Kenn Borek

[Krashman]

Just wondering,

If your 3 weeks in 3 weeks out why must you relocate to Calgary?

[Captain X]

Didn't they used to make the guys and gals come into the hanger in YYC to do "odd" jobs on days off? or is that just for FO's? I would assume Edmonton would be ok? They use Cdn north to fly up to work don't they

[ahramin]

So that they can make you work in Calgary on your 3 weeks off. Also to save on travel and hotel costs.

[Conquest Driver]

Hmm, so they can require you to live in Calgary. Can they prohibit you from going on vacation on your scheduled time off?

[blueoval56]

It isn't time off, it's just time "out". You can get called back to work anytime while on your time out. The only time you can take a vacation is when you actually book the time off.

[Doc]

Then, is it really a "rotation"? Would be a great opportunity if you already live in YYC. It's not like many could afford to move there?

[sean.j]

Then, is it really a "rotation"? Would be a great opportunity if you already live in YYC. It's not like many could afford to move there?

your the voice of reason on this site so if you say so then no one should apply unless you live in YYC

[Conquest Driver]

on a three week on/ three week off rotation

I pulled this right off their ad. They might wish to change the wording if it's as blueoval56 described.

I thought I'd seen everything. I guess not.

[Doc]

Then, is it really a "rotation"? Would be a great opportunity if you already live in YYC. It's not like many could afford to move there?

your the voice of reason on this site so if you say so then no one should apply unless you live in YYC

Even I didn't get that message from that....and I wrote it. I don't think it matters where you live now. Either I'm loosing it, or I have no idea where you got that notion from. Can YOU afford to move to YYC? I sure as Hell can't. Make what you will of that.

[blueoval56]

What I meant was that plans change all the time, people may get sick or injured, or maybe an urgent reason to come home early and have to be replaced. So you MIGHT get called. It doesn't always happen, it may never happen, it may only happen once or twice. There are those who dont want to be called, and there are those, like me, that ask to be called if something like this pops up. I dont have much of a life anyway and I like money

Take that however you want to take it, it's not for everyone.

[modi13]

on a three week on/ three week off rotation

I pulled this right off their ad. They might wish to change the wording if it's as blueoval56 described.

I thought I'd seen everything. I guess not.

That was some selective emphasizing. It's not time off i.e. vacation, it's time off rotation i.e. not rotating, but still on call if needed. The only pilots who would possibly have to move to Calgary are those who fly King Airs, and therefore could be working out of Calgary; even then, most of the Beech pilots live elsewhere.

[crankedup]

Since you're on the subject of Borek, are they hiring Twin Otter pilots at the moment??

[blueoval56]

Thanks Modi13, couldn't of said it better myself.

Crankedup, they're always hiring if you've got what they're looking for

[Flybabe]

Then, is it really a "rotation"? Would be a great opportunity if you already live in YYC. It's not like many could afford to move there?

your the voice of reason on this site so if you say so then no one should apply unless you live in YYC

Was there really a point to that comment?

FWIW I grew up in YYC and can't afford to move back there. I agree with what Doc said.

[abercrombie]

what would this position pay? and what are the conditions while ON rotation? do you have to pay for food etc out of these insanely expensive arctic towns or is it all part of the deal? that would be my biggest question here, not how much is it to live in yyc. also, and this is a serious question, why are they hiring direct entry? in my years in this industry, it's been my understanding Borek is not a company that likes hiring direct left-seat..........are that many ppl leaving? are there not enough FO's to upgrade?

[looproll]

"3 weeks on, 3 weeks on"

and buy your own charts

[just curious]

Part one

Krashman, I will wade in here since I posted the job. You asked a good question. This probably isn't a great answer. The people in the know are more than likely busy. I have the morning off.

A couple of caveats. I am not management, just an old driver. I haven' t driven the Kingair since 95, since I am not made to be around stylish graceful aircraft. So, not being in a position to hire, and not current on the type, here are my thoughts:

Hiring someone such as Doc, who has driven the Be20 for the last 18 or so years, with time on every type of aircraft we hire... he would not have to live in Calgary, although we would be begging him to. Besides the slews of Alberta aren't deep enough for his boat. For want of a better term, someone with his level of experience would be and expert-in-place, or EIP for short. As opposed to the ordinary drivers, who live where the company wants them to, EIPs generally get to live where we can gather them up and ship them north or close to it. We'd love them to live in Calgary. I'd love to live in Calgary. But I don't. And a lot of them don't either.

As . so eloquently put it, 50 year olds (and I suppose EIPs too)

nah they are put out on the ice flows in spring, some who complain are given a laptop and a link to this site so they can entertain the young with their "wisdom"

When we get off the icefloe, we usually have something time-consuming to do. It often means Calgary for stuff. Sometimes, it means going to the icefloes at the other end of the world.

EIP doesn't show up on any Org Chart or Ops Manual. Or job title. But every company has them. To try and illustrate what I mean, let's look at the obvious. We fly to the North Pole and South Pole. There is some planning to this. Not just dusting off the Jepps, but, overflight permits, negotiations with local powers, obtaining a wide variety of permits and certifications, establishing available accomodations, food, fuel, storage, maintenance facilities. toolong and GSE that operates on 220DC, power transformers for 110AC, places to strongly consider as positive, and places to avoid. Local weather and terrain knowledge, expertise with regards to the type of flying for a specific client, and all-round expertise with a particular type of aircraft. Taking a new pilot, conducting their training groundschool, client-specific training, and line indoc would be one aspect of that expertise.

I'm pretty sure that every company has just such a drive. On NWO 25 years ago there was a Bearskin guy that had 5000 hours on the 99, when it was the backbone of the Bearskin fleet. Since then he has likely flown another 15 thousand hours in the same area, with the same clients.

We have a number of EIPs for the DC3T and Twin Otter world. They have 'been there, done that, and have a number of really tacky t-shirts to show for it'. Some leave for Air Canada, WestJet, Transat, and the like. A number of them have stayed on and don't plan to go. In the 80's and 90's we also had a bunch of Beech driver EIP's for Africa, Asia, and obscure contracts. UN work, surveys, that kind of thing. We poached one guy like that from Saskatchewan who does all that. Come to think of it, he does that for every aircraft we have. and has been since before all but 5 of our aircraft were born. He doesn't live in Calgary. But he gets called in there often enough. I don't live there, and I'm there a few times a year too.

When we were in the Maldives, all of our resources, human and aircraft, were drawn into it like a black hole in the galaxy. Contracts that were only marginally profitable were foregone as more and more aircraft were required. I dimly recall that we had something like 28 aircraft there. We bought some aircraft for it of course, but a bunch were simply diverted from existing work.

These days, (and this btw was the point I was trying to illustrate at the start) most of our EIPs for the Beech side of things are training and check captains, base managers, safety pilots and the like. Since additional skills are the sort of thing that add that extra something to a 705 application, we often see them do the job for a couple of years, then the next time we see them they have a white shirt with bars, a tie, and a rollie bag headed for gate 49 to drive their '37 somewhere.

Lately, I've seen seven of the Beech captains go on to Cdn North, Ac, Porter, and a few Tier 3 companies. I can honestly say that I don't know what the new hires are going to be used for aside from the obvious driving of a Kingair from one place in the Arctic to another. But the two things to consider are: that some of our EIPs are necessarily going to be doing more work at the Northern bases, and that leaves us short of people for the aircraft we operate in Calgary.

From what I've seen of it, Calgary flying involves getting up at a ridiculous hour, loading a small heavy chunk of pig iron covered in grease and flying it to a place with the last name lake, to fix an oil rig. Or several large humans with hockey bags, reflective clothing and some damnably big laptop cases to the same destinations, with the added bonus of 8 hours of nothing at a camp named after animals. Some of these, I am told have no internet. I don't do that. I fly at one end of the world or the other. For me, Calgary means medical, dental, RAIC, groundschool , training (and flow hammers the Hell out of that), and rides. I take our client's grease covered pig iron to much cooler places. Literally.

We have a few pilots who want to live in Calgary. They have lived their lives in small places with few services for a long time, and Calgary can be fun for the whole family. But they can't do all of the work, and cover call. They are generally senior. They can generally train. They generally have experience going into less pleasant spots, with difficult clients. Sometimes they have to go north to replace pilots who have just left for AC, Cdn North, and the like.

When that happens, we have to look to see whether we have, in-house people who have their ATPL who are considered ready for the upgrade. Or not. This month, I see one who is 5 months shy of the ATPL requirements on base. Which means there are 9 who are further from it. Dunno about other bases.

So, if we have an upgrade, then they need training and a ride, and line indoc. No magic there, everyone needs that. and we have to do an initial course for a new co-pilot and a line indoc. On one of our Beeches, we have 3 training and indoc captains. One is in Asia for a couple months. I'm one of the others, and a little busy with otter work just now. All the departed Kingair captains were training captains. We have one new training captain. we may be able to grow one more in the next batch of training and rides.

So, our Calgary based captains who are training captains will have to go up north for periods of time. . They also have to develop new training captains. They also still have on-going projects for obscure contracts all over the globe. This means that sometimes some pilots who are flying regular flights up north may have to cover for the training captains who are doing line indoc and training up north. Not all of them live in Calgary. Some, because they rotate to the eastern Arctic, live in Toronto Ottawa or Montreal. Having them cover for a week once in a while in Calgary makes little sense, and we are increasingly trying to avoid that.

The projects we work on are obscure. Some work out. Some do not. We have had Kingairs in South and Central America, Pakistan, Russia, Africa, the Philippines and the Caribbean. We've had Otters on all seven continents. We've had a contract where one airplane was on all seven continents in a year. I expect we will have similar unforeseen contracts for the future. In 2011 at least we will have aircraft on 6 continents. There's a bit more planning than just ordering the Jepps for the destination. People working on that and new training courses are stretched. So, it seems to me that some of the work in Calgary will fall to the new drivers.

I have no idea of what we get for talent on the stack of resumes these days. Two drivers who PMed me have bags of time on type, doing the things that we do, and flew in a lot of the obscure places we've been in, in the past. Others won't meet the minimum time for an ATPL. It would be nice to have an engineering test pilot with 20000 hours acquired whilst flying in Africa, South America, and Asia as a visiting check pilot. But what I suspect we need are several drivers who can think fairly independently, look after the machine the crew and the clients, and show up on time. It would be nice if they could all have the kind of time and expertise of Doc, and the guy from Bearskin. If they did, we could put them to work in areas where expertise is required. The ones who are mainly going to be driving point a to point be will likely doing other things for a bit in Calgary.

Okay, so this is a 2000 word response to "Why Calgary?" It is more of what NASA engineers refer to as a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Assed Guess). But Borek is a company that does different stuff. Some take to it, some don't. I'd like the people coming into it to be more aware. Surprises aren't always fun surprises.

There are other Borek and Ex-Borek people out there. they may have a better grasp of it. They can weigh in if they want. I'm gonna go flying.

Part 2

what would this position pay? and what are the conditions while ON rotation? do you have to pay for food etc out of these insanely expensive arctic towns or is it all part of the deal? that would be my biggest question here, not how much is it to live in yyc. also, and this is a serious question, why are they hiring direct entry? in my years in this industry, it's been my understanding Borek is not a company that likes hiring direct left-seat..........are that many ppl leaving? are there not enough FO's to upgrade?

Courtesy of Abercrombie

Some of this is guesswork. but I'll take a stab at it. 55 to 65 for an OTS driver, I suspect that our EIPs range up to the 80's. This too is a SWAG. Depends, like everything else in life on what you bring to the table.
When you leave your home base for your rotation you have a ticket, and if required, hotels booked for you. When you arrive at base, there is crew housing. On out base, you get a per diem. It is meant to reflect the difference between the prices in Calgary and the Arctic. I live up north, so I dunno. When I go down south I live in a hotel. Other bases use a purchase order system of flown-in food. When they have to go into work, they have a crew vehicle, and they charge the gas. They generally drive like 16 year-old carjackers, so there are never enough crew vehicles. This may be a universal constant for base vehicles, or pilots in general are just horrible car drivers, your choice.
We are hiring direct entry captains because we have had several Beech captains depart for CDN North, Porter and AC. Now that i think about it, there are a lot of our ex-drivers at Cdn North. And they are hiring again.
The several FO's who are approaching the time for their ATPLs will still be shy 50 hours of PIC time, and will take several months to upgrade. Like many niche companies, we really prefer to promote from within. Morale aside, there is a lot less cultural angst (my word for the day), and hand-holding required. Regular clients like familiar faces.Companies like Voyageur and Regional One, or the Survey companies would likely be the same way. The Beech upgrade from May did the 100 hour line indoc in June, and is flying as captain on the other side of the country now. We operate on gravel,so captains without experience on type require a 100 hour line indoc. This would be during the time when northern bases do perhaps 80 percent of the annual charter work.
Part 3

"3 weeks on, 3 weeks on"

and buy your own charts

Courtesy of Looproll

Sometimes its 2 weeks on/ off. I agree with the rest of your statement, and an as thrilled about spending my own money as anyone else. But I do.

[Zy]

yeah, what he said

[Mad Flying Ace]

And to add to Just Curious's rant - for informational only - there are several more Beech captains in the process of doing interviews at AC and CN - weeeeee - it just never ends.

Best of luck to those who apply.

I've been here over 10 years, and the lifestyle suits me and my family just fine.

Usually you work hard, and then there's time to play hard.

Cheers
MFA

[Midnight Sun Flyer]

And to add to Just Curious's rant - for informational only - there are several more Beech captains in the process of doing interviews at AC and CN - weeeeee - it just never ends.

Best of luck to those who apply.

I've been here over 10 years, and the lifestyle suits me and my family just fine.

Usually you work hard, and then there's time to play hard.

Cheers
MFA

Do Kenn Borek operate any DHC-3T Otters ?

[Rowdy]

And to add to Just Curious's rant - for informational only - there are several more Beech captains in the process of doing interviews at AC and CN - weeeeee - it just never ends.

Best of luck to those who apply.

I've been here over 10 years, and the lifestyle suits me and my family just fine.

Usually you work hard, and then there's time to play hard.

Cheers
MFA

Do Kenn Borek operate any DHC-3T Otters ?

No.. They do not operate any DHC-3T's. Solely twin engine aircraft. King air 100/200, Beech 99's, Twin otters and the Basler DC-3s.

MFA and JC... think they'd let me back in the twotter??

[Midnight Sun Flyer]

And to add to Just Curious's rant - for informational only - there are several more Beech captains in the process of doing interviews at AC and CN - weeeeee - it just never ends.

Best of luck to those who apply.

I've been here over 10 years, and the lifestyle suits me and my family just fine.

Usually you work hard, and then there's time to play hard.

Cheers
MFA

Do Kenn Borek operate any DHC-3T Otters ?

No.. They do not operate any DHC-3T's. Solely twin engine aircraft. King air 100/200, Beech 99's, Twin otters and the Basler DC-3s.

MFA and JC... think they'd let me back in the twotter??

Can't beat the ole twotter, that Basler DC-3 have to be a nice aircraft as well.

[Dhc6to8]

Hi Guys and gals,
When I worked for Borek I was on the Twin Otter and to be straight up - I was busy enough year round that I never really had time to rotate home. I told Ambrose to keep m ebusy and he did... that meant crashing at my parents place, my brother's place, and a few buddies housed me in the spare bedroom for a couple of days when I was back in YYC... I loved every minute of it... made good money, got weird placements: rotated back from the Maldives and 5 days later I was handed tickets to YVR to fill in for somebody at the Harbour Air float base that had to take leave for family reasons... I was home long enough to have a dinner at my parent's place then Ambrose called and sent me on the first seasonal machine to the QCI's.... a great experience, that covered the world, met and worked with some of the best pilots I have ever met (as curious called them: EIP).... the rest is history... sometimes I wish I would never have given up the job with Borek... the lure of the airlines was a natural progression I guess, but truth be told some of us are sailors in our heart's and Borek is the right place to be if that is the case... now, I just watch clouds go by and brew oats in my head while flying... if you want a great job, with excellent experience potential and a guaranteed paycheck then go to Uncle Kenny... and quit bitching about having to buy charts, just pinch them from a buddy
6to8

[Midnight Sun Flyer]

Hi Guys and gals,
When I worked for Borek I was on the Twin Otter and to be straight up - I was busy enough year round that I never really had time to rotate home. I told Ambrose to keep m ebusy and he did... that meant crashing at my parents place, my brother's place, and a few buddies housed me in the spare bedroom for a couple of days when I was back in YYC... I loved every minute of it... made good money, got weird placements: rotated back from the Maldives and 5 days later I was handed tickets to YVR to fill in for somebody at the Harbour Air float base that had to take leave for family reasons... I was home long enough to have a dinner at my parent's place then Ambrose called and sent me on the first seasonal machine to the QCI's.... a great experience, that covered the world, met and worked with some of the best pilots I have ever met (as curious called them: EIP).... the rest is history... sometimes I wish I would never have given up the job with Borek... the lure of the airlines was a natural progression I guess, but truth be told some of us are sailors in our heart's and Borek is the right place to be if that is the case... now, I just watch clouds go by and brew oats in my head while flying... if you want a great job, with excellent experience potential and a guaranteed paycheck then go to Uncle Kenny... and quit bitching about having to buy charts, just pinch them from a buddy
6to8

This wasn't Ken Borek but Yup that is the way it was back then, I can recall when I started on the Twin Otter on floats 29 years ago, during one stretch I went 39 days with-out a scheduled day off and during one 30 day period logged over 310 hours. I was only co-joe but 40-percent of that was left seat time and sometimes flying with Captains who had no float experience other than float check on type. I enjoyed every minute of it Wouldn’t do that now but 100-150 hours per month could be like fun.

[Dhc6to8]

This wasn't Ken Borek

You doubing my job history? Give ole Harry H. a call and ask who his favorite co was before he retired and that will settle any doubts!
6to8