Repair station ferry pilots

[airheadpenguin]

I'm a relatively new CPL-ASEL and looking for ways to make money with my new cert! I'm trying to formulate the right question and ask it to the right people.

When repair stations coordinate ferry flights for planes coming in like SR-22s, Bonanzas, 182s, 172s, etc... do they typically have:
A list of freelance pilots (familiar in those aircraft)
A list of known pilots to supply to owners and let them sort it out
In-house (part time) employees that do this

My thought is that this sounds like something to approach the Director or Maintenance about, or Director of Operations for orgs that don't have an obvious HR team since most places around here are relatively small.

Am I going down the right road?

 

[weilke]

You need to be insurable in those aircraft, either under the open pilot warranty of the aircraft owner or under a non-owned policy of the repair station/FBO. The guy our mechanic uses has 20k hrs flying for the government. It may be difficult to get into that gig with low times.

 

[flyingron]

You need to be insurable in those aircraft, either under the open pilot warranty of the aircraft owner or under a non-owned policy of the repair station/FBO. The guy our mechanic uses has 20k hrs flying for the government. It may be difficult to get into that gig with low times.

I don't know about your policy, but my policy definitely EXCLUDES employees of the repair shops. They're expected to have their own insurance. If you think you are using the owner's policy you need to be VERY careful.

Also an being just an "open pilot" will not extend protections to you. All it does is protect the OWNER from damages you may cause HIM.

 

[weilke]

I don't know about your policy, but my policy definitely EXCLUDES employees of the repair shops. They're expected to have their own insurance. If you think you are using the owner's policy you need to be VERY careful.

Good point. Depends on the policy. Ours carries a provision that doesn't restrict coverage to the named pilots while the plane is 'under the care custody or control of a federal aviation administration (FAA) approved repair station'. Important point, it has to be a repair station, Bob fixing planes out of a quonset on the far end of the airport is not included in that definition.

Also an being just an "open pilot" will not extend protections to you. All it does is protect the OWNER from damages you may cause HIM.

That is a consideration for the pilot and the repair station that may incur vicarious liability. For a young broke aspiring ferry pilot, the liability is probably less of a worry. But yeah, anyone who owns anything shouldn't ferry anyones plane without being temporarily named and approved as pilot (and with a waiver of subrogation if the policy doesn't include such a waiver for the named pilots).

Bottom line. Employability as ferry or test pilot is driven by insurability. Unless the repair station is big enough that their non-owned policy just covers any pilot they decide to hire, having 230hrs in a 172, 10 in a Arrow and a fresh commercial is going to be an obstacle.

 

[bradg33]

I used to work for an FBO that had a flight school, repair station and sales department. For most of the "average" airplanes, instructors and charter pilots were used for ferry or re-position flights. The charter pilots were preferred, as they were salaried and didn't have to be paid extra, though they were usually busy or duty time issues prevented it. The CFIs were all independents, so they got paid a daily rate for those flights. The FBO had a list of other contract pilots for anything "specialty" or unique.

It was a great way for me to build experience when I was just coming up, as I got to fly a decent variety of airplanes (And a lot of brand new ones).