MKUltra

Study hard.. Take a few months as an fo to get comfortable..m there is a lot going on the plane from gate to runway in this plane.. Throw in a busy clt and single engine taxi and it get wonky.

Took me about 300 hours in the plane before everything started to slow down.. Now that's me and I suck.. I am debating to either upgrade jet or dash..

aviator493

Yeah, I'm studying my ass off. Knocked out the 3 written tests and still have month until class. The Saab 340 took me about 3 months to really be comfortable on.

buddies8

That is normal. Don't let anyone tell you different. Six months to be so comfortable in new aircraft to where it's like a second layer of skin.

aviator493

No rush here. Safety and proficiency first then throw the bid in.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

MKUltra

Plus we have slave labor reserve rules.. I have no desire to sit reserve.. It's freaking ridiculous how abused on reserve u can be at the company..

aviator493

They seem desperate to fill seats. Almost made it seem like reserve lines don't even exist. Ha

MKUltra

They are desperate and i know 2 year guys that are captain and holding a line at the right base... Roanoke is the worst place for reserve right now. SBY is short fo and captains.. mdt is short captains heavy fos and philly... well that place is changing monthly... but there 9 month fos still on reserve at philly.

This is all dash..

As i said reserve at pdt is terrible.. it is hell on young single people and the pit of dispair for those with a family. If you have to commute and do reserve forget knowing anything normal..

The whole dash 8 pilot group is absolutely worn out.. we're walking around like zoombies.. yes there is an amazing amount of money to be made.. some captains are going to make over 170k this year the way things are going.. but it's brutal.

billyho

First off it was **** Poor planning by the company and the pilots are the ones that suffer dearly. Of course people are making tons of money but so what if you have a family and a life.
They dragged there feet and in a time they should've been fat on pilots (with the RJ program also) they were actually short.
I remember in OCT before I left saying, "why don't we have instructors trained have them in place for growth and also because we'll be losing many to the flow, why aren't we big on reserve Captains and FO's since we are going to be growing."?????? I just shook my head thinking this is going to a royal F-up by next summer. I was wrong it was earlier.

The only answer now I believe is to 1. Ask American to drop there block hours 2. Park about 2-3 Dash 8's because this will allow for normal staffing and allow the training department to catch up. 3. Open CLT as a crew base since we do so much flying in and out of CLT with the Dash 8/300's this will be an incredible recruiting tool because honestly WHO the hell wants to be in PHILLY only? Plus if the weather goes down in ROA then you have cut your crew access to CLT since SBY only has a few flights a day.

That's just my suggestions


Do this and get back on Track!!!!

chrisreedrules

If you open up CLT you could start flying your own routes that PSA has been doing out of CLT and we can take more routes in other places. Win win. Even though I do like flying into new bern.

billyho

The Dash 8 300's have always been doing flying in and out of CLT and that's mostly where they've been since Piedmont acquired them.

Yes, EWN is a great overnight now for the Piedmont Crews and it was an Awesome crew bases. Boats, beach and the crews partied together. It was often referred to by many as "The Island!"

You had to watch out however because if you were a douche bag there was a good chance you'd get 'voted off the island'

Fun times and I'm glad I got to experience probably the most fun I'll ever have in aviation while based there.