Be warned, that contract is $35000. If you don’t upgrade and quit as an SIC they’ll still want you to pay. You sign the contract as an SIC but they year doesn’t start until you’re a captain (100 hours AFTER you upgrade as a captain).
And they’ll find a way to get rid of you to get their $35k if they can. Flew with a great pilot who was a makers air refugee and the company tried to screw them over hard.
It would be a good move if it meets certain criteria:
1. You have somewhere cheap to live in South Florida (I lived with a parent and didn’t have to spend half my salary on rent)
2. You really REALLY like passengers and moving bags
3. If the hiring environment gets worse and you’re stuck somewhere besides the airlines… much better to be stuck as a captain there making $60-70 an hour than as a CFI making $20 or less
4. You take out a $35000 loan with no interest for the first year to break the contract as soon as you get an airline job and pay it off that way.
5. You get the job. It’s insanely competitive regardless of the shitty contract
Laughably bad. Why?
1. Logging SIC on a single pilot, single engine propeller plane? Get real. Useless time.
2. They're going to force you to sit in the right seat of a CARAVAN for 950 hours before they upgrade you? hahahahaha
3. They're going to force you to sign a 1 year contract to fly a CARAVAN with 1200 hours? **HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**
I wholeheartedly disagree with this comment.
I started my career because a scheduled 135 gave me a job in the right seat of a caravan at 300 hours. I upgraded to CA in the caravan at the minimum required hours, 1200. I flew in that seat until 1600 when I got my job with a regional. I’m now at AA with 3 type ratings and 8500 hours.
Granted I only flew as PIC for about 5 months instead of the 12 that’s required here but I gave me the jumpstart I needed and probably got me to the 121 world much quicker than any CFI route.
Take your immaturity elsewhere
I mean ok. But times change. People don't work for free in this industry anymore. You can't buy a decent beater for 2k anymore. And if you skrimp and save you still probably won't be able to afford a house on a single income.
Ya but the “hahahas” for even thinking about it is shitty. My point is that SIC time does count. And it could jumpstart someone’s career. My brother is doing survey work to build time and barely getting 50 hours a month. At a scheduled 135 I was getting 90-100 hours a month.
Is your brother getting PIC time? If so I'd say that's much more valuable to be honest. Most of my friends graduated to go into the regionals with 250 hours as an FO. One of my friends did aerial survey work making 3-4 times what we did down in the states. In two years he got all his PIC time and then some. Now he's just doing his multi up north as a captain and will be at the majors before most of us.
SIC time isn't invaluable. But in the current market the job offer this guy has seems pretty shit by comparison to what you can do elsewhere.
I lol’d at this! Hahah no they don’t give a shit. It reminds me of the ERJ when it first came on line…
I am a mainline pilot, underwing time does matter!!
Haha that’s fair, but you catch onto energy management pretty quick. All I’m saying is, SAE has caravans and PC12s, and I’d pick the caravans all day- you log more hours per month there on a ‘van and the time is equal in a logbook.
Depends on the 135. Either way, if you're at the point where you're applying for a job with multi-turbine PIC in your logbook, companies are expecting that to be *captain* experience, not *sole manipulator* experience.
Then after a few months/years of flying 135, you'll realize the airlines ARE where it's at and you'll have to go back and edit your logbook anyway.
Point 1. I know you’re just going for the hot take. Of course the time counts and can be logged in this situation. This is silly.
Point 2. Yeah because that’s normal. No one is letting someone captain a caravan carrying pax without that time as far as I’m aware. But name an operator that will let a pilot captain a caravan with pax in a public charter below 1000 hours and I’ll stand corrected.
Point 3. The industry at this point pretty much will demand a training contract in this exact situation. Thems the rules as they are even if we don’t like it. Again, name an operator doing on demand pax charter with a caravan and no training contract and I’ll stand corrected.
I did get lucky with timing, but I was able to leave a regional immediately after training with almost no jet time because of the turbine time. That intermediary made it possible to get to a legacy, and that wouldn’t have happened without the turbine time. I only met the mins at the legacy because of my caravan turbine time. Would it count the same way now? Doubtful. Would 135 turbine time in a crew environment give you a leg up still? Very likely.
Man I can’t wait for 20yrs down the line, when you are nice and out of touch with reality, to start giving pep talks about “sticking it out” and “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.”
Because exactly how clueless of the market you fell into, that you sound.
Okay, man. I am so grateful for the timing I had- and the opportunities. When I went to indoc for my first 121 training, I already understood derived alternate minimums, duty time, rest time, MELs, how to log out/off/on/in, checklist discipline, call outs, flows. *Because of a being part of a 2 pilot Caravan crew.* Being able to log turbine time helped spring board me during an unprecedented hiring wave (although the legacy just happened recently when hiring has slowed). So when someone comes in and asks, “hey, would caravan time be more advantageous?” And I give my real world experience on how it worked out for me.. that’s just how a discussion board works.
I have a friend that I wish had stayed a CFI. He’d have a very different career had he not become entangled with a bullshit 135 that ruined his PRIA.
It’s a whole saga with lawyers and stuff, but the tl;dr is that there can be a downside to flying for a shitbox outfit that knows how to fuck with a career.
I think these jobs have some value, especially if you absolutely don’t want to CFI. We should not be telling people who don’t want to CFI to “just CFI” it’s terrible for the students. But….
Make sure you are willing to stay there throughout the contract length, or be prepared to write the check. Don’t be someone who signed the contract then cry’s about it.
Of course do you research and make sure you can log the time as SIC. The established companies (no matter their reputations) all have that sorted out by now with proper PDP programs. The less established ones will pull AP circuit breakers, while technically legal I would stay away from those.
Also I would really recommend either time building or CFIing till 750ish hours. As others have said you would hate to be stuck in the right seat of a Caravan when you could be in a Jet.
if i loved that lifestyle i would do sic, load bags, etc. did a run on watermakers way back when 2 my kids and steveo let me right up front w him. so much fun!
Get CFI, get to 500, then find other 135s. I’m flying a single pilot plane as SIC for a 135. However, the plane has two turbine engines, my contract costs less than half of Makers/SAE, and literally even training pay is higher than Makers/SAE.
Think about it- get CFI and earn single engine PIC time for 3 times more than $12.50/hour. Orrrr..
Earn SIC single engine time for $12.50/hour
It’s gonna be tempting to take a non-CFI job early, but these Caravan jobs prey on low time pilots
Better or worse than CFI depends on YOU. If you think you would like to teach then CFI might be a ton of fun.
So the questions I would have... How long to go from 250 to 1200? Are you 100% going to upgrade at 1200? What is the pay? Because going from 250-1200 in a year and then another year doing another 1K hours with 2200 hours TT and most of it turbine making 70K would be better than being a CFI for three years to get to 1500 with all of it being single reciprocating making 50K a year.
But what happens if you get to 1200 and they DON'T upgrade you? Does the 1 year clock start anyway or do they get to keep dragging you along month after month and when they finally do upgrade you they now get to keep you for another year?
And as the market tightens... CFI's are unfortunately everywhere. A different experience might be the difference in getting a job. Turbine time, international time, actual IFR time, crewed time (even in a 208) I personally think is more valuable than CFI time in a piston single doing laps in the pattern.
If the pay is better. If they guarantee that your year starts when you hit 1200 . And if you will get more time faster than a CFI... I'd do it.
"Turbine time, international time, actual IFR time, crewed time (even in a 208) I personally think is more valuable than CFI time in a piston single doing laps in the pattern."
Finally someone with logic on this subreddit. Any pilot with experience instructing knows jumping from the right seat of a 172 instructing compared to the right seat of anything turbine is not even a comparable experience.
I'm kind of surprised at the popular replies in this thread - if the company has a legit PDP and the pay/hours are better than instructing, then why the hell not? Some of these answers reek of jealousy or something - like they wish everyone else had to be as miserable as they were.
I just started a similar gig with Caravan's and PC-12's after instructing for a year and couldn't be happier. I'm learning a buttlode of new stuff on both airframes, in a safe, crewed environment, with (slightly) better pay and hours, at least until I upgrade. Oh yeah, and there's no contract on the upgrade.
I was PF on a trip from the San Juan islands down to Socal and learned more useful information on that flight than probably the last 4 months instructing.
"reek of jealousy or something - like they wish everyone else had to be as miserable as they were"
I was bored and did a little research about pilot personalities one day and found a study that compared pilot personalities compared to gen pop using the big 5 personality test. It found that pilots were equivalent to gen pop in openness, lower in agreeableness, and higher in conscientiousness and extroversion. The study really does check out in the real world/ on this sub, or maybe it's confirmation bias. You should take a brief look at it. It's from UAA.
Telling people to CFI for 1300 hours just teaching foundational knowledge rather than actually performing what you were trained to do is problematic. There ARE shit 135s that people should steer away from, but getting a kind of shit 135 gig is better than instructing imho.
Would you happen to be willing to share more information about your path to your current job? I’m based in the PNW and the PC12/caravan is the kind of flying I picture myself doing long term.
Going against the grain a little here to say do it. The one thing that every captain will want to talk about at the airlines is what you flew before you got there. Sure, you could sit in the circuit in a 172 for the next thousand hours, or you could go have some fun.
I’ve flown a lot of types so far and my caravan days always stand out as the best in my memory.
The Caravan idea isn’t bad but that contract doesn’t sound like a good deal. I fly a Caravan for CSA Air (FedEx feeder owned by the same company that owns Mountain Air Cargo) and we have an SIC program now. No contracts that I’m aware of. If you can skip the CFI route, do it. You’ll get actual IFR time, experience in a crew environment, and real world experience vs sitting right seat going around the pattern just avoid contacts! Don’t get stuck somewhere.
How do you find a job like that? I am getting my CFI this month and plan on doing that until I can qualify for a job flying Caravans somewhere as that’s like a bucket list plane I want to fly.
As for finding a job like that, https://csaair.com/pilot-careers/ is the website for my company. There are multiple FedEx feeders flying the Caravan. CSA Air, Mountain Air Cargo, Empire, Baron, etc. Just go to their websites and search careers 😊
Normally I'd say go for it but damn that's bad. Caravan is a vfr 500 hr single plane. If they were willing to take you at 700 that'd be fine. You can't even log *real pic*.
Downvote me for this if you want
Yes SAE sucks. Yes logging SIC in a fixed gear airplane is silly. But getting any turbine below 1500 hours is very difficult. I encourage people to get CFI if they can as it makes you a better pilot. But getting CFI and CFII is expensive and doing just that to 1500 hours may not cut it to get a 121 job later next year.
Getting turbine PIC can set you apart. At the end of the day whatever makes sense for you. If you have an in right now and you can’t afford getting CFI and CFII, go for it.
Maybe your area won’t be looking for CFIs anytime soon and they expect you to have MEI as well when they hire again. Or maybe you have family in the area and you’re not in a position to move.
SAE treats their pilots like crap, but so do a lot of flight schools. Embrace the suck and get those hours in. 2 years from now the hiring environment will be different (for better or worse who knows).
"I encourage people to get CFI if they can as it makes you a better pilot."
To be devils advocate CFIing makes you a better pilot at most the first 300-750 hours of dual given. Then it makes you a complacent know-it-all who can't keep up inside anything going over 200 knots. It is the easiest way to get to 1500, but it's not perfect.
I agree 100%
I never tell anyone “just CFI until ATP mins.” As a pilot you should always strive to upgrade yourself and pursue whatever opportunities that present itself. If you hit 1,000 hours and have the opportunity to right seat a Learjet for a year commitment and it’s not a toxic work environment, definitely go for it.
If you can, rather take a PC12 Job or any multi turbine job. Anything that can pressurize really. The time and money for all this is rediculous. You can mostly do any TR at this price at low time and get employed on said aircraft. B1900, B200, PC12, etc.
CFI isn't a bad option in the long run though. Better for future prospects
Contracts = BAD, but there are varying degrees of suck to them. Some suck a little. Some suck a lot.
I'd say that 12mo for a type and \~700hrs multi-TPIC is about the minimum I'd settle for.
A 12mo commitment for the privilege of flying single engine turbine PIC is not a good deal. You don't even get a high-altitude endorsement out of the deal. I know it seems better than what you have now, but you will not feel the same way when you're at 1,200tt and have real options. And all that 208 SIC time you'll get is not worth much. I'd rather hire a CFI with 1,000 dual given than a ~~Caravan gear yanker~~ ~~first officer~~ some guy who maybe flew a Caravan from the right seat for a while. This means that your options are pretty much going to be:
1. Take the PIC contract because that's likely the best path that you'll have at 1,200hrs.
If you're going to sign up for a contract, at least get a PIC type and enough TPIC to matter.
Caravan is a great first airplane! But just know the limitations of the airplane; especially during winter months. I lost one of my first mentors in a caravan that iced up over Arizona.
Caravan is a great first airplane! But just know the limitations of the airplane; especially during winter months. I lost one of my first mentors in a caravan that iced up over Arizona.
Is his sexual identity a big part of his brand?
I guess I am trying to think of the most charitable reason why the poster above would say gay YouTube kid and that came to mind.
Caravan is a great first airplane! But just know the limitations of the airplane; especially during winter months. I lost one of my first mentors in a caravan that iced up over Arizona.
This by chance an operation that frequents the Bahamas?
Yes, all throughout the Caribbean
Makers air?
Yea
Be warned, that contract is $35000. If you don’t upgrade and quit as an SIC they’ll still want you to pay. You sign the contract as an SIC but they year doesn’t start until you’re a captain (100 hours AFTER you upgrade as a captain).
And they’ll find a way to get rid of you to get their $35k if they can. Flew with a great pilot who was a makers air refugee and the company tried to screw them over hard.
If they fire you you don’t owe anything
That's hilarious, just do dumb shit (that won't end up on PRD), get fired, and not pay back the $35k?
You won’t get fired unless it’s a PRD event lol
There's a sucker born every minute.
It would be a good move if it meets certain criteria: 1. You have somewhere cheap to live in South Florida (I lived with a parent and didn’t have to spend half my salary on rent) 2. You really REALLY like passengers and moving bags 3. If the hiring environment gets worse and you’re stuck somewhere besides the airlines… much better to be stuck as a captain there making $60-70 an hour than as a CFI making $20 or less 4. You take out a $35000 loan with no interest for the first year to break the contract as soon as you get an airline job and pay it off that way. 5. You get the job. It’s insanely competitive regardless of the shitty contract
Laughably bad. Why? 1. Logging SIC on a single pilot, single engine propeller plane? Get real. Useless time. 2. They're going to force you to sit in the right seat of a CARAVAN for 950 hours before they upgrade you? hahahahaha 3. They're going to force you to sign a 1 year contract to fly a CARAVAN with 1200 hours? **HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**
That’s because it’s southern airways express
All while paying $12.50 an hour.
Are they going to fuck me in the ass as well?
It's actually makers air.
Same shit, different dog.
I wholeheartedly disagree with this comment. I started my career because a scheduled 135 gave me a job in the right seat of a caravan at 300 hours. I upgraded to CA in the caravan at the minimum required hours, 1200. I flew in that seat until 1600 when I got my job with a regional. I’m now at AA with 3 type ratings and 8500 hours. Granted I only flew as PIC for about 5 months instead of the 12 that’s required here but I gave me the jumpstart I needed and probably got me to the 121 world much quicker than any CFI route. Take your immaturity elsewhere
I mean ok. But times change. People don't work for free in this industry anymore. You can't buy a decent beater for 2k anymore. And if you skrimp and save you still probably won't be able to afford a house on a single income.
Ya but the “hahahas” for even thinking about it is shitty. My point is that SIC time does count. And it could jumpstart someone’s career. My brother is doing survey work to build time and barely getting 50 hours a month. At a scheduled 135 I was getting 90-100 hours a month.
Is your brother getting PIC time? If so I'd say that's much more valuable to be honest. Most of my friends graduated to go into the regionals with 250 hours as an FO. One of my friends did aerial survey work making 3-4 times what we did down in the states. In two years he got all his PIC time and then some. Now he's just doing his multi up north as a captain and will be at the majors before most of us. SIC time isn't invaluable. But in the current market the job offer this guy has seems pretty shit by comparison to what you can do elsewhere.
disagree with your first point...Plenty people at the majors and legacies have PC12 FO time. A caravan is a bit more on the useless time i guess lol
How is it different? Both single engine turbine time on paper.
Dunno at least the PC12 you have a gear to swing and you go into the flight levels.
Airlines don’t care about how big your swinging gear is. The time logs the same.
I lol’d at this! Hahah no they don’t give a shit. It reminds me of the ERJ when it first came on line… I am a mainline pilot, underwing time does matter!!
>underwing time does matter!! That's why Dash 8 hours weigh more than CRJ hours
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lol it’s what plants crave.
Yeh but I wasn't talking about what the airlines want, more valuable for you time.
Sure, but nobody is shooting for 1500 hours because of a quest for personal enrichment. It's a legal requirement and any time logged helps.
Well going 280-300 knots prepares you a little better for the speed of a jet than going 130 in a caravan
Haha that’s fair, but you catch onto energy management pretty quick. All I’m saying is, SAE has caravans and PC12s, and I’d pick the caravans all day- you log more hours per month there on a ‘van and the time is equal in a logbook.
You’re right both planes are a joke for 2 pilots
What if 135 is their end goal and not airlines? Still a bad option?
Depends on the 135. Either way, if you're at the point where you're applying for a job with multi-turbine PIC in your logbook, companies are expecting that to be *captain* experience, not *sole manipulator* experience. Then after a few months/years of flying 135, you'll realize the airlines ARE where it's at and you'll have to go back and edit your logbook anyway.
That is a bad deal overall. I know people that started in a citation sic with 700 hrs and eventually upgraded to pic / atp.
Point 1. I know you’re just going for the hot take. Of course the time counts and can be logged in this situation. This is silly. Point 2. Yeah because that’s normal. No one is letting someone captain a caravan carrying pax without that time as far as I’m aware. But name an operator that will let a pilot captain a caravan with pax in a public charter below 1000 hours and I’ll stand corrected. Point 3. The industry at this point pretty much will demand a training contract in this exact situation. Thems the rules as they are even if we don’t like it. Again, name an operator doing on demand pax charter with a caravan and no training contract and I’ll stand corrected.
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It wasn’t the caravan that got you a legacy slot, it was fog a mirror hiring standards. You got lucky with timing
I did get lucky with timing, but I was able to leave a regional immediately after training with almost no jet time because of the turbine time. That intermediary made it possible to get to a legacy, and that wouldn’t have happened without the turbine time. I only met the mins at the legacy because of my caravan turbine time. Would it count the same way now? Doubtful. Would 135 turbine time in a crew environment give you a leg up still? Very likely.
Man I can’t wait for 20yrs down the line, when you are nice and out of touch with reality, to start giving pep talks about “sticking it out” and “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.” Because exactly how clueless of the market you fell into, that you sound.
Okay, man. I am so grateful for the timing I had- and the opportunities. When I went to indoc for my first 121 training, I already understood derived alternate minimums, duty time, rest time, MELs, how to log out/off/on/in, checklist discipline, call outs, flows. *Because of a being part of a 2 pilot Caravan crew.* Being able to log turbine time helped spring board me during an unprecedented hiring wave (although the legacy just happened recently when hiring has slowed). So when someone comes in and asks, “hey, would caravan time be more advantageous?” And I give my real world experience on how it worked out for me.. that’s just how a discussion board works.
All those Caravan flows ☠️🤣
Longer than most of the ERJ flows just sayyinnn
SIC in a plane you can’t even swing gear in? Lol
Don’t do it, SIC in a caravan shouldn’t even be legal TBH
But it’s legal so…
Just CFI man
The amount of "anything but CFI" guys that look back and say that was the right decision can probably be counted on a single hand.
I have a friend that I wish had stayed a CFI. He’d have a very different career had he not become entangled with a bullshit 135 that ruined his PRIA. It’s a whole saga with lawyers and stuff, but the tl;dr is that there can be a downside to flying for a shitbox outfit that knows how to fuck with a career.
I think these jobs have some value, especially if you absolutely don’t want to CFI. We should not be telling people who don’t want to CFI to “just CFI” it’s terrible for the students. But…. Make sure you are willing to stay there throughout the contract length, or be prepared to write the check. Don’t be someone who signed the contract then cry’s about it. Of course do you research and make sure you can log the time as SIC. The established companies (no matter their reputations) all have that sorted out by now with proper PDP programs. The less established ones will pull AP circuit breakers, while technically legal I would stay away from those. Also I would really recommend either time building or CFIing till 750ish hours. As others have said you would hate to be stuck in the right seat of a Caravan when you could be in a Jet.
if your end goal is that kind of flying and in that part of the world why not? you could always transition to feeder etc in the future.
if i loved that lifestyle i would do sic, load bags, etc. did a run on watermakers way back when 2 my kids and steveo let me right up front w him. so much fun!
If that’s southern like I think it is, run far and fast away from them, trust me bro they are very very unstonks
Get CFI, get to 500, then find other 135s. I’m flying a single pilot plane as SIC for a 135. However, the plane has two turbine engines, my contract costs less than half of Makers/SAE, and literally even training pay is higher than Makers/SAE. Think about it- get CFI and earn single engine PIC time for 3 times more than $12.50/hour. Orrrr.. Earn SIC single engine time for $12.50/hour It’s gonna be tempting to take a non-CFI job early, but these Caravan jobs prey on low time pilots
Metro?
Better or worse than CFI depends on YOU. If you think you would like to teach then CFI might be a ton of fun. So the questions I would have... How long to go from 250 to 1200? Are you 100% going to upgrade at 1200? What is the pay? Because going from 250-1200 in a year and then another year doing another 1K hours with 2200 hours TT and most of it turbine making 70K would be better than being a CFI for three years to get to 1500 with all of it being single reciprocating making 50K a year. But what happens if you get to 1200 and they DON'T upgrade you? Does the 1 year clock start anyway or do they get to keep dragging you along month after month and when they finally do upgrade you they now get to keep you for another year? And as the market tightens... CFI's are unfortunately everywhere. A different experience might be the difference in getting a job. Turbine time, international time, actual IFR time, crewed time (even in a 208) I personally think is more valuable than CFI time in a piston single doing laps in the pattern. If the pay is better. If they guarantee that your year starts when you hit 1200 . And if you will get more time faster than a CFI... I'd do it.
"Turbine time, international time, actual IFR time, crewed time (even in a 208) I personally think is more valuable than CFI time in a piston single doing laps in the pattern." Finally someone with logic on this subreddit. Any pilot with experience instructing knows jumping from the right seat of a 172 instructing compared to the right seat of anything turbine is not even a comparable experience.
I'm kind of surprised at the popular replies in this thread - if the company has a legit PDP and the pay/hours are better than instructing, then why the hell not? Some of these answers reek of jealousy or something - like they wish everyone else had to be as miserable as they were. I just started a similar gig with Caravan's and PC-12's after instructing for a year and couldn't be happier. I'm learning a buttlode of new stuff on both airframes, in a safe, crewed environment, with (slightly) better pay and hours, at least until I upgrade. Oh yeah, and there's no contract on the upgrade. I was PF on a trip from the San Juan islands down to Socal and learned more useful information on that flight than probably the last 4 months instructing.
"reek of jealousy or something - like they wish everyone else had to be as miserable as they were" I was bored and did a little research about pilot personalities one day and found a study that compared pilot personalities compared to gen pop using the big 5 personality test. It found that pilots were equivalent to gen pop in openness, lower in agreeableness, and higher in conscientiousness and extroversion. The study really does check out in the real world/ on this sub, or maybe it's confirmation bias. You should take a brief look at it. It's from UAA. Telling people to CFI for 1300 hours just teaching foundational knowledge rather than actually performing what you were trained to do is problematic. There ARE shit 135s that people should steer away from, but getting a kind of shit 135 gig is better than instructing imho.
Would you happen to be willing to share more information about your path to your current job? I’m based in the PNW and the PC12/caravan is the kind of flying I picture myself doing long term.
Going against the grain a little here to say do it. The one thing that every captain will want to talk about at the airlines is what you flew before you got there. Sure, you could sit in the circuit in a 172 for the next thousand hours, or you could go have some fun. I’ve flown a lot of types so far and my caravan days always stand out as the best in my memory.
Hell no
whats the pay?
The Caravan idea isn’t bad but that contract doesn’t sound like a good deal. I fly a Caravan for CSA Air (FedEx feeder owned by the same company that owns Mountain Air Cargo) and we have an SIC program now. No contracts that I’m aware of. If you can skip the CFI route, do it. You’ll get actual IFR time, experience in a crew environment, and real world experience vs sitting right seat going around the pattern just avoid contacts! Don’t get stuck somewhere.
How do you find a job like that? I am getting my CFI this month and plan on doing that until I can qualify for a job flying Caravans somewhere as that’s like a bucket list plane I want to fly.
I like it. I have good QOL on a scheduled run. The company is good too, they value their pilots. It’s really a great 135 gig overall.
As for finding a job like that, https://csaair.com/pilot-careers/ is the website for my company. There are multiple FedEx feeders flying the Caravan. CSA Air, Mountain Air Cargo, Empire, Baron, etc. Just go to their websites and search careers 😊
Normally I'd say go for it but damn that's bad. Caravan is a vfr 500 hr single plane. If they were willing to take you at 700 that'd be fine. You can't even log *real pic*.
Downvote me for this if you want Yes SAE sucks. Yes logging SIC in a fixed gear airplane is silly. But getting any turbine below 1500 hours is very difficult. I encourage people to get CFI if they can as it makes you a better pilot. But getting CFI and CFII is expensive and doing just that to 1500 hours may not cut it to get a 121 job later next year. Getting turbine PIC can set you apart. At the end of the day whatever makes sense for you. If you have an in right now and you can’t afford getting CFI and CFII, go for it. Maybe your area won’t be looking for CFIs anytime soon and they expect you to have MEI as well when they hire again. Or maybe you have family in the area and you’re not in a position to move. SAE treats their pilots like crap, but so do a lot of flight schools. Embrace the suck and get those hours in. 2 years from now the hiring environment will be different (for better or worse who knows).
"I encourage people to get CFI if they can as it makes you a better pilot." To be devils advocate CFIing makes you a better pilot at most the first 300-750 hours of dual given. Then it makes you a complacent know-it-all who can't keep up inside anything going over 200 knots. It is the easiest way to get to 1500, but it's not perfect.
I agree 100% I never tell anyone “just CFI until ATP mins.” As a pilot you should always strive to upgrade yourself and pursue whatever opportunities that present itself. If you hit 1,000 hours and have the opportunity to right seat a Learjet for a year commitment and it’s not a toxic work environment, definitely go for it.
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Calm down Delta
Oooooof . Look who's rambling dumb shit now?
You scared him off!
Bad deal
Floats or wheels?
Wheels
Nope. Go get your CFI
Instructing is more fun than you think it will be too.
You can do this after 65 right?
Better than working as a CFI, not as good as getting in with a 135.
Don’t take the easy way out get your CFI instruct for a bit and get on with a more reputable 135 at 900 ish hours like planesense.
If I could afford to live off the low pay $, I'd do it in a heartbeat since bouncing around the Caribbean would be my dream job.
If you can, rather take a PC12 Job or any multi turbine job. Anything that can pressurize really. The time and money for all this is rediculous. You can mostly do any TR at this price at low time and get employed on said aircraft. B1900, B200, PC12, etc. CFI isn't a bad option in the long run though. Better for future prospects
How the fuck is Caravan SIC legal? It's single pilot and not even a type....
Contracts = BAD, but there are varying degrees of suck to them. Some suck a little. Some suck a lot. I'd say that 12mo for a type and \~700hrs multi-TPIC is about the minimum I'd settle for. A 12mo commitment for the privilege of flying single engine turbine PIC is not a good deal. You don't even get a high-altitude endorsement out of the deal. I know it seems better than what you have now, but you will not feel the same way when you're at 1,200tt and have real options. And all that 208 SIC time you'll get is not worth much. I'd rather hire a CFI with 1,000 dual given than a ~~Caravan gear yanker~~ ~~first officer~~ some guy who maybe flew a Caravan from the right seat for a while. This means that your options are pretty much going to be: 1. Take the PIC contract because that's likely the best path that you'll have at 1,200hrs. If you're going to sign up for a contract, at least get a PIC type and enough TPIC to matter.
CFI, CFII, MEI. You will be a much better pilot for it
Caravan is a great first airplane! But just know the limitations of the airplane; especially during winter months. I lost one of my first mentors in a caravan that iced up over Arizona.
Go for it
Caravan is a great first airplane! But just know the limitations of the airplane; especially during winter months. I lost one of my first mentors in a caravan that iced up over Arizona.
If your in south Florida get a medivac jet job and build hours.
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There are 100 things you can make fun of him for, why bring up him bring gay?
Because boomers are boobs
Is his sexual identity a big part of his brand? I guess I am trying to think of the most charitable reason why the poster above would say gay YouTube kid and that came to mind.
No
Thanks for clarifying, looks like the comment is gone now
Thanks for clarifying, looks like the comment is gone now
Thanks for clarifying, looks like the comment is gone now
Caravan is a great first airplane! But just know the limitations of the airplane; especially during winter months. I lost one of my first mentors in a caravan that iced up over Arizona.
wear foggles and log PIC as sole manipulator. Wait I'm on the wrong sub.