Cia

[roninpilot]

Anyone have any info on or offline about flying for the Agency or one of her contractors??

Thx

 

[avbug]

http://www.cia.gov/cia/employment/positions.htm

The agency contracts flying positions. You will need to identify specifically what it is that you wish to do. Probably your best choice right now is to contact the agency directly and request further information. Good luck.

 

[TurboS7]

Right now you can get hired to give FARC some trap shooting practice. Be careful some of those guys and girls do a pretty darn good job with an AK-47 on a moving target.

 

[TurboS7]

By the way that website that Avbug just gave is a great one to visit especially if you intend to fly into any of South America, Africa, or any other exotic country. It will also lead you into the State Dept. website which has some great info. also.

 

[roninpilot]

Thanks for the info, but I've been all over the CIA website many times and have never seen anything about flying positions. I will still send them a resume though.

 

[avbug]

As stated before, you're not going to find anything there about flying positions. Those are contracted out, and are recruited by the contractors, not the CIA.

Do you have a desire for a particular type of operation, or do you specifically want to work for the CIA? When you contact them, have a clear reasoning for wanting to work for the Agency; enamorization with the Agency only makes them nervous. If you work for a contractor, you won't be working for the CIA. You'll be employed by a private contractor.

Bear in mind that many operations from which the CIA benifits or participates, are run by other agencies, or contractors to agencies (most typically outsourced, these days). It's a complex, and very large, playing field.

 

[want2flyy]

In agreement with Avbug, I am not sure of your intent....Do you want to fly for " adventure", or do you want to work for an intelligence agency, or ..no offense...do you think it is like the Air America movie? Just curious, because if you want to fly contract...well, good luck to you..in Colombia...or where ever...if you want to get into intel...thats a whole different ball game, and yes as avbug stated you will make those in Virginia very suspicious with too much interest. My advise based on what you ask,without knowing more of your specific desires, keep flying...and just, well...forget about intel work.. Good Luck-kryptos

 

[roninpilot]

Thanks for the info,

I am not some how you say "Air America" Groupie, I am in fact a government aviator and have worked with intelligence agencies in the past. Just not directly for them. You can save the condescending, snide and uninformative remarks for your fellow private pilots. I'm looking for real info from real people that really know. If you're not one of them: Keep it to yourself.

 

[Diesel8]

That's pretty funny. You're pretty funny "ronin pilot". You get on a public forum with a name from a hollywood movie, ask about flying for a government agency, and when someone asks you some legit. questions, you critique them and tell them how experienced you are with intel already. You aren't going to get too much help that way, mister. Ever hear of "catch more flies with honey...."? By the way, it is Earnest Gann...it isn't spelled with an "h" in Earnst. That might be the first thing you do in your "intel" career.

 

[roninpilot]

Diesel8,

I haven't seen the movie "ronin pilot" but I'll have to check it out. I my friend happen to learn terms from other things like books. I greatly appreciate informative info on prospective jobs such as what avbug and TurboS7 provided. However well intended, I don't need someone who's watched one to many movies (from the safety of his/her living room) to give me their opinion on whether or not I should pursue a career in the "intel" community.

want2flyy wrote:

[.no offense...do you think it is like the Air America movie? Just curious, because if you want to fly contract...well, good luck to you..in Colombia...or where ever...if you want to get into intel...thats a whole different ball game, and yes as avbug stated you will make those in Virginia very suspicious with too much interest. My advise based on what you ask,without knowing more of your specific desires, keep flying...and just, well...forget about intel work]

I may be on a public board looking for information (not necessarily information from the public) but I'm not looking for advice on career moves, there's a big difference. I never claimed to work in the "intel" community mister, I have however been in the military for over 10 years, flying attack helicopters for 7. Not trying to sound cool, but I've flown in Korea, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, and a few other places doing attack helicopter operations. I'm not an off the shelf CFI looking to be the next james bond. I just want to serve on a little different playing field, that's all. Thanks for the spelling correction by the bye.

 

[earlthesquirrel]

Hey Roninpilot;

Go to aptap.org and ask the same question. You may get a more informed reply. I imagine that most of your replies are from 18 year old, zit-popping, video game playing, quick hide the Maxim under the bed because mommy is coming, wannabees.

thanks for your service

earl

 

[capnflyright]

Ronin,
Take a look at Dyncorp. They have several government contracts, namely with the State Department spraying coca and poppy fields in Colombia(and throughout the world for that matter). They use "advisers" to help "train" the indigenous pilots flying the helicopters such as the blackhawks they are receiving from the U.S. I am also interested in this line of work, but have found it difficult to arouse any interest in my attempts to gain employment. I have found that as the times change so does the opportunities(i.e. Soldiers of Fortune are no longer called "mercenaries" in the professional world, they are now "Executive Logistics Managers" or "Technical Advisors"). As Avbug has stated above, the CIA no longer buys aircraft or starts airlines like they did in the 1950, 60 and 70's. Your best bet is to do intensive research into aircraft operators which specialize in operations not particularly helpful to the ordinary GA or commercial pilot(i.e. Operator in Arizona with DC-3 offering type ratings and training with NVGs in the aircraft as well). Also look up operators using aircraft with extraordinary abilities. Southern Air Transport used to have the largest fleet of C-130s(L-100s) in the world and some of their ads publicized the fact that they specialized in remote, unimproved airstrip operations. There was a company which used C-130s for wilderness fire suppression. Well, it turns out that they were also used in operations throughout the world as well on a contract basis to government agencies. To make a long story short, these type of jobs aren't going to be published in an outright fashion. With your experience I would start by looking into flying for the UN or other agency that the CIA would pull aircraft and pilots from. I hope this helps and let me know if you find out anything.

 

[avbug]

Three companies operated Herc's doing fire suppression. None were used internationally in remote locations. I took the first one of those aircraft out of the country for a quick job in Mexico, and it took almost three days of negotiations to get it across the border.

SAT was another matter. When they folded, a number of their hercs went to Transafrik, who proceeded to get several shot down and destroyed by landmines within a few months.

Oh, **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**. I have to hide under the bed. Here comes my mommy...

 

[capnflyright]

Hercs were used internationally by contractors who supposedly had them on fire contracts. These Hercs were supposedly at their assigned fire bases and at times called upon, but they were not available because they were "elsewhere". This is information now available to the public because there were some folks in Southern Cal who went on trial for fraud concerning these C-130s.

 

[capnflyright]

My bad,
It wasn't in Southern Cal, it was in Tucson, AZ. This operator was one who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

 

[avbug]

I take that back. You're talking about T&G aviation, and yes, they did send their airplanes to France. However, they had permission to do that, and it was never a matter of claiming to have the airplanes on contract in the US, and then leaving the country. That didn't happen.

The issue was the use of the airplanes after procurement from the military, in exchange for older firefighting airplanes (mostly C-119's) which were traded to military museums.

The entire affair was actually a cover for the people who really brokered the deal, and who are now in prison, who were fronting for a certain agency who was attempting to procure over 100 A-10's in the name of firefighting. Ultimately, those airplanes were to be farmed out to international recipients.

The C-130's and P-3's were just cover for the A-10's. The hype about alternate use of the herc's was nothing more than media misdirection (and very misplaced, as it caused several people a lot of trouble who were doing nothing wrong) to draw attention from the intended illicit use of the A-10's.

It wasn't Tucson, incidentally. It was Phoenix. The brokering of the aircraft was in California, however. The lions share of the controversy about the use of the herc's wasn't the overseas issue, but the use of the airplanes in Alaska to haul fish, during the off season.

The matter is closed now, as the USFS took title of the aircraft, directly from the DoD, three years ago. Indictments are still pending on the origonal use of the aircraft against several key individuals, while we may soon see more aircraft released to the operators for the same purposes. The next year of so shall tell.

 

[flint4xx]

The guys I know are gone over nine months out of the year, fly alot on average equipment. VERY HIGH TURNOVER. It ain't as great as you think it is.

 

[Simon Says]

Avbug, I dont know where you came from, but you are a walking encyclapedia. I hope you are not a Designated Examiner!

Anyways how about Evergreen Aviation out of McMinnville OR. I thought they did quite a bit of work for our "friends" at the CIA. I think most of it is fixed wing though.