I recently finished my CPL, but did not expect to land a job with minimal hours. However I was recently offered and accepted a job flying pipeline patrol.

You are too old to switch careers (35)
No one will hire you until you have 500 or 1000hrs PIC
You need Multi/IFR for any job
You are crazy to leave a good paying career to start at the bottom flying for peanuts

^ These are things I was told, or I told myself, in the past. The last one may be true, but I'll regret it forever if I don't at least give it a shot. Flying pipeline looks like a very good way to build PIC time quickly, and there sure looks like a lot of jobs out there once I build up some experience and finish the MIFR ratings.

Maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't, but I'd really appreciate any tips or experiences from those in the patrol/surveillance business. I'll be flying 172 P and S models as well as a 206 for ridealongs.

Jeff

I don’t know what your previous “good paying career” was, but if your goal is to get to the airliners, it’s a good bet you’ll come out way farther ahead and right now is the time to be getting in. Good luck!


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Always great to follow your dreams. But, starting from scratch at 35 when most are 20 at the same stage will be difficult in the long run to reach airline goals. Keeping a medical later in the game with a 15 year age difference will be the biggest issue. I knew a guy who took a forced retirement at 40 after being with a company for 20 years. Decent payout and monthly pension and still "relatively" young. He decided to pursue a flying career, he knew he was too old to probably make an airline captain - but he was fine with that.

Right now you’re looking at 18 months or less to upgrade at a regional. A few years there and you should be at a major. A few years later, making well north of six figures and your seniority will be sky rocketing. Granted, another 9/11 or similar event could slow it down, but the demand is still going to be there. That still leaves a 20+ year career. Oh, and did I mention, MD-80 CA at Delta has gone to people with less than a year with the company. And we’ve not even hit the mass retirements yet!


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Mark Y. wrote:Always great to follow your dreams. But, starting from scratch at 35 when most are 20 at the same stage will be difficult in the long run to reach airline goals. Keeping a medical later in the game with a 15 year age difference will be the biggest issue. I knew a guy who took a forced retirement at 40 after being with a company for 20 years. Decent payout and monthly pension and still "relatively" young. He decided to pursue a flying career, he knew he was too old to probably make an airline captain - but he was fine with that.

I fully understand that, and I appreciate the advice. One benefit, in my eyes, is that while I may be starting from scratch aviation-wise, I'm not starting from scratch life-wise. My wife and I are financially stable, debt and mortgage free, which I think would allow us to be alot more flexible in terms of being able to weather a few tough years of low pay. If I was 20, with 80k in student loans and no cash on hand to live, I think that could be more of a deterrent than age. I have a lot of respect for the guys who can handle that though.

Just the way I see it, time will tell.

Good for you. Follow your passion and the money will follow. I've demonstrated a couple times that the last part isn't always true but I do believe it holds true in aviation. I know a bunch of people in aviation that have enviable jobs.

We have encouraged both our children to consider flying as a career.

I think you are on the right path.

Ping Contact for info on flying pipeline. He has a few hours in that job.

Congratulations!

albravo wrote:
Ping Contact for info on flying pipeline. He has a few hours in that job.

Congratulations!

Thanks! Yes I hope to hear from Mr. Dulin. Although I think things are a little different these days. 2 crew, pilot and observer, and flying 300-500' AGL.

Right on noodles! Good to see a guy my age following his dreams. I'm currently lost career wise. Hell, I don't even know what my career dreams/goals are anymore. I keep telling myself I'm too old to chase dreams and it's time to just make money but that just sounds like miserable way to live life. Thanks for sharing! Gives me a glimmer of hope.

Well Done!
Just be careful...if you're not willing to walk away from that job at any second, you're not ready to have it. There can be a lot of pressure on a pilot to do things they're not comfortable with... a LOT of pressure. Your employer stands to loose a aircraft...you stand to loose everything you have and everything you were ever going to get. Be fully ready to say "no" and get fired for it, and feel good about your decision.

About 16 yrs ago my Dad gave the pipeline pilot a ride into town from the airport. It was really, really foggy. He was flying a 177 and did I mention it was really foggy.

I've gone from seaplane pilot to airline captain in just over 3 years, and I have an interview at a major coming up in a couple months. Unprecedented movement in the airlines right now

Congratulations Jeff on your job. It's the perfect time for a commercial pilot career.
Live your dream. Having just passed the half Century mark, I wish I was still a young man. 35 is nothing.

One day I too will have a flying job, I haven't given up yet. I was working at this airport when I got my private license in 1988. 25 years to get my limited commercial (same airport, same examiner) and another 3 for my instrument. CFI is
next and the dream lives on. Grandpa now, and still a boat load of kids at home, but the fire still burns. Family first, I'm home every night for them, it's my choice.

I'm excited for you and have a lot of respect for what you are doing. I have no doubt you can be a captain on a major airline if you put your mind to it.

It's amazing what a little flap and a little flak will do for a guy.
Whenever the Flying Hawkes gives me a little grief I say "Your red bull gives me wings!"

Go fly and earn those wings!
Richard

Wow, tha'ts crazy movement in the airlines from the sounds of it. Not so much in Canada unfortunately. I still run into a few ex-airline pilots driving haul trucks in the Oil sands because the money and time off is better.

Congratulations! Anybody that says 35 is to old to change careers is so short sighted. With the pilot shortage FINALLY a reality, the aviation world is your oyster. As far as your talent and personality will take you!

I've been blessed to do a lot of cool flying and now am at a major airline and couldn't be happier, and did it all while older than you. Keep flying, keep learning, and most of all keep on enjoying what got you in an airplane in the first place.

If you want to build some great hours in your logbook, take a look at 135 flying in Alaska, especially out in Bethel and other western Alaska locations. You will learn a lot!

I have a friend who is 57, ATP, ex-part 135, quite a bit of turbine and twin turbine. He is at school right now in MN, being paid $41/hr to get trained for one of the Alaska/Horizon RJ's. In a matter of a year it's right seat in a 737 then captain after that and on to the real money. He tried years ago, they wanted a bachelors degree, etc before they'd give you the time of day. Not now. There really is a shortage.

noodles wrote:I recently finished my CPL, but did not expect to land a job with minimal hours. However I was recently offered and accepted a job flying pipeline patrol.

You are too old to switch careers (35)
No one will hire you until you have 500 or 1000hrs PIC
You need Multi/IFR for any job
You are crazy to leave a good paying career to start at the bottom flying for peanuts

^ These are things I was told, or I told myself, in the past. The last one may be true, but I'll regret it forever if I don't at least give it a shot. Flying pipeline looks like a very good way to build PIC time quickly, and there sure looks like a lot of jobs out there once I build up some experience and finish the MIFR ratings.

Maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't, but I'd really appreciate any tips or experiences from those in the patrol/surveillance business. I'll be flying 172 P and S models as well as a 206 for ridealongs.

Jeff

Thanks for the inspiration Noodles! 42 year old here in wisconsin, 16 years in law enforcement, make pretty decent money (but as we know, money does not buy happines). Working on my commercial and start IFR this spring. Hoping to make the career change and start out in Alaska so my wife and I can be closer to our son who currently lives in Palmer, AK.

Congratulations noodles. You are entering one of the most enjoyable flying jobs. While keeping what Hammer said in mind, you can learn as much about flying there as anywhere. Be sure to click my signature box for the entire book, but I will give you a few tips that will make your work more enjoyable.

You should eventually get around 25 hours per week flying around 3500 miles total with line and deadhead. Don't push to get around in four days but keep moving. Unless you are paid by the hour instead of by the mile, you will not be paid for going back to a nice big airport should you hit weather. Lay up at a little airport or spray field. If you don't learn to fly in marginal weather, you will not make it around in a week. If you don't cover every foot of your line in the twenty day DOT requirement, your company will lose it's month to month contract and you will likely lose your job. I covered everything each week 99% of the time, so no problem. I also had lots of experience at 200' and below.

Your company evidently has an operations manual which wavers you at 200' AGL. It will be difficult and dangerous to try to put the observer where he can cover every foot out the side window. At 300' you can both do fine out the front windscreen. You will be held responsible for overflying leaks, equipment, or encroachment without a spot report. You need to see every foot of the right of way with intent to find things. The observer should look with intent as well, but he also must write the report and normal GPS is not set up for a "man overboard mark" like marine GPS. Again, not a problem when we see every mile marker and interpolate between. With most GPS we just make a WAG and depend on the mile marker spot. Oil company headquarters want the GPS but have no idea how useless it is. The pipeline station guys want an accurate estimated distance from the nearest mile marker.

Energy management turns will not stall/spin you and will not make you or the observer sick. They are 1g turns. However, you have to anticipate the need to turn and pull up wings level prior to the turn point. Read "Safe Maneuvering Flight Techniques" carefully .

You will live in the terrain, both ahead and to the side. Don't try to go over anything you can go around and still see the ROW. Airspeed is nearly all the altitude you have. Be stingy with airspeed. Keep power as high as practicable. Keep the prop flat. You need the turns down there.

Where are you? Can you get to 2H2 to fly some Ozark, Explorer, or Magellan pipeline with me or should I find a cheap airline flight to you? I have no medical and am senile so I literally fly for food.

Congrats! I remember well my first paying flight. I was never interested in flying as a career, but it was fun to be paid to do something I love to do anyway. Our operation was mostly SE VFR 135, with only our Chief Pilot qualified in the T210 to fly single pilot IFR. We also had a 310, but instead of qualifying anyone to fly it single pilot IFR, whenever it was flown IFR, it had 2 pilots.

I've never done any pipeline stuff, but you're fortunate to have Jim on board here to advise you. If you fly with him, I suspect you'll report back that he taught you stuff you never thought of doing.

On moving up to the airlines (if that's really "up"), I met a fellow at a fly-in to Marble, CO, several years ago who flew for Alaska. He switched careers in either his late 40s or early 50s. Some here might know him--had a large homebuilt with a Russian radial engine. I understand it went head over teakettle a couple of years ago--damaged but not destroyed, nobody hurt, I think. Anyway, when I met him, he was 56, they'd just changed the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 65 a year or so earlier, and he was anticipating flying till mandatory retirement.

So with the ATP shortage, I'd say your future can look pretty good. Don't take chances, and as Hammer said, be ready to walk away if anyone wants you to fly when it's too dangerous. I was fortunate--2 different FBOs, and neither ever asked me to take a trip I wasn't comfortable taking.

Cary

Congrats!

There are plenty of pilots who retire from the military after twenty years and enter the airlines at 42. They start at the bottom of the seniority list just like you will. You are certainly not too old for a solid career.

The pilot shortage is finally here. Your problem might be choosing from the various career paths which are available to you. This ain't the same aviation environment that we had twenty years ago.

Jeff, I’m planning on making a similar change in the coming months, so am glad to see I’m not alone. I also constantly question just how wise it is to leave a perfectly good, lucrative career path, but have come to the conclusion that waking up in the morning and looking forward to the day is the only way I’m going to keep my sanity. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress. I’d love to hear how it all plays out as I hope to be there soon.