FrequentFly3r

How does the schedule work on your "available" days? Are you actually on call 24/7 for 12 days straight or are there certain hours during the day/night that you're required to be available and other times that you're truly off duty?

Edit: Another question I've been meaning to ask... Do they allow the FOs to fly or would I always be the pilot monitoring?

USMCFLYR

So the King Airs are regularly being shot at?
I've not heard this from the many peers doing the job.

Certain aircraft/aircrew doing my job in specific locations have been fired on, yet the techniques for flying the planes/missions vary only in the slightest (they may fly faster doing the ILS low approach maneuvers for instance), but I don't see how this 'combat flying' would prove any more useful than any other type of CL-601 flying. Matter of fact - I'm sure that other operators would probably not be very impressed if they saw the aircraft operated in such a manner on final

One particular story of combat flying the King Airs that was related to me in Iraq involved PPOS hold and studying for their Master's degree.

tiredcfi

If you are not flying a trip, your standby times are assigned the day before. 24/7 is illegal and we don't do that here! When you are off duty, you are off duty. Period.

Generally we trade flying every leg.

FrequentFly3r

Awesome, thanks a lot. Does everybody still seem to be pretty happy there?

Vsipegged

If I'm 100% honest? I don't know many. There are a lot of contributing factors, but everyone I know has applications out. Due to quite a few people leaving recently, the schedule has become 10 out for nearly everyone. " Pack for 10 days" is the saying now.

This along with little QOL changes that are constantly being enforced to save a penny. Moral is pretty low at the moment. I can elaborate more later on, but I'm in a hurry right now.

That being said, its a solid place to sit and wait for the next job to roll along, you'll just make some sacrifice along the way in terms of time with family, etc.

RI830

When it comes to the 10/5, I have gotten a very positive feedback about it.
Now for a certain management person, HM, that feedback is universally negative.

FrequentFly3r

Thanks, RI. I've read through the entire thread really appreciate all the info you and the other insiders and former insiders have provided here.

Does anyone have a ball park estimate on current upgrade times in the 350, 100, and 300? Sounds like with all the movement going on recently it may not be too long.

tiredcfi

It is 1 year in FTW. Higher elsewhere.

FlyingPirate

I agree with VSI for the most part.

If you ask me; I'm pretty happy. Sure it has bad days and sometimes bad weeks but for the most part it's a pretty good place to sit and wait for a career position (ie. major, a nice 100k part 91 gig, etc). I'd say that most have their apps out because this is not a career destination, yet. It has the potential to be a great place to work as long as they continue to improve QOL.

There has been greater enforcement of company credit card usage and expenses because like any company they don't want to spend more money than they need to. Most rules are not new they are just being enforced better. The new rules in place don't really have that much of an effect on QOL, imho. They still allow us to use common sense when it comes to spending; some pilots just have more than others. I may not like some of the rules or changes but I do think it is necessary for continued successful growth.

I may be an optimist compared to most but I really don't think the company is coming after the pilots to screw them over. It's simply growing pains.

Now about the schedule. Please remember to take this with a grain of salt because it varies by pilot, month, airplane, base, rotation schedule, etc.

I am currently on one airplane in the busiest base on one of the busiest airplanes and tend to be creative with my vacation time but since the month of October I haven't flown over 30 hours in month, I haven't worked more than 17 days in a month and in my time here (1.5) years I have never worked more than 6 days straight. As I said before results do vary.

Is it a good place to get quality time in nice airplanes with a livable wage? Yes. Is it a place I can see myself at in 20 years? No, and most everyone who comes here has no intention on staying longer than 5 years.

I hope everyone who works at EAS on this forum can be honest about their experiences at EAS and check their "APC pilotcomplaintis" at the door to give everyone on the outside a better idea of what to expect.

AviatorG

Sounds like an honest review/opinion... Thanks for that info. Sure hoping to hear something soon. Submitted all my apps and have a few inside recommendations... Playing the waiting game now.