Nathanio

Alpine Pilot,

Thanks for all of the info. I am currently a flight instructor with 1000TT currently working on my multi add-on and should have complete in a month. I am interested in moving to Denver and joining Alpine Air. I believe I will meet all of the requirements in a couple of months time.

I am curious if your PIC hires typically have more multi/turbine experience or if it is not unusual to hire someone with primarily single-engine piston time into a PIC role?

Thanks in advance and looking forward to putting my application in!

dejong1606

Does anyone know the current schedule for the Sioux Falls Base? How many days a week, what days a week? How much PTO a year? At one time I heard Sioux Falls does 1 week line 1 week reserve 1 week off, is that correct? And how would that work?

Dr Beeper

New guy bumping this thread.

I'm a CFI in Montana with no intention of ever leaving this part of the world. Looking for any current information about Alpine. I've heard that quite a few guys have left semi-recently to fly jets and I'm wondering if that void is being filled or if more people are going to regionals?

Alpine Pilot

Hey guys, sorry about the disappearing act, but life kept me very busy for a bit and I stopped visiting web forums and facebook for a while. I'm still at Alpine, and since I came around last I became a 1900 check airman and the 1900 training program manager. Like I've said before, I like it here so I'm probably going to be around for a bit.

I was going to take some pictures and video a while back, so I'm starting with that. I've made a few videos that show what a morning on the ramp looks like, what our facilities at SLC look like, and part of a morning flight into Jackson Hole, Wyoming.


Alpine Air - The SLC Ramp:
https://youtu.be/ItJAPOeyc_I

Alpine Air - The SLC Hangar:
https://youtu.be/7KUCqwDfeUo

Alpine Air - A Flight to Jackson:
https://youtu.be/qSRQjkD0ogk

Alpine Pilot

This is probably to late to help you, but the answer will probably help others.

Me and my instructors have trained several pilots with no turbine experience at all. We have also trained pilots from the military and pilots with flight time that totals over 10,000 hours. For the BE99 you just need a Multi-Engine, no minimum hours, and for the 1900 you need 100 hrs ME. Since taking over as the 1900 training manager I've adjusted the training program specifically to help get the guys we hire with the bare minimums get through our training program.

Week 1: A new hire will now go through an indoc that last 5 days Monday-Friday then you have Saturday and Sunday off.
Week 2: It's 5 days Monday-Friday for 1900 systems, all 5 days run 8am-3pm in the class followed by an hour in the FTD simulator to learn cockpit switches and systems checks. Saturday is a day off.
Week 3: It's 7 days Sunday-Saturday of simulator sessions, and each simulator session is 2.5 hours long. We also do some some systems reviews in the classroom each day, and a complete mock check ride at the end of the week as a final review. We do not try to perfectly mimic the check ride, that never works anyway, it's mostly to make sure you're ready to go and to help you identify weak spots a couple days before you check. Sunday is a day off, with check rides on Monday and Tuesday.

I've written detailed study guides, designed graphical flows, and have an entire google drive folder full of study and prep material I send everybody that is selected for any of our monthly classes. I also personally call all of the selected trainees a month prior to their class to answer questions and discuss what to expect, which usually helps calm some nerves prior to training.

Kind of depends on the run and the current staffing. Sioux Falls has excellent retention and usually the turnover is minimal. If you or anybody else is still interested in the base I can call the assitant chief and ask how he's been scheduling the line lately. Ideally, they try to keep it either 1 week on and 1 week off, or something like 4 on and 3 off.

There's almost always room for one more. People leave to go to Atlas, Omni, Neptune, Skywest, Southwest, Envoy, Messa, NetJets, FlexJets, etc. Some of us stay a while, some of us like to move around, and some are just chasing the dollars at the end of the carrot stick. The industry is amazing to look at right now, but yeah we probably have one or two spots open or expected to open in any base at any given time.

Also, in case you didn't hear we purchased another 1900 operation on the east coast called Suburban. This means we now have a base in Atlanta to go along with Ontario (California), Salt Lake City, Billings, Denver, and Sioux Falls. I've trained 2 pilots for Atlanta in the past couple months that fly to Pensacola and Jacksonville now.

Akutan Bandit

Really nicely done, and if you really made these then good on you. This is on par with Top Gun for pulling in young pilots to the profession.

The morons at UPS and FedEx who make you wear a safety vest while flying should be fired.

Alpine Pilot

Haha, yeah the vest has to be worn on the ramp, but not in the cockpit. Some pilots just don't bother taking it off.

And I'm glad you like the videos so far. Photography and videography have been a hobby of mine since I was a sailor on nuclear submarines, where among other things part of my job was maintaining all of the photo and video equipment in the periscope. My entire photo kit was stolen out of the trunk of my car last year and I've slowly been building it back up to do stuff like this again.

These videos were indeed simply made by myself with an iPhone 12 Pro Max and an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III. I also mounted each camera on a gimbal or a monopod to smooth out the video while I walked around. To edit the footage I used iMovie on a 2015 Macbook Pro, but it's getting old and the 1080p video stressed it out, so it needs to be upgraded before I attempt crunching anything like 4k.

These videos were not commissioned or done as official company work, I simply made them because I could and because I felt like it. If they help recruit a few pilots for Alpine then that only makes my job easier in the training department. Stuff like this also lets me show the new pilots that arrive at Indoc what a lot of the things we're about to talk about look like, and I plan to do a few more as time allows.

Dr Beeper

Whoa, thanks for the detailed response to everyone's questions. The comment about those videos being like Top Gun for pulling people into the profession is spot-on.

Does all training take place in SLC? Any idea if the BIL base has a similar crew room? I'm sure it's not an easy way to spend a week's worth of sleep, but it seems like a great resource all the same.

Alpine Pilot

Actually, last time I checked Billings has a crew apartment off airport down in the middle of town. Most people at any of our bases don't need a crew room or a crew apartment in their main base because our schedule brings us home at night. It's one of the things people like about Alpine, even if you work a long day you get to come home at the end of it. Places like that bunk room in the video or the apartment in Billings usually only get used when somebody is in town temporarily for training, a TDY trip, or something like that. Or once in a while a single new-hire will use them as a place to live in for a few weeks or a couple months while they find a new apartment or house for themselves. We also have a crew house about 10 minutes from Denver International in Aurora. It's located at the edge of town where you can take the back roads to DIA and not have to get on the congested highways to reach the cargo terminal.

As a heads up, I'm busy as hell the next several weeks. By all means keep the questions, emails, and PM's coming. But I may a few days to respond like I did here.