Have you read Barry Schiff's column from a recent issue of "AOPA Pilot" magazine?

Barry can no longer encourage young people to become airline pilots and I agree with him. I used to be involved in a committee that DID encourage young aviators and quit because I couldn't, in good conscience, encourage anyone to do this job.

This is no longer a career, it is a job. The sad fact is that your success in this industry is about 75-80% luck. Heck, I thought I had won the lottery when I was hired by United almost seven years ago. The good pay and benefits made being away from my family tolerable. It used to be that a pilot would make a good enough living so that the wife could stay home and raise the kids properly. Now, many wives are working too, just to meake ends meet. Now that pay, benefits and work rules are in the toilet I'm thinking of getting out altogether.

I cannot afford to rent a C-172 right now due to family obligations (mortgage, kids, repairs on the car, etc...). This is something that I had hoped to one day.

Do a google search and look for that article from Barry Schiff. He eloquently states what most airline pilots have been thinking and saying for the last few years.

greedyairlineexec is right. Go be a dentist...or a plumber, electrician, general contractor. Be home every night and watch your kids grow up.