Who is Doing These Jobs?

Bonchie

Bonchie

Pattern Altitude
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Bonchie
Had this pop up on LinkedIn in my suggested jobs, and I don't get it.

Aeriel Survey company. $28 an hour to fly a Twin Cessna and you need 500 hours of ME to even qualify? I'm finding it hard to believe anyone with 500 hours of ME couldn't find a job that pays much more and doesn't keep you gone three straight weeks at a time. Heck, I make a lot more than that an hour CFIing, and that's typically your basement-level job.

I've seen this with pipeline patrol jobs too, wanting 1000 TT to fly a 172 for $20 an hour. Who takes these jobs? People who are blacklisted due to infractions?
 

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People that don't want to instruct is my only guess. I made considerably more than that as a CFI, and if I'm going to be spending a lot of time low level in the heat during the summer, I'd rather get a bathroom/ac break every hour after droning around the pattern.


*ETA: Was thinking pipeline survey with the low-level. OP listing doesn't mention what they survey.
 
Sierra_Hotel said:
People that don't want to instruct is my only guess.
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Same. You need to build time somehow anyway but if you absolutely don't want to teach then this is a way to build that time at least without having to rent
 
When I was in an engineering group many years back, they wanted our new secretary to have a Masters and it paid 11 to 16$ an hour..... 6 months and no applicants, the Masters requirement got dropped.
 
I've noticed a steady push, seemingly in all industries, for higher level degree requirements. I'm not sure those requirements enrich the student, er learner, or the educational institutions more. Seems to me we would benefit from more of the apprentice to journeymen, er journeyperson, OJT training without saddling up the youth with debt which cannot be discharged even in bankruptcy. Oh, but a strike of the pen can discharge that debt so I guess it's ok.
 
In my industry (supply chain IT), it’s due to imported labor, specifically Indian contract companies. I’ve worked with several of them and they’re not worth $35/hr, but they have ruined the independent contractor market by flooding it with cheap incompetent labor.
 
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bflynn said:
In my industry (supply chain IT), it’s due to imported labor, specifically Indian contract companies. I’ve worked with several of them and they’re not with $35/hr, but they have ruined the independent contractor market by flooding it with cheap incompetent labor.
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Which ends up being wildly more expensive as you have to repair the damage done by the incompetent labor...
 
Bonchie said:
Heck, I make a lot more than that an hour CFIing, and that's typically your basement-level job.
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Sierra_Hotel said:
I made considerably more than that as a CFI, and if I'm going to be spending a lot of time low level in the heat during the summer,
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How much do CFIs make now? During primary training decades ago, I was paying $22/hr to the school and figured the CFI was making just enough to live on.
 
FORANE said:
I've noticed a steady push, seemingly in all industries, for higher level degree requirements. I'm not sure those requirements enrich the student, er learner, or the educational institutions more.
Click to expand...

I can say that as an engineer, I benefitted much more from my masters degree than I ever did from my bachelors. The masters degree was focused on the specific degree and the classes covered topics I ran into every day at work. There was no requirement to take non degree related classes such as Spanish, history, etc like there was for the bachelors. My job requires a masters degree to be considered for it and just about every position in the company requires at least a bachelors. As a requirement, both have their place. The bachelors doesn’t teach you much about the field you are going into but it does teach you how to learn by requiring you to master many subjects regardless of your level of knowledge in each. The masters degree teaches you how to actually work effectively in your field by focusing the classes on what you really need to know. Of course actual experience usually trumps having a degree once you start doing the job but most companies are really bad at judging a peoples varied experiences so they use degrees as a way to level the field of candidates.
 
Lindberg said:
How much do CFIs make now? During primary training decades ago, I was paying $22/hr to the school and figured the CFI was making just enough to live on.
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I paid my primary instructor $35 in 2019, and my cfii $50 in 2020. The cfii is doing it as a profession, not time building. Frankly compared to the money he could make flying professionally, $50 is cheap, although setting your own schedule is worth something too.

I don't know how you could find someone with 500hr multi who would get out of bed for $28/hr. At least not anyone you'd actually want working for you.
 
Jim K said:
I paid my primary instructor $35 in 2019, and my cfii $50 in 2020. The cfii is doing it as a profession, not time building. Frankly compared to the money he could make flying professionally, $50 is cheap, although setting your own schedule is worth something too.

I don't know how you could find someone with 500hr multi who would get out of bed for $28/hr. At least not anyone you'd actually want working for you.
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When I retire, for cash, on my own schedule, I might.
 
Tantalum said:
Same. You need to build time somehow anyway but if you absolutely don't want to teach then this is a way to build that time at least without having to rent
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Time building, sure. But what time builder has 500 hours of ME time? Your are talking about a tiny applicant pool, and then to only pay $28 an hour?

I bet they are looking for a long time.
 
Lindberg said:
How much do CFIs make now? During primary training decades ago, I was paying $22/hr to the school and figured the CFI was making just enough to live on.
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Independent CFIs in my area seem to be around $60 or so, maybe more by now. Flight schools seems to charge about the same, but obviously the CFI is then not getting much of that.

I've also been $60 for most work for several years. I could increase it, but since I started my full time flying job, I just don't CFI enough that increasing my rate would make any noticeable difference on a monthly or yearly basis.
 
One school I train with charges $84/hr for the CFI and that's with a discount. The CFIs make out probably not much above minimum wage if you count all the time they're putting into it.
Heard one CFI works a corporate WFH gig in between students. Good for him!
 
AKiss20 said:
Say what you’re going to say.
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He said he made 30/hr in 98.

You asked what he was making back then.

I think everyone else in this thread but you knows what he was making back then.
 
kmacht said:
I can say that as an engineer, I benefitted much more from my masters degree than I ever did from my bachelors.... Of course actual experience usually trumps having a degree once you start doing the job
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I've always said that I learned far more about real world engineering by building R/C models during high school than I did earning an engineering degree... not that the engineering classes weren't important, too. For the work I do, a masters degree would be useless.
 
Dana said:
I've always said that I learned far more about real world engineering by building R/C models during high school than I did earning an engineering degree... not that the engineering classes weren't important, too. For the work I do, a masters degree would be useless.
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Yeah, I'm happy to have been a programmer for the DoD among others in the "good times", through the late eighties until the crash (and influx of offshore code drones.) Most of us were college dropouts, and the guy with the MIT computer science degree was an anchor. Not like he steadied the team, but in the sense he dragged it under. The inflation-adjusted hourly was eye-watering compared with today. But it burned out a lot of people (me included), and most times you were stuck somewhere far from home.
I'd be one of the candidates for that low-paying survey gig, if it didn't require travel.
 
We have a couple of former multi engine survey pilots working for us. It's very precise flying for long periods of time, and not something your typical 251 hour pilot with a fresh ME can do. In the case I'm referring to the job also pays a pretty healthy per diem because you sit around a lot waiting for severe clear weather. Our pilots left that job because they want hours so they can advance, and not just a paycheck.

Pipeline patrol requires maneuvering close to the ground while making observations, not just flying a ground reference maneuver. That also takes better than just a newbie C172 driver.

When I got my commercial ticket in the early 2000s both of those jobs were scarce and almost never advertised.

[soapbox] We have a steady stream of resumes from 500 hr pilots who trained at the puppy mills where they can't operate on runways less than 4000' long (paved of course), can't do a touch and go and they fly a downwind that is 1 mile out. We have hired CFIIs who (shockingly) have never flown by themselves in IMC, which is super obvious the first time it happens to them. Never again. I'm annoyed when people refer to "stick and rudder skills" as if that is for extra credit. Get off my ramp. I call it "being a pilot". I've got an entirely new filter for going through resumes than I had a few months ago (actual IMC, tail wheel, floats or skis, not just here to build hours for part 121). It's not about the total time in their logbook, it's about what they've done with those hours they have. [/soapbox]

Zeldman said:
Dang.... I was making 30 bucks an hour in 1998 flying a sled out of Bethel...
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The job actually pays pretty good now if you stick it out through your commitment and aren't lazy. Operating from gravel runways in -30C, 50 knot winds on short final. Challenging and fun, but it's not for everyone.
 
Low time = low pay + high insurance rates for the employer.
 
kmacht said:
I can say that as an engineer, I benefitted much more from my masters degree than I ever did from my bachelors. The masters degree was focused on the specific degree and the classes covered topics I ran into every day at work. There was no requirement to take non degree related classes such as Spanish, history, etc like there was for the bachelors. My job requires a masters degree to be considered for it and just about every position in the company requires at least a bachelors. As a requirement, both have their place. The bachelors doesn’t teach you much about the field you are going into but it does teach you how to learn by requiring you to master many subjects regardless of your level of knowledge in each. The masters degree teaches you how to actually work effectively in your field by focusing the classes on what you really need to know. Of course actual experience usually trumps having a degree once you start doing the job but most companies are really bad at judging a peoples varied experiences so they use degrees as a way to level the field of candidates.
Click to expand...

My first job interviews out of college - all they want to know was that you have a degree. They didn't care what it was in, just that you had one.

Now many job description note: "degree or equivalent work experience..."

I get it with engineers and many other professional fields, the more alphabet after your name the better.
 
Back when I was considering the professional pilot route I thought the same thing about these crazy hour requirements for no money. In the end I think it's targeted to retiring military people wanting a supplemental income or maybe someone who retired from the majors and just wants something to do. If you have 500 hr ME you more than likely have well more than the bare minimum to get on with a regional, fractional, corporate job.
 
This is pretty sad to see. People make waaaaay more than that at the local fast food joint.
 
I've never seen a fast food joint paying $28/hr
 
I recently met a guy with this sort of flying job.

Over 60
Loves to travel and fly in interesting places
Has a good retirement income
He loves to fly
Almost all the flying is in severe clear weather, plus, not bumpy
Relocating is the only bad weather flying, and it is not to a tight schedule
Meals and lodging provided
Work areas are from the Gulf of Mexico to North Slope Alaska, including Canada
Non pilot employees tow your car to the new site
Aircraft maintenance is excellent, to compensate for the low level, and over urban areas or mountains

Most of their contracts are either government, and confidential or secret
Mining/drilling companies, and secret

They are not currently hiring, and he declined to name the company. They have had court battles over their low flying in urban areas, and try to keep the presence of their company quiet.
 
Sierra_Hotel said:
I've never seen a fast food joint paying $28/hr
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You have to consider time working that you aren’t getting paid. I made a lot per hour instructing. I also sat on my butt not getting paid while still being at work a lot.

These survey guys typically do three week rotations. To make $28 an hour working three straight weeks when you only get paid while flying is fast food territory unless the per diem is top of the industry or something.
 
Local pipeline guys near me have a 1500 hr req. They say that is the only way the company can afford the insurance rates. So basically its a bunch of old guys doing it for side money.
 
Jim K said:
I paid my primary instructor $35 in 2019, and my cfii $50 in 2020. The cfii is doing it as a profession, not time building. Frankly compared to the money he could make flying professionally, $50 is cheap, although setting your own schedule is worth something too.

I don't know how you could find someone with 500hr multi who would get out of bed for $28/hr. At least not anyone you'd actually want working for you.
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I am a CFI with more than 500 hours of multi time and I get paid $28 an hour. Fortunately, my employer does want me working for them.

Full disclosure: I have a total of 7,600 hours including more than 1,000 hours in a C-130. I am 77, instructing as a retirement job. Our students pay $50 an hour and I get $28. Yes, setting my own schedule is a huge plus.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I am a CFI with more than 500 hours of multi time and I get paid $28 an hour. Fortunately, my employer does want me working for them.

Full disclosure: I have a total of 7,600 hours including more than 1,000 hours in a C-130. I am 77, instructing as a retirement job. Our students pay $50 an hour and I get $28. Yes, setting my own schedule is a huge plus.
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That's how it is at my school. There's the old, retired guys like you staying in the sky not caring about the money and there are the young guys chasing time.

I'm the only weirdo dude in his 30s building time with higher aspirations.

For those wondering about pay, I get 75% of the charged rate of $55 or $65 an hour. The problem with instructing isn't the hourly pay. It's all the time you sit around not getting paid. For every hour I fly and get paid, I'm usually there for an hour not making a dime. Is what it is.
 
aftCG said:
Operating from gravel runways in -30C, 50 knot winds on short final. Challenging and fun, but it's not for everyone.
Click to expand...

Nothing about -30 in a 207 is fun. Other than the cold and the occasional terrors though it is pretty cool to go rip around and do 20+ landings in a day in some skuzzy weather and big crosswinds.
 
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