Goodyear Blimp Pilot Gig

The PMP one seems like it only does pleasure cruises for clients. I always thought this would be a sweet gig. What's a HTA Commercial license?
 
Adler said:
The PMP one seems like it only does pleasure cruises for clients. I always thought this would be a sweet gig. What's a HTA Commercial license?
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Heavier than Air (Airplane, Glider, Rotorcraft). PMP does seem to do a decent bit of travel too.
 
Goodyear doesn't fly very much, but they don't travel much either. It's probably the only Blimp gig with a somewhat decent quality of life. Of course at the end of the day, you still have to fly a blimp, so there's that.

I would steer well-clear of airships in general unless it's some sort of childhood dream that you wish to fulfill.
 
Apophis said:
Goodyear doesn't fly very much, but they don't travel much either. It's probably the only Blimp gig with a somewhat decent quality of life. Of course at the end of the day, you still have to fly a blimp, so there's that.

I would steer well-clear of airships in general unless it's some sort of childhood dream that you wish to fulfill.
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Well I have to say I would do it for a year or two if I didn't have a family. But I would also do a lot of other things different too. Life is good now!
 
Rotor2Wing said:
Well I have to say I would do it for a year or two if I didn't have a family. But I would also do a lot of other things different too. Life is good now!
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Yup, that's pretty much why I work where I work. I wanted to do it for maybe a couple of years and then move on. I'm actually on vacation for 3 weeks from flying blimps, and if a potential job I have lined up comes through, then I won't be flying blimps anymore.

I'm not too far away from two years with my current company, and I'm so burned out from the 340+ days per year on the road (and the fact that we have to live in hotels), that almost anything would be a QOL increase for me at this point.
 
Apophis said:
I'm not too far away from two years with my current company, and I'm so burned out from the 340+ days per year on the road (and the fact that we have to live in hotels), that almost anything would be a QOL increase for me at this point.
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Not that I'm interested, just curious, how many hours in the hotel do you normally have? When you sit, do you get rental cars or anything?
 
Adler said:
Not that I'm interested, just curious, how many hours in the hotel do you normally have? When you sit, do you get rental cars or anything?
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It generally depends on several things; my company operates several contracts (MetLife, DirecTV, etc), and the travel schedule varies based on which contract the company puts us on. DirecTV and MetLife have the most travel-intensive schedule of all of our contracts. During the summer when we cover a lot of golf tournaments on MetLife, we generally aren't in any city longer than a week before moving on to the next tournament.

As far as the hotels are concerned, how long we actually spend at the hotel every day depends on what type of flying we are doing (passenger rides, television events, etc), as well as the weather forecast. Generally our crew gets released to go back to our hotel during longer, non cross country flights so we aren't sitting around at the airport all day.

Days off can be difficult because usually the only vehicles we have on the road are our company vehicles. We can use the company's vehicles on days off, but there is a time-limit placed on their use, so one person can't simply take one company vehicle and be gone the whole day. This makes things especially difficult if our hotel isn't within walking distance to anything and there aren't any company vehicles available; in cases like this, days off hanging around the hotel can be pretty depressing.

Honestly, I don't want it to seem like I have a "woe-is-me" I hate life attitude, because I don't feel that way at all. I've always strongly believed that if you don't like your current position, then the onus is on you to effect the change necessary to improve things.

I've got an interview for a corporate pilot position (thanks to a good friend of mine) next week, and several applications in at other companies as well. I'm 99% sure at this point that I won't be returning to my blimp flying job when my vacation is up.
 
I've never seen any with my company........The hot ones probably know that Goodyear is where it's at. :eek:
 
Kevin Stafford said:
What is the average amount of hours/year as well as salary?
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I don't know what Goodyear's salary is, however I know they don't fly extremely often. Probably several hundred hours per year would be my guess. You don't go to Goodyear looking to build time. It's more of a long-haul destination.

Also, the positions are extremely competitive; don't be surprised if you get the "thanks, but no thanks" e-mail.
 
LucasM said:
Where do you even go to get your LTA rating, or whichever one you need for a blimp?
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Get hired and get trained. It's amazing really, when you consider, to get hired by some 121 carriers, they want you to be rated to fly the aircraft in question, yet something as unimportant as a blimp, you can get hired and trained how to do the job once you are there.

I'd be glad to sell mine and the 1200 hours that go with it.
 
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