Talk me out of this...

[Tommay85]

CRM isn't some magical thing either. A crap personality ruins it the most IMO, and AMF isn't immune to having a jack wagon in the left seat that does what they want or an FO that doesn't speak up.

The most challenging thing about going from the Metro to the Brasilia for me was trusting that the other guy is doing whats assigned to them correctly. In both seats. Flying single pilot as long as I have was the only thing detrimental in that regard. I used to feel mentally exhausted after a day in the 120.

 

[Inverted]

\
As for being "forced" to go TDY; if you haven't learned how to say "NO" yet to someone, well, that would be YOUR problem and not the company's. I found that when I said "NO", the drama decreased SIGNIFICANTLY. What I know is that when I leave here, people will forget my name a week after I leave, or they'll remember me by seeing one of my shots.

Well, I will say this. You are fortunate to be flying for AMF during an economic up turn. When 747 captains are lining up to fly a Chieftain at AMF, pilots were treated like animals. Guys were fired for no reason, or maybe for a reason that should have only resulted in a talking to. Saying no? Ha! Ya that didn't happen... I was flagged for complaining about having to pay 6 dollar bridge tolls out of my own pocket. I am glad things have changed. However I know of 2 friends who have had their vacations pulled after being approved. Think they are getting to say no?

 

[Inverted]

CRM isn't some magical thing either. A crap personality ruins it the most IMO, and AMF isn't immune to having a jack wagon in the left swat that does what they want or an FO that doesn't speak up.

The most challenging thing about going from the Metro to the Brasilia for me was trusting that the other guy is doing whats assigned to them correctly. In both seats. Flying single pilot as long as I have was the only thing detrimental in that regard. I used to feel mentally exhausted after a day in the 120.

Yep, both pilots have to be willing participants for it to work. What you describe literally proves the need for true multi crew training. You should have confidence in your right seater. Granted you have hired FOs in the Bro but in the 99 there was no way I was trusting one of the Korean FOs with anything. They proved they were worthless.

 

[Tommay85]

There was ONE guy that was in Lubbock that was good. The rest did make me pretty nervous sometimes.

 

[GX]

Well, I will say this. You are fortunate to be flying for AMF during an economic up turn. When 747 captains are lining up to fly a Chieftain at AMF, pilots were treated like animals. Guys were fired for no reason, or maybe for a reason that should have only resulted in a talking to. Saying no? Ha! Ya that didn't happen... I was flagged for complaining about having to pay 6 dollar bridge tolls out of my own pocket. I am glad things have changed. However I know of 2 friends who have had their vacations pulled after being approved. Think they are getting to say no?

Nobody is getting time off right now. It's just the nature of the beast. Time off requests are being prefaced with, "We may not be able to guarantee this request." The ACP in Phoenix is. People are calling in fatigued because of the lack of pilots. Like I've stated before; EVERYTHING has some suck in it. That's life. It appears that AMF served you well in the season that you were here.

What more did you want to get out of AMF that you didn't? What's your REAL beef with AMF? It's not a $6 toll fee. There's too much animosity in your posts to make it about a $6 toll fee.

 

[Cpt Cook]

The irony of this single pilot discussion is that I mostly flew two crew at Ameriflight in the turbines. I would say that about 100 out 1000 hours in the 99 and metro were single pilot. The other 900 I had my trusty Korean FO with me. The real challenge was transitioning back and forth between crew and single pilot ops.

 

[Inverted]

Nobody is getting time off right now. It's just the nature of the beast. Time off requests are being prefaced with, "We may not be able to guarantee this request." The ACP in Phoenix is. People are calling in fatigued because of the lack of pilots. Like I've stated before; EVERYTHING has some suck in it. That's life. It appears that AMF served you well in the season that you were here.

What more did you want to get out of AMF that you didn't? What's your REAL beef with AMF? It's not a $6 toll fee. There's too much animosity in your posts to make it about a $6 toll fee.

I don't feel like repeating myself. Look, you're an AMF fanboy and that's awesome! If you're happy with the pay, QOL, equipment and conditions that is great, it really is. But you also seem to have a justification or excuse for every facet that is lacking at AMF and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

Why not paint a realistic picture so people can make an informed decision?

 

[GX]

I don't feel like repeating myself. Look, you're an AMF fanboy and that's awesome! If you're happy with the pay, QOL, equipment and conditions that is great, it really is. But you also seem to have a justification or excuse for every facet that is lacking at AMF and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

Why not paint a realistic picture so people can make an informed decision?

I'm an AMF fan because I am appreciative of the opportunity to work there. AMF doesn't owe me anything more than an opportunity. I think that's what you're missing; my expectations are pretty low because I knew the culture of the company before I got here. I don't have grandiose visions of them either catering to me, or of me changing anything. It seems like a lot of pilots, in general, suffer from that condition.

I think that I've painted a realistic picture of the situation; the pay is better than it was, TDY sucks, getting repayment on the per diem sucks worse, the corporate culture is f-ed to hell, the schedule blows, the flying is awesome, pick a base over an airplane, and we're totally understaffed which makes getting time off a real bitch. Is that picture clear enough for you to see? But, again, I don't expect much. I'll be there until something better presents itself, and I'll move along in my career. You should too.

 

[Inverted]

I think that I've painted a realistic picture of the situation; the pay is better than it was, TDY sucks, getting repayment on the per diem sucks worse, the corporate culture is f-ed to hell, the schedule blows, the flying is awesome, pick a base over an airplane, and we're totally understaffed which makes getting time off a real bitch. Is that picture clear enough for you to see? But, again, I don't expect much. I'll be there until something better presents itself, and I'll move along in my career. You should too.

There you go!

I know AMF has improved since I left, hell it better have. I am not talking gratuitous smack here. You are probably 100% correct in that you expected low, but I did not. I expected better from a place that told me my flight instructing job wasn't professional, but AMF was. I was disillusioned but I also probably went to the most poorly treated base in the system as well. As of yesterday that base doesn't even exist anymore.

 

[GX]

There you go!

I know AMF has improved since I left, hell it better have. I am not talking gratuitous smack here. You are probably 100% correct in that you expected low, but I did not. I expected better from a place that told me my flight instructing job wasn't professional, but AMF was. I was disillusioned but I also probably went to the most poorly treated base in the system as well. As of yesterday that base doesn't even exist anymore.

I was in the Navy. I cannot tell you how many times I heard, "But my recruiter told me...." That experience left my eyes wide open. And even with that, when I got to AMF, I was shocked with the lack of professional courtesies, and frankly, the arrogance of some of the people at the Executive Level. Additionally, I talked to A LOT of current and former AMF pilots before I left for Burbank. I knew what I was getting into. I also knew why I came here. AND STILL.... I had no idea how completely f'ed the corporate culture was until I worked here. My point is this; I vetted AMF as thoroughly as possible. With that, and the understanding that it was going to suck, and with virtually no expectations, I still was blindsided by a lot of things. You cannot possibly expect to know where the "dead bodies" are hidden until you get on the inside. This applies to any organization. Because every organization has them.

I've heard how badly Hayward sucked. Sorry you had to be there. Just remember those people. You'll see them again, on their way down.

In other news.... 4 pilots from AMF are in this months and next month's American Airlines class (2 this month, 2 next). Was told that today. By the AA HR person who hired them.

 

[Inverted]

I did 5 years in the Navy. I knew there was a reason I liked you for all of those reason you mentioned, is why I was shocked because I thought I left the drama when I left the Navy. Oh well, old news.

To those going to AA congrats! Don't taxi as slow as your co-workers tell you too.

 

[Maurus]

I've heard how badly Hayward sucked.

Compared to CVG the Oakland base was a cakewalk.

Perspective is an interesting thing.

 

[KLB]

Compared to CVG the Oakland base was a cakewalk.

Perspective is an interesting thing.

Eh. It really wasn't that bad. It sort of ebbed and flowed. Some of you younger guys screwed up the nice flow there complaining about not getting flight time. The whole idea is to be staffed as much as possible and fly as little as possible. Once you let management know that you wanted to fly more to "build flight time", you pretty much open a can of worms that took years to put a lid on in the first place.

We had the schedule set where everybody evenly shared the load and no one (metro crews only ) flew more than 3 days out of the week. That was doing DHL or a glow flight. The other 2 days were either a 4hr PM or 4hr AM reserve. It was an extremely easy schedule and I was flying less than 50hrs a month.

The schedule carried over to the MIA flying and as of last year, they still had that schedule.

I was at AMF 8 years and I observed people burning themselves out In multiple bases trying to "build flight time" quickly

 

[Inverted]

Compared to CVG the Oakland base was a cakewalk.

Perspective is an interesting thing.

Depends on what you are comparing. Did you guys work way harder in CVG? Yes... Did you guys have to deal with Ken? No... Case closed.

 

[KSCessnaDriver]

Eh. It really wasn't that bad. It sort of ebbed and flowed. Some of you younger guys screwed up the nice flow there complaining about not getting flight time. The whole idea is to be staffed as much as possible and fly as little as possible. Once you let management know that you wanted to fly more to "build flight time", you pretty much open a can of worms that took years to put a lid on in the first place.

We had the schedule set where everybody evenly shared the load and no one (metro crews only ) flew more than 3 days out of the week. That was doing DHL or a glow flight. The other 2 days were either a 4hr PM or 4hr AM reserve. It was an extremely easy schedule and I was flying less than 50hrs a month.

Yeah, CVG hasn't had a 4 hr reserve in a while. Everyone was doing a 12 hr shift (when they had the staffing to even do it). More often than not ALB was being covered TDY. SDF pilots were being used to cover CVG flying, the whole thing was a • show, and that was the reason I got out of there.

 

[tlewis95]

Eh. It really wasn't that bad. It sort of ebbed and flowed. Some of you younger guys screwed up the nice flow there complaining about not getting flight time. The whole idea is to be staffed as much as possible and fly as little as possible. Once you let management know that you wanted to fly more to "build flight time", you pretty much open a can of worms that took years to put a lid on in the first place.

We had the schedule set where everybody evenly shared the load and no one (metro crews only ) flew more than 3 days out of the week. That was doing DHL or a glow flight. The other 2 days were either a 4hr PM or 4hr AM reserve. It was an extremely easy schedule and I was flying less than 50hrs a month.

The schedule carried over to the MIA flying and as of last year, they still had that schedule.

I was at AMF 8 years and I observed people burning themselves out In multiple bases trying to "build flight time" quickly

Even MIA is losing people in droves and becoming like DFW and CVG now. The decent reserve schedules all disappeared when management took on all of this new flying. Instead of flying every other day, we are now either in base flying every day, or TDY for a few weeks, or months, at a time. Fewer airplanes over more routes also means more time on the airframes and more mechanical breakdowns at outstations. With no reserves to cover those mechanicals, people are being sent all over the country from their scheduled runs to bring in a healthy airplane.

 

[KLB]

Even MIA is losing people in droves and becoming like DFW and CVG now. The decent reserve schedules all disappeared when management took on all of this new flying. Instead of flying every other day, we are now either in base flying every day, or TDY for a few weeks, or months, at a time. Fewer airplanes over more routes also means more time on the airframes and more mechanical breakdowns at outstations. With no reserves to cover those mechanicals, people are being sent all over the country from their scheduled runs to bring in a healthy airplane.

I'd imagine things are pretty dire there right now. I sort of saw where things were going and elected to progress my career based on what the industry was doing.

 

[Maurus]

Depends on what you are comparing. Did you guys work way harder in CVG? Yes... Did you guys have to deal with Ken? No... Case closed.

I had my sessions with Ken and he even screwed me once. Dealing with Ken overall was actually easier than working out of CVG and having a local management team that didn't communicate to the pilots and make schedule changes on a whim. Of course the schedule change would be last minute and we wouldn't know. I seriously had to refuse flights because of that crap.

OAk had tons of stuff that was easier. Reserve was way easy. Come in and sleep for 4 hours and go home. CVG was 8AM-5PM Sun, 8PM to 8AM Mon-Sat.

The flying in OAK had a way more reasonable schedule and we actually had crew cars to get around at the layovers. CVG was a hub with show times starting as early at 2AM and returns as late as 3AM.

In CVG my expense reports took up to 4 months to be processed. OAK had them within a couple of weeks.

In my TDY's and such I got to experience almost very base in the system. OAK wasn't as bad as it seemed.

Eh. It really wasn't that bad. It sort of ebbed and flowed. Some of you younger guys screwed up the nice flow there complaining about not getting flight time. The whole idea is to be staffed as much as possible and fly as little as possible. Once you let management know that you wanted to fly more to "build flight time", you pretty much open a can of worms that took years to put a lid on in the first place.

We had the schedule set where everybody evenly shared the load and no one (metro crews only ) flew more than 3 days out of the week. That was doing DHL or a glow flight. The other 2 days were either a 4hr PM or 4hr AM reserve. It was an extremely easy schedule and I was flying less than 50hrs a month.

The schedule carried over to the MIA flying and as of last year, they still had that schedule.

I was at AMF 8 years and I observed people burning themselves out In multiple bases trying to "build flight time" quickly

Would have been nicer if it was the old way. Unfortunately CVG staffed at a minimum level since I arrived.

The funny thing is that I was the only person that didn't mind flying the YWG route. I would have gladly taken one of the slots for that route just so I could have a decent and predictable schedule. That is why I ended up doing the glow flights that were essentially designed to test how well you operate when fatigued.

In the end, AMF can be a good stepping stone. Just need to do some research and go to the better bases.