Turbine multi, I wish. Airship time is airship time. It fills the boxes for ATP and whatnot, and for 135 minimums, but I don't expect to have an easy road for finding an airplane job when I leave. They're all piston powered, depending on the model. Either Rotax 912, Limbach (aviationized VW) or IO-360.

Exactly. Total time, sure. Time towards an ATP and towards 135 min's, sure.

I would hate to see what happens when you gotta take a **** while flying that thing. Your not going anywhere fast. Just makes me cringe at the thought of that.

Fish Spotting is an unusual job. Some people I met doing that made hundreds of thousands per year, but it is very dangerous and a lot of people loose money or die.

Some days we were in the air for 14 hours only to have a cold tent on the beach waiting for us. I flew seasons for a guy who lost his medical. The pay I got was contracted out ahead of time. He made much more. I just flew the plane.

Herring season came during a time when I did not usually have other flying to do. Also it was close to the shore and a little safer. More planes however. Literally at times it was like being in a packed freeway. We were wingtip to wingtip fling in a racetrack oval over black balls of herring in the surf.

Skyhigh

Yup, no bathroom on board. Take a bottle/bucket, depending on what you anticipate needing to do.

are airships still technically subjected to airframe problems like what specifically happened to the zepp?

My uncle spotted tuna off SOCAL for decades, and I would fly with him sometimes. Long hours. He could make $200K in one day, but sometimes he would go years without even covering his costs...always had to take the long view financially.

No. Zeppelins (of the 1900's) were rigid airships. They had a frame internally and the exterior skin was nothing but for aerodynamics. Today's airships for the most part (Zeppelin NT excluded) are non-rigid airships. The gas today is helium, unlike back in the day with hydrogen. The envelope is nothing more than a balloon that holds the gas at pressure, which the entire control car is suspended off of. The pressure of the gas is the only thing that holds the structure to the envelope.

check out this link:

Adventures of a Texas Contrabandido


Regards,
Clutch

I would also highly recommend you look at this website run by some friends of mine:

Oddball Pilot | A Resource for Pilots Interested in Non-Conventional Careers

"A Resource for Pilots Interested in Non-Conventional Careers"

Lots of great interviews, videos, etc.

So you know Aidan too? I met him in ground school at his new gig. Great guy!