View Full Version : my services free?
helimutt
31st Jan 2001, 16:23
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I have a question. Should I offer my services for free? Having spent thousands gaining the AFI (H) last year, there are no schools willing to take me on due to there being too many instructors like myself. Should I try to get to my first hundred hours and FI upgrade by flying for no pay? It will upset people to think that I would do that and flying for free is not going to do anyone any good, but I need to get the upgrade or else keep paying hundreds each year to stay current and have to pay to fly.
Your comments appreciated!!
[This message has been edited by helimutt (edited 31 January 2001).]
Hughes500
31st Jan 2001, 16:37
What you have to consider:
a) Will the company you work for reduce their rates to the punter to attract more people - knowing most companies all you will do is feather the boss's pocket!
b) When you have got your FI will you get work because others are working for free ??
c) There maybe a lot of instructors at the moment primarily due to people wanting to get CPLH and get a full time job regular flying.
d) To make your self more attractive you need to have a turbine rating and a reasonable number of hours otherwise most will not touch you.
e) Trying getting some of your own business and approach a school to use their facilities.
They will charge you a fee ( normally £50 a day) but you can offset this with your hopefully more attractive rates thus pulling more punters to you.
f) More sensible advice - get a proper job doing anything but helo flying and earn good money. If you want to stay with it find somewhere where the weather is nice - in UK difficult to teach all year round due to the Great British weather!!! At any school no flying no pay
Best of luck
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helimutt
31st Jan 2001, 16:42
Hughes 500
I have a "Proper Job" as a marine engineer giving me a much higher salary than I could ever earn as an instructor but we don't all fly helicopters for the money do we?
I only work 6 months of the year (4 months on 4 months off) so the flying side of things is more of a way out in the future.
Turbine time is a possibility but more expense.
It would be nice just to fly.
ps anyone want to learn to fly helicopters at a reasonably cheap rate then?
helidrvr
31st Jan 2001, 18:29
This may anger a few folks, but here is my take on your question.
IMHO there is fundamentally nothing wrong with offering to work without cash renumeration IF the payoff for you is getting experience. In such a case you are NOT working for free, but compensating the operator for allowing you to be an apprentice in his shop. I remember hanging around the hangar of our local operator 30 years ago at the start of my flying career. I would offer to do anything that needed doing (polishing the bubble or whatever) in the hope of being tossed a ferry flight. Not surprisingly, it worked for me. Before long I had snatched the next available job because I had shown my willingness to go that extra little distance. Then again, maybe they were just trying to deal with a pest that wouldn't go away :) No reason why it couldn't work for you.
If it adds to the boss's profit margins, so much the better. That's what he's there for and if you can help him achieve his lofty objective while at the same time achieving yours, you have a win-win situation on your hands.
If some other bloke complains that you are undercutting him don't let it bother you too much. Would he pay your (helicopter) rent if you stepped aside? Would you hire him if you were the employer looking for the best you can find? Believe me, an average pilot with an above average attitude is much more endearing to the boss than an ace who thinks the world owes him a living.
It is the added value of hiring you rather than the next bloke which will win the day.
Above all, don't lose faith.
Cheers http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/cool.gif
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You are welcome to visit HELIDRVR here (http://www.helidrvr.homestead.com)
[This message has been edited by helidrvr (edited 31 January 2001).]
doesn't anger me in the slightest Heli, in fact it is likely that I will be given my first opportunity after getting my comm done in just that manner.
To be given the flight time on my days off from my current position is more than enough to start with as a time builder, if they did pay me, all the better, but I don't expect it.
(You know what I mean)
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Marc
Hughes500
1st Feb 2001, 13:35
Send me an e mail and I will try and help you get some work, what part of the country do you come from ???
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Helimutt
I think that if you can absolutly hand on heart say that you wouldn't object if your boss said to you that there was no work for you this week as a newly qualified marine engineer had approached him looking for work, and that given that this new guy is willing to work for nothing,therfore your services will not be required until further notice. If you can't then I suggest you do whats best in the long term for you and everybody else that has had this dilema place a value on your skill and charge for It. I also no that the majority of reponsible operators are very sceptical of someone who will work for nothing knowing that that person will most likely move on as soon as renumeration is offered by someone else. this is not good for a company wanting student training continuity and customer confidace.
Good Luck
[This message has been edited by MaxNg (edited 01 February 2001).]
Max,
>>I also no that the majority of reponsible operators are very sceptical of someone who will work for nothing knowing that that person will most likely move on as soon as renumeration is offered by someone else. this is not good for a company wanting student training continuity and customer confidace.<<
I respectfully disagree (but it also depends on what type of operation we are talking about too I suppose)
Most of the operators I talked to (Given a few by the head of my training facility)about possibly getting time in this fashion stated they know that those of us taken on would likely move on at some point, there were others that stayed long enough (They might have liked the work too) that eventually a salary was worked out.
For the operation I'm moving towards to time build, there would always be a supply of new pilots, and the costs are cut by the win-win trade off Helidriver was referring to.
If I didn't understand your position, please let me know, I may have been mistaken.
I intend when I hit the time where I might be considered, to go in and be at my best.
I want to fly at this stage, it's not about the $$$ yet.
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Marc
[This message has been edited by RW-1 (edited 01 February 2001).]
I think you should get the hours any way that works for you..good luck! Once you have a few under your belt and the boss knows you are delivering value is the time to start asking for fair recompense.
It's hard to consider this a profession if
pilots are willing to use their hard earned
qualifications without expectations of remuneration.
Offering your services for free enables less desirable operators to under bid legitimate
operators, which has a negative effect on the industry, an industry in which the so called "professionals" are under payed for the responsability and complexity of the job. It is a profession in which the long term earning potential is limited.
To paraphrase a contributor from another forum " graduate accounts don't go counting numbers for free just so they can practice being an accountant."
collective bias
2nd Feb 2001, 09:02
Helimutt,
IT DOESN'T WORK. I watch guys come through our company, spend up to 3 - 6 months working for nothing and then get the arse. Typically, we can tell from the moment you enter the building if you have the attitude to go the distance. Most of the failures beg for the opportunity and the employers enjoy the free labour (termed: Slaves), and use the fact these guys are waiting in the wing as reason to show us our miserable wages are justified.
MY experience and advice is to do this.
Decide what type of work you want to do. You have your Instructor Rating so I assume you want to so that. Good; go to where you can identify a probable need and get to know the employer. If you get on, do the old showupandsweep/clean/tidy/ generally be helpful routine. It does work but it takes time. Be realistic, an employer will generally need to see your attitude before he will employ. This is where you find the dole a wonderful thing! Hands up how many pilots have been on the dole!
My first job came while supporting a family and it took major effort and the best of 2 years slog. Working for nothing is stuffing our industry.
I'm off to start a new thread....
GOODLUCK HELIMUTT ... (hey! that rhymes..)
I have to agree with that. It doesn't work
(in general).
I tried it in UK and it....well, its hard to put your finger on. It debases your value in the eyes of others. It removes respect for all the hard work you did.
Sure, all people that run schools are not the same or think in the same way, like any other cross section of society, but in general it is the norm.
I'm trying to think of an analogy....Well, if you stand in the high street and try to give a 5 pound note away, many (most)will not accept it (Best I could think of in a short time!)
It isn't a money thing with the people that hire. They actually feel better when they PAY you, as they have absolved any obligation to you. Money quantifies obligations and once its paid the obligation is forgotten.
By far the biggest and most important things in getting a job are; (ignoring experience as there are others with the same or more)
Whether your 'face fits'
Their peception of your value to YOU (linked to self esteem).
Your ability
Whether you are easy to have around
Whether you are enough of a 'survivor' to work yourself to the front. It's almost a Darwinist process, 'survival of the fittest' and if you try to make an agrrement with the jungle that you won't shoot to kill it will not think 'He's OK then'. It will think 'He's soft' and ignore you.
Don't misunderstand, I thought just like you do now and probably used a similar train of thought, logic. BUT people are NOT logical.
Stick it out Helimutt!
Keep current because I can't see many going through the new JAA requirments (and the huge cost) of CPL and then instructor rating (maybe 75,000 pounds) to get 35/hr to start?
UK will be short of low time instructors when the current glut has shrunk. Others will
drop out. You won't.
helimutt
2nd Feb 2001, 12:53
To all who have replied to this thread.
Just a bit more background and my decision!!
I have wanted to fly helicopters for a living since I went on a 15 minute pleasure flight in St. Lucia years ago. I got the money together to do my Private licence, and went to Heliscott in Yorkshire for a half hour trial lesson. I came home five weeks later with the licence.!! Solo at 11 hours and test passed at 38 hours. That was back in 1994 but I still don't wish to do much else except instruct. I'm studying for my commercial licence at the minute and will achieve that now because of the feedback and support I've had by e-mail etc from the ppruners!!
I will not work for free if it can be helped but I would do the odd hour here and there to help out without compense. I certainly don't want to take someones livelyhood away from them. To reply to another comment here. If a newly qualified marine engineer could come and do my job and offer to do it for nothing then a/. he must be mad. b/. he's welcome to it.
Needless to say there is no comparison between the two jobs. Working in an engine room at 40 degrees C or looking out of a cockpit from 2000'. Anyway, I will continue to stay current and keep my fingers crossed for a miracle or same.
Thanks all for the advice and comments.
Helimutt
Glad to see that you have made the right (long term)decision and will charge for you services. BTW Flying is not always that cosy I have been snowed in a field for almost all day and believe me I would have swapped that for 40 deg C boiler room in an instant.
I know Peter Scott very well and you will have made a good contact there and I here that Bob Hields is looking for a pilot.
good luck
[This message has been edited by MaxNg (edited 04 February 2001).]
helimutt
5th Feb 2001, 02:25
Thanks Max
Peter Scott was very helpful and I did get to go in his Boeing stearman for a few loops and rolls (bloody cold though) and a few filming jobs in his 206.
My instructor there was a guy called Jonathan Curd but he's gone to fly fixed wing now I believe.
Don't suppose you know if B.Hields needs a FI or would do with an AFI?
What were you up to today to be in a snowy field?
[This message has been edited by helimutt (edited 04 February 2001).]
In Spain you work three years for free if you wanna be a lawyer. To become a pilot you lose about 8 years vending your body, and once you finish(if you are still alive) maybe you´ll be able to become airline pilot. In helo´s young peoble fly illegally military surplus or restricted(from usa),and even illegall Mi´s coming from who knows. The thing is that here many people is not wo rking for free, is paying to work. Visit the www.apythel.org (http://www.apythel.org) to know the social sadness in the nearly poorest country in europe.
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Qualityman
5th Feb 2001, 17:21
Helimutt,
Like your attitude. Just beware of Profit hungry owners / operators. If you become so valuable because of the extra profit you generate for their pockets, you run the risk of always getting the jobs no one else wants!
Make sure the deal is struck to your terms!!
Jon Curd worked freelance with us for several seasons as a CPL(H). Great Guy. He's now a Captain with British Midlands and even harder to get hold of.
Best of luck.