Part 135 as a career?

Inverted25

Well-Known Member
Does anyone think you can make a living flying part 135 freight because this is what I plan to try to do? Also do you think it is any easier (outside of the required 135 times) to get a job at a part 135 company?(Referring to is it more or less competitive then a part 121 job) I have heard both ways. I have heard if your make it clear you plan to stay a long time then they will automatically like you better because most people just use them as a time building job. Just wondering if there was any truth to that. The reason I am drawn to part 135 is being home more. I really like Mountain Air Cargo because from what I have read most of there runs are mon-fri and your home every night. I would love to be a chief pilot at a place like that one day. Plus I think part 135 would be more interesting flying. Any insight or comments about this would be appreciated.
 
Does anyone think you can make a living flying part 135 freight because this is what I plan to try to do? Also do you think it is any easier (outside of the required 135 times) to get a job at a part 135 company?(Referring to is it more or less competitive then a part 121 job) I have heard both ways. I have heard if your make it clear you plan to stay a long time then they will automatically like you better because most people just use them as a time building job. Just wondering if there was any truth to that. The reason I am drawn to part 135 is being home more. I really like Mountain Air Cargo because from what I have read most of there runs are mon-fri and your home every night. I would love to be a chief pilot at a place like that one day. Plus I think part 135 would be more interesting flying. Any insight or comments about this would be appreciated.

Alaska is the Mecca of Career 135ers, you can make $100K per year here as a 135 pilot depending on the gig, which is pretty damn good if I don't say so myself.
 
My father was a career 135 helo pilot for PHI. He did well, but he also worked a lot of overtime.

I'd be interested in knowing where the good 135 jobs are in the lower 48. Will be retiring from the AF next year and looking for a 2nd career in aviation. Not keen on being a IT guy in corporate america.

Thanks,
LAFF
 
The only place I could imagine that you could make over 100K is places like FEDEX or UPS which are acutally Part 121 but still freight. But from what I have been able to find there are quite a few Part 135s you could make 60-80k but thats only after 10+ years of senoirty. Then again no one gets into aviation to get rich. Even though if I had a gig like MAC flying mon-fri I could put my Bachelors degree to work and get some money on the side. I guess the perfect thing for me would be to fly 135 long enough to get a good corporate job where there is no flying hour limits so that you can still do alot of instructing. Either way I would like to have weekends off so that I can take a shot at becoming a airshow performer.
 
Making 135 a career depends greatly on the person and the company. There really are a couple of different "types" of 135 flying. I would call them the scheduled vs the unscheduled.

To me, the scheduled sounds nice since you pretty much know what your doing each day.

All of my 135 experience is the unscheduled, meaning that I am on call 24/7 during my days on. I do have many days at home, but I really never know if I am going to be home until the day is over. It is a hard transition and not for some people.

$60-80K is not unreasonable. I too know of some captains making $100K in part 135.
 
Anyone here fly for mountain air cargo? I would like to get on with a FEDEX feeder. I got 3 years left of college and I will be instructing that whole time so I will probally have well over 2500 if not 3000 total hours by time I apply. Just wondering what seems to be the magic number to get in there, and what I should do over the next three years to make me more attractive to them? Any type of extra training or certain aircraft they would like to see in the logbook? Also there is a Caravan SIC program at a local 135 company that allows you to fly the caravans on the part 91 repo legs for them to build caravan time. Would this be a good thing to do since MAC flies the van?
 
Scheduled 135 is a rare bird, but "nonscheduled" 135 with a unpublished schedule is pretty common. If I were looking to stay in it permanently, I'd definitely concentrate on a box-hauler FedEx/UPS feeder, with the edge to FedEx since they seem to have a much tighter connection to their feeders whereas UPS changes them whenever it makes financial sense. Checks are going away, and adhoc is just too feast/famine to rely on. Too bad, because I've really enjoyed the adhoc stuff, but even if you don't mind spending most of your time on a pager, spending all of your time wondering when the work dries up and you get your pink slip just isn't much fun at all.
 
Couple questions here. What is adhoc? What does Airnet plan to do when all the check runs dry up? How they found another niche? Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought checkhauling was their niche. Yea jumping on with a FEDEX feeder would be great. MAC has never fourloughed any pilots (knock on wood) If I got on with a company like that I deff think it could be a place I could retire. From what I understand many people leave 135 as soon as they have enough hours to jump on somewhere bigger. But I dont have the bigger better syndrome. Im just looking for somewhere that I could do what I love and have a decent QOL. I think MAC would be that place for me. From talking to a few MAC pilots seem like most of them dont even come close to the max hours allowed which would allow me to do aerobatic instruction on the side. I got a few years though we will see where things go. According to many right when I finish up and am looking for a job will be when the age 65 bandaid falls off and theres massive hiring again. But then again many beleive that same year 2012 will be the end of time so who knows what my future holds:laff:
 
Adhoc is on demand type stuff. Such as three pallets of tail lights needed to be shipped from the tail light maker in the midwest to the auto plant in the southwest. That's just one typical example although weirder examples do exist.
 
Adhoc is on demand type stuff. Such as three pallets of tail lights needed to be shipped from the tail light maker in the midwest to the auto plant in the southwest. That's just one typical example although weirder examples do exist.


Amflight has flown a dolphin before. I haven't really flown anything interesting when I while doing adhoc. I think that they bulked a brasilia out with baseball hats going to Philadelphia during the world series.
 
Amflight has flown a dolphin before. I haven't really flown anything interesting when I while doing adhoc. I think that they bulked a brasilia out with baseball hats going to Philadelphia during the world series.

I remember when you guys where in Ketchikan picking up geoduck like we were, man those things look weird.
 
Amflight has flown a dolphin before. I haven't really flown anything interesting when I while doing adhoc. I think that they bulked a brasilia out with baseball hats going to Philadelphia during the world series.

One of our guys carried 500lbs of US currency. I don't know if it $1s or 20s, but it was a LOT of money. There were armored trucks at both ends, and we had to bring a armed guard along in case they had to divert.

Another carried a Gorrila from for a zoo. It had it's own jumbo size doggie crate.
 
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