Papa Charlie

disclaimer: This post may come off as pretty melodramatic. I apologize. I needed some closure somehow.


Hi all,

you don't know me, but I know you. For about two months I have read about every thing written on the internet about the life of "being" a professional pilot. It's been an obsession. The first 3+ pages of google searches from "airline pilot life" to any other related search term I have read. For months. Hours a day.

I'm the typical story - since 10 years old I wanted to be a professional pilot. My wallpaper has airplanes on it. I fly model airplanes. I go to every air show within 200 miles every year. I've gone to countless aviation museums. I visit the edge of the ALS at O'Hare and watch the jets land. It's become a part of my identity. Or so I thought.

Let me take a break to define a purpose to this post. For one - i'm seeking some closure to my decision. Second - having exhausted every scrap of written text on pilot's quitting and what it is like to live the life of a pilot, I felt I needed to add my own text for any other student doing the same research, maybe it'll help them reach a decision, I don't know. There's no more text to read so I'll add my own.

Back to a bit of an intro to my situation.

At 16 I started to earn my PPL at a local airport - 1C5. I had to quit due to money, then I came back at age 20 and finished my PPL in a C172 with about 70 hours total. I probably would have finished earlier, but the 4 year break set me back about 25-30 hours. I got pretty rusty. Meanwhile I graduated high school, went to community college and earned my associates degree in "engineering science" (just a general pre-engineering degree).

Fall 2016 I enrolled at Lewis University as a flight major. "Time to make my life's goal a reality." I thought. In the fall semester I could not fly due to a medical deferral, which I went through FAA hell for and was released January this year. I now hold a first class medical.

So I started instrument training at Lewis, and it was all going well. I do love flying. I'll admit, instrument flying isn't nearly as entertaining to me as visual flight. I miss looking out the window. I love the beauty of flight, and as challenging and rewarding as instrument flight can be, staring at a screen gets a little depressing. I just passed "stage 1" in my instrument flight training, it's kinda like a 1/3 way point to completing the IR training. Then I dropped my flight block, and now i'm just riding the semester out, hoping to finish with A's and move on.

So what happened? How did I go from "aviation for life" to "screw this i'm out"?

Early February this year, my girlfriend and I are just walking through the mall on a Saturday afternoon. I'm talking something about aviation, and she says "I'm sure going to miss you when you become a professional pilot."

That got me thinking. I never really looked up what a "pilot's lifestyle" entailed. I knew some basics, like ****ty starting pay, 7 day work weeks as a CFI to get hours up, start at a regional etc...But I never really cared what the negatives were - my life's purpose was to be a pilot so that's what I was going to do! period!

But her statement hit me somehow, so I started researching. I think the first thing I googled was "airline pilot wife", and I found some blogs. Blogs written by wives of airline pilot's, frustrated but powerful women making the mostly single mother lifestyle work.

I think these blogs scared me the most out of anything else. You don't hear about "engineer's wife" blogs or "accountant's wife" blogs or most any other profession where the wife feels so lonely so much that they feel the need to form a support group. my god. Pilot's aren't the only profession that travels, and there are ****tier jobs that travel more and pay less, people do those too. But a family is a major life goal of mine, if not the #1 life goal, and I want to be there for them. Whomever I marry. So I wouldn't ordinarily do any of those traveling jobs.

This initial search triggered months of research, and my ultimate decision to leave. Don't get me wrong - I spent weeks telling myself I was okay with all the various conditions and the being away from home and the turbulent industry and the massive loans etc... Then I just broke. I felt better telling myself I wouldn't do this job, so I did.

A moment of clarity, maybe.

Someone has to do this job. Someone has to be a pilot. I'm not bashing the industry [cough..Skyhigh..cough]. Maybe some people look at the "negatives" and don't see them as negatives. Maybe some people don't associate a certain area as "home" and could give a **** where they spend the night. Those people could end up making ****-tons of money if they stick with it for 30+ years in the same company. Or they get furloughed or lose a medical and are royally screwed, who knows.

I'm about 20k into this, and I expected to have all my ratings with 80k in principal. I would have to be a pilot to pay that back, and it would take at least 15-20 years. If I lost my job as pilot, a degree in "flight management" would not get me much else in the professional workforce. Why would anyone get their flight ratings at a university? It's financial suicide.

I know airline pilot isn't the only flying job out there. But it's easily 80% of the market for pilots, and corporate jobs require some major "ins" that I just don't have, and i'm not much of a social butterfly.

"I don't want to want this" - is my current mentality. I still want to fly airplanes, but I wish I didn't. "Millions of people are perfectly happy not being a pilot, why can't I be like that?"

Will I regret this 40 years from now? Maybe. It is currently one of the best times to get into the industry, I've seen ads for starting FO pay at 60k. But will it last? Will those regional pilots really make it to the majors during the upcoming "retirement boom"?

But maybe the American middle class dies, and no one can afford flight travel anymore. Or oil prices get too high, and a sustainable power source for flight isn't found in time to save aviation. Maybe I get diabetes in my 40's (like almost everyone in my family has) and miss out on that big captain pay I've been betting on my whole life.

I've applied to UIC for mechanical engineering. I expect 40k in principal and 50-60k salary my first year out of college. I'm still not thrilled with this decision. I like engineering well enough, and a job is a job. I feel like i'm stabbing my childhood friend in the back. Sure, I can fly just as a hobby, but who can afford that? Not an engineer.

Am I making the right decision? I know no one can truly answer that. But I would love to hear more opinions.

If you read this all, thank you.

If not...TL;DR:

I'm quitting aviation university to go back to engineering and i'm not super thrilled about it.