pilot salary

[rattler]

. . . sorry about my ignorance :cry:, but can You translate me "34k", "10k" (?) . . . They didn't teach us this kind of stuff in English classes . . . :book:

 

34,000 and 10,000 dollars either per year or per month.:) Sorry A. You got to it first. ha ha

[EtherealN]

For reference, the positions I mentioned were the kind of job that forces you to almost constantly stay in the dead-man's envelope in arctic sea environments. (The kind of place where if anything breaks in your bird you are dead. No if's, but's or maybes - you're just dead.) I believe the salary they quoted included the risk "bonuses" so in retrospect I am unsure of whether my language described it appropriately, but since they were almost always in that regime they grew accustomed to counting it as "standard".

 

Basically - one of those jobs where the "man on the line" makes more money than his boss.

 

And yeah, sure, those are extremely hard to get but on the other hand very few people stay in them for very long. I'm told those flights hit nerves harder than most combat flying, and many seem to use them to build some capital for a year or two and then become able to start their own flying business.

 

The main point though (aside from such extremes) is that a pilot that wants to stay a pilot while making good money will pretty much have to go to the civilian or contractor world. The really well-paying military positions will typically not include regular flying. Obviously though a lot of the pilots in question go into it all for the "fun of flying", and getting to fly Mach2 jets gives quality on it's own, but my experience is that the "money" happens when they make the choice to either take the "promotion" to a desk job or leave the air force and take a seat in an airliner or specialized civilian/contractor sector.

 

Your note on the availability of pilot positions is noted of course, and true in a general sense, but there are several exceptions. My country is for example expecting to become short 200 medical helicopter pilots within the next few years due to retirements and planned expansions of the programme (and while 200 here or there is a small thing for the US, it's major for us), and the civilian transport sector is starting to recuperate from the financial crisis.

 

One of the really big questions for the military-to-civilian transition lately that has been happening here is that the air force have downsized a lot in pilots and in-service airframes, and followed that with longer service requirements (I think they're at 10 years now, but would have to double-check), leading the civilian sector to finally create an independent training infrastructure. This has caused 35-year old ex-military pilots to be forced to do transition training versus 25-year old civilian graduates that spent all their time training specifically for the type of flying they'd do in the civilian world, which makes it harder for the ex-military guys to compete. I don't have any statistics on the exact impact of that though - I think it ends up roughly correlating with the decreased amount of military "graduates" and thereby evening out, but since I don't know of anyone that has collated actual stats of it I don't know.

[rattler]

For reference, the positions I mentioned were the kind of job that forces you to almost constantly stay in the dead-man's envelope in arctic sea environments. (The kind of place where if anything breaks in your bird you are dead. No if's, but's or maybes - you're just dead.) I believe the salary they quoted included the risk "bonuses" so in retrospect I am unsure of whether my language described it appropriately, but since they were almost always in that regime they grew accustomed to counting it as "standard".

 

Basically - one of those jobs where the "man on the line" makes more money than his boss.

 

And yeah, sure, those are extremely hard to get but on the other hand very few people stay in them for very long. I'm told those flights hit nerves harder than most combat flying, and many seem to use them to build some capital for a year or two and then become able to start their own flying business.

 

The main point though (aside from such extremes) is that a pilot that wants to stay a pilot while making good money will pretty much have to go to the civilian or contractor world. The really well-paying military positions will typically not include regular flying. Obviously though a lot of the pilots in question go into it all for the "fun of flying", and getting to fly Mach2 jets gives quality on it's own, but my experience is that the "money" happens when they make the choice to either take the "promotion" to a desk job or leave the air force and take a seat in an airliner or specialized civilian/contractor sector.

 

Your note on the availability of pilot positions is noted of course, and true in a general sense, but there are several exceptions. My country is for example expecting to become short 200 medical helicopter pilots within the next few years due to retirements and planned expansions of the programme (and while 200 here or there is a small thing for the US, it's major for us), and the civilian transport sector is starting to recuperate from the financial crisis.

 

One of the really big questions for the military-to-civilian transition lately that has been happening here is that the air force have downsized a lot in pilots and in-service airframes, and followed that with longer service requirements (I think they're at 10 years now, but would have to double-check), leading the civilian sector to finally create an independent training infrastructure. This has caused 35-year old ex-military pilots to be forced to do transition training versus 25-year old civilian graduates that spent all their time training specifically for the type of flying they'd do in the civilian world, which makes it harder for the ex-military guys to compete. I don't have any statistics on the exact impact of that though - I think it ends up roughly correlating with the decreased amount of military "graduates" and thereby evening out, but since I don't know of anyone that has collated actual stats of it I don't know.

 

Hi E.

We are just saying the same thing but in different terms. LOL. I agree with you. Just one note for this side(North America). The conflicts that have been on going around the world and then once things settle down, we end up with a surplus of pilots. In the U.S. I would assume as some of the best pilots come from the Reserve Units(go figure)., that they would return to their previous civilian vocations. Not all would be in Aviation. We have a lot of Private pilots here and some aspire to become more involved in the civilian industry, thus we have a surplus of pilots. Some even leave to take pilot positions in other Countries. Although this is rare but does happen. These are strange times my friend. Cheers.:thumbup:

[Peyoteros]

One of those moments when it feels like you doing dream job...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5PNhNEW-os&NR=1

 

:pilotfly:

[EtherealN]

That actually reminds me of one thing I overlooked, Rattler - the US having "reserve" pilots flying combat aircraft is actually a pretty huge thing and most likely renders comparisons and such pretty worthless.

 

So agreed - same idea, different words. :)