HH-60 Pilot Wants Overseas Work

[Combat Jump]

I am posting this on behalf of a friend who is a rotory wing pilot looking for work in Iraq, possibly other areas overseas.

He has been flying Pave Hawks as an active duty Air National Guard pilot based in California with over two thousand flight hours. He has had a short tour of duty in Afghanistan, and experience flying counterdrug missions for LEO. He is interested in an organization with good maintenance of their equipment.

I appreciate your input.

[BKK]

Firstly, your friend needs to get out there and develop his own network if he wants to find a PMC flying job. Just like the hired gun world, it is all about who you know, and who is going to reccomend you.

It is actually quite hard to find good people for these PMC flying jobs. The guy has to have all the right FAA civilian licenses for the job (At times not just what he Military gave them), their personal situation has to allow them to spend a good length of time away (Not all jobs have rotations in place), and they have to be able to adapt and fit in to operations that don't have all the perks of Big Military.

Most of the guys hiring pilots are Chief Pilots. They are not into being HR guys, and will always take a current internal persons recommendation of a guy over some higher qualified guy who they have no idea of. Unless a guy is a proven entity (Has worked other contracts) there is a large risk that a lot of time and money could be invested into the wrong guy.

To the point of your posting. The only company actively (and Publicly) looking for RW pilots is Blackwater Aviation. They are looking for MD530 pilots to fly in Iraq, however your friend does not have three things they require. 3500 hours total time, MD500 (Little bird) time, and not a former TF160 guy (They have their clic). The only other big companies would be Dyncorp in South America, or Afghanistan. Afghanistan slots are all filled for this year. Slots in South America require Spanish speaking if you are an outsider, and most of those jobs are Instructor jobs, requiring an FAA CFI, or a prior military IP status. All other jobs have to be found out from networking, as they are not advertised frequently.

[medic101]

http://www.evergreenaviation.com/EHI/index.html


They may be headed to the box.

[BKK]

Airscan has no Helos. The only jobs with Dyn which are jobs that actually conduct operations are the ones with the DoS Airwing contract. They do their own recruiting, and don't rely on Dyn Fort Worth for getting pilots. I know this since I work, or haved worked for both of the above companies. Check out JSFIRM for Blackwater, Evergreen, and DoS Airwing jobs.

[Combat Jump]

Thanks for the input. I will pass this along.