otter712
14th Feb 2006, 21:05
U.N. Support
Does anyone have experience flying for a company providing support to the United Nations.
It seems to me an interesting and rewarding way to spend a career and I would like to find out what companies are under UN contract, what the requirements are and if anyone could share any personal experience about this type of flying I would be grateful. I currently have a FAA ATP, 2500 hrs and am looking for some guidance to enter the world of international flying. Personal email:
[email protected].
Thanks in advance………..Ron
Camp Freddie
14th Feb 2006, 21:21
have a read of this mate as its quite recent
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=208231
regards
CF
Agaricus bisporus
14th Feb 2006, 23:49
As a pilot for UN support work you'll be an employee of the company that provided the cheapest tender to the UN contract. That may mean a good employer who demands high standards and provides well maintained equipment, or then again it may not. Look at the accident rates in the Sudan, and guess which is the more likely... It almost certainly means your salary won't be much and you'll be posted for long periods to unpleasant/remote/dangerous places where comforts are few and far between and you will either sit around in a stinking sweltering dusty sh!thole bored to tears or be worked watch on, stop on way out of range of flight ops inspectors or their like. It is not unknown to have a mythical pilot on the books that the others can impersonate to allow them to achieve otherwise unfeasible monthly hours.
Far better work for the UN! Sit in a luxurious air-conditioned office for a couple of hours a day in some exotic capital surrounded with hundreds of other like-minded altruistic, efficient professional managers (:hmm: !! :hmm: ), control multi million dollar budgets for projects you don't understand in places you've never been to, live on an unlimited expense account, have servants in the villa they provide for you but you'll have to drive your own brand new top-spec Landcruiser with a really horny tied-down 20foot whip antenna on the front bong-bar for the HF radio incase your iridium phone stops working. It was $12,000pm tax free for starters when I was around that sort of thing 15yrs ago. And no-one ever heard of any of them doing a stroke of work. Become a New Colonial! Sure as hell beats working for a living!
ps. If you haven't got a PHD don't bother applying. Practical ability and common sense are an instant debar. A degree in underwater basket weaving is fine, aromatherapy is probably better. Pilots or Engineers, for instance, tend to be regarded with suspicion, especially if they don't have a degree (They might actually achieve something useful, to the embarassment of everyone else who is properly qualified). And that would never do.