The Gardener

What sort of schedule would one have if they were ANC based for Horizon or one of the handful of other ANC regional out of there?

Are they home each night or are there overnights?

My wife and I are considering a move up there so I'm trying to get a gauge on if one can have some sort of normalcy with flying?

I think the end all goal would be to get on with Alaska, but I'd need a degree or a rule change first.

alaskadrifter

Corvus and Penair both have you in your own bed at the end of the night, I think QX too.

The Gardener

Thanks man. I've flown Penair, but that's all I know. How are they to work for? Any idea? Should one expect to maintain a crazy busy schedule during the summer months?

alaskadrifter

I don't know, I haven't flown for them yet. Ask ASPilot2Be.

snackysmores

At Horizon the ANC pilot schedules are usually ANC-FAI twice per day. No overnights, only day trips. The base is very senior though for FOs. As a new hire based in ANC you will sit reserve and never fly. Ever. We have ANC FO's transferring back down to PDX because in 1 year they only flew maybe 100-200 hours total and they will never reach their 1k 121 time before they're due for upgrade.

So if you don't want to fly I guess it can be good, but it will make recurrent training a nightmare for you since you never touch the controls.

The Gardener

That'd be fine if I can be on call while on a Kayak in Seward during the summer!

alaskadrifter

Seward is a pretty far drive.

The Gardener

Yeah, I was being facetious.

alaskadrifter

Ha! Good . Penair has a ground school on July 20th and Corvus On the 19th.

Rangi

Corvus is in an interesting place, here is some stuff to consider if you are interested in it.

10 Dashes, 80 Pilots. No word on a ground school for off the street guys because we mostly grab folks from the 135 side.

That being said, if you sign on with us, pretty important you understand how that combined 135/121 seniority list works. One cannot figure out when upgrade will come, because you will always have a bunch of 135 guys who could come over and knock your FO seniority down or your CA seniority down.

Upgrades are 6.5 years to 10 years. That's important for two reasons. First, it means if you stick around that long, the living gets really easy and CA's tend to be lifers. It's a good gig for those guys. Second, unless you have alternate money, FO's pretty much make $35k-40k until they upgrade and according to dept of labor/workforce dev, ANC is a pretty spendy place to live. http://laborstats.alaska.gov/col/col.pdf Take a hard look at the benny package.

For other opinions on upgrades at Corvus, see this penair discussion:

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/hi...ml#post2116697

I know it is the airline industry and anything can happen, but be aware the airline was purchased by an investor group under one year ago with a history of selling in a few years. So if you sign on, hard to say who you'll be working for in a few years. Maybe that's important, maybe not.

What else should a guy know about the job? It can get pretty physical, even as a 121 ATP you will be deicing at 40 below and over wing fuelling a dash on a ladder out in places like unk. You'll be slinging bags too.

All that negative aside, the company is held up by a strong group of employees who excel at problem solving on the fly. If that's your forte and you don't mind the chaos, it is awesome! The flying is pretty fun, pretty landscapes, and variety abounds.

And to return to the original question, schedule wise you are either an AM or PM. That's as detailed as the schedule gets because it will change on the fly. Just don't make any personal plans on a day you are scheduled to work and life will be good. Both have you home each night and you can pretty much get 4 on 3 off once you have a year or so seniority. There is a 60 hour guarantee and that's what you'll get. During the summer you might get 70 for a month or two, and on the flip side during the winter you'll have a few months where you'll fly around 40.

HTH!