Single versus Dual Pilot Operations in a King Air

[jergar999]

I would be scared of riding with Jeremy HA HA. Hey man whats up. I am still taking ******************** in the right seat at SkyWest. Should came on over.

I might need to soon. We flew all night the other night and a medic from Crawford was wondering how you were doing.

 

[jergar999]

Just to update the thread, effective 11/13 we will be going from a two to single pilot operation. I started this thread and was doing some research in the hope of talking the company out of making these changes, but budget prevailed. Thanks to everyone and congratulations to chuckthepilot on your new job. I will miss flying with you.

 

[fam62c]

Just to update the thread, effective 11/13 we will be going from a two to single pilot operation. I started this thread and was doing some research in the hope of talking the company out of making these changes, but budget prevailed. Thanks to everyone and congratulations to chuckthepilot on your new job. I will miss flying with you.

That's unfortunate, I hate to see another pilot out of work. I'm curious, what percent of the total annual operating budget for the aircraft did the second pilot represent? I mean if you include the payment on the aircraft (if there is one) maintenance, fuel, insurance, hanger, supplies etc. how much is a second pilot?

Good luck to you, I'm not necessarily saying that an experienced pilot can't operate a King-Air single-pilot with an acceptable level of saftey; my point is simply that if you become incapacitated during flight the rest of the redundancy on the airplane is of no value unless someone else knows how to fly. I would guess that in this economy there will be plenty of companies that make the same decision for the same reason. I would also be on the lookout for another job because if the cost of the second pilot is a deal breaker for the operator they must be on the very edge of being able to afford the aircraft.

 

[brokeflyer]

what the company will probly do is stick some 500 hour wonder in the right seat and pay him $75 a day.....in fact, you could get some 500 hour gold seal CFI and he would probly PAY the company to sit over there....

 

[jergar999]

One of the former full time first officers found a different job in town, and will make himself available if we need/want a second pilot due to weather concerns, flight times, or late night stuff. The company has agreed on a contract rate and will make sure he stays current. It's not the greatest, but it could be worse. The pay is actually decent for right seat contract stuff, and he is an experienced pilot that doesn't need a babysitter.

 

[BushwickBill]

So I am chuckling to myself a little after reading through the thread.

It's funny how no one has mentioned that 70% of charter work is just that. Charter work. Cleaning the aircraft making coffee getting the ice newspapers.

Ice and coffee bitch anyone?

Lets just leave the pilot part out of this so I can make myself really clear:

I would personally prefer to have a nonpilot, say a hot CSR from the front desk, or my guitar teacher with me as SIC. If they were hard working and wanted to help with the endless amount of "charter work" they would make me a safer pilot because I would have more free time. I would really love it if they remembered passengers that showed early. Or if they called the FBO ahead of time and had the rental planeside without being asked I would be in SIC wonderheaven.

Even better if they were fun to be around and going flying was a break from doing something like scheduling a lav service or painting a house.

So when I go work like a dog and I don't have an SIC I am bumming. Not because I'm worried about flying stuff. I'm doing all of the charter work. That sucks.

I will always to my best to train the SIC to fly. That is up to the PIC however.

Having an SIC helps. As for the safety issue. The FAA sends us out on .299 rides and the FAA sits and watches and the FAA says go fly single pilot.

The FAA says single pilot flown a/c are just that. SIC should touch basicly only radios depending on your POI.

 

[budjet]

I don't know about statistics but it seems to me that turbine aircraft are designed with all kinds of redundancy to improve safety and a lot of this gets undone by operating with one pilot. The pilot is the most important safety feature in the aircraft and if he/she is alone and becomes incapacitated or makes a mistake that could have been caught by another pilot the passengers are in trouble. Why would you want to have two of everything else but only one pilot? Cost is obviously the reason but it seems to me that if you can't afford to put two pilots in an expensive, all-weather turbine airplane you really can't aford to operate the airplane. I see no reason why my passengers should die because I have a coronary or other catastrophic problem.

Professional pilots who agree to fly these airplanes single pilot set a bad precedent and give operators the idea that it's cheaper to operate these planes than it really is. The poor passengers don't know any better and they trust the operators assuming that one pilot must be as safe as two or the FAA wouldn't allow it. I've always been surprised that the insurance companies allow this.

Sorry for the rant, I know I didn't help answer your question it's just that everytime I see an expensive turbine business aircraft flown by a single pilot at an FBO it strikes me as a potentially serious reduction in safety to save a few bucks. I've flown a lot of Part 121 through a lot of bad weather and problems/emergencies and I know that there were plenty of times when the operation would have been far less safe if there were only one of us in the cockpit. Single pilot passenger operations with high performance turbine aircraft in high workload airspace is simply an example of cutting corners to save money...period. I hope you are looking for these statistics to encourage an operator that two pilots are safer than one.

Could not agree with you more....I am new to this site have read your quip several times over a few months and been flyng the particular a/c I belive you speak of, and keep agreeing more and more!! Easy to fly by yourself, but easy to get into a bind...especially when you are having to fly another type of aircraft.

 

[RJLoser]

I agree. At a former job, we would train single pilot in 200's, but the insurance sonsa...company required that we have a 2 pilot crew. The running joke was that the SIC checkout was: 1) Gear handle up; 2) Gear handle down; 3) Clap your hands so I know you're not touching anything....

Wow! impressive CRM.

 

[Huggyu2]

Why not just use "the dog"? Certainly cheaper than an SIC pilot.

 

[moonlight]

Why not just use "the dog"? Certainly cheaper than an SIC pilot.

...and as, of not more, capable.