Paying Dues - What does it mean to you?

[Artoo]

I searched through the threads on this forum and was unable to find one devoted to the topic of paying dues.  I finished my PPL in October and have the intent of getting paid to fly in the future, so that means more time and more education, which means more money and before I hock over a big bundle of greenbacks I was wondering if some of our commercial brethren/sisters would give a bit of autobiography on how they "paid dues" so I can know what to expect once I have enough hours to get paid but not enough to get hired.

[Mike]

Can't speak too much on the stuck-wing side but on the rotor side you need to instruct as a first part of paying dues.
A lot of people say "they have to instruct" and "they can't wait to get out of it". It kinda bugs me a little because I think those guys are bad instructors and they close themselves off on learning as much as they can.
Try to enjoy it. I did and I have seen in a lot of our pilots who embraced the instructing at the time to be better pilots for it.....
Then I guess the path differs depending on what you want to be.
In the rotor world we usually try to get into tour flying to make the jump to turbine engines.
I guess Chuckar and Turbo would be good guys to ask on the fixed wing side.

My path differs all together since I am an A&P also and I kept myself around airplanes and helicopters through that. Either way you need to meet as many people as you can and be a good guy and helpful without expecting anything in return. This goes a long way, trust me.
Looking at the industry at them moment it may pick up again. Flightschools have been hurting the last 3 years with the economy and everything so there will be a shortage of pilots soon, especially in the helicopter world.

[G-man]

Ditto what Mike said....

plus wash my laundry and be my bitch for 5 years.....jk....but not really .... tis tough right  now...

[chuckar101]

Mike got it right on the instruction.  When I finished flight school I went right to instructing at a part 141 school.  We had mostly foreign students from India, Japan, and Korea.  Take your time and enjoy instucting, it will teach you a lot.  I know its expensive and tough but if you can get all three of your cfi's right away it will make it much easier to find an instructing job.  I'm not sure about how it is now, but when I started MEI's were in high demand.

Also get to know people you instruct and work with even as a student.  You never know who is going to be able to set you up with a great job.  I got out of instucting and into cargo flying before I had the minimum hours cause I knew someone at the company that vouched for my abilities.  They hired me and I worked as instructor pilot and maintenance pilot till I had the hours to be a line captain.  Then when you can find a job like that, volunteer for every assignment that comes up.  This will show that your dedicated and might bump you up the list on upgrades.  I was able to upgrade fairly quickly ause I worked hard and everybody knew that I would pass.  Other then that try to have fun since that's why most of us got into aviation. 

Hope that helps

[Baradium]

I probably think of the phrase "paying dues" differently than what you mean, but I honestly hate that phrase.

You have to get experience, and that's what it comes down to.  There is no "dues" involved.   Every job I've had in aviation someone else has said "you need to pay your dues putting up with x."    Just because someone else had to go through something doesn't mean you HAVE to do it.   In some cases you'll meet people who will go on about "dues" and they might have done it for 2 months or less while you're going to be doing it for a year or more.  But at 11 months into it for you they'll still tell you that you're paying your dues and you have it easy because back when they did it they had to hand prop the airplane in the snow while fending off the wolves using only a wheel chock.

So please don't think about it as dues that you are paying.  It's work you are putting in to get the experience that you need to get to the next phase of your career.  Whenever someone tells you about dues you'll need to pay, think about what you can do to get the experience you need without paying "dues."



It's going to be a lot harder for young pilots to gain experience under the new proposed rule.   Once you get your commercial license, don't waste time trying to find a place you can go and get paid to build your experience.  I personally feel that those who WANT to instruct should be doing it.  If you don't want to, try to find something else you can do to get the experience you need.    If you do instruct, realize it is as valuable a learning experience for you as it is for your students.

The rest of this post assumes that you are in the US:

You are going to have 3 barriers to pass now if you only look at flight time:
250 hours commercial license
500 hours required for part 135 crew members
1500 hours required for part 121 crew members

Right now you can get a 121 job at 250 hours, but that is going away.  That leaves a big gap between the commercial license and most commercial jobs.   There are still jobs you can get at that 250 hour point though.  Some smaller outfits that are single pilot will hire a  below minimums pilot as a "safety pilot" at a low pay rate.  You don't make much and you can't log any time on revenue flights, but on empty legs they let you fly and you slowly log time until you have the experience for normal operations.  This will still be going on in the future.   

I have not heard if the under 21 seat part 121 operators are asking for an exemption from the atp requirement for first officers, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they did.   This rule will put a lot of strain on the supply of pilots since the already very slow rate of upcoming pilots will be stopped by the sudden increase in experience required.  This is a period of change in the airline industry.  Regardless of how you get your experience, you should be very much in demand by the time you are ready to move onto the airlines if that is the path you are looking to take.

[Rooster Cruiser]

I have been busy of late, so I wasn't able to answer your post until now, Artoo.

I have been in and out of aviation for most of my adult life.  I started flying because I grew up around airplanes (my dad is a private pilot) and when I got out of the Navy at age 21 I decided that it was time for me to learn to fly.  This was back in 1985.  It wasn't easy for me, but I loved every minute I was in the air.  I was still a 'hobby pilot' and only flew on a weekly basis, but I wanted to learn more and I was considering making it a career, so I continued on with my instrument rating, then my Commercial Certificate and my CFI in 1988.  I was still working in warehouses and had no decent offers, so after two years I went through the training for my CFII.  My big break came when the Designated Examiner who did my checkride on my CFII offerred me a job to instruct for her at her Part 141 school even though I only had 400 TT.  This was in 1990.

A war, a recession, and a breakup of my marriage meant that my big break fell apart after just 7 months.  I left aviation completely and went into the freight forwarding business at LAX.  Eventually I moved to Oklahoma and went over the road as a commercial truck driver.  I did that for seven years, but the call of the wild geese kept luring me skyward.  I wanted to get back into aviation in a big way!  When my first marriage finally ended in 1997 I decided it was time to get back into aviation yet again... with all of 1100 hours.

I moved to Kansas, then Colorado, where I instructed part time and drove a delivery truck to make ends meet.  After a bit of time, I was hired in 1999 by a charter company in Kansas to haul freight in a Piper Navajo.  That gig lasted only a few months before I wrecked a Navajo while trying to comply with the boss' demand that I ferry the dammed thing back to home base.  I lost my job and had my Commercial Certificate suspended for 60 days by FAA for flying an unairworthy airplane.  The boss didn't lose anything over my accident.  Back to driving a truck!

Once my Certificate was returned to me I started looking around for another flying job.  I was finally hired by a Mom-and-Pop type FBO in South Dakota in the spring of 2000.  I spent the next 4+ years flying charters in piston twin Cessnas, giving instruction, and being an all-around airport bum.  I loved every minute of it, but I wanted to fly turboprops and jets so I left when I was offered the job of Chief Pilot at a commuter airline in 2004.

That gig didn't last long, and the company folded so I moved on to become Flight Department Manager for a Part 91 operation in the Imperial Valley of California.  I was a one-man operation, flying in and out of dirt strips in California and Mexico in a PC-12.  It was during that time that I was turned on to Chicken Wings by a friend of mine in Salinas CA and I became a regular.  I absolutely LOVED my job, but I HATED the desert!  My Flight Department was closed in early 2008 when the company ran into financial trouble.  I saw the writing on the wall, so I spent a huge amount of money to get type rated in the Citations, I moved to San Diego, and I became an independent contractor.  My timing couldn't have been worse.

I have had a tough time making ends meet since 2008.  Several contract gigs I have done refused to pay me, so I slapped Mechanics' Liens against their airplanes.  Still haven't been paid by them, but who knows...  maybe someday I'll be paid.  Meantime, I've been a Chief Pilot for yet another 135 operator and I have flown PC-12's in Africa and Citations in the USA and South America.  Right now I am flying a Citation 501 for one company, and I am about to start flying a P-Baron for someone else.  I still hold my CFII, and I am making use of it instructing the owner of the P-Baron.

Paying dues???  Dude, I am STILL paying them!  Methinks the idea of a cushy aviating job is a myth.  I have been involved in aviation ever since I was in diapers, but literally around 28 years now.  I am 48 years old, and I don't have a career position.  I have a wife and two small children that I must support.  Still, I love what I do.

I have over 1200 hours instruction given in my logbook.  I have around 2000 more instruction which is not in my logbook because I was designated an Instructor Pilot or Chief Pilot for various 135 operators.  The one thing that stands out in my mind is that instructing teaches you more about aviation than anything else.  If you can communicate what the airplane is doing to a novice you become a better pilot by doing it.  I still give instruction to this day.  It has become a calling for me after all my years and more than 8500 hours in airplanes.

If you want to make aviation a career, please do it because you love to do it.  If you do it for Money, Prestige, or any other reason, you will be severely disappointed.

Rant Over...  Peace Out.

RC

[undatc]

Making sure my senior controllers are well fed. 

That way their cant tell me that I should be flipping burgers instead of telling the rest of you where to go.