Pilot training starts with the briefing and ends with a good debrief
Recently, many commercial pilots come up to me with panic in their eyes about their flying career. I smile and tell them to just keep optimistic, plugging away at advanced ratings and building their broad flight experiences. The journey won’t be that hard, maybe not as exceptionally streamlined like in recent years. In aviation, nothing is as good as ‘they say’ or as bad either. The reality will fall somewhere in middle; let us keep plugging along optimistically.
Find your aviation niche
300-1500 flight hours is a tricky time to find your way. Which road do you take? Earning your Flight Instructor rating is my recommendation, your flying skills and PIC confidence will improve dramatically. You really don’t start learning aviation until you starting teaching it. You can always make a living as a CFI and profession has great side business financial benefits. A secondary benefit is people skills; learn patience, empathy and the psychology of pilots.
Otherwise, you can tow banners, fly parachute jumpers, haul cargo, aerial survey or just buy blocks of flight time to explore America. At around 500 hours, options may present themselves for right seat in Charter and Part 91 Private transport, this career path pays pretty well, but you are living tied to a an ever changing schedule. You don’t get much flight time quickly either.
Be irreplaceable to your Aviation Boss
Be the pilot that always seeks self-improvement, works the extra mile and is the ‘go to’ guy for the flight boss. Don’t be a kiss ass! Great pilot employees are hard to come by. If you fly well, are responsible and take the humble imitative, communicate with your boss in helpful positive ways, you will set yourself up for good things down the road. As a pilot manager, a good employee pilot is tough to find. Qualities such as integrity, humility, initiative and sound judgement are highly valued.
Work on Character development and Human relation skills
Flying is the easy part! Working well with other pilots, cabin crew and aviation managers can be tricky. Learn to listen to people, communicate effectively without offending, and develop expertise with human psychology. A book I suggest is ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. I wish I would have read this book at the beginning of my career. Why is this so important? As you have intuitive reactions like stall and spin recovery, you should have communication techniques to handle criticism, negativity, disagreements in the cockpit among many other situations. You may not get into that spin while flying at King Air, but you WILL run into issues that can be handled quickly with some interpersonal skills.
Pilot Reputation and word of mouth recommendations are like GOLD in this aviation business
If you make your boss happy, you may get first dibs at the next type rating, PIC positions, pay raises and recommendations for that next job. You may even get contract work with them in the future for a lucrative side hustle if you ever leave the company. Before you know it, you will have a network of former colleagues and chief pilots that will recruit you for those sweet positions down the road.
Pilot training should consist of good stick and rudder skills
Never ‘expect’ to have the regional airline recruiters knock on your door for their airline. It may happen, short term, but be prepared to build that great work ethic and sterling reputation. Build the best resume possible with good training, add in advanced training like aerobatics, tailwheel, seaplane, A&P, and get involved with volunteer and charitable aviation groups. This effort will pay off during the up and downs of aviation cycles.
If you notice a trend in the blog, it is centered around people skills; be genuine and learn these interpersonal skills aggressively. Learn to sell yourself with your best face forward. You will come out ahead in this aviation business and in life. For the short term crisis, keep optimistic and follow aviation internet job sites (www.climbto350.com) to get a feel of the gigs out there. Have fun with your career and don’t be scared to take a low pay undesirable job for awhile. You may learn something about yourself ;-)
As an Air Force Fighter mentor says ‘Fly a good jet’!