Kenny Keller and Chris break down helicopter pilot jobs beyond the obvious ones: EMS, news, tours, firefighting, power-line patrol, law enforcement, and stranger gigs like mosquito control, tuna-boat support, and Christmas-tree work. Most require relocation and flight hours, but they're real paths that lead somewhere if you stick with it.
All right, Hogs Daily Flight Brief Number 7. And Chris brought this one up this morning. What are the types of helicopter jobs? And that's. And I said, great question. All the time people ask that. And when you start really thinking about it, helicopters are used for so many different purposes. You know, there's the obvious ones that we talk about often is ems. You know, starting out as a certified flight instructor, I've done news reporting, 135 charter.
How about that? And I even do that. And I forgot to mention that one this morning.
Exactly. He does 135 charter now. Photography flights, Forestry. Be thinking of something. I'm not thinking of power, Jed. Well, I said forestry, but Jed, one of my students from years ago, that video, I'll put a link below, has 6 million views of Jed that flies along power lines and cuts trees with this saw that hangs below the helicopter. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I was blown away by how cool that is.
Yeah. What else is there? So just as a little backstory or not backstory, but just a little info there. People often ask me, well, are there jobs out there for helicopters? And I say, yeah, they're out there all the time. For one, though, you have to be willing most of the time, at least in my case, living in northern Indiana, you got. You might have to be willing to relocate. Yes, that's a big one. Is willing to. If you want that first CFI job, you're probably going to have to relocate. If you want that first tour job, you're probably going to have to relocate where somebody actually flies tours. They want to see what's going, you know, Florida, South Carolina, the Grand Canyon, that kind of stuff. So, you know, as a newer, younger person that wants to build hours, you know, you may have to relocate to get that first job. But they are out there. I mean, there's two or three websites out there that, you know, I get on a weekly basis that shows me helicopter jobs.
Yep. Okay.
So one is relocation, you may have to relocate. And two, we've talked about in previous video, you got to have the hours to do it. Now to throw on what he said, you know, I named 10 sitting in the classroom, but now let's see if I can do it. So let's see here. So ems, eng, which is electronic news gathering. Yep. Power line patrol. Law enforcement. Yep.
Law enforcement. I didn't think of that one.
Border protection.
Yep.
Firefighting.
Yep.
Mosquito control.
Yeah.
I, I have flown deer counting for. I guess I could go under forestry or park service?
Yep.
I've actually flown helicopter to go count deer in a certain area.
Yep.
Darn it.
You fly Notre Dame football games?
That's. Yeah, that's kind of law enforcement. Notre Dame traffic. Gosh. What was that one I said mosquito control.
Cherry tree drying.
Yeah, I flew over above cherry trees or apple? It was an apple orchard for me. Above apple orchard for eight hours straight, keeping the frost off. So you've got that.
Tuna boats?
Yeah, tuna boats flying offshore on tuna boats. Cattle or herd ranching?
Yes, Cattle wrestling?
Yeah, not wrestling. You don't want a cattle wrestling, but wrestling.
Yeah, cattle wrestling. Yeah, something like that.
Something like that, but yeah, herding, basically. So there's what, nine, ten right there? I mean.
Oh, more.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's, there's all kinds of. They're out there, but you just gotta, you know, you gotta possibly relocate or gotta have the time in, you know, so they're, they're out there. I get a daily, at least once a week. I get emails or, you know, my websites tell me, hey, these are what's hiring.
Yep. Well, and the thing about it is that I've always said, you know, economies go up and down, the world changes. But to get a job, a profession that you want, it takes effort, it takes doing your best, it takes being a go getter. I don't care whether, how do I want to put it, you gotta go after it regardless, and you gotta promote yourself and you gotta study hard, you gotta be the best you can be and you gotta sell yourself. But there's no different than any other profession out there. You know, if you want it and you chase it, you will get there if you have the motivation. You know, Kris has struggled a long time too. Just like we've all, everybody's, almost everybody has a struggle from their past trying to get started in the industry. And, you know, you've had plenty of your own. I've had plenty of my own. And now you're finally at that point where you can really kind do almost whatever you want.
Getting close, almost there, but just.
It just takes time to get there. So every single job, you know, there's entry level, there's always requirements, and it's moving up the ladder like you do in any career. You got to start out doing one thing and then as you get time and experience, you can do more. So if you got some other helicopter job ideas that we didn't mention, type them below because that's just coming off the top of our head. When you get really thinking about it. Helicopters are used in so many different lengths work. I bet there's another 10 or 15 or 20 that we're not even thinking of.
You know there's probably a bunch Christmas tree Christmas trees. See I just I don't know what that falls under but yeah Christmas tree falling. Yeah you know logging. There's another one long.
Exactly. Yeah the list goes on and on. So let us know what else you want to see in our upcoming HOGS Daily flight brief videos. Go down below for a free copy of top 10 checkride tips free PDF copy that's down below a link for helicopterground.com as down below where you can check out our helicopter line ground school memberships. Take them for a free 24 hour test flight. Give us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Click that little beat little bell to be notified of the next HOGS flight brief video and we'll see you in the next video. Because you know what.
