I'm trying to get a feel for how 135 cargo flying is like. Do you get to pick the route? If the weather is nice, can you opt to go the flight VFR? Lets say your route takes you over the town where you grew up in. If you were to decide to do a few 360's over the town to try to spot your house, will something like this get you fired? At a regional, this would get you fired in an instant. Are you given more freedom as a 135 cargo pilot? Obviously, assume that doing something like this causes no adverse safety violations. Do they just give you the plane loaded up, tell you the destination, then it's up to you to do the rest? Or is it just as strict as the airlines? Right now as a CFI, I can pretty much do whatever I want. If me and my student want to circle around a cow patch and watch the cows, we sure as hell can. There is no one to stop us. I have a cross country tomorrow, which we planned specifically so we can fly over and see this certain lake, which is supposed to have good water skiing (we are both interested in waterskiing). I KNOW this kind of freedom doesn't exist at an airline (which is partly why I'm not interested in working at an airline), but what about places like Airnet and AMF?
how strict is freight flying?
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falconvalley
Absentee Dad of the OOTSK, Runner, Cat Frustrator
Look at it this way...if you were paying someone to paint your house, would you want them using the paint to do some personal art projects with your paint while you're paying them? Now imagine paying 100 people to paint houses and they all do that. Imagine the money you're paying them and they waste it on personal projects. That's your money.
OK i get the point, but I'm not talking about going 100 miles out of your way or anything like that. Maybe "doing a few 360's" would be a little excess... The reason I asked, is because I know an Airnet guy who told us that at night you can get away with more. He went on to explain how he would practice emergency descents by descending from 30,000ft in the Lear, down to 3,000 in like 120 seconds. He seemed to characterize cargo flying as more "free". Is this correct?
Most of the time your deadlines will not allow for this type of activity. Once you are flying commercial ops, fun is a byproduct of the flying not the purpose. The reason why I believe freight flying is more fun: YOU FLY THE PLANE. You don't get to watch and fly when the captain says. If you wanna do a tight visual you can. It gives you alot of freedom in that sense. This is also a trap. Flying by yourself is very dangerous if you let it because no one is making sure you don't fool around. You must be very disciplined to fly single pilot.
DE727UPS
Well-Known Member
Well....I think 135 freight is more relaxed.
We were encouraged to fly VFR whenever possible to save time.
A few 360's....nobody's gonna notice. I once knew a guy who flew Beech 18's out of Spokane. He was such a valued employee that they let him take the plane home, empty, for the weekends, rather than strand him in Missoula. Heck, I know an Amflight guy with a run into Grand Coulee, WA. They don't even HAVE an IFR approach there. Can't imagine how he manages to find the place all the time.
At some point, if you are doing things non-standard in a Learjet, it crosses the line into "screwing around". Which is what got PCL3701 into trouble. So, you gotta draw the line somewhere. I don't do anything in a freight 767 I wouldn't do in a Delta 767. At the same time, I think 135 freight in a light twin is a different story and has more leeway. You just have to know where to draw the line. I'll tell you that we don't "practice emergency descents" for fun where I work.
We were encouraged to fly VFR whenever possible to save time.
A few 360's....nobody's gonna notice. I once knew a guy who flew Beech 18's out of Spokane. He was such a valued employee that they let him take the plane home, empty, for the weekends, rather than strand him in Missoula. Heck, I know an Amflight guy with a run into Grand Coulee, WA. They don't even HAVE an IFR approach there. Can't imagine how he manages to find the place all the time.
At some point, if you are doing things non-standard in a Learjet, it crosses the line into "screwing around". Which is what got PCL3701 into trouble. So, you gotta draw the line somewhere. I don't do anything in a freight 767 I wouldn't do in a Delta 767. At the same time, I think 135 freight in a light twin is a different story and has more leeway. You just have to know where to draw the line. I'll tell you that we don't "practice emergency descents" for fun where I work.
falconvalley
Absentee Dad of the OOTSK, Runner, Cat Frustrator
Sure, but understand that it's still a job, like the others said. If you don't have a basic grasp of discretion you will find yourself consistently in trouble for breaking the rules when you thought you were just bending them. Flying freight isn't closer to a free-for-all, it's just a job with very little supervision. The main difference between flying freight and flying pax for me is how much less abrupt I am on the controls. I handfly (and I do ALOT of handflying) like I'm communicating to the passengers that whatever air we fly through, I'm going to make this flight as smooooooth as possible. That's just me. When I flew freight, I just didn't care about that or being configured 5 miles out. I still was careful though. Whatever job it is, there's no big deal in asking for your own headings and pilot's discretion. If you play your cards right, a trip over the house might be right in line from where you are granted your request and the airport.
PanJet
Well-Known Member
Sounds to me like you'd be most suited in a Part 91 corporate gig. However, I don't know if I fully support Part 91 corporate stuff. Highly unstructured compared to 135 or 121. There are no checkrides, very few limitations on block times, and you could take off from an airport without even being able to see your wingtips in fog. It's a little to loose if you ask me. Heck, if someone really wanted to let you, they could throw you in the left seat of a King Air 200 after two or three flights so long as you're CMEL with the proper endorsements.
Now as far as freight flying goes, I believe you can use more tricks than in the 121 world. I personally know some former freight flyers (and I know there's lots of former and current dawg's on this forum) who've told of experiences of getting into the tiny little VFR airports. They made use of every class of airspace (including G) to every sense of the regs. Shoot an approach into a nearby airport, cancel and go special 500 ft. off the deck for 5 miles into a little VFR airport in a Beech 1900. Or shoot an approach into an airport 20 miles away and go VFR through class G up the coast for 20 miles and drop it into a tiny little VFR strip.
Quite honestly, I'm very intrigued by the freight world, and I tend to like to do a lot of stuff on my own, so I can't wait to try out the 135 cargo world, but it's not something to take lightly, and like the other guys said, business is business. Screwing around at $500/hour operating cost (for some of the smaller planes) probably wouldn't sit well with any employer, airline or not.
Yeak, O.K. I also have 2nd hand knowledge of someone at Airnet that did some of that very 'screwing around' and ended causing some structural damage to the a/c, not to mention the damage to his flying career. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.....
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CHI07CA058&rpt=fa
mtsu_av8er
Well-Known Member
With the schedule I have to keep, if I have to do a 360 on final, I'll behind!
That's a culture we are definetly trying to change if it even exist at Airnet. Freight Dawgs have a bad reputation as it is from the shady operations out there, the last thing we need are lear jets getting bent.
For those that are considering Airnet or those that even hold an opinion of our company, please know that the 40AN incident is a black eye that no one at Airnet is proud of and everyone at Airnet takes near and dear to there heart. The perception that we are "cowboys" and "maniacs" is not something we strive for. When everyone goes to there next company after their tenure here they definetly don't want their former employer to be known as "The guys that rolled that lear jet".
For those that are considering Airnet or those that even hold an opinion of our company, please know that the 40AN incident is a black eye that no one at Airnet is proud of and everyone at Airnet takes near and dear to there heart. The perception that we are "cowboys" and "maniacs" is not something we strive for. When everyone goes to there next company after their tenure here they definetly don't want their former employer to be known as "The guys that rolled that lear jet".
Flysher
Well-Known Member
chances are that guy was exaturating about how fast he comes down in the lear. I ride in the back of them all the time to reposition and they DO come down fast, just not that fast. I think they use a 2/1 descent ( any lear guys on here feel free to smack me and correct me if im wrong)
None of us are proud of the Lear incident. It doesn't reflect on the overall professionalism of the company. Most of us couldn't get our jobs done/meet our tight deadlines each night if we weren't professional in the way we handled our planes/couriers/cargo etc. It just sucks cause freight pilots get the bad rap already as it is, with us being labeled as the cowboys of aviation, then something like that happens.
Oh and to the guy askin about doin 360s over his hometown, if you saw what some of these companies were shipping on our flights or the price they were paying to ship them, you would understand why that wouldn't be a good idea. Body parts, medicines, stuff that expires. Last week a courier told me I had over 2 billion in cancelled checks onboard . So now you can understand why we try to go A to B as fast a humanly possible.
None of us are proud of the Lear incident. It doesn't reflect on the overall professionalism of the company. Most of us couldn't get our jobs done/meet our tight deadlines each night if we weren't professional in the way we handled our planes/couriers/cargo etc. It just sucks cause freight pilots get the bad rap already as it is, with us being labeled as the cowboys of aviation, then something like that happens.
Oh and to the guy askin about doin 360s over his hometown, if you saw what some of these companies were shipping on our flights or the price they were paying to ship them, you would understand why that wouldn't be a good idea. Body parts, medicines, stuff that expires. Last week a courier told me I had over 2 billion in cancelled checks onboard
. So now you can understand why we try to go A to B as fast a humanly possible.
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
Have you guys seen your check runs diminish at all or are they still going strong? IOW, have you seen any effect of the Check 21 law reducing demand? I know my checks with BoA are now electronically "mailed" back to me - viewable in my online account.Last week a courier told me I had over 2 billion in cancelled checks onboard
Also, I noticed Airnet ships stuff on 121 carriers too. Just the other day waiting in Ops I noticed an Airnet box that was going with us up to PHL from GSP.
Flysher
Well-Known Member
I myself have not noticed, but I have only been at Airnet for 1 year. Alot of the couriers that I talk to who have 10+ years with the company say it has declined big time. The one guy has gone from driving around in a big hotel shuttle-like van to driving a 4 door honda civic due to smaller loads. As I said before though, checks aren't our only business anymore thankfully. Our new CEO is pushing hard to aquire new customers, in new and existing regions.
I honestly didn't know about the 121 carrier thing, I would assume those are charters for pieces that didn't make it onto a system flight or something like that.
EatSleepFly
Well-Known Member
Or possibly parts for your airplanes.
I know my company sends parts on the airlines if it's urgent and/or the location isn't reachable via comat.
If we can't fit it on our system it gets bumped and then we "commercial" it. Bank work almost never gets bumped as it has the highest priority with medical supplies just behind it.
Also if the stuff isn't time critical and has an odd routing that requires a monday morning delivery we'll throw it on a airline and it will get to it's location. We only do this if the customer isn't willing to charter.
I've noticed that the bank work is declining. You'd notice this J if you had the same run for awhile.
But pretty much there will always be a demand for flying checks. There will always be some that can't be sent electronically. However the weights are going down by the day and eventually it'll just be 5-10lbs of checks put out by the banks vs. the 100-200lbs we are getting now.
As stated above they are trying to explore other avenues to carry medical supplies and other premium time critical work but I've been told one of our current issues is bulk. We can't service the banks and the medical supplies at the same time as much as we'd want to with our current fleet. Checks fit better than square boxes in round tubes. That's what gets me excited when they talk about bringing some larger faster turbo-props onboard. This however is just a rumot and I wouldn't count on it until one pulls into Rick.
Also if the stuff isn't time critical and has an odd routing that requires a monday morning delivery we'll throw it on a airline and it will get to it's location. We only do this if the customer isn't willing to charter.
I've noticed that the bank work is declining. You'd notice this J if you had the same run for awhile.
But pretty much there will always be a demand for flying checks. There will always be some that can't be sent electronically. However the weights are going down by the day and eventually it'll just be 5-10lbs of checks put out by the banks vs. the 100-200lbs we are getting now.
As stated above they are trying to explore other avenues to carry medical supplies and other premium time critical work but I've been told one of our current issues is bulk. We can't service the banks and the medical supplies at the same time as much as we'd want to with our current fleet. Checks fit better than square boxes in round tubes. That's what gets me excited when they talk about bringing some larger faster turbo-props onboard. This however is just a rumot and I wouldn't count on it until one pulls into Rick.
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
It looked like a blood sample from what I could remember, but that would explain it. I thought it was a pretty good idea actually - charging customers for same day service at close to the speed of a charter. Just have a delivery guy in both cities and presto, instant same day service.
I'm wondering if Airnet's long term goals are to be the new FedEx/UPS/DHL. They certainly seem to be slanting that way with their delievery tracking service, etc. I think it would be pretty neat to see them grow like that. Any rumors of that sort floating around? Take this quote for example:
CEO Bruce D. Parker said:
falconvalley
Absentee Dad of the OOTSK, Runner, Cat Frustrator
Airnet has a different type of system. Their bread and butter is "when do you need this...ok, done." UPS and Fedex get it there on their schedule.