Floatingonair

No criminal records and I got decent college grades. I'm almost 50 years old. Are they really going to ask me for my college transcripts? If I was a young guy 20 years old and straight out of school, I could see that happening. I would think that having a clean criminal record and graduating with a 4-yr degree is far more important than what kind of grades I pulled in 30 years ago.


Too many acronyms. regional CA? I assume regional carrier?

Major FO? No idea what that is.

Junior narrow body. What is that? Examples please.


It's funny how you assumed that. I never said anything about my grades or my academic record.

That's very unlikely. Like I said above, I quit my full-time IT job, moved 300 miles back home to take care of my parents. Why don't you try doing that and also learn how to care for 2 sick parents with dementia - and then you can tell me if it's hard for you or not. For me it was difficult enough to sacrifice my full-time job, but learning to be the primary caregiver for both of them and living with 2 demented people in the house was absolutely the most difficult challenge I've ever faced in my life. You're probably sitting there thinking "what's so difficult about that?" It's not about just managing their health. You have no clue man. The amount of stress (both physical and mental) you have to endure on a day in & day out basis is immense. If you think whatever you went through in your life is difficult, multiply that by 2 or 3 and then do it for 2 years straight with no income to support you. Then you'll have an idea of what I just went through. I've been in stressful situations before both at work in my personal life - this is NOTHING like it.

Bottom line is that if I can survive what I just went through - I can handle whatever life can throw at me going forward. Anyone else who thinks they can make assumptions about my mental fortitude is out to lunch and is assuming far too much to think otherwise.

rickair7777

All or most will want transcripts. Some care about grades and how elite the school was (cough DAL), others don't so much.



I suspected that you might not have the greatest academic record based on your description of life circumstances.

Plenty of pilots don't, in fact many were never motivated until they doing something they were passionate about.





CA = Captain
FO = First Officer (ie co pilot)
NB = narrow body, aka single aisle (737, 757 A320)
WB = widebody (767, 747, A380, etc
RJ = regional jet





Sorry to ruffle feathers but I did that intentionally, actually trying to help you to understand what you're contemplating. Your previous professional experience you described as dead-end with no money. The habits formed in that sort of life may not get you to major airline (it's an easy life once you actually get there...)

Actually been in your shoes but worse (try domestic violence with murder and kids involved, that took about ten years to settle out). You survive and get through things like that. Definitely give you perspective.

But there's a big difference between "surviving" something and "accomplishing" something (my wife makes that mistake too). A general aviation pilot cannot "survive" 121 new-hire training, you have to take aggressive ownership of the problem.

Good chance with a college degree you'd do just fine, but you need to be aware that's it's not like college. Also age is working against you. As an experienced flight instructor, older guy, and ex-regional CA who flew with young and old new-hires I can state unequivocally that older pilots struggle more. Not only rote memory, but multi-tasking. You'll have to work harder than the kids (but at least you know how to do that).

The typical older guys we see at the regionals are rusty military pilots including retired Navy Captains & USAF Colonels, retired cops, retired business owners, including a lot of people who made money in IT. Typically not people from dead-end jobs with no money. There is strong correlation between IT professionals and the desire to be a pilot for whatever reason.

Floatingonair

I appreciate your heads up and toughness sentiment, but seriously, I'm OK with suffering and paying my dues. As far as standing up to pressure cooked environment - I've already said a mouthful, I don't need to reiterate it.

I am very certain this will be a tough journey ahead of me of me if i decide to pursue this. I suffer no delusions about that. That's why I'm trying to do as much homework in advance so I know what the hell I'm getting into. My biggest concern isn't about how I will stand up to the pressure, I'm more concerned about other variables such as when the airlines will be a hiring frenzy (baby boomer generation retirements) so I won't miss out on that prime opportunity. My ultimate goal is to reach the majors as a FO.

Also, I feel the need to expand on my original comment I made earlier. I wasn't exactly in a p*ss poor dead job with poor pay. I moved up the ranks from doing simple entry level tech support, to desktop engineer, to junior system administrator. In hindsight, I should have explained that a little bit better but I was in a hurry to get to the main point and the reason why I came here to this forum. I also made the comment in a off-the-cuff manner to denote my struggle from sales guy to tech support guy was riddled with challenges and terrible setbacks. I've had more than my share. Some of those setbacks were within my control but there were a few that was totally out of my control such as the economy going into a nose dive after the economic meltdown situation in 2008. Once I did manage to gain I.T. experience, it was easier to get IT jobs but it still took some time to build up any forward momentum. Even the one job that I enjoyed and paid me a healthy salary I had to give up. I don't for once regret coming back home to take care of my elderly parents; I fulfilled my obligation as their son and only child. But now that I've been out of the workforce for 2 years I have seriously to reconsider the long term viability of what I did before. The money is there - but the personal satisfaction and motivation has greatly diminished for me. That's partly why i made the comment about "dead end job". I recognize it wasn't the best way to phrase things.

This desire to fly and be a professional pilot has been in my system for so long I can't quite seem to shake it no matter how much I force myself to stop thinking about it. And since everything else seems to pale in comparison of my dream job, even the full-time job i had in Chicago seems ho-hum.