FW EMS vs other single pilot TP 135

[hindsight2020]

Paging @Velocity173 @Zeldman et al. Musing about what I want to do when they kick me out. Wondering if civilian paid flying is even in the cards.

Priorities are:
- Homestead friendly schedule. Minimize RONs, 7on/7off or the like.
- Clear six figs after mil retirement (so essentially 70K +/- )
- Prefer single pilot, the gear slinging thing is not my cup of tea and I just got too used to flying with my favorite Captain.

So far the only thing resembling anything close to this is FW EMS. I'm told not a job found near the cities?¿ (I'm located between KSAT and KAUS), but maybe I'm not looking in the right venues. Moving to the sticks again, or commuting (meaning airline commuting, not the nominal driving 45 minutes or whatever pedestrian meaning of commuting) is not in the cards for us.

Wondering if there's similar avenues available in the non-EMS segments of 91/135, especially wrt the schedules and RON front.

Any intel from the 135/EMS warriors appreciated. Figured this job either doesn't exist or pays too little to make it worth my while as a full-time commitment, at which point I'll just go lick stamps at the post office for GS-12 until the kid graduates high school, and give up the full-time flying for money thing.

Thanks!

 

[Velocity173]

Paging @Velocity173 @Zeldman et al. Musing about what I want to do when they kick me out. Wondering if civilian paid flying is even in the cards.

Priorities are:
- Homestead friendly schedule. Minimize RONs, 7on/7off or the like.
- Clear six figs after mil retirement (so essentially 70K +/- )
- Prefer single pilot, the gear slinging thing is not my cup of tea and I just got too used to flying with my favorite Captain.

So far the only thing resembling anything close to this is FW EMS. I'm told not a job found near the cities?¿ (I'm located between KSAT and KAUS), but maybe I'm not looking in the right venues. Moving to the sticks again, or commuting (meaning airline commuting, not the nominal driving 45 minutes or whatever pedestrian meaning of commuting) is not in the cards for us.

Wondering if there's similar avenues available in the non-EMS segments of 91/135, especially wrt the schedules and RON front.

Any intel from the 135/EMS warriors appreciated. Figured this job either doesn't exist or pays too little to make it worth my while as a full-time commitment, at which point I'll just go lick stamps at the post office for GS-12 until the kid graduates high school, and give up the full-time flying for money thing.

Thanks!

Well if you had RW I could hook you up with a job. It would be much mo fun than FW as well. Based on your requirements, FW EMS would fit that to a tee. Usually starting pay for those guys is around 75K but I’m sure they get plenty of overtime, holiday pay, bonus, etc to push that to six figures.

James or Zeldman would probably be the best to ask since they’re FW dudes. Like I said, RW is wide open right now and you could pretty much pick an area of the country and live and work there and be home every day / night.

 

[hindsight2020]

Well if you had RW I could hook you up with a job. It would be much mo fun than FW as well. Based on your requirements, FW EMS would fit that to a tee. Usually starting pay for those guys is around 75K but I’m sure they get plenty of overtime, holiday pay, bonus, etc to push that to six figures.

James or Zeldman would probably be the best to ask since they’re FW dudes. Like I said, RW is wide open right now and you could pretty much pick an area of the country and live and work there and be home every day / night.

Yeah, the RW ship sailed for me a long time ago, but I figured the FW jobs weren't too far off the mark when it came to the schedule RW EMS is generally known for. I'll have to take a more educated look at the local FW EMS market and see where these airplanes are staged from.

 

[Radar Contact]

@hindsight2020 are you willing to relocate if needed? My Uncle just retired as the chief pilot for a large company in the southeast (large city). He was a former military pilot and I know he has a special place in his heart for you guys. I can see if he still has an in with hiring. I'm not sure what the schedule was like but if you're interested, let me know.

 

[James331]

It’s not a issue to clear 100k with the job alone, and that’s as someone who doesn’t even really do much OT at all, normally 7/7, benifits, 401k, there are some bases in San Diego, around different parts of TX, one by st louis il, with the industry pilot pay shortage there are openings.

That said

Mins around 2500tt, couple hundred IMC, thousand or so turbine, most pilots have well north of that.

Check the base, ask about the numbers and if it’s hospital or community based, often the community ones are a better base culture.

This job gives you tons of room to hang yourself, you have to make many decisions on your own, you can be toned out to take a flight at 0300 to a airport and to drop off at a airport you didn’t know existed before, launch into IMC, there are times I’ve actually had to call the local cop shop to get them to drive down a rural runway and give me a condition report. So what I’m saying is make sure you’re up for it, it’s about as single pilot as single pilot gets.

 

[hindsight2020]

@hindsight2020 are you willing to relocate if needed? My Uncle just retired as the chief pilot for a large company in the southeast (large city). He was a former military pilot and I know he has a special place in his heart for you guys. I can see if he still has an in with hiring. I'm not sure what the schedule was like but if you're interested, let me know.

Appreciate the lead, but this is more of a market survey/research question for when the party ends for me. I don't know exactly what our lives will be like when I hang up the G-suit, other than the certainty that the kid will be in high school. As such, the thought of uprooting at that particular point in time is just not in the cards. Empty nester, different story, but that will be 4 years into my military retirement. Thankfully the wife should have been working as an RN for more than a decade by that point, which is why I can entertain the paycut in the first place.

I think once the kid graduates HS, we're home free and could live with more abandon as empty nesters. I'll probably do the wife a solid and let her chase her nursing jobs and just find flying work wherever that takes us. There's also the possibility of throwing caution into the wind and moving back to the island for a couple years and doing that, but that's more far rocks. I really wished I would have availed myself of an active duty career earlier in my 20s. Retiring in ones late 40s is the absolute pits for retirement income. Nothing I can do about the Bush era economy years aka the Lost Decade. It hit everybody hard, even us non-airline pilots.

 

[hindsight2020]

It’s not a issue to clear 100k with the job alone, and that’s as someone who doesn’t even really do much OT at all, normally 7/7, benifits, 401k, there are some bases in San Diego, around different parts of TX, one by st louis il, with the industry pilot pay shortage there are openings.

That said

Mins around 2500tt, couple hundred IMC, thousand or so turbine, most pilots have well north of that.

Check the base, ask about the numbers and if it’s hospital or community based, often the community ones are a better base culture.

This job gives you tons of room to bang yourself, you have to make many decisions on your own, you can be toned out to take a flight at 0300 to a from a airport and to a airport you didn’t know existed before, launch into IMC, there are times I’ve actually had to call the local cop shop to get them to drive down a rural runway and give me a condition report. So what I’m saying is make sure you’re up for it, it’s abiut as single pilot as single pilot gets.

Copy all. Do you know anything about the non-EMS single pilot turboprop market? Any particular type of outfits better than others (i.e. 91 v 91k v 135 ) when it comes to prevalence of out-n-back style flying, or analogous schedules to EMS (7/7 or the like)? Just trying to get a feel for what's out there.

I'd be willing to a slight paycut for the sake of QOL for the 4 years I'd be pushing the kid outta high school, while maintaining industry contacts and turbine recency. Once we become empty nesters, the homesteading thing certainly won't be an issue anymore and we can once again live horny, childless, vocationally irresponsible lives (aka feel alive again LOL) and live wherever the sun sets that day .

 

[Zeldman]

Homestead friendly schedule. Minimize RONs, 7on/7off or the like.

I like the home every night, no need to have an overnight bag packed and waiting, just emergency overnight basics. In 7 years I only had one over night and that was due to the left prop feathering by itself when I reduced power to land. Now some of the jet jobs that do long distance trips, like somewhere in Europe back to the USA will see over nights.

I always had good med crews, dedicated to their work and everyone looked out for each other. Maintenance was always a priority, anytime I asked a mechanic to ride with me on a post maintenance flight they always jumped right in.

Pick were you would like to live, there are jobs in big cities as well as small, rural communities. Alaska had a lot of openings last spring, not sure about now. The pay gets better after a few years, first year is usually not what I like.

Life near the reservation was always interesting. There are the psychos. They could be entertaining or trouble. Then there are the interesting ones. I took a couple code talkers off the Navajo reservation, I took a guy that claimed to be the first Indian helicopter pilot in Vietnam. One time we were picking up a guy in a small town. He had been shot in the leg by his wife. The ambulance with the patient showed up, so we unloaded him off the ambulance and was getting ready to load him on the plane. Suddenly a pickup came racing on the ramp.. The guy jumps up off the stretcher and started running away. We caught him and he was yelling..."That's my wife...let me go 'cause she's gonna shoot me again.!!!" The two ladies on the ambulance knew the woman and were able to calm the wife down, but the husband limped onto the plane. He didn't want to be tied down on the stretcher with his wife close by....

Night time usually isn't bad.... except there were a few times that I had just made it home from a trip, and as soon as the hair on my ear touched the fuzz on the pillow the phone goes off... I have set a good hot dinner on the table only to have the phone ring and then I leave the food on the table, but that was the exception.

Time off.... we worked 14 on and 7 off. After a few years I had 4 weeks vacation a year that if I had wanted to I could have taken 6 weeks off straight through, but I usually spit it into 2 three week vacations a year.

Before medevac I was flying full time in Alaska. I was averaging around 900 to 1000 hours a year. After 10 years I was totally burned out. I hated flying. Medivac flying put the fun back in flying for me. Basically when the phone rang I never knew where I was going or what the patient condition would be. And I enjoyed that. Plus I was no longer slogging around in 1 mile vis looking for a landing strip out in the middle of no where....

The bad for me was the kids. It really bothered me when a kid passed away. Old people, Ok, they had their chance at life, but the kids really bothered me, especially the abused ones.

I never wore the goofy looking one piece assistant plumber suits. I said I am going to look like a pilot instead. Never heard a word about that from the company. In time most of the other pilots started doing the same thing. There is the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS) (pronounced cames), that is supposed to audit and accredit fixed-wing, rotary wing, and surface medical transport services worldwide to a set of industry-established criteria, but they could never prove to me that a single layer cotton suit would be safer than a shirt and pants. In fact I proved to them that the single layer one piece was a little more dangerous since it took too long to get out of if on fire. But no, CAMTS sez real pilots wear one piece onesies.... (mini rant over)

There is no sense of urgency where the company says go no matter what, or rule bending because someones life depends on it. Patient condition is not a factor in the go/no go decision making. It is a Part 135 job with the same rules as any other company. The POI will be checking to make sure all the tees are dotted and the eyes are crossed......

It is not for everyone, but I think it is worth looking into.

 

[DavidWhite]

Not a whole lot of stuff in the KSAT/KAUS area that has both time off and a decent salary. If you don’t mind flying in Alaska there are plenty of good medevac jobs up there, most you will clear north of $100k and they are commutable with 15 days off.

I spend a lot of time in New Braunfels and commute back and forth to AK. It really isn’t too bad.

 

[James331]

Copy all. Do you know anything about the non-EMS single pilot turboprop market? Any particular type of outfits better than others (i.e. 91 v 91k v 135 ) when it comes to prevalence of out-n-back style flying, or analogous schedules to EMS (7/7 or the like)? Just trying to get a feel for what's out there.

I'd be willing to a slight paycut for the sake of QOL for the 4 years I'd be pushing the kid outta high school, while maintaining industry contacts and turbine recency. Once we become empty nesters, the homesteading thing certainly won't be an issue anymore and we can once again live horny, childless, vocationally irresponsible lives (aka feel alive again LOL) and live wherever the sun sets that day .

Nothing really, I’ve seen some companies who are great and pay well north of your requirement, I’ve seen others where I don’t get how they even convince pilots to take the jobs, horrible conditions and pay, and most everything in between. Aviation is quite dynamic like that.

 

[Eric Stoltz]

Alaska. Lots of opportunities.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

 

[Velocity173]

Not single pilot but a company worth looking at. Some of my med-crews work for them part time in Carterville, GA. They fly all over the world for DOD air ambulance stuff but I think you could get on domestically with them.

https://phoenixair.com/about-us/

 

[kayoh190]

Kind of late to the game here, but what about Planesense? I think @mtuomi was there and really enjoyed it - home every night, six figures within a couple of years, and the PC-12 seems like it’d be a blast to fly. I don’t think they fly it single pilot, but you’ll open yourself up to a lot of additional options if you’re willing to budge on that.

 

[mtuomi]

Kind of late to the game here, but what about Planesense? I think @mtuomi was there and really enjoyed it - home every night, six figures within a couple of years, and the PC-12 seems like it’d be a blast to fly. I don’t think they fly it single pilot, but you’ll open yourself up to a lot of additional options if you’re willing to budge on that.

Semi necropost-reply, but I was at Tradewind Aviation. Awesome company, I loved my time there.