So the King Air job is Single Pilot most likely?

The Jet job in the USA is copilot?

Flying a jet as a copilot is child’s play in comparison. In fact, flying a jet is child’s play.

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From US part 135 Cargo airline job section. The Beech 99 is an unpressurized King Air flown single pilot usually at night. Even the 1900 mins are lower than the Kununurra job.

Captain Positions

• BE99 Captain: 1,200 TT, 50 ME, 500 XC (defined as point to point), 100 night, 500 PIC, 75 instrument
• BE1900 Captain: 1,800 TT, 250 ME, 500 XC (defined as point to point), 100 night, 1,000 PIC, 100 instrument, 100 Turbine, 121 or 135 experience

I have done single pilot turbine and FO in a jet. If you think flying a King Air around the top end is harder than getting a jet in and outa Chicago in heavy snow, you are mistaken. If it's your leg you fly it.

Are you saying jet FOs in Oz just warm a seat?

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Sure, in Oz perhaps.

Capt. F, I don't generally agree with 150's opinions about a lot of things but having been a Jet FO in both environments, on this I agree with him. If you're unlucky enough to find yourself in Chicago in the middle of a snow storm, you're dealing with multiple checklists, multiple frequencies, never ending complicated taxi instructions and multiple points at which you can f@ck up, if you don't know what you're doing. The whole situation is far more complicated than anything you'll ever deal with anywhere in Australia and I've had trips where I've had to deal with this, on every leg and on every single day of the trip.

Thankfully, I now fly an aircraft large enough that everyone stays out of our way and only does one leg a day. Although many years ago, I look back at my time as an RJ FO in the US as a baptism of fire and one that was summed up with phrase "sink or swim".

But but but we get like WEALLY WEALLY bad weather in the wet season some days! Lyk really difficult!!! There are thuderstoms and stuff!

I think the point is lost that you’re only the FIRST OFFICER, so you’re not the one sitting there with the command responsibilities. I’m sure if you were, the experience requirements would be much greater.

The King Air job on the other hand, you are the one in command. Plus those are certainly not onerous requirements compared to years past.

I’ve been a captain on a single aisle jet airliner flying all over Asia, which included de-icing, and I can tell you now that it was a ****load easier than flying a single pilot King Air around the top end in the wet season of which I did many years.

Consider that the kingair job advertised, and the upgrade minimums for an RJ command in the US are more or less the same. 2500 total, and 1000 hours of xxx time.

Sure flying the kingair single pilot with no support has it's challenges. But let's not make it out to be harder than it is. Australia is mostly flat, with some of the most benign flying weather on earth. Sure there are storms and fog, but that's really it. There's no real threat of terrain, density altitude performance, cold weather corrections, deicing, runway contamination etc.

Conversely, aussies with 2500 total are now given the left seat of an antiquated RJ, and sent to remote mountain ctafs in winter, or some of the most congested airports on earth. They have more support, but also significantly more threats to manage.

Lastly, RJ fo pays more than every kingair job in Aus. Wasn't always the case, but it is now. RJ command is paying more than Virgin command.

This whole argument smacks of Aussie exceptionalism. Maybe we should just stick to arguing who's the better of GA pilots or Q cadets.

Pay is directly proportional to the supply of pilots willing to do the job. In Australia, there is still enough supply to warrant the level of pay on offer for such jobs. In the US, they don’t have enough, so that’s why they are paying significantly more. But you don’t need me to tell you that.

Flying a jet is by no means hard. In fact it’s some of the easiest flying I’ve done. Just remember a few key things and you’ll be able to get that thing up and down no problems. So don’t try and tell me that because these guys are flying jets, they’re special. Irrespective of the environment.

What is a key difference between these 2 jobs is the support and infrastructure that is provided in the respective environments. I can probably guarantee you that there’s no flight watch in an operations centre that is watching everything that the King Air driver is doing in terms of weather etc., and there sure as **** isn’t ACARS installed in the King Air either. And the poor barstard is probably trying to find some strip in the middle of no where with no aids, and good chance no lighting either.

I don’t see the requirements for the King Air job as onerous, in fact they are shades of what would have been required 10 years ago!

Ohh and no Australian exceptionalism here, if anything I’m picking up some RJ exceptionalism because they can read a checklist on how to de-ice. The number of pilots from Europe that I’ve flown with that laugh when I ask how hard it was to do all the de-icing etc., and explain that once you’ve done it a few times it’s a non-event, tells me that it really is a non-event.

In the US, single pilot king air/PC12 jobs are pretty much entry level jobs at this point.

Whilst we diverge from the topic, yes I agree that monsoonal flying is a challenge. If ain’t the challenge it was 20-40 years ago. I bet most of the King Air destinations have an RNAV, most probable black stuff an lights, hey I bet there could even be glass or at least a decent GPS, if not an iPad with the software. Straya bush flying ain’t what it used to be.

Yep jet flying is easy when everything is going fine which is 99% of the time, it’s the other 1% of the time that is fun!

Back to the US regionals are hiring, bloody awesome to see so many taking the opportunity!

Australian aviation attitudes will never change, piss poor infrastructure, mutton dressed up as lamb however you look at it. Australia is the 'Lucky Country' run mainly by second rate people.

Oh I don’t disagree, it would be much much easier now compared to 20-40 years ago. But I can guarantee you that the number of strips with RNAV approaches are in the minority. Just ask any pilot from the RFDS how many sealed strips they would go into that don’t have an approach, the number is significant.

Brings me back to the lack of infrastructure in Australia that the poor sod in the King Air is having to contend with.

I completely agree with you about the pay being due to the shortage. But the shortage has allowed Australian pilots to see that you don't need 500 PIC in a chieftain to finally move up to something like a kingair, when those same pilots destined for that instead fly RJs. I'm also not having a shot at the aeromed guys doing high acuity. They arguably have the most challenging, and most necessary flying jobs in the country, and rightfully demand a higher level of experience.

But, the ad above was not for the RFDS. It is for a run of the mill GA driver, and that's what I'm getting at. The insurance requirements are ridiculous when that exact same pilot could go to the US and be cut loose in the left seat of 50/70 seat jet at more or less the same level of experience.

I will maintain though that RJ flying is probably the most challenging flying I have done, and I've done GA, aeromed and RPT in Aus. You dismiss winter ops as simply reading a checklist, which I admit most times it is. However, I've seen 4 winters here now, and every single one I've seen something that could have gone bad. Things like type 4 fluid failing before the holdover time, deicing completed incorrectly and a jet sent out with 1 foot of snow still on its wings, brake action reports of 5 but hitting ice on an untreated runway, runway over-runs, snow being plowed over localizer antenna etc. Landing on a contaminated runway at night in blowing snow is easily one of the most intense things I've done here.

A lot of the challenges of flying in the US are hard to grasp for those who haven't seen it. That's kind of the deal with most of life's experiences. Thankfully though, my RJ days are behind me.

For those at home wondering what all the fuss is about, come on over. The pay is getting better, the commands are quick, and the Americans do their own brand of aviation rather well.

A quick edit - I wasn't having a shot at you about exceptionalism morno, but I was taking aim squarely at that kingair ad. I could have worded it better.

Isn’t there a requirement for 1500 hours in US operations (Part 121 ) to be in the left seat there?

1500 total, some night and some multi required for ATP. ATP required to be an FO. 1000 hours part 121 time as an FO required to upgrade. They're FAA minimums that are set in stone.

So your hypothetical Australian pilot cannot “go to the US and be cut loose in the left seat of 50/70 seat jet at more or less the same level of experience“.

Is that correct?

If you are a 1500 hour pilot, you can choose to stay in Aus and go down that route, with everything that entails. Or, you could go to the US and by the time you reach 2500 hours, upgrade if that's what you want. Both pilots need to get to 2500 hours somehow, which way you go is your choice. But you know this. Never in the 5 years of this thread has anyone ever said you can rock up to the US and go left seat.

Oh, and there's no hypothetical about it. Literally every Aussie at commutair gets their shot at upgrade when they get their 1000 hours.

Wrong.

DropYourSocks, there is a difference between what you wrote and what you think you wrote.
Happens a great deal. No problem. Clear now.

No I get what you're saying. Both jobs require our 2500 pilot to have done some prior planning to meet those minimums either way. At the end of the day, it's all more options for Aussie pilots anyway. It's not a bad problem to have, despite the arguments.

There was a post a little way back that said 700 pilots left Australia for the US last year (don't know where those numbers came from). Assuming a similar trend continues this year, I would hope we'll start to see some of the more onerous hour requirements see retirement, and T&C's come up across the industry. All good things at the end of the day.

If that was aimed at my post, you apparently didn't read the entire paragraph. My comment was in the context of a winter storm (not an unusual occurrence) in Chicago. Which, obviously you have absolutely no experience of.

Deicing on its own isn't difficult and yes, pretty much a non-event. However, throw in everything else I mentioned (Again, ops normal for ORD) and it's inherently made more difficult and far more than you'd have to deal with in Australia, in my experience. I would think that's obvious.

And BTW, I'm too old and far too jaded to care anymore about any perceived exceptionalism, or for that matter who fly's what.