How many days per month?

[khedrei]

For the corporate guys.

1. What kind of machine are you on?
2. How many pilots on the machine?
3. Owner, charter, or both?
4. If you took a snapshot of the year, how many days are you working/away per month on average including the lighter months w/ vacation? Please include days with misc duties like coming in to stock the plane.
5. Are the number of your working days defined in your contract, or is it just ad hoc?

[Gear_Down]

1- Large cabin, ultra long range business jet
2- Two pilots
3- Private owner
4-I do about 150 hours of flight time a year. Once the aircraft is back at base after each trip, I’m responsible for restocking it. I usually go back again a couple of days before the next trip to make sure everything is all set and the aircraft is properly groomed.
5- Ad hoc

[khedrei]

1- Large cabin, ultra long range business jet
2- Two pilots
3- Private owner
4-I do about 150 hours of flight time a year. Once the aircraft is back at base after each trip, I’m responsible for restocking it. I usually go back again a couple of days before the next trip to make sure everything is all set and the aircraft is properly groomed.
5- Ad hoc

Days/month gone on average?

[Gear_Down]

I’m away about 5–10 days a month on average and I get 3 weeks of vacation per year. Most aircraft owners want their pilots to align 2 weeks of vacation with the aircraft’s annual maintenance, which makes it extremely difficult to take that 3rd week of vacation at another time.

[Canadaflyer46]

Don’t mean to derail, genuinely curious.
How can an operation work with only 2 pilots? What if one of them gets sick/breaks a leg/has childcare issues?

[Gear_Down]

Very good question. A 2 pilot operation is definitely not ideal. If you feel you’re not going to be fit to operate a flight, you need to give them a heads-up ASAP so they have time to hire a contract pilot on a daily rate. And trust me, you’ll definitely hear from the aircraft owner if they have to do that. They’re usually not too happy about the extra cost.

That’s why I highly recommend that if you’re getting into corporate aviation, you look for a 3 pilot operation. It makes a huge difference for quality of life and gives you much more flexibility when someone is sick, on vacation or has an unexpected issue.

[khedrei]

I’m away about 5–10 days a month on average and I get 3 weeks of vacation per year. Most aircraft owners want their pilots to align 2 weeks of vacation with the aircraft’s annual maintenance, which makes it extremely difficult to take that 3rd week of vacation at another time.

It sounds like you have the ultimate gig.

I was hoping to get some more responses to compare to. Im on a long range and working more than double what you are doing (15-20) days. Its killing me. I was on a mid size last year and we were a hair over 10 days. I was good with that. Owner sold and the management company moved me here. I was excited to get into the large cabin. Without too much detail, I did ask questions about time away, schedule, etc and the other pilot told me things were great. I figued it would be similar time away as the last one. Unfortunately he thinks this is all normal so I im kinda stuck for now.

[YYJhughes]

In my opinion, the best pilot job is flying for a private owner. The pay is much higher than airlines with unexpected bonuses and gifts. These owners value privacy a lot. Staying at 5 star hotels/resorts, visiting business hubs, the owner takes care of you. They don't like people who post their lives on social media and stuff. I heard one owner's driver who worked for them for 10+years started posting their cars on social media and got fired. Privacy comes first.

[rippey]

Don’t mean to derail, genuinely curious.
How can an operation work with only 2 pilots? What if one of them gets sick/breaks a leg/has childcare issues?

Depends on the owner and what they are comfortable with. On a popular airplane (challenger 605/350/3500, globals etc) there is a pretty good supply of contractors. My owner has no problem paying for a contractor to cover holidays, illness, or augments because when you factor in salary, benefits, and recurrent training a third pilot works out to about 100 contract days a year or more, and we use maybe 20. So crew can take time off when they want, and they are happy, and owner saves a bunch of money over having a third pilot, so they are happy.

If you are on either a really old, or really new plane where there isn’t a large pool of contractors it can be more challenging…and expensive. Rumours has it G700 contractors run 7000USD/day

[Gear_Down]

I’m away about 5–10 days a month on average and I get 3 weeks of vacation per year. Most aircraft owners want their pilots to align 2 weeks of vacation with the aircraft’s annual maintenance, which makes it extremely difficult to take that 3rd week of vacation at another time.

It sounds like you have the ultimate gig.

I was hoping to get some more responses to compare to. Im on a long range and working more than double what you are doing (15-20) days. Its killing me. I was on a mid size last year and we were a hair over 10 days. I was good with that. Owner sold and the management company moved me here. I was excited to get into the large cabin. Without too much detail, I did ask questions about time away, schedule, etc and the other pilot told me things were great. I figued it would be similar time away as the last one. Unfortunately he thinks this is all normal so I im kinda stuck for now.

Yeah, being away 15–20 days a month for a corporate gig is brutal, at least for me. At this point, I’d almost rather go back to the airlines, have my minimum 12 days off guaranteed and get some of that quality of life back.

[Gear_Down]

Don’t mean to derail, genuinely curious.
How can an operation work with only 2 pilots? What if one of them gets sick/breaks a leg/has childcare issues?

Depends on the owner and what they are comfortable with. On a popular airplane (challenger 605/350/3500, globals etc) there is a pretty good supply of contractors. My owner has no problem paying for a contractor to cover holidays, illness, or augments because when you factor in salary, benefits, and recurrent training a third pilot works out to about 100 contract days a year or more, and we use maybe 20. So crew can take time off when they want, and they are happy, and owner saves a bunch of money over having a third pilot, so they are happy.

If you are on either a really old, or really new plane where there isn’t a large pool of contractors it can be more challenging…and expensive. Rumours has it G700 contractors run 7000USD/day

I can confirm the contract pilots on the G700 at YYZ were charging a daily rate of $7000 USD.