bryris

Well, if you have the dream, that is alright. Go for it! Just know that it is not what you think it is and make sure you diversify yourself along the way.

I'm happier than a pig in **** that I at least tried. I got to fly a jet for 1000+ hours and certainly scratched the itch. Whether it is out of my system or not, I don't know yet (not sure it ever will be). But, I am excited about a life outside professional aviation and could have only really gotten here with the understanding of what it is like inside. I only flew for 2 years, but between commuting (jumpseating up front with SWA crews, AA crews, USAir crews), talking to captains in my airline, experiencing it for myself, etc, I feel I got a good representative sample of what its all about.

Its not all bad - much of it is pretty darn cool. But, just be smart about how you get there and keep the exit open just in case you decide you don't like it.

Aviation CAN be pursued in a private manner. You just need to get your CFI/II and find a career that pays well.

__________________
My pilot blog: http://www.passionaviator.com
Twitter ID: PassionAviator

SoCal Flyer

I just wish I would have told the Captain the same thing I yapped to my mom about during the flight. I don't know if he would have just passed it off and said "yeah go for it" or sat me down in the jumpseat and told me that's not quite how it works.

runge

[Disclaimer: I'm not an airline pilot. Just a lowly grad student with 230 TT working on my commercial]

I don't think being an airline pilot would be that bad of a gig. It's not the best career in terms of how well it rewards vs. what you have to put in to get a job, but that shouldn't be a deal buster if it's all you really want to do in life. I wanted to be an airline pilot for a long time. But for one thing, now that I've got a few hundred hours, I'm realizing that flying the same flight profile on the same routes or similar routes, in the same airplane for the rest of my life wouldn't be that exciting. The reason flight training is so much fun is because you're always doing different things, always advancing to new airplanes, there's always a new procedure to learn or a new level of accuracy to shoot for. I don't really see those same traits in an airline pilot's lifestyle.

Personally, I'm a weekend pilot for now. If the military will have me, then I'll fly apaches for the army or f-16's for the ANG. If not, then I'll be a CFI on the weekends and an aerospace engineer during the week. I'm glad I didn't commit myself 100% to being an airline pilot.

I could still quit my job and go be an airline pilot within a few years if I decided I wanted to, but if I'd gone to ERAU, gotten a degree in aviation science, and was a furloughed RJ pilot, the reverse would not be true. YMMV.