Potential new pilot needs advice

[Steve A.]

Hey folks,

 

I've been on here doing some reading after considering training to become a helicopter pilot. I wanted to ask for some advice from those who are kind enough to share. I respect and appreciate the seasoned pilots on this board with lots of flying under their belts.

 

A little bit about myself. I'm 31 years old, a college graduate with a master's degree in Biology. I'm smart, technical, a good mechanic, an experienced outdoorsman, very meticulous and organized. I've lived in, and enjoy working in exciting and remote places. But my job sucks, my career is low paying, and not very rewarding. I'm looking to start fresh, and a career as a pilot is intriguing. The trouble is I feel I'm only seeing the romantic parts of the job, and not necessarily the every day aspects. If I told you that I got my interest in becoming a pilot while darting polar bears out of Bell 206 in the Canadian arctic you might think "hell, I'd love that job!" but for me, it's not all that it's cracked up to be. I'm not looking to make a fortune being a pilot (my wife is a doctor), I'm just interested in a rewarding career that's exciting and that I can be proud of.

 

I was hoping some of you could share your life experiences with me, and how you became a pilot and whether the decision was worth it in the long run.

 

Thanks!

 

Steve in Anchorage, AK

[Azhigher]

Steve,

 

I got started innocently enough after seeing a medevac helicopter on the side of the road, pilot hanging out in the back, feet kicked up reading a book. What a glamorous job I thought to myself, right then and there I decided thats what I would do.

 

Since then it's actually been a fairly easy road for me getting through training and landing my first CFI and then turbine job. However, I know that I am an extremely rare case because I also know of quite a few people that were probably better all around pilots than myself and they didn't quite make it through. I started off young so working as a CFI with the low pay and long hours wasn't really a burden. I also had family financing so I didn't have to go through a lot of the headaches a lot of potential pilots had to. However, if I started over today there's virtually no chance that I'd be able to pick up my first CFI job as quickly as I did back in late 2008.

 

However, now that all the instructing is over with for me, life is actually pretty good. I have a job I enjoy. I get to fly fairly often and although there are some crappy aspects to my job, overall I am happy with what I'm doing. There are plenty of opportunities out there once you've got a fair amount of hours, the right experience, and a lot of contacts.

 

One piece of advice I'd give you is pick the right school. Seems like the hardest part to becoming a pilot these days is getting your first CFI job, so make sure the school you're going to has a good program, a fair number of students, and a fairly good reputation.

 

In the long run what I went through to get to where I am now was absolutely worth it, but thats mainly because I had such an easy time at it. If you were to ask some of the students I trained to be CFI's and then couldn't get a job at my school, you might get a different answer...

Edited December 8, 2010 by Azhigher

[Steve A.]

Thanks! And thanks in advance for future comments.

 

Steve

[kodoz]

The trouble is I feel I'm only seeing the romantic parts of the job, and not necessarily the every day aspects.

 

Yeah, I got in pretty much the same as you, just a few years earlier (right down to the biology degree and immunity to the shame of letting my wife support the family). I tried flying airplanes. It was boring. I thought helicopters were more in-line with my personality--I like to be doing something, not just watching the dials.

 

I got my CFI in Dec 2008, and have flown less than 100 hrs since then. In the intervening 2 years, things have changed a lot for me. I'm not as mobile as I was when I started, CFI jobs are much more rare, and I'm not optimistic that I'll ever make it to even a CFI job (and I would have been quite happy with that if it would have freed me from my old job.

[Wally]

When I was 10, an H-19 landed in my Grandmother's pasture. I don't remember why, but I remember the fact.

 

High school-flight school-Vietnam. The Army and I had an 'amicable divorce' when they wanted 'us' to try the Vietnam thing, again.

 

Had actual jobs for a decade, was miserable, but had a little money and a supportive wife after that 10 years, started flying again- and lost'em both. Married again, and still love flying, 30+ years later. There have been times when I felt like being 'there' was very bad decision. After I landed and critiqued myself, I did the next flight.

 

You got to really, truly and fundamentally want it, and be willing to spend some pretty tough years getting employable, "If it harelips ever'body on Bear Creek!". You have to be a pretty single-minded jerk for about 5 years, traipsing around after flying jobs and hours. Then you can be just a regular jerk, but eating regular. Divorce is common amongst professional pilots.

 

It can be done. Not everybody can, will, or should make it as a pilot. The 1 in 10 or so who finish what they started are the ones who have the jobs in the end, even if they don't have anything else, BUT flying. If that's you, nothing else will do.

[Rogue]

The advice I took - spend cash money getting your Private and re-evaluate from there.

 

I am working towards my Commercial as an add-on and have a job waiting for me. When I learned about how this industry operates with fresh ink CFI's leading the way I said to myself that isn't right. I found my current instructor by word of mouth from my first instructor, both military trained and both current/former instructors at Mother Rucker. They believe as I do and I'm training under a 14,000hr ATP among other things. This person wishes to remain anonymous as he does not want his phone ringing off the hook and he only trains people as a hobby and only trains people he feels are worthy since he works also a Chief Pilot among other things.

 

So even with having won the "aviation lottery" I still had thought about not doing it a 1000 times on the way to my Private and had to think long and hard about going all the way to Commercial before I finally committed to it. Flying is fun, flying as a job - eh, not so much sometimes. So if you still love it on those days that you HAVE to do it even when you don't WANT to do then you just may do alright.

[SBuzzkill]

Aviation is awesome but you have to make sacrifices. Some people get lucky, others not so much. It is what you make of it, though. I would not go into it thinking that things will work out as you planned because from what I have seen they hardly ever do.

 

Rogue I agree with your post. Steve I would not just jump into a flying career at this point in your life, test the waters first. Spend a little time at the airport meeting people and get a feel for the community.

 

While your job may be low paying and unrewarding it is still paying your bills. The same cannot always be said for a flying job, a lot of times because there's no job to be had! Get a private pilot's license, see what flying is about, and re-evaluate whether or not it is rewarding enough to try and make a career out of it.

 

I'm not going to go into the low time CFI vs high time CFI, but I will say that it is crucially important that you find an instructor who has an enthusiasm for teaching and not just flying.

 

In short, to be happy in this world you really have to love aviation.

 

IBboatpix

Edited December 10, 2010 by SBuzzkill

[Hawkeye0001]

I can't really remember what hooked me up, I just know that I always loved helicopters. Funny enough I didn't care too much about flying them until 4 years ago when I realized that there are ways around joining the military to fly.

 

My best advice to you: do NOT spend any money you don't have. Times are tough and I've seen more people fail than succeed. And instead of getting out of their low paying job they got got back into their low paying job but this time with a huge debt.

For the longest time I wasn't even sure if I want to continue myself under these circumstances. For the first few years it seems that you have to be able to move at a moments notice, you put much more into your career than you'll get out of it and if you don't suffer from "AIDS"* yet it might be about to come.

 

I'd go with what some others here said: get your PPL first and see if you like it and go from there. Take your time looking into different schools as there are many around with different advantages & disadvantages. If you got the time and money do a little road trip and stop by at each one of them, choose wisely.

 

After all I'm still not sure if it was worth it in the long run. In hindsight I certainly invested too much into this - and the some $70.000 were the least of it. That's something time will tell I suppose.

But at the end of the day it's fun

 

 

 

*Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome

[r22butters]

I got my CFI in Dec 2008, and have flown less than 100 hrs since then. In the intervening 2 years, things have changed a lot for me. I'm not as mobile as I was when I started, CFI jobs are much more rare, and I'm not optimistic that I'll ever make it to even a CFI job (and I would have been quite happy with that if it would have freed me from my old job.

 

And to think, I was actually considering giving the Cfi rating another chance?

 

This isn't the first post like this I've read. Others were things like; "I haven't flown since I got my ratings, a year ago", or "my school was finally hiring, but they took a more recent grad over me", (not as rusty I guess?)

 

To make things worse, it seems like the only Cfi jobs that are ever posted, are for "experienced" Cfis.

 

If the Cfi isn't a way in anymore, how will we ever end the pilot shortage?(yes, people still write articles claming that!)