Plastic Pilot

I’ve never wanted to be a commercial pilot, I’m happy with my ground-based job (despite I’m changing by the end of the month…). I also know how complex it can be for business and airline pilots to manage a personal, family and social life. I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s simply not for me.

However, some pilots are lucky enough to have other kind of jobs, some of which qualify for the “Dream Job” category. A long time ago (I still was a student pil with not more than 6 hours total time…), I spent three weeks in eastern Australia with Ms. PlasticPilot for our honeymoon.

As many tourists we went out for a snorkeling day on the Great Barrier Reef, but instead of boating, we made it with a small company operating to De-Havilland Beaver seaplanes.

They flew us and a handful of other lucky ones at 1′000 feet above sea, from where we had a breathtaking view of the beaches, corral build ups, and other wonders of the Ocean.

We flew over the heart-shaped reef before sea-landing where the company off-shore boat is anchored all year long. We spent a couple of hours snorkeling and looking through the boat’s glass floor.

The next leg was to a beach, for more swimming followed by a Champaign snack on white sand. Obviously Champaign was for the guest only, pilots were drinking juice…

The final leg back to he company’s homebase was again 1′000 ft above sea, and then along the shore. The airport is located by on kind of an peninsula, with water on three sides.

The job of these guys is basically to fly VFR over a wonderfully scenic area, snorkel with guest, pic-nic on white-sand beaches, and fly back home. I don’t have any clue how good the salary is, but I reckon I could do this job for a couple of months without getting bored.