What made you choose freight?

I might also add to the list that I'm back to wearing SHORTS as of yesterday afternoon. For a SoCal guy, that's a HUGE QOL bonus! Lol
Ice and snow last week; 90* and clear this week!

B) ...yup, freight all the way!
 
jeflies said:
Dignity and the backwards step in QOL/pay
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Eh, dignity doesn't pay th bills.

The backwards step in pay is temporary.

My QOL would increase dramatically.

To the OPs question, I'm flying freight because at the time I got hired here the regionals, in their infinite wisdom, figured that a guy like myself, with 2,400 hours and an ATP, it only 38 multi, were incapable of flying RJs.

So some fool put me in a Navajo.

It's a miracle I'm still breathing apparently.

Note: some of the above is sarcasm.
 
UAL747400 said:
Eh, z987k and I were/are at 'muriflight. The step backwards would just be for a year. :)
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I'm finally at the point I'm capable and willing to take that step.

3 years ago when I got my special issuance medical I was looking for anything. Flight Express was the only place that would hire me being 18 months out of currency. Even Colgan wouldn't interview me (thankfully). I got pretty comfy at FLX until my base closed. Hopped ship to Central Air and kept the home base. I got used to the comfy QOL and pay.

The wife and I have gotten settled down in a good home, I got a new car, and we paid off A LOT of debt. I'm in a position where the 1 year pay cut wouldn't be so hard on us.

I wish I had taken the regional route a long time ago. I like flying freight but I'm seeing the downside of it. Applying to these 91corp/medivac/fractional jobs with 7 years of freight doggin on my résumé doesn't look so hot. 3600tt, 1700 multi, and 2800pic doesn't to a whole lot without recent turbine/jet/crew experience in today's scene.

Yeah I'm eating my words a bit. Hindsight blah blah blah I'm just happy to be in good health and have a medical and still flying. Oh yeah, a wife that wins the bread.



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I hear ya. In hindsight, I would have stayed at Flight Express longer. The writing was on the wall last year that they were going to merge with AirNet and figured my run was going to go away or go back to Airnet. It's still around as of now. I miss the pay and location.(KSTP) HATED the 210 on those nights with Witchita specials though! :)

I wouldn't sell yourself too short on the PIC time. You've got more than most guys sitting right seat right now and enhancing that time with some turbine time may be worth something. That freight flying is damn good experience too. Just gotta find ways to sell it. ;)
 
Freight = flying. Airlines = bus driving.

When I finished my Metroliner checkride, the company sent me a wheelbarrow to assist with carrying the weight between my legs. I laughed and sent it back with a note that said, "send a john deere if you wanna help."
 
Well, I mean, I struggled a bit in my first jet sim training. Not, I think, so much because of the jets as because of the glass. From an airline's perspective, why hire Billy Badass who's flown through more thunderstorms than you can shake a stick at, but who thinks "VNAV" is done with arithmetic? Especially when you've got a long line of puppymillers who already know where all of the buttons are and are willing to work for peanuts? I'm not saying I agree, but I see where they're coming from and I don't think they're totally insane. Maybe a little short sighted, but then that seems to be endemic to American Businesses of all stripes...
 
Boris Badenov said:
Well, I mean, I struggled a bit in my first jet sim training. Not, I think, so much because of the jets as because of the glass. From an airline's perspective, why hire Billy Badass who's flown through more thunderstorms than you can shake a stick at, but who thinks "VNAV" is done with arithmetic? Especially when you've got a long line of puppymillers who already know where all of the buttons are and are willing to work for peanuts? I'm not saying I agree, but I see where they're coming from and I don't think they're totally insane. Maybe a little short sighted, but then that seems to be endemic to American Businesses of all stripes...
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It took me a couple of flights to really get the "buttonology" down. But we're talking like 2.0 here. You can teach a monkey to press a button, it's really not difficult.
I laugh every time I see "FMS" time and such. It was clearly written by a person in their 50's or better. My generation grew up with this stuff, give me 3 hours with it on the ground and I'll show the old dude that's been using it for ten years things he didn't even know it does.
 
We had one Captain who pretty much knew how to "direct to" and maybe on a good day could load a flight plan. Even I showed him a thing or two on the FMS. Of course I also sometimes reminded him to raise the flaps...
 
I see what you're saying, but considerring all us whippersnappers are children of magenta these days(I was at least), I get really REALLY pissed off when anyone argues "ZOMG glass/fms!". Not directed towards you at all Boris, just how I feel in general, but given the training backgrounds these days, that argument is just completely invalid. I figured out a 737 FMS(Rockwell unit?) in less time than it took to eat a slimjim. Billy badass these days can operate an FMS and understand a glass panel just as well as jet kitty guy. IF you're a child of magenta. ;)
 
Yeah it might be different now, but I would expect it to take time for hiring boards to realize this fact. I would be on the young side for guy interviewing people (had I taken a very different path), and I most assuredly am NOT a child of the Magenta. I bought a GPSIII (remember those?) in like 1997. I thought it was cool and stuff, but when it was stolen out of my car (say late 2000), it didn't impact my life in any meaningful way. I still sometimes find myself sort of amused when flying, say, a DME Arc (I actually got one the other day!) and I get to watch the GPS tell me where I am.

And this isn't meant to be a post about who's Tough and who Ain't, it's just interesting to me how quickly the Technology changes, and how slow the Culture is to adjust to the change. I know, for example, that all the freightdoggies who grew up with Magenta but flew without it are 100% solid. But I do think that if you're waiting for someone to realize this, you're going to be waiting a while. Because all of the people who need to do the realizing are from back when Dinosaurs ruled the Earth, and their opinions are very much a product of the time and place where/when THEY were the kids. And isn't that always the way...?

Also: Get off my lawn.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Yeah it might be different now, but I would expect it to take time for hiring boards to realize this fact. I would be on the young side for guy interviewing people (had I taken a very different path), and I most assuredly am NOT a child of the Magenta. I bought a GPSIII (remember those?) in like 1997. I thought it was cool and stuff, but when it was stolen out of my car (say late 2000), it didn't impact my life in any meaningful way. I still sometimes find myself sort of amused when flying, say, a DME Arc (I actually got one the other day!) and I get to watch the GPS tell me where I am.

And this isn't meant to be a post about who's Tough and who Ain't, it's just interesting to me how quickly the Technology changes, and how slow the Culture is to adjust to the change. I know, for example, that all the freightdoggies who grew up with Magenta but flew without it are 100% solid. But I do think that if you're waiting for someone to realize this, you're going to be waiting a while. Because all of the people who need to do the realizing are from back when Dinosaurs ruled the Earth, and their opinions are very much a product of the time and place where/when THEY were the kids. And isn't that always the way...?

Also: Get off my lawn.
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Yar, I'm not waiting. Just throwing some TPIC in my back pocket just in case and getting the heck out. Though, just doing some comparisons with my buddies at the regionals, I just have a real hard time believing a regional captain, much less, a regional FO is more qualified. As much as I like to pick on the jet kitties, there's aspects of both where I would put us all on an even plain. I'm not hiring anybody though... :)

I was... 12 in 1997! :)

Regarding the bolded part, you'd think they'd LOVE guys flogging Metros and 1900s single pilot eh?;) However, there's A LOT of weirdos in freight, and many without degrees(at least at AMF I'm finding).

Oh, and quit peeing in my bushes you senile old man!
 
Douglas said:
My brass ones kept tripping the metal detector.
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Si.
Seeing the freight dogs coming into my podunk airport an seeing the crap they flew I knew instantly that I wanted to fly birds that were constantly MEL'd and squacked which would prove that I had the external gentialia to get the job done. So far and 6 years later I realize that its well worth it as it has allowed me to see the world and meet the most interesting people and do some major networking-though it has yet to pay off (in certain ways).
Freight=awesome. You even have guys on this website claiming to have flown freight even though they've never hauled a box in their life because they know that guys that have flown freight have a secret respect for each other thats wordlessly understood.
Fly freight, land, celebrate being alive.
 
Boris Badenov said:
. I still sometimes find myself sort of amused when flying, say, a DME Arc (I actually got one the other day!) and I get to watch the GPS tell me where I am.
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You're getting soft. You need to come fly in the land of mountains and no radar below 5k'. I do more full approaches than not I think. Aside from the leg home to the big airport, there's no such thing as radar vectors.
 
I fly glass with boxes in back. We have a mix of experience at our place (135 - many legacy pax), and I am very comfortable with the flying skills, preparation habits, and decision-making of the regional captains that we have here. Just my opinion, made after frequenting places where you have to man up and disconnect from the AP/AT's or it ain't happening.

Not saying your freight skills are invaluable at all, but don't take anything away from the guys who took the "normal path" - there is much merit to slogging it out daily doing 4 turns into O'Hare during the winter.
 
What made me choose freight? I was led to believe that it was the shortcut around the regionals.

Well, it ain't. Not anymore.

It was a good gig for a short time. Made my instrument skills razor sharp. Yadda, yadda, yadda. After flying for "the company" for a year, I realized that it was not a shortcut to anything except crappy layovers and being forced to listen to coworkers' stories of how badass they are.

Now I fly for a regional. And while the pay sucks only slightly worse than freight (for the first year), my layovers are fit for the civilized world, my coworkers are generally less concerned about convincing you of how awesome they are, and my family gets flight benefits with several major airlines. Still doing a lot of hand flying into small airports. Still got 2 props humming away out there. Still got analog gauges. Really the biggest difference is that I'm not spending 5 days a week laying over in some backwater meth town and I'm happier.

Your results may vary.
 
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