DMH1967

Threeighteen there is nonsense everywhere. No matter where you work pilots btch about it. It's what we do. I have no desire to fly a 767, unless they're doing schedules from LAX to SEA, PDX, SMF, etc. It's never interested me.

threeighteen

Alaska is hiring. They do those routes. They don't do much EWR/JFK. They don't go to SDQ. They have a fraction of the nonsense. I don't think you really understand how much nonsense gets dumped on your shoulders as an RJ captain that you just won't see anywhere else.

Utah

I'm still shocked at the money they are spending on regional pilots now. In your case at minimum guarantee, it's $170k a year to start. You should be able to fly the Baron on that.

DMH1967

Actually I do get it. I spent 7 years as a CA at what is now Envoy before I moved on. But I can look back on the last 16 years and realize it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows at the majors either. I look at the UAL boards here and guys hate their reserve system. Listen to the guys I know at AA, and they complain about it. SW, same thing. This job, no matter where you go, is not the dream job everyone sold it to us as being back in the mid to late 80's when I started flying. There is no life of working 6-8 days per month with a big fat wallet, with no cares in the world and everyone treating you with the utmost respect. This is today's world, where nobody is happy anywhere.

domino

with all that money and since you only want to do it as a hobby, buy a C152 and fly yourself up and down the west coast. Sounds like the regionals aren’t for you any more.

trip

The good is you’d start at 10yr scale 182$ plus 7500$ bonus for the type experience.
We had a 310 for a couple years, couldn’t imagine filling those tip tanks these days!

WheelInTheBack

He has a Baron he’s putting gas in. Although my preference wouldn’t be a light twin, nor a 152 for that matter. Different strokes for different folks though.

I know this isn’t going to directly answer your question, but in case any other retirees are thinking about reliving their early flying days again and trying the regionals, I’m gonna throw in my four cents here, and it’s mostly because I’d hate to see your Baron suffer from neglect…

The problem with going back to the regionals is that you’ll be making ok money to pad the 100LL piggy bank, but finding the time off to enjoy your airplane and other life pleasures goes out the window. Living in base probably still won’t afford enough free time to keep the job enjoyable, and probably more so with LA’s ungodly traffic.

That being said, I enjoyed flying the regional jets, just not flying FOR the regionals, and thinking about selling my plane was a monthly occurrence due to lack of use and developing the problems airplanes develop when they aren’t getting used. There are some options out there doing the type of flying you don’t wanna do but you’ll make more money and work waaaay less, kinda like being on vacation forever. One has already been mentioned. But my guess is you’ll come out of retirement only to go right back in not wanting to deal with the regional bull****.

Point is, don’t discredit all your options and run straight to the regionals post retirement just because they’re paying ok now. You’re not wrong in that the industry as a whole has plenty of cons, but flying is fun and so is making money. You worked hard for 30 years. Consider working smarter not harder now even if it means doing some overseas or corporate work. 30-40 hours a month won’t kill ya. 90+ hours of regional flying a month for similar money might…and I suspect the money will only be similar for a short time longer.

Turboprop

i hope i have answer all your questions, if you need more info, let me know

DMH1967

We just got the plane back from having both engines and props overhauled, everything firewall forward on the plane is new/overhauled/upgraded. Needless to say that depleted the engine reserve fund I had set aside, so now I'm rebuilding that at around $100/hour on the plane. I did a Pilots N Paws flight 2 days ago, 5.4 hours of flying round trip. It was $939 worth of fuel, and $540 engine reserve. That's up A LOT from pre-pandemic fuel prices. Avgas used to be about $4.50/gal if you shopped around. Now I'm happy to find it at $6.20. It's a kick in the nuts for sure, but I do love flying the plane and doing the charity work.

DMH1967

You make some valid points. I get what you're saying. That said, having been in this industry for 30 years, 14 years at regionals and 16 at a major, I have a lot of acquaintances at all different airlines. Some like Southwest have better things in their contract like high productivity trips helping them get more scheduled days off, but that's not industry-wide. Some like Delta have a ridiculously good sick bank policy, but that really isn't industry-wide. Industry comparisons show things like 12-13 days off minimum, some conditions pushing it up to 14 days off in some cases, but really it's one or 2 extra days off. Is that worth going back to doing flying I truly don't enjoy, for 1 or 2 more days off? Yes there are issues at every regional that turn the operation into a dumpster fire, but trust me, many of the majors compete with each other on how to most poorly handle an IROP. News lines like, "Southwest computer system goes down, leaves thousands stranded for days!" and Jetblue management replies, "Hold my beer..." Thunderstorms blast through central Texas every spring, or an ice storm hits Dallas, and it's mayhem at not just Eagle, but AA. When I was at Eagle 20 years ago, I remember sitting in the crew lounge as a hail storm blew through, and grounded EVERY airplane on the field at DFW because of hail damage. Things that should be thought out ahead, like snow in the northeast during the winter, "Who could have predicted we'd get 18" of snow in Boston in January?" seem to never get planned out by management, but it's not just at the regional level. It's every level.

All of that being the case, I know what I'm getting back into. I retired almost entirely because my schedule, being on the reserve cusp in the left seat, was either a line full of repetitive redeyes, or reserve trips that were full of repetitive redeyes. When I was in my 20s, 30s, even 40s, staying up all night didn't feel like it was detrimental to my health. At 55 years old, staying up all night leads to chronic fatigue, chronic stress, and me being more of an a-hole than I normally am. I NEEDED to be away from that, and at my previous carrier there was no getting away from it living on the west coast. But at 55, I'm also finding that I'm restless, bored to tears 4-7 days per week, sit in front of my computer far too much, and end days thinking "I just have to get out of this house before I lose my mind." I'm actually not ready to be retired yet, but I'm not able to go back to doing what I was doing these last 11 years I've lived in SoCal. I also don't have any desire to move back east where I grew up.

I'm not sure I want to come right back to 90 hours per month. In truth I'd be happy doing part-time somewhere, but in looking at corporate and 135, the majority of the operators want time in type, full-time, 8-on-6-off type schedules which again don't appeal to me. I'm a 121 type of guy, it's what I know, what I'm comfortable with, what I'm good at. I still can handle a few more years of it, especially if things come together right. Being SAN based would be the best of things, since even in rush hour traffic I'm an hour away. BUT I need to feel confident that I can get that base sooner rather than later, that I'm not going to be ATL based for 2 years hoping to get back east. PHX, SLC, SFO, would be doable commutes in the short term. Transcon commute, not so much.