Originally Posted by tomgoodman
If SkyHigh is right, a great many pilots will do just that, and the number of applicants will fall dramatically. After all, none of us "think that most people are stupid as such". No need for arguments, heated or otherwise. People will vote with their feet, and that will quash any "pompous and unfair" assumptions we may harbor.
It would take a lot more SkyHigh's to get the message out there before we would see a dent in the pilot supply.
I had an interesting conversation with a guy yesterday. He drives a delivery truck for a local lumber yard and has worked for the same place since he was in high school. He is married and has children and at 33 will have his home paid off. No college or help of any kind. Now he is moving on to drive a logging truck for the Indian reservation and with the extra money he expects to buy a cabin and be retired by 45. Pilots have tunnel vision. We are in a rut and don't realize that the outside world has been passing us by in regards to pay and quality of life. The working class will become the middle class and most with fancy jobs and college training will slide to the lower end. In ten years welders will be higher paid than pilots (if they are not already now).
For sport I enjoy telling the workers on the job site how little pilots at Horizon Air earn and watch their faces turn white. Spoiled middle class kids in the university system will not be dissuaded when they are faced with the prospect of getting a real job. However, Most rational adults when presented with the same information will run from aviation like their tail was on fire. All we need to do is to get it out there.
SKyHigh