People accuse me of being a mercenary...just being interested in the money. As if being paid a decent salary for something technical and challenging is somehow...wrong.
Heh-heh, I get a big kick out of these wierd helicopter pilots who wear their pathetic salaries like some friggin' badge of honor. ...As if they're PROUD to forego a respectable, honorable salary just to be able to say, "I love what I do!" ...As if the very IDEA of being paid well for who we are and what we do is repugnant. It's like they feel guilty about getting paid for something so enjoyable, and the pis*-poor salaries are the unavoidable penance we endure for it. I know them well - because I was one of them for more years than I care to count.
I'm better now.
Okay, I'll bite. What do:
Nurses
priests
teachers
firecrew
police officers
social workers
...all have in common? Well, for one thing, they all serve a "greater good" in society. To do that sort of work, one must have a special calling. But let's ask ourselves what helicopter pilots do for society? Answer: Not a damn thing. We ferry spoiled CEO's around? We ferry oil workers back and forth to the rigs/platforms? We ferry tourists around NYC and El Canyon Grande? Oh yeah, well, some of us fly air ambulances...but the debate rages whether or not such pilots actually "save lives" or just drive the machine.
I've always been amused by the dichotomy of helicopter pilots. On one hand, they have such HUGE egos, yet on the other they seem to have such low self-esteem. It's strange. Many think they're truly God's gift to aviation (a belief that may or may not be privately held), yet at the same time they allow themselves to be horribly abused by their employers in the name of "job satisfaction."
Throughout my career, I've met many, many pilots who had the barest, most gossamer connection with aviation other than what they did when they were specifically on-duty. They subscribed to no aviation magazines, did not read newsgroups such as this one, did not keep abreast of happenings within our industry, and in general had surprisingly little interest in helicopters at all! Yet if you asked - and even if you didn't, all of these pilots would tell you they were consummate professionals and experts at their job and in their field.
My questions to them about advances in TCAS or avionics would be met with blank stares. If it did not directly effect them, they weren't interested. And nevermind asking a question about some aviation topic other than helicopters!
I've studied helicopter pilots all my life (my dad was one before I was born). I entered this business full-time in 1976. I've always wanted to know what made helicopter pilots tick? And after all these years, I haven't the faintest clue. I've made a lot of observations, and come to a bunch of conclusions, but I do not know what drives men to be so oddly passionate about these wierd machines. Only that they are.
Would I become a professional pilot all over again? CERTAINLY! Would I become a professional helicopter pilot again? Well...ahh...umm..."maybe." Yeah, okay, I would. Just maybe not at first. And of the eighteen years that I spent as a full-time helicopter pilot, I readily would've given up the last thirteen spent out in the Gulf o'Mejico. No offense meant to any of the great people I've met and friends I've made along the way, but I stayed in this strange industry for faaaaar too long.
...Until it was almost too late.