The Future for a Career Pilot

Like most when I decided to become a pilot I had dreams of flying a 747 internationally, working 10 days a month, and making hundreds of thousands of dollars. In reality those days are long gone. Now is the time of spending $40 - $50 thousand dollars on flight training(and that doesn't include tuition for a four year degree) and making only $20 - $30 thousand a year for your first few years. This harsh reality has made many consider a different route. What are most people considering? Cargo, corporate, instructing, and also a completely different job with no flying. All of these are good options, however there is another one, UAV's that people should think about. Lets take a look at all of these.

Cargo
A good option, there is usually a little more job security in cargo jobs. Depending on your company you sometimes have the option of being home every night. However there are some drawbacks. First, your usually flying at night. A lot of cargo operations are single pilot night flights. Secondly, unless your with a major company(FEDEX, UPS) the pay usually isn't as good as a commercial pilot.

Corporate
A very attractive option to a lot of pilots. Flying jets to exotic places with exotic people on board. Usually decent pay. The drawbacks of being a corporate pilot is that you usually are on demand. If a business meeting comes up and a client needs to get to New York tonight, you have to go.

Instructing
Not as attractive as the others for most but at least you are still in an airplane. Won't make as much money as other jobs but should be able to do alright. Get the opportunity as I mentioned in my last post to teach multiple types of pilots. You always have the chance to work for yourself.

UAV's
I think this is a very attractive option for most pilots. And the one I really wanted to talk about. At a recent conference at UND they discussed UAV's and their future. They said that because of the lack of pilots now the starting pay is going to be around $70-$80 thousand a year. You will be home almost every night as you won't be actually going where the plane goes.

Now you may be asking yourself "don't I need to be in the military to fly UAV's?" Well the answer is yes and no. Yes because right now the majority of UAV's are military. However, I talked to some people at Northrop/Grumman and he told me that they will be hiring UAV instructors, civilian pilots, to instruct military pilots and also test fly the new craft.

To me this is an awesome opportunity. If you were to have a job like this you could be home every night with your family, make enough money to own an airplane, possibly instruct in it to make a little extra cash.

Of course there are negatives to every job. What it is with UAV's I don't know yet, I don't know if they've been around long enough for us to know.

Hello, My Name is Bob

As an instructor you don't get much opportunity to actually fly the aircraft. Lately all the flying that I've been doing is a small tap on the yoke or tapping on the rudder pedals to remind my student to keep it coordinated. So when I got the opportunity to work with an instrument instructor student I jumped all over it.

There are two nice things that made me jump all over this. The first is that the student is already an instructor, so he obviously knows how to fly. The second, and most appealing, is that as the instructor I am acting as the student which lets me sit in the left seat.

So this is where Bob comes in. Since he should be teaching me throughout the flight I can't just fly the airplane like I would normally. I need to role play as a student. So prior to the flight I let the student know that I will either be acting like a beginning instrument pilot, or a pilot who is about halfway through his training. So the beginning instrument pilots name is Bob.

For the first half of the flight I let the instructor fly(under the hood) and instruct at the same time. If he can fly the airplane, stay within standards, and instruct then they will be able to instruct when they are just sitting in the right seat and the student is flying.

For the second half I took over the flight controls and had the student, still under the hood, instruct me. Man was I happy to be flying the aircraft. And let me tell you I definitely was not in standards. I was doing my best to try and make the instructor work extra hard. How? Constantly missing altitudes, omitting instruments, missing radio calls and asking as many questions as possible.

This experience really was a blast for me, it showed me a couple of things. First, I love actually flying the aircraft. Secondly how much fun it can be to be an instructor. Everyday, or every flight, is a different experience. That day I flew with an Air China private pilot student, Air China Instrument student, and an Instrument-Instructor student. Each required a different teaching style and keeps you at the top of your game.

busy busy busy

So it's been awhile since I've posted anything and I felt like I needed to update my page. It's not like I haven't been thinking of ideas, it's just the lack of time. With finals coming up and flying I'm completely packed right now.

So I've decided to give a teaser of sorts of the stories that I've been thinking about (and planning on) writing. So these are the next three to come, in no particular order:

The Future for a Career Pilot
Hello, My Name is Bob
Vertical development

I swear when I get some free time I will start getting these down. One last teaser, figure out which story goes along with this picture...