No offense, really, but we all have our priorities. For some of you, that priority seems to be family and being able to provide for them, for others, like myself, it's ensuring that I have a stable life that I enjoy before I start a family. In today's environment, a starting pilot would have a very difficult time supporting his family, financially or physically being there. I'm certainly not trying to take sides, and again no offense, but perhaps some of you out there should decide what your priorities are before leaping into aviation as a career. In a perfect world we'd be able to have everything we ever wanted without having to sacrifice...sometimes we can, but most of the time we can't and we must compromise. I'll be the first to admit that I'm slightly behind in my life-plan, but I'm working hard to try to get where I want to be in life so I can then have all of those things that I've ever wanted.

I can afford to say that I'd love to be flying at Lakes right now because I don't have a family to support, it's just me that I have to worry about. I don't have to worry about putting food on the table for my family and I don't have to worry about putting my relationship with someone else second below my job. Am I lonely, hell yes I am, but like I said, sometimes we must make sacrifices for things we really want. Everyone must find that balance, and who are the people on this forum to tell anyone else what that is? For some people, flying for Lakes would be the perfect start, great flying and a chance to really learn what flying is all about. For others, being a CFI for how ever many years until they get on with a "regional" is the way to go; they're home every night and for the most part it is stable. For me, it's slowly plugging along until I can figure out how to get into either one of those scenarios.

Being an airline pilot just ain't what it used to be, and honestly, I don't see that changing in the real near future. If you don't have the passion to be in this industry, chances are that you are going to be miserable until you're flying that 777 across the ocean to some exotic destination. I urge you to really think about why you got into flying in the first place because after reading several of the posts in this thread, several of you seem very jaded.

Zachary