Hi Todd,
I agree with Pielut and would caution you to consider only highly regarded institutions. Unless you have previous business/management work experience, you will normally start at a slight disadvantage when compared with your classmates when it's time for job hunting. Having an MBA from a respectable university gives you the credibility you need to compensate your lack of managerial experience.
As for quantifying your accomplishments to fit the applications, you need to get creative. Getting in these schools requires strong sales skills (selling yourself) and having the confidence that you are just as qualified as the next applicant, who has a degree in finance from Wharton and 2 years ibanking experience at Goldman. I'm not sure what your background or GMAT looks like, but to get in the top schools I think you need to create a "storyline" of how your previous accomplishments in the aviation industry give you the transferrable skills that are needed to succeed in the business world.
Having gained admittance to Chicago Booth, Berkeley Haas and Kellogg (part-time) as well as HBS and INSEAD full-time programs, I have a pretty good idea of what it takes to get accepted. Feel free to PM me and I'd be happy to share some insights. I ended up going with one of the part-time programs (yes, I turned down HBS) simply because I wasn't ready to quit flying.
As for compensation, the figure you quoted is certainly common in many industries. In fact, I've seen starting salaries as high as $150-160k, mostly for either ibanking, consulting or some top silicon valley companies (ie. Google). Average is probably close to $110k, although you can't really look at the class average... you need to look at it by industry. I haven't seen anyone going into consulting starting at less than $115-120k (we're talking strictly Big 3s). By the same token, those going into non-profits probably earn less than $90k (yes, as crazy as it sounds, there are folks who are getting an MBA to go into non-profit... which might give away which school I'm attending...)
Having said that, I would caution you against chasing the $$$, or doing the MBA only for the extra income. It would be the same as a flight student who gets into flying only for the travel benefits, or a regional pilot who picks Great Lakes for the fast upgrade. The grass is not always greener on the corporate side and, as you'll learn in your first-year organizational behavior course, money is a very poor motivator
so pick something you enjoy!
Best of luck.