TROPIC OCEAN AIRWAYS, community report

Want to fly seaplanes in the Bahamas? Tropic Ocean Airways are hiring fresh commercial pilots with 250TT.

Check it out here. Scroll down for details from the community.

WORDS FROM THE BOSS…

“Hey guys… CEO of Tropic Ocean here. 

You need a CSES to class up, but you don’t need it to be considered. I set it up that way so you don’t have to spend the money on it just to apply. But if you get hired you’ll need to have it before day 1 of class. If you are hearing different that is incorrect and I apologize.

As Gary said, it’s hard work, especially in season… then you go weeks barely flying lol. It’s a work hard/play hard environment, not for everyone.

Some may think the QOL sucks, others love it. QOL is subjective. I have friends who are B777 captains at a major and “hate” the QOL, while others fly for a LCC and love it. it’s in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

That being said, anyone who worked for me during 2021 as we were trying to recover from a global pandemic, yeah, QOL might’ve been tough, as it was for everyone.

Anyway, lots of jobs out there. Do your research, and find a place that will train and develop you, not just give you hours. My two cents.

Aviation is awesome, try to have fun while in the early stages of your career.

Good luck with the process!”

WHAT GARY SAID…

“I got hired at Tropic Ocean with 340 hrs total time and a fresh new CSES. Spent three years there flying. I spent some time as the Training Manager and a Company Flight Instructor and assisted with the hiring there. You definitely need to have your CSES to be considered at least while I was there.

It is amazing flying to some of the prettiest places on the planet. You will work your tail off! It’s hot and hard work most of the time (loading expensive luggage on and off a pitching seaplane in the ocean and not dropping those bags in the ocean can be a challenge at times) and flying in the weather in Florida and the Bahamas in the summer time in Miami airspace is no joke! The schedule can be a challenge due to the nature of 135 Charter flying.

Early and long days but your flying skills especially with weather flying will increase 10 fold. Learning to read what the wind is doing on the water and landing in the ocean are skills that you will develop along with flying with some pretty amazing pilots.

I’m biased of course, but I absolutely don’t regret investing in myself and getting the seaplane rating and it helped me get to where I am today.

It’s not perfect and if anyone tells you it is don’t listen. Again, hot humid hard work but man is it worth it in the long run. Reach out to Shawn Webb on Linkedin if you have questions. It’s been almost a year now since I left. She can answer any of your questions. Much better to get it from her than rumors and innuendos and obviously biased reviews from me and from FB. Good luck!”

WHAT THE INTERNET HAS TO SAY…

“For what it's worth when I got my ASES, the school said they have at least 2-3 kids a week coming in there getting their ASES saying they wanted to apply to Tropic since they hire at 250, you can probably do the math on applicants and rough guess on the size of their pilot group.”

“I was a pilot there, apply if you want to fly seaplanes in the bahamas. They hire SICs but everyone wants to be a seaplane pilot in the bahamas.”

MY HUMBLE OPINION?

Well, it is an entry-level job.

Of course the competition is going to be fierce. The pay obviously can’t be anything glamourous, last I heard was $30k. And the quality of life won’t beat that of the majors. I’m sure we all understand that by now. For lack of better words, it is what it is.

I’m not putting in an application this time around because I’m flying outside of the US until further notice. But that’s the only reason why. I wanted to fly seaplanes ever since I got my commercial, so any float position? I’m 100% in. Yeah, maybe I’m just biased. 😆

Also, I intentionally omitted the negative feedback. I’m not affiliated with Tropic, but the thing with people is, opinions are subjective and the bad reviews seem to all come from pilots who didn’t get the job. A salty applicant could be commenting out of bad faith. However, a former employee has no reason to lie about the job anymore (lol), so positive feedbacks usually are a lot more reliable.

Still, freedom of speech and forming your own opinion on something, that’s fundamental. So if you want the raw feedback and where I got today’s information from, everything’s accessible via the links below. 🫡

SOURCES…

🎤 - More former employee testimonials, some applicant’s negative experience and mentions of a training contract (link)

👨‍✈️ - Rob Ceravolo (CEO) adresses the negative comments (link) and talks about the CSES requirement (link)

👨‍✈️ - Tad Smith, current pilot to DM for more info (link)

🥷 - Redditors’ take on the job, the bad and the ugly (link)

Thanks for reading this far. Because you initially subscribed for a new jobs list, I want to make sure this type of content is also valuable to you.

So if it’s not, reply to this email, and I’ll only send you the ad-hoc updates on the list. Next one probably coming at the end of the week.

If you enjoyed today’s issue though, let me know! You can forward it to your pilot friends too.

Until next time…

Ivan