EOD Nomad
Well-Known Member
Aviation has always been where I knew I'd wind up, but it's been a wild ride getting to this point. Did the whole father was a OOTSK type thing growing up, solo'ed on 16th birthday yada yada. Joined the Army under a WOFT contract, long story for another post, went to college on GI Bill through instrument/commercial and A&P, and wound up falling back on my enlisted Army MOS for a bit, but couldn't bring myself to give up on the piloting thing. Mind you, I got married shortly after college, had a wife and a moral responsibility not to drag her through the ringers of flying ISR and promising to get out of the EOD field.
So I flew jumpers for a couple of months in a 206 and quickly grew tired of the up and down routine of ground hog day (well that and couldn't begin to break even, making less than 1000 bucks a month flying full time). Not that the flying wasn't fun...just wasn't learning what I needed to be learning never flying more than 5 miles from the field. Where I come from, professionalism is paramount to survival. If you don't take your job seriously, you die. Fast. And for whatever reason my heart wasn't in that particular mission. From day 1 in the Army I became a true believer that if you're not doing it with all your heart and everything you have in you, you're not doing it right. Always strive for perfection no matter who's watching, especially when no one is. 1 foot high or low is unacceptable, 1 knot too fast or slow is unacceptable. God knows I'm no stellar pilot, but I take pride in always trying to make every flight better than the last. There are plenty of guy's that just zone out and watch movies on their IPad's, but I will never, no matter how long I do this, become complacent. It's just not in me.
Money has absolutely no bearing on my choices, it just literally doesn't make any difference. I know everyone's thoughts on getting paid well for your work, but to me the difference in pay is the pride i get in doing it right, and making every minute strapped in count. I got into flying for the enjoyment and challenge, and it's always been my real passion, but my heart wasn't in being a diver driver, so I moved on from that particular operation and waited for something I could find a little more dynamic. Go hard or go home, so I chose to regroup and re-attack at a later date.
So I went back to contracting sans aviation. It was more of a stop-gap until another chance came up, and I knew it would, plus I still really enjoy blowing stuff up so I went back to EOD consulting short term. I knew I could never give up my flying habit though, and I've never given up on anything in my life, and wasn't about to start now. I had too much invested in terms of time and emotion, and sure enough a banner gig dug my resume and I took a quick chance after given a 24 hour window to be 1100 miles away, basically being told "if you're here in 24 hours we'll give you a shot. Take 25 hours to get here and you can seek life elsewhere." So I asked the wife, kissed her goodbye, threw some laundry in the car and drove straight through from Louisville to Miami in 22 hours. Passed the eval ride despite having been up 48 hours at that point, and now I'm up dragging rags in south Florida flying Bird Dog's and Pawnee's. Total stick and rudder pilot's dream; what an UNREALISTICALLY fun couple of airframes. Probably not as ideally suited as a Super Cub for banner towing, but I'm just a pilot, thats the planes they have, that's what I fly, ALWAYS the best, most efficient, safest, most effective way I know how.
At first I honestly wasn't sure what to make of the area, industry, and company, but was determined to at least give it a fighting chance and man, it's actually starting to be more fun than I ever thought it could be. Don't get me wrong, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's finally starting to pay dividends in terms of job satisfaction. I'm still losing money monthly trying to pay for rent and food simultaneously, but I'll be honest, I get so excited about going to work sometimes I can't sleep the night before. I'm having that much fun.
The Pawnee is so ugly it's almost funny, but it fly's like a dream. It's got enough power to get yourself out of whatever dumb crap you've gotten yourself into, surprisingly responsive controls, and enough of a stability/instability balance to keep yourself interested and on your game, but not stable enough to ever be boring. It's just satisfying beyond words to think that even though I'm almost thirty, and had to fight in a couple of wars to get here, it really is everything I thought it would be...flying wise. The operation here is far from perfect, but they maintain the airplanes exceptionally well, plenty of flying, support the decisions of the pilot most of the time, and where I come from you never forget it can always be worse, and it usually is. But for now, I consider myself privileged to finally call myself a "real" pilot, and just broke 1000 hours, and although I have NO idea where its all going or whats around the corner, every day I get to fly is a blessing and truly an honor.
So I flew jumpers for a couple of months in a 206 and quickly grew tired of the up and down routine of ground hog day (well that and couldn't begin to break even, making less than 1000 bucks a month flying full time). Not that the flying wasn't fun...just wasn't learning what I needed to be learning never flying more than 5 miles from the field. Where I come from, professionalism is paramount to survival. If you don't take your job seriously, you die. Fast. And for whatever reason my heart wasn't in that particular mission. From day 1 in the Army I became a true believer that if you're not doing it with all your heart and everything you have in you, you're not doing it right. Always strive for perfection no matter who's watching, especially when no one is. 1 foot high or low is unacceptable, 1 knot too fast or slow is unacceptable. God knows I'm no stellar pilot, but I take pride in always trying to make every flight better than the last. There are plenty of guy's that just zone out and watch movies on their IPad's, but I will never, no matter how long I do this, become complacent. It's just not in me.
Money has absolutely no bearing on my choices, it just literally doesn't make any difference. I know everyone's thoughts on getting paid well for your work, but to me the difference in pay is the pride i get in doing it right, and making every minute strapped in count. I got into flying for the enjoyment and challenge, and it's always been my real passion, but my heart wasn't in being a diver driver, so I moved on from that particular operation and waited for something I could find a little more dynamic. Go hard or go home, so I chose to regroup and re-attack at a later date.
So I went back to contracting sans aviation. It was more of a stop-gap until another chance came up, and I knew it would, plus I still really enjoy blowing stuff up so I went back to EOD consulting short term. I knew I could never give up my flying habit though, and I've never given up on anything in my life, and wasn't about to start now. I had too much invested in terms of time and emotion, and sure enough a banner gig dug my resume and I took a quick chance after given a 24 hour window to be 1100 miles away, basically being told "if you're here in 24 hours we'll give you a shot. Take 25 hours to get here and you can seek life elsewhere." So I asked the wife, kissed her goodbye, threw some laundry in the car and drove straight through from Louisville to Miami in 22 hours. Passed the eval ride despite having been up 48 hours at that point, and now I'm up dragging rags in south Florida flying Bird Dog's and Pawnee's. Total stick and rudder pilot's dream; what an UNREALISTICALLY fun couple of airframes. Probably not as ideally suited as a Super Cub for banner towing, but I'm just a pilot, thats the planes they have, that's what I fly, ALWAYS the best, most efficient, safest, most effective way I know how.
At first I honestly wasn't sure what to make of the area, industry, and company, but was determined to at least give it a fighting chance and man, it's actually starting to be more fun than I ever thought it could be. Don't get me wrong, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's finally starting to pay dividends in terms of job satisfaction. I'm still losing money monthly trying to pay for rent and food simultaneously, but I'll be honest, I get so excited about going to work sometimes I can't sleep the night before. I'm having that much fun.
The Pawnee is so ugly it's almost funny, but it fly's like a dream. It's got enough power to get yourself out of whatever dumb crap you've gotten yourself into, surprisingly responsive controls, and enough of a stability/instability balance to keep yourself interested and on your game, but not stable enough to ever be boring. It's just satisfying beyond words to think that even though I'm almost thirty, and had to fight in a couple of wars to get here, it really is everything I thought it would be...flying wise. The operation here is far from perfect, but they maintain the airplanes exceptionally well, plenty of flying, support the decisions of the pilot most of the time, and where I come from you never forget it can always be worse, and it usually is. But for now, I consider myself privileged to finally call myself a "real" pilot, and just broke 1000 hours, and although I have NO idea where its all going or whats around the corner, every day I get to fly is a blessing and truly an honor.
