North Country Aviation
 

Curious if anyone has any experience or knowledge with some Michigan operators. Right now I have my instrument rating and building time to 250 right now for my commercial. Intend to CFI to build hours, but still intrested in local operators and any information regarding the Michigan area. Short term goal is to get my CFI and instruct. Long term goal would be to fly charter part-time somewhere locally. Currently stable family life with stable job. Grand Air Aviation, North Country Aviation, Air Services...???? Any comments appreciated. Thanks

Best bet would be to go and introduce yourself to any and all FBO's in your area. I would do anything you can and introduce yourself to ALOT of people. Aviation is a small community and even smaller when your talking ma and pa FBO's so word of mouth will beat emailing your app in.

Hi!

North Country Aviation is pretty decent. I knew some guys that flew there, and they seemed to like it.

Grand Air? Is that the Grand Aire that became Tri-Coastal? I thought they were out of business? If they are still flying, you don't want to do that.

cliff
YIP

NC has some nice planes, I worked for a competitor that sorta took a bunch of their work(the customer wasn't happy with some cancellations on the nightly routes). Besides that I know they have some C310's, barons, C421, and I think a King-Air. I never heard any complaints about Mx from their pilots, seemed to be a good outfit with that in mind.

I don't know too much about Central Air except those guys worked hard! I honestly wouldn't want to fly a twin-commander in the winter, but that's just me.

Pontiac Flight Service in PTK is one that if you get your CFI, you can work for them, and also sit right-seat in the C421's and Be20's part time. I think you need to be more of a full-timer for that position though.

My company has a salesmen up @ GRR, and occasionally we need ferry pilots, but this is extremely limited flying up there, and usually turbine equipment, so restricting that flying even more to higher time pilots with time-in-type experience.

If you want to know more about Pontiac Flight Service send me a PM, I instructed there about 4 years ago, it's a great place to get some initial flying experience.

Hmm, I might or might not have ran into you. I was a Y47 instructor that did the occasional SIC stuff over there.

Really, send me a pm, how often did you sic at pfs?

Three of my very close friends flew at North Country and all left with very bad tastes in their mouth, that was their experience, not mine. All of them flew there for close to 2 years. I'd say Pontiac Flight Service is much more reasonable to work with as an employee, you're treated pretty well there and everyone is flexible to work with, an awesome boss/owner as well.

From what I hear ASI in Traverse is the place to be if you want to be in Northern Michigan.

North Country is a good place to work for low time pilots, but Gaylord can be a tough place to spend free time. Nick and Mary are great people and will give you the time if you show up with a resume. They are looking for long term people that are willing to stay for a couple of years, but end up needing copilots all the time. You will spend more money driving to work then you will make but it's better then paying for the time. Training is all on your own if you can even find a manual. They did do check runs at night and they would allow you to ride along to gain experience.
Air Services is in a better location but you will not get in without internal references and a lot of time. The pilots are tight knit group and is hard to break into.

actually Grand Air Aviation I was speaking off is actually a smaller operation out of Abrams Airport 4DO Michigan. Thanks for everyones responses. Keep it comin :0)

IFL group out of KPTK is hiring. They are getting more Falcon 20's. I used to work there not a bad operation. Everyone is really nice, the falcons they have currently are the best in the industry but I dont know how the new ones they are going to get are going to be. On call 24/7....20 min to get to airport. Its listed on climbto350.com .