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I’m dredging through old posts researching rates in Canada & came across this post - as someone with a down under accent who works in Canada periodically I think it’s worth mentioning that there are probably some foreigners who will work for a low package, but I certainly wouldn’t fly for some of the rates I’ve seen quoted on these forums. As a contractor in Australia I currently get AUD800/day + $150/hour + reimbursed for ALL expenses flying an A-star on fires - maybe if Canadian operators charged a reasonable rate for their aircraft in Canada they wouldn’t need to send so many to Australia to make money on fires! P.S. - I’m looking forward to another season in Canada in 2020, I’ll do my best to be part of the solution for better rates rather than part of the problem.

Well it turns out we do agree on some things.

Plus you'll have a pension.

Trust me...you do not want to go and live in some town in northern Canada. Not sure were you live now but other than working and drinking there isn't much else to do. I spent years in these places...not my choice...usually a month at a time. Even with the wife with you ...things are not going to go well. Not sure if you have kids but if you do...things are not going to go well when they land in the middle of nowhere! I worked up north for more years than I would like to remember...I would never want to drag my family up to those places....I did like the flying but other than that getting back home was the best thing to look forward to....you can only go fishing so many times. If you go up north in March....temps will be very cold...and dark....summertime...bugs...lots of bugs....you will be looking forward to cold. I preferred cold to the bugs. And how cold...Thompson Manitoba....coldest place in Canada most of the time...-40C is the norm from mid November to late March. Don't do it...stay down south and go airlines my friend! Lots of Medivac companies down here. Oh...I had a buddy that just had to do ifr medivac helicopter...I recommended him to a few places...he went eventually...he died in a crash...young guy with a young family...be careful....

Two piece. Think doing a #2 in your winter flying kit - just drop trou with a 2-piece if it's really cold instead of stripping down with a one piece...less chance of dropping a log into the shoulders of the onesie that's coiled around your ankles, which ends up on the back of your neck when you pull everything up...oh, yeah... Think doing #2 in mosquito and black fly weather - just drop trou and only the heinie gets bit with a 2-piece...the dangly bits too if you're slow...otherwise too much pink showing with a onesie... ...and it's easier to pork out with a 2-piece than it is with a onesie, having to reduce your bacon, beer and black forest cake input...ever seen a guy in a onesie who was too girthful for it? Eeegads!

"the wife wants to move to YellowKnife or even Nunavut she was looking at life in Ranken Inlet and Iqaluit and wants to go now" Be honest, how much had she been drinking when she said that?🥂

Some advice...book a flight up to those places before you get in too deep and actually see the life style my friend...I have worked out of all of them...last time was 2 years ago....not something most southerners will call wonderful....cost of living will put you in the poor house if being a low time pilot isn't going to be bad enough! I would stick to looking to work for an airline in the south. I have plenty of friends that went that way and they are going up the ladder very quick with descent scheds and time off.

Yes the "5% on return" or the barely 5% of people that actually make a career out of it from a logical/financial standpoint is not a good enough investment for me to risk. There may be a pilot shortage in both industries but I think the driving factors are far different from what I have gathered, the power that an airline has to push the industry is far greater than the power of private operators. Airlines can influence entire school programs to meet there needs, I just don't see the rotary industry moving in that direction, they almost seem to be like the army was when I joined lol. I think if I was younger I would chance it, but with the current market and what the fixed wing world looks like I think its the right choice for me. Something I can settle into and enjoy. I'm also not looking to fly huge jets later either, I will be more than happy flying small medivac up north eventually, the wife wants to move to YellowKnife or even Nunavut she was looking at life in Ranken Inlet and Iqaluit and wants to go now, I think that almost makes it easier for me, not having to leave them behind will be nice.

Without knowing your situation completely, I have to agree with you. Either way it looks like you are doing your research. As you can see there are more than a few Canadian pilots who have paid for a licence, before they realized the industry was not at all what they expected. Best of luck with whichever avenue you choose...

Wow that's the pot calling the kettle black. You may want to go back and read this topic from the start. No wonder people are sick of this industry.

Then go read the news instead of this forum Debby Downer.

You guys are hilarious. Helicopter crashes in Kaui and kills 7 and not a post or comment. Someone asks about becoming a helicopter pilot and there is 5 pages and 40 comments. What a screwed up forum.

Well this industry wants your whole soul. With no pension.

Apparently we were wrong in our responses. It’s great go for it 100% chance of employment, great employers, high pay, positive professional atmosphere, sometimes though you will here guys try and lie to you about the cons but they are just whiners. Most companies you see advertising for jobs month after month are the ones you really want to work for, you get to expand your world views and see different cultures and how they pencil whip their vast experiences. Or you could take the flight schools word for it and miss out on all the fast cars and easy women in exotic places.

The 600k comes out the back!

Yup! I got AIDS from Helirico in a tent! Let someone who thought they knew french explain that one to you.

I hated what I was doing (Tradesman) Thought the same way you did. (Looks awesome) Met a guy who flew helicopters(Not in a tent with HeliRico) and thought this looks cool. Paid the lady and got the licence.(Not in an economic downturn). Met an owner that was building stuff and got used for my skills as a tradesman. (He got his 14 hrs a day at $2800 a month salary 28 and 14 you do the math accounting guy) Bif aint lying you are travelling on your own time.(and at 100 hrs on your own dime) We are all taxi drivers (Unless you get on a K-Max) On the plus side you will never have a worse meal in your life than on forestry (Anywhere) I thought I'd answer Bifs part after finding out that question wasn't directed at me. Also you won't ever regret learning how to fly a helicopter just know that there is a better chance than not you will ever do it for a living. Take the advice or leave it.

Always loved the idea of flying (thanks, Top Gun). Went to uni to be a geologist and flew in helicopters every summer in the field. Decided if I was going to spend every summer away from friends and family, I wanted to be flying the machine rather than lugging 80 lbs of soil samples up some mountain. No one told me that at the end of the summer geology season the Geos go back to the city and play with pencil crayons in the office, where the helicopter pilot packs his gear and moves to the next gig (or goes on unemployment for the winter). Well, that's not true. One pilot did tell me all that, but I told myself it'll be different for me! Now I'm all jaded and grouchy and stuff 😕

Did you just come up with the idea of being a pilot on a whim? Or have you actually met someone in this industry? What the guys here are saying is no lie. There is a 95% chance you will never be even employed in this industry once you get out of training. Toilets will be your first job period! Engineers love to destroy them knowing you have to clean them. No owner is ever going to let you see the books. Also if you do get on the owners will probably be more interested if you are handy with a hammer rather than a calculator and more likely than for more than 1.5 years Like Rotor said go fixed wing. It's more suited for the accountant type. I'd hate to see you have to prove your superior spatial awareness skills in a remote tent with Helirico. #MeToo

This is so incredibly variable, it's hard to give a good answer, so based on my own experiences (which are not reflective of everyone's), the average life of a daytime VFR pool pilot looks sort of like this: Company flies you out the day before your shift starts (because most places have you travel on your time, not theirs), you arrive at a base or worksite with a varying degree of remoteness. I'll say a middle of the road pool pilot rotation is 28 days on & 14 days off, so this is now your home for the next month. Your flight duty days can be a maximum of 14 hours long. You might do the following: Be actively hired on. Wake up early, report for work, prep the helicopter, brief the client, fly your *** off until you time out or the sun sets, clean the helicopter, do paperwork. Maybe you'll fly 8-10 hours, or maybe you'll fly 30 minutes and then sit in the bush while your client works for the next 6 hours and then fly 30 min home. Probably, it's somewhere in the middle. You'll get very good at swatting bugs and napping in the limited space of the helicopter's back seat (or learning to stay warm in -30C). Be on standby or on-call, waiting for the phone to ring. Maybe you need to be ready to lift off in less than an hour, so you can't really leave the hangar (but maybe your crew quarters are there anyway). Maybe your response time is greater, so you can run to town for errands etc. Either way, you (should) be filling your time with base upkeep (cutting the grass, sweeping the floors, cleaning the toilets), cleaning the helicopter, inspecting ops gear, washing crew vehicles. The general consensus among most pilots is if you're away from home then it's a day full day of work, but the general consensus of the employer is that if they're going to pay you for a full day of work you'd better earn it. There's no flying. The weather sucks, or it's too cold, or your helicopter is down for maintenance, or there's just no expectation of a flight today. See above. Hangar upkeep, chores, paperwork, you name it. Then again, maybe you company is a little more lenient on what you're required to do on shift, maybe you can drive into town and hit the gym, or go for a hike, or take some you time. The day following your last day on shift, you travel home. So, your shift is actually more like 30 & 12. Or maybe you get weathered in at camp and can't get out for another day or 2. Maybe your cross shift can't make it for whatever reason and they need you to stay another 2-3 day, week tops? The overarching theme I think here is inconsistency. Some folks are really lucky and work for 1 or 2 clients on a regular recurring basis, or have a company that runs a 2 week on / 2 week off rotation, but those are mostly outliers in my experience. Anyway, I'm sure lots of folks on here would add or change much of what I said above, but I tried to pick a very "general" representation of what I've done for the past 12 yrs.

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you're basically guaranteed to be "low grade" for longer than 1.5 yrs. I got lucky and started flying tours after 1.5 yra of ground crew, but I know folks that have been on the ground 5+ yrs. And once you start flying, it's not a lot. It's a ferry flight here and there, it's a maintenance run at 5am or 9pm, if you're super lucky it's a tourism gig doing 200hrs a summer, or an oil&gas contract doing 1.5hrs a day. Your heliski dream doesn't even begin to become an possibility until many years in, and hundreds to thousands of flight hours under your belt. Even then, many don't make the cut, many can't cope with the stress of flying a demanding client in one of the worst combination of conditions a pilot could expect. I haven't touched heliski yet, I want to so I can try it out but it's entirely possible it won't be for me. I know guys with thousands of hours more than me and they won't go near it , or tried it once and will never go back.