48 Year old that wants to be a Corporate Pilot?

FloridaPilot said:
I'm thinking the Aviation job market is a reflection of what is going on in the economy. When the economy busts, (And it will, don't fool yourself) The Aviation jobs go along with it, people stop traveling and companies want to save so they will go with teleconferencing.
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Well, not all pilot jobs. In air ambulance we refer to it as a “recession proof” job. Patients are flown regardless of the state of the economy. Only thing you have to worry about, is your base closing shop because of lack of flights.
 
Velocity173 said:
Well, not all pilot jobs. In air ambulance we refer to it as a “recession proof” job. Patients are flown regardless of the state of the economy. Only thing you have to worry about, is your base closing shop because of lack of flights.
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What kind of airplanes does your base fly?
 
FloridaPilot said:
What kind of airplanes does your base fly?
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My base doesn’t fly any, but the company uses King Airs & PC12s. At $30K per year for an FO slot, I won’t be jumping ship to the FW side anytime soon.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Well, not all pilot jobs. In air ambulance we refer to it as a “recession proof” job. Patients are flown regardless of the state of the economy. Only thing you have to worry about, is your base closing shop because of lack of flights.
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Yep, very true. The only times I lost an air ambulance job was due to the company sold to a competitor. Twice now.




Velocity173 said:
At $30K per year for an FO slot
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Wow... Must be a pilot shortage. I remember when FOs would pay to sit right seat....
 
Zeldman said:
Yep, very true. The only times I lost an air ambulance job was due to the company sold to a competitor. Twice now.






Wow... Must be a pilot shortage. I remember when FOs would pay to sit right seat....
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Yeah, if looking to build time and move to left seat or go corporate, EMS ain’t a bad start...if you can live on FO pay. Friend from the Army got hired on as an FO in EMS Lears with I think only 500-600 TT. He did it for a couple of years and now flys corporate Lears in Dallas.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Well, not all pilot jobs. In air ambulance we refer to it as a “recession proof” job. Patients are flown regardless of the state of the economy. Only thing you have to worry about, is your base closing shop because of lack of flights.
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Its not that all the jobs go away, obviously lots of jobs don't. Its that as other jobs go away and therefore leave more available candidates in the hiring pool, those companies that are still hiring are able to be more selective and suddenly the only way to get a job in a King Air with less than 3000 pic and 1000 multi in your logbook is to have your dad buy the company.
 
FloridaPilot said:
So, I have a buddy that wants to get into Aviation and wants to be a Corporate Pilot. He is already retired and 48 years of age. He would like to become a Corporate Pilot as a secondary income (part time) but he doesn't have a PPL yet. He asked me what are his chances of getting hired once he gets the 1500 Hours. I have no idea do you think he will?
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Why not have him sign up for PoA and skip the middleman?
 
I'd tell him to leave retirement and get a cubicle job where dreams are made true. It's the only way to true freedom.
 
denverpilot said:
It already happened. Millions of people conference call every day. Automated. When I started in that biz I was and we still had thousands of conference operators. Most earnings releases, the majority of investors aren’t present in the room anymore, they’re on a conference call.

The much less useful version is with video...
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I wasn't clear, but video is what I meant.
We use audio conferencing habitually.
 
paflyer said:
Why not have him sign up for PoA and skip the middleman?
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Remember he doesn't have his PPL he is just starting out. He still has a flip phone and doesn't want to change it either. o_O
 
Odd personalities don't usually work out well in the corporate world. Better off going the airline route.
 
sourdough44 said:
I don’t see reason to jump ahead to the right or left seat of any corporate plane. There is plenty to keep the prospective pilot busy for awhile, PPL, Inst rating, commercial.

There’s easily a CFI job available. I’d think a guy could just take those 1st steps, then continue to reevaluate along the way. At the very least, he could enjoy some private flying, or push it as far as motivation allows.
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I was going to say the same thing. First earn the certificates, and see if it is what you thought, then move on if it seems right.
 
Groundpounder said:
Odd personalities don't usually work out well in the corporate world. Better off going the airline route.
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LongRoadBob said:
I was going to say the same thing. First earn the certificates, and see if it is what you thought, then move on if it seems right.
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I would hope someone would be able to tell if they like something long before they spend over $20,000.
 
denverpilot said:
I would hope someone would be able to tell if they like something long before they spend over $20,000.
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You’d think, but professional flying, particularly corporate can be very different.

There are days when you have to REALLY LOVE flying in order to put up with some people’s BS.
 
Fearless Tower said:
You’d think, but professional flying, particularly corporate can be very different.

There are days when you have to REALLY LOVE flying in order to put up with some people’s BS.
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Oh I get it. I think that anyone who spends way way more than $20,000 and many years getting there would hopefully know long before they get there, whether or not they like it.

But the point was about the post saying he needed to “get all the ratings” first and THEN decide if he likes aviation even. That would just be utterly stupid. He will know if he likes aviation long before a wallet full of ratings is completed.

Whether he’ll like aviation as a JOB is much more subtle and tends toward how he likes most jobs. They’re jobs. But he won’t need a pile of ratings to know if he likes aviation.
 
denverpilot said:
Oh I get it. I think that anyone who spends way way more than $20,000 and many years getting there would hopefully know long before they get there, whether or not they like it.
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I think the vast majority that go into professional aviation have very little idea what day to day life will actually be like until they get there.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
I think the vast majority that go into professional aviation have very little idea what day to day life will actually be like until they get there.
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In this era? It’s not like it isn’t a Google search away.

I think you meant to say “willfully ignorant”.
 
I dunno. I think I still stand by my guns on this one. Google can tell you that you'll be living out of suitcase 25 days a month. And you might read that and go ok, I'll expect that. But until you're actually doing it, you won't really know what that's like.

I work in trucking now. Almost everyone goes into trucking knowing that, duh, you're going to be driving a truck and will therefore be away from home a lot and eating in truck stops a lot and (hopefully) showing in truck stop showers. But the washout rate of new drivers is incredibly high. And I think that's at least in part because no matter how much you read, you can't know what the lifestyle is really like until you actually go out and do it.
 
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