I saw that this place is hiring. Anybody work/worked there? What’s it like?

I’ve tried looking around, but all I can find is a post about a caravan that went down in bad weather about 10 years ago.

-R

 

I know they do some charter work for us when we need a little help out of SUS. Other than that, I got nothin'.

 

Yep and I knew the passenger on that flight so my experience with this company is so great.

 

Don't expect a single promise to be kept and don't let the transport category aircraft SIC low time program fool you into going there. A small list of things I encountered that drove me out after a short stay:

1) Days off we're few and far between, routinely went 1 days between off days. They'll promise at least 3 weekends off per month, I had a Quarter where I had a total of only 11 days off, 3 of which I had to take as vacation because my wife had surgery.
2) Rest isn't respected, expect to have showtimes made earlier without resetting and rolling rest (illegal) is typical. They also require non-flying administrative tasks and meetings done by the pilots during rest periods. Also, you will fly front of the clock, back of the clock without rest or reset so fatigue is a daily thing.
3) They are operating transport category aircraft carrying passengers (vet techs and animal handlers) without ATP rated Captains in direct violation of FARs. Further, they do not have seating for these passengers in back and either have them ride a folding chair or the jump seat in your cockpit.
4) Flying in the Northeast you'll see a lot of icing conditions and I've seen numerous captains fly contaminated aircraft without de-icing.

Enter at your own risk but it really isn't worth a violation on your certificate.

 

Another HUGE note on Castle, the management and ownership see you as an expendable resource.
so much so that they lost a pilot and plane in a crash earlier this year and nobody DO or higher even deigned to attend the funeral.
You will be quite literally an expendable resource to be used up.

 

I agree with IMightFly, it's a bad place to work at, you don't get a lot of days off, pay is decent if you take no days off, and you get paid per mile which is really bad, you can go out and get stuck at customs for a few hours and guess what, you're not getting paid for it.
Like IMightFly said, we had a pilot crash and they didn't even mention him in a company event that was held shorty after.
If you're overnighting somewhere and your next flight is at 8PM guess what, you're leaving the hotel at 12PM and just wait at the FBO until your flight, you don't get paid for it aswell and management will tell you it's not work either because your show up time is 7PM. And did I mention you need to load your plane? either be a Caravan or the SAAB, it can take an hour to load the SAAB and you're not getting paid for it.
You will fly all night only to assign you a morning flight the following day.
Do yourself a favor, go work elsewhere.

 

I left Castle recently. Nothing has changed from what has already been written in this thread. The only thing I will add is they bait and switch the pilots on jobs. They will hire you as a Saab pilot with a $25,000 contract, but you will rarely fly it. You will mostly fly the Caravan, with 1 Saab trip per month if you're lucky enough to get one. But you can't quit because you'll owe them $25,000. It pretty much winds up being the most expensive Caravan training contract in the industry when you were promised a multiengine airplane. And they absolutely will sue you if you quit.

 

With the way airlines have been hiring in recent years, it still baffles me as to why anyone would desire to go fly for a Joe Bob part 135 outfit that’s known for abusing pilots. If everybody went to the airlines, 135 companies and many part 91 operators would disappear for good.

 

some wants to build time without getting their CFI, I know I was considering going to castle after a little bit of instructing but I’m just stick with instructing after reading this thread lol

 

It’s understandable. I was looking into 135 jobs early in my career, but after doing lots of research on a lot of these outfits and learning of just how shady that side of the industry is compared to 121, I’d advise almost anyone to just go 121. Sure there are some places that are true gems, but they aren’t common in that realm of aviation. I had a few right seat opportunities in corporate jets and turboprops when I was a low time CFI at the start of my career. Many of the things I witnessed going on I felt uncomfortable with, and I thought that was normal in all of aviation. Nope, it’s just ‘normal’ in 135/91 land. When I went to the airlines i then learned how questionable a lot of practices in corporate/charter aviation are.

135/91 operators don’t ever seem like they wanna improve safety culture, refine their policies/SOP’s, improve their training programs, improve their maintenance practices, improve pay and schedules, treat their pilots better like giving actual hard days off and not the ‘traditional’ ‘look back’ crap, etc. etc. etc. Literally anything you can think of with 135/91 aviation, 121 does it better.

If safety were a ladder, 121 operators always try to climb up the ladder, constantly trying to improve as a company and improve on the things I listed above. They learn from their mistakes. Many 135/91 operators on the other hand, seem ok with not only staying at a particular level on the ladder, but going down the ladder. And they’re ok with it.

Even the crappiest regionals are still way better than the average 135/91 job.