What are some jobs for low time pilots (besides instructing)? (commercial, training)
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Happy New Year! Right after you complete training, you don't qualify for a lot of flying jobs unfortunately. What are some jobs you can get with around 250 flight hours? I would imagine this period could be kind of stressful, especially if you're strapped financially.
Pilots don't usually see jobs and low time in the same sentence........banner/glider towing takes some skills.......with pilot shortage CFI might be a bit easier to get into......just a guess
Happy New Year! Right after you complete training, you don't qualify for a lot of flying jobs unfortunately. What are some jobs you can get with around 250 flight hours? I would imagine this period could be kind of stressful, especially if you're strapped financially.
I had 1,000-1,500 hours logged before I got a commercial license, and I wasn't really looking for a job, just some part-time paid fun. I immediately went to work on a part-time basis for a small FBO as a single-engine charter pilot. (I was like a fill-in. If they needed an extra pilot, they'd call me, and if I had free time at the moment I'd accept the flight.) Sometimes I'd carry people, sometimes it was just freight -- usually parts for the oil drilling industry.
Another flight job I had was flight inspection of pipelines -- flying over buried gas and oil pipeline routes looking for leaks and/or erosion. There were two routes, 2 and 3 hour flights, iirc, and I flew both weekly. After I quit that job, a friend of mine retired from his corporate accounting job, got his commercial license and took the pipeline job. I think he had the minimum number of hours needed for his license. Pay was horribly low, but he was a little like I was, not doing it for income as much as just doing it because he preferred to be up in the air rather than playing golf. He did it for at least a decade, maybe two, before he just got too old for it. It's kind of a fun job, as you're flying low and slow with some twists and turns.
That also makes it a little dangerous. One of my instrument check pilots, a very good young pilot, killed himself flying pipeline -- banked too sharply while flying too slowly and entered an accelerated stall a few feet above the ground. That kind of flying isn't really necessary, mind you, but when you're puttering along by yourself in a Cessna 152 for hours on end, some of us tend to look for something to add a little fun to the flight. That "fun" stuff can get you into trouble. (I liked to dive-bomb herds of deer and antelope.)
The best job is probably as a CFI/CFII if you like teaching. If you don't like it, do yourself and the would-be students a favor and don't do it. Personally, I think an instructor should be required to have 1000 hours logged before he can start teaching. Flight instruction is too important to be done by someone who just wants to log the hours, imho.
Hopefully the OP realizes that any paying flying job (with a few loopholes) needs a commercial license and >250 hours TT with at least 100 PIC. And most jobs would need an instrument and more than 250 hours, or at least their insurers will.
AG/Utility work, if you're willing to spend a year or two on a ground crew first.
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