What was the most fun job you had flying

real.cowboy.pilot · Post by **real.cowboy.pilot** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 11:15 am

What jobs did you guys feel like you were the happiest and having the most fun doing as a pilot? Just gathering ideas on career paths!

marakii · Post by **marakii** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 11:31 am

Bush pilot/floatplane flying is for me my finest days of flying, especially the piper cub on floats with the stick. A great flying experience indeed for me.

floatplane flying !!

Big Pistons Forever · Sat Sep 30, 2017 12:34 pm

Consistently the most fun is Formation flying, although fire bombing had it's moments

HansDietrich · Post by **HansDietrich** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:32 pm

Probably the one I have now. Dash 8 at Jazz...

1. I'm not on call
2. I don't fly medevacs anymore

BE20 Driver · Post by **BE20 Driver** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:24 pm

Ice strip/off-field work. I loved the challenge of getting in and out of a difficult off strip field.
Airlines are boring places to ride out the sunset of your career.

Schooner69A · Post by **Schooner69A** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:40 pm

For sustained pleasure: probably with a company for whom I laboured way down east. While there and over a period of fifteen years, I flew
Cessna 337
Cessna 206
Commander 500
Bell Jet Ranger
Eurocopter AStar
Commander 1000
Cessna Caravan
Cessna Citation
Dehavilland Twin Otter
HS-125-700

Concur with BPE : there’s nothing like formation and formation aerobatics…

goingnowherefast · Post by **goingnowherefast** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 7:18 pm

Floats was a blast. Its actually where my username came from, because they go so damn slow. Lifestyle sucks when you get laid off every fall though.

HansDietrich · Post by **HansDietrich** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 7:23 pm

goingnowherefast wrote:Floats was a blast. Its actually where my username came from, because they go so damn slow. Lifestyle sucks when you get laid off every fall though.

Can you collect unemployment if you sing up to a "contract / seasonal" job?

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 7:29 pm

Aerial application.

Schooner69A · Post by **Schooner69A** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 9:07 pm

"Cat: aerial application"

Yes, I would have enjoyed that. Did a very little bit of herbiciding with a Jet Ranger.

goingnowherefast · Post by **goingnowherefast** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 7:32 am

HansDietrich wrote:
goingnowherefast wrote:Floats was a blast. Its actually where my username came from, because they go so damn slow. Lifestyle sucks when you get laid off every fall though.
Can you collect unemployment if you sing up to a "contract / seasonal" job?

Yes, but there's very few float jobs that are based somewhere you would want to live in the off season. So you are working for 6 months in the bush/remote area, and then 6 months with family. Great for single people, not so good long term.

Of course there are exceptions, Harbour Air, winter ski flying, etc. They are the exception though.

lownslow · Post by **lownslow** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 8:09 am

Best job so far was teaching at one of the evil puppy mills. Good pay, benefits, hella vacation, only went up in beautiful weather, top notch equipment, Monday to Friday and back home by mid-afternoon.

Don't ask why I'm not there anymore because I don't know either.

x15 · Post by **x15** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 8:46 am

Flying a Navajo single pilot out of Thompson, Manitoba. Great group of people to work with, well maintained airplanes, no pressure. It was tonnes of fun.

Monorail Conductor · Post by **Monorail Conductor** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 10:44 am

Twin Ottering out of YZF.

Hard work and long days. It was the type of fun that was usually fun AFTER the fact, not so much during ie drill moves across the tundra in january, loading outboard motors and large metal objects by hand off a rickety dock in july, covered in mosquitos.

I can sincerely appreciate the relative ease of bombing around in a dash 8 with the autopilot and a cupholder nowadays, but i do on occasion find myself missing "the suck."

altiplano · Post by **altiplano** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 10:55 am

Peeling around VFR low level BC/West coast in a fast turboprop...

The job itself was meh, but the good flying days were superb.

EPR · Post by **EPR** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 5:47 pm

Flying the venerable DHC6 Twin Otter up North in the following order: on skis, floats and then tundra tires for off strip work...fondly remembered!

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Mon Oct 02, 2017 7:13 am

We can keep this thread going longer by asking what was the " least " fun job you have had.

For me it was flying in the air show business.

chipmunk · Post by **chipmunk** » Mon Oct 02, 2017 7:41 am

Most fun was low level survey flying and the associated ferry flying all over the place.
Hand flying a Dash 7 at 400 feet AGL in South America was the highlight.

Least fun? Haven't found it yet, and I don't aim to do so

Flying Low · Post by **Flying Low** » Tue Oct 03, 2017 10:10 am

Most fun? That's easy! Flying a Supercub off logging roads doing recon for spray planes. Also flew aerial seeding with the Supercub and was taught the visual perspective (we used photos and eyeballed the lines back then) by flying in formation. Always flew upwind of the lead plane so got to change sides during the teardrop turn at the end of each line.

digits_ · Post by **digits_** » Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:13 am

Instructing on floats at the end of float season.

Any type of flying that involves mountains, fair weather and no pressure to get somewhere.

Rowdy · Post by **Rowdy** » Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:55 am

Most fun flying? or most fun job? Two totally different things. I've also been fortunate to get to do a lot of cool things. Ferried a lot of airplanes. Flew floats all over the country. A few years with Borek in the arctic. Medevac. Survey. Spotting. Flew in the maldives. Flew floats on the coast. Name a community in canada and I've been there! Been to both the true and magnetic pole... anyways..

Was hard to beat the group I was in the Maldives with. We had a blast. Flying was alright too. Pretty flat out there though. Everyone always loves flying the 6 on pontoons. I'll never forget some of the happenings and parties.

Best flying? My time at Tofino Air. Mountain Tours. Taking off and landing in the ditch. Charters to alpine lakes and remote spots all up and down the south and mid coast, forays into the chilcotin and okanagan (pretty fun landing on Osoyoos lake mid summer with all the rec boaters and 38 deg heat) . Stopping between drops for a dip in the hot springs. Going for a swim with passengers on a picnic trip. Dropping off surfers on some of the many breaks on the west coast of van isle, picking up hikers fresh off the west coast trail. Some of their stories were epic. Coastal inlets. Private island getaways. Loggers, fishermen, doctors, nurses, dentists, Chiefs, tourists from all over the world, and surprisingly a lot of airplane nerds that just desperately wanted a ride in the Ol Beav. Celebs on board every other day. Sure the daily grind of a billion nanaimo harbour scheds... but I seemed to get all the fun charters... Kinda glad they never hired me next door

I dig the career job I have now too.. but for totally different reasons!

pelmet · Post by **pelmet** » Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:42 pm

Flying the Twin Otter to just about every island in the High Arctic and a few other areas could be the both best job and the worst job. It just depended on what the job was. It could be back-breaking work with loads of bugs and sweat and digging out of the mud or freezing your ass off or light loads flying to the coolest places you have ever seen in comfortable temperatures. Fortunately for me, most of my stuff was the good stuff.

Airtids · Post by **Airtids** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:01 am

As with lots of folks here, it was a mix. Maybe it was the mix?! Morning floatplane charter into some remote alpine lake (Evans Lake in the Valhallas is spectacular- look it up!), afternoon fire patrol in the 337 ripping along at low altitude, cranking and banking putting together an Initial Fire Report and feeling really good about the work you are doing, and finishing off with an evening C172 scenic flight over the local glacier. Oh yeah, and winters in Mexico were nice too!

Don't get me wrong- I love my current gig too, but for different reasons. And FUN ain't exactly one of them!

Tids

Adam Oke · Post by **Adam Oke** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:14 am

Aerial Application was the most fun I had flying. It was the most lucrative as well. It was also the most restrictive. Near zero summer fun, ball and chain to work from June to September, and isolated from friends and family for the duration. I missed out on camping, weddings, birthdays, sailing, canoeing, house boats, fishing, festivals, you name it -- you have that commitment to work hard for about 3.5 months.

Now sitting in a Q, I certainly don't have as much FUN, but the lifestyle exchange was bar none the best change I could have ever done. For the first time in over a decade, I have enjoyed my summer and I did not have to BUY my summer in the winter months. I have a relatively predictable schedule, and a steady pay cheque. Though the pay is substantially lower, there is value in RSP matching, benefits, and having a KNOWN value come in every 2 weeks -- vs starting the season wondering if I was going to make 30k or 90k for the season (re:year).

That being said, I wouldn't have traded my career thus far for anything. A good paying job in the early years has set me up for a very stress free life with a great financial foundation -- regardless of this 1.5 year pay cut. I should be close to my normal levels of pay by mid next year -- so I can enjoy even more fun on my scheduled, guaranteed days off with a pay cheque coming in regardless of how many acres sprayed.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:55 am

Did you get to fly the Cubs and Stearman's Adam?

The Stearman was an awesome machine for Ag. work but I guess their day is long gone.

What was the most fun job you had flying

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