Banner Towing?

A

Adler

Guest
I hold COM AMEL ASEL, instrument, and due to the lack of jobs available, I'm pretty desperate...that and even if there were jobs, I'm pretty low on time (~230tt).

I was curious how one goes about getting started in the banner towing industry. Do I have enough hours to consider it? I know I'll probably need tail wheel, which I hope to get soon.
 
I hold COM AMEL ASEL, instrument, and due to the lack of jobs available, I'm pretty desperate...that and even if there were jobs, I'm pretty low on time (~230tt).

I was curious how one goes about getting started in the banner towing industry. Do I have enough hours to consider it? I know I'll probably need tail wheel, which I hope to get soon.


dont take my word for it.. but I'm pretty sure most places are required by insurance.. that their pilots have at least 500TT, and time in the aircraft... You sound like an ATP'er, what happend to CFI school?
 
I'm not yet an ATP'er, I'm a college boy! I go to Western Michigan's College of Aviation...still got 2 years left :crazy:

I'll do the CFI course at ATP over the summer, but even so, I'll probably just be even more desperate for a job.
 
Ahh ok, I just made the comment becuz your flight time resembles an ATP'r, either way... i doubt you'll have any luck at all with low times and a wet commercial... just my .02
 
Start asking around school and see if anyone has banner towed before. Ask flight instructors, your asst. chiefs, anyone who has done banner tow time or knows someone who has. It's more of a word of mouth thing because most of the banner towing outfits do not have websites or anything fancy like that. If your really desperate, even start asking people on here who live in Florida for places along the coast. Just get phone numbers and start calling. Don't let people talking about insurance bring you down, they may require 500tt, or something like that, but you never know what the company requires until you call.
 
Ahh ok, I just made the comment becuz your flight time resembles an ATP'r, either way... i doubt you'll have any luck at all with low times and a wet commercial... just my .02

Are you referring to having 230hrs and CMEL and CSEL with inst?? I do not go to ATP and trained through a FBO, then school and I had 230 with all his ratings. It's a 141 thing, not just ATP.
 
The hot spots for this are NJ, Mytrle Beach, and Florida. I was looking into possibly doing this till I was offered a CFI job starting in May. But I did manage to get ahold of two places that did it one in NJ and one in Mytrle Beach and both required 500TT and 50 tailwheel. Seems to be universal. If you google banner towing you will find some website for companies that do this. Just get the number of there or email and start trying to get ahold of someone. They said they usually hire pilots around April or so for the summer seasons. So get on it. You should also look into CMS skydiving since your from michigan. The owner emailed me awhile back asking me if I was interested in a job because he needs another pilot for summer. But he requires 400TT and 50 hours in a 182 so I dunno where you stand on that. But if you want his personal email I will give it to you if you PM me.
 
When I live by the beach, I was "hired" by a banner towing company in Myrtle Berry.
Pay is average for this type of work, it was $10.00 an hour.
I do think they want 500tt but I am not sure.
Since you have two years of college left this could work perfect for you spending the summer in SC then when summer is over you go back to school with a ton of TT. They fly 6-8 hours a day 6-7 days a week.
The bad news is that you have to pay for training ($1300) I think he told me that that was a reduced price since I was a CFI and could used for other things. So if you put two and two together, you spend one month of your three-four months working to pay off the training. This is why I turned it down, I am not paying for training (then there are other expenses like living), but it could be great for you and your situation if you can spend a summer grabbing TT.

Call them up and ask, it will never hurt.

Last year they advertised in this publication, which is also online. http://www.trade-a-plane.com/misc/cessna.html

Plus a summer in Myrtle Berry never hurt anybody. I have almost talked my self into doing this, I am not going anywhere fast...
 
Yea we vacation to mytrle beach every year and that would be a hell of a place to spend a summer. I was told the same thing too about paying for training but I was quoted something around 2k total. But in all seriousness this job is more about building time then making money. You would jsut have to figure out weather or not you would make enough to pay for somewhere to live and eat. If so that would be great. I would imagine there would be other pilots that dont live around there doing this so you could probally find someone to bunk up with to save money. I would deff consider trying to build some more time so your eligible for this type of work it would be alot of fun.
 
That Myrtel Beach gig would be sweet, minus the paying part...I just can't do that though; as said, there's other expenses.

Thanks for the info guys...sounds like I may have to start renting again regardless.
 
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