Ameriflight

KLB said:
In the past three years out of my base, 6 have gone on to fly corporate jets, 1 has gone to JetBlue ( recently), and one left for air whiskey.

Lately MOST pilots have left for corporate flying. I'm work here and I'm telling what I know about not just what I've HEARD about.



PR pilots fly to far more countries than any regional pilots wou old ever fly to. There is a lot of interesting flying that goes on down there. We deal with customs quite a bit more than you'd think. All the flight plans aren't canned. Sometimes we have to go into the flight planning offices and file them ourselves.

One thing about is that no two customs procedure is alike. There nothing too difficult about it but it's experience non the less.

It looks like you guys have gone to AMF gotten your experience and left or bailed for the regionals. And in the meantime selling everyone else's experience here short.

@Inverted, your boss and his boss (who I just hung out with last week) believe that AMF produces pilots that have gained the experience that fits in well with there own company to the point where the exclusively only hire AMF pilots. You mentioned it was the GIVE AMF pilots a chance. But it goes a bit further than that. It's because they know exactly what type of pilot they're getting. They know how they were trained and they're skill set.

There are two other companies that are doing the same thing.

The experience at AMF is worth something and it's a shame that you guys sell that experience short.
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I'm not trying to sell AMF short, it worked for me, but 121 isn't the end all be all for me. I wouldn't trade my time at AMF for anything. Out of the revolving door that is the HWD base, I only know of. 4 out of maybe 15 people that haven't gone to the regionals.

Hiring AMF guys at my company just makes sense, they're local, good enough pilots to pass training, and are most likely miserable and ready to get out. Plus this is an entry level jet job.

It was really fun flying by comparison, although teaching acro is still the tops for me. When we are all push button flying at our dream jobs down the road, we will miss the single pilot hands on flying we did, I know I will.

Btw KLB, do you fly the Bro in MIA?
 
Ah yes the 1 AMF pilot who went directly to Jet Blue. I know her (great person and pilot, BTW). And I know she tried to get on with a regional before serving as much time as she did at AMF. I would never speculate that she she wasn't happy at AMF, but clearly she tried to explore other options (regionals) before finally getting out.

I mostly agree with @Inverted in that I don't necessarily regret my time there because I made the decision at the time using what I thought was reasonable information and the flying experience was certainly valuable. But if I could go back in time, I'd just skip it and hold out for my current employer which has offered a dramatically improved QOL on so many levels compared to AMF... even though it's just a lowly regional.
 
Cal Goat said:
Ah yes the 1 AMF pilot who went directly to Jet Blue. I know her (great person and pilot, BTW). And I know she tried to get on with a regional before serving as much time as she did at AMF. I would never speculate that she she wasn't happy at AMF, but clearly she tried to explore other options (regionals) before finally getting out.
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Nope. Not her. She's been at JetBlue over three years now. One left for JetBlue two weeks ago RECENTLY.
 
Inverted said:
I'm not trying to sell AMF short, it worked for me, but 121 isn't the end all be all for me. I wouldn't trade my time at AMF for anything. Out of the revolving door that is the HWD base, I only know of. 4 out of maybe 15 people that haven't gone to the regionals.

Hiring AMF guys at my company just makes sense, they're local, good enough pilots to pass training, and are most likely miserable and ready to get out. Plus this is an entry level jet job.

It was really fun flying by comparison, although teaching acro is still the tops for me. When we are all push button flying at our dream jobs down the road, we will miss the single pilot hands on flying we did, I know I will.

Btw KLB, do you fly the Bro in MIA?
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I'll look back and laugh and want it again for sure!(the flying part only) This stupid plane is just LOLOLOLOLOLOL sometimes.

Regarding your post about international experience. I think you've forgotten how much dispatch sucks sometimes! :)

You're correct in that I don't have any experience in the pax side of things though. At worst, we just have to deal with the flight plan and eAPIS. Maybe an "arrest" by US Customs until it gets figured out. I was talking more about the flying part. I find pilots from American carrier's radio phraseology and subsequent confusion pretty comical sometimes. Most of the islands are ICAO btw, and if flying to Venezuela in the middle of a pseudo civil war doesn't count for anything, then I quit this game! :) I know what you're getting at though.

I've talked to you before about what I'm trying to work on, but if that doesn't work out, I'll hop over to a regional to check off one more box(121, jet, glass, FMS, crew), in hopes that the PIC time from here, and a few more contacts, would allow me to jump to a better carrier from the right seat.
 
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KLB said:
There are two other companies that are doing the same thing.

The experience at AMF is worth something and it's a shame that you guys sell that experience short.
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When are you coming to work for me KLB? Come on in, the Houston water is fine...
 
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Woody said:
What do you mean by this?
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When I went through, nearly half of my class failed at some point before getting out online. Several people in sim, and then a few more on their 135 checkrides. I saw many people come through on IOE/training and then fail their checkrides in my time there.

So, assuming the training department is more or less the same, starting at AMF leaves you with a fair chance of having a failure on your PRIA which may be an obstacle to future pilot employment.

I actually failed the oral portion of my 135 checkride initially. Mind you, I passed indoc and systems with high scores, but my checkride oral turned into a technical knowledge trivia game. I'll take responsibility for my own lack of preparedness since other people in my class apparently passed with this check airman on their first try. But I assure you that the knowledge he failed me on was nothing I ever used practically in line flying. And now that failure will follow me for the rest of my career.
 
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He ain't fibbing. 40% of my new hire class was fired. Failure/fire rate slows for later aircraft (ie 1 out of five was failed and fired out of my 99 class, 20%, the metro program has been changing but the classic stats were 80% fail rate, 20% of those were outright fired, the rest were give a second check ride. )
Ymmv :p
 
eightballfreight said:
He ain't fibbing. 40% of my new hire class was fired. Failure/fire rate slows for later aircraft (ie 1 out of five was failed and fired out of my 99 class, 20%, the metro program has been changing but the classic stats were 80% fail rate, 20% of those were outright fired, the rest were give a second check ride. )
Ymmv :p
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Yup, a good friend of mine who has been there since just before my time pink slipped on his Metro ride the first try. Which is interesting to me because clearly he's a competent pilot all around having passed PA31 and BE99 training on the first try in addition to being an actual line pilot for over 2 years before getting to the Metro. He's still there on the 1900, so obviously he knows what he's doing. But it just seems like they set up the training program to be as challenging as possible. And I'm not sure I see the practical value in that.
 
Cal Goat said:
Yup, a good friend of mine who has been there since just before my time pink slipped on his Metro ride the first try. Which is interesting to me because clearly he's a competent pilot all around having passed PA31 and BE99 training on the first try in addition to being an actual line pilot for over 2 years before getting to the Metro. He's still there on the 1900, so obviously he knows what he's doing. But it just seems like they set up the training program to be as challenging as possible. And I'm not sure I see the practical value in that.
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There is a difference though between the PA-31 and BE-99 versus the SA227 checkride. The SA227 is a type event with the standard one chance per maneuver criteria, single pilot of course to ATP criteria. The PA31/BE99 is a standard 135 checkride with the ability to fail and retrain recheck.
 
spbrian said:
There is a difference though between the PA-31 and BE-99 versus the SA227 checkride. The SA227 is a type event with the standard one chance per maneuver criteria, single pilot of course to ATP criteria. The PA31/BE99 is a standard 135 checkride with the ability to fail and retrain recheck.
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There is nothing standard about a "one chance per maneuver" check ride on a type. If you are attaching an ATP to it then there are no redoing of maneuvers.
 
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