MVD and all the Brazil stuff) - they tend to be double all nighters (UGH!) and go senior. UIO is as far south as I go, it is still daylight flying. Overall it's a great deal and here's the bonus - it all goes junior! (senior folks don't want to work that much, instead they'd rather shorten their life spans flying double all nighters. Have at it!)

 

[HA25]

senior folks don't want to work that much, instead they'd rather shorten their life spans flying double all nighters. Have at it!)

I have a friend JH, sits very high on your list (last I saw in the mid 300's) that use to swear by MIA South America trips as the best deal in the airline industry. Then he got married. ;-)