Author Topic: big rigs (Read 991 times)

Maverick · « **Reply #30 on:** June 03, 2007, 08:40:23 PM »

Oklahoma has their best roads all with tolls on them. I get charged the same rate as commercial trucks since I have 5 axles on the ground with the house in tow. They also have toll booths in the middle of nofreakingwhere!!! You'll stop for toll booths 3 to 5 times just cruising through the state.

rpm · « **Reply #31 on:** June 03, 2007, 10:52:53 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Maverick
You'll stop for toll booths 3 to 5 times just cruising through the state.

Ever drive around Chicago? I swear they are every 2 miles.

Captain Virgil Hilts · « **Reply #32 on:** June 04, 2007, 01:30:40 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by rpm
Ever drive around Chicago? I swear they are every 2 miles.

You ain't lyin. And the roads still suck. But they have pretty glass encased things with crap in them over the road.

SFRT - Frenchy · « **Reply #33 on:** June 04, 2007, 09:49:53 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by oy1crazyace
\
if u want a job with good money become a pilot and fly cargo. im a pilot and a student at SIUC as an aviation major, Now they make good money.
cargo pilots get to see alot, have a reliable schedual, and depending where u end up, you may be home everynight. and the best part is they can end up getting 200+ thousand dollars yearly. trust me this is the way to go.

... you are high as a freacking kite!

Maverick · « **Reply #34 on:** June 04, 2007, 10:11:45 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by rpm
Ever drive around Chicago? I swear they are every 2 miles.

Heck no!! We drive 100 miles out of our way to avoid the chicago metro area. I drove a car into chicago once in the 70's and it was a bloody nightmare then.

The trucker term I heard for chicago and it's traffic is a scatological term that takes the place of the letters chi and wouldn't be allowed on this bbs.

mrshiver · « **Reply #35 on:** June 04, 2007, 11:35:06 AM »

Never did the Owner Operator bit but spent five years driving for a couple of outfits on the east coast. Still had the paper logs and if you wanted to make a decent living you had to run two sets to stay legal.

I'll never forget the day I got pulled around back and accidently gave the inspector the wrong log book. He was cool about it (lucky me) and gave me until they were done the brake inspection to set things right.

Complained to my dispatcher once about running out of hours when I first started driving, I found myself south of Chicago for two days, unable to find a load. Learned my lesson real quick.

But if you're single with no strong attachments at home, hook up with a good company and make the coast to coast runs.

oy1crazyace · « **Reply #36 on:** June 04, 2007, 11:38:01 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by SFRT - Frenchy
... you are high as a freacking kite!

what makes you say that and what do you have to back it up?

SFRT - Frenchy · « **Reply #37 on:** June 04, 2007, 02:44:28 PM »

To back it up, I happen to be one of those

Althrough the $200K cargo pilot is technically true, your carreer advice is along the lines of: "You want to be Justin Timberlake, take a few singing lessons and win American Idol."

Granteed you will be making 200K+ after 12 years in a cargo company such as UPS, FedEx, the seats are very few. Only 2,800 pilots total for UPS, 5,000 for FedEx. Plus the minimums to enter UPS, are 1,000h turbine PIC and they are quite big on the transoceanic crossing experience. The interview process is a week long, and they are quite picking, even more since the pilot industry is opening up again. A friend of mine with 5000h DC10 captain time got rejected.

Cargo is usually your first real job, the 135 IFR gig where you learn the trade shiny out of your CFI.
You painfully accumulated your 1,200TT, barely cleared the 500h Xcountry and 70ish actual IFR, and you find yourself at the controls of a Cessna 210/Cessna 402/Seneca/Navaro braving the elements at night. After a year ... or a couple of years, you might move to a Beech 99/ Metro and get your career going the right way accumulating those turbine PIC hours.

In my airline, Western Air, you start on the right seat of a Metroliner (twin turbine) at 1,600/month, after 6 months to a year you move to Cessna 402 captain at 2,000/month. You stay there between 6 months to two years before a Captain job opens on the Metro where you get bumped to a woopeedoo 2,500/month after you get your type ride. Then depending on merit, you get $500 bump every 6 months, and you will top out at $4,000/month, usually after 4-5 years since you started. Personally, I got lucky, I got right seat for 2 months, C402 for 2 weeks, and after 6 months Metro captain I'm already at 4K.

Ameriflight, you'll start in a Piper Lance or Navaro at 2,000ish, 2,400ish when u reach Beech99 captain, and 3,500ish Metro captain.

Thank god, since last year, the industry is changing and you can get hired by Mesa as a F/O with a wooping 400TT/100ME:O ... (hope no one flies Mesa around here hehehe), and spend 3 to 5 years on the right seat before you start building turb PIC. But starting pay is 18,000/year.

Anyway, like you said, you can be a cargo pilot at 200K+, but that's after at best 8 years+ trying to get hired by UPS, and 12 years+ inside UPS ... emanwhile you try to survive extremely low pay while paying back your student pilot ratings period of $40K. No offence, but not a good "change of career" choice advice to me.Check out this Airline Central link

Curval · « **Reply #38 on:** June 04, 2007, 02:56:08 PM »

Accounting firms are DESPERATE for CPAs right now.

Hell, if you guarentee them that you will work for them many of the big companies will pay for your education.

Good money, great opportunity to make alot more and you don't get hemeroids as badly as truckers do.

It is a bit of a slog at first trying to understand what it is all about, but once you are able to talk the talk it isn't all that hard to walk the walk.

oy1crazyace · « **Reply #39 on:** June 04, 2007, 07:20:47 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by SFRT - Frenchy
To back it up, I happen to be one of those

Althrough the $200K cargo pilot is technically true, your carreer advice is along the lines of: "You want to be Justin Timberlake, take a few singing lessons and win American Idol."

Granteed you will be making 200K+ after 12 years in a cargo company such as UPS, FedEx, the seats are very few. Only 2,800 pilots total for UPS, 5,000 for FedEx. Plus the minimums to enter UPS, are 1,000h turbine PIC and they are quite big on the transoceanic crossing experience. The interview process is a week long, and they are quite picking, even more since the pilot industry is opening up again. A friend of mine with 5000h DC10 captain time got rejected.

Cargo is usually your first real job, the 135 IFR gig where you learn the trade shiny out of your CFI.
You painfully accumulated your 1,200TT, barely cleared the 500h Xcountry and 70ish actual IFR, and you find yourself at the controls of a Cessna 210/Cessna 402/Seneca/Navaro braving the elements at night. After a year ... or a couple of years, you might move to a Beech 99/ Metro and get your career going the right way accumulating those turbine PIC hours.

In my airline, Western Air, you start on the right seat of a Metroliner (twin turbine) at 1,600/month, after 6 months to a year you move to Cessna 402 captain at 2,000/month. You stay there between 6 months to two years before a Captain job opens on the Metro where you get bumped to a woopeedoo 2,500/month after you get your type ride. Then depending on merit, you get $500 bump every 6 months, and you will top out at $4,000/month, usually after 4-5 years since you started. Personally, I got lucky, I got right seat for 2 months, C402 for 2 weeks, and after 6 months Metro captain I'm already at 4K.

Ameriflight, you'll start in a Piper Lance or Navaro at 2,000ish, 2,400ish when u reach Beech99 captain, and 3,500ish Metro captain.

Thank god, since last year, the industry is changing and you can get hired by Mesa as a F/O with a wooping 400TT/100ME:O ... (hope no one flies Mesa around here hehehe), and spend 3 to 5 years on the right seat before you start building turb PIC. But starting pay is 18,000/year.

Anyway, like you said, you can be a cargo pilot at 200K+, but that's after at best 8 years+ trying to get hired by UPS, and 12 years+ inside UPS ... emanwhile you try to survive extremely low pay while paying back your student pilot ratings period of $40K. No offence, but not a good "change of career" choice advice to me.Check out this Airline Central link

yes you are very right about all that but then again u have to really love what your doing when u hop into it, and i wouldnt recomend it as a career change its more like what u wanna do originally. personally its what im looking for and ive been working my a** of in flight school to try and come out as the best, and im already networking to get in with some other ppl when im done. your right u can spend 20 some years getting to that 200k and i know im gonna be broke for a long time but its what i wanna do. my fight instructor just got on with air net, hes willing to help get me in over there and it should be about 1 year in a cessna caravan flying nights and then 6 months in the right seat of a lear. then they assign you your own lear over there. and from there who knows, maybe if im lucky fedex or ups, unless of course i end up wanting to stay where im at with them.