Sunday Deep-dive! 🤿

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Deep Dives are the reason most of you guys have subscribed to the newsletter, and although my goal with the other type of content always is to help, let’s dive into another aerial survey operator real quick!

Today’s company is a popular destination for low time experienced survey pilots. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but some pilots get a survey job with a fresh commercial but decide to move on soon after, leaving them at the 500-to-700-hour mark.

A lot of them decide to pursue (much) better opportunities flying the C208 for Revolution Flight LLC. You can check out current openings here.

But let’s see what’s so good about them…

About the job…

Based out of Huntsville, AL (KHSV), although you can live wherever and be airlined out to your plane on rotation. They require prior survey experience and 500hrs TT. They market 700-800hrs TT, but will take folks at 500. I had a little over 600 when I got hired. When I was hired, they offered a 1month on/1 month off rotation. This worked great for me, but is something they are getting away from. Now they only hire FT (basically on the road all the time - great for single people that are able to be away from home for a year). The job is salaried at 40k/yr. You are paid regularly every 2 weeks even when off rotation. They have a new bonus structure for new hires. Stay 10months, earn an extra 10k. Say 12months, earn an extra 20k. So staying a full year will net you an extra $30,000. Although, if you are flying fulltime all the time, then you'll likely hit whatever minimums you need to go 135, 121, etc before the year is up. There are also other bonuses for no reflies, timely reporting, and no pilot induced maintenance. Additionally you can make $50/hr per flight hour past 6hrs. All these extras are paid out about 6 weeks after they are earned and are lumped together on our paystubs as 'retention bonus'. AKA if you quit before you get the bonus, then you don't get it. 

Let’s talk $, and pros VS cons…

Per diem is typically $200/day to cover hotel, car, and food. We usually have full latitude to use at our discretion. It isn't a true per diem in that, whatever we don't spend, we only get 50% of it back. Some clients we fly for cover our hotel and car, in which case we get a per diem of $60/day for food. Revolution flight only flies C208, so their recruiting efforts tend to highlight that you'll be getting turbine time. 

Rev leases planes/pilots to a whole bunch of different clients with a variety of different sensors. Much of my time with Rev has been with pictometry clients so my hours have been quite a bit lower around 42hrs/month. We also work with LiDar clients which have less issues with weather and we can fly at night (yay!) One guy somehow pulled nearly 270hrs in a month flying LiDar. Rev also asks for a year commitment, but does not have you sign a contract. Instead they offer those hefty bonuses for those that do stick around a year.

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

• Good

  • All C208 fleet - turbine time! I think Multi Piston > Single Turbine, but still better than single piston.

  • Generally the planes are IFR capable (couple are questionable), so you can reposition in IFR/night to build some of those hours.

  • Salaried, so my pay is generally predictable and I can budget around that. 

  • Hours can be very good if you get LiDar

  • Generally planes are well maintained

  • Get to keep all hotel and rental car points. If you are good with logistics, you can easily come out ahead here. I'm top tier in both Hilton and Marriot. Marriot also gives me status with United.

  • I got hired when Month On/Month Off rotation was the norm. I really appreciate the predictable home/away from home balance.

  • We manage all of our own logistics: rental car, hotel, basing, airline tickets

  • The Caravan is so easy to fly. It's kinda almost a joke that it is easier than a C172.

• Bad

  • Some clients are too micromanaged. Particularly in pictometry

    • Sometimes very abrupt change of plans that you aren't expecting given the maps you have to fly

  • Pay is pretty low @ 40k

  • Communication from management. They expect and preach communication from the pilots, but are pretty bad when it comes to disseminating any information back.

  • Because there isn't really a 'season' that Rev operates, they are often hiring year round. As such, you typically don't have a big hire group so you don't often meet many other pilots (even though you chat with them). I think I've only met about 50% of the pilots from Rev so far. 

• Ugly

  • Generally, as far as survey operations go, Rev is pretty good. 

Right now, I'm about 300hrs from the airlines and will probably stick with Rev until I'm in a regional class. I do actively seek repositioning at night time to build those hours. And whenever I'm with another pilot, I work on getting hood time. Often times, I'll ask local CFI's if they want to be my safety pilot to get them a little turbine time as well. The job itself has a lot of variety in projects. I've been to both coasts and everywhere in between, even a little international stuff. 

Becoming a Rev pilot…

Getting hired, you'll need to have previous survey experience. In my opinion, that is just a weeding criteria. The pilot displays of anything I've ever flown all present the same information, just looks a little bit different between systems. As a pilot, you are basically just flying a tight glidepath for 8hrs/day. So really if you are IFR proficient and can read a pilot display, you'll be fine. As with most operators, Rev is flooded with resumes of prospective pilots. It really is true that you need to basically have an internal reference to even get looked at. 

Training is a few days in Huntsville, doing some training and HR paperwork. Then you'll be sent to another pilot already in the field for on the job training. This is where you'll learn the basics of the daily life at rev and the specifics on the client's sensor that you'll be flying. 

That’s it for today. I’ll talk to you guys soon for the Skylens cohort!