ASpilot2be
Qbicle seat warmer
My math shows $5550. But I think most places are flying a lot more than 80 hours per month.
Caravan pilots
- Thread starter Bamaaviator
- Start date
alaskadrifter
Landing gear operator
It's 75/hr after 60 hours. Some places fly a lot, some barely break garuntee.
Galaitoto
Well-Known Member
I Load Westair feeders for fedex. The pilots love it. One pilot sits in his fold out chair and listens to music, Gets up every now and then to check the W&B. Other pilots walk around with their cups of coffee and box of doughnuts BSing with the other pilots. When they reach their destination, the guy with the foldout chair goes fishing until he has to return later that day. Another guy goes surfing, His usual morning rants to me as I load his plane is he can't seem to find the perfect surfboard, and he been there for 25 years. This is where I have always wanted to work. Some people just don't want to go to the airlines, I don't. Go where your gut has that comfortable feeling. Yes the pilots do have to work, But I see firsthand what they do as the planes are getting loaded by a fully staffed and trained fedex crew.Yeah, I understand what your saying. Point taken, I guess it comes down to what values make a job "cushy" to a particular person. Believe it or not we actually have AP's that can fly coupled ILS's ( I never use it for approaches because I am to scared of loosing my proficiency.). Cruise...AP is great.
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
Flying the caravan for SeaPort is a blast. Also the new captain pay scale is pretty decent. Starts at 40 and tops at 70 a flight hour. 3 dollar increments every six months. We are expanding in the NW as well, starting March we will have 6 airports that we will operate out of (PDX, PDT, OTH, SEA, CLM, MWH).
BajtheJino
I'm looking at you.
I flew 208's in the SE and mid Atlantic hauling checks, freight and people in western AK and all over east Africa. I love that airplane. It will do whatever you want it to, will fly whatever you put in it and will hold a LOT of people in the cargo pod. If I had the dollars I would buy one, strip the TKS for some boots and hump that thing all over the world. Or get a PC12. Both are excellent bush planes.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
PC12 was a better plane for most jobs that I had to do in AK with a few exceptions. Miss the hell out of that airplane.
Apophis
Resident Iconoclast
Nope.
BajtheJino
I'm looking at you.
Okay.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
I suspect that guy has never had the TKS run out. That's...an interesting experience in icing conditions.
Apophis
Resident Iconoclast
No, I haven't, because at least the type/routes my company flies, doing so would be incredibly negligent. Of course, I'm sure you're going to regale me with some story about that one time in the Wild West of Alaska where your TKS was depleted.
Give me a TKS van any day of the week. You can keep your boots.
BajtheJino
I'm looking at you.
Okay.
Capt. Chaos
Well-Known Member
I'll keep my 950hp and boots over 675hp and TKS all day long.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
Ice is where you find it dude - remember, you can have no forecast icing and still run into moderate while crossing mountains where you can't really keep going, and that "High Flow" doesn't give you a lot of time. Don't get me wrong, the TKS is way better than the boots...but the boots never run out. I found that in the 675HP van you had to be way more careful with boots than I ever had to think about being in the 867 with the TKS - still, I've run out before with the flow rate maxed out and while it was "OK" because I just happened to be getting out of icing conditions at about the same time I ran out of fluid, I definitely wasn't super comfortable with the timing. Not to mention that finding fluid somewhere isn't exactly easy in many parts of the country.
Just my $1.05.
gotWXdagain
Polished Member
duct tape a punch of bike tire inner tubes to the leading edges and blow really hard when they pick up ice.
Tommay85
Well-Known Member
If it's as effective as what FLX had on the 210s and Barons, high-flow shouldn't really ever be needed. We would leave it on low, regardless of the severity. It will still chip away at it from underneath and bust off eventually. The most accumulation I ever heard of anyone getting was 3/4 of an inch in freezing rain.
Not the "approved way" though (our official guidance was to keep the wing clean), but in a pinch, the tank could last 2.2 hours on constant low flow. We did have one guy that would soak the wing prior to take off and turn it off, turning it on low only occasionally, making the tank last his entire night of 4+ hours. I never became ballsy/complacent/foolish enough to try that method...
Again, not the official usage guidance, but yes TKS>boots. I HATE boots! Though, a freshly ice-exed boot is OK, kind of. Gimme TKS any day though.
The Metro can't carry more than a half inch above 11000 feet. Our chieftains and 99s can carry quite a bit. The 120 can carry a lot, but has a pretty high risk for a tail stall if you really push it (trim tab like a childs airplane instead of a movable stabilizer), but I've found that you can get backed into a corner much easier with boots vs TKS. TKS will ALWAYS clear the wing eventually, in reference to a 210 or Baron. If you're flight is greater than what you need out of the TKS system that day, the company is negligent if they expect you to fly legs greater than the low or high setting time requirements. There's eleventy millionty things in aviation that are legal, but certainly not safe or of good judgement.
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WS
Well-Known Member
This is my first winter season flying the Caravan and also my my first real forays into icing conditions. I don't really have any experience in that regard with other aircraft, but I will say that if you're trying to cross a mountainous area near max gross weight, the thing struggles even in severe clear. Start sticking some ice to the airframe, and you run out of options real quick. The icex does seem to make a pretty big difference though. Saw a huge improvement in the shedding of ice when I put it on a couple days ago. Was doing it about once a a month before, but I think I will need to do it every couple weeks now. The Empire folks around here crossing the mountains every day are doing it with TKS, and there's plenty of days where I think a booted Van on the same route would really struggle and border on dangerous at those higher altitudes.
Apophis
Resident Iconoclast
Even if you continuously engage the max-flow toggle switch on the Caravan, you have 40 minutes of endurance with a full tank of TKS (20.8 gallons). It doesn't sound like THAT much time, but max-flow really moves the fluid. I've never had to use max-flow, and I've only used the "high" setting rarely (knock on wood). The high setting gives you 1 hour and 20 minutes, with norm giving you 3 hours and 25 minutes.
Most of our stations in the Northern states have TKS service carts so you can top the tank after each leg if you have to, and the longest route up here or us is EWR-IAD which still isn't THAT long of a leg.
I don't miss the booted van at all.
Bamaaviator
Well-Known Member
I'm gonna shift gears a little and ask this question. Do the feeder companies (and other small 135 freight operators) have a good sick/fatigue program? If you call in sick, or overly fatigued to the point where operating an aircraft is dangerous, does the company get mad at you? Or do they have reserve pilots at the ready to take over your flying like the airlines do?
WS
Well-Known Member
I have only been at my company for about six months, and luckily haven't had to find out about this yet. My company does have paid sick days and standby pilots, however I am based in a different state than the rest of the employees, so to replace me would require flying in another pilot on a commercial flight to cover my route. Needless to say, I'm sure they would appreciate as much advance notice as possible. While they may not like it, everyone gets sick occasionally. As long as you're not making it a regular thing, I'm sure they won't sweat it too much.
