Originally Posted by
fr8dog1369
This is from my experience with Eaglejet which was some time ago. I was working as a contract pilot for a charter company sitting rightseat on BE 200's , CE 500 & CJ2's when the customer wanted two pilots insteed of just the one. I was not getting alot of time and wanted to move up to bigger A/C which required two pilots, and more experience on my part. I was refered to Eaglejet by a co-worker who had been in the same situation and was now flying rightseat on the hawkers.
Eaglejet has aggrements with several companies for flight time. I ended up flying the Beech 99 with Ameriflight. The program is expensive. When I went through there were 5 or 6 guys in the program. You have to pay for your hotel or crashpad while in training. You can buddy up and split the cost with other pilots in the program. There were even some crashpads in the area which some used. After training when your on the road you may have to pay for your hotel on the layovers, usually at the company rate. Some routes have a crew crashpad some dont. Some pilots may offer to share a room but they dont have to.
Now this is the important part. You get out of it what you put into it. If you make an effort, work hard and help out, both the pilots and instructors will bend over backwards to help you out. If you act like a jerk they will treat you as a jerk and life will be very very difficult for you.
As I said earlier it is expensive but this is now it broke down for me. I went with the 250 hour program and took about a year flying part time. It penciled out to about $49.00 an hour for turbine time. It was less then half of spliting twin time at my local FBO. You fly in a structured enviroment and into weather and conditions where, if I were just splitting twin time, I wouldn"t even bother driving to the airport. I got alot of actual time flying in the Pacific NW buring the winter. You log sic time when you are hauling freight and can log pic when your part 91 flying empty non rev.
For me it worked out great. I got some real experience and made a couple of great friends who I still keep in touch with.
Thanks FR8 for all the good info. The only reason i am looking at this is for time saving. I am a 725 hr CFII who has been instructing part time for 8 years. this has been great, however my time is only creaping up, granted 4 years of that i was in college and didn't fly much at all. right now i work full time (non aviation releated) and have a family so my options are some what limited. If i could find a full time instructing gig i would be in business, however just like everywhere else jobs are scarce.
Might be something to look into, im not sure i want to drop 40K now. Thanks for all the info guys i really appreciate it. if you know of any part or full time flying gigs in North Carolina please PM me.
