Simviation Forums

Hi

I'm 14 now, and not sure what I want to do as a career. I want to do something which involves commercial jets (eg. 777s) but I don't want to be a pilot due to the lack of family time etc.

Any job suggestions? (Preferably with high wages)

I live in Auckland, NZ and would prefer not having to move since Auckland is awesome.

Hi

I'm 14 now, and not sure what I want to do as a career. I want to do something which involves commercial jets (eg. 777s) but I don't want to be a pilot due to the lack of family time etc.

Any job suggestions? (Preferably with high wages)

I live in Auckland, NZ and would prefer not having to move since Auckland is awesome.

The CEO . I did research that for you and I found That someone else had already asked that question somewhere else. And it seems that a hight voltage cable inspector Really gets paid . But it takes allot of guts.

High wages, yeah everyone wants that.

As for jobs in aviation that are not a pilot:
Airport management (What I do)
Air traffic control
Airport Firefighter (What I also do)
Baggage Handler
Gate Agent
Aircraft mechanic
FAA inspectors
Line crew (fuels the planes)

There are a lot more jobs "behind the scenes" of aviation than there are pilot jobs. 

So non-flying jobs around commercials?

There is a wide range of possibilities...

Ground crew - Including engineers, air traffic control, airport security or fire service, cleaning assistants, etc.

Air crew - That is all your inflight stuff. Pilot is the major one, but less commonly now there is navigator/engineer too. However, cockpit crew jobs are usually very expensive to get the right training in; scholarships are rare. The other possibilities include flight attendant or bartender (the latter is uncommon and requires only a couple of staff per flight on very select airlines, in first class, on a few aircraft types).


As with all jobs, the better you are, you higher you get promoted and the more you get paid.

Flight attendants can be paid

Do you like math and science?

Long story short: If you want to work with aircraft, AND want money early on, engineering

However if you want to work on aircraft then you will not be doing it for the money. I am an inspector on Boeing 737 NG and Dash 8 Q400, whilst the pay in not bad, when you look at a seven day shift, nights, weekends and holidays, then it could be a lot more. Would I do anything else apart from aircraft,

Long story short: If you want to work with aircraft, AND want money early on, engineering

However if you want to work on aircraft then you will not be doing it for the money. I am an inspector on Boeing 737 NG and Dash 8 Q400, whilst the pay in not bad, when you look at a seven day shift, nights, weekends and holidays, then it could be a lot more. Would I do anything else apart from aircraft,

General Atomics pays outrageous money to be a UAV pilot in Afganistan.  All you need is PPL and Instrument Rating.  But I guess that interferes with your preference to not be away.  Although something you will learn is that if you want to make big bucks, you will need to make sacrifices somewhere.  My friend is an engineer with Boeing and makes plenty of money, but with all the work he is doing, he gives up a lot of his free time for O/T.

General Atomics pays outrageous money to be a UAV pilot in Afganistan.

There's a good reason for civilian contractors getting paid a lot for any job (certainly not just flying) in Iraq and Afghanistan - and indeed in the surrounding theatre.

[quote]General Atomics pays outrageous money to be a UAV pilot in Afganistan.

Here is some general advice, not just aviation specific. Great pay, Great job, Great location. Pick two. If you want a well paying job in aviation, you will most likely need to move.

I spent 6 years in the Air Force, 3 years in commercial aviation and 3 more in general aviation and I was constantly on the move from place to place, company to company just trying to stay on top of the job market. I was laid off more times than I can count and generally called back. I worked as a mechanic (structural maintenance specialist) and in logistics as a materials manager. I can tell you this, the more education, degrees and certifications you can rack up, the better your pay and the better your job options will be. But you will still be limited to location.

A lot of major companies are laying off engineers at this time because they're getting the ones they keep to multitask to save money. Companies will keep wage earners from collecting overtime but will work salary workers to death.

In the end you can do it two ways. You can do something you love and have fun at it, or you can do something that will make you loads of money. Usually to make loads of money working for someone else, you have to put in so much time and effort that you won't have a lot of personal time and you may not enjoy what you do.

My Papa once told me, "Find something you love to do and find a way to make money doing it." If you're happy with what you do and you can make money doing it then you won't mind putting in lots of hours and will get more reward out of it.

I've worked aviation, IT, electrician (commercial/industrial/residential), security, and now I am self employed as a professional gunsmith. I learned early in life that I love fixing things. I don't really care what I work on, I'm just happy fixing stuff and now I make money (very little) fixing guns and I'm happy with it.