Quote:
Originally Posted by fr8av8r_66
Central has lost two aircraft this year. The first in January in Oklahoma (DFW08FA056), and the second just last month in Kansas (DEN08FA114). In the most recent accident they lost both their Chief Pilot and another pilot during a checkride in VFR conditions.
I'm a little late coming in; haven't been on APC in a little while. In the latter crash it was actually the DO that was lost, very nice guy. I made it up to KC for the memorial service.
I spent about 6 months at CASW. The pay was low when I was there ($1500/mo before tax), but I flew a LOT and got some good multi time before moving on. Almost all of the flying was on the backside of the clock.
The planes are old, but very well taken care of. The Commander was a blast to fly! They are bare bones as far as avionics: dual VORs, no ADF, no HSI, no autopilot, but they did have a VFR only Garmin GPS. I've heard they are updating all the planes with new Garmin GPS units (396? 496? I forget.). They are all equipped the same so jumping from plane to plane is easy, and sometimes you'll do that several times/night. They all have TKS systems, which worked really well during the nasty months.
The people there were all great to work with and I was never pressured to go, and I never heard of any other pilots being pressured either. The hardest thing was the pay (but I hear it's up a little bit), but the flying was fun. Tiring, but fun.
Hope that helps.