When
talking about civilian flying, there are quite a few choices in career
fields for the professional helicopter pilot. Here are some of
them: flight
instruction, EMS (hospital medical transport), aerial photography,
agricultural spraying “AG” (including forestry spraying), corporate
transportation, law enforcement, offshore oil support, sightseeing-tours,
ENG (electronic news gathering for TV and radio), survey and mapping,
movies, search and rescue, pipeline and power-line patrol, heavy-lift, fire
fighting, and finally, military flying.
I’ll try to break down the
experience requirements and salary ranges for a few occupations. Realize that
these are estimates and that there are always exceptions to the rule.
Flight Instructors: 150 to 500 hours and pay at $20,000 to $35,000/year.
This is the normal way to gain experience.
Pipeline/Powerline
Patrol
Pilots: 200 to 500 hours and pay at $20,000 to $45,000/year.
EMS
Pilots: 1000 to 3000 hours, most requiring an instrument rating and turbine
time, and pay at $45,000
to $85,000/year with many based on a 7 days on and 7 days off work
schedule.
AG
Pilots: 1000 to 2000 hours, with enough prior AG flight experience to
meet insurance
requirements (500 to 600 hours), and pay at $50,000 to $250,000/year.
The best route if you want to enter this field is to gain the licenses
and work as ground help until able to build some flight time.
Law Enforcement Pilots: 400 to 1000 hours, some requiring an
instrument rating and turbine time, and
at $45,000 to $80,000/year.
Many departments require the pilot to be a ground officer first before
being considered for a pilot seat however, this is starting to turn around
as a few are hiring pilots and converting them to police officers.
Offshore Pilots: 500 to 1000 hours, some requiring an instrument rating and turbine
time, and pay
at $50,000 to $85,000/year based on a 7 on 7 off schedule or a 14 and 14.
Some senior individuals are close to the $200,000 mark!
Sightseeing Pilots: 400 to 1200 hours, and pay at $25,000 to $60,000/year.
Fire Fighting/Forestry
Pilots: 2000 to 3000 hours, with Government OAS carding, prior long
line experience and pay at $45,000 to $100,000/year.
Don't expect to go into this field without experience!
Military Pilots: No prior flight time, some require a college degree, some require
perfect vision, and pay
at $30,000+.
One "hitch" in the military will not gain the pilot sufficient
experience to be marketable in civilian jobs. Eight to twelve years in
service is needed to gain enough flight time in most cases.
Your
can see that pay is based on experience, but what you don’t see are the
plusses and minuses of each job. For instance,
many positions require that you be away from home for extended periods of
time or in the case of the military, not much flight time per year is
gained. This
hinders the pilot in his seek for civilian employment later. When choosing a
career path, it pays to talk with as many pilots as possible who are already
working in the area you are interested in. You can then determine if that
type of flying is what really fits you as an individual. As in any field,
any movement into a management position will warrant an increase in salary
and sometimes benefits.
Your
status as a US citizen automatically puts you ahead in the job market.
There a quite a few non-citizens that are here on a J-1 Student Visas who
apply for some of these jobs. Since they are only here for a limited
time, they are not as desirable to employers who are looking for stability
and long term employees. This situation is not expected to change so
use this to your advantage while on the job hunt.
As a
final point, let's discuss the lure of cheaper training offered by fixed
wing schools. Your training cost may run as much as 60 per cent less
to obtain equivalent ratings while flying airplanes. Let's examine the
pitfalls of this... You must have 250 hours total time to qualify for
the commercial license in airplanes. The requirement for helicopters
is 150 hours. You are required to have and use an Instrument rating
when operating as a Commercial pilot in airplanes. In helicopters, the
instrument rating is encouraged by large operators, but is not required nor
needed for most commercial operations. There are literally thousands
of pilots to compete with in the fixed wing job market and the industry
demands thousands of hours of experience and hundreds of hours of hard-
to-get multi-engine experience to qualify you for a good job. You
should expect at least five to ten years of low pay prior to even being able
to qualify for an airline job; whereas, about a year to a year-and-a-half
will make you marketable for Offshore, as well as EMS helicopter jobs.
Many very experienced airplane pilots are flying commuter airline jobs for
less than $30,000 per year while waiting on that elusive major airline
interview. If you do make it to the airlines, just look at the layoff
and furlough statistics for the airlines now. Airline pilots spend so
much time between jobs that their high wages, while employed, are offset by
their NO wages while unemployed. Additionally, many airline
pilots are converting to helicopters for stability in their jobs and the
ability to fly past age 60.
