Grumble

ROTFLMAO, I've been flying almost 20 years. Kid... that's good comedy from a 23 year old. I was instructing when you were still eating paste. Yes, banner towing is a waste of time, good for nothing more than some easy total time padding.

smugglersblues

I must disagree. The "kid" is trying to make it in this crazy world in his chosen profession and it sounds like he's doing a good job of it. Towing Banners, CFIing, spotting crop circles; it's all flying--keep-em-flying !

FlyingTrees2010

Anyone heard of Ad Airlines, LLC? They operate out of Chicago with permits in Mexico and Florida...I guess you fly hot air balloons, trikes, and fly banners...salaried at $17,500 and you draw against that at a rate of $20/hour when u fly banners/trikes and $200/3 hours when in balloons...idk how busy they are though or if it'd be a good gig. Advice is very welcome

CrimsonEclipse

I know 2 people who died dragin' rags. I almost lost it a couple of times myself.

It's dangerous, it's good for hours, it CAN be good cash.

If you just invented banner towing and took your idea to the FAA, they'd laugh you out of the building.

If you have to land with the banner on land or in water, be sure you dive and level out. When the banner hits, it will stop you. if you're 20' up, you're going to fall 20 feet.

Landing with the banner is an interesting day.

ucheabali

Hey are you guys hiring? I'm in that stage of life where I must build time.

JohnBurke

Bull****.

Chances are that I was towing banners, flying ag, and instructing well before you. I also started and ran my own banner operation.

Banner towing is as legitimate a job as any, and most importantly for the low-experience pilot, it's a job the low-experience pilot can get. No time? Go tow banners. Do it a lot.

Nothing wrong with flight instructing, but there's nothing wrong with towing banners, either.

As for those who will tell you it's dangerous; ridiculous. It's not. If you allow any kind of flying to be dangerous, then it's on you, but the job is definitely not dangerous. You've got an instantly disposable load on the airplane and an immediate way to enhance performance. No need to be stalling or coming close to it. It's a simple job, and your greatest hazard is complacency and even boredom. Again, safety is on you; it's not the job. It's you.

To those who didn't get anything out of towing banners...well, that's on them. What you get out of towing banners is all on you.

Interesting, isn't it, how two people can fly the same flight hour, and one comes away with an hour of time in a logbook, and the other comes away with an hour of experience?

partypilot1

I enjoyed it for a summer in 04. I found the experience very valuable toward my aviation career. I delt with issues and didn't break myself or the airplane in the process. I had two broken jugs (one resulted in a beach landing), ground crew twisted lines resulting in a two banner pickup, broken banner release(landed with the banner), and damn near fell asleep while towing (probably the most dangerous part of towing, excluding pickups)

BeachBum82

Completely agree with JohnBurke. My family has operated a medium sized banner towing operation on the east coast for over 15 years. We have had an excellent safety record, something I am very proud of. No blown jugs, beach or water landings, or stall spins. We spend a LOT of time training, after all most of our guys and girls are very low time. It's as dangerous as you want to make it, like he said, complacency will be what kills you. As for what the other guy said about landing with the sign....some of that has merit some not. Depends on the surface you land on. I do teach the dive method, but we also land on a concrete runway. On pavement the sign will slide, you wouldn't even know it's back there. I know because I've done it maybe 5 times in 15 years. On grass....yeah I've seen it pull a plane down when the lead pole digs if it's really soft. Point being it doesn't happen often, and if properly trained it's not really an issue. My background.....I've flown 135, 91k, 121, current 121 Capt. I can also account for every one of our former pilots, each one is either flying corporate or airline, or working their way up some place in between. Point being it's not worthless time. We've never had a person who didn't want to move on to bigger and better things be held back due to towing. In fact I'd say 90% of our former pilots do not have CFI. I hear it all the time from other pilots at my airline about how dangerous it is, maybe one out of 10 actually has done it.

For anyone interested, as I posted on another topic. I have two possibly three seats open for this season. It's not too late. We are in North Carolina and our season doesn't really get cranking to the first or second week of June. PM me if interested.

ScottR

Who and how do I contact the second guy. CFI is not for every one.

ScottR

Yes. Please send me more information. I don't think CFI is for me. I have my CMEL ,CSEL, current instrument rating, and a valid 2nd class medical. TT is just under 270. Thank you.