What employment opportunities do pilots have?

[ScottMac]

Well, many CFIs are guys "just doing there time" so they can get a airline job. Last time I heard any discussion, I think they'll start to look at you somewhere around 2000 hours. CFI is a good gig (pay sucks though), because the CFI books Pilot-in-command time with students for the log.

You may not be able to have "something on the side;" 2000 hours is a heap of time.

BTW: Veteran pilots usually get picked first. The training is usually more solid, and the organizations scores points with the government for hireing a Vet. The Military is a great way to go for this field....MUCH cooler airplanes too..

If you go to AOPA.ORG, they may have some pay stats and availability.


FWIW

Scott

 

[UsandThem]

Join the armed forces. They give you great experience and set you up for mega bucks later on

I'm still waiting on the mega bucks😀

Becoming a pilot is very competive in the military, and there are more who do not make it than do.

 

[crab]

Skoorb, I'm gonna step backwards and ask, have you ever flown a small plane? Have you flown in one?

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: crab453
Skoorb, I'm gonna step backwards and ask, have you ever flown a small plane? Have you flown in one?

I've jumped out of a small 4 seater. I'm not concerned at all with not liking it. I can't think of many people would would not enjoy flying.

Thanks for all responses I'm still looking around - I emailed an airline pilot I know of and he said that other than military you can do the flight school route or the flight college route which is way preferable, but also takes 2-3 years and costs $40-50k CAN.

 

[Michael]

You go the flight school route and then you (if you're lucky) get a job at the very low-end of the scale flying commuter airplanes.

There isn't much money in piloting until you get a job flying a larger jet. Take a look at the age of the average pilot of a commercial jet. Lots of grey hair up their in front of the plane. The airlines are pretty picky about how much experience a pilot has and what level of training and hours they do have.

It isn't a "get rich quick" scheme by any means and I wouldn't suggest it unless you love flying.

Michael

ps - I usually suggest getting an MBA to people who want to change careers. MBA's are a faster route to a management position (no, you don't get one when you graduate, you still have to earn one). MBA's open up a bunch of jobs.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Michael
You go the flight school route and then you (if you're lucky) get a job at the very low-end of the scale flying commuter airplanes.

There isn't much money in piloting until you get a job flying a larger jet. Take a look at the age of the average pilot of a commercial jet. Lots of grey hair up their in front of the plane. The airlines are pretty picky about how much experience a pilot has and what level of training and hours they do have.

It isn't a "get rich quick" scheme by any means and I wouldn't suggest it unless you love flying.

Michael

ps - I usually suggest getting an MBA to people who want to change careers. MBA's are a faster route to a management position (no, you don't get one when you graduate, you still have to earn one). MBA's open up a bunch of jobs.

Thing about MBA is my BSc grades are very mediocre.

I know that this is definitely not a get rich quick. It's probably a stay poor for a long time endeavour but I'm sure I'd like it as long as I could get some sort of job at least and mrs. skoorb is very supportive of it if I want to and she can be the bread winner with her nursing. I'm only in the really early stages of thinking about it. No doubt though I think it would be a fun career.

I don't even know that I want to change careers. I do like IT quite a lot. It's nice getting paid to sit at one's desk listening to music and coding but I've given this some thoughts anyway. If I don't do it now I never will.

 

[Mister T]

I have a question:

Assuming you had a war chest to learn to fly how long would it take you to be able to get hired to be a 737/747 pilot?
The reason I ask is that I have seen advertisements for "summer" programs in florida that cost 20,000 to 30,000 and
basically get you multi-jet engine certification. Its basically all day, every day flight school for a whole summer. They
claim you can go from no experience in flying to a commerical jet license in 1 summer if you have the dough.

At some point in my life I would like get a multi-engine turbo prop w/ instrument, but I just dont have the time for it now.

 

[tcsenter]

They claim you can go from no experience in flying to a commerical jet license in 1 summer if you have the dough...At some point in my life I would like get a multi-engine turbo prop w/ instrument, but I just dont have the time for it now.

I would be highly suspicious of the claim one could go from no pilot license or training whatsoever to commercial jet license in 3 or 4 months. Obviously, the more dough you have access to, the faster you can get where you want to go. That's true with anything. But this sounds a might ambitious to me.

Even if you could get 'qualified' to take the examinations, passenger airlines aren't going to consider you until you have at least 2000 flight hours + your simulator hours, at least that's the number I've heard many times. Flying eight hours a day, seven days a week, it would take 250 days to log that many hours. Those working conditions would be almost inhuman.

I suspect even if your pilot training war chest were unlimited, going from zero flight training to commercial jets is going to take 3 to 5 years. At least I hope it doesn't take any less than that, some things you shouldn't be able to do 'on the quick'.

 

[Descartes]

Just getting started that late in life? No thanks.

I hope to be retired by the time many of these pilots finally taste the fruits of their labor.

If one just enjoys flying, just get a normal pilot's license and fly a little Cesna or something 🙂

 

[Muadib]

A question then, keep in mind that I know zero about flying. The last time I flew, we had a woman pilot who couldn't have been more than 30 tops. How do you think she did it? After reading your post I'm gonna say a school, but what sort, military?

 

[coolred]

Oh wait a minute, by low 20's did you mean CFI's tend to make low 20.00 pre hour? I thought you meant low 20,000.00 per year. Shott if I can make 20.00 bucks an hour I would be happy with that. I am not trying to become a airline pilot, so I am not worried about having 2000 hours. I could do less then that and still do some light computer work to make some extra cash. But heck making 20.00 am hour would make me living like a king compared to what I am now.

 

[Mister T]

Flying eight hours a day, seven days a week, it would take 250 days to log that many hours. Those working conditions would be almost inhuman.

Sounds like a picnic compared to what I do now.... I have been averaging about 80 hours a week since July 9, 2001 🙂

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: coolred
Oh wait a minute, by low 20's did you mean CFI's tend to make low 20.00 pre hour? I thought you meant low 20,000.00 per year. Shott if I can make 20.00 bucks an hour I would be happy with that. I am not trying to become a airline pilot, so I am not worried about having 2000 hours. I could do less then that and still do some light computer work to make some extra cash. But heck making 20.00 am hour would make me living like a king compared to what I am now.

No. 20K/year.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Originally posted by: Mister T

Flying eight hours a day, seven days a week, it would take 250 days to log that many hours. Those working conditions would be almost inhuman.

Sounds like a picnic compared to what I do now.... I have been averaging about 80 hours a week since July 9, 2001 🙂

There are laws limiting you to how many hours a month you can fly 🙂

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: Muadib
A question then, keep in mind that I know zero about flying. The last time I flew, we had a woman pilot who couldn't have been more than 30 tops. How do you think she did it? After reading your post I'm gonna say a school, but what sort, military?

One of my CFIs was a young woman. Her father was an airline pilot and she grew up in that environment. As soon as she was legal, she began flying, became a CFI and started racking up the hours. She had some good contacts and managed to get in with a regional carrier even though she didn't have as many hours as some. I think she was about 27. I haven't seen her since, and I wish her well. She made crap wages when she was working with me.

 

[tcsenter]

Sounds like a picnic compared to what I do now.... I have been averaging about 80 hours a week since July 9, 2001

Well that's eight hours of actual FLIGHT time, not counting the rest of a typical pilot's day. At least I don't think they count waiting on the tarmack and doing pre-flight checks as 'flight hours'.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Sounds like a picnic compared to what I do now.... I have been averaging about 80 hours a week since July 9, 2001

Well that's eight hours of actual FLIGHT time, not counting the rest of a typical pilot's day. At least I don't think they count waiting on the tarmack and doing pre-flight checks as 'flight hours'.

Humm, I assume counted hours would the wet hours, when the engine is actually running? So pre-flight=no, but waiting on the tarmac for takeoff would be?

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: kgraeme

Originally posted by: Muadib
A question then, keep in mind that I know zero about flying. The last time I flew, we had a woman pilot who couldn't have been more than 30 tops. How do you think she did it? After reading your post I'm gonna say a school, but what sort, military?

One of my CFIs was a young woman. Her father was an airline pilot and she grew up in that environment. As soon as she was legal, she began flying, became a CFI and started racking up the hours. She had some good contacts and managed to get in with a regional carrier even though she didn't have as many hours as some. I think she was about 27. I haven't seen her since, and I wish her well. She made crap wages when she was working with me.

So, what about someone with no training. Could you give a timetable as to how long it would take to go from noob to a CFI?

 

[Koing]

Originally posted by: Muadib
A question then, keep in mind that I know zero about flying. The last time I flew, we had a woman pilot who couldn't have been more than 30 tops. How do you think she did it? After reading your post I'm gonna say a school, but what sort, military?

A lot of sucking of some kind

or

She went to Miltary at 22 after her degree at Uni. Served her 10 years or so. Its longer for the more advanced learning you do I read in the Miltary as they pay more in to your training so demand a longer service time I read. And she was probably the BEST also.

I was seriously considering being a commerical Pilot as a career path but a number of things made me switch.

Here in England you can get everything paid for you if yo are the best of the best. In a typical year the big companies get about 20'000 applicants with all the right qualifications. Out of the 20'000 that are educated enough with the appropiate college grades they pick 20. This doesn't even count the number that didn't have the grades in. You have less then one tenth of a percent of making it on a company sponsoring you. So you have to be top 20 out of 20'000 people if you want.

You can go through schools which are about £50k I think in England........

Good luck either way.

 

[StageLeft]

Keep the replies coming 🙂

The truth is if I was totally happy in IT with a great (meaning secure) job this wouldn't have come up but security in IT does suck right now and will for the forseeable future. On the other hand considering the money I make vs. having to make $10/hour for a decade leaving mrs.skoorb with the bills while I "live out my dream" it seems a bit silly.

An MBA is definitely the most logical step other than a career change but since my marks from university were mediocre I'm going to have a wait at least a while yet before I can get in.

Of the five people or so in mrs. skoorb's hometown that went the pilot route all of them are unemployed now so that's not so cool.

On the other hand I would like to do it as a hobby. I think it would kick ass and I'm off to read citrix's recent thread on the matter.

 

[kgraeme]

As a hobby, it does kick ass. It's also not cheap. So you might want to secure the job before the hobby. 😉

(My flying has been on hiatus for about a year because I was saving to purchase a new house.)

 

[crab]

Originally posted by: kgraeme
As a hobby, it does kick ass. It's also not cheap. So you might want to secure the job before the hobby. 😉

(My flying has been on hiatus for about a year because I was saving to purchase a new house.)

Have you kept current?

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: crab453

Originally posted by: kgraeme
As a hobby, it does kick ass. It's also not cheap. So you might want to secure the job before the hobby. 😉

(My flying has been on hiatus for about a year because I was saving to purchase a new house.)

Have you kept current?

My biennial review and medical haven't passed yet, but obviously I'm not current for passengers. I'll probably go up with an instructor since I want a checkout at a new, closer airport anyway.

 

[StageLeft]

What is involved in staying current and what are the costs involved in getting the basis license to take a friend up in a rental plane? I guess you do a few courses on the ground then start paying for air hours and then how much cash/time does it take to stay current...?

 

[kgraeme]

Private Pilot minimum requirements

Figure $5,000-$7,000 US to get the certificate. After that in the U.S. there is a required flight review every 24 months which costs about the same as one lesson (about $200), and a medical review every 36 months unless you're over 40 then it's every 24 months. That's a third-class medical which is the minimum. For carrying passengers, you must have completed 3 landings within the last 90 days.

Edit: this is U.S. FAA standards. I don't know about Canada.