Zero to bush/rotary or other flying in South America/Pacific/Africa
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Join Date: Jun 2023
Location: Slovenia
Age: 29
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Zero to bush/rotary or other flying in South America/Pacific/Africa
Greetings,
I am looking for more specific directions to get into becoming a fixed wing or rotary pilot. I have gone through a bit of this forum and found most of the advice centered around getting the training in UK/USA and going a career path in aviation. I am looking for something different. I have no ambition of going for an airline job. I have for a long time wanted to fly aircraft but when I finished high school, rather than go to university studying aeronautics, I studied mathematics and computer science and other than spending my time flying military aircraft in simulators like DCS which I enjoyed immensely, I didn't give any serious consideration to this wish. I would like to reiterate, my ambition is not for a great career but a challenge and the wish to fly. My one experience in an aircraft is flying backseat passenger in an ultralight and crash landing on uneven snow on a frozen lake in the mountains in Yukon, Canada, making a splint for the landing leg that got broken and thankfully the pilot was good enough he managed to take off and land us back home. He was a bit disappointed in himself though because he wanted to show me his area flying with his plane.
in the past 5 years, I have been involved in sailing boats, having started with a room and board work (which for the most part included dumpster diving for food and providing for the owner), progressing through a few deliveries, creating my own sailboat and sailing it for a month and a half in San Blas, Panama and working (for good money, in Denmark) as a self-taught marine electrician. I understand that flying is a lot more regulated and expensive (not sure I could make an aircraft for 1000 dollars and fly it for 400 nautical miles like I could sail a boat.)
What I'm looking to do is find a business in any place in the world where I could train and work as a pilot and I'm thinking some minimum wage bush piloting in South America/Pacific or Africa might be possible and interesting to me. I have a substantial amount of cash I can spend although not the 80 000-100 000 GBP I've seen posted on this forum to get the training necessary to even get a toe through the door. Perhaps I am delusional, but I'm hoping I could pay and work my way through to a job as a bush pilot somewhere remote and dangerous where most people don't want to work. Rotary and/or fixed wing. I have heard of a distant relative that went to the US and ended up flying bush planes for a job at 17 years old in Alaska but those were the good old days, I guess. I understand that what I'm looking for will be poorly paid, and I'm more than willing to do all the other work around aircraft before getting to fly and work 7 days a week for 10-12 hours. I hold a Slovenian passport and currently no other visas and am not even sure there is a commercial flying school in Slovenia but I am currently in Brazil anyway. My Spanish is improving but I just started learning Portuguese.
I'm looking for any contacts you might have that I could message or websites and businesses that you know. Pretty much anywhere in the world but likely somewhere I have a chance. Perhaps there are other forums like this one as well where I can search and ask? Finally, any other advice you might have, I do not know much about this industry.So far I have found Patagoniabushpilots dot com (not allowed to post any links yet) perhaps someone has any experience with them. I'll be messaging them shortly as well.
I am looking for more specific directions to get into becoming a fixed wing or rotary pilot. I have gone through a bit of this forum and found most of the advice centered around getting the training in UK/USA and going a career path in aviation. I am looking for something different. I have no ambition of going for an airline job. I have for a long time wanted to fly aircraft but when I finished high school, rather than go to university studying aeronautics, I studied mathematics and computer science and other than spending my time flying military aircraft in simulators like DCS which I enjoyed immensely, I didn't give any serious consideration to this wish. I would like to reiterate, my ambition is not for a great career but a challenge and the wish to fly. My one experience in an aircraft is flying backseat passenger in an ultralight and crash landing on uneven snow on a frozen lake in the mountains in Yukon, Canada, making a splint for the landing leg that got broken and thankfully the pilot was good enough he managed to take off and land us back home. He was a bit disappointed in himself though because he wanted to show me his area flying with his plane.
in the past 5 years, I have been involved in sailing boats, having started with a room and board work (which for the most part included dumpster diving for food and providing for the owner), progressing through a few deliveries, creating my own sailboat and sailing it for a month and a half in San Blas, Panama and working (for good money, in Denmark) as a self-taught marine electrician. I understand that flying is a lot more regulated and expensive (not sure I could make an aircraft for 1000 dollars and fly it for 400 nautical miles like I could sail a boat.)
What I'm looking to do is find a business in any place in the world where I could train and work as a pilot and I'm thinking some minimum wage bush piloting in South America/Pacific or Africa might be possible and interesting to me. I have a substantial amount of cash I can spend although not the 80 000-100 000 GBP I've seen posted on this forum to get the training necessary to even get a toe through the door. Perhaps I am delusional, but I'm hoping I could pay and work my way through to a job as a bush pilot somewhere remote and dangerous where most people don't want to work. Rotary and/or fixed wing. I have heard of a distant relative that went to the US and ended up flying bush planes for a job at 17 years old in Alaska but those were the good old days, I guess. I understand that what I'm looking for will be poorly paid, and I'm more than willing to do all the other work around aircraft before getting to fly and work 7 days a week for 10-12 hours. I hold a Slovenian passport and currently no other visas and am not even sure there is a commercial flying school in Slovenia but I am currently in Brazil anyway. My Spanish is improving but I just started learning Portuguese.
I'm looking for any contacts you might have that I could message or websites and businesses that you know. Pretty much anywhere in the world but likely somewhere I have a chance. Perhaps there are other forums like this one as well where I can search and ask? Finally, any other advice you might have, I do not know much about this industry.So far I have found Patagoniabushpilots dot com (not allowed to post any links yet) perhaps someone has any experience with them. I'll be messaging them shortly as well.
Last edited by Masjaf; 25th Jun 2023 at 10:28. Reason: Formatting
