Exactly. These planes are very old too; before the era of steam gauge cockpit even. NO THANKS! For the poster who mentioned upgrades . . . (chill out) If you are living long enough to upgrade, you'll no doubt want to go somewhere else.

the pay probably never goes up?

Young pilots, ignore childish, silver spoon, comments like Ellens. I worked for two small freight companies back in the early 90's and some of our guys went from CFI, to FO, then Captain on the Falcon 20, and straight to a Delta interview and job.
Are the planes older? Yes. Do the schedules suck a little bit more than an airline? Yes. Is pay and promotion as good or quick? No.

But, you will also fly with some great people, not the snot nose low time college to cockpit, back stabbin, selfish jack ***, that fill the right seat of soooo many regionals today. There's a ton of really good people out there making a living flying an aircraft that are not doing the "pay a bizillion dollars and buy your airline job" route.

My advice, spend as little money as you can getting your ratings, finish your degree, take flying jobs when you can get them, and avoid long, expensive, hire contracts (like you can have this DC 10 job, if you sign a 5 year no quit contract or you pay back 35,000)

Stick

...not to generalize or anything.

I went to college, I instructed, I went to a freight job and I was absolutely miserable til I jumped to a job with a schedule, just my experience, other people have different ones but figured I'd add mine. Some love it, some hate, some just do it. From what I've seen it's a gamble going to those companies, as it was for me. Some of the smaller planes (falcons and lears) seem to fly alot more, I was on a convair and we probably flew 200 hours a year or less last year, things were just real slow. The good thing about working in on demand is you get to see places you would normally never go, you make alot of close friends, and good contacts for the future. The thing that killed me was being on the pager 24/7, my company never gave hard days off, if it was slow we could TRY to get released for 48 hours on the weekends, typically the case because it was slow but it didn't make the job any more bearable. I'm not familiar with USA Jet but I do think they do some type of schedule like 8 days on and 5 days off, I think that would make a world of difference with the job. USA Jet compensates much better than the company I was at also, I think Kalitta Charters is payng fo's pretty well now also. But if you want to live in Michigan, because thats where many of the on-demand jobs are, I would highly suggest looking into Pinnacle, they are hiring like mad also and are upgrading faster than you will upgrade at an on-demand operator right now, and you will have a better quality of life.

JPilot77, IFL?

I guess I described them a little to well, haha, yeah thats where I was. If you have any questions about them fire away. It was a good group of guys when I was there, most of my buddies that were have left for better things also, still have a few friends there and even they are about to make their moves elsewhere. I also couldn't stand living in the dtw area or the call out and not getting any hard days off, the rest of michigan is kind of nice, I guess I should have tried to get on the falcon there and move to texas, it seems like a cool area where they have their planes based down there.

Actually, not looking to go there (thought about it before, though). I grew up a little west of PTK, and know a few guys that went over there from WMU. Oakland Co.'s not that bad, but having to be w/in 3 miles of PTK six days a week would probably suck quite a bit.

Not to mention that you don't know when your 24 hours per 121 regs is going to be until the day it starts. Yeah oakland county is awful, if youre from there then you love it because its your home, I don't know many people that are outsiders from there that actually enjoy the area. There is nothing to do there, can't buy a snowmobile because you don't make enough, if you are riding you are on the 20 minute pager dont forget. Can't buy a boat because you don't make enough there, same deal on the call out. I used to mountain bike over in the woods by pontiac lake, that gets old quick. I would go fishing in the area, gets old after a while. Can't go into the city, 20 minute call out. Basically go to the gym day after day and watch tv, read be bored and wait for the pager to go off.

Whatever though, that was my experience there, some people make the best of it, I didn't and I moved on, I'm not trying to sway people one way or the other about that place because it can work out depending upon the circumstances.