I too note only one pilot job on the RFDS website and that is for someone to warm a RHS on a B350 based at Jandakot and paying around $20K below the average Australian salary.. Strange for an outfit that claims it can't get pilots.
Sadly the overseas options we took have long since become "uneconomically viable" too.

Without a pilot no one is worth anything. Maybe instead they could jump in a road ambulance for the trip from Charleville to Brisbane, at least the ambulance driver would be getting well paid.

I know exactly what you mean, with the oversupply in the early 1990s employers could and did take advantage with below award wages and conditions. If you didn't accept then there was always someone who would. Going overseas was the best thing I ever did and I only wish I had been in a position to do it sooner.

Bad employers are crying because they don't have a queue of pilots willing to take whatever they offer and even the good ones are battling with retention as the path to the airlines has sped up.

BTW My mate got a job with Flight West on the F28 and is now with Cathy.

So correct me if I am wrong, but if a pilot had a degree from a uni, like a degree in aviation (LOL) from say RMIT Uni he/she should be paid the same as a doctor or a nurse or at least significantly more than the current rate.. And do tell us more about the "substantial extra qualifications to work in the aero medical field" What complete tosh.

Don't feel sorry, feel ashamed!

A pilot doesn't need a degree, a nurse or a doctor does. Clearly you have no idea of the extra qualifications you need to work as a doctor or nurse for the RFDS but you can claim it to be tosh. You must be one of those skygods.

Quite right, I have no idea of any extra "substantial" qualifications needed to work as a doctor or a nurse for the RFDS and that is why I asked you to clarify. I suspect you don't know either and that you just made that up.
Doctors and nurses do a course of study and when it's completed successfully they get a document called a Degree, when a pilot successfully does a course of study he/she gets a licence, same thing really, a permit to exercise the privileges of whatever document you receive.

So until you can clarify it all this particular skygod thinks you talk absolute tosh.

Very true.
Once it was a simple handshake. How time has progressed.
Companies have the leverage: too many pilots, having paid too much money for the available employment. Terms and conditions in a slow spiral ever since.

However, demographics and the incredible success of the HR/IR reducing terms and conditions see insufficient supply.

Rather amusing. The industry desperate to hold on to the status quo resorts to calls of loyalty and professionalism. The same thing they considered irrelevant for the last few decades.

Machtuk, I feel you buddy but you're getting trolled by the autists. Time to get off the internet.

Deja Vu,
Am I correct in understanding that you think a pilot with a university degree has achieved a degree of academic achievement equivalent to that achieved by a Doctor? ...or even a Nurse?

"I'm not interested in flying for the airlines." Is right up there with "Of course I love you." and "The cheque's in the post." It must be one of the most overused lies in the aviation industry.

No, I do not think or suggest that a pilot "has achieved a degree of academic achievement to that of a Doctor" ? ..or even a Nurse? Some may have but its is not even about that. Some previous posters suggested that Doctors and Nurses were "worth" more than others members on the RFDS team because they had "Uni degrees", so I simply asked if a pilot had a "Uni degree" would they or should they be paid more money. I got no response to that.

What this whole thread is about to me is that GA pilots do not receive sufficient renumeration to live a modest life and a comfortable retirement considering their responsibilities. This has mostly come about, in my view, by a supply and demand situation. Operators like the RFDS have taken advantage of this for many years and now claim that they can't get pilots to work for peanuts as easily any longer and so plead for the pilots to "give back to the sector" while happily paying up to $450K for a GP, if I am reading their website correctly. No one begrudges the Doctor or Nurse earning what they do, thats probably just market forces too.

If we were to pay people based on "academic achievement" alone would aircraft refuellers be making $120K+, train drivers in the Pilbarra $250K+, Alan Joyce $24Million, plumbers $300K etc etc. ???.

A look at the RFDS website shows one vacancy for a pilot in Dubbo, RHS for a B350 earning about the same as check out staff at woolies. There are numerous ads for EOI for pilot jobs, but these are not vacancies but an exercise in filling a filing cabinet with applications. No urgent shortage at all.

I can't help, in my negative cynicism, suspect there is more at play here with this whole issue.

Its only hypothetical, of course, since neither of us ever worked for the good old "RUFFDUS", that if you had, you would have happily carried the doctor's bags out to the aircraft whilst they strolled out empty handed. I can picture it now.

Enter the Brisbane base in your GPS, it should show you the track and distance to the Brisbane base. Or you could apply to "them" and ask "them' how long. Unbelievable.

Is it my paranoia or is the word "pilot" in lower case and "Doctor" and "Nurse" with capitals of any significance.?

…....and you know this how? You obviously never worked for them but don't assume I never did!

Call it a gift if you like but I have the ability to pick a BS artist from a long way off. If you had ever worked for the RFDS ( as a pilot) we would have had a blow by blow description many posts ago, "AeroMed for many years and enough turbo prop time to sink a ship so only the jet for me". Spare us!
I learned many years ago that in aviation never to assume anything, maybe you know the rest.

Oh you are gifted alright, for all the wrong reasons! You really are sad angry case! Anyway lets just say you will never know my background as you think you have all the answers so continue being a nasty piece of work, something you are good at but entertaining I guess, in to the ignore list for you!!

Oh no, not the ignore list. Must have touched a nerve.

Oh well there are lots more sycophants out there happy to denigrate the GA industry, lecture pilots on what they should accept and how they should think and generally advocate on behalf of opportunists like the good ole Ruffdus.

What is the harm in asking the question on the forum? Why are you such an angry person?

No it wasn't and have I far more meaningful things to fill my day with than trolling.

Aside from my firm belief that both nurses and doctors level of academic qualification is above that of even an ATPL qualification, the fact that both doctors and nurses have a higher level of work intensity coupled with longer hours in any given RFDS day forms my belief they are both worth more than the pilot, hence why they are paid more.

As I am aware the attrition rate is vastly more attributed to the lack of work life balance than that of pilot remuneration.

Deja Vu;

Midwifery is usually (at least until very recently) an extra qualification required of a flight nurse along with a solid ED background.

Well I guess I was sort of reacting to someone who doesn't have the nouse to find this information for "themselves" , rather put out a general question and have someone else do all the investigation to answer your query. Having spent many years on the committees of pilot unions I have very little affinity for those who rely on others to do all the work on their behalf. How pathetic is that, how do you expect things to improve if you can't get off your backside and enquire for yourself? and then refer to those who do the hard yards as "autists" . Yeah I do get angry

Never mind, Alice Kiwican, obviously a RFDS insider has come to your aid, ...

Is that it? is midwifery required or not ? (usually or until recently, what the??? ) A far call from "extra substantial qualifications" required for doctors and nurses for RFDS operations.
Maybe you could spend your day meaningfully by checking the accuracy of the stuff you claim and are prepared to put into print.

Rather than waste someones time at the organisation by calling, emailing etc, I figured the sensible thing to do FIRST would be to try my luck hoping someone in the know lurking these boards would volunteer the information.

All I was after was someone to type 'x years'. It was not an onerous request yet you've spent how long responding to and getting riled up over something you had no real interest in. How angry do you get when something actually worth getting angry over occurs? Do become violent or do you know to take your meds before things escalate?

Amazing, you don't have the gonads to contact them directly for fear you are wasting their time when they are claiming to have a pilot shortage, but it's ok to expect others "lurking the boards" ( LOL) to know the answers. Sorry, nothing but an oxygen thief.

Deja vu;

For what it's worth I just added that information for your benefit as you appeared to want to really drill down on another contributors post regarding such. It had been a requirement but there is some relaxation due to the difficulty in finding nurses with this qualification, likely now a case by case scenario. As for other extra qualifications I could not say, generally you will find the nurses are somewhat older than the average of the pool due to the years required to obtain the skill sets for the job.

Maybe you could celebrate this small single point win with a champagne popper discharged in your mouth.

What’s irrelevant is the argument about who is worth more on the aircraft. The point is RFDS pilots are not being paid enough for the experience and competencies required to consistently operate with the required margin of safety in their (sometimes) demanding operation.

Someone earlier stated an airline F/O grosses $160K. Bluntly, all he/she has to do is adhere to SOPs, fly the magenta line with full automation and retract the landing gear on command. I’d argue, in comparison to a single pilot RFDS pilot, that F/O is grossly overpaid. (A lot of airlines overseas are now throwing pimply faced, 200 hour pilots into the RHS of A330s.... ask yourselves, how demanding can that job really be?).

To put the value of the RFDS pilots job in another albeit over dramatic perspective ... if the medical staff make an egregious mistake, they bury it. If a pilot does similar they bury him (and whoever else is on board). I’m pretty certain the medical crew on board any RFDS aircraft would be happy to know they have experienced, competent pilots up front being paid a reasonable wage.

Deja Vu is right! GA stinks.