U.S. Helicopter Pilot Salaries

[USCGpilot]

Hello all. First time poster here. Another member of this forum recommended that I drop in and post some charts that I have developed that compare the pay of major Offshore and Non-Offshore helicopter operators in the U.S. Each individual company's pay information, used to support the charted data, can be found on my personal website Helicopter Pilot Job Links & Pay Scales (http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/index.htm).

These charts will graphically display the current compensation of a pilot for years 1 through 25. To make an "apples-to-apples" comparison I had to develop a set of assumptions that were applied to each company. These assumptions are listed below. The spreadsheet (.xls) used to develop these charts has more detailed information and can be found here (http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/pay_compare/comparison.xls).

OFFSHORE

ASSUMPTIONS:
Annual Days Worked: 183
Annual Offshore Days: 5
Annual Per Diem Days: 178
Annual Days at Base Not Assigned: 8
Qualify for Safety Bonus: Yes


http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/pay_compare/offshore_paycomp.gif


NON-OFFSHORE

START PAY ASSUMPTIONS:
Annual Days Worked: 183
Total Time: 2,500 hours
Years of RW Experience: 6


http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/pay_compare/ems_paycomp.gif



Brian Hudson
Helicopter Pilot Job Links & Pay Scales (http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/index.htm)

[212man]

I see Evergreen offer a real incentive to gain seniority!:bored:

[SASless]

212man,

Years ago, Evergreen used to give you a USN Type Leather flying jacket on your first anniversary. Most American helicopter pilots buy their own USAF A2 version instead.

One might easily detect that hanging around Delford M's (sound of throat clearing and expectoration heard) place very long is not something people do.

[topendtorque]

I must congratulate you on an excellently presented large piece of information.
Perhaps you may wish to pursue a comparison between different countries award rates and or chase some ideas of what general joy flight or mustering jobs might pay in comparison to GA hack work in other countries.
Here is a link to the OZ award for your interest.

http://www.airc.gov.au/awardsandorders/html/PR957432.htm

How do you remunerate yourself for this hobby?

[USCGpilot]

Perhaps you may wish to pursue a comparison between different countries award rates and or chase some ideas of what general joy flight or mustering jobs might pay in comparison to GA hack work in other countries.?
I will look into doing this. Thanks for your link and comments.

How do you remunerate yourself for this hobby?
I had to pull out the dictionary to see what "remunerate" meant.:confused: I put this site together a year or so ago to help out some buddies of mine that were retiring from the military. Over time it his grown well beyond what I had imagined. No remuneration for my hobby....I'm still in the military enjoying the fabulous wages paid by the Uncle Sugar (tongue-in-cheek).

Brian
Helicopter Pilot Job Links & Pay Scales (http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/index.htm)

[rotorboy]

So whats a Coastie make from Uncle Sugar... Can you graph it for us?

Met a couple of the Sitka guys when I worked in Petersburg a few summers a go. Heck of alot nicer than most of the gaurd guys who passed through...

You will find this place is a little tamer than the other site you posted your graph on.

Welcome to rotorheads... please add yourself to who's who and we welcome photos on our around the world thread, of that nice equiptment my tax dollars pay for! I you havent seen that thread yet, it will eat hours of your time

RB:ok:

[Hippolite]

USCG

A good effort which will be much appreciated by many. However, I think that your graph (naturally) doesn't and probably cant take into account moving to different types. For example, A PHI pilot who may join as a new hire and fly a 206L or 407 may after some years have the opportunity to fly a larger type. I don't know what the S92 pilots earn but I know that the more senior 214ST pilots in PHI were on 80-90k a couple of years ago.

I realise you are trying to cater for "pilots" but if one becomes a Lead Pilot or a Base Manager with any of the GOM operators (which would probably happen after some years), the salary is probably around 90k at today's rates.

The graphs may look dofferent if the possibility of a "career" was considered.

HH

[SASless]

The one thing that stands out is the Union outifts (and ERA which is desparate to avoid going Union) have the better wages. Seems the graphs show more than one would expect. Poor old Delford's bunch seem to be in the cellar for pay....surprise! (Not!)

[USCGpilot]

However, I think that your graph (naturally) doesn't and probably cant take into account moving to different types.
HH
Yes, I agree that is a limitation of the line graphs. I think that the graphs are best used to get a general representation of each company's standing, as it relates to pay, within the industry. Beyond that pilots will need to go to the salary charts I have for each company and research some of the extras (e.g. IFR complex, lead pilot, medium/heavy pay, etc.) to get the most accurate picture for a specific scenario.

Thanks for your comments.

Brian
Helicopter Pilot Job Links & Pay Scales (http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/index.htm)

[USCGpilot]

Seems the graphs show more than one would expect.
I was also surprised after crunching the numbers and plotting the data. For example, over the past year or so I've been publishing the pay figures (numerically not graphically) and had developed a chart that ranked each company on Start Pay based on a fixed set of assumptions. In the EMS world this placed Evergreen at the top for start pay. However, when I calculated the pay out over a 25 year period and graphed it the results showed something completely different - at year 13 Evergreen was at the other end of the spectrum.

I recently created another chart, that I haven't published yet. This chart uses the same set of assumptions as my "Longevity Pay Charts" but calculates and plots total compensation amounts over a 25 year period for each company (I also did a 5 and 10 year chart).

Brian
Helicopter Pilot Job Links & Pay Scales (http://brian.hudson.home.mchsi.com/helopay/index.htm)