Nu,
I second that emotion...
So there I was, a few years back.
Wrenching on a 520 in Juneau.
Pulling the fuel injector nozzles for cleaning.
All proud of myself because I'd earned my A+P the old school way of being an apprentice, after wiping many a Beaver and Otter's belly free of oil. For not much money or real security.
I had the Commercial license in my pocket, but at that time it took way more than I had recorded in my logbook to actually get paid for flying there.
I felt proud to be earning a paycheck, in aviation, in my late 20's, after doing a whole bunch of other stuff like being in the Navy, getting a college degree, commercial fishing, and running construction equipment. My wife had a good job and we were getting by without too much shoving.
Well, I digress. I apologize.
As I said, I was doing my thing on the front end of the 207 there, and into the hangar walks this goofy lookin' skinny old timer wearing a cowboy hat and boots.
Proceeds to walk up to me and ask if I'd happen know anything about flying floatplanes.
Well, I did. A little. I'd rebuilt an old 1949 PA-11 that I just happened to have sitting down there at the float pond bobbing gently on Edo 1320's.
Ended up taking this old timer Texas Lear pilot out to Admiralty island for a bit of sight-seeing on a rare sunny Southeast AK day. We saw some brown bears, eagles up close, and generally had a pretty cool flight puttin' above that wilderness in the Cub with the door open.
Well as you probably guessed, a few of us mechanics, some pilots, and he and his right-seater, we ended up sharing some beers and wisdom when we got back.
That old timer told us a couple of things that I remember.
First, that if I ever ended up in Texas, to look him up for a job.
And second, that doing what we all did was pretty hard on marriages.
He was on his fourth, I believe.
But he was having a good time.
He told us he'd gotten afflicted with AIDS.
Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome.
And I reckon I got afflicted with it too. I got divorced a few years ago. It sucked. And I reckon there's a whole bunch of other pilots and aviation types out there that are displaying the symptoms in their marriages.
But here's the way I see it- Would we be better at a relationship if we had a different career? Would we still be who we want to be, see what we want to see, if we were managing a coffee shop, selling insurance, performing brain surgery, staying home every night? All kinds of people get split up, and some of them it won't matter how much time they spend together. Maybe there's some hot loving loyal female out there that gets this dilemma, she works the night shift at the Tulsa Denny's maybe? Or maybe she's a pilot too?
It ain't that bad, doing what we do. I hope.
And if it is, it's only going to get better.
Chin Up.