5 Pilot Jobs for 500hr Pilots
Hey guys- what's up! Jon here from fly8ma.com coming to you today to talk about five pilot jobs you can do
with 500 hours total time flying. Let's go intro. Alright so five jobs
we're talking about you can do with 500 hours total flight time. So pretty much
anybody out there can do with 500 hours. Anyone can get into and the key here is
you can do these jobs without having to shave your face because I just don't really
like that.. just don't feel like shaving anymore, so we'll try to compare them all
equally. We're talking pay benefits and then ease of getting hired. If some of
these jobs might require a little bit more specific flight time in a certain
airplane with a little more tailwheel time, we'll try to cover that for you
guys as well. So first off skydive pilot is our first
job on the list. If you want to be a jumper driver, a diver driver jump pilot,
however you want to call it. So the pay for a diver driver is roughly around
thirty bucks an hour give or take.
Sometimes starts a little lower,
sometimes a little more. Kind of rare. Sometimes you'll be paid per load, so
oftentimes they'll be paid ten to twenty dollars per load and you can do well
roughly you know one to two loads, sometimes three loads, in an hour, so
anywhere in that you know $20 to even $50 an hour range maybe if you're lucky. As
far as how many hours a day you can get in, almost six to eight hours a day
pretty typical.
How many flight hours, you know maybe
just shy that maybe four to six hours of flight time per day and the one key
drawback there is it's often seasonal. There's gonna be no benefits typically
1099 as you're paid. Rarely are you a w-2 employee and the ease of getting hired
well in the baseline of things flying a 182 or some smaller airplanes. If it's
not a big plane or something like that then yeah it's fairly easy to get hired
into that with 500 hours total time. Next you could be a CFI with 500 hours and of
course everyone talks about being a CFI, one of the easiest ways to build your
time to get to the next level or to even go into as a career now being a flight
instructor.
Being a CFI has changed a lot in the last few years here really, so
this is actually job pay wise your looking at if we were to talk about
things in total compensation right that's what we won't want to try to talk
about because total compensation would be your base salary any signing bonuses
and then also any benefits lumped into that because there's no benefits being a
sky dive pilots and these other jobs we are about to talk about.
So total compensation for a CFI at the top end schools, you can get hired out
with 500 hours roughly around 70 thousand per year salary. It doesn't
really matter how many hours you fly. How many hours can you fly per year well
five to eight hundred typically but if you're talking salary really doesn't
matter you'll get paid the same.
Now as far as base salary that's in the mid 50
thousand per year range and then as far as the total compensation well you're
talking 401k health care, dental, insurance, vision insurance, airline
travel benefits if you're working for I say like LAT which is a flight school
affiliated with Lufthansa Airlines in Germany so you get airline travel
benefits them. Paid vacation, paid holidays, paid sick time, things like that.
So thing to CFI is to become more of a career type thing rather than just to
build your time and these are getting hired into that pretty easy if you got
the 500 hours total time. So that's pretty high up there on the scale fairly
easy to get picked up. Next up we've got banner towing. Now this is another one
fairly easy to get picked up on. Pay really ranges again, but you can bet
about twenty eight bucks an hour is a pretty average that we've found.
You know we saw things anywhere from 15 on up to 30 bucks an hour for banner
towing and it can be pretty long hours, which is kind of helpful as far as
getting paid right so you're not going to go out and just fly for an hour
typically, but it is very seasonal and there typically are no benefits.
Once
again you're back to 1099, so in terms of total compensation, you'd be lucky to
come home with 30 40 grand maybe a year in that field or in that pilot position
as a banner tow pilot, but as long as you got say you know 10-20 hours tailwheel
time, pretty easy to get picked up and there's even banner two airplanes that are tailwheel or trikes that you can get picked up with just your plain 500 hours.
So fairly easy to get hired. Pay (eh) not so great, kind of middle-of-the-road,
and benefits– typically none.
The only reason pays good is because you can fly
so many hours in a day. Next up we've got 135 flying or charter flying those
sorts of jobs that kind of fall into that scenic tour operations things
you've seen Alaska out west around the Grand Canyon and around Florida flying
around the Keys and out on the East Coast, doing charters and really all over
the lower 48 as well. But any sort of 135 flying. Well pays gonna start it kind of
varies it could be 20 bucks an hour could be 25 an hour, could be 200 dollars a day.
That's a really common rate you'll see
for whether you're sitting right seat and a hawker at 500 hours or you're
sitting left seat in a you know Cessna 206– $200 bucks a day is
pretty typical what you can bet on for pay. The trouble there is you may not be
able to log the flight time even though they're paying you to sit. Right seating
the Hawker you may or may not be able to log that flight time especially if
you're not multi engine rated, especially if the guy's not an Meim, especially if
it's doesn't require two pilots to be flying it. So you may get into some of
these jobs that sound great flying a jet but there's no benefits again it's just
all 1099, here's your money, no w-2 jobs out there really for that
sort of thing and you may not be logging flight time sitting in that Hawker.
Now
the other side of this is say grant aviation up in Alaska well they actually
pay 200 dollars a day to fly their small airplanes two weeks on two weeks off so
you're looking at you know not a whole lot of money but about you know
$2,800 a month maybe any of there's some basic benefits there
as well as airline travel benefits they're part of Cass they're part of the
jump seat you know group of airline so you can actually jump seat around and
have flight benefits working for someone like grant up in Alaska now as far as
total compensation their friend if it's aren't quite that great so you're
looking in the mid 30s maybe high 30s if you're lucky as far as what they offer
in terms of healthcare for 1k and all that all the extra stuff it's really not
much in the 135 world either getting hired into those 135 jobs is a lot
easier now and it's really once again know who you know kind of thing
especially for the right seat jet jobs once again you're not gonna really be
able long time in those right sea jet jobs most often but as far as the left
seat jobs flying the Cessna is up around Alaska and the lower 48 flying some
those smaller 206 –is and things like that you can't log the time and again
kind of who you know but it's also fairly easy if you just pick up the
phone call or drop off a resume actually go show your face there it's getting
easier by the day because we are coming into a little bit of a pilot shortage
here in case you guys haven't noticed as far as aerial survey aerial photography
and pipeline patrol those are last that's our last fifth wheel just kind of
lump them all into one aerial surveying or photography whether it's
surveying animals surveying land taking pictures pipeline patrol all kind of
lumps in the same easy getting yeah somewhere between just show up and
who you know you have to kind of know to get the job so not the easiest get hired
into but not the hardest the trouble with it is it kind of comes and goes
right you'll have a lot of work line eight hours a day around the twenty to
thirty dollar an hour range sometimes even more but again 1099 rarely find w-2
jobs in this field rarely find any sort of benefits total compensation you're
looking in the thirty thousand – range because you're not gonna have work
year-round it's really when something gets a contract or somebody gets a big
job they fly a whole bunch for a few weeks a month
and then you're just sitting around waiting again the same thing with aerial
photography with drones coming out real estate agents aren't really calling up
guys to go take pictures of houses anymore so that's kind of shifting into
not as popular kind of harder to find the work hey count on the 30 ish
thousand range and then benefits count on none and as far as getting hired know
it's moderate again so that really sums up the five jobs we've got again you
don't have to shave for any of these five jobs hopefully that gives you guys
a little bit of insight of what you can do to build your time to get to the next
level or if you're looking just to you know kind of do that for a career all
those can be careers you can live off all those salaries although they're not
necessarily amazing some of them you know once you once you break the fifty
thousand mark I've always found that I was pretty comfortable making fifty
thousand up total compensation that made life a lot easier than trying to live
off twenty thirty thousand dollars a year so that's my two cents on it that's
what we found in our research.
If you guys have any other ideas, leave them in
the comments below, we will link all of these companies that we research our "top
five companies" so to speak for these jobs in the description below as well so
you can check those out if you want to go ahead and call them up, drop off a
resume. And you guys know what to do: like the video, subscribe if you have not
already, we'll see you guys in the next video!.