Originally Posted by
SkyHigh
Foxy,
You seem to hold the overly romantic and unrealistic views of a hobby pilot. Flying is not a religion. For most of us here it is a job and as such it has some income and lifestyle obligations to fulfill in order to compensate for the hardships and investment that it takes to get there.
Flying is not YOUR religion.
I have always, my entire life, wanted to be a pilot. It's all I ever wanted to do. I worked my ass off to get my pilots license at 17, and then I then ran out of money. My parents had none, and I lived forty miles away from the nearest town. The job I was working as a ranch hand dried up, and I was completely unable to secure student loans for any sort of flight training or college. So I went into computers, having more or less accidentally taught myself that skill.
I want to fly for a living. I don't want to work for the airlines, but I do want to work as a CFI, maybe teach float flying for a while, maybe think about bush flying down the road, maybe... who knows.
If that makes me a hobby pilot in your eyes, then so be it. I don't particularly care. I understand your viewpoint as it pertains to aviation, and I understand your negativity, but I don't care to be typecast by you.
You seem to care more about family and status and propriety than flying. So be it. I will not judge that, but not all of us are that way, regardless of age or social status.
After four years of college and surviving flight school I don't think that anyone would say that it is an "easy" job and by the time you have made it to the regionals you have already put a lot of work in for little in return.
I didn't say it was an easy job. I said that there's a perception that it's an easy job, which apparently attracts many people who are happy to sign on the dotted line.
People who get into this career to "satisfy their souls" are the reason why we are not paid anything anymore. The airlines have learned that people like you will work for nothing. In a short time the airlines will be filled with aviation martyrs who live alone in studio apartments praying that crew scheduling calls.
Take your grievance with the aviation industry out on somebody else.
The reason pilots aren't paid anything anymore is because pilots bend over backwards to keep their jobs and management takes advantage of that. Pilots don't fight back. They could, if they tried, but they're terrified of rocking the boat and getting fired, and getting a bad reputation, and not being able to find a job. Or of 'harming' their company, and thus their livelihood.
The rest of us have lives to live. I got onto profession to make a better living than a mailman. Currently the mailman has a better deal. You go and satisfy your soul. I have a family to raise.
I would submit that
YOU are the problem.
YOU are seeking a job that pays well, and you don't care what it is. You chose flying...as did many other people, when faced with the exact same problem. The flight schools sold people like you a dream that doesn't exist anymore, and by the time you realized it, you were already in with no escape.
Again, leave flying to those who can do nothing else.
I think it is ironic that you ended your post with a statement that implies that you value your time when clearly you don't.
Skyhigh
Pick someone else to go after. Seriously.
~Fox