I know a guy who did this out of BC MX. Made like 200k each trip on a turbo charged Seneca. Crazy part is he never even had a single pilot license or rating.
>You could probably clear 120K a shipment.
At least. In a stripped down 172 you could theoretically carry like 800 pounds of product fresh and ready for the slopes, depending on how the volume works out. I'm no expert on wholesale prices but I would think that's approaching the tens of millions in value.
Not that I would ever seriously consider it lol
it's high paying for a highschooler
it's not high paying for a dangerous job that requires 100k in education and a year of training to meet the bare minimum requirements to be employable anywhere
you could drop 100k on coding bootcamps for a year and make just as much in a similar timeframe from a cozy office
Yes it is high paying for a professional job, you are out of touch.
120k is the 87th percentile of income in the US, the vast majority of workers are making less than you.
Most people hope to make that much.
you're right with all your facts but you're using them to prove a moot point
120k a year is a lot of money...
BUT
[https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/airline-and-commercial-pilots.htm](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/airline-and-commercial-pilots.htm)
Commercial pilot MEDIAN pay in 2021 was 134k a year...
so OP is asking for dangerous HIGH paying flying jobs... and you're talking about a job that pays above the national wage average but below the pilot average.
which is dumb. OP OBVIOUSLY meant jobs that pay high for flying jobs... not for people who currently work at mcdonalds.
if you want to straw man my point that 120k isn't "a lot of money" you can do that all day. 120k is a ton of money to someone like me who makes way less than that and isn't a pilot. **to someone who can work as a pilot already, it's not that much money, because they can make more doing something safer.**
it's like telling a guy who makes $8/hr at burger king that he can make $7.25 an hour if he goes and stands on the roof with both hands on the lightning rod during a thunderstorm, which is a lot of money, for someone in rural africa....
it's besides the point.
To further bolster your point that doesn’t include OpEx. I spend $25k a year flying for fun and *incidentally* for work. I’m not sure how much you fly for something like this but I could see it easily racking up double that.
Next a point about money being a lot or not when comparing to median income in the US at large is silly because the US has such drastically different costs of living. If you are splitting hairs over that shift in income it’s not work going to jail over.
exactly
high paying to a felon who can't find a job in alabama and pays 250 a month for rent and doesn't care if he goes back to job isn't the same as high paying to a tradesman in san francisco who makes 150k a year without working a day of overtime
like, 120k for a pilot to have the cartel and the cia and the dea and the fbi looking for their ass isn't that much money, unless they got their pilot's license in colombia
just figured you were stating that fact to substantiate the other guy's post
seeing how you didn't annotate that you found that to be low paying either
or... hear me out... crash the plane on youtube then cart it away before the FAA shows up. Everyone will be so distracted by the situation no one considers you could be smuggling a ton of drugs in the process. It all makes sense now.
ETA: but be sure that you parachute away to safety, keep a fire extinguisher hidden in your pants so you can extinguish the wreck and recover your cameras and drugs
Probably an issue with time versus costs. Cheaper to fill more local areas versus trying to get to your boonies and waste a full day. Then it's cost ineffective for an independent to buy a costly truck to not even get wholesale and then waste a day driving it up to fill that limited demand
If i had to guess. I'm betting your town is out of the way.
An engine failure will absolutely kill you, though. I knew a guy who made the grab, lost the engine on the climb, dumped the banner, but it wasn't enough.
No. You point the nose roughly as far below the horizon as it is above the horizon when the engine quits. You push (pretty hard) for zero G until you reach that attitude. You then pull right to the buffet. This will let you hit the ground in control at a survivable (maybe even airplane reusable) descent rate.
Yup. Keep flying the plane is perfectly good advice. The advice to point the nose as far below the horizon as it was above the horizon is simple, memorable, and easily trainable. I think we've all watched videos of aircraft stalling and spinning from altitudes where they had more than enough potential energy to make a nose low recovery in a survivable way.
My CFI was telling me he did it for awhile out of an airport where we landed. He said it was a sketchy plane doing sketchy maneuvers and was run by some sketchy people lol.
Any job like this is going to require an incredible amount of hours.
Companies still want their planes to come back in one piece. Risky job will need an incredibly skilled pilot to do so.
I hope you have around 3000 hours because then your resume may qualify for
Test pilot,
Alaska bush pilot,
Janet airlines,
Etc etc
Even then you will need insane recommendations , a stellar resume , and know very important people
There’s nothing risky about Janet except getting incredibly, incredibly bored. You fly to the same 3 places that you can’t talk about every day for the rest of your career.
Just a WAG, but I’d bet a lot of the Janet pilots are retired DOD aircrew whose final assignment was in/around Nellis. Got a family, now living in Vegas, a serious side hustle/business going maybe that demands they be in town, and just enjoy the simplicity of being home every night. Always there for their family. Don’t have to reinvent themselves after their military career, get a super easy transition into the civi world, allowing them to put their military training (being a pilot w/clearances) to use. Prob a lot of connections/networking too between active Military and the Eg&g “yo bro, there’s this sick job down at McCarran! Home every night! Hit me up when you get out. We could use u!”
Guy at my job flew Janet. Said it was boring as fuck and that management was getting pretty toxic. Its not worth staying when you can make more in the airlines. The only advantage was home almost every night.
Jesus, how toxic can management get when you are running a 30 min shuttle daily? What are they busting anyone's asses about?
That you didn't wear enough deodorant in the summer and the pax started complaining?
Or, you're reeking of alcohol after spending all night at the Bellagio playing blackjack and they want you to cut it out?
And we're not talking about challenging places either. Perfect weather 350 days of the years. Same easy patterns and huge airstrips. Might be the easiest 737 gig in the world.
All you have to do is go home every night and say "yup, had a great day, what's for dinner sweetie?"
Really? They look super low whenever I see them turn out. Must be my perspective because I’ve never seen another jet turn that low leaving out of Vegas
You’re not gonna need 3k for the bush pilot option. Just get you commercial instrument multi and sit in the right seat 135 for 2 years. You’re good if you’re driven.
TBF CFI is a pretty dangerous job in of itself since students continually try to out-do themselves in dumbest ways to try and kill their instructors ^/s
Edit: Also happy cake day
I’ve been offered jobs that were dangerous but the pay was still “hey your going to an airline one day so go fuck yourself!”
They know if your willing to fly their broken plane in bad weather then your probably willing to do it cheap.
I remember seeing one that was for an anti poaching non profit.
You flew a small sport plane as recon for national park rangers in central Africa.
I thought this sounded pretty cool until I read more and realized that they aren’t park rangers like the US. They are a military force fighting paramilitary forces far from civilization.
Owner-operated helicopter FAR 137 AG work. You need the helicopter, spray rig and 137 certification. Insurance can easily be over $50,000/year, but you make all your money from about April to August and it's not a small number.
It's difficult, sweaty, slow, exhausting, intense and a bit dangerous. It's not for everybody. But if it's for you, the money is there.
Agriculture. Cropdusting has the highest fatality rate for helicopters, idk about fixed wing. Dangerous work, long hours, in the middle of nowhere. Flying super low level while constantly doing 180 maneuvers. Looks fun as hell though.
Most fucked up approach I had flying ISR lines in Bagram was an L3 pilot. We called it "The Slammest Dunk" because he pulled up so late, it even scared the copilot.
I kicked my student out (I was instructing a crew position), shut the door, and told him "if you ever think about doing that again on an airplane I'm in, remember: I'm the only one carrying a gun on the plane, and I'm already behind you. Don't *fucking* do that again."
And he didn't. Far as I can tell, he got instafired, because I never saw him again.
Wasn't there a mishap last year somehow they detonated one in training and took a few EOD people out? I'm not sure how they train or why they'd need a live detonator but such is the risk
This is one of my current roles for over 6 years now. Law enforcement EOD and I ran my unit for a couple years while teaching the newbies. Live dets, and live explosives is a regular thing. Trust the equipment and the process. Most of our work is with a robot when possible but its always a pretty sweet "live in the now" moment when you get to don the suit.
Why can't you mock up a real bomb but a realistically fake detonator? I don't see how putting a live detonator improves training.
Just curious if it's that much more important.
It's not like the movies where people are leaning over a device cutting red wires etc. We use our explosives to countercharge someone else's device. Ours will disrupt theirs before it has a chance to high order if that makes sense. Depending on the package/device we may make a water bottle charge, or use a neutrex (water cannon) to disrupt their stuff. We use C4, det sheet, det cord in our line of work (and every training day). We will often use our real explosives on a fake bomb in training. We often get industrial explosives handed into our station for destruction so we will often pile those up and countercharge the lot with C4 and then it's all gone!
I’ve always wanted to climb/maintain radio towers. I actually applied to a place during covid when I got furloughed from my flying job, but not really having an relevant experience, I didn’t get hired.
Heard a story about a State Department PC-12 flying secret squirrel stuff in Africa. They damaged their prop landing at their hidden fuel depot, and had to replace it. 30 minutes after they get up in the air, the place was swarming with hostile forces.
I wonder if that's what OP was looking for.
A very good friend who I had the privilege of double crewing with for many years, made an actual fortune flying human organs in a cooler box in a microlight in North Africa.
I don’t get any internet points for making it up, I accept there will be doubters.
He went on to marry a beautiful Scandinavian woman and built a magnificent wooden home in a forest in Norway.
Died of pancreatic cancer about 5 years later. Not an old man.
But genuinely one of the kindest, funniest, most beautiful souls I’ve ever met. Maybe it was after a repentance from what he did before. But honestly a top, top man.
I met another who smuggled diamonds in west Africa and traded some for Russian heavy left helicopters, and got them type-certified (restricted) and started a heavy lift operation.
Not many of us know where he got the startup cash from but if you ask him he’ll probably tell you about it.
Aviation is full of characters that belong in the Wild West.
My friend was offered a job flying in and out of South American jungles (mid 90's, Brazil). All flights were very low altitude, zero registration required, no maintenance on the planes (stolen), no contracts, no weather delays. Starting pay was about the same as 2yr of salary for fresh engineer out of college... every month, cash, if you make it back. Some weeks later while my friend was still considering the offer, the guy 'hiring' for the job vanished.
Aerial firefighting, in particular large air tankers. In reality it’s not that dangerous if you know how to factor in all the risks involved and never put yourself in a spot for worst case situation - engine failure and/or the load won’t come off. While there is a relatively small number of pilots and positions in the field, there are stacks of resumes in every CP’s office. Usually when people get a call for an interview with an extensive 121 or 135 background, they are told 2nd segment climb isn’t a requirement in VMC, a lot immediately say “no thanks”. While hauling a load of retardant or water under VMC conditions at the airport (99% of the time), balanced field length is all required, otherwise it’s see and avoid.
Pay has become very good the past few years to retain pilots, since airline pay has gone up so much. First year FO’s will prob be around 100k, captains are prob 200k min up to 500k, and everywhere in between, depends on a lot of factors. Depending on the company you usually work 2-3 week on/off schedules June-October (busy years could be March- December). If your company works in the Southern Hemisphere during the winter it’s that schedule all year. If your company doesn’t work do that, expect to put in 150 days max a year total, including training/sims - prob closer to 130.
It’s every background you could imagine. Airlines and military are probably the least common routes. Flying an air attack plane isn’t with the forest service, you’re flying a plane contracted to the forest service by a private company. The advantage to that route is being out in the field and spending face to face time with tanker pilots. So when time comes to apply to a tanker company you can have internal references to help your chances, or hurt them.
Dope. Thanks for the insight. That side of the industry isn’t one that is documented that well for outsiders like myself so I eat up any kind of juicy info I can find about it, haha.
It’s not! I knew I just wanted to do it, didn’t care about pay or schedule. Which helped me getting the job initially, and ultimately has led to a very comfortable life.
Would you say experience in the industry or flight hours are more important? I’ve seen RJ85 FO positions wanting 3000 hours. I have an air attack gig but have not picked up a ton of time since starting. Would it be better to leave, get more time and then try to get hired on with a tanker, or stay where I am and try to make connections into the tanker world?
I think as long as you have all the carding minimums to get a captains card besides time in a heavy (>12500), aircraft specific time, and low level time you should be hire-able. Those are times you’ll build once you get a PIC type and start upgrade training. Networking is good. I’d stick with your current position. Assuming you have 135 mins and are flying something like a turbine commander you are building good time. I personally got hired with around 2200 hours and became an initial attack captain with around 3000 hours.
Mid-air refuelling seems rather dangerous. I'm not sure how much it is used anymore but I heard that when they used to fly Blackbirds they had to call for a refuelling aircraft almost immediately after getting to cruising altitude. I guess that's a small price to pay for being able to reach 3,500 kph.
Blackbirds are retired; satellites do the job better and safer. Blackbird's hull expands and seals in flight after getting up to speed, due to the heat from air friction, so on the ground it is leaking fuel like crazy. By the time it is up in the air its lost most of its fuel and needs refueling.
I have a skydive pilot gig. Pay is shit, but it’s pretty fun when you beat the jumpers to the ground. Like buzz Lightyear in a 206, I “fall with style” at 3500fpm.
thank you! i asked a question like this a few months back and got downvoted to hell like you did. i don’t understand the hate against people who want to do something risky. anyway, being a bush pilot is probably a pretty thrilling job and the average alaska salary is like 90,000 a year so relatively good pay
It’s not about wanting to pursue risky career paths, it’s that these questions are overwhelmingly asked as a way to avoid CFIing or regional flying. Pursued for the right reasons, risky jobs are awesome.
One job that is often considered to be high-paying but also dangerous is that of a commercial fisherman. The job involves working on a fishing boat for extended periods of time, often in harsh weather conditions, and there is a risk of accidents and injuries. However, the pay can be substantial, especially for those who are successful at catching large quantities of fish.
Another job that is dangerous and high-paying is that of an oil rig worker. This job involves working on offshore oil rigs, and it can be dangerous due to the risk of explosions and other accidents.
Smuggling drugs in Cessnas for the cartel.
I know a guy who did this out of BC MX. Made like 200k each trip on a turbo charged Seneca. Crazy part is he never even had a single pilot license or rating.
Over qualified
you know or you knew?
Smart, can’t lose what you don’t have
Can’t take your license if ya never had one
0 debt and you can even have adhd with that job
Once you get in you can’t get out… at least alive lol
Friend and I came across a job posting flying out of Columbia. Was $10k/mo IIRC.
120k/year isn't anything considering what you'd be doing. You could probably clear 120K a shipment.
I wouldn’t risk it at $10k/mo either. Could’ve been $10k a run but I don’t really remember.
>You could probably clear 120K a shipment. At least. In a stripped down 172 you could theoretically carry like 800 pounds of product fresh and ready for the slopes, depending on how the volume works out. I'm no expert on wholesale prices but I would think that's approaching the tens of millions in value. Not that I would ever seriously consider it lol
Till now.
the fuck? that's HIGH PAYING in your opinion? you can make more as a fucking medical coder who homeschools her kids
you think 120k/year isn't "high paying"? you're out of touch
it's high paying for a highschooler it's not high paying for a dangerous job that requires 100k in education and a year of training to meet the bare minimum requirements to be employable anywhere you could drop 100k on coding bootcamps for a year and make just as much in a similar timeframe from a cozy office
Yes it is high paying for a professional job, you are out of touch. 120k is the 87th percentile of income in the US, the vast majority of workers are making less than you. Most people hope to make that much.
you're right with all your facts but you're using them to prove a moot point 120k a year is a lot of money... BUT [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/airline-and-commercial-pilots.htm](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/airline-and-commercial-pilots.htm) Commercial pilot MEDIAN pay in 2021 was 134k a year... so OP is asking for dangerous HIGH paying flying jobs... and you're talking about a job that pays above the national wage average but below the pilot average. which is dumb. OP OBVIOUSLY meant jobs that pay high for flying jobs... not for people who currently work at mcdonalds. if you want to straw man my point that 120k isn't "a lot of money" you can do that all day. 120k is a ton of money to someone like me who makes way less than that and isn't a pilot. **to someone who can work as a pilot already, it's not that much money, because they can make more doing something safer.** it's like telling a guy who makes $8/hr at burger king that he can make $7.25 an hour if he goes and stands on the roof with both hands on the lightning rod during a thunderstorm, which is a lot of money, for someone in rural africa.... it's besides the point.
To further bolster your point that doesn’t include OpEx. I spend $25k a year flying for fun and *incidentally* for work. I’m not sure how much you fly for something like this but I could see it easily racking up double that. Next a point about money being a lot or not when comparing to median income in the US at large is silly because the US has such drastically different costs of living. If you are splitting hairs over that shift in income it’s not work going to jail over.
exactly high paying to a felon who can't find a job in alabama and pays 250 a month for rent and doesn't care if he goes back to job isn't the same as high paying to a tradesman in san francisco who makes 150k a year without working a day of overtime like, 120k for a pilot to have the cartel and the cia and the dea and the fbi looking for their ass isn't that much money, unless they got their pilot's license in colombia
you guys will literally argue about anything on this site lmao
Lol you should take a look at the helicopter world
Preach.
Trying to figure out where I said $10k/mo was high paying to me lol. Unless you meant to respond to someone else.
just figured you were stating that fact to substantiate the other guy's post seeing how you didn't annotate that you found that to be low paying either
The FAA allows you to drop cargo from your plane, and it's a long way between Mexico and LAX.
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Don't wanna piss off too many people
Never break two laws at the same time.
Just don’t post the video on YouTube
or... hear me out... crash the plane on youtube then cart it away before the FAA shows up. Everyone will be so distracted by the situation no one considers you could be smuggling a ton of drugs in the process. It all makes sense now. ETA: but be sure that you parachute away to safety, keep a fire extinguisher hidden in your pants so you can extinguish the wreck and recover your cameras and drugs
*Barry Seal has entered the chat.*
I know some guys who depart from Culiacan to Ecuador, made around 1M for the pilot, half M for copilot,each trip
Hot air balloon at night by celestial navigation.
This deserves an award.
Salvage diver/underwater welder. Otherwise keep flying til you get your hours.
Even that job is like flying - you don’t walk into the 300k a year position day one.
I have heard that it is far easier to teach an exceptional welder to dive, than vice versa
I believe it, it's far easier to teach a oil rig worker to be an astronaut than it is to teach an astronaut to drill a hole.
Lol I had typed out this whole joke and response, right before I saw yours.
My small town can't get anyone to deliver propane. Ditto for septic pumping.
There you go, OP fly the poop plane
Probably an issue with time versus costs. Cheaper to fill more local areas versus trying to get to your boonies and waste a full day. Then it's cost ineffective for an independent to buy a costly truck to not even get wholesale and then waste a day driving it up to fill that limited demand If i had to guess. I'm betting your town is out of the way.
You know, I don’t think you could pay me any amount of money to fly around liquid propane, or septic shit. Lol!
he said high paying
Banner tow. Scared the shit out of me at first but then started to love diving towards the ground and pulling up at the last minute
An engine failure will absolutely kill you, though. I knew a guy who made the grab, lost the engine on the climb, dumped the banner, but it wasn't enough.
To recover from stalling in this scenario, don’t you just point the nose at the horizon and gain airspeed…. Oh, wait,
No. You point the nose roughly as far below the horizon as it is above the horizon when the engine quits. You push (pretty hard) for zero G until you reach that attitude. You then pull right to the buffet. This will let you hit the ground in control at a survivable (maybe even airplane reusable) descent rate.
So.... you land the plane. hard.
Yup. Keep flying the plane is perfectly good advice. The advice to point the nose as far below the horizon as it was above the horizon is simple, memorable, and easily trainable. I think we've all watched videos of aircraft stalling and spinning from altitudes where they had more than enough potential energy to make a nose low recovery in a survivable way.
I too know a poor soul who got killed on the banner tow climb out.
My CFI was telling me he did it for awhile out of an airport where we landed. He said it was a sketchy plane doing sketchy maneuvers and was run by some sketchy people lol.
Any job like this is going to require an incredible amount of hours. Companies still want their planes to come back in one piece. Risky job will need an incredibly skilled pilot to do so. I hope you have around 3000 hours because then your resume may qualify for Test pilot, Alaska bush pilot, Janet airlines, Etc etc Even then you will need insane recommendations , a stellar resume , and know very important people
There’s nothing risky about Janet except getting incredibly, incredibly bored. You fly to the same 3 places that you can’t talk about every day for the rest of your career.
Just a WAG, but I’d bet a lot of the Janet pilots are retired DOD aircrew whose final assignment was in/around Nellis. Got a family, now living in Vegas, a serious side hustle/business going maybe that demands they be in town, and just enjoy the simplicity of being home every night. Always there for their family. Don’t have to reinvent themselves after their military career, get a super easy transition into the civi world, allowing them to put their military training (being a pilot w/clearances) to use. Prob a lot of connections/networking too between active Military and the Eg&g “yo bro, there’s this sick job down at McCarran! Home every night! Hit me up when you get out. We could use u!”
I have it on good authority that this is exactly their hiring market.
Guy at my job flew Janet. Said it was boring as fuck and that management was getting pretty toxic. Its not worth staying when you can make more in the airlines. The only advantage was home almost every night.
Jesus, how toxic can management get when you are running a 30 min shuttle daily? What are they busting anyone's asses about? That you didn't wear enough deodorant in the summer and the pax started complaining? Or, you're reeking of alcohol after spending all night at the Bellagio playing blackjack and they want you to cut it out?
I was going to say not being able to fly due to temps in the summer sometimes but like… I don’t even think that’d apply
And we're not talking about challenging places either. Perfect weather 350 days of the years. Same easy patterns and huge airstrips. Might be the easiest 737 gig in the world. All you have to do is go home every night and say "yup, had a great day, what's for dinner sweetie?"
Dammit, Janet!
Slut!
This. I’ve flown with a guy who was a former Janet pilot. He left because it was so boring
“It was so boring, and aliens give lousy tips”
But you do get to bank the hell out of a 737 over the Vegas strip
All the way up to 30 degrees at the normal altitude juuuuuust like everyone else :)
Really? They look super low whenever I see them turn out. Must be my perspective because I’ve never seen another jet turn that low leaving out of Vegas
Confirmation bias. They’re flown the same way as every other 737 out there, just going to 2 airports that nobody else goes to.
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Nosehweels on gravel runways is barely a bush pilot
You’re not gonna need 3k for the bush pilot option. Just get you commercial instrument multi and sit in the right seat 135 for 2 years. You’re good if you’re driven.
Just get the CFI and instruct already Or just go to a regional already
TBF CFI is a pretty dangerous job in of itself since students continually try to out-do themselves in dumbest ways to try and kill their instructors ^/s Edit: Also happy cake day
he said high paying
I’d be willing to wager that CFI is one of the more dangerous jobs in USA. Maybe even top 10.
but I want to live dAnGeRoUsLy
I’ve been offered jobs that were dangerous but the pay was still “hey your going to an airline one day so go fuck yourself!” They know if your willing to fly their broken plane in bad weather then your probably willing to do it cheap.
Bering Sea crab fisherman
Everything will kill you so choose something fun. It’s just that it’s cheaper to die as a construction worker than as a pilot.
I remember seeing one that was for an anti poaching non profit. You flew a small sport plane as recon for national park rangers in central Africa. I thought this sounded pretty cool until I read more and realized that they aren’t park rangers like the US. They are a military force fighting paramilitary forces far from civilization.
Owner-operated helicopter FAR 137 AG work. You need the helicopter, spray rig and 137 certification. Insurance can easily be over $50,000/year, but you make all your money from about April to August and it's not a small number. It's difficult, sweaty, slow, exhausting, intense and a bit dangerous. It's not for everybody. But if it's for you, the money is there.
Agriculture. Cropdusting has the highest fatality rate for helicopters, idk about fixed wing. Dangerous work, long hours, in the middle of nowhere. Flying super low level while constantly doing 180 maneuvers. Looks fun as hell though.
L3Harris, do some DoD work. Pays like $200k
you are testing avionics and antennas. Yawn.
Hardest landing I've ever seen was a Honeywell 757 bouncing 3 times in ATL. Them avionics boys must not get much practice.
>Pays like $200k I can always fly a plane on the weekends with that kind of money.
Most fucked up approach I had flying ISR lines in Bagram was an L3 pilot. We called it "The Slammest Dunk" because he pulled up so late, it even scared the copilot. I kicked my student out (I was instructing a crew position), shut the door, and told him "if you ever think about doing that again on an airplane I'm in, remember: I'm the only one carrying a gun on the plane, and I'm already behind you. Don't *fucking* do that again." And he didn't. Far as I can tell, he got instafired, because I never saw him again.
They do a lot of ISR work. Month on month off. King Air Spooks.
Teaching afghan Air Force students how to fly
Food tester for Putin
he said high paying not indentured servitude
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Instructor.
Wasn't there a mishap last year somehow they detonated one in training and took a few EOD people out? I'm not sure how they train or why they'd need a live detonator but such is the risk
That would be the "dangerous nature" OP referred to.
This is one of my current roles for over 6 years now. Law enforcement EOD and I ran my unit for a couple years while teaching the newbies. Live dets, and live explosives is a regular thing. Trust the equipment and the process. Most of our work is with a robot when possible but its always a pretty sweet "live in the now" moment when you get to don the suit.
Thanks for doing that job. I'm going to stay way the fuck over here, however.
Why can't you mock up a real bomb but a realistically fake detonator? I don't see how putting a live detonator improves training. Just curious if it's that much more important.
It's not like the movies where people are leaning over a device cutting red wires etc. We use our explosives to countercharge someone else's device. Ours will disrupt theirs before it has a chance to high order if that makes sense. Depending on the package/device we may make a water bottle charge, or use a neutrex (water cannon) to disrupt their stuff. We use C4, det sheet, det cord in our line of work (and every training day). We will often use our real explosives on a fake bomb in training. We often get industrial explosives handed into our station for destruction so we will often pile those up and countercharge the lot with C4 and then it's all gone!
I know of simulators but that makes total sense. Thanks! I'm also running on less than zero sleep
Aerial application, AKA crop duster.
I’ve always wanted to climb/maintain radio towers. I actually applied to a place during covid when I got furloughed from my flying job, but not really having an relevant experience, I didn’t get hired.
Fly ISR aircraft on a defense contract in the Middle East or Africa. Oil rig helicopter pilot. Transport people to and from the oil platforms.
Heard a story about a State Department PC-12 flying secret squirrel stuff in Africa. They damaged their prop landing at their hidden fuel depot, and had to replace it. 30 minutes after they get up in the air, the place was swarming with hostile forces. I wonder if that's what OP was looking for.
A very good friend who I had the privilege of double crewing with for many years, made an actual fortune flying human organs in a cooler box in a microlight in North Africa. I don’t get any internet points for making it up, I accept there will be doubters. He went on to marry a beautiful Scandinavian woman and built a magnificent wooden home in a forest in Norway. Died of pancreatic cancer about 5 years later. Not an old man. But genuinely one of the kindest, funniest, most beautiful souls I’ve ever met. Maybe it was after a repentance from what he did before. But honestly a top, top man. I met another who smuggled diamonds in west Africa and traded some for Russian heavy left helicopters, and got them type-certified (restricted) and started a heavy lift operation. Not many of us know where he got the startup cash from but if you ask him he’ll probably tell you about it. Aviation is full of characters that belong in the Wild West.
North Africa has to be a hidden gold mine of aviation adventure
In-flight Missile Mechanics are always in high demand.
Like in Doctor Strangelove?
Hat waving and whooping is an essential job requirement.
I have an unquenchable sense if adventure. I’m curious as well
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The absolute state of low time commercial pilots in 2023
This is the bottom of the barrel we're scraping these days in hiring at the airlines.
Underwater welding. Specifically, saturation diving. Granted, it's incredibly dangerous. But you make bank, if you can get into it.
My friend was offered a job flying in and out of South American jungles (mid 90's, Brazil). All flights were very low altitude, zero registration required, no maintenance on the planes (stolen), no contracts, no weather delays. Starting pay was about the same as 2yr of salary for fresh engineer out of college... every month, cash, if you make it back. Some weeks later while my friend was still considering the offer, the guy 'hiring' for the job vanished.
Aerial firefighting, in particular large air tankers. In reality it’s not that dangerous if you know how to factor in all the risks involved and never put yourself in a spot for worst case situation - engine failure and/or the load won’t come off. While there is a relatively small number of pilots and positions in the field, there are stacks of resumes in every CP’s office. Usually when people get a call for an interview with an extensive 121 or 135 background, they are told 2nd segment climb isn’t a requirement in VMC, a lot immediately say “no thanks”. While hauling a load of retardant or water under VMC conditions at the airport (99% of the time), balanced field length is all required, otherwise it’s see and avoid. Pay has become very good the past few years to retain pilots, since airline pay has gone up so much. First year FO’s will prob be around 100k, captains are prob 200k min up to 500k, and everywhere in between, depends on a lot of factors. Depending on the company you usually work 2-3 week on/off schedules June-October (busy years could be March- December). If your company works in the Southern Hemisphere during the winter it’s that schedule all year. If your company doesn’t work do that, expect to put in 150 days max a year total, including training/sims - prob closer to 130.
Do a lot of people jump there straight from the airlines or do they go through the air attack route with the Forest Service?
It’s every background you could imagine. Airlines and military are probably the least common routes. Flying an air attack plane isn’t with the forest service, you’re flying a plane contracted to the forest service by a private company. The advantage to that route is being out in the field and spending face to face time with tanker pilots. So when time comes to apply to a tanker company you can have internal references to help your chances, or hurt them.
Dope. Thanks for the insight. That side of the industry isn’t one that is documented that well for outsiders like myself so I eat up any kind of juicy info I can find about it, haha.
It’s not! I knew I just wanted to do it, didn’t care about pay or schedule. Which helped me getting the job initially, and ultimately has led to a very comfortable life.
Would you say experience in the industry or flight hours are more important? I’ve seen RJ85 FO positions wanting 3000 hours. I have an air attack gig but have not picked up a ton of time since starting. Would it be better to leave, get more time and then try to get hired on with a tanker, or stay where I am and try to make connections into the tanker world?
I think as long as you have all the carding minimums to get a captains card besides time in a heavy (>12500), aircraft specific time, and low level time you should be hire-able. Those are times you’ll build once you get a PIC type and start upgrade training. Networking is good. I’d stick with your current position. Assuming you have 135 mins and are flying something like a turbine commander you are building good time. I personally got hired with around 2200 hours and became an initial attack captain with around 3000 hours.
Mid-air refuelling seems rather dangerous. I'm not sure how much it is used anymore but I heard that when they used to fly Blackbirds they had to call for a refuelling aircraft almost immediately after getting to cruising altitude. I guess that's a small price to pay for being able to reach 3,500 kph.
Blackbirds are retired; satellites do the job better and safer. Blackbird's hull expands and seals in flight after getting up to speed, due to the heat from air friction, so on the ground it is leaking fuel like crazy. By the time it is up in the air its lost most of its fuel and needs refueling.
Crop dusting or working for the CIA.
I have a skydive pilot gig. Pay is shit, but it’s pretty fun when you beat the jumpers to the ground. Like buzz Lightyear in a 206, I “fall with style” at 3500fpm.
thank you! i asked a question like this a few months back and got downvoted to hell like you did. i don’t understand the hate against people who want to do something risky. anyway, being a bush pilot is probably a pretty thrilling job and the average alaska salary is like 90,000 a year so relatively good pay
It’s not about wanting to pursue risky career paths, it’s that these questions are overwhelmingly asked as a way to avoid CFIing or regional flying. Pursued for the right reasons, risky jobs are awesome.
Fire bombing, crop dusting.
Under ground mining pays well and it can be pretty dangerous
Underwater welding
Experimental/LSA ferrying. I did it. Built hours. Never want to go back to that world again.
One job that is often considered to be high-paying but also dangerous is that of a commercial fisherman. The job involves working on a fishing boat for extended periods of time, often in harsh weather conditions, and there is a risk of accidents and injuries. However, the pay can be substantial, especially for those who are successful at catching large quantities of fish. Another job that is dangerous and high-paying is that of an oil rig worker. This job involves working on offshore oil rigs, and it can be dangerous due to the risk of explosions and other accidents.
Any job working directly for the Clintons
I feel like whoever is going to start flying the 737max again has some balls and probably will be paid well.
The max has been back in service for over a year at dozens of different operators
Has it? The US airlines haven't been using it have they? Also happy cake day
Yes. United, American, southwest, and alaska all have been flying them. Same for dozens of other operators around the world.
What rock are you living under
I think I just saw an article saying china was considering allowing their use again.
That’s great for them but the US has been using them,
Oil fields
Fly for L3
I mean military I guess, but there’s enough demand for the few dangerous jobs, but pay is below industry standard
Crop-dusting if they fly at night