I've done over 20 years of combined military and airline work. I have 6 tattoos some of which is visible on my fore-arm when I wear short sleeve shirts. My thoughts--

If you are going to do it put a lot of thought into it and get something artistic/tastefull. Get a good artist to do it, spend the money, get something on the large side. Don't let the fear of it being noticed stifle the scope of the work.

Be prepared to take some crap about it. That's part of having a tattoo. It's suppossed to make you unique (unless you get a back stamp or something generic like that). You'll find that many people over 50 years old are going to be offended by it. If you can't handle sticking out from the crowd then don't get one that anybody is going to see.

Personally I've had no regrets about getting my tatts. I liked them when I got them and I still like them. They're special and have meaning to me. They're well done.

I've ever only gotten positive comments from passengers about my tattoos. All have been under 30 or 40 years old, however. I've only ever had one person in management ever express disapproval about them. I've never worked at an airline that expressly forbid them, however.

I've found that a good number of pilots have tattoos that are visible in short sleeved shirts. Most come from the military. Most of them do a good job of hiding them when outside of the **** pit. I don't go out of my way to show them in public either. I don't wear long sleeved shirts in the summer, but when I walk through the terminal I wear my suit jacket. If you see a pilot in summer walking the terminal in his blazer there's a good chance he's wearing a short sleeved shirt on underneath and doesn't want the public to see his tatts!