2 Hours Averaged ?

[R0T0R]

I find it funny that you think I want your job and YOU accepted the job so I hope you can see reality from whoever the heck your standing. If you don't like the pay then quit. I turned down 3 jobs last year because I didn't like the wage and conditions. Can you say the same??? I think not. And I go home every night to my family so I think that the accusation that in selfish is offensive and uncalled for. I'm a **** good father and husband and I've made sacrifices for them not for aviation.

 

No one held a gun to your head when you took the job so deal with it or pickup a welder and shut up.

[alphadog]

I find it funny that you think I want your job and YOU accepted the job so I hope you can see reality from whoever the heck your standing. If you don't like the pay then quit. I turned down 3 jobs last year because I didn't like the wage and conditions. Can you say the same??? I think not. And I go home every night to my family so I think that the accusation that in selfish is offensive and uncalled for. I'm a **** good father and husband and I've made sacrifices for them not for aviation.

 

No one held a gun to your head when you took the job so deal with it or pickup a welder and shut upI

I didn't take the job,I don't need it and will not even consider it. I fly full time month on,month off overseas.With all due respect you are back tracking on your earlier statements. I am outta here to mind my own bizzwax.

[SwingWing]

And that is the only comment you can come up with Helicopter Jim - no wonder this industry is in the dark ages.

[helicopterjim]

If you are willing to take someone's seat for less than what he needs to get paid to provide for himself and his family,or the common fair wages for that level of skill and experience,you are messing with his/her livelihood. If we are willing to do that and than be drenched in all kinds of fluids and puke your guts off for less than fair wages,you might be messing with more than aviation wages.

 

Really now? Someone wants a lot of money so he can look after himself (and as you say his family). So now no one is allowed to come berween him and his job because why? I really want to hear the rational here. He should just have his job ..... and lots of money because he has a family? Don't het me wrong but I don't think you have job protection to make LOTS of money just because of ANYTHING in this country.

 

Someone wants to work for cheap ..... what do they get in the end .... cheap. If it turns out that we have luts of really good pilots who are talented and qualified and want to work for peanusts ..... what's to stop them?

 

Just wondering where are all these cheap and talented pilots .........

[helicopterjim]

I didn't take the job,I don't need it and will not even consider it. I fly full time month on,month off overseas.With all due respect you are back tracking on your earlier statements. I am outta here to mind my own bizzwax.

 

Sounds like you have agood job with good pay .... probably no greenhorns trying to steal your job. I'd say you are doing OK .... no problems.

[Maury]

Somewhere along the line, we seemed to have deviated a little from the title of this thread but that is not a bad thing.

And for the record, I was being facetious when I made the comment about the money I am simply one of those people that money does not mean much to. But I strongly believe in fairness. And this industry is a mess when it comes to fairness to the employee. And let us be perfectly clear, that is all you are. You may be an employee with a special skill like a crane driver, a grader operator, an ambulance attendant, ****, maybe even a helicopter pilot, but in the end, to the operator, you are simply another employee. And as that helicopter pilot employee, who do you have speaking for you? Yourself and no one else. If you think that you can change the world by yourself, then you are incredibly naïve, really stubborn, or just plain stupid - you pick.

Can you name another profession that isn't organized to give a voice to its members? Call it whatever you want, association, professional college, union, they are all basically the same - a group of individuals using their association to forward their views and issues. Doctors have them, as do lawyers and accountants. Nurses and teachers have them, and though you may not necessarily agree all the time with the last two, I don't recall there being an uproar over doctors or accountants being members of a professional association. Even the petroleum producers have their own little association, Certainly those firefighters you may fly in the summer don't have to speak for themselves. Even the provinces have their own little association of sorts. And of course, their is one other group that have their own association, the helicopter operators. Have any of you ever mentioned organizing to an owner or manager, even in jest? I bet the response wasn't warm and fuzzy. And yet at the same time, it is just fine for them to pay dues to HAC. When was the last time you saw HAC stand up to anybody regarding minimums, or really anything that may be of concern to a pilot? It is a lot easier to beat up on an unorganized crew than it is an organized industry or government, I trust we all know that at one time, the minimums were 5 hours a day in the summer and there was no such thing as free ferry flights across the country, and certainly no such thing as averaging. Where that came from and the fact that it is permitted and really pushing to be the norm is beyond me.

As a low time pilot, who is going to speak for you when the government decides to allow foreign workers because someone has dictated a minimum number of hours requirement. Interesting how a fixed wing pilot - Gilles - tuned the helicopter pilots onto the foreign pilot issue - and he has been talking about it for 2 years. Name me a fire, save for maybe some in certain parts of BC, that a hundred hour pilot could not handle all the tasks that the overhead team might have. It doesn't take a whole lot of skill or hours to fly around in circles on the perimeter of a fire. Have the operators ever pushed that? They used to. That was how low time pilots progressed. Now, it is easier, and undoubtedly cheaper, to hire a foreign worker. How about the oil companies that demand an outrageous minimum hour requirement? Do they pay extra for that? Why not? If the operators say that they are unable to supply a pilot with those huge hours, do you really think that oil companies are going to quit exploration in Canada and go somewhere else?

As for handing over your first born for an endorsement, when did this start? It used to be that you worked for a company, and if they liked you and you did a good job, then they would endorse you on a given type. No contracts. It was expected that you stayed with the company, and the vast majority of pilots did just that. Undoubtedly, there were some sleazy pilots out there that immediately jumped ship once they had their endorsement. You will always have those types of people, no matter what industry you are in. If an operator required a pilot right now, then you paid a premium to hire the person with the endorsement, or gave an endorsement to your best prospect. Period. No other option. Even the government would help the operators to pay for an endorsement or specialty course. I have never and never would pay for an endorsement, and I am licensed on a whole bunch of different helicopters.

 

Lets say you have 6000 hours, a couple or more medium endorsements, are pretty hot with a longline and are comfortable flying in the mountains. Does your company offer you any kind of a pension. How much do they contribute to it? Is it transferable if you switch companies after 10 years? How about loss of license insurance? Do you have a wife and kids that you may like to see on a regular basis and who knows, take on a summer vacation? Maybe you work on a base. How many hours a day do you put in? In the end, if you leave that base or company for any reason, are you reimbursed for all your long hours and efforts. They call you a base manager but unless you have a bunch of machines at your base that you are responsible for crewing, organizing and all the other stuff necessary, then you are simply a pilot manning a helicopter in some armpit in Canada and you can expect to be on call during daylight hours and available 24 hours a day to answer the phone.

According to HAC, the new labor agreements produced by HAC are creating quite a buzz amongst the members. They were created by a labor lawyer. Did you have your lawyer look at the contract? Do you know the repercussions if you sign it? Realize that these contracts are written in legalese so what you think it may say could be totally different than what a lawyer or judge thinks. Do you believe HAC paid to have these produced for the benefit of pilots?

And what is probably a huge issue to pilots in the future, and closer than you may think - drones, or uav's or whatever they call pilotless helicopters. Did you read in Helicopters magazine about the remotely piloted helicopters in Japan spraying the rice paddies. They now account for 35% of the spraying of the paddies and they have been doing it since 1997!! In Afghanistan, they were longlining in zero-zero and were fully integrated into the ATC system. With the leaps and bounds in technology, how long do you think it will be before a driller with a GPS will be able to call in a drill move? I cannot believe that the oil companies are not using uav's to patrol pipelines already. If they did a wink and a nudge to Stephen Harper, do you think he would let Transport Canada stand in the way? Who is going to speak for you as a helicopter pilot?

Heaven forbid that you have an accident that you injure or kill someone. In that event, I can pretty well guarantee that there is not an operator out there that will not be protecting their assets, by pointing out everything in the operations manual or flight manual that you did wrong. Who is sticking up for you? Your saying something like "well, my buddy Bob says that we do this all the time in the industry" is not going to cut it with a lawyer or judge.

It was pretty shocking when CARAC started looking into flight /duty times and everyone was represented except for those that are probably abused more than any other participant. Certainly business was well represented, as were airlines. And of course, HAC crying about how it would be the death knell of the industry if they couldn't work their crews fourteen hours a day for 56 days straight. Who was representing the helicopter pilots? No one.

And I haven't even mentioned money. This thread started with the pilot flying crews out, sitting with the crews for 10 hours and then flying them home at night. The pilot then does what he has to do to finish the day. I wonder who the lowest paid person on the job sight was. Nothing has changed in forty years.

We have got to organize somehow people. We are years behind already. Call it whatever you want, I don't care. It cannot be a part time, volunteer effort. It must be done professionally and ideally would have someone running it that is not in the industry but someone whose specialty is organizing or business management, but that could be up for debate.

HAC claims to represent 80% of the fleet in Canada. Do you think we may have more say regarding our futures if we could say that some kind of pilot association represented 80% of the helicopter pilots in Canada?

As I am new to this forum stuff, I have no idea how much I am allowed to write at one time, so will end this here. But believe me, I have a lot more to say.

On a final note, Helicopter Jim, unfortunately many of us do not possess the amazing skills that you no doubt have to land you in your dream job making lots of money. Some of us would actually like to see the industry improve so that more of us could share your good times. They have a word for someone who once they make it to the top, everyone else be damned - selfish.

[tin lizzie]

A wee bit long Maury.... but good post.

[helicopterjim]

The inevitable consequences of progress!

 

We all have choices ..... as do the companies who would want to move drills with a remotely piloted vehicle.

 

I got to be selfish by looking after myself .... nobody did it for me! My amazing skills aren't really so amazing.

[412driver]

... Anyone making much money this year?

 

 

Yes.

[Land Where?]

Well said Maury!