Originally Posted by
razorseal
Yes, exactly. I don't know if I'm gonna get shot right now, end up in a civil lawsuit, do the wrong thing as a supervisor, I do my best to stay out of it and do the right thing. It has worked out very well for me in the last 12 years or so.
Aviation isn't without risk. You are responsible for many passengers and it's go go go. one wrong thing you do, and that line between life and death can apporach fast. there are no rooms for any errors. I would assume if you put the flaps up or gear up too late, it's documented and you'll have some explaining to do.
But there is so much drama here. other people critique your work whether you did good or bad. you do 100 things that are good and get very little appreciation, but one little mistake, your career is on the line. you have other officers/supervisors fighting you for that next rank up. Don't even get me started with the weird things between female/male cops. It's stressful. a friend of mine who used to be cop like me but got back into aviation and now going to delta from frontier is the one who has been telling me flying is so much better and there is no better time. he said the worst drama he had on his flight yesterday was he had to call an FA to block the door with the galley thing so he can use the bathroom. He loves his job, shows me his schedule. shows me his salary and I'm jealous. Very jealous.
my only hurdle is I need to finish up CMEL/CSEL, get the almost 1000 hours somehow and get this dang ATP-CTP done. I am going to sell my beloved corvette and that should be enough to get me to finish my commercial, and allow me to buy about 1000 hours on a plane share time building thing. I believe I might be able to reach this goal in about 12 months.
I looked at MESA and that program they have where you payback your hours you build up, but I can't leave me job and dedicate 7 months to flying 144 hours a week and move away 3.5 hours leaving family behind lol. I don't even know if they're accepting applications.
I will just need to rough it out and get as much flight time as I can get and either try planesese at 750 and take a paycut for a year or two, or build upto 1500 on my own and get to a bigger airline, regional or major.
it's alot of thinking and a career change to better provide for my family at 38 is scary.
It is a lot of information. Programs, incentives, offers are changing so fast a lot of it could very well no longer be in place or accurate by the time you're ready (for better or for worse). Set short term goals or else it can all become overwhelming.
Set your mind to focus on the next rating and work on that for now, when that is done work on the next rating, next 100 hours etc. Stay out of debt as much as possible. If you can, keep working your job to provide for your family and fly on the side. It may take a little longer but you have a family that is your #1 priority and needs to be provided for.
Sometimes you have set backs or feel like it's too much, just keep plugging away and remember to take breaks so you don't end up hating flying by trying to condense everything into a short period of time. Good luck and have fun. Feel free to PM me as I was a career changer with a young family and worked evening shifts and flew/took online classes in the mornings.