C172 aerial mapping (northern states)

@gtlyon I sent you a PM.

The base pay is pretty low, but the per diem is one of the best of the Pictometry vendors. If you can spend less on the road and bank the per diem you can make out better than other companies.
 
NWpiloté said:
@gtlyon I sent you a PM.

The base pay is pretty low, but the per diem is one of the best of the Pictometry vendors. If you can spend less on the road and bank the per diem you can make out better than other companies.
Click to expand...
Yeah IF you can save your per diem, and some other companies give you a pretty good hotel allowance allowing you to have your own room and still make what you would at NSA or real close. I was fortunate(?) enough to have 2 other pilots to split expenses with while there and did ok money wise, but think it would have been different under other circumstances.
 
Tyler Pinkerton said:
Northern States is about the lowest in pay possible from what I have heard.
Click to expand...

I was able to pay off a lot of debt and pay for my multi add on with the money I saved while at NSA. Like @sweeps said, you have to be lucky enough to be with other pilots that are ok with sharing hotel rooms and other expenses. I don't regret my time there at all.
 
NSA was fine banking per diem and splitting up. You just always had to poopoo the mention of a solo mission and hack it off right away or else get stuck with something you didn't want.
 
The per diem is what can hurt if not using it correctly. There will be times in the season where you'll be alone with only one rental car company in town charging $80/day and no taxi or bus service. This happened to me last month. Save as best as possible on times where multiple pilots are at the same location.
 
Finny said:
I was able to pay off a lot of debt and pay for my multi add on with the money I saved while at NSA. Like @sweeps said, you have to be lucky enough to be with other pilots that are ok with sharing hotel rooms and other expenses. I don't regret my time there at all.
Click to expand...
I just know the FBO I previously worked at hosted four NSA planes over the course of a month or month and a half and the pilots were camping to save money and it did not really seem to be by choice but necessity. This was in Nov-Dec of 2012 in Pa.

There are other vendors who pay similar or slightly less in per diem, but pay for the hotel and car. Skylens from what I could gather in searching for jobs prior to the season offered the best package out of them all.
 
Tyler Pinkerton said:
I just know the FBO I previously worked at hosted four NSA planes over the course of a month or month and a half and the pilots were camping to save money and it did not really seem to be by choice but necessity. This was in Nov-Dec of 2012 in Pa.

There are other vendors who pay similar or slightly less in per diem, but pay for the hotel and car. Skylens from what I could gather in searching for jobs prior to the season offered the best package out of them all.
Click to expand...

Many pilots chose to camp to save as much money as they could. Nick also put a stop to that last year. Morale of the story is do your own research, interview wherever will take you and go from there. Debating about which picto vender to go to is like debating which regional sucks less. At the end of the day they all pretty much pay the same thing and you get your time to move onto something better.
 
Yeah, I saved 15k all while paying off debt and got my multi add on. Of course I'm not flying anymore, so it matters not. Anyone on here flying 5474K?
 
Finny said:
Many pilots chose to camp to save as much money as they could. Nick also put a stop to that last year. Morale of the story is do your own research, interview wherever will take you and go from there. Debating about which picto vender to go to is like debating which regional sucks less. At the end of the day they all pretty much pay the same thing and you get your time to move onto something better.
Click to expand...
Deffinately, glad to hear it's changed for the better-ish. I actually laughed out loud at that, as that is so true... But Mesa is clearly the worst :)
 
I'm glad conditions are improving at Northern States, but if you're looking for work you may also want to send a resume into Air America. If they haven't already found someone to fill it I had heard a pretty credible rumor that they were looking to bring on a replacement pilot in late February and if they don't have someone internally lined up for it it'd be an excellent chance to hit the road during the busiest months of the season and maybe even get in on some of the Summer work.

The biggest pros compared to other vendors are their rotation and vacation based schedules as well as their large fleet of Aztecs. I really enjoyed my time at AA and have zero regrets looking back. That said I've got nothing, but respect for pilots from other vendors and am grateful that I was able to build my flight time flying Picto as opposed to working many of the flight instructor gigs that I had looked into.
http://airamericafc.com/career-opportunities/

It's not a bad time to put your information in with Air America as they typically do hire quite a few guys in May and if the pilot's lucky they can get in on the busiest flying provided the projects are there. Last season a lot of the new guys that were hired in May ended up flying Aztecs before the end of the Summer as a lot of vets decided to move on to the regionals or corporate. I don't see that happening this year to the same extent, but for low time pilots opportunities as good are very hard to come by.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top