Originally Posted by
SpindleBob
Yep I'd do it all again too, so neebother isn't speaking for everyone
Great roster. Great pay. Interesting challenging role. Better standard of living for many than some of my friends in fixed wing
I think there is an assumption that everyone in fixed wing works for BA at a nice airfield that they can afford to live next to. Certainly not always the case. Not all pilots get the big jobs and those that do have mixed experiences of how good or bad it is.
Rotary offers a range of different roles, so if North Sea isn't your thing, at least you should be able to find something that floats your boat.
Well said and agree 100%, he doesn't speak for me either. NS is certainly not for everyone but neither is the airline world; my oldest friend was a widebody P1 for a ME airline and I have a lot of friends/former colleagues who fly LH/SH. Apart from my chum's very nice salary (which wasn't quite as much as you might think...) and some nice perks such as staff travel and free uniform laundering
pretty much everything else paled even next to my modest humdrum life flogging a 92 around the NS. Before I left the military I produced a very geeky spreadsheet with all the flying jobs I could find (LH/SH airlines, NS, HEMS, Police, Corporate etc) and I met/interviewed various chums doing all those roles and I weighted the various factors (salary, pension, time to command, rosters, leave. fatigue, benefits, lifestyle etc) based on what I wanted/needed, which put the NS easily at the top for me. Out of all the pilots I interviewed, the happiest out of the lot (honestly) were the NS pilots - lot has changed since then and fair to say it's been a torrid few years since 2015, but also a lot of important things haven't changed.