Eciplse SIC pay
 

I knew I would be hearing this sooner or later. The company I work at is trying to put an EA-500 on their charter certificate. We "senior" flight instructors are going to be the "eligable" SICs for the Eclipse. Under 135 the Eclipse has to have an SIC to be legal. My company is going to "135 train us" maybe 3 hours max..and all of our own studying with an oral after two weeks of self study.

Claiming that the Eclipse SIC training is "invaluable experience" and worth around $3000... they are thinking of a plan to basically not pay us SICs. I heard that a percentage of each flight would be taken from our pay to "repay" the "valuable SIC checkride". The other option was that we would not be paid at all until the "amount in $ of training was repaid through work". Basically assuming that us CFIs would be so awed at the fact we are getting to sit right seat in a jet that they could justify not paying us to run the 135 operation. Management claiming "this is the way of the industry, always has been and always will be"

The way is see it ...the Eclipse has to have two pilots to be ran legally 135...we dont fly...neither do they. Instead of a having a percentage taken out of each paycheck or flying for free..until we have "repaid training" they should just run a 6 month training contract that is pro-rated like every other 135 operation out there.

Now we get to the pay...assuming things work out and we do get paid... what would the going rate daily be for a contract Eciplse 135 SIC be?
Im assuming all trips that we do would be 700 NM or less assuming around 1.5 hours to 2 hours of flight each way. That being said if they choose to pay us $35 dollars a flight hour and try to justify that as decent "flight pay" i feel violated as an individual and as a pilot that people would think we will work for free.

Im thinking the Eciplse 500 should bring $200 a day minimum any thoughts on this situation?

flylow

There may be something else that I'm missing specific to the Eclispse, but if it has an operating auto-pilot, that can be substituted for a co-pilot.:confused:

As for pay, stick to your guns. With that being said, there will probably be some of your brothers that will pay to fly the little jet (gotta love this industry). You may not get to fly it. You should NOT have to pay your boss to fly his airplane that he is getting revenue from. If they want a second pilot, either from a safety point of view or legality, you should get paid. As for the amount, I'm not sure what the going rate is, but I would estimate a SIC (non-typed) on an Eclipse would be no less than $250-300 / day.

I was amazed from the get-go at the business models of all the wanna-be air-taxi services...as little as they are, VLJs are glass turbojets. I never understood how they though they were going to afford real turbojet PICs based on the revenue potential of those things.

I always suspected that they assumed they would be able to raid the flight schools for cheap labor.


$200/day sounds about right...but I wouldn't pay for training on VLJ :rolleyes:

Once you're using that commercial certificate, you're a professional. Don't accept the "valuable experience" crap as a justification for paying to fly the jet.

Not familiar with the Eclipse, but I'm pretty sure it's certified for Single pilot ops. Where does it say that 135 must be flown with an SIC for that jet? Is it an insurance requirement for your company or is it in your Ops spec? If it's not in the ops spec, you legally can't log that SIC time because the aircraft doesn't require two pilots. The same situation would apply to a caravan/baron operation.

Many places that operate single pilot aircraft like CJs find that it's much less expensive to slap a second pilot in the right seat than it is to insure and train a single pilot. The end result is a lot of guys flying around in the right seat logging time they really can't or being relegated to only logging the empty legs.

Why not?
Regional pilots will do it for $50...

Unless the PIC has a C525 type, not a C525 S type.

C525 type PIC---Co-Pilot Required

C525S type PIC----Single pilot required.

Although most pilots have the C525 S type, some Part 135 ops who always fly two pilots may have opted to go for a C525 type.

Eclipse pilots have told me that the autopilot has no NAV function. All approaches are hand-flown. That chould be the reason for the two pilot requirement. Cant do Op Spec for autopilot-in-lieu of SIC. Wasn't DayJet doing all ops two pilots "for the time being"?

I would imagine that the insurance plays a factor in 135 single pilot ops.

My question-----why would you want to operate an Eclipse? With such operational limitations, and the manufacturer being in constant turmoil?

Eclipse--sounds good in theory, but Im not sold on actual operations yet.

yea no operational autopilot and our op-specs are two pilot set up.