When did you make it to Regionals/Freight Job

mikecweb said:
I shouldn't be one to talk since I'm pretty young (22) doing this stuff but I would at least consider trying to have some fun with aviation before diving right in. I often regret that when i was a flight instructor I was insane in the amount of flying I would do. I took on students that no one wanted and I flew at all hours just to stay in the air. Fulfilling two needs. Building experience and being able to pay the bills. I rarely took a fun flight with a friend or had a $100 hamburger. Just think about this before you scream through school, CFIing, and a regional to get to a Major as fast as you can. What have you done: You got a solid career yes but what have you lost:....your 20s. Can't get those back...the majors will always be there.
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I know what you guys are saying but every second I spend away from the regional is more money I have to pay back to chase bank, plus seniority lost. Besides, there is no way CFIing is more fun than being at an airline, at least to me. This is what I wanted to do my whole life so I see know point in holding back to enjoy life when I can enjoy life when I get there. Pay off the school bills, quit my telemarketing, and bartender/server job, move out of the parents house, live the life for a couple years then settle down and get married after that if Im not enjoying myself too much. Yes I am enjoying the ride towards the airlines, but I'll rather it end sooner than later. Sometimes I can't believe I will be gettin paid to do this
 
Doug Taylor said:
More or less the range that power lever movement directly controls propeller blade angle without increasing gas generator speed.

Or something like that!

Sounds awful cool too.
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Oh yeah that lets the ladies know who the real pilots are...
shhhhhh bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah shhhhhh

You see the "shhhh" part is idle and the "bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" part is beta.

Just like that.:nana2:
 
jtrain609 said:
I think it's absurd that a Chieftain, which weighs 10 times less than a CRJ could EVER pay MORE.
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Not to nitpick, but the CRJ is a 2-pilot plane. Captains on the CRJ at the vast majority of airlines make a *lot* more than chieftan pilots at Amflight make. Comparing Chieftan pay to regional FO pay isn't a great comparison in my mind.

Pay scales are traditionally derived from the number of seats or the weight of the aircraft, and if that holds true a CRJ should pay what a 737 does.

And it used to.
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It did? What? When did a 50-seat RJ pay the same as a 100+-seat 737?
 
Metro's sexy as hell! Are you going to make me send you down to the boneyard to look at DC-8's, Convair's and DHC-7's? :)
 
Now I felt the Do-228 was an ugly airplane. Then I was behind one in Reno and it's kinda racy looking! Not bad at all!
 
707 and the like look way better than the Metro, the metro looks like a ostrich or something...look how high the plane sits on the landing gears and the weird looking body. Could almost put it in the same category look wise as the Russian planes
 
See I'm just the opposite, I could care a less if I fly jets in the next 5 years. To me it's all about the journey, and in my eyes that means flying as many cool piston/turboprop airplanes in as many different ways possible. Flying jets here at Airnet seems like it will be cool because of some of the things they do, but for the most part corporate/regional/fractional jet flying seems boring with all the automation now. Nothing against those I'm speaking about, Im just not ready to throw it on autopilot for the whole flight.
 
zmiller4 said:
Not to nitpick, but the CRJ is a 2-pilot plane. Captains on the CRJ at the vast majority of airlines make a *lot* more than chieftan pilots at Amflight make. Comparing Chieftan pay to regional FO pay isn't a great comparison in my mind.



It did? What? When did a 50-seat RJ pay the same as a 100+-seat 737?
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It was called an F-100.
 
mtsu_av8er said:
relax and enjoy the ride!!
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:yeahthat: :yeahthat: :yeahthat:

People ought to just forget about seniority and blah blah blah and wake up and just enjoy that day. It is all a crapshoot because your seniority won't have mattered if the thing goes out of business.
 
Nick said:
People ought to just forget about seniority and blah blah blah and wake up and just enjoy that day.
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You're not just saying that 'cuz you're at the bottom of list, are ya Nick?!?! j/k, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Nick said:
It is all a crapshoot because your seniority won't have mattered if the thing goes out of business.
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ahhh true dat.
 
jtrain609 said:
It was called an F-100.
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Pay scales are traditionally derived from the number of seats or the weight of the aircraft, and if that holds true a CRJ should pay what a 737 does.
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A 100-seat airplane, right? So I should make as much flying a 50-seat CRJ as someone flying a 100-seat Fokker?

I know that there's bigger CRJ's, but I don't fly them. I sorta think you should differentiate between the different sizes, because you're crazy if you think that CRJ200 pay should be the same as 737 or F100 pay.

I completely understand your frustration with people bashing freight jobs (although I really don't see too much of it here other than some obviously naive newbies) and with 500hr SJS regional FO's, but I hope you understand that at a lot of airlines that's almost unheard of. My airline is hiring like mad into the CRJ, and almost everyone in the new-hire classes has either prior 121 or 135 experience with well over 1000hrs.

I guess (kind of like wheelsup) that next year, when I'll be making close to $50,000 to fly a 50-seat airplane, that I'm not bringing the industry down that much. That doesn't mean I don't wish the pay was better, or that I won't work towards that. Just don't assume that every CRJ FO out there has 500hrs, spiky hair and sunglasses on the head.

BTW, I've got several hundred hours in turboprops, but the thing had 66 seats and flew like a truck. I like hand-flying the CRJ a lot better, which, believe it or not, I do more of now than I did in the tprop.
 
I don't know a thing about CRJ pilots, bro, all I know about is pay scales.

You know the difference between a Delta 737-200 and a CRJ-900?

$56 an hour

That's the difference in captain pay, but they both have 86 seats.
 
jtrain609 said:
I don't know a thing about CRJ pilots, bro, all I know about is pay scales.

You know the difference between a Delta 737-200 and a CRJ-900?

$56 an hour

That's the difference in captain pay, but they both have 86 seats.
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From airliners.net:

[FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva]"737-200 - Typical single class seating for 115, max seating for 130 at 74cm (29in) pitch."



[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
 
I'll enjoy my life when I'm in the majors, driving an expensive European car and having a nice house in Cali. :D
 
I got my info off of seatguru.com for when they were still flying the 737-200 series. I'm sure you could ask Doug about it as he used to fly them, but in a three class configuration they were putting 86 seats on them. Southwest shoves 137 seats in their 737-700's.

Further, RJ drivers keep talking about how the RJ's are never going to get bigger. First 50 seaters were ok, now we deal with 70 seaters, and now Mesa has 86 seat CRJ's flying. When's it gonna stop, guys? It's in your hands, not mine, but it's going to affect my future pay scale.
 
jtrain609 said:
I got my info off of seatguru.com for when they were still flying the 737-200 series. I'm sure you could ask Doug about it as he used to fly them, but in a three class configuration they were putting 86 seats on them. Southwest shoves 137 seats in their 737-700's.
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Well, I went back and looked at seatguru.com.

Delta Boeing 737-200 (aka 73S)

 There are two versions of this older plane. This one is used mostly for very short trips and occasional Delta Express duty. The other version of this plane has no first class, and flys only Delta Express flights. First Class has 36-37 inch pitch. Coach has a 30-32 inch pitch, slightly less than normal. There is no audio or video on this plane.
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The version they show is the lower seat/two class configuration that has 103 seats. Obviously the all-economy one would fit more.

To compare apples to apples, SkyWest's -705's (the 900 with separate seating classes) I *believe* fits 76 seats. A SkyWester could chime in here.

I'm not gonna argue about the increase in aircraft size at the regional level. But I will say us, as regional pilots, really don't have a say in what our company operates. The mainline scope is what dictates what can be farmed out. They tried to save their pensions and relax scope - it didn't work. Hindsight is 20/20. Let's move on. The only thing we can do at the regional level is try to make it that much more expensive to operate the aircraft here vs. at the mainline carrier via pay rates. That'll take a large effort on the side of ALPA national to pull off.
 
Do what ya'll got to do, you'd better believe I'm glad that I'm not involved in the regional rat race. The only thing that is going to take me to the regionals is a need to move back to the midwest and I don't see that happening anytime soon, though who knows I could be eating my words in a year.
 
jtrain609 said:
Do what ya'll got to do, you'd better believe I'm glad that I'm not involved in the regional rat race.
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No doubt that the quality of life and pay at a lot of regionals is bad enough for it to be called a "rat race", but I'd think you'd be surprised at the actual pay and quality of life at the airlines that wheelsup (I think) and I work at. There's a reason that our new hire classes have tons of Ameriflight pilots in them, and it's not SJS. That's not a knock on amflight--I know a number of people who've worked there and they thought it was a good operation--just evidence that there are plenty of people who have a lot of non-instructing experience who view this company as a pretty good place to work.

I'm not gonna argue about the increase in aircraft size at the regional level. But I will say us, as regional pilots, really don't have a say in what our company operates. The mainline scope is what dictates what can be farmed out. They tried to save their pensions and relax scope - it didn't work. Hindsight is 20/20. Let's move on. The only thing we can do at the regional level is try to make it that much more expensive to operate the aircraft here vs. at the mainline carrier via pay rates. That'll take a large effort on the side of ALPA national to pull off.
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What he said.
 
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