It's a lot more Ernest Gann and a lot less Gordon Gecko.
That's such a great way to describe it. Basically what I was thinking but could not put into words. Thanks Boris!
I'm still new to the freight thing (three months in and now I'm sidelined for the next six weeks due to a little deal with a ruptured achilles tendon) but I do love it and can't wait to get back.
I dig the challenge of flying a piston twin to little airports in the upper Midwest. On good weather days I'm low enough to look down and enjoy the view. On bad weather days it's incredibly satisfying to work out a plan, knock the ice off or work around a thunderstorm, hand-fly an approach on raw data, re-load and go do it all over again.
I'm a part-timer and I'll make more than a regional FO. Full-time, I'd be on par with new regional captains with much less hassle.
Yeah, there are days when I wish I was in a turbine with a second pilot, an autopilot, pressurization, full glass cockpit, flight director, radar, a galley with hot coffee and someplace in back to take a whiz.
But the experience you get flying single-pilot Part 135 IFR just can't be beat.
As our check airman says "You get on your game pretty darn quick in this job."
Another plus is the corporate guys you might be looking for a job from down the road respect and value it since they've almost all done the same at some point in their careers. And you actually get to make those contacts because you're in and out of the same FBOs over and over again.
It's a throwback, in a lot of ways, to old school flying which I dig. The only thing that would make it better would be if we flew NDB approaches in DC-3s to grass strips.