Mi8 Endorsement/Career Path

[ronin47]

G'day guy's

I am currently overseas on deployment with the Australian Military and on my return to Australia will look at finishing the rest of my CPL. I have looked into joining the different aviation branches of the military to fly however due to the lack of the Australian Governments political will to deploy our pilots and the War finishing here i have decided against this option.

Due to this i am looking once i finish my CPL start to lining myself up with getting a mi8 endorsement in the future as i can see this taking myself to some 'interesting' countries to work and some interesting jobs.(obviously each to their own)

There are quite a few flying around KAF here but i don't have the connections yet to talk to any of the pilots.

My question is has anybody gone done this path in flying mi's for a job especially from countries that don't typically use them and had experience getting endorsed on these type's etc...?

Cheers,

Ronin

[minigundiplomat]

OK,

Lets start with why you want to choose this path - if its purely [or even remotely] financial, then I suggest you have a rethink.

The majority of MI-8 operators have a huge pool of former military pilots from the Eastern Bloc already qualified on type and will fly for next to nothing...... this helps the operators as the aircraft are so prolific on deployed contracts for the DoD et al due to their very low hourly costs and durability.

Not all pilots are Eastern Bloc - some are South Africans and keen to build hours, so not much more expensive than the others if truth be told.

Living conditions are often 'interesting' and Flight Safety is not always a primary consideration with the Russians - operators [pushed by clients] will push boundaries to add a bit more coin to the account.

There are also a number of 'questionable' operators from the former soviet republics - if you insist on taking it further, PM me and I'll let you know who to avoid.

Finally, with the drawdown in Afg, there are a huge number of frames/crews sat about waiting for Africa to kick off - you're timing isn't great.......

[ronin47]

G'day Minigundpilomat

Thanks for your post.

PM sent.

Regards