Do you still fly for fun?

t-cart

Active Member
I would like to know how many of you part 121-135 guys still stay current in the little planes. If not, how long has it been since you have been PIC in a small airplane? I have found that when I am flying for a paycheck that I don't worry to much about the occasional "joyride".

What say you?
 
Does it count if I just get high all the time? :D

Total 100% :sarcasm:

Good question tcart. I was thinking the same thing not too long ago.
 
I would say that I don't fall into the normal fly for a living category, because all of our flying is hand flying, mostly low level, so it's a blast. I do own my own airplane too, but mostly I use it for work related things or to get somewhere to visit family. I don't usually do the 100 dollar hamburger gig. I will add that back when I was in the Navy and owned my first Cheetah, I did fly a lot of 100 dollar burgers back then.
 
Occasionally, I wish more. I plan to eventually get back into it on a more regular basis, but it'll take some effort on my part to get back in the books on light civil aviation and get spun back up. Every time I try, something comes up that requires my time and/or money.
 
I would say that I don't fall into the normal fly for a living category, because all of our flying is hand flying, mostly low level, so it's a blast. I do own my own airplane too, but mostly I use it for work related things or to get somewhere to visit family. I don't usually do the 100 dollar hamburger gig. I will add that back when I was in the Navy and owned my first Cheetah, I did fly a lot of 100 dollar burgers back then.

I was going to comment that you and crop dusters have more "fun" flying jobs than most it sounds like. Not to diminish that it is hard work, but I imagine it is more satisfying in lots of ways.

My Grandpa flew for TWA and flew a LOT in his vintage airplanes while he was with TWA. After he retired, he got his CFI, II, MEI back and started instructing on a limited basis and really enjoyed that. Mostly enjoyed checking people out in various antiques that had purchased (C-195's, Pacers, T-6's, etc). I think he loved that almost as much as TWA.
 
I would if I could afford it.
Like I said......

I get a bit of fun flying in but only because my job is a lot of dropping the boss off and flying back empty, so I am on the clock and I have to get from point A to point B within a reasonable amount of time and fuel consumed. But there is some flexibility in that.

That and the boss likes to go to fun places quite often.
 
mjg, Do you guys look for more "heavy" time or ag time? Thanks.
T-cart, back in the old days (before my time) you had to have AG time. Now, as you know, finding Ag guys is next to impossible. I must get 2 resume's a week, and so far in the past year, only one guy had any AG time, but 0 ME time. We are the only heavy operator that uses an all turbine fleet. The other two ops use round engines (P-2s). Four of my Captains have no AG time. Two still actively spray in the off season. It's kind of a mixed bag, you want someone with low level experience, but you also need to have multi-crew experience and multi engine time. A tough mix. The progression from FO to Captain is extremely slow. On average a guy is here for at least 5 seasons before even considering putting him in the Captain syllabus. That syllabus takes up to two years, over 100 drops, and 100 hours of low level aerial application time.
So with the long time in the right seat, and the fact that many of our Captains have been doing this for 20+ years, but have relatively low Instrument time, sometimes having a guy with lots of CRM experience, Instrument ME time is good too.

Clear as mud?
 
T-cart, back in the old days (before my time) you had to have AG time. Now, as you know, finding Ag guys is next to impossible. I must get 2 resume's a week, and so far in the past year, only one guy had any AG time, but 0 ME time. We are the only heavy operator that uses an all turbine fleet. The other two ops use round engines (P-2s). Four of my Captains have no AG time. Two still actively spray in the off season. It's kind of a mixed bag, you want someone with low level experience, but you also need to have multi-crew experience and multi engine time. A tough mix. The progression from FO to Captain is extremely slow. On average a guy is here for at least 5 seasons before even considering putting him in the Captain syllabus. That syllabus takes up to two years, over 100 drops, and 100 hours of low level aerial application time.
So with the long time in the right seat, and the fact that many of our Captains have been doing this for 20+ years, but have relatively low Instrument time, sometimes having a guy with lots of CRM experience, Instrument ME time is good too.

Clear as mud?
Thanks for that. I bet that is a tough combination of experience to find.
 
I don't get up in my Swift as much as I would like. But yes, I fly for fun besides flying the Citation for $$. (retired airline, etc)
 
I would like to know how many of you part 121-135 guys still stay current in the little planes. If not, how long has it been since you have been PIC in a small airplane? I have found that when I am flying for a paycheck that I don't worry to much about the occasional "joyride".

What say you?

Why would I just want to fly for just a paycheck? I didn't get into aviation for the money in the first place. I did it because it is truly love and enjoy doing.

I try and stay current as much as possible with my airplane currently a 3 hour drive (or 45 min Saab flight) away. I am currently trying to get it moved closer to me so I can fly it a lot more than I have been lately.

There are some days when I get out of the RJ, the last thing I want to see is another airplane, and then there are some days (like a couple last week) that I really wished my airplane was closer because all I wanted to do was go out and put around low, slow, and VFR!


T-cart, back in the old days (before my time) you had to have AG time. Now, as you know, finding Ag guys is next to impossible. I must get 2 resume's a week, and so far in the past year, only one guy had any AG time, but 0 ME time. We are the only heavy operator that uses an all turbine fleet. The other two ops use round engines (P-2s). Four of my Captains have no AG time. Two still actively spray in the off season. It's kind of a mixed bag, you want someone with low level experience, but you also need to have multi-crew experience and multi engine time. A tough mix. The progression from FO to Captain is extremely slow. On average a guy is here for at least 5 seasons before even considering putting him in the Captain syllabus. That syllabus takes up to two years, over 100 drops, and 100 hours of low level aerial application time.
So with the long time in the right seat, and the fact that many of our Captains have been doing this for 20+ years, but have relatively low Instrument time, sometimes having a guy with lots of CRM experience, Instrument ME time is good too.

Clear as mud?

hmmm for once, my background seems to fit something...

If you don't mind (when you have time, of course) could you PM me with some details about the operation and such. Might sound like something I would consider doing.
 
I would do more fun flying if I could afford it. There are days when I would love to just go joyriding in a C-172 for an hour on a nice clear VFR day on my own schedule.

Most of the time I really enjoy my job. On days when there are a lot of thunderstorms around, I wish that I had a desk job and didn't have to go flying through that nasty stuff.
 
Only on Flight Sim right now - just sold my share of my 172. But I'm a bad ass ERJ-145 captain in the FS world .... "aaaaaaand folks, from the flightdeck...."

My wife says our children are predestined for the short bus.
 
I fly for fun as flying is my main hobby. If you haven't seen some of my videos of my trips into the back country of Idaho. You can find them here:

www.youtube.com/skybobb I don't know how much longer I have to enjoy this kind of flying.
 
I go up with friends working in their ratings on my time off. Its refreshing to get a taste of what it was that first got me into this full time.

Don't yet have the $ to commit to owning one, though.
 
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