Lots of Entry Level Survey Jobs (CSEL w/ Instrument Rating to fly 172s for Pictometry)

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srn121

Well-Known Member
It's the time of year to start applying to Pictometry vendors.

http://airamericafc.com/career-opportunities/
http://www.landvue.com/Employment.html
http://www.northernstatesaviation.com/piloting.htm
http://www.skylensaerial.com/pilot-employment.html (Follow the directions exactly)
http://www.sandhillsaviation.com/Aerial.html (The newest vendor that I'm aware of)

I would say Air America and Skylens are the best two compensation wise, but hopefully things are improving at Landcare and Northern States. Brian at Skylens will likely post when he needs pilots as he's been doing it every year here and has a good reputation in the community.

The main season runs from October to May. Depending on which company you work for you may get no vacation time, but you can look to build 450-700 hours in that time. The companies fly 172s and Aztecs. You'll work all over the US and can build night time and instrument time on relocations with some of the vendors.

It sucks being a low time pilot as there are so few companies out there that will hire you, but at 500 total time a lot starts to open up and the opportunities for pilots only get better and better the more time you get from there. I did two seasons of it and had an incredible time flying all over the US and I was able to support myself the whole time easily from what I had made.

Hopefully some pilots from last year can stop in and fill you in on all the most recent details.
 
I did last season with Landcare. Top Notch bosses. A+ with regards to QoL. No fleabag hotels there! Ask away!

Bob told me they would be taking resumes this month so get 'em in!
 
frankgh said:
I did last season with Landcare. Top Notch bosses. A+ with regards to QoL. No fleabag hotels there! Ask away!

Bob told me they would be taking resumes this month so get 'em in!
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If you don't mind me asking what was your pay like last season? Was the season end bonus pretty substantial?
 
Finny said:
I'd shy away from Air America. It's time for their 1099 contract employee crap to stop.
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I wasn't thrilled with being a contract employee, but when I first went to work to AA I had a great deal of freedom on things like where I could base and I loved it as the only place I got stuck that I didn't like was on my first ever assignment, because some veterans chose our situation. There might be some better reasons to be skeptical of Air America like the fate of N21767, but I really enjoyed my time there.

Also as bad as you might view it Air America does allow for rotations or two vacations which I was incredibly grateful for during the course of a long season. The rotations allowed some people in committed relationships to keep them going too as 7 months on the road straight was probably incredibly hard to explain to a significant other.
 
srn121 said:
I wasn't thrilled with being a contract employee, but when I first went to work to AA I had a great deal of freedom on things like where I could base and I loved it as the only place I got stuck that I didn't like was on my first ever assignment, because some veterans chose our situation. There might be some better reasons to be skeptical of Air America like the fate of N21767, but I really enjoyed my time there.

Also as bad as you might view it Air America does allow for rotations or two vacations which I was incredibly grateful for during the course of a long season. The rotations allowed some people in committed relationships to keep them going too as 7 months on the road straight was probably incredibly hard to explain to a significant other.
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My wife and I ended up just fine while I was a W2 employee at a different shop.
 
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I had my wife come out to 3 of my locations. If her passport had not been expired, I would of brought her up to Halifax while I was there.
 
The bosses had "preferred" bases but if you had someplace else in mind and they had hangars and maintenance, it was no big deal.
 
Finny said:
My wife and I ended up just fine while I was a W2 employee at a different shop.
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I'm glad things worked out for you. Honestly I'd love to see the vendors compete more for pilots and up their pay accordingly. Sandhills seems to be offering a 4 and 2 and also has two weeks vacation mixed in there as well.

I really don't understand the animosity between vendors at all. I enjoyed hanging out with the DWAS, Landcare and Canadian pilots I met while working on the road and I'm sure each place has their pros and cons. Also these places aren't the same now as they were when we flew. Let the new generation of survey pilots decide where they want to go based on the information we provide. I had a great time with AA, but given all the options today I don't know if I would have been happier with another outfit if I had to do it all over again.

You never worked for Air America that I'm aware of so what insight do you bring on their operations in relation to the place you worked at?
 
srn121 said:
You never worked for Air America that I'm aware of so what insight do you bring on their operations in relation to the place you worked at?
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Just curious, how many flight assignments did you turn down at AA since you were a contractor and just wanted the day off to have fun?
they let you fly "wherever you want" and pick all your bases in an attempt to support some argument of a contractor relationship. If you can't refuse an assignment, and they're directing a work schedule, it's not legal to call someone a contractor and shift the entire tax burden onto the employee.
Don't need to have worked there to realize a shady deal

Also don't want this to turn into a picto pissing match, but if there's no one from NSA 15-16 I'll chime in for info from 14-15
 
frankgh said:
The bosses had "preferred" bases but if you had someplace else in mind and they had hangars and maintenance, it was no big deal.
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I didn't know that and that was a huge thing for me. There was nothing lamer than being stuck out by nothing and the one thing that could have been really bad at Air America was that people shared hotels so it had to be done somewhat democratically. So if you were working with one or two guys and one was a veteran or you were outnumbered you could get stuck somewhere •, because the other guys are trying to save as much money as possible. I can't blame them, but everyone has different priorities and there's certain to be drama at times. I think there might be some videos of people drunkenly fighting each other, but in hindsight the occasional heated argument was almost memorable in a way. The problem would be with the passive aggressive folks and no matter what you're going to get on someone else's nerves when you're not just working with them, but on the road with them and sharing a hotel with them.
 
I met a former NSA pilot at LZU. Some guy with a fancy for German cars that only go by 3 letters. We compared notes and NSA seemed very comparable to Landcare. I'm not sure that there is a giant difference between all the W2 vendors. A 1099 can leave you with a big IRS headache. If you bend your 1099 "employer's" airplane you could have even bigger problems.
 
bimmerphile said:
Just curious, how many flight assignments did you turn down at AA since you were a contractor and just wanted the day off to have fun?
they let you fly "wherever you want" and pick all your bases in an attempt to support some argument of a contractor relationship. If you can't refuse an assignment, and they're directing a work schedule, it's not legal to call someone a contractor and shift the entire tax burden onto the employee.
Don't need to have worked there to realize a shady deal

Also don't want this to turn into a picto pissing match, but if there's no one from NSA 15-16 I'll chime in for info from 14-15
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You could negotiate days off at Air America they just wouldn't pay you for them if you did it in advance. I wanted to fly every day, get my time and move on and still went out and had fun I'd just start drinking earlier, like happy hour and would almost never stay out too late unless we were waiting for snow to melt. Every pilot handled it differently and I don't want to get into all of the details. I never once had the boss ever contact me over the time in the morning I started or when I finished. I know some Landcare guys had their bosses call the FBOs to check in on them and I'm not sure that ever happened at AA while I was there.

We also had seniority and it was the plane assigned to projects when I worked there. The most senior guys had their pick of planes, but the bosses would decide which plane went where. If you didn't mind giving up your fancy SP you could swap out with someone headed somewhere else. I'm pretty certain they've done away with that in recent years.
 
srn121 said:
There might be some better reasons to be skeptical of Air America like the fate of N21767, but I really enjoyed my time there.
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I flew 767 for 2.5 months and parked it the week before the accident. It was a solid airplane and there were zero indications something like that would have happened. Some of the MX guys were questionable, but the two I had for the two inspections prior were top notch. Something catastrophic had to have happened. That's the biggest gripe I had with AA. AA does all their major MX in house. Having local MX do it could have kept some of the smaller things from getting deferred time and time again. They probably could have done it faster also, but it's hard to say. The guys I had worked long days to get them back up and flying because I usually stayed around and on top of them.

The 1099 situation was confusing at first and my mother who is professional human resources was baffled at how they could get away with it. I was fortunate enough to have a close family friend who is also a tax guy. He got me every tax break under the sun and kept as much money in my pocket as possible. I saved up enough cash to pay off my credit card in full and come home with $5,000 in savings while taking care of a wife and a house full of dogs.

I also didn't stay in crap hotels. Learned the hard way that the HoJo is a no go, but outside of that it was nice. I'm 5 days from Marriott platinum off nights alone, IHG gold, and enterprise platinum. I also got enough points from my credit card for two round trip tickets for the wife and I.

Each shop will be different, but I'm glad I picked AA. I didn't get bothered and the freedom for basing and flying was great. Never felt like anyone was pushing me to do anything I didn't want to do. Got offered a position working under the CP for another year, but the wife didn't like the idea of me being gone again and I'm close enough to R-ATP minimums for the airlines. I am thankful for the time there. I had a great group of core guys there and we had a blast.
 
srn121 said:
We also had seniority and it was the plane assigned to projects when I worked there. The most senior guys had their pick of planes, but the bosses would decide which plane went where. If you didn't mind giving up your fancy SP you could swap out with someone headed somewhere else. I'm pretty certain they've done away with that in recent years.
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No plane stealing this year. You're in that plane until vacation or boss switches you. If someone in your group left then you could switch around, but most just kept their planes. I got spoiled with an SP to start and finish with. Spent 3 months in between them in a L model. Lost nearly 2 hours of time with the less fuel. That sucked since I tried to keep the engine rolling as long as possible.
 
pntbllr233 said:
I flew 767 for 2.5 months and parked it the week before the accident. It was a solid airplane and there were zero indications something like that would have happened. Some of the MX guys were questionable, but the two I had for the two inspections prior were top notch. Something catastrophic had to have happened. That's the biggest gripe I had with AA. AA does all their major MX in house. Having local MX do it could have kept some of the smaller things from getting deferred time and time again. They probably could have done it faster also, but it's hard to say. The guys I had worked long days to get them back up and flying because I usually stayed around and on top of them.
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It was a solid plane and I think one of the oldest in the fleet. I only had 20 hours in the thing off the top of my head, but almost all the SPs had some quirk and that thing was pretty much squawk free when I flew it. I'm anxious to see what the NTSB flies and I don't want to rush to judge either the pilots or mechanics, but I know it's scaring some pilots away at least until the investigation is concluded.
 
srn121 said:
It was a solid plane and I think one of the oldest in the fleet. I only had 20 hours in the thing off the top of my head, but almost all the SPs had some quirk and that thing was pretty much squawk free when I flew it. I'm anxious to see what the NTSB flies and I don't want to rush to judge either the pilots or mechanics, but I know it's scaring some pilots away at least until the investigation is concluded.
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I think that's the biggest reason wifey said no to me going back. I flew 2,000 AGL over the Strait of Georgia in Vancouver and all around mountains just fine and then a week after I left that happened. I've been following it closely.
 
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