How accurate is the 250hours requirement? If that's all they want, great for guys starting out... wish these opportunities were around when I was getting into the industry.


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Celebrating over 25 years of excellence and recognized as one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies, West Wind Aviation is Western Canada’s largest full-support aviation operation. Devoted to being an Employer of Choice, West Wind Aviation offers rewarding careers for self-motivated team players.

West Wind Aviation has an opportunity for a King Air First Officer within Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The beautiful city of Saskatoon is family-friendly, safe, and culturally diverse. Our city offers affordable housing and insurance, low taxes and utility rates, great health care, world class educational institutions, and short commutes to work. This is an exciting time to land in Canada’s #1 growing city.

YOU would be a great fit for this position if you possess:
• 250 Hours Total Flight Time
• 100 Hours PIC
• Exceptional customer service skills
• Demonstrated ability supporting and enhancing safety initiatives.
• Demonstrated leadership skills with the ability to coach and mentor.
• Excellent analytical and decision making skills
• Excellent ability adapting to change
• Demonstrated teamwork and interpersonal skills

West Wind Aviation offers:
• Competitive salaries with regular reviews
• A comprehensive group benefits plan and matched RRSP contributions
• Quarterly profit sharing bonuses
• Employee referral bonuses
• An employee share ownership program
• Annual fitness subsidy
• Maternity/Paternal benefits
• Training and development opportunities
• Monthly planned social events
• Travel benefits and discounted flights for family members

As far as I know West Wind hires from their ramp for FO's. I'm surprised to see a posting for one unless they must publicly post all openings or something? I'm sure someone else can clarify.
250 hours and IATRA is common for a KA FO spot though, albeit a lucky one to get for your first gig!

great for guys starting out

I guess. In two years, the Cinderalla stories will
all be here, complaining that they don't have enough
PIC for their ATPL's and that the rules ought to be
changed to not require any PIC.

We are all supposed to feel bad for these unfortunate
people who got into the right seat of a King Air at
200 hrs.

For some reason, the irony never seems to get noticed ...

I've seen that a lot too. Guy gets the dream job of a right seat on a Citation right out of flight school... makes better money, has a better schedule, flies better equipment, and goes to more exotic locations than his comrades bashing 152s around in the circuit.

Three years later, Citation guy is renting 152s from the same flight school to get his PIC requirements, while the instructor who left the school a year ago is just finishing up his As and ready to move left seat on a turbine.

I agree. Taking an FO spot on a King Air or Citation right out of your CPL with 250hrs is a guaranteed way to shoot yourself in the foot later down the road.

When you're a 250 hr pilot, PIC is KING.

IMHO Your first job should be instructing or on a single engine aircraft that you can upgrade quickly, not the biggest shiniest jet you can find. You need to be able to upgrade and start logging that crucial PIC time early. Save the King Air and Citation jobs for when you have more PIC time under your belt and are closer to your ATPL.

start logging that crucial PIC time

At night. Cross-country if at all possible.

I think it was last summer (?) I checked out a nice
young woman on a 172. She had over 4000 hours
but no night/x-c time for her ATPL.

I actually did 2 (brief) checkouts with her: one during
the day, then one during the night. Cockpit lighting on
rentals is always sh1tty.

Isn't PIC Under Supervision an option for the types of people you mentioned? As long as the aircraft operated requires 2 pilots or a co-pilot.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/s ... op-475.htm

Note #4 at the bottom.

how shitty was the lighting and how short was the checkout and how pretty was the girl ???

if a 250 hour pilot can get this job they should take it. West wind has lots of opportunity for movement, so if they need some PIC they can move onto the twin cessnas and fly bags for a year. 250 hour pilots should take *any* flying job offered to them, anything to avoid that ridiculous ramp bullshlt. This is doubly true if it's at a big company like west wind.

DHC-1 Jockey wrote:Isn't PIC Under Supervision an option for the types of people you mentioned? As long as the aircraft operated requires 2 pilots or a co-pilot.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/s ... op-475.htm

Note #4 at the bottom.

421.11 (4)(a)(iii): "has accumulated a minimum of 150 hours pilot-in-command flight time in aeroplanes". If they can get the extra 50 hours first, and the company is authorized for a PIC-US program, then yes, it is a possibility.

Westwind has small twins for the bag runs. Guys get this job with 1000hrs or a little less, no PIC and leave the bag runs with more PIC and Multi-PIC.

So yes, taking a job right seat on a KA with 250-500hrs is a very good move. Get the IFR experience you don't get instructing and keep moving up in the world. Ya gotta start somewhere.

Actually there is a very simple formula for making good career moves:

If the job pays more to work less, take it.

Most companies have a relatively short upgrade time for king airs and you don't need an ATPL to go skipper on one so why wouldn't someone shoot for a king air with 250 hrs?

why wouldn't someone shoot for a king air with 250 hrs?

Sure. Just as long as they don't complain about it later.

True they are asking for 250 hours, i ve applied there when the posting came out with 560 total time 160 multi pic 230 multi total and still no call back.

I ve spoken with a pilot at my winter job ( he s a fo on 737-800) and he applied many many times at West wind in his career and never got a call back even with a couple thousand hours.


good luck to whoever gets the job tho, lots of possibilities at west wind!

cj555 wrote:IMHO Your first job should be instructing

Which doesn't make sens at all.


In an ideal world, instruction should be done by people with a solid background of flying experiences.
Since most of the time that is not the case, it would be nice to get a right seat job just after getting your commercial license.
And learn a bit more what real life is...Two crew, instead of doing it alone.


That should even be part of the licensing system instead of a road bloc further down the way.

instead of a road bloc further down the way

See?

Maybe flight training is the same as religion, you donate your time to increase the members in your religion?

Partly. Mostly I think of it like volunteering in a soup
kitchen - giving away your time for free to people who
can't afford to pay anything for it. Oddly, rarely do
people mention anything about it.

Colonel, it always mystifies me when I look at the numbers.

T.C. sets 45 hours as the time frame to get a PPL.

The industry average is around 75 hours.

Would it not make sense for the industry to pay a living wage to attract instructors who could get their students through the course in the allotted time?

It would make sense for the paying customers, ..

But it would not be good for the FTU's, whom would
much rather their students take 100 hours to PPL
instead of 50. That's 50 lost revenue hours per student!

Edit -- you can get students through a PPL in 50
hours, but you need to get them young, select them
for aptitude, ensure that they are motivated and
disciplined, and have them fly every day until they
are done. It's called the Air Cadets!

An older student, whom has difficulty with hand-eye
co-ordination and doesn't understand the physics and
mechanics of motorized equipment, that flies once
a month and doesn't do the reading you assign him ...
well, 100 hours to PPL isn't that surprising.

Colonel Sanders wrote:An older student, whom has difficulty with hand-eye
co-ordination and doesn't understand the physics and
mechanics of motorized equipment, that flies once
a month and doesn't do the reading you assign him ...
well, 100 hours to PPL isn't that surprising.

Thank you for acknowledging this. The training enviornment also has a lot to do with this. While I'd like to take credit for having an average to completion time of close to 45 hours for my school's students, the simple fact of operating out of a quiet uncontrolled aerodrome has a lot to do with it as well. I would figure that it shaves off at least .2 flight time per lesson that students do at larger, busier aerodromes, if not more. Over the course of a license I figure that accounts for around 9 hours of time saved alone.

It should also be noted that some unusual outliers have a notable effect on the hours to completion process. Remember that statistically no one can complete in less than the time required (45) so that everyone iseither the standard or greater. I know there are some unusual "outliers" who weight the average to the high end. For example I know of one fellow who's been a "student" for longer than I've been instructing. He bragged to me a while back that he's had to be issued 5 SPPs since he's timed them all out, and was asking me about getting his sixth. His logbook contains over 500 hours, and those were only what he remebered to log, The story is that he's somewhat terrified of a flight test, so whenever someone tries to get him to do it he disappears or switches instructors. Either way, should he ever complete and get dumped into that pool of PPL holders he's going to bring up the average by about 4.5 hours by himself. The thing is though, I don't think he's alone. I got a whole room full of archived PTRs and logbooks waiting to be reclaimed and people to start again - every year someone does - just waiting to bump up the average.