And I'd thought they were just being polite when, only a few days ago, they emailed me straight back after I sent them a speculative cv! Mind you, I'm clearly not 'up to it' at the moment as they said their pilot recruitment was complete for 2009: maybe a few months without flying will do the trick as they also stated they would be recruiting again in 2010!

It is true, they are asking new guys to part sponsor their type rating on a 50/50 shared cost. Aircraft take up has been a lot slower than they were predicting so instead of having a massive recruitment drive as we were led to believe they are only taking on 2 F/Os until 2010 when i assume they might take on a few more.

Hope this helps

I am a bit surprised that the cracks are appearing so early in their flawed business plan

Look outside the window:
the world has changed; yesterday's best laid plans...don't look so clever today

If that is true, then I'm stuffed then. I come with over 15 years working on the ground in aviation mainly in ops, which I would have thought would have been highly useful skills to have as a pilot for a new startup biz jet operator.

Would have really enjoyed working for them too me thinks - Mustang would have been the ideal first flying job !!. Maybe I'm too old !!! :{

How much is a Mustang t/r anyway ?.

:)

Blink recent recruitment
 

I know that these guy's held recruitment days recently for both Captains and F/O's. Anyone out there successful? What is the roster? Have you been offered start dates and rough salaries? Does anyone know how many Captains and F/o's they took on?

well done in advance to those who managed to secure a job in these times!

Flat Spin,

Unless you have proof of what you say my advice would be to wind it in very rapidly as what you have said is complete rubbish.

Why oh why do you guys get some pleasure out of peddling such rubbish, if you haven't got anything good to say then go away, play with yourself, find a good/bad woman and GET A LIFE. In addition if your going to post on here at least learn to spell, read their for there. If you don't have a working knowledge of basic English I'm not sure you should be flying aircraft if in fact that is what you do.

There are people out there and particularly in this company attempting to grow something worthwhile and long term thus securing jobs for pilots in the future.

Rant over but don't come back until you have something based on fact.

This is a a good company staffed with nice genuine people, the First officers of which in the main have been taken straight from flight school and employed when many other employers are laying off.

Roster is six on three off with every attempt to improve on this in the future, this isn't the place to discuss salaries. This is a company that is going to try to promote the lifestyle issues, we all know you aren't going to be earning a £100,000 flying a C510, but maybe just maybe you can have a much more enjoyable lifestyle as the fleet and crew numbers build up.

Well Said
 

Highflight

Well said..

And to confirm i do not work for blink..

DJ

Highfligt, is the ecruitment drive complete for this year?
Too many people get caught up in ''politics'' which does take the fun out of flying. These are generally people with their own agendas. I knew a couple of people who went for assessment and they were unclear as to how many would be taken on. Are Blink going to operate a hold pool to pick from when orders are 'firmed up'?

They posted their accounts for 2008 at the end of May. £667,477 in the bank at the end of the year, with firm commitments for £1M in future spending (aircraft deposits probably). They don't need to disclose their P&L statements as a small company, but it's possible (with clever mathematics) to work out their profit/loss for the first year of operation.

In April 09 they received another £1.5M in equity financing from three investors. I would guess that Flat Spin may therefore have posted his/her comment having done some clever mathematics and therefore it's based on public domain fact rather than "complete rubbish" as Highflight420 suggested.

Not offering any comment on the company, which I really don't know, the people, likewise or the recruitment campaign - which I'm sure are all fine. Just on the mathematics of a VLJ start up (well, any start up really) in general and particularly so in this climate.

As far as I know recruitment is complete for the year, Only taking on 1 or 2 F/Os this year and a few captains and I believe all positions have been filled by ex LEA guys who are already rated. Any guys who had assessment with them will have to go through assessment again in the new year if they want a position and as far as I am aware they are not operating a holding pool. Frustrating for us guys with experience who cant get in even though a few months ago they were taking on newbies straight out of flight school

re BLINK
 

Afternoon all GFBKA AC number 5 outside on ramp at Blackbushe.

cheers

J.

eglk01



Is that AC new or or just re-based to blackbush? If it is new, is it also fully on their AOC? Thinking about it, has their AOC been granted yet?



PP

...hear that ramp space at EGLK is being increased (at the expense of car parking), presumably to accommodate all those Mustangs?

I know one of the senior capts there...so good luck to them,
J, hows the bushe I was there 92-94, great memories !!

EGLK for Blink
Can a Mustang use 3,650 landing distance? If so I would have thought Blackbushe ideal for their operation. The only reason other Citation operators have shied away from it was the short runway. The Mustang must be a lot better.

Hawker750 - No, the Mustang cannot land at Blackbushe on a wet runway public transport with anything more than a sniff of fuel and a couple of bums on seats. Going in there with pax in the rain is very borderline stuff - unless their TAG ops manual allows for some funny fiddle-factor that nobody else knows about.

re Blink
 

HI Bushe more busy these days with bizjets and kingairs,bit like the early 90s!!
good old days yes,2 flying schools still busy,just not as a few years ago.

Last year we have had 146/DA7X,C56X,HS125 E.T.C. all in private of course.

Yes Mustangs are ideal for us,but with factor 1:67 to consider nogo
commercial at the moment.

cheers.

WinnieBago,

There has been no fudging of the figures regarding Blackbushe Ops by either TAG or Blink, these are two professional operations and Blink wouldn't be operating under TAG's AOC if they thought otherwise.

Blink are well aware of the limitations of operating in and out of Blackbushe and operate to the book. It's a question of watch this space, the Mustang is capable of much improved performance which would remove most of the Blackbushe limitations and Cessna are cooperating in recalculating the original performance figures issued with the type certificate, it just takes time to complete the work that is necessary in order to achieve improved performance figures.

Highflight,

Are you suggesting that Cessna did not certify the aircraft with the correct figures in the first place or have TAG/Blink asked Cessna to do runway analysis especially for a surveyed EGLK.

I think it would be very unusual to revise the field performance, more than likely they would if there was any room for improvement they would increase the MTOM to make the foot fit the shoe, that would be to the benefit of all operators.

Cessna have previous in doing this with the CJ3 & the Sovereign from memory