Considering a major transition in my aviation career.

Gear_Swing1122

Well-Known Member
Hello,



Been a long long time lurker here, and alot of the valuable info I,ve gained over the course of my career was through this website. Currently a cptn at a well established 135 operator, and in the last few years have been in the typical debate of "should I go to the airlines". At this point the idea of flying a people or a box bus around sounds really uninteresting. Frankly ,I could care less about the money. I've honestly been thinking alot about seriously altering the course of my career. It may sound dumb, but I want my career to have purpose, not just make me alot of money. In that regard I have been seriously thinking about getting a helicopter add on to my ATP. I have yet to look into the fine details, but my purpose would be to possibly eventually transition into EMS or law enforcement, etc. On a side note, I do understand the difficulties involve with things like law enforcement today. I have a close friend who has done it for 15 years. Other possibilities Ive considered are simply doing fixed wing stuff for CBP, law enforcement, or gov. Agencies of some sort. I'd love to hear some input, and possible time line on things like this from anyone who is willing to share. Lastly, im not sure how important this is, but in 37 currently.



Thanks so much guys.
 
While I appreciate your desire to do something different, the heilo road is fraught with the same career issues that FW has, only weirder.

You're not going to get your rotor ticket and just walk into a new job. Just as the airlines ignore rotor time (for the most part), rotor places ignore FW time. You might as well start over, because you will be faced with the same time building exercise that you did building multi time.

That means instructing or similar scut work until you build some time to interest a turbine operator (the heilo version of multi time). Then you're building time doing that to get a "real" heilo job, and you're going to find the compensation is no where near what it is for FW jobs. And I know you said you're not in it for the money, but, yea, when you're pushing 55 and have 100k in your 401k, you'll be rethinking that statement.

"Well, I'll just use my dual rated nature to waltz into a corporate job". Ah, no. Doesn't work like that. For those rare dual rated jobs, they'll either send one of their high time rotor drivers to get their fixed wing ratings, and then let them buzz around for 1000 hours SIC, or they'll hire the idiot nephew of some EVP and the job posting was for legal purposes only.

Oh, yea, and there's the expense. Won't even go there other than to say it's "substantial".
 
One nice benefit of a good 121 job is that you have a ton of time off to volunteer at or have another job that gives you a sense of purpose. I mostly fly around tourists so they can go drink Mai Tais on the beach. But doing that gives me 14 to 18 days off each month to run a volunteer SAR team, sit on the board of an environmental clean up group, and volunteer at the humane society. 95% of the time I get no sense of fulfillment of a greater good at my flying job, and that's ok. I find it in other areas.
 
One nice benefit of a good 121 job is that you have a ton of time off to volunteer at or have another job that gives you a sense of purpose. I mostly fly around tourists so they can go drink Mai Tais on the beach. But doing that gives me 14 to 18 days off each month to run a volunteer SAR team, sit on the board of an environmental clean up group, and volunteer at the humane society. 95% of the time I get no sense of fulfillment of a greater good at my flying job, and that's ok. I find it in other areas.

Nerd.
 
Your friend would probably have better info, but I believe most police department helo jobs you’re a cop first and work as a normal cop and then maybe you can get into their aviation department. I believe very few if any hire specifically for helo cops.
 
Hello,



Been a long long time lurker here, and alot of the valuable info I,ve gained over the course of my career was through this website. Currently a cptn at a well established 135 operator, and in the last few years have been in the typical debate of "should I go to the airlines". At this point the idea of flying a people or a box bus around sounds really uninteresting. Frankly ,I could care less about the money. I've honestly been thinking alot about seriously altering the course of my career. It may sound dumb, but I want my career to have purpose, not just make me alot of money. In that regard I have been seriously thinking about getting a helicopter add on to my ATP. I have yet to look into the fine details, but my purpose would be to possibly eventually transition into EMS or law enforcement, etc. On a side note, I do understand the difficulties involve with things like law enforcement today. I have a close friend who has done it for 15 years. Other possibilities Ive considered are simply doing fixed wing stuff for CBP, law enforcement, or gov. Agencies of some sort. I'd love to hear some input, and possible time line on things like this from anyone who is willing to share. Lastly, im not sure how important this is, but in 37 currently.



Thanks so much guys.
I went into ems flying for that reason. Ultimately, I was disappointed because most of it was still just shuffling people around. There were a few cases where I feel like I actually made a difference but the majority of them were just transports. Maybe on the rotor side things are different but I use to hear them complaining about the same thing.
 
Food for thought, I have a friend doing the exact same thing but going the other way RW -> FW because of the instability in rotorcraft careers. He's been flying for a family that incorporates helicopter operations into their regional business as well as the family's recreational activities for the last few years and the writing is on the wall that the principles will be retiring soon which means the helicopter will be under a microscope. He fully expects new management to see it as a line item liability rather than a benefit, so he's on the hunt for the next job but looking for a fixed wing position. Here's an example of the instability in that industry - by the age of thirty he'd already been an instructor, tour pilot, HEMS pilot, off-short oil rig pilot (both CONUS & OCONUS), VIP charter (including yacht transfers) and then he landed this position. Now he's looking to ride the wave of hiring on the backside of COVID at the regionals because he's low fixed wing time but will be able to use a clapped out CRJ or ERJ as his time builder.

I'd think long and hard before going over to being rotorcraft exclusively.
 
I would also add that career changing later in life is, ah, sub-optimal for a lot of reasons. It doesn't matter if its for aviation or whatever, but the extreme expense is a real deal killer.

Some time ago, during the dark days of the naughts, I went back to school with an eye to pursue a different track. I was about your age at the time. Spent some money on school, and when the time came to poop or get off the seat, I put the sharp end of the pencil to the paper and found no matter what I did, I could not make a change work out no matter what I did.

Professional school is BIG money and and even the shorter timelines are fairly long. You're a decade or more until you're making reasonable money.

Academic tracks have less cost, but their timelines are even longer and the back end just isn't there.

Aviation has a shorter time horizon, but is VERY expensive and you are at least 3 years out of real jobs and the back end isn't there either unless you get really, really lucky.

Why is the time horizon important? Because when you're almost 40, bad life decisions can be financially unrecoverable. You are in your prime earning years. Not only are you going to have a LARGE financial outlay, but you have to consider the lost income. You'll have at least a year of zero income (and no benefits) plus several years more of crippled income, all during the time you're income should have been hitting it's stride.

"Oh, but my buddies, girlfriend's, brother's cousin went to med school at 50 and it worked out for him". Yea, I have seen those stories, too, and in every case, when you drilled down on it, they had some amazing set of circumstances that made that possible: rich parents, executive level spouse, no kids, some 1 in a million scholarship...the details you don't hear with the rest of the story. Everyone wants to think they can be the outlier, without ever looking at what the outliers really look like.

In my case, I had all the benefits, single, no kids, paid for house, money in the bank. Every single benefit you could have going into that situation, and I still turned away because there was no way to recover the money, but more importantly the time. I'd say you can probably make a change work until you're about 30 without any long lasting impact. Up until 35 you can do ok if you have a particularly good set of circumstances. Once past that, though, your chances of making a change without blowing something in your life up drop off significantly. If you got kids and a spouse, even more so.
 
For the OP, there seems to be a number of FW medevac and law enforcement/government positions out there which you may be immediately qualified for.

Your friend would probably have better info, but I believe most police department helo jobs you’re a cop first and work as a normal cop and then maybe you can get into their aviation department. I believe very few if any hire specifically for helo cops.

That is the norm but some departments opt to go the other route and hire an experienced RW pilot send them to the LEO academy… or maybe they can’t find any officer willing in the department. When I was job hunting last year several were posted at Helijobs.net.
 
That is the norm but some departments opt to go the other route and hire an experienced RW pilot send them to the LEO academy… or maybe they can’t find any officer willing in the department. When I was job hunting last year several were posted at Helijobs.net.

Some departments even use a non-LEO pilot, as the pilot doesn’t necessarily need to be one. So long as the Tactical Flight Officer crewman with him is, that covers it.
 
Dumping a bunch of money into a less stable and lucrative career path seems less than optimal. Even as a commuter at a regional, I had way more time off at home than I did flying 135. 121 flying isn't the most challenging job in the world, but as @BobDDuck already pointed out, it leaves you with plenty of time to do things more fulfilling.

I'd just look at the big picture financially. I don't want to work any longer or harder than I have to. My dream is to live in base and bid last out on reserve for the rest of my career.

The most miserable people I have flown with are the ones who intertwine their identity with their job.
 
Speaking specifically about CHP (California Highway Patrol) FW pilots: they require the Academy and a year on the highways before being eligible to move into aviation. Even so, there's a chance that if you're hired with the stated intention of being made a pilot, in that year things can change. That said, if you get stuck on the ground and are comfortable with the work, it's still well-paid with a nice pension on the back-end.

If you want something *truly* different where you can walk right into a pilot seat, various Fish & Wildlife agencies occasionally direct hire FW pilots (I know a couple people who have done it). The earning isn't quite as high as CHP or CBP, but it's solo backcountry flying in a taildragger. Can be a pretty fun job for the right person. There is a strong preference there for someone with background as a LEO or with an environmental or CRM management degree of some sort (forestry, hydrology, biology, anthropology/archaeology, etc. etc.).

Finally, one other thing you might want to be careful of is that some government/LEO positions have an age-40 cut-off. How strong that cut-off is *may* be dependent on how desperate they are and/or whether you have someone internal pushing for you, but if you're 37 already it's something you'll want to be careful of, especially if you need some time to get RW rated and experienced before you're a serious candidate.
 
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You're a captain at a regional. You'll flow to mainline. You've made it. What was it all for?

Some of us are never likely to work in the aviation jobs we want, no matter how hard we try...


Working in aviation.


I love this. But, as pointed out: your sense of pride and purpose might only come along with the myriad of hours you'll get to volunteer or get out and see the community.
 
I’d try to get personal fulfillment outside of the job rather than trying to get fulfillment out of the job.

So far 121 flying at the ULCC has afforded me much more time and money to do what I want to do in my time off.

I agree with the statement that the 30s is the time to be stashing as much as you can into retirement. Being a regional FO for 10 years in my 30s and early 40s has not been helpful towards the retirement effort.
 
I’m kind of doing the other way….fly 121 part time just for some extra cash because it’s mindlessly boring and take little to no effort. Basically free extra money, and already have the skills for it, so may as make some extra scratch a few times a month.

Normally fly and crew rotary wing about 4 days a week, have so much leave saved up I can take a day a week or more off. That leaves time for the other gig, the fire/rescue business.

So, each individual gig has its own particular satisfaction.
 
I’m kind of doing the other way….fly 121 part time just for some extra cash because it’s mindlessly boring and take little to no effort. Basically free extra money, and already have the skills for it, so may as make some extra scratch a few times a month.

Normally fly and crew rotary wing about 4 days a week, have so much leave saved up I can take a day a week or more off. That leaves time for the other gig, the fire/rescue business.

So, each individual gig has its own particular satisfaction.
Oh please, you have no spare time......in your small spare time you are helping to rescue and take care of animals at shelters and rescue groups. An amazing, selfless, interesting, remarkable and valuable life.
 
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