Stop asking others and just keep going and one day you'll look around and wonder how you got here. You started down your career path when you started flying. It's a risk to leave your cushy job and your looking for concurrence. You are asking a question that has been asked for millenniums. Would I do it again if given the chance.You betcha!! I don't mean to sound discouraging, I am suggesting that you really look hard at an aviation job before making that leap. Get on Airline Pilot Central Forums and you'll find a lot of out of work commercial & atp pilots trying to figure out what to do. Many of the pilots had to find other types of work to get by. Competition for jobs really increased this past winter due to the state of the economy as lodges(low bookings), air taxi's(less tourists booking flights) and commuter lines(higher operating costs ratio to passenger seats sold) laid off pilots. Most of the year-round pilots do have families, most of the seasonal pilots don't. If you don't have a family to support and can make do on a salary/wage that is less than some other jobs that are less stressful, go for it. I was constantly under financial pressure to meet the high cost of operations, and the customers complained about the high cost of chartering a plane, not realizing what it took to be able to provide them the conveince of flying somewhere. When I owned a floatplane air taxi, I made a lot of money.for the Insurance company, the mortgage company, the aircraft engine company, the fuel company, the folks that I leased a dock from, etc, etc, ad infinum. And it's not that the air taxi owners don't pay well, they pay their pilots within the financial means of the company and try to stay competitive so that they can keep good pilots on. We just get tired of hearing about the high paying jobs that others have which require less skills, training and are a lot less dangerous.
Low time pilot jobs in alaska professional#
It's not that we professional pilots don't like our flying jobs, we do, very much. you may get more career pilots on the computer giving feedback when hunting season is over. Obviously, flying for a living isn't for everybody but when you feel that feeling in your gut drawing you out to the tundra to aviate, go for it. I wouldn't trade it for anything, regardless of the season. There is some occasional discomfort involved in getting a plane ready to fly when it's -45, but when you get above the temperature inversion and start feeling the heater, then see the snowy mountains silhouetted against the first pink light of dawn, you start feeling sorry for the poor blighters trapped in their office cubicles during the few precious hours of daylight. I finally couldn't resist the temptation anymore and about 20 years ago headed out to Western Alaska to start my flying career.I haven't regretted a minute of it. I flew my own plane around and did a little part time flight instructing. I used to have a well paying non aviation job in Anchorage I liked. Confined waterway (read: narrow, fastwater river landing/T.O.) operation experience is a must.īottom line is, keep the cushy job, buy yourself a Champ,Taylorcraft, Cub, 172 or Stinson 108 and enjoy the freedom of flight before making it a "job". Lodges also tend to hire high Alaska time pilots with lots of float/tailwheel time. Lodges pay $6500-!0,000mo but you are only flying 3-4 months. Air taxi pay varies greatly from $25-35hr to a base of $2500-4500mo. Insurance floatplane time runs from 25-1500hrs depending on the aircraft to be flown.Ī low time pilot is occaisionally hired to fly small aircraft freight only until they've built up time. The insurance requirements are usually 1000-1500hrs, 500hrs Ak, 25-200hrs in aircraft type. Most air taxi operators require at least a 1000hrs of which 500hrs are Alaska time to fly passengers. You'll be working a 14 hour duty day with a max of 8 hours flying during that day.
Low time pilot jobs in alaska plus#
In a nutshell, to fly passengers, you need 500 hours minimum, plus 50 hours night flight time, plus an instrument rating. Since you are getting a commercial license, you should already be familiar with Part 135 FARs. The way the economy is going, a lot of Alaska air taxi's will be going out of business or cutting back on the number of planes/pilots that are kept on the flight line.
0 kommentar(er)
