1st year was 2000 into 2001. Flying the sched on the west coast mixed in with a bit of charter work. It was a direct entry captain position. 100% floats. If memory serves, I made 42000 over that year based on about 80 hours a month. There was a three month probation wage as well. Seems to me during ...

How many Twins are they running these days and are they all from WCA?

I've been on hold for close to 2 hours now. I did get the busy signal earlier too. Yesterday as well. The music is getting tiresome!

If you fly floats, then don't get an expensive watch, (or use anything really expensive for that matter). The water's depths seem to attract expensive things

If anyone goes, be sure to check out the ex "Air Force One" collection on the active side of the base. They have everything from FDR's DC-4 with the wheelchair elevator to the 707. You can walk through all these planes however the interiors are protected with plexiglass. Still one of my favorite par...

Buzz jobs are for dummies and are generally done by younger low timers, although I do know a few older fellas who have got in a wee bit of trouble doing them. Professionals know their job is to get people and goods from A to B. Nothing less and nothing more. The job satisfaction should come from the...

1997: St. Theresa Point, MB. C-185, about $2500 a month. I was working directly for the reserve itself. Free accomodations if you could call it that. No booze. I lived in the back of the little office building and when the Fall came and it got cold I moved into the old shack next door because it had...

That's certainly spoken like a manager george. Should guys in your company be on the road for 300 hours a month for what they are making? I don't know, but I doubt it. Should they be told that they should suck it up and be happy because that's what the market dictates these days? I don't know. I do ...

The contract has two years to go. It will be interesting to see what happens with the 'one base' system at that point. I think in the meantime it would better suit the YHZ pilots in their cause to maintain a base if they would bid to fill all the available YHZ pairings instead of bidding the Toronto...

However, since most of the pilots live, and most of the flying originates elsewhere, like YYZ and YUL and out west to a growing extent, I'm sure at least a downsizing of the YHZ base is desirable to the company. This may be just a rumour (for now) but there is a valid reason for it being out there.

Always be a little suspicious of management and management wannabes when they throw around words like "family" and "one team". Words and statements like that are nothing more than tools to get you to do more for less.

When I was a bush pilot, the first few years I completed a semester of school during the winter and later would work for a landscaping company. After several years I had enough flying experience and got a job on the BC coast where I could fly floats all year round

We always suspected Baxter was setting it up to sell it after the Olympic Games. Moving from the hanger into a big expensive downtown office was the first thing in the big smoke and mirrors show that started there. Over the last few years they seemed to be disguising themselves as a big corporate co...

It's good to see this get some attention in the media as it badly needs it, but the guy they used was a bad example. When you work for two companies it's up to you to track your hours to make sure you're legal. 60 hours over his monthly limit? 18 hour day working two jobs? Those things don't happen ...

What is the effect of increased G (ie entry or accelerated pull out from the roll) on the altitude of coffin corner? Same as increased aircraft weight. For a given weight and altitude the aircraft will have specific speeds at which it will experience a low speed stall and a high speed stall. In bet...

I have no idea what the 550's coffin corner would look like at 34000, but rolling one whether you are trained in aerobatics or not just doesn't seem like the thing to do. Even if you did it perfectly, do you not think that you'd get canned if your boss new about it? This is a simple example of pilot...

Mucktuk,, Can you explain to me how a citation crashed doing a simple excercise such as a roll? something tells me that attempting aerobatics as you're near the coffin corner is not a good idea Exactly. Even the +2g's during entry, as Hedley points out, would be enough to cause a 'jet upset' at 300...

If you can get around back to back battery starts, then do it. Infact I can't think of why an operator would be doing them in a King Air or anything on wheels other that to save a little time in not charging the battery between starts. A twin otter in the bush (meaning no GPU) on floats with blade l...

Another union representing pilots in Canada is the IUOE (International Union of Operating Engineers). They represent Conair and West Coast Air pilots. If you are at a company that is looking for representation then they may be worth contacting if you don't want to go with ALPA. Good luck to the Wasa...

The quote on the Caravan picture above, "It's good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters, in the end," is so very true. The journey is where your stories are born.

The best job I had was for Green Airways in Red Lake Ontario. Its getting to be a while ago but I remember it well. We had a great crew and you really felt like you part of something there. I have lots of good memories of evenings sitting around with Bob and the crew having a few beers by the dock w...

The door latch set up on the Beaver is simply a piss poor design. Not only are they in a virtually unreachable place, they are too small and would be hard to find if you are going by feel alone. I realize their flush mounted design allows the door to be closed if you are packing the cabin full of fr...

Indeed. There's a lot of selfish types out there. It's rare to hear someone say a simple thankyou. Well done and good luck next season! One thing about flying floats: it never gets out of your system!

Thanks for the posts Rockie. As an outsider it is good to read some of the perspectives from both sides. I tend to agree with you, as many outsiders do. I think you are right in that many of the naysayers are thinking about the worse case scenario (all recent retirees coming back and everyone else s...

It's probably for private operators or for any new commercial operators. I don't think it would affect Tindi or ASC although I'm sure some folks (like the curious residents of Houseboat Bay) would like to see them move! I think the Back Bay and East Bay operators are so well established and accepted...