

Obstacle and wire awareness & avoidance has caught out a number of pilots who forgot when their brains switch off!Īlthough these jobs are very seasonal and you may have to meet the right people to get that first job, it can be a way to get your foot on the first rung of the career ladder. This will usually be done during the night or first light depending on the situation and can become very monotonous. This type of job usually uses smaller helicopters like Robinson R22’s & R44’s, MD500’s or Bell 206 Jet Rangers flying low and slow over crops to use the rotor wash to pull down warmer air from above and prevent frost from forming on the crops and killing them. Frost Protection Pilotįrost protection can be an interesting gig for the right pilot. * How Long Does It Take To Become A Helicopter Pilot? – Your Guide 4. * How Much Does it Cost to Become a Helicopter Pilot? Strong stomachs may be needed as most of the time the co-pilot’s attention is on the instrumentation, especially during fast production heli-logging! Some captains are great and some can be egotistical jerks.Ĭopilot jobs can be found working on Wildfires, Offshore Transportation, EMS, and Military. The job of the co-pilot is to help the captain in any way they deem. Most of the co-pilot’s duties can be flying the machine from point A-B, monitoring hook weights, number of loads, instrumentation, navigation, and communication. On some of the larger twin-engine helicopters, Co-Pilots can be taken on with only a few hundred hours depending on the operator and the contracts they have.įlying co-pilot can be a great way to gain some valuable experience and knowledge flying with some very experienced ‘Old Salts’, but you will have to remember you will be in that position for many years until you meet the companies hour and experience requirements to apply for a captain or command position.
LOW TIME PILOT JOBS UPGRADE
Once a pilot has shown their commitment and got some good experience it is not uncommon for an operator to upgrade the pilot to a Bell 206, Bell 407, or AS350 Camera ship. I love flight instruction and it can be a very rewarding experience for the pilot that is not just there purely to ‘Build Hours & Run’.

Teaching one-on-one and class-based ground school is also part of the job. Most of the time will be spent in the training circuits and surrounding areas teaching the basic flight maneuvers. With a busy school you can easily fly 500 hours in a year but in most schools, you will be looking between 200-300 hours and all around the $20/hour mark. You do not have the experience to teach them ‘How To Fly’!

LOW TIME PILOT JOBS HOW TO
Most flight schools will look to hire their own graduates once they have completed the CFI (Certified Flying Instructor) or CFII (Certified Flight Instructor Instruments) and have the Robinson Factory Safety Course under their belts.įlight Instruction is a great way to start your career providing you remember that you yourself know absolutely nothing about flying! All you can do is to teach a student how to handle a helicopter within the limitations of the aircraft flight manual and the regulations. Low-time, keen, cheap wages and the revolving door of instructors moving on make a great carrot to dangle for any flight school owner. Most US-based pilots will be taught by a low-time pilot without realizing it, but in the US, flight instruction is open to low-time pilots because they are great for business. Here are some of the best entry-level helicopter pilot jobs: 1.

But once that foot is in the door it is time to buckle down and show the management why they made the right choice in hiring you.Ī lot of the entry-level flying jobs can become monotonous after a while as the jobs available to do usually require very little honed skills or experience and the high time guys ‘Have Done Their Time’ in the ‘Boring’ jobs. Getting that first job straight out of flight school is tough and may require lots of calls, visits, and determination. What are some Entry-Level Helicopter Pilot Jobs? This article is going to list some of the main types of flying that a pilot could do during their careers and many of them can change on a day-to-day basis, especially if the pilot works for a company with a wide variety of customers in many different sectors of work. There are many types of jobs a helicopter pilot can do throughout their career. When I got into the industry the amount of different flying I could do was endless! Why did I not know about all these jobs beforehand? There are so many jobs and some of them are obvious, and some not. At some point in a future pilot’s thoughts are the types of jobs a helicopter pilot could actually do and which might be a perfect job for that person.
