The recent plane threads made me think it would be interesting to take a bit of a poll. So, pilots, let’s say you’re sick of whatever you’re doing and decide that it’d be great to fly for a job. The way I see it, your options are:
Private pilot for a company’s business jet
Pilot for a shipping company like FedEx
Pilot for a major carrier, short-distance turboprops
Pilot for a major carrier, domestic jets
Pilot for a major carrier, international jets
Pilot for a regional carrier, all previous options
Which one(s) do you choose, and why, or is there another option that I missed that you would like to do?
My first choice would be helicopters. But what job? I’d like a meaningful job, like medivac; but I’d do traffic reporting as well. Or flight instruction. I’d really like to fly a Sikorsky Black Hawk. It would make a helluva camper! But a JetRanger would suit me just fine. And the Robinson R-22 is a nice-flying little bird.
If I could do fixed-wing, I’d be happy as a pilot for a regional carrier. I rather like the DeHavilland Dash-8, though I’ve never flown one. And I’ve always liked the Boeing 737. I think it’s the 737-400 that I like: 100 passengers (short fuselage) and the big engines.
Flying a Supermarine Spitfire Mk.V on the airshow circuit would be fun.
Full-time ferry pilot? Sure, why not?
Once I toyed with the idea of finishing my Commercial rating and becoming a bush pilot in Botswana.
Flying a helicopter on movie shoots (either as a camera platform or on-screen) would be the bomb.
Basically, I’d like to have any job that puts me in a cockpit and pays a good salary. (The salary thing kind of puts flight instruction out of the running, but I’d * love to introduce people to flying and help them to achieve their licenses.)
Flying is the thing. To me, what I fly wouldn’t really matter. I just like to fly.
I’d like to fly a Glasair III. Maybe on the airshow circuit.
If we’re talking about bigger planes, a Gulfstream IV would be sweet. How about corporate pilot for some big movie star? You’d get to go to all the coolest places.
Asterion, you forgot military planes for a government.
Even though I’m currently flying my dream airplane, I would really go for a C-37, a military Gulfstream V with the HUD that you can see through clouds with. A TG-14 would be pretty awesome too.
For civilian planes, the Javelin is a business jet I wouldn’t mind flying some rich guy around in if it ever makes it to market.
Out of the choices given in the OP, I’d pick cargo pilot.
But my ultimate dream job would be flying a small, open-cockpit single-engine for fun and profit. I really am most interested in the small end of aviation, I’m not just “settling” for SEL because that’s what I can afford. If I had unlimited funds I would most likely still be flying single-engine props, just more of them and maybe better equipped ones - I wouldn’t run out and buy a mini-jet or a twin.
My first choice would be as a bush pilot in Alaska or in another country. I have even seriously thought about trying to do it part time for outdoorsman in the remote parts of Maine from here (Massachusetts) but I doubt there is much market.
My second choice would be cargo pilot for soemone like FedEx preferably on international routes.
I’m currently working on my private, in fact, with any luck I should be doing my flight test by the end of the month.
I intend to become a bush pilot, preferably in Northern Ontario, but I’m open to options. My only stipulation is that I intend to stay in Canada for the high majority of my career, and only go overseas for a year or two at most. I like it here.
Other than that, I’m a night person, so a cargo job with a company like FedEx would be great.
I know at least a dozen current and former airline pilots. They have flown everything from commuters to 747s. And the general message they convey is that flying scheduled service is not a good job.
Yeah, once you get to jets, the pay is good (used to be great, but that’s changing) and the hours are (usually) modest. But you’re basically a glorified bus driver, and it has long been the case that independent thought or action is frowned upon: “Don’t think - you’ll weaken the team.”
As a measure of this, take a look at what percentage of the time, when two airline pilots are talking, they spend griping about their job, pay, benefits, hours, schedule, routes, management, etc. Or look at the number who get into various forms of sport aviation so they can capture some of the old thrill that brought them into aviation in the first place.
I’d want to fly one of those ‘vomit comet’ airplanes they use to simulate zero-G conditions for potential astronauts. Climb, dive! climb, dive! climb, dive! Wheee!
Plus, anything where you are going out of your way to try to make your passengers airsick sounds like a lot of fun
I always loved the Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin imagines he is an airline pilot, doing crazy stuff with a 747
I love being a flight instructor, but I’d like to move into something more exotic than a Cessna 172. A while ago I took some flights in old jet fighters like the MiG-15 and Fouga Magister. I’d love to do that.
My favorite thing is introducing people to aviation and giving them their first lessons. To introduce people to exotic aircraft would be awesome.
You mean up where the black flies are so big they file flight plans? Not for me.
Being in Edmonton, I know a few pilots who did some flying in the bush. All of them got out of it as quickly as they could. The pay sucks, the danger level is high, it’s hard work (you get to load your own plane), it’s cold and wet, and you live far from home.
I’d rather fly pipeline patrol. That’s a lot easier. Get in your plane, fly low and slow over the pipeline looking for breaks. Come home, park the plane, and you’re done.
I have a friend who was a corporate pilot for an oil company. That was a sweet gig. They were essentially ‘on call’ all the time, but weeks would go by where they didn’t fly anywhere. So to maintain currency they’d get to take the jet or King Air out and just fly it wherever they wanted to go. On the job, they hung out in the executive lounge, watching big screen TV on leather couches. Most of their flights were to big cities, where they were put up in good hotels with a decent per diem that allowed them to go out and enjoy themselves. For a young guy with no family, this was about as good as it gets.
Another guy I know is a senior pilot for Japan Air Lines, flying the long transatlantic route in a B-747. He makes $200,000 a year, only makes one trip a week on average, as I recall. The company maintains an apartment for him in Japan, plus he has his house in CA. and because he has a residence in Japan and spends the requisite amount of time outside the U.S., he pays very little in tax.
737-500 is the shorty of the 737 classic line. The -400 was a stretch of the -300. The current model would be the -600, we get a couple a month down the assembly line.
I’d like to fly domestic in New Zealand (short sectors, fantastic scenery, don’t spend too much time away from home and family) for Air New Zealand and take 4 months a year unpaid leave during which I’d fly a Spitfire on the airshow circuit through Europe. I know some guys who do something like that, though they are on the international routes and I’m not sure exactly how their leave works for the airshow stuff.
The airline side of things is realistic over the next year or two, don’t know about the warbird flying though.
Flying a Canadair Challenger or maybe a BBJ (Boeing’s business version of a 737) around the world for some rich dude interests me, though I suspect being away from home would get old pretty fast.
If I ever get stuck in a time-warp and get to repeat the same experience over and over I want it to be Primary Flight School in an open cockpit Stearman biplane with helmet and goggles - the whole shebang. (Even though the Stearman was a ground-looping SOB)
But a JetRanger would suit me just fine. And the Robinson R-22 is a nice-flying little bird.
