Air Ambulance questions

[Offwidth]

Hi Guys-
Do Air Ambulance companies ever hire part-time pilots? How much flying do you do in an average month?
Thanks for the info.

 

[CaravanMan]

Where I'm at we don't hire part-timers, and flying varies a bit. We stay primarily in the Midwest and are home every night, so not much long distance flying like some operators do. Flying for us (at this base) has picked up quite a bit, and I'd say on average we're flying at least once a day/pilot (1 day flight, 1 night flight). I've had several days recently with two flights on my shift, and have had a few with three back-to-back flights that kept me away from home for nearly 14 hrs. I think the lowest amount of flight time I've logged was about 9 hours one month, but that was a long time back. Now it's averaging about 30 hours/month I'd say, and have had a couple 40-50 hr months. It may not sound like a lot, but when you consider that most of our flights are .5 one leg, .7 another leg, then you can imagine how many flights we're having to do to log that much flight time/month. Some of our other bases are busier still, but that's what life's like for us.

 

[Movin' on up!]

Some companies like Air Methods hire a back up pilot. He is full-time in the sense that he gets paid full-time salary, however, that pilot only works to cover pilots on vacations, who are sick or are out for one reason or the other. Some times they fly everyday for a month, sometime they don't fly for a few months. Unfortunately, they only hire one pilot for this job.

 

[celloman]

I worked for an outfit for a while that had part time pilots... Just filled in when needed. I think some places do, its just a matter of finding them.

Good luck,
celloman