Yet another career change thread :)

[USMCFLYR]

Originally Posted by SkyHigh

My point is that when all the factors are taken into consideration aviation is a OFTEN highly risky occupation that requires a large investment in time and money that does not ALWAYS offer a balanced return for the effort.

Not only do pilots face medicals, check rides and risk FAA violations; but we then SOMETIMES have to run the gauntlet of mergers, furloughs, shutdowns and other professional hazards. Most of the outcome of your career lies totally into the hands of fate [SO DOES LIFE]. All this to hopefully reach a major airline before you are 40 years old to maybe earn as much as a plumber.

From a purely financial stand point it simply is not ALWAYS worth the effort anymore. Especially when you take into consideration the path airline wages and benefits are taking AT PRESENT. The outside world is definitely not easy however your efforts MIGHT stand a much higher chance of receiving a worthwhile return and offers a future that is more able to be influenced by you.

Skyhigh

ALWAYS with the hard statements aren't you SkyHigh. Guess you decided not to share another of the more uplifting stories from your youth and continue to spout only the negatives - and not even the possibility of good fortune - within the aviation industry. Heck - forget *good fortune* - how about making a nice wage and still enjoy their job? Imagine what you would say if I got on this thread and ONLY SAID GOOD THINGS about aviation.

USMCFLYR

[EuroMan24]

If you have your PPL go to allatps.com 3 months and your instructing..6 months later yu can be on wth a regional...5 years your captain 10 and your making ok money...but you could reasonablybe on with a carrier by next january if youdo it right.

[Slice]

Originally Posted by EuroMan24

If you have your PPL go to allatps.com 3 months and your instructing..6 months later yu can be on wth a regional...5 years your captain 10 and your making ok money...but you could reasonablybe on with a carrier by next january if youdo it right.

Yep, and you'll only walk away about $70K in debt for a min wage job...

[flyingback]

Originally Posted by SkyHigh

aviation ... does not offer a balanced return for the effort.

I feel like I'm getting trolled something wicked here, but, this statement is just not true. It may not offer a particular person a balanced return. That's true of many things in life.

Please, SkyHigh, tell me what careers do offer a balanced return for the effort.

(By quick math I'm currently making 15% more and working 77% less (than outside aviation) ... roughly 5:1 advantage for my personal time)

[de727ups]

"If you want to share your QOL and salary experience with them as a way to encourage entering this profession, you should also balance it with the negatives associated with entering it as well."

That's Skyhigh's job.

"Personally, I think that should be kept to one's self, but that is just my opinion."

When I make comments like that, they are DIRECTLY to refute a Skyhigh comment about how stupid we all are for being pilots. Take it in that context.

"but I'm not going to encourage someone to pursue this by showing them how much I made or how much or how little I flew"

Again, that's not what I'm trying to do nor were my comments in that context.

[de727ups]

By the way folks. Take note that this thread has been moved to the new "Plan B" forum. This is the place to talk about leaving the career and/or how you have done since you left aviation.

Enjoy.

[SkyHigh]

Originally Posted by flyingback

I feel like I'm getting trolled something wicked here, but, this statement is just not true. It may not offer a particular person a balanced return. That's true of many things in life.

Please, SkyHigh, tell me what careers do offer a balanced return for the effort.

(By quick math I'm currently making 15% more and working 77% less (than outside aviation) ... roughly 5:1 advantage for my personal time)

There are lots of careers that offer a much better balance of efforts to return. Plumber, electrician, Cop, Firefighter, accountant, army private to name a few because they require little investment for what they receive in return. There are plenty of enlisted military on this forum who not only have a nice and real retirement after 20 years but the military paid for college and grad school as well.

Pilots sit in the airplane 6 to 8 hours a day but then at the end of the day they usually don't go home but to a hotel instead. All time away from base counts as work. To suggest that it does not is like telling a security guard that since they sit and watch TV all night that it really isn't working either. Any hour that you give to the company is working. As such pilots work an average of 360 hours a month or 4320 hours a year. A typical 9 to 5er works 160 hours a month or 1920 hours a year.

Per Diem isn't pay. A 401K is not a real retirement. Increasingly pilots are being paid in job satisfaction and not in kind to the effort it took to get there.

SkyHigh

[SkyHigh]

Originally Posted by USMCFLYR

ALWAYS with the hard statements aren't you SkyHigh. Guess you decided not to share another of the more uplifting stories from your youth and continue to spout only the negatives - and not even the possibility of good fortune - within the aviation industry. Heck - forget *good fortune* - how about making a nice wage and still enjoy their job? Imagine what you would say if I got on this thread and ONLY SAID GOOD THINGS about aviation.

USMCFLYR

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I love aviation but honestly do not have much to offer other than that LSA seems cool. I don't believe that GA is going to be around in any meaningful way for the average guy in 20 years. I do not feel that airline flying has much of a future other than it will be easier to get a job doing whatever you want because the wages will drive away prospective pilots.

Things are changing rapidly. An airline career as I grew up with is going away (gone). I personally do not have any friends who after 20 years of effort are better off because of aviation. A few are still employed as pilots however a few others are dead now because of it too. Just about everyone who I maintain regular contact with is currently facing a furlough, seat loss or shutdown currently.

It isn't coming back either. we still haven't recovered yet from 9-11 and here we go again. As you know I was forced out of the industry five years ago and in that time I have discovered to my surprise that the outside world, in general, has a much better deal. I am on the sidelines with my rose colored glasses removed and offer a perspective that bridges both worlds. I just do not believe that the profession offers enough to be worth the price of entry anymore.


SkyHigh

[USMCFLYR]

Originally Posted by SkyHigh

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I love aviation but honestly do not have much to offer other than that LSA seems cool. I don't believe that GA is going to be around in any meaningful way for the average guy in 20 years. I do not feel that airline flying has much of a future other than it will be easier to get a job doing whatever you want because the wages will drive away prospective pilots.

Things are changing rapidly. An airline career as I grew up with is going away (gone). I personally do not have any friends who after 20 years of effort are better off because of aviation. A few are still employed as pilots however a few others are dead now because of it too. Just about everyone who I maintain regular contact with is currently facing a furlough, seat loss or shutdown currently.

It isn't coming back either. we still haven't recovered yet from 9-11 and here we go again. As you know I was forced out of the industry five years ago and in that time I have discovered to my surprise that the outside world, in general, has a much better deal. I am on the sidelines with my rose colored glasses removed and offer a perspective that bridges both worlds. I just do not believe that the profession offers enough to be worth the price of entry anymore.


SkyHigh

There is no misunderstanding here. I've followed your posts for quite some time. I know exactly what you are going to write on most posts. It is a repetitive mesage - a broken record as I forum member said. But once again I took the challenge to point out that your story is extremist in one way - far left or far right - I don't know in the aviation world which it is - but as I have told my kids - extremism in any manner is a bad thing - and you are hard over extreme in a bad way. I agree with some on here that say that what you have to say is worth sharing; especially to new people coming into the business, but you never portray anything else which is wrong. The edited version of what you said in the original post would at least make your point clear yet leave room for someone to think that there could be happiness - and there can.

You said this in the earlier post:
"...[an] army private to name a few because they require little investment for what they receive in return. There are plenty of enlisted military on this forum who not only have a nice and real retirement after 20 years but the military paid for college and grad school as well.

Pilots sit in the airplane 6 to 8 hours a day but then at the end of the day they usually don't go home but to a hotel instead. All time away from base counts as work."

I would submit that Army Private made quite an investment when he joined and will continue to make that investment through his initial commitment or beyond in the case that you point out, all the way to retirement; so he stayed around for 20 years of investment and in that time he put up with the things that you're average civilian airline pilot couldn't even imagine.
You want to talk work days or work hours? What do you think an Army Private would say to work working 6-8 hours a day right now, then spending the night in a hotel somewhere? How do you think that 360/month and 4320/year sounds to the guy who is finishing up his 12th month in country and just found out that they are staying for an additional month? And those are the war time deployment extremes, but there are plenty of long hours and time away from home during the peacetime years too.

My stats for the last month:
I flew 24 times in May for a total of 34.1 hours. Out of that 31 day month, I worked 26 days and was gone away from home 9 of those days (followed immediately by 6 more days in the beginning of June).

By your assessment I should be hating life and ready to move on to being a plumber where I can at least make a descent wage, spend more quality time at home, and feel like I am contributing something to humanity. But I'm not ready to leave yet. If I could - I'd spend the next 20 years doing the exact same.

So I'm not sure what your metric for a successful and satisfying career is but obviously it isn't the same for everyone. How about for once you end a post with something along the lines of "The current aviation career field isn't for me but it may be for you." I actually like the quotes that say 'Your [gas] mileage may vary"

I know what your response will be to this post. You and I have had this conversation before. For three posts now I have asked you to share another of your more uplifting stories from your past. But either you used up your one success story the first time or you just can't bring yourself to say anything good about the industry; which if that is the case makes your opinions tainted. I would MUCH better understand your point of view and get something out of your posts if I felt that you could pass on the goods and the others of the industry to an aspiring professional pilot. We all need to hear both sides to make that informed decision and then decide what is best for US.

Balanced coverage SkyHigh. Why is that so hard for you to communicate?

USMCFLYR

[SkyHigh]

Originally Posted by USMCFLYR

There is no misunderstanding here. I've followed your posts for quite some time. I know exactly what you are going to write on most posts. It is a repetitive mesage - a broken record as I forum member said. But once again I took the challenge to point out that your story is extremist in one way - far left or far right - I don't know in the aviation world which it is - but as I have told my kids - extremism in any manner is a bad thing - and you are hard over extreme in a bad way. I agree with some on here that say that what you have to say is worth sharing; especially to new people coming into the business, but you never portray anything else which is wrong. The edited version of what you said in the original post would at least make your point clear yet leave room for someone to think that there could be happiness - and there can.

You said this in the earlier post:
"...[an] army private to name a few because they require little investment for what they receive in return. There are plenty of enlisted military on this forum who not only have a nice and real retirement after 20 years but the military paid for college and grad school as well.

Pilots sit in the airplane 6 to 8 hours a day but then at the end of the day they usually don't go home but to a hotel instead. All time away from base counts as work."

I would submit that Army Private made quite an investment when he joined and will continue to make that investment through his initial commitment or beyond in the case that you point out, all the way to retirement; so he stayed around for 20 years of investment and in that time he put up with the things that you're average civilian airline pilot couldn't even imagine.
You want to talk work days or work hours? What do you think an Army Private would say to work working 6-8 hours a day right now, then spending the night in a hotel somewhere? How do you think that 360/month and 4320/year sounds to the guy who is finishing up his 12th month in country and just found out that they are staying for an additional month? And those are the war time deployment extremes, but there are plenty of long hours and time away from home during the peacetime years too.

My stats for the last month:
I flew 24 times in May for a total of 34.1 hours. Out of that 31 day month, I worked 26 days and was gone away from home 9 of those days (followed immediately by 6 more days in the beginning of June).

By your assessment I should be hating life and ready to move on to being a plumber where I can at least make a descent wage, spend more quality time at home, and feel like I am contributing something to humanity. But I'm not ready to leave yet. If I could - I'd spend the next 20 years doing the exact same.

So I'm not sure what your metric for a successful and satisfying career is but obviously it isn't the same for everyone. How about for once you end a post with something along the lines of "The current aviation career field isn't for me but it may be for you." I actually like the quotes that say 'Your [gas] mileage may vary"

I know what your response will be to this post. You and I have had this conversation before. For three posts now I have asked you to share another of your more uplifting stories from your past. But either you used up your one success story the first time or you just can't bring yourself to say anything good about the industry; which if that is the case makes your opinions tainted. I would MUCH better understand your point of view and get something out of your posts if I felt that you could pass on the goods and the others of the industry to an aspiring professional pilot. We all need to hear both sides to make that informed decision and then decide what is best for US.

Balanced coverage SkyHigh. Why is that so hard for you to communicate?

USMCFLYR

I believe that my role is to provide balance. The average line pilot is not going to waste another minute of his life on anything else that is aviation related. Guys who have been forced or choose to quit generally do not feel like sharing their experiences either. They are usually more interested in trying to forget their aviation background as fast as they can.

People who venture onto aviation forums I believe are mostly over the top aviation guys who do not represent the average opinion or experience of professional pilots. As such it is my job to be here to provide some balance against the cheer staff.

My guess is that you have a very satisfying job in the military and you do not worry about paying your bills or if you will have a job next week. Working 27 days a month is much easier to take when your other needs are being met. I am certainly not against working hard however there needs to be adequate compensation in trade. Right now there are a few hundred guys out there who are your age and have similar aviation background who are on the street with little hope of being able to replace their former incomes as pilots. Your perspectives change a lot under those circumstances.

My suggestion is that you can not relate to what I am writing about since you have not had to experience it yet.

SkyHigh