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Pilots Wanted summer fire season in Oregon and Washington

calpilot

Well Known Member
Looking for pilots for the summer fire season in Oregon and Washington.
We use the Cessna's for fire detection, the Commanders for "Air Tactical" or "Air Attack" over major forest fire incidents.
Cessna 182-T206
Aero Commander 500 Shrike
Must have 1500 hours total time; prefer 25 hours experience in make and model, but not a deal killer; 100 hours in the past 12 months; class II medical; drug test; pass a 135 check ride; must be able to commit to training in April, and being domiciled with the aircraft from mid June through mid September, with flexibility built in the schedule for days off.
Please send resume only if qualified.
[email protected] (DAR Gary)
 
How much does it pay?

Depends, are you asking what the company gets per hour or how much you do? :D

Seriously, you do have to love it and don't think about that because I regularly did EMS flights where the company charged $65,000 for just that flight, and I was getting paid $65,000 a year. That's why we end up going overseas to work where I got paid almost 3 times as much.
 
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How much does it pay?

I knew a fire pilot here in Canada who worked from June to September and took the rest of the year off... Said he was making a year's wages in 4 months.

Canadian dollars though, so probably pennies compared to WA and OR... :p
 
There is an ad on Indeed, may or may not have anything to do with this one, advertised pay is $40-$60/hr.

but 1500hr min for piston single. yikes.

My former flight instructor has flown for Cal Fire for the past 10 years or so. What he has to do/what he gets to do is amazing! There's a lot more skill to aerial firefighting than there is to commerically flying people from point A to point B. I'd be surprised if simply having 1500 hours would actually make one competitive for these jobs, but these do seem to be strange times.
 
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Taken from a Cal-fire posting for a pilot:
Air Tactical Pilot – minimum PILOT-IN-COMMAND experience:
PIC Flight Hours
Airplane:1800
Airplane-Multi-Engine:800
Mountain (typical terrain):200
Instrument (total): 75
Instrument (actual): 50
Night :100
Make & Model to be flown: 10
In Type to be flown: 25

One or more of the following:
Aerial firefighting (PIC or Co-Pilot):500
AME>6,000#: 100
AME>12,500#:50
AME Turbine powered:50

I've seen some others that wanted the same mountain flying experience, but would accept crop-dusting experience instead of previous aerial firefighting experience. One of the other ads just blatantly put "1500 is the minimum, most of our competitive applicants have over 4000 total hours". Basically, your average GA pilot is never going to qualify for any of these jobs.
 
Go for it!

I flew the Air Attack mission for 10 years after I retired from a major airline job. Flew Cessna 377 twins. If I remember correctly, the 1500 hour requirement is a Forest Service requirement. We were limited to 8 hours per day and could fly 12 days in a row with a mandatory 2 days off after that. I got $50 per hour of flying time and $25 per hour of standby in a 12 hour shift. So you could make $600 per day. I usually took home $12,000+ in a month. The wages were set by my employer, not the Forest Service. We typically flew in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana) but occasionally flew in Florida, Virginia and the Carolinas. Don't expect to fly in California as CAL FIRE has that sewn up. Fire season ran from June to mid September and may be longer now because of the extended draught. I was satisfied with the wages at the time (2005-2015) but with the pilot shortage right now you can expect much higher pay. It's a good job if you get on with the right company.

I was a retirement job for me and my employer was very accommodating about giving me time off to fly airshows. We did other contract work for the government; mostly whale surveys, air sample missions for NOAA and some radar certification flights for the US Navy. After retiring from the USAF and then the airlines I decided I wouldn't take on any job that I didn't enjoy as I wasn't flying for the money or the flying time at that point. I have one more item on my Bucket List and that will get checked off when I when I get qualified in the Arizona CAF's B-25 bomber this spring. I fully intend to slide into my grave on my last dime with my hair on fire!
 
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