Any Smokejumper Pilots out there?
10-22-2012, 09:35 PM
#81
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: Sleeping in the black swan’s nest.
Posts: 5,709
but it's got no grounding in reality.
You just described Skyhigh perfectly...
Don't waste your time on him he's a broken record. He talks and talks but never listens.
I've worked at 3 major airlines and am currently at one, been a corporate pilot, flew for the Jumpers before that and was flying bush before that.
Skyhigh in his mind knows more about the industry than I, has better advice and flatly ignores anything I say. He's one of those guys who face to face you'd either have to walk away or punch him in the mouth to get your point across as he refuses to share information he just drones on and on with his B.S. It never ends.
I've been told by several moderators that the only reason they don't ban him is that he's good for creating traffic. IE sucking knowledgeable real deal guys like you and me into his BS and giving the bitter didn't make it guys somebody to agree with.
10-23-2012, 03:11 AM
#82
Self Employed.
Joined APC: May 2005
Position: Corporate Pilot
Posts: 7,119
Another thing
John,
Another thing to consider is that the rest of aviation has gone so far downhill that flying smokejumpers for a career is a better deal now in comparison. Back when I did it there was no comparison to flying for the airlines. Now however even a legacy airline is not all that spectacular anymore.
Skyhigh
Another thing to consider is that the rest of aviation has gone so far downhill that flying smokejumpers for a career is a better deal now in comparison. Back when I did it there was no comparison to flying for the airlines. Now however even a legacy airline is not all that spectacular anymore.
Skyhigh
10-23-2012, 06:05 AM
#83
Disinterested Third Party
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,026
"Back when I did it..." doesn't mean anything in your case, given the fact that you've no experience. You had a brief introduction to a regional airline, and one season flying as a copilot on a contract ship with jumpers.
There is far more to a career than seeking the airlines, and a great many pilots go their entire life without any desire to work for an airline.
You don't know your material, but then you never did. You spout off about things you don't understand, and it's very evident. You're embarrassing yourself.
I turned down airline interviews, as a tanker pilot. They didn't represent a direction I wanted to go. I was once on a river trip, during the fire season, with another tanker pilot. A young woman on the boat asked us what we did for a living, and when we told her, she asked "so, don't you want to fly for the airlines some day?" I smiled and didn't respond, but the other pilot, former military and long invested in the fire world, simply said "That would be...a step down." I nearly fell out of the boat laughing.
He was right. I lost track of the number of pilots who approached us, wanting to fly tankers. A friend of mine, a captain at a national airline, approached me a few years ago about taking a leave of absence from his position to come fly fire. He ended up doing just that, and enjoyed himself...and very nearly didn't go back to his airline.
Fire is no panacea, but then neither are the airlines.
Airhoss is quite correct about you. Perhaps your reason for being here is simply that you stir the pot enough you're worth keeping on as a novelty. Perhaps you promote discussion because you're enough of an enigma that intelligent thought occurs in this place in spite of you. Who knows? Obviously you don't know airlines, and obviously you don't know utility flying (or even the proper names for it). You're a Cessna 150 pilot. You should stick to that.
I've done fire for quite a few seasons. Some of those seasons have been short...as short as a few weeks. Others have been as long as ten months. In between I've done a lot of other flying, wrench turning, and other duties. I've taken leaves of absence many times to go fight fire. I've quit a number of jobs when it came time for the fire season. Every single year it's been the same: the first time I get over the fire and smell smoke in the cockpit, I'm home, and I remember why I'm there. There's nothing better than the smell of smoke in the cockpit, and there's no better place to be, for me, than low over the rocks and trees during an active wildfire. I truly love it.
I've shot approaches into Schipol and Hong Kong, down to minimums in typhoons and winter storms. I've landed on icy runways in Kabul and Bagram. I've been in and out of Lagos in the dead of night, and lost track of the number of atlantic and pacific oceanic crossings I've made. I enjoyed doing that flying, to an extent. I've been in and out of Honolulu, Anchorage, Chicago, Newark, Miami, and other busy places, keeping a schedule and working the line. I've worked with a lot of fine pilots and engineers who worked hard to make the company a success, and I value the relationship with every one of them, and the experience as First Officer and Captain that I had in the airplane.
The highest stress I've felt in a flying job came from airline flying. The lowest stress for me has always been flying the fires. I'm sure my blood pressure came down substantially when getting into a tanker or other fire platform each year. To each his own. Your assertion that your pipe dream matches everyone else's, however, is patently false and small-minded.
I once sat in a WWII-era bomber on a wet, cold ramp in Minnesota, talking with a new pilot who had just been hired to fly the company Cessna 310 around the country, delivering parts and mechanics. I asked him what his goals were with the company, and in the fire business. He told me he wanted to build time. I explained to him that he'd be lucky to get a hundred hours in the season. He told me he hoped to build time for the airlines. I pointed out that the airlines didn't look favorably on tanker time, and that it wasn't a time building job at a hundred hours a year (on a really good year, it might be three hundred).
I explained that it was an admirable goal, flying for the airlines, and asked the young man what it was about airline flying that attracted him. "I just want to wear the uniform." He replied. "It really gives me a woody." Wow. What a professional aspiration.
It was raining, and it rained for days. I put him to work doing some safety wiring on one of the engines. After three days, he went home, and promptly quit. I met the chief pilot shortly after that, who commented "You just cost us another one." Apparently our discussion and three days in the rain was enough to convince the young man that fire work wasn't for him...he wanted to be seen, not to work. Firefighting is work. You weren't that young man, were you?
There is far more to a career than seeking the airlines, and a great many pilots go their entire life without any desire to work for an airline.
You don't know your material, but then you never did. You spout off about things you don't understand, and it's very evident. You're embarrassing yourself.
I turned down airline interviews, as a tanker pilot. They didn't represent a direction I wanted to go. I was once on a river trip, during the fire season, with another tanker pilot. A young woman on the boat asked us what we did for a living, and when we told her, she asked "so, don't you want to fly for the airlines some day?" I smiled and didn't respond, but the other pilot, former military and long invested in the fire world, simply said "That would be...a step down." I nearly fell out of the boat laughing.
He was right. I lost track of the number of pilots who approached us, wanting to fly tankers. A friend of mine, a captain at a national airline, approached me a few years ago about taking a leave of absence from his position to come fly fire. He ended up doing just that, and enjoyed himself...and very nearly didn't go back to his airline.
Fire is no panacea, but then neither are the airlines.
Airhoss is quite correct about you. Perhaps your reason for being here is simply that you stir the pot enough you're worth keeping on as a novelty. Perhaps you promote discussion because you're enough of an enigma that intelligent thought occurs in this place in spite of you. Who knows? Obviously you don't know airlines, and obviously you don't know utility flying (or even the proper names for it). You're a Cessna 150 pilot. You should stick to that.
I've done fire for quite a few seasons. Some of those seasons have been short...as short as a few weeks. Others have been as long as ten months. In between I've done a lot of other flying, wrench turning, and other duties. I've taken leaves of absence many times to go fight fire. I've quit a number of jobs when it came time for the fire season. Every single year it's been the same: the first time I get over the fire and smell smoke in the cockpit, I'm home, and I remember why I'm there. There's nothing better than the smell of smoke in the cockpit, and there's no better place to be, for me, than low over the rocks and trees during an active wildfire. I truly love it.
I've shot approaches into Schipol and Hong Kong, down to minimums in typhoons and winter storms. I've landed on icy runways in Kabul and Bagram. I've been in and out of Lagos in the dead of night, and lost track of the number of atlantic and pacific oceanic crossings I've made. I enjoyed doing that flying, to an extent. I've been in and out of Honolulu, Anchorage, Chicago, Newark, Miami, and other busy places, keeping a schedule and working the line. I've worked with a lot of fine pilots and engineers who worked hard to make the company a success, and I value the relationship with every one of them, and the experience as First Officer and Captain that I had in the airplane.
The highest stress I've felt in a flying job came from airline flying. The lowest stress for me has always been flying the fires. I'm sure my blood pressure came down substantially when getting into a tanker or other fire platform each year. To each his own. Your assertion that your pipe dream matches everyone else's, however, is patently false and small-minded.
I once sat in a WWII-era bomber on a wet, cold ramp in Minnesota, talking with a new pilot who had just been hired to fly the company Cessna 310 around the country, delivering parts and mechanics. I asked him what his goals were with the company, and in the fire business. He told me he wanted to build time. I explained to him that he'd be lucky to get a hundred hours in the season. He told me he hoped to build time for the airlines. I pointed out that the airlines didn't look favorably on tanker time, and that it wasn't a time building job at a hundred hours a year (on a really good year, it might be three hundred).
I explained that it was an admirable goal, flying for the airlines, and asked the young man what it was about airline flying that attracted him. "I just want to wear the uniform." He replied. "It really gives me a woody." Wow. What a professional aspiration.
It was raining, and it rained for days. I put him to work doing some safety wiring on one of the engines. After three days, he went home, and promptly quit. I met the chief pilot shortly after that, who commented "You just cost us another one." Apparently our discussion and three days in the rain was enough to convince the young man that fire work wasn't for him...he wanted to be seen, not to work. Firefighting is work. You weren't that young man, were you?
10-23-2012, 11:57 AM
#84
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Position: 767A (Ret)
Posts: 6,248
JohnBurke,
Congratulations on a very impressive flying career. The fact that some other people would not have enjoyed it as much as you did makes no difference whatsoever. Aviation usually weeds out the unqualified and the unhappy.
Congratulations on a very impressive flying career. The fact that some other people would not have enjoyed it as much as you did makes no difference whatsoever. Aviation usually weeds out the unqualified and the unhappy.
11-25-2012, 07:57 AM
#85
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2012
Position: 747 FO
Posts: 191
Lurker mode: disabled.
EXCELLENT thread.
Full disclosure/ caveats/ disclaimers:
I'm one of those who is NOT terribly enamored with becoming a 121 guy. The idea of being able to fly and do something meaningful and actually get paid enough to live off of to boot is MY American dream.
I understand that mileage / experience may vary.....
Sky High,
Thanks for your insights. I do appreciate looking at the worst case scenario prior to making any decision and, from what I've read here and on other forum threads, you can definitely be counted on to provide that.
Expectation management is key and is exactly why places like APC are so helpful !
JohnBurke, AirHoss, and anyone else who can help:
About firefighting....
Where do I sign ?
I've always wanted to firefight, even got to do bambi bucket training in Blackhawks with the Guard....<sigh>and wound up coordinating stuff and giving news briefs/interviews on the ground when the fires came ;(
I've some multi eninge turbine time in both airplanes and helicopters.
How do you 'break in' ?
What times are competitive ?
It sounds as if you can live anywhere so long as you can get to and stay at 'work' during the fire season; or have I misunderstood ?
I'm asking for a pretty wide brushstroke here, but what is a realistic expectation of pay first year ?
Regardless, thanks for all the info all of you have provided. Regardless of where you stand on aviation, ALL of you are giving back to those of us who are trying to find our way.
It'll be our duty to repay in kind once we get there, just like you have.
EXCELLENT thread.
Full disclosure/ caveats/ disclaimers:
I'm one of those who is NOT terribly enamored with becoming a 121 guy. The idea of being able to fly and do something meaningful and actually get paid enough to live off of to boot is MY American dream.
I understand that mileage / experience may vary.....
Sky High,
Thanks for your insights. I do appreciate looking at the worst case scenario prior to making any decision and, from what I've read here and on other forum threads, you can definitely be counted on to provide that.
Expectation management is key and is exactly why places like APC are so helpful !
JohnBurke, AirHoss, and anyone else who can help:
About firefighting....
Where do I sign ?
I've always wanted to firefight, even got to do bambi bucket training in Blackhawks with the Guard....<sigh>and wound up coordinating stuff and giving news briefs/interviews on the ground when the fires came ;(
I've some multi eninge turbine time in both airplanes and helicopters.
How do you 'break in' ?
What times are competitive ?
It sounds as if you can live anywhere so long as you can get to and stay at 'work' during the fire season; or have I misunderstood ?
I'm asking for a pretty wide brushstroke here, but what is a realistic expectation of pay first year ?
Regardless, thanks for all the info all of you have provided. Regardless of where you stand on aviation, ALL of you are giving back to those of us who are trying to find our way.
It'll be our duty to repay in kind once we get there, just like you have.
11-25-2012, 01:15 PM
#86
Disinterested Third Party
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,026
That really depends what you want to get into. Helicopters are the broadest brush stroke in fire; they do bucket work, fly meals and supplies in and out of the fire, do patrols and oversight, pick up and drop ground troops, and so on. On any given fire, a helicopter may be expected to all of those, and it's the helicopters that usually time-out, rather than the fixed wing aircraft. When fixed wing aircraft sit, the helicopters will be flying, often to the exclusion of tanker assets.
Fifty to seventy five grand in helicopters, for a season...many operators pay daily rather than hourly, but the way pilots get paid varies greatly between operators. The government makes contracts between themselves and the operators; the government doesn't tell operators what they must pay the pilots, who are usually subcontractors, rather than employees. Some firms employ pilots year-round, doing things other than fire in the off season. Some don't.
In fixed wing, usually one does just a single mission, whether it's air attack, flying jumpers single engine air tankers, point to point and fire patrol, or large air tankers.
Your best bet to find a job doing fire work is an air attack platform. Some have exclusive-use contracts, while most work on a call-when-needed basis. They range from Cessna 337 Skymasters and piston Twin Commander 500's, to turbo commanders, Cessn a 340's and 421's, and some king air platforms. All air attack platforms are operating in a public-use capacity, but are required by contract to be fully Part 135. Pay seems to average around seven grand a month in the summer, but can be higher, depending on the operator.
Single engine tanker work wont' be an option unless you have considerable tailwheel experience and low level mountainous experience, and generally you'll need a background in the Air Tractor 802. Pay ranges from three to five hundred an hour.
Large air tanker positions will be extremely few and far between, and you should plan on ten or more dedicated years trying to get your foot in the door before someone hires you...if you're extremely lucky. Those jobs are had to come by.
The best pay in tankers is with the CalFire (California Division of Forestry), with some positions being nearly year-round.
The "super-tanker" positions are almost a non-starter, with only a couple of airframes, and a very tenuous future.
Fifty to seventy five grand in helicopters, for a season...many operators pay daily rather than hourly, but the way pilots get paid varies greatly between operators. The government makes contracts between themselves and the operators; the government doesn't tell operators what they must pay the pilots, who are usually subcontractors, rather than employees. Some firms employ pilots year-round, doing things other than fire in the off season. Some don't.
In fixed wing, usually one does just a single mission, whether it's air attack, flying jumpers single engine air tankers, point to point and fire patrol, or large air tankers.
Your best bet to find a job doing fire work is an air attack platform. Some have exclusive-use contracts, while most work on a call-when-needed basis. They range from Cessna 337 Skymasters and piston Twin Commander 500's, to turbo commanders, Cessn a 340's and 421's, and some king air platforms. All air attack platforms are operating in a public-use capacity, but are required by contract to be fully Part 135. Pay seems to average around seven grand a month in the summer, but can be higher, depending on the operator.
Single engine tanker work wont' be an option unless you have considerable tailwheel experience and low level mountainous experience, and generally you'll need a background in the Air Tractor 802. Pay ranges from three to five hundred an hour.
Large air tanker positions will be extremely few and far between, and you should plan on ten or more dedicated years trying to get your foot in the door before someone hires you...if you're extremely lucky. Those jobs are had to come by.
The best pay in tankers is with the CalFire (California Division of Forestry), with some positions being nearly year-round.
The "super-tanker" positions are almost a non-starter, with only a couple of airframes, and a very tenuous future.
11-27-2012, 08:11 PM
#88
Disinterested Third Party
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,026
I'm not sure what you mean by binary, but there aren't really any positions with companies where you'd end up doing both rotor and fixed wing. If you're flying a tanker, then that's your area. If you're doing air attack, you may do it a few times, or stay with it a long time, but most air attack pilots eventually move on to something else. Those who stay in fire usually either try to move to a government position doing Leadplane/ASM (air supervision module) work, or go for tankers.
Helicopters are really a separate track, and there's not a lot of intermingling between fixed wing and rotor folks on the fire ground. The helibase is usually separate, and other than interacting over the fire, they tend to stay in their own circles.
Helicopters are really a separate track, and there's not a lot of intermingling between fixed wing and rotor folks on the fire ground. The helibase is usually separate, and other than interacting over the fire, they tend to stay in their own circles.
12-10-2012, 12:18 PM
#90
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2009
Posts: 155
Hey, a little off topic here, but USMC and Skyhigh, why do you have to "sign" every post with your user name? We can see who is writing the post pretty clearly by your user name and goofy avatar over on the left. If you're trying to make it seem more sincere or something, post your real name. Just saying. Carry on...
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