Hi All,
I wanted any tips of how to become a skydiving pilot! Actually wanted to this for a couple for years and was looking around but it’s not so easy! Sometimes high amount of hours is required(even much more than for airline FO) and turbine rating can be needed. What other experience is required for this job? I have been towing gliders for a couple of years and it’s huge fun! May personal best is 24 tows in one day! How many flights can skydive pilot do during the day max? Would be happy to hear more about this type of operations! Hope there are some skydive pilots on this forum!Airlines are actively hiring now so some skydive pilots should go this route. Is there any pilot shortage for dropzones? Anyway if you need any zone that needs pilots drop me a message. I would really appreciate that!
I am also towing gliders. We are at the same airfield as the skydivers. Permanently they got a C-206, but for special occasions they hire bigger birds like Twin Otter and PAC 750. The guy flying the 206, lives, breath and eat 206 by the looks of it. There were a couple of tow pilots that also flew the 206 from time to time when we used the PA-25 (PPL), but the one guy fly maybe 90-95 % I think that’s the normal way. Today we use a microlight to tow, and it’s only me left of the old “towing crew”. When the skydiving club have one pilot they trust and he has a very high “availability”, they will stick to him like glue. A Twin Otter requires some serious ratings I would imagine, but the PAC can be flown with PPL VFR only.
I have never heard of any required hours or anything, and as a tow pilot, you already have everything in place. The important thing is to be “available”, at least if you want to go with one club. The Twin Otter/PAC are more “commercialized” sort of, and not connected with one particular skydiving club. Maybe they have some internal minimum requirements for new pilots, I don’t know, I have never heard of any, but if they have the choice of a seriously experienced or a not so experienced, well. Being at the right place at the right time, is probably more important though.
