Originally Posted by
crewdawg
Therein lies the issue for me. They act like everyone here left the right seat of a 172 and made it to the left seat of 7ERA in 3 years. If we're going to go down that road, let's bring up the Captain I once flew with who was hired at 23, was a 7ER LCA at 30, DC10A a 37, and made 330A in his mid 40s (and still pushing for 67). If we're going to compare outliers, let's at least compare them to the other outliers.
Yep a lot of us guys who get called "juniors" didnt get hired until late 30s/early 40s after spending our 20s/30s at, lets just call it "non career destination" jobs. Do I wish I could have walked right out of my T-34 IP tour into indoc at Delta and skipped the whole decade+ of oil field work, CFIing on the side, Engineering, King Airs in the US, King Airs overseas, and just walked into Delta at 27ish?
Sure. Who wouldn't.
Timing didn't work. Life isnt fair. But I'm being asked to take another pause in my career progression because someone at the top doesn't want to go. I'm lucky in that this pause would be at 757/67 Captain rates, just my seniority pauses so premium and schedule control takes that much longer to get better.
But a lot of guys are gonna pause at sketchy 135, RJ right seats, or non flying jobs while trying to fly enough to stay current when it picks back up.
No. I don't want to work until 67+ just to have what I would have at 65.
Old age, cognitive decline and the reaper are coming for us all. Try to enjoy yourself before one of the three grabs you hard enough to either kill you or nuke your quality of life.
My dad died a week after turning 66. He was perfectly healthy at 63.
You never know what will come, but none of us are going to live forever.