SkyHigh says the buy-in to payscale ratio for piloting is not as good as for the trades, while Rick makes the point trades should not be compared to professions. I said something similar in the long-haul thread; professions include intangible benefits that cannot be quantified by pay and the comparison is skewed. No one said pilots should quit to be tradesmen although SkyHigh painted a dreary picture of the wages earned by most pilots and made a case that few of them can truly aspire to the higher levels of the industry. I then replied the number who can aspire is probably much better but may still only be one in eight. The scarcity of data on how many qualified people apply to legacy carriers and what the vacancy rate is at those carriers clouds the discussion.