The biggest thing that kills me about the ISR job is its all valued time (turbine multi PIC time) by the airlines, I touch the controls maybe five minutes a flight. Other than takeoff and landing, it's hours of watching the autopilot fly circles.

My 3000+ helicopter hours, the bulk of which are below 250', don't count. Even though it was in turbine helicopters.

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I can assure you that not ALL of the living conditions for Avenge pilots are crap. Those of you who know, know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Avenge will probably lose that as well.

 

Yeah. I think we called them Dasholes

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We called you "jealous"....

Funny how no one wanted to fly the mighty beast until it was relocated and then everyone wanted to get in the club. We were actually asked about potential members and we had a bit of a say in the matter.

 

How is travel going to be affected with Delta and United pulling out.

 

Dash wasn't an option for us when I was hired (December 13)

Otter or King Air were the choices.

When the dash scaled back, what did make a lot of guys irate was us losing rotations when they infested the MAISR site.

I got 120 OCONUS days in the 15 months I worked there (read as was broke, almost lost house, because they changed dates at the last minute so much I couldn't do reserves either)






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I was referring to Ab initio SIC is for the King Air flying. I won't comment on the other programs because I don't personally know anyone in them. Everyone who was an avenge King Air guy told me they couldn't recommend that job.

Sounds like living conditions are a step down from living in my own CHU in the desert on a P-3 deployment and 2 steps up from living in a 6 man stateroom on a boat.

With regionals CFI pipeline programs and preferential hiring and offering 12 month upgrades to PIC where you get 65k a year, I personally wouldn't recommend 2 years worth of rotations in the desert for that pay.... 20k a month at PIC rates is a different discussion all together.

If someone really wants to fly ISR, go do it at the PIC you've got a nice QOL when you're home. There's a reason why the average pilot lasts about 18months doing that type of job before moving on.

 

Yep. I'd say maybe 50% of the guys I know are in "the industry" past the two year mark. Some get called by a major, some get burned out and get a job in the states.

Then you have the older divorced guys who are here until they can't be because they are playing catch-up.

Some guys just love the work and have been here for 5+ years. Maybe not all at the same company, but doing ISR work for that long.

But hell, I think we are at over 50% turnover where I work, and out of the big companies we are one of the best paying ones. There are odd contracts here an there that pay better, but those aren't usually hiring guys without OCONUS contractor experience.

 

NO ONE goes straight to the -7. I worked for Avenge and had a guy in my initial class that was an Army -7 pilot and was even current in the plane. He went to the King Air. The Dash is a very closed group.

If you were to make it there by some stoke of luck, then yes it is pretty good duty. They aren't living in tents eating MREs.

 

How long does your company have an existing contract for? What are they chances you'll be on reduced rotations like you were with Avenge?