What made you choose freight?

UAL747400 said:
I have also ALWAYS had a dirty turboprop fetish, particularly the Metroliner. A regular Metro-sexual. I was not going to go out of my way to fly one though. Luckily, we have a million of them! GIMME GIMME GIMME! :smoke:
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I have hand flown POS Metros in the middle of the night on hour 4 of a 5 hour leg while being awake the entire day. I gladly traded in my Freight Card for a Corporate Card. A clean King Air with Proline 21 :cool:
 
z987k said:
20 seconds? Maybe at rotation. Most any other phase of flight you have until whenever you feel like it.

Heck, recently the T/O briefing is unless we're on fire, after rotation we're going home.
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I've never flown the 99, but I dont even think its a big deal at rotation. When I was in the 90 sim I didn't even realize the instructor killed my engine on the take off roll. I just kept going down the runway and took off. I didn't know there was a problem until he said "the plane isn't supposed to do that." I said do what? and he said take off with a dead engine.

It was a huge SA fail on my part, but I think it says a lot about the KA family. You have to do something very bad to crash in those things. I didn't even feel the rudder boost, and barely felt the plane yaw. I thought maybe he threw in some cross wind.

Long story short, I went home a day ahead of schedule.
 
cmill said:
I've never flown the 99, but I dont even think its a big deal at rotation. When I was in the 90 sim I didn't even realize the instructor killed my engine on the take off roll. I just kept going down the runway and took off. I didn't know there was a problem until he said "the plane isn't supposed to do that." I said do what? and he said take off with a dead engine.

It was a huge SA fail on my part, but I think it says a lot about the KA family. You have to do something very bad to crash in those things. I didn't even feel the rudder boost, and barely felt the plane yaw. I thought maybe he threw in some cross wind.

Long story short, I went home a day ahead of schedule.
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The 1900C - in the sim - gives you about a 3/4 full rudder and about 1/4 aileron deflection with a dead engine at rotation. It's not too terrifying. I'm somewhat concerned about the Navajo in that same situation.
 
ppragman said:
The 1900C - in the sim - gives you about a 3/4 full rudder and about 1/4 aileron deflection with a dead engine at rotation. It's not too terrifying. I'm somewhat concerned about the Navajo in that same situation.
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I only flew a navajo a couple of times, and it was out of the seaplane base. Not one of the smarter things ive done. If you lost one at rotation you were either going to hit a well head at the end of the runway or hit some power lines after getting airborn.

I would take a king air in there any day before a navajo. The ballsiest (dumbest) thing I ever say was a guy bring a citation in.
 
cmill said:
I only flew a navajo a couple of times, and it was out of the seaplane base. Not one of the smarter things ive done. If you lost one at rotation you were either going to hit a well head at the end of the runway or hit some power lines after getting airborn.

I would take a king air in there any day before a navajo. The ballsiest (dumbest) thing I ever say was a guy bring a citation in.
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Yep! I agree. We routinely bring our Navajos in and out of 3000' gravel and other contaminants strips, and sometimes I wonder about what the best course of action is if I can one when I'm not quite to a safe flying speed, but not quite to a safe altitude -without any usable runway remaining.
 
ppragman said:
Yep! I agree. We routinely bring our Navajos in and out of 3000' gravel and other contaminants strips, and sometimes I wonder about what the best course of action is if I can one when I'm not quite to a safe flying speed, but not quite to a safe altitude -without any usable runway remaining.
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In that case, theres only one solution.

Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.
 
cmill said:
In that case, theres only one solution.

Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.
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In some places I think I could careen over the edge of the strip and down towards the water and probably get things square, but I'm not sure...
 
Interesting about the 90, i wonder if the sim just messed up. The 99 does take a solid amount of correction with the auto-feather working. With out it working it's probably going to be the end of your day. I'm working off year old data since I flew it, but if i remember correctly, with autofeather inop Vmc shoots up to like roughly 136. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Douglas said:
Interesting about the 90, i wonder if the sim just messed up. The 99 does take a solid amount of correction with the auto-feather working. With out it working it's probably going to be the end of your day. I'm working off year old data since I flew it, but if i remember correctly, with autofeather inop Vmc shoots up to like roughly 136. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
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Yeah, it's in the 130s, but it's not a violent roll and yaw if you're slow. That's why I say you've got a good 20 seconds to pull your head out of your bum and do something about it.
 
I chose freight (or it chose me) because I just couldn't stomach working with a bunch of hair-gel infused, ipod wearing dorks who got hired onto a jet with 500 hours and no real clue what hard work and earning your stripes really means.

Plus, it's one of the last great flying jobs and I didn't want to miss it. Ratty piston twins in the middle of night covered in ice, no heater, out of gas and looking at instruments that were out of date in the 70s. Oddball turboprops that just never seem to be working right. Hoo rah.

You'll never sharper as a pilot then you are at the end of a winter. Or more eager to get nice and dull again.

I was talking to a corporate guy who used to fly for an airline and he just cracked me up. "We'd get new guys at the airline on IOE and I'd ask them where they'd been. When they said 'freight' I was always like, 'Oh. Ok, it's you're airplane man.' I just knew it'd be alright."

I wish we had a DC-3 on the cert hauling loads of pigeon crap to Hanoi. I'd never leave.

Now after 5 years I can say I've been there, done that and a nice, cushy seat in an Airbus doesn't sound that bad. :-)

But no matter what comes along next, I wouldn't trade the experiences (good, bad, terrifying and hilarious) for anything.
 
woutlaw said:
I chose freight (or it chose me) because I just couldn't stomach working with a bunch of hair-gel infused, ipod wearing dorks who got hired onto a jet with 500 hours and no real clue what hard work and earning your stripes really means.

Plus, it's one of the last great flying jobs and I didn't want to miss it. Ratty piston twins in the middle of night covered in ice, no heater, out of gas and looking at instruments that were out of date in the 70s. Oddball turboprops that just never seem to be working right. Hoo rah.

You'll never sharper as a pilot then you are at the end of a winter. Or more eager to get nice and dull again.

I was talking to a corporate guy who used to fly for an airline and he just cracked me up. "We'd get new guys at the airline on IOE and I'd ask them where they'd been. When they said 'freight' I was always like, 'Oh. Ok, it's you're airplane man.' I just knew it'd be alright."

I wish we had a DC-3 on the cert hauling loads of pigeon crap to Hanoi. I'd never leave.

Now after 5 years I can say I've been there, done that and a nice, cushy seat in an Airbus doesn't sound that bad. :)

But no matter what comes along next, I wouldn't trade the experiences (good, bad, terrifying and hilarious) for anything.
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Only old guys see the superiority it seems. Gotta get jobs before they all go away! The children of magenta/jet kitties of today will never understand. :)

That being said, the weirdest people I've ever met in aviation have been in freight too though. :) Flying by yourself inverted through a thunderstorm in severe icing single engine with the other on fire is great and all, but you gotta keep your people skills and personality in check.
 
Quoting the great Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit..... "For the money, for the glory, and for the fun... mostly for the money." Big money flying is to be found flying freight.
 
A-300F4-622R said:
Quoting the great Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit..... "For the money, for the glory, and for the fun... mostly for the money." Big money flying is to be found flying freight.
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If you can get in! ;) FedEx/UPS doesn't really hire from their feeders. Ain't nobody got time for regional airline shenanigans! :)
 
UAL747400 said:
If you can get in! ;) FedEx/UPS doesn't really hire from their feeders. Ain't nobody got time for regional airline shenanigans! :)
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I wish more airlines hired guys with a strong background flying freight. It would go a long way to reverse the pussification of the airlines, especially at the regional level.
 
A-300F4-622R said:
I wish more airlines hired guys with a strong background flying freight. It would go a long way to reverse the pussification of the airlines, especially at the regional level.
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The regionals have no problem hiring freight dogs. It's the freight dogs that don't want to fly at the regionals. Probably too much dignity.
 
A-300F4-622R said:
I wish more airlines hired guys with a strong background flying freight. It would go a long way to reverse the pussification of the airlines, especially at the regional level.
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I've said for a long time, that the people that are best in their field, mastered it with little to none of the latest technologies available at the time. Why this wouldn't be true with aviation is beyond me.
 
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