Options for Pilots with A&P
 

Hello everyone!
Currently looking for job options for pilots that that also have there A&P license. While I finish my apprenticeship hours for my A&P license I have been flight instructing and building time. I am now actively looking for a pilot job job once I finish getting my A&P ticket.

Present Time and Qualifications:
CFI, CFII, MEI
Commercial SEL, SES, MEL
1500TT, 115 MEL, 100 SES, 170 TW, 25 Turbine

Appreciate any knowledge of current openings or places to look, Thank You

Pilot jobs will revolve around your ability to provide pilot services, more than your ability to turn a wrench, but there are a number of jobs out there that value mechanic certification.

Many utility type flying jobs (think agriculture, firefighting, etc) value those who have maintenance experience (though firefighting has moved away from that somewhat). Jobs in which you-break-it, you-fix-it value maintenance experience. Any job in which you fly and work in the shop will value your maintenance experience.

I got my first jet job as director of maintenance for a corporate flight department, which also put me in the pilot seat of a sabreliner.

Maintenance has been a saving grace when furloughed, and when seeking work when times were lean; others were getting furloughed and couldn't find work, I got work flying and turning wrenches.

It really depends on your goals. If your goals are flying for airlines, then the airlines don't care much about your maintenance qualifications, other than they do add to your list of qualifications on a resume. If that direction is where you're headed, then you'd be better off getting PIC turbine time, which likely as not points you in the direction of a regional.

You've got a little float experience; pilots with an A&P are of value almost anywhere in Alaska.

Also almost anywhere that flies seaplanes.

If you do head to alaska, you'll find that your maintenance background will give you additional income over and above your flying income, if you want to pick up side work.

Agricultural operators tend to prefer pilots who can maintain the airpalne, or help maintain the airplane. Most of the ag pilots I know are also A&Ps.

If you don't have a degree at present, The A&P will get you nearly all the way to an associate, and then you're well on your way to a four year degree that you can do online. Something to think about. That will also open doors to you, and is worth considering along with other future plans.

Ideally I am looking toward pilot jobs flying seaplanes but open to job opportunities in the agricultural sector and firefighting sectors as well. I have little desire to go to the airlines. Currently plan on attending the NAAA convention later this year in florida for options in the ag sector.
What would be your top company choices to look into? After going through many threads about individual companies on the forum. I have seen some good candidates, but maybe there are some diamonds in the rough I am missing.

At this stage, you're not really at that experience level to be choosing companies. You're at that level where you apply to everything you can find and take what you can get.

On the plus side, there are a lot of opportunities out there.

For ag, it's a tough nut to crack. Fire is much tougher, but it can be done.

Think of your maintenance helper job like a summer fast food gig. That is all it really is, having an A&P may get you a dollor more an hour. You want to be a pilot? Forget all that maintenance crap. Professional pilots don't do dirty work. If they did, they wouldn't be professionals. Remember that society judges you at the lowest common denominator. How do you want to be seen?

Total troll, hoping for attention like an earlier poster got for this same stupid opinion. (Maybe even the same guy? Don't recall.)

Some people live within a small bubble. The concept that the knowledge gained from having an A&P ticket would never help is ludicrous.

I put him on the ignore-list a long time ago; I don't even see his posts any more. He had a failed attempt at a maintenance career, and has been bitter since. He has a very shallow understanding of a pilot career, if he's a pilot at all. His posts don't suggest so.

Very weak pilots who don't make it far tend to have a poor opinion of aviating as a career. Very poor mechanics who struggle and fail tend to be similarly jaded. There are plenty of poor pilots and poor mechanics.

Fortunately there are enough good examples that one can look elsewhere without wasting another moment. The poster to whom you refer is a self-appointed missionary of negativity toward aircraft mechanics and the career field in general, and worth nobody's time.

Very well said

I got news for you - you won't be the one choosing in those fields with your present experience. The operator will be forced to choose you.

I realize that is the case with a lot of places with the current shortage. My ideal is to find 6-12 reputable places to apply, do you have any recommends?

The only places with a shortage of help are places you do not want to be. I know that pilots have to take whatever is available and do so because the time has value toward the destination. An A&P has very little more to offer than any other highschool drop out. The cert is too easy to obtain to have any value. None of the highest paying airlines care about a mechanics experience. These are the only companies that come close to paying a living wage. So that is why I.say that working as an A&P is just a temporary gig. I have been told by a Fedx manager that he would not hire an experienced 40y/o mechanic. They recruit box throwers who have the ticket. Major airlines do the same thing with their bag smashers. Delta hired 18y/o kids as fully fledged mechanics. That's all you need to know about the value of an A&P. It's just a little plastic card that checks a box. This is great for a kid but worthless for an adult. Almost any other type of technician or tradesman make more money with far better QOL. On the job market, a middle aged pilot is just hitting his stride. A middle aged A&P is damaged goods. I would slap any kid with potential that spoke of aviation maintenance.

A perfect summation. His insults and vindictiveness go beyond a rational opinion of the pros and cons of the profession and likely result from some very negative event or personal failure in his past. (I am not an A&P myself).

Everts Air Alaska in Fairbanks. They fly a couple PC-12s and C-208s. They have an override for people with A&P license when you do A&P work. Once you build your time up (2000-2500 hours) we'll consider transitioning you to Everts Air Cargo flying the MD-80 or DC-9.

Then again, you could start as a DC-6 flight engineer and move up to the right seat of the DC-6 as well. Your A&P license would be of great benefit to you there. Most of the DC-6 flying is in ANC.

Check out www.evertsair.com for more info.

True. Anything with a round engine screams "maintain me."

You got that right. I forgot to mention he could fly with EAA and wrench on the DC-6 and C-46 in Fairbanks when he isn't flying. They do a lot of maintenance on those birds in FAI.

Who hurt you?

I looked on there website and currently they advertising DC-6 FO positions. Also, went through the forums and saw a lot of previous postings for FE and FO positions.

Postings from a few years ago had starting pay at $55 and 60 hr min.

Does anyone know a current pilot for Everts? Get the current lay of the land.
Thanks

With an A&P you should be a decent candidate for ag since they do a lot of maintenance during the off season. Right now in CA rice season is in full swing and the sky is dark with operators seeding fields. A pilot can make $125k easy out here, but it's a grind right now. Farmers need their crops taken care of like yesterday so it's frenetic, so much so it's risky trying to fly into their strips like I have to do because they're constantly landing, reloading and blasting off again. I basically orbit at 1000 feet until I see a window and dump my C-182 down before the next guy lands. Radio communication is non existent.

But this is the allure of ag flying. The last real seat-of-your-pants flying job. But you won't fly IFR and rarely climb above 500 feet. The equipment is battered and repaired countless times. In the season you may ball up an Agcat on take off, leave it there in a heap to hustle back to another airplane to finish the jobs for the day. If this sounds appealing, then make connections at NAAA. I know for certain that there is work for the right pilot/mechanics. Some guys even take low timers and train them up. Now this is specific to California, not sure about the Midwest/south. If I had to do it all over again, I'd get into Ag flying/wrenching. I'm a comm pilot/A&P as well...but then I got married.

I'm just letting everyone know about aircraft maintenance after starting out there first. The demarcation between mechanic and pilot is incredibly huge. The two never meangle for good reason. The time and money spent on my A&P was a complete loss even at a blue collar level. Not to mention the incredible damage it inflicted to my ultimate career. Anyone with an average IQ that actually finished a crappy public highschool and is not a felon, is far overqualified to work as an A&P mechanic. That's the nicest thing I have to say about it.

I've been doing ag flying since I was a kid; it was my first job after high school and I've been flying one kind of ag airplane or another for a lot of years since.

The poster above who talks about ag flying clearly hasn't done ag flying.

Most ag aircraft are turbine airplanes, most are very well maintained, given the investment in them and the fact that they're the core of the spray business. There aren't a lot of radial powered ag airplanes flying any more. I do fly them from time to time, and I enjoy them, but most ag flying is turbine flying any more; the vast majority of it in turbine S2R thrush's, Air Tractor 502's, and 802's. There are a few Bull Thrush's out there and Ag Cats, but not so many, and few Pawnees, Braves, Calairs, Ag Trucks, and other piston airplanes...it's largely a turbine game any more. For the most part, it's also not an entry level job, and whatever romance one might perceive quickly becomes work.

Aerial application is precision flying, with precision approaches to tighter tolerances than an ILS, ever 30 seconds in a field, all day long.

As for never climbing above 500', I was dropping above 10,000' not so long ago; it's a regular thing for some types of agricultural flying (and there are many, from seeding crops to fertilizing, to fighting fire to spraying drugs in foreign countries, to treating mosquitos, to drying cherries with helicopters after a rain). I've had flights of solid IMC for extended periods, and days of very VFR conditions, and everything in between.

The odds of you balling an airplane up on takeoff, abandoning it and jumping into another airplane to go right on spraying are somewhere between zero and nill. It makes a wild story, though.

Maintenance goes hot and heavy alongside the flying during the season; when it's slow during the off season, often work that can wait may get done, annuals get signed off, etc, but maintenance goes on year round.

It's not uncommon to have trucks with trailers and rolling shops full of parts that chase the airplanes and keep them running with everything from preventative maintenance to troubleshooting and repair throughout the season. Operators can't afford to have junk flying that can break and cost them revenue flying; the aircraft get maintained and sometimes run hard...but in such times the tempo of maintenance increases to keep up. It has to.

Thanks for all the information, I plane on going to the NAAA convention this year. Should be a good networking event for me.

Absolutely... I have friends who spray and the conferences are great networking events.

An interesting thing to note, is that the crop dusters are an aging population. Everyone talks about airlines and mandatory retirement age... but from what I’ve been told second hand is that the average ag pilot is in his 50’s or 60’s. It isn’t easy work and eventually they gotta retire. It’s a really hard industry to break into, but it seems like now is as good of a time as any to give it a try

Was that you standing outside the Northwest hangar in Duluth Minnesota during the mechanic strikes in 2005? Must have been... It would totally support your argument.

I know this is an old thread but I thought I would chime in. Another good place to look is small aerospace companies. I currently work for a small defense contractor flying an aircraft they use for R&D. I integrate different payloads and test fly them. In the winter months I do all the MX and modifications to the aircraft for the upcoming contracts. Its a lot of fun and defense pays well.

Why would I scab for half the pay?

The most awesome job I ever saw offered was,
Wanted: Hughes 300 Pilot must be A&P with experience.
Cousteau Society
It was in Trade a Plane in the mid 80’s.

Never mind. Already answered this thread.

Thank you for all the advice and PMs about places to reach out to apply.

not to create a zombie thread but Beegles in Greeley CO is looking for pilot/mechanics. They do heavy repairs on GA aircraft, recoveries, etc.

https://www.beeglesaircraft.com/careers/

Thanks for the lead, just beginning to send out applications as we speak. Always looking for additional places to apply.

Again try Everts Air Alaska. Everts Air Cargo

P.S. EAA also flies EMB-120s in Laredo, Texas. You would also have a chance to work on the Everts Air Cargo MD-80s that are also located there.

Everts is on my list to send my app into.

There is also Dynamic Aviation. They do government contact work but CONUS work in oil spill response and mosquito abatement in King Airs. It used to be required the pilots to have an A&P but now it’s recommended. My guess is that they couldn’t find enough pilot/mechanics.

Since you have decent times they may want you. There are other threads here(dynamic/avenge/L3) so look that up.

https://usr56.dayforcehcm.com/Candid...AREERS/Posting

Thanks, I have seen those older posts about a&p required. I will drop a reply in the thread and see if those gentleman know more about the opportunities.