hey DakFink,
I'm in the UAS school right now for the same company as Chris (Aircowboy), and right now they're telling us we'll either be in Ballad or Kirkuk (Mosul).
There are a number of companies out there, AAI, NavMar, ISR Group, Lockheed and Northrup Grumman. LH and NG are more CONUS training rolls and as far as I've heard, they don't have any civilians OCONUS flying the predators, warriors and reapers. They also require a descent amount of manned aviation or UAS experience. Our bird is more surveillance based, but they require either a private/instrument civilian rating or military UAS school before hire.
The upside for you is that if you have mech experience (especially avionics) we are hiring deployable maintainers almost as rapidly as we are hiring pilots (well, 'operator' is the correct term). The job will be 10x easier than what you're doing now (most likely) and your deployment take home will be roughly 140k plus a couple other variables.
Do you have an A&P or just your Avionics cert? Also, for the age thing, one of our UAS pilots in the class is 51. Of course, he's a retired AH-64A Apache pilot, but that's besides the point!
Lemme know if you have any questions.
BONDSLAYER:
how old are ya? you could join up to fly UAVs for the Army/Navy/AF... deploy, serve your 3 years, get out, deploy as a civilian doing the exact same thing and you'll make more than enough money to open your own shop if that's your inclination.
Ty
ZZ,
Thanks for the heads up!! Not sure a job could get much easier than I actually do right now. I am the Training CoOrdinator for L-3 Vertex and sit at my desk way too much!!
But for putting me back at $140k which is what I came over here in the for in the first place, I would go back to actually working again.
We took a $7/hr pay cut back in Oct last year. About 2 -weeks ago eveyones pay was about 1/2 what it should have been. When we inquired about it, they said they missed our Hazardous Duty pay. From Day 1 we we're all told we don't get Hazard Pay. I knew that was BS because the Gov't makes that call and they haven't stopped anyone elses Hazard Pay. Needless to say several of us have inquired with a Lawyer.
I have my FCC with Radar Endorsement and have my Tickets to get my A&P!! Just have to go get it. Got my Tickets the last time I was home.
I will be home in 3 weeks, I may give you a call and get some info from you.
Balad, Kirkuk, and Mosul are all 3 different bases. I have been to all 3.
If I had a choice it would be a coin toss between Kirkuk (FOB Warrior), and Mosul (FOB Diamonhead). I hate Balad, too big, too much Air Force,(They like to play strictly by the rules no matter how stupid the rules are).
You 2 are with LSI right?
e-mail me so we don't keep Jacking This tread.
dakfink@hotmail.com
Author
