Real Answers from Real Pilots

April '18 Schedule

Schedules Tory's Schedule
#1

28 hours, 67 credits, 16 days off, 4 training days

Completed my first year of recurrent training! Training was 3 days long. The 4th day was a scenario-based evaluation, including a oral exam. Great experience. Passed with flying colors.

My mom got to be the first person in my family to fly as my passenger!

I also started volunteering 1 hour per month in a group called the SEA Local Forum. We are a group of pilots, flight attendants, ramp agents, and maintenance personnel. We discuss how to make our operation safer and run smoother.

DH = Deadhead

  1. BZN-SEA-FAT-SEA-PDX
  2. PDX
  3. PDX-SEA
  5. SEA Local Forum meeting
  10. DH to PDX, Recurrent Ground School
  11. Sim
  12. Sim
  13. Sim Eval
  17. DH to SFO
  18. SFO-SNA-SFO-PDX
  19. PDX-SEA-PDX-SEA (Flew Mom on last leg)
  23. SEA-BZN
  24. BZN-SEA-BZN-SEA-SMF
  25. SMF
  26. SMF-SAN-FAT-PDX-SEA
#2

Tory,

16 days off sweet! How many hours did fly? This is your first year at Horizon right?

Kenroy.

#3

Kenroy,

Yep! I’m in my 13 month at Horizon. I flew 28 hours last month. Flight time was low because of recurrent training and I had to drop a trip at the end of the month because I was sick. Pretty cool perk, being able to call in sick without being reprimanded!

Tory

#4

Tory,

Dont know how I missed that at the top lol. That is a pretty cool perk though. How many hours did you fly for your first year? What would you say the average is ?

Kenroy.

#5

So I was hired April 2017 and have been flying the line since June 2017. I have flown 712 hours to date. So, that’s an average of about 65 hours per month.

Tory

#6

Oh nice! Good stuff. Just trying to gauge my expectations for when I get to the regionals, 2 months to the Line is pretty quick too. :+1:t5:

Kenroy.

1 Like
#7

Keep in mind that my experience was rare. I’ve been getting a lot of flying and have had a line ever since I got off IOE. I have two friends at SkyWest and they both sat reserve for three months in Chicago before they could hold a line. One is now BOI based, the other LAX. The LAX pilot is transferring to ORD to get more flying. LAX is too senior.

Tory

#8

I will keep that in mind. I guess the best bet is trying to choose a junior base whenever the time comes to be at the regionals. Thanks for the info.

Kenroy.

1 Like
#9

Tory, do most of your first flights of the day start at 6 am or does this vary?

#10

Additionally, are you having to do a lot of night flying (i.e. after midnight)?

#11

Bob,

I’m sure Tory will answer but it’s safe to say if most of his flights start at 6am he isn’t flying after midnight.

Adam

#12

Hey Bob!

My trips start before 6am or after 10am so I can avoid rush hour traffic :grin: And the latest I fly is til 12:30am, but that doesn’t happen often. I have a pretty good schedule. I actually prefer the trips that start early. In my case, the trips that start early on the first day have afternoon start times every other day of the trip. Gives me the opportunity to sleep in or do something productive before the flight.

Tory

#13

Bob,

Regional schedules tend to start early in the day and finish early, or start later in the day and finish around midnight. Major airline schedules can be very different as they bring with them much longer flights that span several time zones. For example, most Europe bound flights leave the east coast between 7-10 pm and fly all night.

Bottom line, being an airline pilot is a 24/7 operation.

Chris