Were you in Club Fed?

I sure hope you put that in your anonymously submitted training survey, instead of just spouting off on the internet. From a former instructor that used to spend time in the FTD to help new hires get the procedures down before they started, without getting paid for it, and got the rug pulled out from under him with the shot nonsense, I find all you low time ACMI rockstars sound like a bunch entitled, whiney babies. You know how little participation in training surveys there were from the negative side; very little. The 400 Fleet Standards Captain took that stuff very seriously and addressed any instructor about issues that were brought up.

Get a couple thousand hours on the 4 engined 172, and then volunteer to make a difference by joining standards. You’ll soon learn how much cannot and will not change when it comes to the AQP syllabus due to the red tape from the FAA.

Solidarity!? Not in that group. Did you see any of that when they laid off 50 pilots, 100 plus mechanics and many others for not taking a shot? ALPO would even defend its own pilots. You obviously were there for the last contract debacle… sorry for shattering your dreams.

Very well said and very accurate.

If one was it gets an offer at Kalitta vs Omni what would you guys do?

You want money or long layovers? Your choice.

Keep in mind things will eventually slow down in the freight business. When they do K4 will have long layovers. If you have some money in your pocket, long layovers are fantastic.

Many years ago I was a pretty new FO who was working with a Captain who believed in experiencing life. After a two day layover in Halle Germany one summer when things were slow, we went to a beach party on the River on a Friday. Got up the next morning had our very good free breakfast at the Dormero Hotel. Out to the Jet and over to JFK getting a 2 hour nap on the way. We arrive late afternoon on Saturday. Beautiful weather and cleared for the Carnassi VOR visual to the left. Hand flown out of 10,000. Had a super nice landing and as we roll out the Captain says, “this place isn’t very busy how about you taxi us to the gate”. As a new FO it was quite a rush. Customs clears us at the plane and we are on the way to the hotel. Captain tells us to meet downstairs in 30 minutes. Has the van take us to the Long Island Rail. We are in Times Square in a short while having dinner. I looked over at my crew mates as we sat outside haveing dinner and said “hard to believe we get paid to do this”. Lesson I took from that weekend was that I always strived to be That Captain when it was my turn.

I write this because there are a lot of K4 pilots who have never experienced the slow times. They are wonderful when you get the right destinations. 3 days in Paris, Leipzig, Santiago, Hong Kong (although I think that is gone). European rail service is cheap, reliable and frequent. Of course there are the times you get stuck at McGuire for 5 days, yuk. When times are slow Captains tend to mentor rather than rush and a lot of learning takes place as everyone is actually rested when they fly.

Enjoy the money now, take care of your health and be ready financially for when it gets slow. If you can take the schedule ACMI flying is great.

Your FOs dont normally taxi?

I am retired so I don’t know about now. Before my time one FO ran off the side and got stuck. In the typical shotgun approach that K4 mgt uses they banned all FO’s

No, the FO does not taxi

Ready, fire, aim if you want but I've been doing this at 5 airlines and for 34 years. Almost half of my airline time is as a first officer. At no place I have been have FO's taxied and I am fine with that practice. While exceedingly rare, if something bad happens while taxiing the plane I think the person signing the logbook should be the one driving it. There is no time for control transfer on the ground. It never bothered me as an FO that I didn't get to taxi. Now, if a check airman wants to let an FO do it and the company approves, I'm all for it. They get paid for those kinds of activities.