Ramp Jobs
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Kenora
Posts: 63
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Ramp Jobs
We seem to be entering a sad time in aviation in Canada. Okay, it's been going on for a while now, and I just think it's wrong.
Young pilots are searching for "the best ramp jobs". Companies are taking advantage of the glut of low time "puppy mill" pilots, with the "carrot" of a seat in an airplane dangled before their brain washed eyes.
These pilots are perfectly willing to spend upwards of two years working on ramps for these "user" companies, with NO guarantee they will ever see a cockpit!
The operation I work for (small, but one of the best in the country) will deep six a resume from a pilot who even HINTS he/she would even entertain the idea of being a ramp worker.
Is this a Canadian only problem? Do American and overseas companies milk labour out of pilots too lacking in the balls department to say no to this crap?
WD
Young pilots are searching for "the best ramp jobs". Companies are taking advantage of the glut of low time "puppy mill" pilots, with the "carrot" of a seat in an airplane dangled before their brain washed eyes.
These pilots are perfectly willing to spend upwards of two years working on ramps for these "user" companies, with NO guarantee they will ever see a cockpit!
The operation I work for (small, but one of the best in the country) will deep six a resume from a pilot who even HINTS he/she would even entertain the idea of being a ramp worker.
Is this a Canadian only problem? Do American and overseas companies milk labour out of pilots too lacking in the balls department to say no to this crap?
WD
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Vancouver Island
Posts: 2,517
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Good question, this mindset has slowly crept into aviation in The Peoples Socialist Republic of Canada and as time passes it seems to be taken for granted you have to be pimped out as a low cost work machine to be a pilot.
Maybe the flight training industry could add " Ramping " as another exercise in the training program?
Even worse is the slavery wages paid to flight instructors, can you imagine going through the B.S. required by Transport Canada to get an instructors rating and then be paid lower than the ramp workers?
Maybe the flight training industry could add " Ramping " as another exercise in the training program?
Even worse is the slavery wages paid to flight instructors, can you imagine going through the B.S. required by Transport Canada to get an instructors rating and then be paid lower than the ramp workers?
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: UK, US, now more ɐıןɐɹʇsn∀
Age: 41
Posts: 889
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
nevermind the non-existent ICAO FI to TC FI rating route, having to do the whole course even with instructor rating elsewhere, even experienced guys. I looked at the regs and some info online and no thanks. There's more friendly countries for low timer pilots wanting to fly GA.
As to the question posed, yes. Helicopter low timer jobs in Australia and bit in NZ, can be 'had' similar way as in Canada. Hangar ratting, ground crewing, fertiliser/chemical loading/truck driving/jolly rides ticket selling and briefing, often low or no pay jobs with bit of stick time as reward or the carrot dangled as more regular job.
Having someone 'show themselves' with company can be good from management/CP point of view, not to employ someone not suitable based on CV/interview chat only, but it has been abused time and time again.
As to the question posed, yes. Helicopter low timer jobs in Australia and bit in NZ, can be 'had' similar way as in Canada. Hangar ratting, ground crewing, fertiliser/chemical loading/truck driving/jolly rides ticket selling and briefing, often low or no pay jobs with bit of stick time as reward or the carrot dangled as more regular job.
Having someone 'show themselves' with company can be good from management/CP point of view, not to employ someone not suitable based on CV/interview chat only, but it has been abused time and time again.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Kenora
Posts: 63
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
At least, my good Cat, after instructing for a year or two, jobs IN airplanes are available. We need more PROFESSIONAL instructors as well. Too bad it's never been considered a career position! The poor sots would starve.
WD
WD
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Wherever I go, there I am
Age: 43
Posts: 806
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
That instructing is not filled with a great number of serious professionals I feel is at the heart of the matter...at least, the left chamber.
If we had experienced pilots going back to teach as CAT I or II instructors, I feel we would have better pilots coming out from the flight schools. They would understand better the paths open to them, and I believe many would spend a year or two instructing if they had ex-Air Force and ex-Industry bosses who well remembered what is was like being a 250 hour instructor helping them learn the ropes.
If I could go back and be the one to write the CARS for a Chief Flight Instructor, my input would be to make it a requirement that they have a minimum of 5 years experience as PIC of a commuter or transport category aircraft, among other things.
I know, I know: who in the hell would go from that to instructing. If the pay and benefits were good enough, I'd take the bait for a couple years.
Now, getting back to topic. IF we had that sort of requirement, it would open up jobs as Captains left for both the airlines and instructing jobs, leading to a flow on effect where pilots would move from licensing to instructing to line flying. Not a full fix, but enough to reduce the pilot raping programs? Maybe.
But then, I'm a dreamer.
If we had experienced pilots going back to teach as CAT I or II instructors, I feel we would have better pilots coming out from the flight schools. They would understand better the paths open to them, and I believe many would spend a year or two instructing if they had ex-Air Force and ex-Industry bosses who well remembered what is was like being a 250 hour instructor helping them learn the ropes.
If I could go back and be the one to write the CARS for a Chief Flight Instructor, my input would be to make it a requirement that they have a minimum of 5 years experience as PIC of a commuter or transport category aircraft, among other things.
I know, I know: who in the hell would go from that to instructing. If the pay and benefits were good enough, I'd take the bait for a couple years.
Now, getting back to topic. IF we had that sort of requirement, it would open up jobs as Captains left for both the airlines and instructing jobs, leading to a flow on effect where pilots would move from licensing to instructing to line flying. Not a full fix, but enough to reduce the pilot raping programs? Maybe.
But then, I'm a dreamer.
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Canada
Posts: 1,306
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
+TSRA, My wife and I owned flight schools for 26 years, why did we sell? Well, we wanted to have some time to ourselves {getting on a bit} and quite frankly we saw the beginning of what has gone very wrong in flight training, here are a few of the reasons {1} The dead beats in TC who are just plain incompetent, not all mind you, but certainly the upper ranks just didn't have a clue about flight training. {2} When retirees from the heavy metal decided to "put something back", they were in many cases so fed up with what is being taught that they simply quit. {3} Such things as the Government of Ontario turning all flight schools/clubs in colleges {with the blessing of the director of flight training in TC} without a clue what they are doing has driven many good ones to simply shut the doors, such demands as having huge sums of money tied up in funds in case they fail, paying for full and very expensive outside audits, rather than standard business practices , even when schools only use "pay as you go" thus no student can be out of pocket should a school fail, in the mean time of shore- students who have put money up front have been cheated, but it seems they don't matter!{4}The lack of uniform standards across the nation does not make for a level playing field, in one case students at an Ontario Government school falsified flight time to obtain both funding and qualifications, no action was taken by the Government to punish both the school and the students, {cant let the public know just how corrupt and incompetent they are} had this been a private school heads would have rolled {and rightly so}{5} Look at the times to solo and to obtain a lic, if we could do it in most cases close to the minimum time why cant the rest? Oh yes, I forgot, lets mine the students for every penny! The gap between what is being taught and the real world is now so huge that its hard to find a recent grad who doesn't need re- training in the basics, Example, thirty page written checklists in a single engine, fixed gear piston trainers, totally bloody stupid! But the thing which upsets me the most is these overweight instructors with their bloody silly gold bars have taken the joy and fun out of learning to fly!
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Kenora
Posts: 63
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Haven't instructed for decades. Thought about getting back into it. Nope. The product turned out by the colleges today is, for the most part...CRAP. No airmanship. No common sense. The willingness to crawl over their peers to be the first lemming over the cliff to a bloody ramp job. Self entitled spoilt brats.
If some 40 year old wants to learn to fly as a hobby? There are only "colleges" to go to. Mom and Pop operations have been long sent packing by government stupidity.
When schools like Seneca College do circuits with the gear left down, and have a FIVE knot cross wind limitation?????? Is FIVE knots even a WIND?
WD
If some 40 year old wants to learn to fly as a hobby? There are only "colleges" to go to. Mom and Pop operations have been long sent packing by government stupidity.
When schools like Seneca College do circuits with the gear left down, and have a FIVE knot cross wind limitation?????? Is FIVE knots even a WIND?
WD
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Vancouver Island
Posts: 2,517
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Clunkdriver has summed up what is wrong with flight training very well.
When I decided to start a flight training school in 1986 as a semi retirement business I went to Transport Canada's top bureaucrat in my region to ask for guidance in how best to set up a FTU.
When he asked me my background I outlined my career up to than point in time and said I had been a flight instructor in the fifties and early sixties and that I enjoyed teaching.
He asked me what I had been doing since I let my instructors rating lapse and I went through it in detail including that I had been teaching fire bombing for ten years.
He looked at me and said that it was going to be very difficult for me to re qualify as a flight instructor because I had formed to many ideas about flying and would have to be reprogrammed to their way of doing things.....
.....I was gobsmacked and thought he was just kidding me....
...he was serious and I thought oh well they all can't be morons so I went ahead and got the FTU-OC and started a school.....
......what a mistake that was because the longer I ran the school the more difficult it became to keep it running as I found out he was right....I could not get to the point that I could pass a re ride for my instructors rating so after seven years I sold the school.
.......every day I thank God I never decided to learn things their way because my life now would be very boring living with the frontal lobotomy I would have needed to think like them.
Funny thing about the teaching thing, once I got rid of the FTU I went on my own and ended up being one of the highest paid flying teachers in the world.
Had to leave Canada to do it though but at least I earned enough money to live very comfortable in my old age.
And even more importantI still have all my brain left rather than only about the ten percent that I would have had left had I entered their world.
When retirees from the heavy metal decided to "put something back", they were in many cases so fed up with what is being taught that they simply quit.
When he asked me my background I outlined my career up to than point in time and said I had been a flight instructor in the fifties and early sixties and that I enjoyed teaching.
He asked me what I had been doing since I let my instructors rating lapse and I went through it in detail including that I had been teaching fire bombing for ten years.
He looked at me and said that it was going to be very difficult for me to re qualify as a flight instructor because I had formed to many ideas about flying and would have to be reprogrammed to their way of doing things.....
.....I was gobsmacked and thought he was just kidding me....
...he was serious and I thought oh well they all can't be morons so I went ahead and got the FTU-OC and started a school.....
......what a mistake that was because the longer I ran the school the more difficult it became to keep it running as I found out he was right....I could not get to the point that I could pass a re ride for my instructors rating so after seven years I sold the school.
.......every day I thank God I never decided to learn things their way because my life now would be very boring living with the frontal lobotomy I would have needed to think like them.
Funny thing about the teaching thing, once I got rid of the FTU I went on my own and ended up being one of the highest paid flying teachers in the world.
Had to leave Canada to do it though but at least I earned enough money to live very comfortable in my old age.
And even more importantI still have all my brain left rather than only about the ten percent that I would have had left had I entered their world.
