Sunday Deep-dive! 🤿

Not your typical Aerial Survey company today: Dynamic Aviation.

They do a bunch of stuff: data acquisition, military contract, spray ops, air attack… I think it’s best you check them out for yourself (link).

Now, I used to see their job postings for King Air SICs all the time, but haven’t seen any in a minute now. If you guys come across one, at least you’ll have an idea of what you’re dealing with after reading this.

For what it’s worth, I still have this picture:

I think I’ll create a file where I dump every screenshot of jobs and leads and information I accumulated overtime. Who knows, you might find something unexpectedly relevant.

Anyway, let’s dive in! 

POSTED REQUIREMENTS, what we know

• FAA Commercial multi-engine pilot certificate with instrument rating

• Second class medical

• Minimum of 500 hours total time, it used to be 250

• Relocate to Bridgewater, VA

• High school diploma required, with relevant college degree preferred

• Travel extensively, schedule is roughly 35-40 days on the road at a time with 5-10 days off

these requirements are a year old and were taken from this job board. Keep in mind that job post is outdated now, but the minimums are probably the same.

WORDS FROM A FORMER PILOT

“Hello, I am a previously employed pilot for Dynamic Aviation. I was interviewed and hired with just around 260 hours total time with my commercial single and multi engine rating (multi is required) and of course an instrument rating (also required). The company advertises and says that having an A&P is highly recommended but I got hired with no mechanical background whatsoever just fine.

Dynamic Aviation as a whole does many different types of operations. Ranging from ISR work, rabies vaccinations, sterile insect technique, mosquito ultra low level, and even fire management. This is all contract work as the company does not define themselves by the operations (we never call ourselves "mosquito control pilots"). Given the nature of the work however, many things will vary based on who in the company you talk to such as pay, base, flight time, and even amount of work involved.

I personally worked on two specific operations and they both had widely different pay scales and work hours.

I did mosquito control for a while. A normal day started on standby (or "on call") and we would get the go/no go call around 1200-1300. Then, if we were flying we would head in a few hours before we were set to spray and just prep the aircraft by loading the product, planning the area we were headed to and so on. Then the flight was always a repo to the block, drop down to 300 feet AGL and begin spraying. Spraying was simply just flying lines back and forth but it was a great way to build your ILS skills up! Then we would repo back, clean the plane up and go home. The pay with that is hard to nail down because some weeks we flew a lot and some weeks we didn't fly at all, but on a good night of spray you would see about $400-$500 for one day of work. I did do the sterile insect technique work as well and I can say that the yearly pay for that was about 40k.

Across the board though, one thing new pilots can expect is great [quality but slow] time building (I personally flew about 400 hours my first year) and a nice place to build experience. The U21 is a fantastic work horse and is very forgiving to pilots that are new to turbine flying. The captains that I got to fly with were all great people, great pilots, and great mentors that were always willing to give advice and share the knowledge that they had from experience.

Another thing to expect is that the company will normally rely on the pilots to do ground work as well. Again, this varies depending on what work/contract you're doing but in my experience this includes towing aircraft (after getting qualified of course), helping with maintenance, fueling, cleaning the workspace, cleaning the aircraft, and especially the work involved with the operation (i.e loading and unloading the aircraft, talking to customers and paperwork).

Most contracts paid hourly and most depended on the work being done so it's difficult to say what a new pilot can expect in terms of yearly earnings/pay. I will say, as a person in my early 20s living in an apartment, the pay was plenty to get bills paid, food on my plate, and then a little extra. But, the pay typically falls flat in terms of competing with other big name companies. I personally never felt the pay was the biggest deal breaker for the company but I know many others that already have over 1000 hours would rather go elsewhere to make way more money, it highly depends.

Another factor to this is that Dynamic does require relocation upon hiring to either the home base in Bridgewater VA, or to another specific base around the country. Some other points worth mentioning is that there is travel benefits (per diem) and of course all the usual benefits such as medical and dental.

Lastly, for those looking to apply…

Be prepared for the interview.

The interview itself is split in two parts, the first being the sim evaluation. It takes place on a desktop sim and it typically surprises people how in depth the evaluation is. One can expect a full IFR flight from point A to point B with VOR navigation (no GPS) and full radio usage. I'm not saying they're out to fail people but I find it's always worth telling people to come prepared for that portion. Once that is done you will go to a simple HR interview which was very laid back, very friendly, informative, and welcoming.

All in all, I highly recomend Dynamic to low time pilots looking to build time as long as relocating is an option or if they already live close to a base. After I left the company and moved on to where I am now, I felt insanely prepared going through training with the knowledge and experience I gained from working at Dynamic. They treat the pilots very well and are very open to helping you when leaving to go elsewhere.”

I personally [really] like the variety of the flying, and if I could fly more hours OR if the pay was better, it would’ve been a no-brainer. The issue is, gotta have one. Because as much as quality of time matters (if you’re not 100% set on the airlines), there’s gotta be a balance, right?

At least that’s my opinion, so Dynamic probably is a no-go for me. 

I have 3 more companies in the pipeline, and after that nada… You know where I’m getting at? 😏

Here’s how to request a deep-dive on a company of your choosing: refer a friend!

Of course, you can simply just ask, without referrals to your name and I will still get to it. But, priority will be given to those who did refer friends. Sharing is caring, good deeds deserve rewards, don’t they?

hahaha just kidding!

I was given access to this new referral system for 30 days, so I thought I’d give it a try. All this refer-a-friend bs will be gone before April. 😉

Want to check out previous deep-dives?

A personal favourite (Aperture Aviation), the most detailed (Southern Airways Express) and one who recently hired one of our community members (Westwind Air Service).

There are a few more... (link)

That’ll be it, hope you enjoyed (although pretty short).

Have a good day and until next time! 🫡