So... Any way to make a decent living in FW air ambulance?

[Goose Egg]

we fly with co-pilots in our c90's and have an opening now. Usually upgrade after a year or so. PM me if interested.

PM sent...

-Goose

 

[EdAtTheAirport]

Air ambulance is a kick, especially if you have a ramp to load the patients. (If you don't, you'll be loading 300+ pound people while scrunched over). Home most, if not every night.

The downside is that pay hits a plateau in just a few years. You'll look over at your buddy with Company X and see that he's making twice what you are, has flown a few newer airplanes, and maybe has a cool Type on his ticket.

Great retirement flying, and good for family life, but rarely a career move. Time builds very slowly unless you're with a whore operator. Different discussion.

 

[Nolife]

The downside is that pay hits a plateau in just a few years. You'll look over at your buddy with Company X and see that he's making twice what you are, has flown a few newer airplanes, and maybe has a cool Type on his ticket.

Great retirement flying, and good for family life, but rarely a career move. Time builds very slowly unless you're with a whore operator. Different discussion.

I concur with the above. Helping people is nice but in the end you need to help your family first. Home lots, ok paycheck (my 91 buds are doing much better), getting tired of the 1am calls for a 14 hr day with 4-8 hrs flight though. Could be worse.

Ideally, I'd like to make 150k+, fly a nice plane, be home every night, and fly only 20 hrs a month. Anyone know where I can find that job?

 

[CaravanMan]

Air ambulance is a kick, especially if you have a ramp to load the patients. (If you don't, you'll be loading 300+ pound people while scrunched over). Home most, if not every night.

The downside is that pay hits a plateau in just a few years. You'll look over at your buddy with Company X and see that he's making twice what you are, has flown a few newer airplanes, and maybe has a cool Type on his ticket.

Great retirement flying, and good for family life, but rarely a career move. Time builds very slowly unless you're with a whore operator. Different discussion.

Good post.

 

[Porter]

Just don't work for Lifeguard Air Ambulance. The owner thinks pilots are blue collar and will work for nothing. He is about to find out differently.

 

[EdAtTheAirport]

There are like 5 companies that use the Lifeguard name. Which one are you referring to?

 

[avbug]

I've worked for several medevac companies. Some are very good, few are companies that are what you might call career options. All are 135 operators, most attempt to keep you on a pager, or living on site, around the clock. In many cases, your callout might be one in the afternoon, or one in the morning, and they attempt to get you to identify your rest in retrospect...an illegal act.

I interviewed with a turbojet ambulance operator several days ago who described this as their practice too. Probably a step above other operators, they were still open and honest in the interview in saying that they don't offer benifits, don't like pilots who say no, will pressure pilots to fly, and need pilots who can live with a few squawks because the airplane isn't making money if it isn't flying. Their pay was substandard for the aircraft, with no longevity, and they wanted a year contract signed for a recurrent training slot at FSI.

To some, that might sound like a good thing...but it's not.

Ambulance work...many companies fly those who can afford it, and turn down those who can't. It's a business after all. That's illegal, of course, but many do. So rewarding might be the case, if you believe picking and choosing patients on their financial status is okay...rewarding if leaving behind the truly needy is the right thing to do.

I've spent time in some of the poorest places in the country, flying out patients who lived in places that had no windows and doors, flying from dirt airstrips, and flying out of the country, too. I gave my upmost to each patient, each passenger, but I also saw the way the company tended to deal with them; they were viewed as low cost cargo.

I've been put on antibiotic programs and given shots following some patients...programs that turned my sweat orange and made the roof of my mouth burn. I've had patients spraying fluids, and have been hauled from the airplane and thrown into the mix when the ambulance crew bailed out...leaving my medical crew to fight for someone's life, with me in there getting sprayed too.

Some of the hardest things I've done have included carrying the little bodies of children who didn't make it, or sitting for six somber hours with the family of a cancer patient being flown home to die, or flying child after child to cancer centers...where they too would soon die. Someone needs to do it. But it can get to you.

Ambulance flying isn't time building, and it's different than charter or freight. When you have a patient on board who may very well die if you don't get to a particular point on the ground, or who will die if you don't fly in to pick them up, you may feel additional pressure to make the flight, rather than say "no." The ability to be able to be impartial and make safety of flight decisions based strictly on the facts, no matter what the consequences, is a responsibility that isn't always easy, and shouldn't be taken lightly.

I'll agree that ambulance work is a mission you can get behind, but I'll caution that it's definitely not for everybody. The quality of life is different...you can go anywhere, any time, and frequently do. I can't count the number of times I was called out of church, out of a movie, out of dinner, out of sleep, to take a flight. Not unlike time critical charter or freight in that respect.

At any rate, few elect to do it for more than a year or two, so no, it's not really what you'd call a career move.

 

[Hobit]

Avbug,

Is it usually a single pilot crew?

 

[avbug]

That really depends who you're working for, and what you're flying. Most kinds of operations are single pilot, but if you're flying an aircraft that requires two pilots (eg, Learjet, Westwind, etc) then it's got to be a two pilot crew.

The ability for an operator to run with just one pilot depends upon what the operator is authorized to do. A company may have operations specifications authorizing an autopilot in lieu of a SIC for operations under IFR, or it may not. Some companies advertise two pilots as a selling point, most don't.

 

[Say Again Over]

Some companies advertise two pilots as a selling point, most don't.

Right, and then there's some single pilot operations that like to advertise that there's room for a family member to ride along, not good for the pilot though.