San Diego is a base.

Okay, great. Thanks.

flew it for a bit, I thought it was a lot of work, beast to fly and back breaking to stock because you cannot stand up, but WU is a good place to be, you will never get on a jet at Gama in my opinion!

I transitioned to the King Air after retirement from airlines, last 20 years flying FK28, DC9, B737, and B767. Prior to those aircraft I did spend a good bit of time in turboprops, such as the Metro, so perhaps that made the transition back to props easier for me. I personally think the King Air is a great airplane to operate. Very forgiving and a good performer. I've flown it single-pilot for other operators, and found it a good platform for that. There's a good reason that thousands and thousands of them have been produced.

At this point in my career, I would definitely prefer not to be on the road for 8 days at a time regardless of the airplane type, but in my short time at GAMA I haven't found the workload too intense by any means. I've put in longer days and had more responsibilities with other 135 operators. Even after a lifetime of it I still enjoy getting out and flying the line, so my opinion may be an exception.

What's a typical day like at WU? I'm coming from a cargo Feeder background, usually flying from an outstation to hub and back. Pretty lazy boy QOL, but I'm obviously looking to flying bigger and better things than a 208. Just want to get an idea for other non flying duties and crew life on the road.

There isn’t a typical day, it varies widely. I’ve been standby at home, hotel standby babysitting a broke airplane, airport standby as a backup, and flown anywhere between 1 and 7 legs in a day. 8 day tours are generally between 15 and 25 hrs, but I’ve seen as many as 35 or 40 in the seat. Most duty days are 10-14 hrs, no matter whether you are standing by or flying, although some of that is generally from the hotel.

Is it fair to say the KA pilots who fly predominantly on the East Coast fly more per month (on average) than the West Coast based KA Pilots? Obviously you could hit both coasts on a tour but it seems like the East Coast based pilots fly A LOT - especially in the summer with all of the short hop HTO/HYA/MVY/ACK flying.

Also, is there a geographic division for the PL21 and PL Fusion use in the KA? Will the KA fleet eventually be standardized with one or the other?

Not really West Coast has Fusion and PL21 I doubt WUP/GAMA cares as from a customer service stand point they are uniformed. Unless you have only been with GAMA 6 months or less your qualified on both types. So I highly doubt that Fusion/PL21 plays any roll in there planning. “Rumor” has it they keep a certain amount of aircraft in a geographical region. But not tail number specific.

I have done a fair amount of flying on both coasts, and from my experience you fly roughly the same number of hours per tour on either coast. However, on the east coast you are more likely to fly more legs in order to get those hours. Out west I average longer legs than out east. That being said, you could end up going from the NE to FL all tour and have long legs out east, or you could end up doing short hops between LAX/PSP/SAN out west. You just never know.

I have heard from an ops supervisor that they do intentionally keep a certain number of aircraft on the west coast. Apparently if the schedule is allowed to play out naturally all the planes slowly get pulled east and they wouldn't be able to meet the obligations to the members out west.