PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Twin operations up north
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Old 23rd Oct 2002, 12:42
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Mainframe

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Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Queensland, Australia
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Marpoo, yes, it has happened before, but usually you are compounding your chances of being exploited and ripped off.

As a low time pilot you are vulnerable (usually willingly so) to some of the shark operators "out there".

You will be lucky to get paid for your flying and more so for the aircraft hours.

Often you will get mixed up with an operator who has their own maintenance shop and quite surprisingly your maintenance bills will exceed what you are owed for the hours flown by the aircraft for that operator.

It has happened and maybe one or two of the victims will confirm this has happened.

So if Dad buys you a twin to get work, think about where and how you will maintain the aircraft, bearing in mind that the logistics of operating and maintaining an aircraft in a remote area will probably add $100/hr to your base operating cost.

You need to think about the fact that an aircraft (or any machinery) turns to S*#t ten times quicker up north in a remote salt laden atmosphere with mostly lots of dirt strip operations.

Ferrying to Darwin, Mount Isa etc for maintenance is expensive, so is the freight and downtime on parts, and you're probably staying in a motel during the unplanned outage and you're not earning money.

Probably ok for a capital city, bitumen runway venture, but otherwise, "up north", a great way to lose Dad a lot of money and give him a great tax break that he probably didn't plan on.

And what about the insurance company and their prohibitive premiums when someone outside their risk factors is going to fly their insured?

Please have a really good think about this, a great way to build twin hours, a great way to go broke quickly.
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