I want Quality Of Work Life, where is it?
 

So,

I'm 55. Rated as a Commercial Pilot. 3,000 hours total, over 1,000 fighter pilot hours many years ago, 160 hours average in GA airplanes the last five years. I get upside down and all around, as well as fly formation. But, find myself letting the autopilot fly when I go A to B. May as well get paid for that, is my thought. Salary is not so important, but I need a five day block of days off every month. I can live in Reno or Baltimore. Where should I apply?

Depends on your geography. A lot.

Several potential COA's...

a) Find a local corporate 91 or 135 gig. Schedule is whatever you arrange with the employer. If they renege, you can just walk.

b) Find a regional with a junior base somewhere that you'd like to live. You'll move up fast as an FO. There should be several near Baltimore (PHL, IAD, so driving distance). Lots in NY, I'd take the train.

c) Do a regional and then apply to majors. That way your CTP/ATP is paid for. With fighter + 121 time you'll get scooped up pretty quick by a decent major. Any major should afford good scheduling opportunities, although if you can live in base that's even better. SWA has a BWI base.

d) Apply to majors now, but your recent experience is marginal, and you'd have to pay for your own CTP/ATP just to apply (I'm not aware of any majors providing that, at least not yet).

Nobody has a RNO base, but it's reasonably commutable to LAS, SLC, DEN, SEA, SFO, LAX.

Apply to SWA for the BWI base. It wouldn't hurt to get on at a regional to get more current in the meantime.

Delta Private Jets - 7 days on, 7 days off. No required base location, you just have to live within 1 hour of an airport where Delta flies out of. You get Positive Space relocation to where they need you to fly to. I believe if you put in 10 years you get travel privileges with Delta when you retire. If that's too much flying, you can fly 1 week and get 3 weeks off.
https://www.deltaprivatejets.com/

Wait, what?

Was talking with a Delta Private Jet pilot on the ramp a couple of days ago. Just passing along the information he gave me. Part 135 operation. If you are Semi-retired, sounds like a good gig to have.

Just to clarify, DPJ is an 8 on 6 off schedule. Airline to an airplane day 1 and airline home day 8. The 1 week on 3 weeks off schedule is a part time position. Half the normal salary and no medical benefits. Right now you must also be a captain to be part time.

What’s the normal salary? I know it varies by plane, but what’s the ballpark?

1st year FO 54,750
2nd year FO 56,750
3rd year CA 90kish

Does it have to be a specific five day block? If not, you’d probably be able to pull it off at a well-staffed regional like endeavor or republic (based on what my friends at those airlines have told me.). If you go someplace short staffed it becomes a lot less likely you’ll be able to get those days off. PBS seems to help as well.

If you’re willing to drive a bit from Reno I see air ambulance jobs in Elko, NV all the time for a PC-12.

K4 is one of the best kept secrets.

Not much of a secret considering the way you go on and on about it every chance you can.

Olde check your PMs.

Delta has some type of an in house ATP/CTP program, saw the signs on the office doors last month. Let’s them take military without funneling six months at their WO regional wasting training cycles.

You have to pay for that one, although you get a guaranteed app review upon completion.

Agreed, so is Omni.

How many complete CTP through Delta that aren’t hired?

Can you do 2-3 days on, 3-5 days off? Gone for 2-3 weeks doesn't work for the fam.

Gone 2 weeks, then having 2 weeks off... or combining it with another week or two off over transition for three to four weeks off makes it very doable for my fam..... we travel and vacation several times a year without ever using vacation time....

Using the first and last day for paid travel to/from work with real tickets, and keeping the miles, sure beats jumpseating 3-5 times a month. Then when we do fly, we go with award miles tickets for free and never play the standby torture game.
Same goes for hotels, claim the points and vacation free.

Wouldn’t go back to commuting, crashpads, standby travel, buying hotels ever again.

For a lot of families, two weeks away is a nonstarter. I’m at the point in my life where even a four day trip bugs me. I live in base, however.

Glad it works for some of you guys though!

Living in base will always be hard to beat. The 2 weeks at home though offers a certain freedom that doing 3-4 on and 3 off can't. I think some people discount it as a no starter too quickly, but you are correct, it simply is a no starter for some.

I can drive to work. I can also make two weeks off happen without vacay if I need it. Two weeks gone might be OK with older kids (who can drive themselves), but for younger ones it's hard on them, and also on a working spouse who has to suck it up and handle everything. My wife can usually punt a lot of things for a few days until I get home.

No kids and no spouse (or an independent one), then two weeks on, two off wouldn't be bad at all.

I have a 4 year old, and a 2 year old. 2 year old is special needs, so the wife is stay at home. We actually like it better, but I was always a commuter, never lived on base. If my family was exposed to that, it might be viewed differently.

Different strokes for different folks! Always glad to hear when people make this career work for their families, whether it’s two weeks on/two off, 7/7, 3/4, or whatever else.

My wife is also a stay home homemaker.... beats the heck out of having children raised by others.

You can say that again. We never regretted that decision either.

My wife chose to quit her job and home school our kids. Sure, no problem. 7 years after our youngest left home for college I finally talked her into go back to work. I shouldn't complain, it was nice coming home with dinner ready to be served. Need things taken care of during the day, no issue, she had the free time.

Are you saying you combine the 2 weeks off with the occasional use of a vacation week too? Or is the "over transition" something else? Genuinely curious...

Transition is the seam between one month and the next.

The system wouldn't typically let you bid 2-3 weeks off straight in a given month, because you wouldn't be legal to cram a whole months worth of flying into a handful of days.

But if you load up the front of say May, and the back of the June you might well be able to bid a lot of days off at the end of May, say 7-10 and then do the same for the front of Jun.

You're still legal, although busy, in early May and late Jun but you got your required hours for both months and 2-3 weeks off too. No vacation involved.

Ah - I still have some lingo to learn apparently. I appreciate the helpful explanation.

those companies: kalitta and omni will furlough the bottom with the slightest downturn in the economy! be careful

I don't really know enough to speak about it, but I tend to think other forces besides economy had to do with one of the furloughs. I also think Kalitta is shielded a bit better than pax carriers in a true economic downturn, due to some of our missions and customers.

For ACMI/Supplemental, it totally depends on the existing contracts and established customers. The impact of an economic problem could vary wildly from one to another. If you're think of that route, best to carefully research the specific customers of each airline you consider. For example military charters might be affected very differently than things like amazon or UPS/FDX overflow, etc. In fact one could thrive while the other tanks.

You ALL have given me some goodly gouge, thanks very much.