FlyJSH

If it was a federal student loan (and some others as well) one cannot declare bankruptcy and start over. The feds will take all of one's income tax refunds and sometimes garnish wages to get paid. The US government is the ULTIMATE House.

Yes, you were a moron for listening to salesmen telling you it was ahort cut to flying riches. The good news is you ADMIT you were a moron (I too have been stupid, we admit it, we learn, and we don't do it again).

Unless you are working 100 hours a week (or more) you ARE NOT doing all you can do. Education is great, but spending more of your years not earning money and accruing interest is not a solution. I know several people who are high school educated and are store managers who make as much as a 4-5 year regional captain (as much as I do now). It ain't sexy or fun. but they pay the bills and put a few bucks away.

Loving flying is great! I love it myself. I also love sex, but I would NOT love being a prostitute. Flying is a JOB: it is WORK. Yes, it is more palatable than being a garbage collector, but over a lifetime a trash man can end up as rich (if not richer) than a pilot with a huge debt and whose career has had a few hiccups (like me).

I loved flying, and still do. BUT being an airline pilot means I actually "FLY" about 30 minutes out of every 8 hours (and I handfly more than 90 percent of my coworkers). This is a JOB. True, I don't smell as bad as a trash man, but in my day I have taken a Jet A bath under the wing of a Caravan. There are many negatives involved in the work. The reason I enjoy my job is I have no debt, no wife, no kids, finally earn a reasonable wage, and (most importantly) can hold a good line flying only 30 hours per month and having 18 nights off each month (I bid stand ups because I prefer to work the back side of the clock and flying 25 hours a month is PLENTY).

The real question for you is.... are you a worker or an artist. A worker finds the least distasteful way to make as much money as he can, while an artist does what he loves no matter what and accepts poverty as a way of life. If you are smart AND lucky, you can find a balance between the two. I have. But it has taken almost 15 years to do so..... and if my current employer goes tango uniform, I could be starting all over again.

Good luck.

Cruz5350

That's the problem with saying you are in love. Love is a terrible and good thing at the same time. We all know love is a great thing, but it can make you do some dumb moves in life. Depending on your age you need to forget about flying right now or at least just fly enough to stay current. AKA no more than a few hours every 90 days, just in case something does turn around. You need to clean up your debt! I don't care how much you say you love flying, when the your monthly bills are 3-4 times more than your monthly pay the love quickly ends. I have about a 1/3 the debt you do and I've decided to step away from the plane and pay it down. I figure I'll fly around 8-10 hours a month so just enough to stay current and proficient and still build time for an eventual return. You need to realize that you will have a chance to become a paid professional in the future just not right now. Your mind is set on the end goal and not on what's in front of you. Pay this debt down so you can reasonably enjoy making a meager salary, that way you will appreciate it so much more.

zondaracer

RJMFlyboi, here are some creative ways to make more money than usually, and this is completely serious, not sarcastic...

Garbage man - i know a guy who did this in college and he made quite a bit
Gov´t contractor job in Iraq/Afghanistan - I think truck drivers were getting paid well into 6 figures but there was the risk of getting killed. i´m not sure what the availability of these jobs are, and with your debt (and if you don´t have previous work in the government), you probablywon´t find a job with a clearance, but look into that truck driver thing or armed security.
Manager of a consumer goods store or restaurant - these places have such high turnover that when a guy stays at the company for 4 or 5 years, they often times make their way into management.

It´s not glamourous, nor fun, but if you are serious about paying down the debt, you will have to take some drastic measures (live with parents, eat ramen, cancel your cell phone, drive a beater car, etc...). hope i could help

X Rated

RJM would probably garner a bit more support if he'd reveal which school it was...so that others don't fall into this trap.

stuart716

I think the time for PFT/PFJ is over. The economy and airline industry are in the tank. I know airlines are having a hard time finding pilots and I do not see how PFT on your record would hurt you. I did it back in the day, and if i knew then what i know now i would not have done it and I would not recommend to anyone else, but i was young and naive. I have not had a problem at all getting on with different airlines and unless you are a complete douche/idiot I don't know of anyone else that has had a problem with an airline interview because they went to a PFT/PFJ program. This is just 121 experience and not a corporate job and I know thats comparing apples to oranges.

Airhoss

stuart,

It is a brave new world and a completely different dynamic than twenty years ago. In a couple of years when the massive tsunami of retirements hits I think your observation will be even more correct.

It's all about supply and demand.

determined2fly

If your ever in Phoenix give me a holler...least I can do is buy you a drink!

scumby

My 2 cents about paying to fly......When we decide to become a pilot, we have to pay money for a school with the hopes of getting on as an employee after your qualified. Thousand of dollars are forever gone, some spent wisely , some spent stupidly. Finally, after months you get all your rating and have no money to even pay for towel paper. What's next ? Buy a plane with partners ? Be a airport rat and do anything to get stick time ? Now, after you paid thousand of money to get here, you just get more money from the money tree (at least my exwife thought I had one). Parents,friends, banks, etc. You decide to get the best buck for your money so you search the internet. It's the magical ball that will help you. So, you decide to join full throttle. You went to a PTF school. You picked that tree dry and now you have the hours to actually get a job. But, at what price ? Companies like Great Lakes, Seaport, Vision, Scenic. Wow, you hit the big time. One year later you go to the Regional and you say "I MADE IT". then years later, you have a furloughs under your belt. This could take 4-7 years if the stars were to aligned perfectly. Your in debt thousandssssss of dollars for what a dream. What I'm trying to say here is we're all paying for training. From getting our licenses, CFI jobs that are less then Taco Bell. Commuter jobs that you're eligible of food stamps. Oh, then you finally get that interview with airline ZZZ. They like you and say you need a type rating to work here. Paying for type ratings. Hell yeah, there goes more money.Then after all this time and effort you get your 2nd Furlough letter or the company went out of business. Great, you get to start at the bottom AGAIN. Hopefully, your saving a jar full of coins, you'll need them. Then the next job interview comes after you've been furloughed for almost a year, Couldn't afford to fly as you were poor as ******. The interviewer ask to see your logbooks and says your short on our minimums of 50 hours in 6 months. What now ? You hear through APC , XXX airline will hire me if I become PTF. Then I'll have the hours to go to a crappier airline. Which means paying for training. so, to conclude this , we all pay for training by getting the required licenses, rent planes to build time, try and CFI, , PTF schools and the School of hard knocks. I don't care how he/she got the ratings, experience,qualification. All I care about if I have to leave the cockpit to go to the bathroom, that person better do a excellent job. I know pilots that shouldn't be pilots. They are horrifying but had quality training. Could you trust them when you went to the bathroom ? Hope it's a short flight. So, does where you were trained really make a difference , yes. Is every pilot trained as a PTF bad. NO, it has to do more with natural skills, judgment, personality, and drive to be a good pilot. So paying to fly, we all are guilty of that. Except the military pilot. Everything is handed to them with white gloves and hot tea. (I'm enlisted, just like to stir up the pot a little bit) I don't prefer PTF pilots but it's the nature of the beast.

dosbo

It's obvious that you did not go through military flight training. We just paid in a different way then incurred a significant obligation after training. As you said we all pay in different ways, some ways just seem to be more acceptable than others.

By the way I never got my hot tea.

wrxpilot

That's true for anything... If you want to learn a new skill, you need to pay somebody to train you for it. As far as spending money stupidly, you have only yourself to blame for that. There's more than enough information out there on the internet to discover how to train effectively, how to choose the right instructor/school, etc.

I didn't have a money tree or rich parents. I worked for my money, and continued to do so while training. You have only yourself to blame if you got into a bad spot financially with banks, parents, or ex-wives.

If you've prepared yourself financially to work for these companies, what's the problem? The pay scale at these places is hardly a secret, and I was able to determine that I couldn't afford to work at those places. So guess what? I didn't work at those places...

Getting furloughed is always a possibility in this industry, but that's hardly a recent thing. Ever read "Fate in the Hunter"? Have you researched the history of the aviation industry since deregulation? With the exception of a decade or two since the Wright brothers invented this stuff, there's always been a risk of getting furloughed.

Every professional aviation job I've had pays more than Taco Bell and disqualifies me from food stamps. Even my CFI and regional airline gig.

This doesn't make any sense. The only US airline I know of that requires you to have a type rating to work there is Southwest. I haven't heard about too many Southwest furloughs lately, and I don't think they'll be going out of business anytime soon.

That is quite a sob story. If it were me, I'd dust off my CFI certificates and start flying to meet their minimums. I'd also make sure I understood the minimum requirements for the next job I interview at.

Ok, so what you're saying is that there are good pilots and bad pilots out there, and that if you're flying with a bad pilot it's best not to leave them alone while using the bathroom. I can't argue with that logic.

So you admit you are just trolling (e.g. "stirring the pot")?

Whatever the case, your post some across as very whiny and you feeling sorry for yourself. Apparently aviation didn't work out for you, but sometimes in life we have to make our own luck. In aviation, that is particularly so. It is EXTREMELY foolish to jump into professional aviation with a lot of debt and no backup plans if you get furloughed/fired/laid off.