Pilot Shortage
 

As someone who is a UK citizen living in the US and working towards my Commercial and Instrument, any mention of pilot shortage is of great interest to me,I'm looking for some realistic answers. There are many articles in various industry magazines talking about the pilot shortage and how it will continue to get worse, is this really true?, what will the long term outcome be?
I have posted questions before about the FAA, JAA and CAA with almost no responses, is this because there is little interest or has this dead horse been beaten enough?
To me the idea of having a set of world wide Aviation standards is a good idea for obvious reasons as long as the governing bodies involved go about it in a realistic way.
Obviously the US and Europe are competent at operating helicopters, I'm not sure but I assume that a comparison of accident statistics between the two would confirm this, so why the big difference in licensing requirements (CAA, JAA Commercial ground school).

Jiff

The shortage is of "experienced" pilots. More companies will be forced to take newly licenced pilots under their wings. Enough letting someone else or the military do it.

Trouble is, this costs money. Any company will avoid it if they can, and the lack of experience will remain. The pool of very low time pilots will always be large and dissatisfied.

GET REAL YOU GUYS!

My company got ride of most of their experienced Captains, to be replaced, eventually, by young people who had paid for their own licence or had parents who could help.

The reason is simply inexperienced means cheap.great for the people who got or are getting jobs on the North Sea but when the next downturn comes bye bye.

For the industry, everyone now knows this and either don't care because they are not intending to stay that long, or belatedly have the message and are probably looking to fixed wing.

That is not all green grass but at least the market is much larger and the prospects better.

Sure become a helicopter pilot but keep your options open.

There is no pilot shortage - but there is one of experienced people, say above 1000 hours, certainly in Canada. We have been looking for 1500 hour drivers for some time.

We have no problem paying people the right money, and would sooner take a low time guy with a good attitude than the other way round. Our problem is customers with ridiculous requirements, such as 1000 hours on type.

cheers

phil

To Paco: So what would be "the right money" for Canada?

Hi there

The "right pay" varies - our 600 hour guys are on 2000 bucks a month plus 35 an hour. Others seem to be on a straight 100 bucks an hour or 3500 a month plus 35.

Northern Muntain used to pay (for contractors) 186 a day plus 26.

I expect this to rise dramatically over the next year, as nobody trains pilots but just offers them more to move around. I don't think there's anyone with over 1000 (PIC anyway) hours without a job at the moment.

cheers

Phil

Further to your "Pilot shortage" question:

There is in fact a shortage of pilots in the UK North Sea sector at the moment and both companies (Bristow, CHC Scotia) have been recruiting quite heavily since the end of last year. Bristow is also talking about taking up the sponsorship scheme again with next year (and Scotia proposing to take all their surplus pilots of those courses)

The problem for inexperienced pilots is to get their JAR instrument ratings which are now required for every pilot. In the UK this can only be obtained either through the Bristow IR school in Norwich on a single engine (they also take self sponsored people) or with Cabair in Cranfield (Twin engine).

This is a very expensive course and most courses are already booked till the end of the year.

But if you are lucky (or rich) enough to have your JAR instrument rating you are almost certainly guaranteed a job with either of the companies.

Hope this helps