Slightly OT-Job Debate

[PbyCat-Guy]

So I started instructing at this flight school here in Flordia, but a few days ago, i got a phone call from west virginia skydivers who wants me to come work for them. The have a C-182 and a few stearmans that they use for sight seeing flights and flying their Cubs to do some banner towing. The place I'm instructing at now has all foreign students, Saudis who distrust you if they sense you're going to raise your voice and from other countries that will never fly a warbird, do tail wheel flying, fly off a grass field on their days off or fly in the bush. They're going to go back to their home countries, and with 250 hours total time will be flying a 737 for Air Nigeria. The Stearman job will starts mid april and am debating the decision I have to make. Do I not take the job and stay where I'm at, or stay where I'm at 'till april and go fly some cubs stearmans and a C-182? I could get used to the idea of flying Stearmans for 6 months or so, I could use all that TW time so I can go fly other warbirds. My end goal is to wind up flying PT 121 International Freight, but I'm getting close to the minimums for the regionals and that is just as exciting at flying Stearmans for a season. Thanks for any thoughts/ideas.

Wasn't sure where else to post this, but the stearman is warbird-ish.

[The Inspector]

Dude, I'd be swinging past the liquor store and loading up on stout cardboard boxes and hitting GOOGLE EARTH for routing directions!!!! "Darn it Helen, I've got to fly the CUB over the beach again all day' how we suffer-

[RareBear]

Sounds to me after reading your post that the decision has already been made. You just need to acknowledge it. Go for the Stearmans and the Cub (and the C-182).

Walt

[JDK]

Sounds to me after reading your post that the decision has already been made.

Yup!

The only pull to staying I can see it the old inertia and a possible better regimen for getting onto the airliners.

IMHO, it's worth being happy in your work and trying to make the cash stack up right, than have the cash stacked and hating where you're at. I quit a job where the next promotion was into something I didn't want to do, and am making a lower-income living at stuff I (mostly) enjoy. There's more detail, but I think that's the core of smart decisions.

HTH, keep us posted, and you owe us all rides, now...

[Lynn Allen]

Run Forest Run, but get some hard instrument time in and read the ATP prep while your having fun. I had a student who turned down flying a T-6 because he didn't think much of it, wow...

[The Inspector]

I strongly agree with JDK. If I like what I'm doing, then I love my job. If it's something I hate but do just to keep Hamburger Helper in the cupboard then it's WORK-I love having a job but hate work!!!

[RyanShort1]

I wouldn't like the move, but that sounds like a fun job assuming maintenance is good on the aircraft. You never know with skydiving operations...

Ryan

[The Inspector]

Ryan,
Some perspective from 45 years in this business, you never know about aviation period. I've had co workers and friends who 'had that great job with XYT aircraft repair, I'm gone' they went, the place closed or was closed when they got there or the 'new' owners were all on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and couldn't run a street vendors cart let alone an aircraft business, so the business closed and all your back pay was in funds that weren't worth using a toilet paper and it was also on the other side of the Pacific.

Several years ago a 'group of investors' scammed the teachers pension funds in Portland Oregon and erected a neato new dual hanger complex @ KPDX as a Repair Station, they suckered some carrier into being the 'launch customer' got a 737 inside and torn apart, they actively recruited folks from TRAMCO, where I worked @ the time, several of whom quit TRAMCO including a few of our Instructors, who when they showed up on the Official first day, found the doors chained shut, the only guys there in big numbers all were wearing U.S. Marshals uniforms and the Mayor and Governor standing around lookin' stupid in front of the gathered press, and the money (De Moe nay)and the principals over the horizon. A few folks got work enough to stick the37 back together enough to ferry it elsewhere.

Other friends decided to go to MIA and cross the IAM picket lines @ EAL until it rolled over, last I heard of any of those guys, they couldn't get a good job in aviation and were working @ corrosion corner in MIA or maintenance at some third string freight dog outfit hauling appliances to the Carribean and banannas back because those guys wound up on 'the jungle telegraph' and no one reliable would hire them.

I tried to go to work for SALAIR many years ago, every time I talked to the owner brothers I was hired and I'd go down stairs where the Cheif Mechanic said 'we got no job for you, whatchoo talkin' bout Willis?' I gave up and found another job.

Take the job, ride the pony, get the hours and experience and use it to get that next job as long as you aren't stepping over some boundry or in the middle of a labor issue, or the owners all look like they're packin' heat and should be in 'Good Fellas, the reunion'. If you don't go, you'll never have 'that' experience, never meet 'those guys', fly in 'that airplane' or see 'that thing' and your life will be that little bit more shallow for the lack of the experiences. If you don't go, you'll never know.

[Dave Hadfield]

As far as big-airplane hiring stuff goes, whether you're towing a banner or instructing -- it's all the same. All light-single-under 4000 - VFR. One box checked off. So, I'd go where the fun is.

But most skydiving banner-tow operators close in winter, don't they? Paycheck?

Scrounge some multi-ifr time and write your ATRs. Have fun, but stay in the books.

Dave

[RyanShort1]

Inspector - all good and valid points! I have seen a bit of that, too, although not as much of the wrong side has gone my way - so far.

Ryan

[Lynn Allen]

I wouldn't like the move, but that sounds like a fun job assuming maintenance is good on the aircraft. You never know with skydiving operations...

Ryan

Or glider tow ops. Besides, your a rancher and a part timer pilot....

Lynn

[The Inspector]

One more thing, remember more than just about any other occupation, in aviation your reputation really does precede you. If you have a know reputation as, in mechaic speak, 'a hand' you'll always be able to find good work. If your reputation is as a 'hack' or a corner cutter, that's out there too and it ain't good-always try to stay on the good side of the 'jungle telegraph'. Most times, someone just has to mention the guys name and someone will say 'yay' or 'nay' followed by 'I worked with that guy, and he's......................'.
I used to tell my students that out of 6.6 Billion people on this earth, we who build and maintain aircraft number around 1 million so we are a small, semi closed society.

The jump outfit out @ Snohomish runs year round, heck, those guys jump in a snowstorm, and have for about 25 years, so if a jump outfit in the mid Atlantic region closes down in the Winter, what a bunch of weenies.

[RyanShort1]

I wouldn't like the move, but that sounds like a fun job assuming maintenance is good on the aircraft. You never know with skydiving operations...

Ryan

Or glider tow ops. Besides, your a rancher and a part timer pilot....

Lynn

Um, just wow. You can really FEEL the glider love there! It's not like I do it all the time, besides, being a CFI on the field all the time, I can keep a close eye on what goes on there. You got that second part backwards, too.
I just think I've heard a disproportionately high number of, shall we say, interesting stories from skydiving ops. I'm quite sure that there are many good ones, but considering the numbers of them that are out there, and the mentality of the types that really love that stuff, I just wonder. I mean, why jump out of a perfectly good airplane (if it really is one)?

Ryan

[Steve Crewdog]

Jason, try asking that question at http://www.propilotworld.com Great group of people there, and there's a free 1 week trial membership.