ASCENT FI and QHI Recuritment - Pay?

[Si Clik]

What's the hot poop on current ASCENT instructor pay rates at Valley and Shawbury? I know they were pretty poor at one time but other operators seem to be pushing the margin for onshore especially with NVG experience.

[RHINO]

Bumped....anybody got any info on latest rates?

[Lima Juliet]

Roughly what you would get in the mob for similar levels of SQEPness for a Flt Lt (so £60k-£70k max). However, there are advantages and disadvantages. You obviously get geographic stability, you don’t get OOA detachments and the Ascent contract is long so there is job security. If you have pension or EDP to be paid it won’t be abated and paid in full on top of the salary. But you don’t get to move around (some folks like the variation and choice of mil life), you only get a 6% contribution to your pension (mil pensions are effectively free and are worth about 60% of your main pay - so if you earn £50k main pay (pensionable) and £20k RRP (non-pensionable), then the Armed Forces Pension is worth an extra £30k per year which would soak up most of any immediate pension/EDP pay outs), to start with you only get 25 days plus 8 BHs (33 days - whereas HMForces get 38 days) and the death in service benefits are not as good.

Horses for courses really but you are still a part of the Whole Force and so helping with the Defence effort. So not all bad.

[Baldeep Inminj]

Roughly what you would get in the mob for similar levels of SQEPness for a Flt Lt (so £60k-£70k max). However, there are advantages and disadvantages. You obviously get geographic stability, you don’t get OOA detachments and the Ascent contract is long so there is job security. If you have pension or EDP to be paid it won’t be abated and paid in full on top of the salary. But you don’t get to move around (some folks like the variation and choice of mil life), you only get a 6% contribution to your pension (mil pensions are effectively free and are worth about 60% of your main pay - so if you earn £50k main pay (pensionable) and £20k RRP (non-pensionable), then the Armed Forces Pension is worth an extra £30k per year which would soak up most of any immediate pension/EDP pay outs), to start with you only get 25 days plus 8 BHs (33 days - whereas HMForces get 38 days) and the death in service benefits are not as good.

Horses for courses really but you are still a part of the Whole Force and so helping with the Defence effort. So not all bad.

Agree until your last sentence. If money is a factor then it is shocking . Ascent QHI’s at Valley are the lowest paid civilian SAR instructors anywhere in Europe or North America - low 60’s per year is slave labour for the skills they have.
Ascents entire financial model is based on paying a pittance and dismissing every opinion and concern of it’s instructors (front and rear). They are a business pure and simple and profit comes before absolutely every other consideration.
Ask the instructors themselves if they are proud to work for Ascent - every single one will say no, and all of their best instructors with any hope of a career at a decent employer have long since quit and are now paid what they are worth elsewhere.
Canada is about to launch FAcT - an equivalent to MFTS. Proposed civilian instructor salaries are more than double that paid by Ascent. Says it all really.

[Lima Juliet]

Baldeep Inminj that will be because Ascent are partners with Defence and not in financial competition with their partners. So not shocking at all as soon as you realise that. When you’re partners you can’t have one employer paying shed loads more than their partner - otherwise everyone scoots to the one that pays the most!

[gipsymagpie]

Lima Juliet makes some good analysis above. As LJ highlights, the military pension (even in 2015 form) is hugely more valuable than anything in the private sector - if you don't know the difference between the value of the military defined benefit (guaranteed monthly income) versus civilian (big pot of cash you have to manage) then you have to educate yourself.

The real comparison should not be between the military and Ascent but rather between Ascent and instructor pilots in other parts of the businesses that make up Ascent and other similar onshore helicopter aviation companies. Instructor/examiners in these companies of the calibre of those found at Shawbury are paid signficantly more the either military pilots or Ascent instructors for essentially the same role. And they get to "do" stuff with helicopters alongside their instructor duties (eg HEMS).

I wonder if there are many Ascent instructors who have been civilian TRI/TRE? I am sure there are quite a few civilian TRI/TRE who have been at Ascent though - one way street? Only exception I suppose would be in the event of the civilian age limit.

But as LJ says it's horses for courses. You get a lot of flight time in Ascent from what I hear. And there's undoubtedly fun to be had zooming about doing tac stuff.