Traffic Watch?

[CFICANFLY]

Note: This is not a posting for a job...sorry (I'm looking too)

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience/background as a traffic watch pilot. I have an airplane that I'm looking to put to work (except for instruction), & am curious about flying it for traffic watch (with me as the pilot of course). Other than contacting local media outlets & offering up my services, what should I know? Feel free to PM me if you like.

'canfly

 

[typhoonpilot]

CFICANFLY

What city are you located in ?

I flew traffic watch in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 80s. It was a great gig. My company maintained the Mooney 201 of Lin Durling who flew and reported for KGO radio. We would fly it when he was on vacation, then one day he had a mid-air with a Cessna 152 that was descending into Palo Alto. Bent the vertical stab in half but he made a nice emergency landing at San Carlos. Luckily the Cessna 152 landed safely in Palo Alto, minus a nose wheel though. After that Lin wasn't the same and we took over the flying full time in a Piper Warrior. Two and half hours in the morning and two in the afternoon. It was a great time builder for my fellow CFIs and me.

The flying was interesting as well. Somewhat challenging in the SFO TCA, especially when the fog was around in the morning. Even if we couldn't get below the fog we would still fly with a reporter just so they could make their reports with the sound of being in an airplane in the background. Of course the reporter would want to get down below the fog as much as possible. Being young and foolish at the time we usually pushed it a little further than we should have. Yes, I have seen the Transamerica building from 800 feet over downtown San Francisco

Anyway, good luck finding a station to fly for.

Typhoonpilot

 

[CFICANFLY]

I'm in Naples, FL. The reality is my plane has to put money in my pocket one way or another. One way is for it to earn it's keep, the other is to sell it. I'm going to A&P school right now, so I figured traffic watch would be perfect- a couple hours in the a.m., a couple more in the p.m. Having never done it myself, I don't really know the ropes. For example:

-Do they always provide a reporter, or do some media outlets expect you to report?
-Air to ground comm. for reporting (I assume they would provide)
-What is a fair (to both parties) rate?

S.F. is a great city with an unfortunate bad rap. I used to visit quite a bit as I had family in the Bay Area. The TransAmerica building would be the pyramid style one?

Thanks for replying!
'canfly

 

[generaltso]

Why don't you do a lease back to a flight school?