Flying Dogs for a Living

NealRomeoGolf

NealRomeoGolf

En-Route
PoA Supporter
Joined
Apr 12, 2016
Messages
4,952
Location
Illinois
Display Name
Display name:
NRG
So here is my own thread on quitting a cubicle (office) job and flying for a living. Probably just midlife crisis musings rather than reality.

I'm a 170 hour pilot. There are days I hate my job. There are weeks like next week that will push 70 hours. The bright side is I get paid really well. So well that I have saved enough to do one of two things. I can quit my job for a year and fly dogs "for a living" or I can buy a 1980s vintage A36.

The irrational side of my brain says I quit my job (in a few years after returning from my overseas assignment) and fly 30 hours a week and in a year (give or take) I hit 1500 hours. If I am loving it by the end of the year, maybe I get a job flying. If I don't, I go back to working the office job.

Obviously I won't have a dispatch rate to keep up with 30 hours of flying each week. And maybe there aren't enough dogs to fly around to give me 30 hours a week. But I bet there are. I fly an Archer. It is slow. I can cross the country plenty of times with dogs and tack on the hours. I also have siblings on both coasts. Lots of people I can visit.

I am a fairly risk averse person when it comes to money. I guess that makes me a good accountant. Quitting my job and not having an income would freak me out. But I LOVE flying dogs around.

I would get some ratings along the way too. First would be instrument. Would be smart to get it started before quitting my job. If I want 30 hours a week I definitely can't get them all VFR. To get a flying job I would also need to get my commercial and multi of course. I just have no desire to get my CFI and instruct to build hours. So yeah, me ever getting to 1500 hours will have to happen on my own dime the hard way.

Challenges:
Flying this much I would be changing the oil every two weeks. Better learn to do it myself.
My engine is past 1200 hours already. Depending on how well things go, an engine overhaul may bite me in the middle of the adventure. But this engine has been real solid and the current oil analysis looks really good.
Winter. Probably not going to get 30 hours a week during the winter since I am based out of Illinois. Perhaps I can pick up some financial consulting gigs during the winter to be able to extend my flying past a year.
Dispatch rate. So far my plane has been very reliable in the 2 years I have owned it. But what happens when you really make it work hard?
Fatigue. I have never tried to fly 30 hours in a week. Could I keep it up week after week?

And the biggest challenge: getting the wife to agree to any of this. I could mitigate some of her concerns by limiting my radius so that I am home most nights. This would mean a 3 hour trip radius to get 6 hours per day. But that would then limit the availability of dogs. It would be much more fun to pick up pups all over the country so I could put in some long hour days and also see the country from 7,000 feet.

So much of this is unrealistic, but hey, put your dreaming hat on. If you could take a year off of work and do nothing but leisurely fly around with canine passengers, would you do it?

Then there is option 2. Keep the job and buy an A36. I could continue to fly dogs on the weekends and have a fun fast plane. I can retire at 55 (which is 15 years out) and then fly dogs all I want.

Really this is just the midlife crisis talking, but thought I would put my thoughts out there for your entertainment and comments. :cool: Pour it on boys and girls.
 
As someone who went the route of turning my flying hobby into a job and then realized I needed a new hobby, I vote for option 2. They say do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. I say BS. Jobs are work. Even if you like what you're doing, its still a job. I like flying on my terms way more than I ever liked doing it on someone else's but that's just me. Truth be told, I got to the point where I never wanted to fly again and got out of the business. Best decision I ever made but like I said, that's just me. YMMV.
 
IFR winter flying in Illinois will probably encounter a fair amount of ice, limiting your potential 30 hour per week accumulation.
Pilots around here are making a good six figures flying corporate, and the majors pay even better.
Depends on what you mean by being paid really well.
In the end, don't look back and wish you should have....
 
No offense to Ted but I still don’t understand how you can fly dogs for a living. Money has to come in somewhere to have anything to Wright off correct?
 
Grum.Man said:
No offense to Ted but I still don’t understand how you can fly dogs for a living. Money has to come in somewhere to have anything to Wright off correct?
Click to expand...

either you pay for it (not ideal when quitting your job to build hours) or you get other people to pay for your flying and airplanes and airplane repairs.
 
Grum.Man said:
No offense to Ted but I still don’t understand how you can fly dogs for a living. Money has to come in somewhere to have anything to Wright off correct?
Click to expand...

I might be wrong, but I read it as a humorous paraphrase of "fly dogs around for fun and hour-building while living off my savings." :)
 
Juliet Hotel said:
As someone who went the route of turning my flying hobby into a job and then realized I needed a new hobby, I vote for option 2. They say do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. I say BS. Jobs are work. Even if you like what you're doing, its still a job. I like flying on my terms way more than I ever liked doing it on someone else's but that's just me. Truth be told, I got to the point where I never wanted to fly again and got out of the business. Best decision I ever made but like I said, that's just me. YMMV.
Click to expand...

I have to concur. Shy of the fighter I wanted I never got to fly, my current gig is as close as I'll get in this life to doing exactly what I wanted to do for a living. So I'm not complaining on that front. Thing is, when I sat back and looked at the things that motivate me to keep going, it was quite a shock to realize just how much of a hassle much of this so called "dream" has become. To your point, it is truly hard work. I enjoy some aspects of the challenge, but the constant ancillary demands have become ZERO fun, and reaffirm that it is in the end, a J-O-B. It is no hobby, that's for sure.

Then there are the economics of what the OP proposes. If I was 40 and woke up one morning deciding to vocationally pivot into a career renowned for the propensity to have exceedingly protracted lifetime-income scales, I'd want to have the finances to subsidize that deficit. Two ways that traditionally gets done: 1)You're young and unencumbered, so making peanuts carries little opportunity cost. Or 2) old and monied [encumbered or not], so you can afford the deficit in order to satisfy the anxiety of vocational discontent in one's older age, which is usually further exacerbated by the feeling time's running out in life.

To be clear, airline pilots [and I say airline pilots because the OP said 1500 hours] are not the only ones with the flexibility to turn a six figure income into a life of enough time off to pursue their avocational interests in life. I've met many folks in aviation with pedestrians jobs (biggest repeat offenders are oil people, and medical professionals) who have access to the kind of aviation toys and the time to enjoy them that makes me absolutely jealous, even as a pro pilot. Some of them with enough turbine time and ratings to qualify for professional work. Of course, some of them too envy my relative position; but they don't envy the fact I derive a living from it. Beyond getting an orientation ride for the novelty of it, none of them would want to do this on a recurring basis. And that's a point folks need bear in mind when it comes to foaming at the mouth about their well-paying pedestrian jobs.

Time building is imo, a poor litmus test for whether you'll attain vocational contentment in regimented pro flying. All the pro flying jobs I could sincerely point out to and say "man, I wouldn't mind doing that for the rest of my working days and not feel put out", all of them pay the square root of f*** all. :D So yeah, Life... it's filled with opportunity costs.... but I know what side my bread is buttered on.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So here is my own thread on quitting a cubicle (office) job and flying for a living. Probably just midlife crisis musings rather than reality.

I'm a 170 hour pilot. There are days I hate my job. There are weeks like next week that will push 70 hours. The bright side is I get paid really well. So well that I have saved enough to do one of two things. I can quit my job for a year and fly dogs "for a living" or I can buy a 1980s vintage A36.

The irrational side of my brain says I quit my job (in a few years after returning from my overseas assignment) and fly 30 hours a week and in a year (give or take) I hit 1500 hours. If I am loving it by the end of the year, maybe I get a job flying. If I don't, I go back to working the office job.

Obviously I won't have a dispatch rate to keep up with 30 hours of flying each week. And maybe there aren't enough dogs to fly around to give me 30 hours a week. But I bet there are. I fly an Archer. It is slow. I can cross the country plenty of times with dogs and tack on the hours. I also have siblings on both coasts. Lots of people I can visit.

I am a fairly risk averse person when it comes to money. I guess that makes me a good accountant. Quitting my job and not having an income would freak me out. But I LOVE flying dogs around.

I would get some ratings along the way too. First would be instrument. Would be smart to get it started before quitting my job. If I want 30 hours a week I definitely can't get them all VFR. To get a flying job I would also need to get my commercial and multi of course. I just have no desire to get my CFI and instruct to build hours. So yeah, me ever getting to 1500 hours will have to happen on my own dime the hard way.

Challenges:
Flying this much I would be changing the oil every two weeks. Better learn to do it myself.
My engine is past 1200 hours already. Depending on how well things go, an engine overhaul may bite me in the middle of the adventure. But this engine has been real solid and the current oil analysis looks really good.
Winter. Probably not going to get 30 hours a week during the winter since I am based out of Illinois. Perhaps I can pick up some financial consulting gigs during the winter to be able to extend my flying past a year.
Dispatch rate. So far my plane has been very reliable in the 2 years I have owned it. But what happens when you really make it work hard?
Fatigue. I have never tried to fly 30 hours in a week. Could I keep it up week after week?

And the biggest challenge: getting the wife to agree to any of this. I could mitigate some of her concerns by limiting my radius so that I am home most nights. This would mean a 3 hour trip radius to get 6 hours per day. But that would then limit the availability of dogs. It would be much more fun to pick up pups all over the country so I could put in some long hour days and also see the country from 7,000 feet.

So much of this is unrealistic, but hey, put your dreaming hat on. If you could take a year off of work and do nothing but leisurely fly around with canine passengers, would you do it?

Then there is option 2. Keep the job and buy an A36. I could continue to fly dogs on the weekends and have a fun fast plane. I can retire at 55 (which is 15 years out) and then fly dogs all I want.

Really this is just the midlife crisis talking, but thought I would put my thoughts out there for your entertainment and comments. :cool: Pour it on boys and girls.
Click to expand...

 
So I guess there is also option 3. Quit my job and go into consulting and try to get gigs that I can fly myself to each week in Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, etc. But then we would go into that commuting thread discussion. And I suck at marketing/networking so there’s that.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
As someone who went the route of turning my flying hobby into a job and then realized I needed a new hobby, I vote for option 2. They say do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. I say BS. Jobs are work. Even if you like what you're doing, its still a job. I like flying on my terms way more than I ever liked doing it on someone else's but that's just me. Truth be told, I got to the point where I never wanted to fly again and got out of the business. Best decision I ever made but like I said, that's just me. YMMV.
Click to expand...

Certainly a fear of mine. But then I see people like @LDJones who I think are enjoying the change and @Luigi who admonishes to not live life without regrets. The latter is why I bought a plane 2 years ago and haven’t regretted a day of it.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So I guess there is also option 3. Quit my job and go into consulting and try to get gigs that I can fly myself to each week in Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, etc. But then we would go into that commuting thread discussion. And I suck at marketing/networking so there’s that.
Click to expand...

Here’s what I keep hearing: I took an overseas position with my company. I miss flying and blame the company for it.

I get it; we spent three years in Italy. Loved the opportunity, but missed a lot of things like shooting and flying.

Except there are some opportunities to fly in Europe; gliders come to mind. As does RC aircraft. There might be some strings to pull with each, but it’s a way to feed the fix.

Option X: when you come back club/partner/buy something cheaper than A36. Do the IFR in new plane. If flying charity is you’re passion, talk to @Ted DuPuis and find out how to make it happen.
 
It’s worth noting I don’t fly dogs for a living. I have a day job (always have) and a 501c3 that is (theoretically) supposed to pay for the flying of dogs.

If you look at Cloud Nine’s 990, you’ll also see that Cloud Nine owes me a lot of money.
 
TLDR, are you talking about delivering puppies from dog breeders to new owners? That sounds mad dog ludicrous to me, but if can make it hap’n cap’n then go for it dog.
 
TCABM said:
Here’s what I keep hearing: I took an overseas position with my company. I miss flying and blame the company for it.

I get it; we spent three years in Italy. Loved the opportunity, but missed a lot of things like shooting and flying.

Except there are some opportunities to fly in Europe; gliders come to mind. As does RC aircraft. There might be some strings to pull with each, but it’s a way to feed the fix.

Option X: when you come back club/partner/buy something cheaper than A36. Do the IFR in new plane. If flying charity is you’re passion, talk to @Ted DuPuis and find out how to make it happen.
Click to expand...

There's probably some of that in there. But not fully. Probably more of a regret that I have allowed my career path to take over my life and not leave enough time for flying (and my family). Even if my current job was stateside, I'd probably be feeling a bit this way too. I am good at what I do, but after 15 years of doing it, I don't have any drive to do it. I think I may be one of those that could fly for a living and not have it feel like a job. But then again I could be wrong. The problem is I got flying late in life and so my ability to get to 1500 hours would need a whole lot of umph behind it. These musings are how I would get there.

Why something cheaper than an A36?

I've got two hours prepaid in a C172 over here. Just need to book the time with the club. Maybe that will help calm the itch.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I think I may be one of those that could fly for a living and not have it feel like a job.
Click to expand...

You believe in unicorns too??

Seriously the only people that say this gig never feels like work haven’t been around long enough. Eventually it will feel like a job.

I’m 19 years in, have no regrets and would most likely choose to do it again knowing how it all plays out. That said it often has been very hard work with many times that I had to make the commitment to hunker down and find a way to go back the next day.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
To be simple, I am an accountant. But I have long left the days of pure debits and credits.
Click to expand...

So you’re actually Jason Bourne, and this is your cover. :D
 
No offense to Ted or Pilots-N-Paws, but I've always wondered about the pet flying programs. I just imagine for every Shih Tzu heading north, there is probably another heading south. Of course I've thought the same thing when I see someone on the west coast buying a Cessna 152 on the East Coast looking for a ferry pilot. You mean you couldn't find a 152 a little closer to home?

Don't mind me, just the voices in my head...back to your regularly scheduled discussion.
 
midwestpa24 said:
No offense to Ted or Pilots-N-Paws, but I've always wondered about the pet flying programs. I just imagine for every Shih Tzu heading north, there is probably another heading south. Of course I've thought the same thing when I see someone on the west coast buying a Cessna 152 on the East Coast looking for a ferry pilot. You mean you couldn't find a 152 a little closer to home?

Don't mind me, just the voices in my head...back to your regularly scheduled discussion.
Click to expand...

Somehwat boggles my mind too. Got any other ideas to build consistent time besides CFIing?
 
Some good thought here in this thread. The OP seems to have some great options really -- owning your own plane at 40 is no small thing. I'm 55 and still renting chewed up 172s that haven't been washed since the last millennium. But as many have said here, eventually if you make aviation your job, it will be a job job, just like anything else.

I'm at a similar juncture, having "retired" a bit too early from a 30-year non-aviation career that was decent coin but made me increasingly unhappy (regularly working in China didn't help). I got all my tickets 25 years ago and after a year of instructing, thinking I was building time to make a career out of flying, realized I was burnt out on flying and just walked away. FF 25 years later and I want to fly again but also need an income to get me over the threshold into my mid-60s where I can start pulling from SS and a modest retirement account (and mooch off my lovely and supportive wife's retirement :rolleyes:). So I've decided to ramp back up to CFII level and teach (and hope I like it), and take anything else related to flying that I can get while still earning some money. Don't know where it'll all end up but I've got a LOT of recurrency work ahead. o_O
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
Somehwat boggles my mind too. Got any other ideas to build consistent time besides CFIing?
Click to expand...

If you are strictly looking at this from a time-building perspective, there are dozens if not hundreds on articles about that. Most require you get at least your commercial first, at least if you want someone else to pay the bill. You and a lot of other young pilots are all looking to get that 1,000-1,500 golden hour in the logbook.
 
You should look at the PNP map... most flights are northbound. The majority of dogs and cats wouldn’t leave the shelter alive if they wouldn‘t be brought to a forever home or other rescue organization.

I‘ve no suggestion for the PO. Personally I would shy away from the risk of just leaving a well paid job. It really boils down to your longtime goals (airline pilot?) and your spouse‘s support. You also want to talk to an (airline) pilot as I think it will be unlikely that you will be at home every night once you start flying professionally.
 
Go with option 2. Pilot's and Paws doesn't pay pilots anything so you wouldn't be making a "living" but it can be rewarding.
 
Skywalker said:
You should look at the PNP map... most flights are northbound. The majority of dogs and cats wouldn’t leave the shelter alive if they wouldn‘t be brought to a forever home or other rescue organization.

I‘ve no suggestion for the PO. Personally I would shy away from the risk of just leaving a well paid job. It really boils down to your longtime goals (airline pilot?) and your spouse‘s support. You also want to talk to an (airline) pilot as I think it will be unlikely that you will be at home every night once you start flying professionally.
Click to expand...

There’s no expectation of being home every night. I guess trading the 12 hour days for piloting is just a different type of 60 hour weeks. I would guess that, ignoring sleep time, professional pilots are home way more than I am.
 
Ok, I misunderstood the 3 hour radius limitation.
 
Expand your options, people keep screaming there is a pilot shortage. Ramp neighbor has a son who got his Instrument, Commercial, and Multi, 400 or so hours, currently flying right seat in a jet for some 135 operator, lives where he wants, gets an airline ticket to wherever the flying might be.
 
catmandu said:
Expand your options, people keep screaming there is a pilot shortage. Ramp neighbor has a son who got his Instrument, Commercial, and Multi, 400 or so hours, currently flying right seat in a jet for some 135 operator, lives where he wants, gets an airline ticket to wherever the flying might be.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I would looking for as I build time. But I had to make sure the finances could support me to 1500 without a job. So far the money works. The ramp neighbor’s son’s gig sounds ideal for my situation. We would love not to have to leave central Illinois (as crazy as some people find that).
 
Skywalker said:
Ok, I misunderstood the 3 hour radius limitation.
Click to expand...
The radius would be the ideal thing. But I would also love to do some coast to coast stuff to really build some experience and add some adventure to it.
 
Looking at your landings map, take two weeks of vacation and color it in a bit. Chase the good weather, try to average six hours a day over the course of five days. Maybe fold a PNP flight into the mix. Then make a decision.
 
texasclouds said:
TLDR, are you talking about delivering puppies from dog breeders to new owners? That sounds mad dog ludicrous to me, but if can make it hap’n cap’n then go for it dog.
Click to expand...
Not sure there is a market for that. We are very successful Samoyed breeders (El-Al Samoyeds) and get $3,000+ for top puppies. We ship puppies all over the country, including long legs like from Florida to San Diego, San Francisco, Denver etc. We insist on nonstop flights only, which means we have to drive to Orlando and the buyers have to drive to compatible airports. The shipping is paid by the buyer, and I am quite sure the vast majority would not have the appetite for the cost of private flights. We're kind of a boutique breeder, and are very, very picky with how we place (and ship) dogs. The huge puppy mills have more cash flow, but typically are huge cheapskates who care more about their profit than the welfare of the dogs, so I would not include them as potential markets.
 
catmandu said:
Expand your options, people keep screaming there is a pilot shortage. Ramp neighbor has a son who got his Instrument, Commercial, and Multi, 400 or so hours, currently flying right seat in a jet for some 135 operator, lives where he wants, gets an airline ticket to wherever the flying might be.
Click to expand...

How things change. 20 years ago I was at that point and I could not even get a job as an instructor.
 
30 hours a week flying is what causes airline pilots to hate their jobs, from what I've seen...I've gotten out of the work airplane and flown the crap out of my fun airplane for a week or two, but a steady diet of that would become "work", too.
 
Seems to me the best approach would be to fly your own plane as much as possible, on your own dime (sounds like you can afford it), to log enough hours to become employable.
Start training for your IFR and commercial, at least it will ameliorate your negative job feelings as you will be progressing toward your dreams.
I know I always feel better after a flying fix.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top