Originally Posted by
SkyHigh
I flew floats in Alaska. I owned a float plane for 13 years. During that time I have learned a few things. Float flying is hard to get into and can be even harder to get out of.
Everyone needs to be able to make a living and to have a life. Most career seaplane pilots hate their jobs. A pilot can get stuck doing it for life. I have a friend right now who has been forced to concede his dream of a normal life in the lower 48 and has to return to Alaska this summer. He and I started up there together and he has not been able to find a way out.
The time is nearly useless to most other areas in aviation. After you have done it for a while it is possible to eek out a living and it becomes difficult to start over. Fun is fun but people need to be able to have a full life. Seaplane jobs usually are located in remote areas where it is difficult to make a life. There are guys who I knew from long ago who are still up there flying but are not happy about it.
An airline captain who I flew with put it nicely when he said "I too wasted my youth flying seaplanes in Alaska". Looking back it was all a waste of time. It did not help me to achieve any of my overall life goals and I do not feel improved for the experience of it. Aviation has a lot of attractive traps, pit falls and dead ends. Flying floats is one of them. The time is worthless and does not usually lead to a situation that provides a beneficial and productive life.
I do not hold much of a better opinion of airline flying however in the airlines there is at least a chance of finding a happy ending.
Skyhigh
Sky, please don't turn this thread into yet another iteration of your life story. You could have saved the typing above -- I and and every other regular here know it by heart.
OP - I have been flying the bush in Alaska in one capacity or another for over a decade, and I have never encountered the bunch of sad sacks described in Skyhigh's stories. A great number of my friends who I started with up here still fly part 135 and do it because they love it. Those who wanted to move on to an airline or corporate career have for the most part done so quite successfully, as did I. Skyhigh will have you believe that any part 135 job will inevitably lead to despair, poverty, and death. My experience, and that of many others was quite different.
However, this thread is not about Skyhigh, there are plenty of others out there for that. OP, I realize your question wasn't specifically about Alaska, but that's where the bulk of float flying opportunities are. If you want, send me a PM and I can point you in the right direction as to which doors to knock on.