"The only diffrence between you and I is that my company went under."

No, the difference is I didn't quit after I got furloughed. I ended up at UPS because I stuck with it and you ended up out of the biz for your own good reasons. Nothing wrong with you walking away from the biz, but you clearly didn't persevere through your furlough. You walked away and I didn't. I ended up doing well in the biz and you ended up bitter you had to walk away after all the effort. Not all of us would have walked after a 121 757 F/O furlough.

"In any case my worst nightmare was to end up stuck as a career Horizon Air captain."

Well, there you go folks. Some Horizon Capts make 100K and QX is amongst the top tier regionals and owned by Alaska Air Group. That this couldn't be good enough for Skyhigh speaks volumes. You have to ask yourself if making 100K at one of the best regionals is a worthy job. If not, I'd say you should heed Skyhigh's advice and get out. Not everyone is meant for this career. Get into the biz because you love to fly and find that the positives outweigh the negatives. If you can make 100K doing something else, go for it, and let us know how it goes. But I submit many who shoot for UPS Capt could happily live on 100K as a Horizon Capt. I know I could have.

I'll leave you with some of my favorite Skyhigh quotes to judge his credibility:

"A motivated soccer mom can fly an airliner with only a few months of training." 5/13/09

"The FO is one pilot to many in a job that requires a half alert person to begin with. They have superfluous and respect less job that really is "invisible". 5/1/08



"What is so bad with PFT? Who cares? There are short cuts all over the industry. If you can find one then there is no shame in taking it." 11/12/05

"Regional pilots get paid what they are worth. Modern automated planes do not need experienced flight crews anymore." 11/30/08

"It takes more of a sacrifice to become professionally licensed to cut hair than it does to become an airline pilot." 3/3/09