Originally Posted by
Diverb
I work for AMO. We just had one of our supervisors with 15yrs in leave for United. Lost a couple others last year. You will have to start in either Texas or Puerto Rico for the first 3yrs, realistically 5yrs before you can transfer.
Plan on only flying about 400-500hrs a year, if your lucky. So much of our day is filled with computer training (culture awareness, sensitivity training, blood born pathogens, sexual harassment in the work place) you get the idea. Plus we have a lot of law enforcement training that still needs to be completed.
Its a good job, but you have to want to be a law enforcement officer who happens to fly. The airframe is just how we complete our mission. If your looking for an airline career or want to fly 1000 hrs a year, this isn't the place for you.
We are using lots of MQ-9 platforms and are suppose to be moving some to central Texas, giving us three locations to launch and recover from. Are you FW,RW or both? Most of us are dual rated and you will only be allowed two airframes, so its busy each year going to recurrent for helicopters and fixed wing depending upon what airframes you are qualified.
FLETC is easy, just show up to class and study, nothing hard.
Am I grateful for this job, yes I am. Do I look on this website and search job sites daily, Yes I do. I will stay here until I retire, but I wont stay a day past my 20 year mark and will hopefully get another flying gig as soon as I retire. A lot of our pilots talk about leaving, and some will likely go, others will stick it out and stay for the retirement.
Any other specific questions, feel free to ask
He isn’t wrong, but the culture in the two stations I was at was horribly toxic.
Miami (really Homestead) may be the best station by location - but reports on the culture turned even worse following years behind my departure. My own supervisor counted the days to his retirement.
The majority of supervisors in Miami are now Marine / Boat drivers with very little understanding of anything aviation. You can easily find yourself assigned to fly 6+ hours of your 8 hour shift in an empty sector to simply burn flight hours for the budget.
You will work 5 days per week, every week, 8 hours minimum shift. Your days off are assigned, and the job is not commutable. Seniority matters...none. Expect collateral duty assignments, frequent law enforcement specific training qualifications, and frequent computer AKO/NKO style training - just to remind you why you disliked the military.
Every two weeks you will have to enter your time card into the system, then sparking calls to the supervisors office to change every entry accounting for your regular time, availability time, sick leave, annual leave, night pay, holiday pay and travel days. It took a cheat sheet of codes to enter your times in their DOS based system. Any travel claims will be scrutinized to the penny, and probably paid late.
FLETC is okay, but expect to be restricted to living on campus for several months as a geo-bachelor. There just isn’t much time to get out or spend time with family. The academics weren't anything to worry about. OAM Pilots are kind of a target for other agency basic school instructors to complain about - so you kind of have to keep a low profile moving about the campus.
Training is conducted at a vendor such as Helistream or Flightsafety which is pretty good; but then you return to your branch or the National Training Center to get checked again.
Its a government job...survivable, stable, sometimes fun, usually as inefficient as possible. Loads of contact with your 8 bosses.
On the plus side - you shoot a lot of guns (until you tire of qualifying on each extra gun/rifle). Lol...really. Veterans try to cut down to one pistol, and maybe one rifle if required.
And then you might fly planes.
. That was the part I liked. 6+ hours with generally good dudes once you escaped the office. Some of my best friends are the sensor operators (like A WSO/NFO), and we actively avoided any animosity among the Pilots and MSO’s - occasionally doing their jobs on a flight. Good people in our crews.
In contrast - (my) Airline life is 15+ days off a month, 50-80 hours of flying a month, two times the pay, commutable, and training is great. Majority of the guys I’ve flown with have been great both at work and on layovers etc. I’ve never met my boss, and block chunks 20+ days off for travel and activities.