threeighteen

Who cares about all that when you get to do this all day?

Pilot crazy landing - YouTube

soar2live

First off...dont know anything about Raeford Skydiving. However. TPIC is TPIC. Now one can argue TPIC single engine and TPIC multi ill give you that but no one is going to look at TPIC in an otter an then look down on it for being jump ops (by the way we are doing the most dangerous parts of flying all day long - takeoff/landing in airport enviornments where uneducated weekend warriors can come and go as they please. This place sounds like it offers both single and multi eventually (please never go into a skydive operation that has you commit in writing to the length of your stay). Now, knowing something about skydiving - yes there are sketchy operators out there that pay low and should be shutdown. However there are many great operators out there too where a pilot can make good money doing something that is extremely fun. Not just flying in cruise on autopilot for 2 hours with 1 takeoff and 1 landing. Skydiving will make a pilot great at stick and rudder skills but just remember that outside of this IFR skills are necessary so DO NOT LOSE THEM! KEEP CURRENT! Industry avg for 182/206 is $10/load usually picking up the wet commercial pilots (the better 182/206 ops have 500TT insurance mins usually). Places that offer this should also offer free housing/or a weekly salary/daily show pay as well. Caravan/PAC 750/King Air/Twin Otter should be 15-20 per load with mins at 1000TT and 100ME (for multi operators) based on insurance mins or on salary for $2500-3000 a month. Only a few out there that will cover skydive operators. Basing on the job post of 1000TT perferred 250TT required has me already hesitant to recommend anyone to apply. On a turbine working all day (8am-7pm) one should do many more than 18 loads. prob in the 25-30 range otherwise the operation is using an aircraft that is too big. I did 18 loads full day in 182 and 22 loads in a 206 and turbine aircraft are much faster then the slow poke pistons. This one has military jump ops as well so the aircraft are most likely in decent operation. Dont know about your experience with the FAA visiting but I never once saw anyone from the FAA come out and visit during my time as a jump pilot (You may have been at one of the sketchy ones - everyone please do research on the operator you go to work for and decide for yourself if it is worth it) Just have to fish out the bad ones. Only bad operators will not allow their pilots time to use the bathroom or take a few min to grab something to eat (These places deserve to be shutdown). Stay away from these. There are good ones out there too!

Redline165

I'm not going to get into the previously posted maintenance and poor working conditions issues. Some are bad, I have seen them. But like mentioned before not all are. All I will say is that we have a top notch maintenance program with our own onsite repair facility. Our Employees work hard but are not over worked. Anyone that works here has the comfort of knowing that there bosses have already done what they are doing. We understand that its miserable (and unsafe) to fly 20 loads in a row when its 100 degrees outside so that doesn't happen.


Still taking applications. We apologize for the delay in answering Questions. There are so many resumes it takes some time to get through them all.

To answer a few quickly, our Insurance company allows our chief pilot to clear pilots to fly our aircraft. There is a rigorous training program which entails around 100 supervised hours in type and hours of ground school. Minimums vary between insurance companies. Doing it this way does cost us alot of money (occupied seat in the aircraft and another pilots time) but we have had excellent luck in performance, safety, and turnover in the past years training pilots like this.

Pilots Start out in the PAC-750XL and typically fly it for a year before upgrading to the Twin Otter

Typical hours are 6-700 hours a year (turbine) You will fly alot.

It is a full time salaried job all year long. We fly all winter

Pay is discussed during interviews.

Junglejett

Most of these jump pilot jobs border on less than minimum wage. If you take the hours worked and your daily wage, it is embarrassingly low. The way they keep people coming is by offering multi PIC turbine in exchange for slave wages. If they are operating on such a tight profit margin, you can be assured maintenance is running on the same margin...regardless of what they tell you.


If your goal is a regional job (Read ATP), this time, while nice, will not get you where you need to go...you need cross country time and climbing and descending 20+ times a day landing at the same airport does not achieve that goal.

These operators need to treat these jobs as real jobs..you know, the kind that puts food on the table and does not subject the individual to undue risk.

USMCFLYR

I flew jumpers for a short period of time at a very small operation in 1989 and I was paid $10 per load. soar2live says the CURRENT industry average for the same C-206 I was flying is still $10 a load.

junglejett says that most of the jobs border on less than minimum wage. I would have thought that a part timer doing this flying on the weekends for gas/fun money would have matched that definition, but I was making much more than minimum wage at the time as I flew a few loads per hour at the aforementioned $10 per load (much more than minimum wage at the time I can assure you) and more than the lifeguarding job I had at the local YMCA at the time. Guess I should have flown more and lifeguarded less.

For those in the know....the OP has mentioned that this is a full time/salaried position. Are most jump pilot positions full time? The few I know who have done this position, even one in turbine equipment, all did the job part time, and most were active jumpers themselves at the locale.

I'll certainly agree with what junglejett said about maintenance in regards to the conditions of the aircraft that I flew, and a smarter pilot than I at the time probably would have looked past the gas/fun money and the flying time for pay and thought it was not such a good idea.

soar2live

To be fair to the OP and to get back on track. This is advertised as a low time job opportunity. If I had the opportunity to fly a turbine at 250hr that would have been fantastic. But instead i flew jumpers in a 182 from 300-700hrs and a 206 from 700-900. Then I flew a 172 from 900-1500+. I reached ATP mins in 14 months after being hired at my first paid flying gig. Most instructors I know/knew are/were either at the pilot mills making similar pay and advancing at either the same pace or slower...other university flight schools or part 61 schools might pay more but most likely one will take 2+ years to reach ATP. The 182 job was free room and board so I was taking home about 1000 a month - bad pay...sure but for 4 months to get me passed the 500+ hour mark I was glad I did it and glad to get out . The 206 job had 10/load + 150/week + 15/day to show up. I was making close to 2800-3000 a month and truly enjoyed the work environment but knew I needed to get xc time along with some night. Hence I took aerial survey = fantastic flying experience and would recommend any pilot that can stand being away from home for 8 months to check out pictometry venders. Anyway...the point about all this is that the big hurdle for any starting out pilot is to find a job to build hours...and this job seems to be advertising for just that. For a young 18-23 year old just starting out I would think it would be a blast working given that the mx records check out

Cubdriver

I sent my resume off to a local drop zone operator running PAC 750s and a few days later got a phone call. The deal was about $12 a load but YOU PAY 3 grand for initial training to be reimbursed after the flying season. I said I'd think about it, and honest I did think about it for maybe 10 minutes.

The need to guard against pilots skipping out on the job after an action packed week of turbine flying at company expense exists, but the truth also remains that if these jobs paid well and pilots were properly screened no one would skip out on the job and the training bond could go away in a heartbeat. Jobs like this require training bonds because they are low paying, seasonal without benefits, and mostly useless as airline preparation.

aviatorhi

The "fairest" way I've seen an operator address this was 10 unpaid hours of checkout time plus 10 hours of unpaid time after checkout (logic was you're "reimbursing" the DZ for the seat you took away to get checked out). Basically 3-4 days of "free" flying at a DZ that paid 150/day plus 10/load. While I don't necessarily agree with the concept of unpaid work at least this was a justifiable method and the average daily cash pay was $220 or more. 3 grand up front and waiting for reimbursement, on the other hand, is not ok.

Cubdriver

That was my feeling too that laying out big (any) cash to get a job is unacceptable. An apprenticeship might be a solution where you work off the training for a week or two as mentioned above, fair because it shows trust and good faith on both sides of the deal. Or the job could have a graduated pay scheme where each month the pay goes up as the ROI is redeemed. Or, they could just make it a fairly-paid salary gig for the season and trust the pilot to work hard enough to make it worthwhile, and I can hardly imagine who would abuse that arrangement. But they will never do any of these because they want to underpay the pilot all along knowing they will skip out due to the low pay and other factors. I always saw drop zone flying as a bit of a joke frankly, it's not something you can take very seriously as far as the business side is concerned.

Junglejett

Hell, Taco Bell pays you from day one and does not require you to pay for your Taco making training.