Hello, I am currently a PIC with a small manufacturing company based in the
NW corner of the US. We operate a turbine-converted Malibu called a JetProp.
I primarily travel with the owner of the company, visiting his major
customers located all around the United States.
We usually leave our base early on Monday morning, and visit 7 - 15 cities
before returning home on Friday evening each week. We are supposed to
travel two weeks a month, but since we bought the plane, the only month we
have not traveled three or four weeks was December, over Christmas.
A benefit of the job is that we fly regularly into all areas of the U.S.,
from the very high density of the Atlantic NE and the LA Basin in
California to the wide-open airspace of the northern midwest and south. We
fly into lots of different airports, with over 100 different airports in
just the last six months! We have to deal with lots of fog, gusty winds,
thundershowers, snowstorms and the occasional good weather day.
A downside is the incessant travel schedule, which does not make the wife
very happy. (Note to new pilots - build your career before you get
married...)
Prior to working for this company, I attended civilian flight school in my
home town, became a flight instructor as a second career, and then found my
flight school liquidated after 9/11. I started with the company I worked
for by training the owner in his then brand-new Diamond DA-40. After a
year of that, I was in the right place when he purchased the Jet-Prop.
Turbine transition was a real kick, and even though 27,000 feet is not that
high for the jet pilots, as a piston aircraft pilot, I found the 2,500 fpm
climb rate and flight level operations a great change.
I have had a couple of emergencies, a vacuum failure in night icing IMC
climbing out of RNO, and a smoke-in-the-cockpit incident that ended with an
approach to DEN with 100 ft ceilings, freezing fog and RVR of 2000 ft. I
never appreciated the high-intensity lead-in lights as much as I did that
night!
I hope to eventually end up with WestJet in CA or with a corporate operator
in the BC/northwest US area.
Good Luck in Your Career!