Sacrificing safety to build hours

[MokiDugway]

Hello all. I'm trying to remain as anonymous as I can in case my employer is on here. I've been a CFI for 5 years now at a pretty slow flight school. Over the years I have had serious concerns about my safety and little confidence in the maintenance of the ships I fly. These concerns run the gamut from flying photo missions low level at low airspeed over heavy populated downtown areas,having squawks ignored if I don't put my foot down and keep hounding maintenance and then having the owner of the school second guess my squawks and tell maintenance to not work on it, being pressured to fly ships that have maintenance issues, chewing my ass if I cancel a flight due to a maintenance issue that is deemed minor, etc...

 

My first day on the job I wrote up a squawk in the maintenance log and was told not to do that because it would unnecessarily ground the ship. I was instructed to not write any squawks in the log and instead text them to maintenance and my boss.

 

I flight trained at this school and have kept in touch with all of my previous instructor's. One of them told me the other day that he was surprised that he made it out of there alive. All of them have experienced what I have, and we have all done it because we needed the hours.

 

Over the past month I experienced two maintenance issues in flight that I was lucky to have walked away from. A couple of days ago I was chastised for canceling a flight due to a main rotor track and balance issue with heavy cyclic shaking.

 

I recently decided that enough is enough and I quit. I do not have another job lined up so I am nervous about my prospects. Luckily I have 1250 PIC, so I'm hoping I can find something. I am concerned that the gap in employment will be frowned upon by prospective employers.

 

I feel very good about my decision, but the whole experience has soured me toward the helicopter world and I'm doubting whether I want to be a part of it anymore. Is there hope? Has anyone had a similar experience? Did I just screw my career? Does anyone have advice? Thank you in advance to anyone willing to offer their input.