Jump to content

Which time building idea is worse?


eagle5

  

31 members have voted

  1. 1. So which would be more frowned upon?

    • Paying to work
      5
    • Pencil whipping your logbook
      26


Recommended Posts

I don't see anything wrong with paying for flight time even if you are qualified for an actual job. This is not unique to the helicopter industry. In fact, if you think about it, most serious professions have something similar.

 

Prospective police officers often work as unpaid reserve officers. In many cases, they have paid to put themselves through an academy and hold the same certification as a gainfully employed full-time officer. I'd say half of the firefighters in the nation are volunteer firefighters. One could make a valid argument that if these reserve officers and volunteer firefighters weren't willing to do so that those positions would open up to being advertised as paid positions. Jobs are being taken away.

 

Apprentice electricians do it. Newbie attorneys do it. Unpaid internships are another example. A person with a college degree may very well be "qualified" to do a job, but they can't get hired because they don't have the experience (hours) necessary to be competitive. They take an unpaid position, and often put their own money into tools of the trade, hoping that their sacrifice pans out in the end.

 

I don't think it is ever going to stop, nor do I necessarily think it should. I am all for a person doing what they have to do to better themselves. If that means buying some hours with an instructor, paying for the experience of ferrying aircraft, or working for free, I don't see a moral dilemma. They do what they have to do until they are competitive and then they get a paying job. That's most industries.

 

Having your basic ratings and basic experience doesn't entitle you to a job. Having the right background and right attitude earns the job. No employer is obligated to give someone a job so it is up to the applicant to make themselves marketable. Often times, that costs money.

 

Now, as for lying to get a job or lying to keep it. That's not excusable. If you are willing to lie to get a job you are willing to lie to keep it, get ahead, step on others, and put yourself before others regardless of qualifications or merit. You are in essence saying, I know others are qualified and I am not, but I am going to go to the front of the line anyway. That is wrong.

 

Lying to keep a job can be a difficult decision but one that should always reach the same answer. When you have mouths to feed and bills to pay I can see the dilemma. Still, I think honesty is the best policy. While not always true, I'd like to think that an employer would be more willing to keep someone who can admit a mistake and learn from it. Quite often the ones who make a mistake are the least likely to make it again, so in a way they become a lower risk in the future for having had the experience they wish they didn't have in the first place. And, in the end, even if it does cost a job it probably wasn't meant to work out anyway and perhaps the next employer will be a better match.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This isn't an uncommon point of view for military pilots who have had their training paid by others.

 

It's also not uncommon for military aviators to take the training and run, which is why we have the widespread use of training contracts and bonds, these days.

 

It's not just military aviators, but more from that pool than an other, that I've seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see anything wrong with paying for flight time even if you are qualified for an actual job. This is not unique to the helicopter industry. In fact, if you think about it, most serious professions have something similar.

 

Prospective police officers often work as unpaid reserve officers. In many cases, they have paid to put themselves through an academy and hold the same certification as a gainfully employed full-time officer. I'd say half of the firefighters in the nation are volunteer firefighters. One could make a valid argument that if these reserve officers and volunteer firefighters weren't willing to do so that those positions would open up to being advertised as paid positions. Jobs are being taken away.

 

Apprentice electricians do it. Newbie attorneys do it. Unpaid internships are another example. A person with a college degree may very well be "qualified" to do a job, but they can't get hired because they don't have the experience (hours) necessary to be competitive. They take an unpaid position, and often put their own money into tools of the trade, hoping that their sacrifice pans out in the end.

 

I don't think it is ever going to stop, nor do I necessarily think it should. I am all for a person doing what they have to do to better themselves. If that means buying some hours with an instructor, paying for the experience of ferrying aircraft, or working for free, I don't see a moral dilemma. They do what they have to do until they are competitive and then they get a paying job. That's most industries.

 

Having your basic ratings and basic experience doesn't entitle you to a job. Having the right background and right attitude earns the job. No employer is obligated to give someone a job so it is up to the applicant to make themselves marketable. Often times, that costs money.

 

Now, as for lying to get a job or lying to keep it. That's not excusable. If you are willing to lie to get a job you are willing to lie to keep it, get ahead, step on others, and put yourself before others regardless of qualifications or merit. You are in essence saying, I know others are qualified and I am not, but I am going to go to the front of the line anyway. That is wrong.

 

Lying to keep a job can be a difficult decision but one that should always reach the same answer. When you have mouths to feed and bills to pay I can see the dilemma. Still, I think honesty is the best policy. While not always true, I'd like to think that an employer would be more willing to keep someone who can admit a mistake and learn from it. Quite often the ones who make a mistake are the least likely to make it again, so in a way they become a lower risk in the future for having had the experience they wish they didn't have in the first place. And, in the end, even if it does cost a job it probably wasn't meant to work out anyway and perhaps the next employer will be a better match.

I was going to point out that same analogy with police and fire professions. I know people who have paid thousands of dollars, taken 6 months off work to attend an academy, bought their own equipment and spend 2-3 days a month or more volunteering for shifts just to get noticed on the next hiring cycle. Depending on where you are in the nation its not uncommon for a few thousand people to apply for 25 slots.

 

Again, my thought is that the comparison is apples and oranges. One pilot just flat out lies and the other is dealing with the cards he/she has been dealt. I don't see how you can look down on someone who's been backed into a corner and decides the only way out is to just pay for time or pay to work to gain more experience. When I first started flying airplanes I joined Civil Air Patrol. Ive probably paid for 50-75hrs of "experience" in a 182. Maybe there is an airplane forum somewhere where my scenario gets compared to just writing it in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I first started flying airplanes I joined Civil Air Patrol. Ive probably paid for 50-75hrs of "experience" in a 182. Maybe there is an airplane forum somewhere where my scenario gets compared to just writing it in.

 

Flying with civil air patrol is not the same as paying an employer for a job, or paying an employer to work for the employer.

 

Civil Air Patrol is not a commercial operator. In fact, the aircraft are all placarded quite visibly "not for compensation or hire." Paying the low rates to fly a corporate aircraft for the CAP is nothing remotely like paying a commercial revenue producing operator to do a paid-pilot's job.

 

As for comparisons to firefighting, I've done volunteer firefighting on volunteer departments, which is nothing at all like walking into a paid department and volunteering to take their jobs, or worse, pay to push them aside and do the job. The companies for whom I've performed firefighting, and to date that's eight, would never accept an "intern," nor would they ever accept money or compensation from an applicant in order to allow the applicant to pretend to be an employee.

 

That's ALL that people who buy their jobs are doing. Pretending to be employees. When one isn't being paid for one's revenue producing commercial job, one doesn't have the job. One is pretending to be employed. If one pays the employer, instead of the employer paying the employee, it's not really a job.

 

Those standing on the lower rungs are so quick to whore themselves out, lower the bar, and pronounce themselves justified in doing whatever it takes to get what they want, it's a pathetic display of a pervasive lack of understanding ethics, and honor that seems to have infected the underclass today. It's reprehensible and dishonorable to pay a commercial employer to "work" for that employer. What does that really make you?

 

A customer.

 

Depending on where you are in the nation its not uncommon for a few thousand people to apply for 25 slots.

 

 

How many of those thousand people buy one of those 25 slots?

Edited by avbug
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What we’re (supposedly) taking about here is an operator charging the pilot to fly in order to avoid having to pay a pilot to fly. Not an internship or a volunteering opportunity or a training scenario. It’s a pilot paying to fly a helicopter for which “other” operators are paying a pilot to do the same job…..

Think of it this way; would it be acceptable for YOUR current employer (whatever the position) lay you off so that another individual could pay your employer to do your job?........

Edited by Spike
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Avbug,

 

I think you have me mixed up with some other government teet sucking turd.

 

I was a RW CFII, 1000+ hours, begging for flight time, trying to figure out how to feed a kid, and 60 grand in flight training debt before I came into the Army.

 

Many of my Army pilot buddies were also civilian pilots in a similar boat. You know what, I think all my ratings and flight time likely helped me get selected just as it did my buddies. How dare those flight schools just use us, letting us gain all that experience, paying pennies, just so we could go out and be competitive to earn a successful career as Chief Warrant Officers making 80 grand per year. Those heartless bastards! You know, if they had just paid a living wage so that I would be excluded and never have the chances I do I wouldn't be stuck here now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...and to answer the question, yes, absent a contract of sorts it would be ok for an employer to lay someone off if there is somebody standing in line willing to do the same job for free. It's called the free market. If I am an employer I will pay the cheapest rate as long as the quality that I need is there. If that's an intern or someone who pays their way to get the experience that's ok. We are both getting a benefit. That's basic economics, or are we now arguing the merits of a free economy versus a socialist economy?

 

We all think of Boatpix. Never flown with them and don't care to. You may not like the way they operate but the fact is that they may not be in operation period if they had to pay a living wage. So, they can go out of business, provide no service to the boating public and remove an avenue for certain pilots to earn experience (even if they pay for part of it like many others in the free market), or they can do what they do, run a business, and provide new pilots an avenue to build hours.

 

I don't see a moral dilemma here unless you just don't like a market based economy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...and to answer the question, yes, absent a contract of sorts it would be ok for an employer to lay someone off if there is somebody standing in line willing to do the same job for free. It's called the free market.

Since I posed the question, I’ll respond……

 

The question was not about “an” employer. It was “your” employer…… With that, if you don’t believe your worth the 80K the Army pays you, then you either give it back as we taxpayers are footing the bill or donate it to a worthy cause….. Shoot, I could sure use it because I don’t make squat! Twenty two years, thousands of hours and I’ll never make enough….. Why is that? Free market? Don’t think so….. Sadly, it’s something you’ll experience if and when you decide to get out and fly commercially………

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Better yet, let the US Army start accepting pay-to-play hobbyists. The Steve Faucett's of the world can come buy time in US Army aircraft, pay to jump into helicopters...even pay to instruct at Ft. Rucker. Take care of some of that budgetary constraint. Eighty grand, get 60 combat hours, housing and meals provided. Now that the tourists are paying, the troops can feel better protected, and the warrant officer can take a pay cut to zero; why should the US Army pay him when they've got hobbyists paying to do the same job?

 

Free market.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Come on a patrol with me. Fly a Cobra for the price of an R22...and YOU get to shoot the guns! If we get shot down don't worry you're not a real soldier so they'll let you go...probably? Hurry almost all booked up for this war...and who knows when the next one will be? Great time building experience for that resume!"

 

Hmm, I'll think about it...if I can still log PIC while shooting the guns?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you pay for flight time you are not paying for a job. You are paying for flight time to get the job.

 

Really? Someone who doesn't buy your flight time and pay to work for you has an equal chance at getting the job?

 

The person who comes to "work for you" by paying you is very much buying the job.

 

Speak the truth, or speak not at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I pay to fly a helicopter, I should (will) be able to go where I please (within reason) and do what I choose (within reason). If I am told where and when to fly in order to generate income for the owner of the machine, then I am no longer a renter…..

 

IF I choose to pay for flight time, that flight time is MINE……..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sometimes it's referred to as logging P-51 time. P, as in Parker Pen.

 

If flight time is all you want, then by all means, falsify it. Commit a criminal act. Fake it. Make it up. Give yourself five thousand hours and be done with it.

 

Hours don't mean squat. Experience is everything. You can buy the former but not the latter. You can fake hours. You can't fake experience.

 

Buying a job is not experience. What qualified you for the job? Best candidate? Had to compete to get the position? Proved yourself such that your selection speaks volumes about who you are and your value to a commercial operator?

 

Or just opened your wallet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...