Questions from another damn newbie
After a TIF for my birthday I've been lurking this site the last few weeks chewing through the 10,000 posts and trying to digest everything.
I'm living in Australia, Sydney based for now but considering the likely hood I'll need to relocate at some point, either nationally or possibly worldwide.
I’m confident I can make it though a CPL. It looks like with (potentially much) time and perseverance and a lot of soothing words for the girlfriend it seem I may be able to get enough hours that someone will let me polish their helo and maybe sit in the back while they fly it.
I've weighed going back to Uni against flying, and figure the 3 years and $50 oddK stacks up about the same.
The main question is in 5 years time what is a reasonable expectation in terms of job/ money.
Give or take, what tends to be the break even point for people who do tick all the right boxes, get reasonable breaks and stay motivated to a long term plan?
I’ve read plenty of the "if you want money, go fly planes" posts, and that’s not so much the issue but at some point the missus is going to ask if we get back some of the 100 grand we have 'invested' in me having fun (it IS fun right?)
Is it fair to assume that the sort of company I’m going to want to eventually fly for gets calls/ emails daily from newbies asking all the usual questions and may not be especially helpful. Am I smarter heading to offfices/ hangers for an afternoon and chatting to anyone who will talk, or does everyone always have something to do? Will this change if I’m carrying beer/ cupcakes/ pizza?
I’m also trying to get a picture of the available seats in the industry, particularly Australia (because I like it here, and also due to the girlfriend having a fresh degree she should use)
Is there a summary of spots vs turnover vs incoming training?
I've read a little bit suggesting a heck of a lot of people finish their CPL then never open their log books again.
I presume plenty of this is folks completing, finding there isn’t an EMS company begging them to come fly, then chucking it in.
Is there some other pitfall(s) I'm missing on the trip from CPL to 1500hrs
If at the end of the road there’s only really 25 "good" jobs and 8000 qualified applicants perhaps I’m better staying with the current job and paying one of you to take me heli biking/ skiing a few times a year.
I’ve spent a bit of time hunting around the CASA site but even if you know what you are looking for its a bit of a run around.
While I’m here, I cant seem to find a Glossary / summary of abbreviations(a sticky on the newbie page would be even better)
Have I just missed it? Can it be started? I’m happy to add the things that have confused me over the last 6 weeks
Finally I would like to state my great appreciation for all those who have contributed to the wealth of information on this site in the last
decade, I’m about sorry my rather long contribution, it did start out a lot smaller...