Originally Posted by
nehringer
I've been looking at this too. My one local guy wants me to pay him $2,000 for training so he can pay me $10 a pick. So, my first 200 picks are basically free. How long does that take? I'm guessing about 20-30 minutes per loop? Dunno. That's 3 an hour at best. We'll work with that number. 66.6 hours is what I'm coming up with. If I could fly Monday through Monday for 8 hours per day, 3 picks per hour, it's possible. Then I could be making money. Does this math make sense, or is this fantasy? If it's real, and upwards of 50 hours per week is realistic, then the money could be pretty good by the end of a season.
I worked banner towing about 10 years ago and those numbers are wildly unrealistic. Where I worked in South Florida, it took 20 minutes just to travel to and from the beach, and then we would spend anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour dragging the banner. An hour per banner was about average, and in some cases we would tow a banner for several hours.
You also forgot to factor in time for refueling, missing picks, circling while the ground crew gets their act together, and dealing with broken airplanes and banners. Most places also require you to help with putting banners together and perform other non-flying work.
In addition, business fluctuates during the week and through the year, generally peaking on weekends when people are at the beach or outdoors, or during sporting events. Weekdays were generally dead where I worked (no one is going to pay to drag a banner over the beach while everyone is at work). In some areas of the country, business will drop to nearly zero during certain times of the year (Florida during the summer, the Northeast in the winter).
Realistically, you
might fly 20-30 hours a week during the peak season, while working 30-40 hours, and tow an average of 1 banner per flight hour. Off peak you may not work at all if you are junior, while the senior pilots may continue to work about the same.
Based on the $10 per pick compensation, it may take you the entire summer to recover the cost. Keep in mind, a lot of people don't make either don't make it through training or last just a few weeks.