Getting paid to fly rather than paying to fly

RickJames

RickJames

Impressive Member
I'm interested in anything involving piloting a fixed-wing aircraft and monetary compensation at or above the poverty line. I'm attempting to circumvent the CFI route so any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Commercial Pilot Certificate- ASEL, AMEL, Instrument rating
High Performance, High Altitude, Tail-Wheel endorsements
340TT
170PIC
109ME
15 Tail-Wheel
 
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Indeed I have and I've decided to exhaust all other possible avenues for time building before conceding defeat and taking my, "last resort." I started CFI training early last year and the interest wasn't there for me nor did it seem like a good fit. Perhaps I just hated my CFI instructor but I found myself looking for excuses to not go flying and that reminded me of everyday I had a flight lesson at Embry-Riddle in KDAB.
 
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RickJames said:
Indeed I have and I've decided to exhaust all other possible avenues for time building before conceding defeat and taking my, "last resort." I started CFI training early last year and the interest wasn't there for me nor did it seem like a good fit. Perhaps I just hated my CFI instructor but I found myself looking for excuses to not go flying and that reminded me of everyday I had a flight lesson at Embry-Riddle in KDAB.
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Try a different instructor and don't do it part 141. Or go drop bodies at the local DZ. dropzone.com check out the employment section.
 
I'm on the lookout for diver driver and banner tow jobs but not a whole lot of openings at the moment.
 
Gainesville, FL. I'm building up tail-wheel in a PA18 daily since most operators run tail draggers but I'm still short of the 25-50 T.W. most places are looking for.
 
Check the picto vendors. I think sky lens is hiring a pilot or two for the remainder of their season. Think their CP goes by pilotbry on the boards
 
RickJames said:
I'm interested in anything involving piloting a fixed-wing aircraft and monetary compensation at or above the poverty line. I'm attempting to circumvent the CFI route so any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Commercial Pilot Certificate- ASEL, AMEL, Instrument rating
High Performance, High Altitude, Tail-Wheel endorsements
340TT
170PIC
109ME
15 Tail-Wheel
Click to expand...

SeaPort Airlines hires folk around your times and even lower. IBC Airways hires at 250 hours but they've been having some small issues lately. Those are the only two places I know. Occasionally we hire 250 hour guys to fly the canyon but that is about once a year.
 
z987k said:
Try a different instructor and don't do it part 141. Or go drop bodies at the local DZ. dropzone.com check out the employment section.
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My only caution to that is that you're going to get a whole lot of day VFR time, and the IFR, night and cross country time can be very lacking. A coworker of mine left our school to do banner towing for about 1000 hours. He came back, got his CFI, and is instructing. It has really hurt his career opportunities as he has over 1500 hours with not enough night, cross country, or instrument time.

Like @ChasenSFO said though, don't teach if you don't want to do it. The students deserve someone who at least has enough drive to teach for the student than to just teach to build flight time.

I will say though with the flight instructing certificates, you become a lot more knowledgeable because you realize just how much you really didn't know that you thought you did when you start having to teach it all to someone else.

I have a friend who flies a lot of corporate such as Lears, Citations, King Airs etc. He has told me if he was looking to hire someone himself, he wouldn't hire anyone who didn't have their instructor certificates. Now that will vary person to person, but being a flight instructor is definitely a huge resume booster, and character builder in a lot of ways. I certainly don't regret my time being a flight instructor, and I feel better off for the experience.

If you don't do your CFI, try to avoid doing 1000 hours of dropping bodies, or towing banners unless that's all you plan on doing with your career, or you don't mind a delay in finding that 135 or 121 job you really want.
 
ChasenSFO said:
I'm a pretty firm believer of the concept, "If you don't want to teach people how to fly, DON'T become a CFI". Not fair to the students and not fair to yourself. Total time is time, don't hate life while you chase it.
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I couldn't agree more with this. I got my CFI certificate and instructed mainly because I wanted to teach and I think it's a shame how many CFIs are just "in it for the hours". Interestingly enough I just had a Facebook discussion about this issue with some former students of mine the other day and one of my former students had some bad experiences with instructors who only cared about building time.

On the other hand, if you do have a desire to teach, your CFI training might go better with a different CFI as z987k suggested.

bimmerphile said:
Check the picto vendors. I think sky lens is hiring a pilot or two for the remainder of their season. Think their CP goes by pilotbry on the boards
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I would second this. I work for Air America now, another Pictometry vendor, and we will likely be hiring a few pilots in May (possibly sooner if anyone leaves before the end of the season). Air America hires brand new commercial pilots and the pay is better than what you would get as a new CFI.
 
Try ferrying airplanes. Build a network with brokers, pilots, A&P's, spend time at your local airport, talk to people and go around the hangars telling people your qualifications and intentions. It worked out pretty good for me, but I beleive my location (SFL) helped a lot. I had about 300tt when I first ferried a c172 to South America and made 4k in two weeks, 53hrs of flying and a lot of fun. You can build your time fairly quick and make a lot more money than a lot people out there flying right now, not only that you get to fly a variety of airplanes. Give it a try and see what happens. Best of luck to you.
 
Pilot27usa said:
Try ferrying airplanes. Build a network with brokers, pilots, A&P's, spend time at your local airport, talk to people and go around the hangars telling people your qualifications and intentions. It worked out pretty good for me, but I beleive my location (SFL) helped a lot. I had about 300tt when I first ferried a c172 to South America and made 4k in two weeks, 53hrs of flying and a lot of fun. You can build your time fairly quick and make a lot more money than a lot people out there flying right now, not only that you get to fly a variety of airplanes. Give it a try and see what happens. Best of luck to you.
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Hey, I fly out of FXE, I have about TT: 362 PIC: 215 ME: 25 do you know of anyway to get some good time? Like the above gentleman, I dont want to CFI. I Used to be a middle school teacher for 4 year, so no more teaching lol!
 
ChasenSFO said:
I'm a pretty firm believer of the concept, "If you don't want to teach people how to fly, DON'T become a CFI". Not fair to the students and not fair to yourself. Total time is time, don't hate life while you chase it.
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Yeah. I agree. I have quite a few bad memories of high time CFIs falling asleep during a stage check at a 141 school (only one I didn't pass) and my friends getting slammed for not knowing what an inclinometer was. "Oh you mean a ball thingy". Big egos and CFIing don't mix. If you don't love it, don't force it. It won't be fun for anyone.

The survey job seems like a good route.
 
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