Voski

I know DEA is about to be facing mass retirements and their Air Wing is not exempt. Like everywhere, baby boomers are starting to retire and will be in droves.

How does CBP stand with retirements? Hiring has been relatively slow since around 2008.

satpak77

To be a DEA/FBI Pilot you need to be hired as an agent first.

CBP Air Wing reportedly has poor morale and their only pure-jet airplane, the Citation II, the entire fleet was grounded due to MX, high time, budget issues. The have a handful of King Airs and Pilatus but no hiring that I am aware of.

hindsight2020

Considering their behavior towards the average civilian private owner, on that stance alone I could never get myself to apply to work for those Judases. They're the sole reason I don't fly my Arrow internationally. I can find cleaner ways of earning a FERS retirement if need be....

USMCFLYR

You've had a lot of interaction with the pilots of the CBP have you?

Tweetdrvr

Plenty of documented stories about stops and searches conducted by CBP or by local law enforcement for no apparent reason in AOPA magazine. They have garnered enough attention for AOPA to make inquiries to the government to find out what is happening and why. Not just international. One man was stopped twice on a cross country trip deep within CONUS.

http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/A...-GA-stops.aspx

http://www.aopa.org/AOPA-Live.aspx?w...7C9436C33AD%7D

USMCFLYR

Yes - and those stories are more about your ground agents than they are about the pilots - though the pilots can help the ground agents sometimes - but the stories I hear are when they 'helo' pilots might land and help ride herd on the massive group of illegals that have just be gathered up.

I believe the comment is more about lumping all personnel under the umbrella of the organization. How many times do the airline pilots say it Tweetdrvr - "great pilot group but the management............."

From the couple of peers working with the CBP as PILOTS that I know - they don't have a lot of interaction with 'civilian pilot owners' flying their Arrows internationally.

Triumph

I worked for CBP air and marine for almost 5 years. Quit to take a technician job with my squadron a few months ago. That should tell you something about what sort of a job that is. The only ones that will stick it out will be army warrants with no fixed wing time. Everyone else is finding something better... As to the harassing of GA pilots... Never saw or did any of that. The only GA pilots that need to fear law enforcement are the ones doing something illegally, and I don't mean taking off VFR in IMC. If you know your 4th amendment rights, you'll know much better when law enforcement can and can't search you.

Voski

Automatic promotion to GS-13 plus 25% LEAP with government retirement benefits is pretty good IMO. Sure, there are potentially more lucrative careers for FW drivers, but it's hard to beat the benefits.

As a warrant with both rotary and fixed-wing time, US Customs & Border Patrol has looked somewhat attractive to me. Why did you ultimately decide on leaving? I know some technician jobs are great, but CPB Air & Marine seems very appealing as well.

hindsight2020

The Nuremberg defense? "I'm just riding shotgun for the groundies?" Get real. I know the distinction just fine. I might end up an ART before being allowed to reach the outcome you had the luxury of reaching, the working end of a mil retirement. Trust me, I can speak federal soup to the same degree you can. I'm very much talking about Air and Marine. I'm fully aware this site will have people who work for CBP in all capacities. Hell, *I* had co-workers in my old unit who are OAM. The charter of OAM is to catch airplanes and boats. In the absence of demand, demand gets created. That equals this guy my friend, putzing along in my 'opulent' cheaper-than-a-soccer-mom-minivan rat trap Arrow following the law, my military credentials being but a mere inconvenient mirror for them to look back onto themselves as they make that Judas money.

When I would bring up these issues, the typical thin blue line response you highlighted was the typical out. That or the Nuremberg defense, which I don't find particularly persuasive either. Like I said, we all have bills to pay and a retirement to collect. I merely stated my experience with that particular federal agency and AOPA has done a good job of documenting these continuing instances of private pilot harassment in the name of justifying an entire branch's livelihood and the GS employees that depend on it. If anything, as an FAA dude it ought to concern you how the CBP promulgates the already existing private employees' opinion of federal workers in the aggregate. Right up there with TSA. Wonder what they have in common?... Ah that's right, the Stasi *cough* I mean the DHS If it walks like a duck though.....

There's no need to attempt to discredit me as the target demographic (private GA owner) just because you have -2181 friends who make their living off of that harassment-for-training scheme. It is well documented that they run training intercepts all day long and twice on Sunday, with perfectly innocent filed private flights topping the list of intercepts. You know, because the drug runners are certainly going to be filing IFR. Bogus "fit the profile" rationalizations for the intercept and incredibly polarizing and illegal FAA-credential searches of the person, coupled with invasive airworthiness-rescinding searches of the physical aircraft. Great PR too

Look, I fully understand I'm posting these opinions on a CBP hiring thread, so by definition it's not going to be received well. I just find it surprising an FAA guy is the one who has to come to their defense. It's as if to suggest the moral compass behind a -2181 job is sacrosanct around here. It isn't, not to me. Most of that I attribute to the ever-present sentiment among this demographic (ex mil pilots and airline pilots) that flying on your own dime is beneath you. Maybe if they had more military buddies like me, who don't consider the sacrifices required to afford flying on our own dime as beneath us, maybe they would see the impact of their day job's actions and recognize not everything is justified by the need to secure a GS-13 position in life.

I sincerely apologize for chaffing the thread but I won't have my personal anecdote put in quotations as if to suggest a fallacious account, and I stand by my prior assertion that there's cleaner ways to get a FERS retirement.

Again, my apologies for the de-rail.

satpak77

clearly some thread drift. In keeping along the lines of "hiring", I don't know if I would not go somewhere because of a few isolated, but well-publicized, incidents.

With that said, CBP Air Wing is turning into (or depending on who you ask, is now) a Border Patrol Air Wing, chasing illegal aliens and illegal drugs along the border, by and large.

Also, Border Patrol management controls CBP Air Wing/Air Branch now, it is not "Customs" that runs it anymore. An internal rift exists between the "Customs guys" who flew Citations and King Airs and Blackhawks and the "Border Patrol guys" (remember, one big unit now) who flew Super Cubs and OH-6's.

To be hired as DEA/FBI, you need 2+ years "on the street" as an agent (you are hired as an 1811, and remain an 1811, even if a pilot), then can compete for Air Wing slots, which by the way, may not occur for a few years, and when they do occur, may be a Cessna 206 slot on the other side of USA.

Good Luck