Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathpilot
Hi Dburg30,
thanks for the latest information!
I got a offer of employment from them...
How many hours are you at work when doing the discovery flights? I've heard something like 12 hour shifts, and when not flying, doing lots of office work in between flights? Any truth to that??
Do pilots get to calculate fuel, and weight & balance, or does dispatch/ground crews do that?
Thank you very much in advance for the reply!
Congratulations on the offer. As far as shifts go, it is supposed to be a 12 hour shift 7am-7pm but it’s more like 9am-5pm. We show up at 7 am and preflight the 6-7 airplanes then we sit around and wait for our people to show up (usually around 9ish) and then depending on how busy we are and how fast we get the flight done, we’re normally closing up shop around 5:30/6pm at the latest. You’ll have plenty of time during your shift to sit and relax for a few minutes because we always have at least 9-10 pilots working.
There is “No” office work at all, we are just there to fly and make the customers (Chinese, Japanese, S. Koreans) happy. We also don’t do w/b, there are plenty of ground crew/dispatchers that do that for you. Basically you wait for the crowds to come in, they fill out the paperwork, get weighed and then they cycle thru the pilots based on seniority and give them slips of paper with a letter on it. You take that to dispatch and they assign you and aircraft. Then you go into the lobby and call your letter and then go fly.
Some days are busier than others, so it’s hard to give you an average but my first week I flew 21.9 hours so you should have no problem hitting 60 for the month. You will have to go through a ground school, take a familiarization exam, and do checkouts on the Cessna and Piper, and then observations flights before they sign you off. Normally takes about three days before you’re done and flying on your own.