galaxy flyer

Here’s a risk—five years from now, you haven’t been hired to the dream legacy job; what do you do? Despite all the giddy news, there are lots of pilots, for lots of reasons (some under their control, many reasons utterly beyond their control) aren’t getting an interview at majors. I’ve seen several hiring booms and watched many good candidates, military and civil, wind up on the outside. Corporate and charter operations are filled with them.

As mainlineAF, said, these are supposed to be your high earning years, not entry level years.

GF

AirBear

If you can take the lower pay then I'd say go for it. Being in the NYC area is a huge advantage. Mainline Delta Pilots are holding MD-80 Captain within 1 year of being hired at the JFK base. Schedule would suck but the $$$ are there. Many Regionals have junior crew bases in the area.

And if the major airlines don't work out there's tons of Corporate Flight Jobs in that area. Those guys are really hurting for pilots and are having to raise pay. In fact once you get thru the Flight School and have more multi time you might be able to snag a Corporate F/O position. Those jobs almost always require you to live in the area.

Get the training done ASAP, build time as fast as possible. The airlines can get to be a little like "Groundhog Day" since you see the same airports over and over, but Private Jet flying offers a lot more variety. Airlines usually have Unions which is nice since you're not an "at will" employee and have protections, but if you have the right personality for Corporate Aviation you can do quite well there and get some nice benefits. Taking your family along on a trip with the Boss is not unheard of in the Corporate World.

Kstoves

This can be done.

I recently flew with a CFI who left Wall Street to fly. I only got to fly with him once. He had been instructing for a year when I met him and now he's with an airline. He was your age and had kids the same age. Until I saw your hours listed I thought you were him

Kstoves

This is incorrect. The appropriate reg to reference is 14 CFR 61.51

You can log PIC and dual simultaneously once you have your license.

NewCareer

Short answer? Go back to what I am doing now or something similar.

So the risk is I am not flying people around for a major airline? Yeah, I get that’s a risk. But I wanna be in the air. Flying as much as possible. That’s my dream job. If it’s corporate or freight, so be it, I love it. I just said right seat of an RJ because that seems to have the fewest unknowns. I realize I gotta pay my dues and don’t expect to jump any lines. But if I am happy, what do I care?

And yes, I guess these are supposed to be my high earning years, but for me to be doing something I really love, that’s worth gold. In my entire life, I’ve never taken anything more seriously than aviation. It’s little stuff. Like, I can’t stop looking at charts, planning hypothetical flights. I only have 460 hours in real life but I probably have 10,000 hours on a PC sim. I taught myself VOR navigation when I was 10. I’ve flown every aircraft type that you could download from the internet. I have time on VATSIM as a controller. Would have done that if I figured it out before I was 30. Everything about aviation I love.

But maybe that will all change, maybe aviation and flying will get old, but I am pretty sure it won’t. And I think I have to find out. I just never had the balls to do it as a career because I didn’t even fly in real life until after 9/11 (which was a nice intro to Wall Street btw) and everyone said the industry is in real bad shape so I stayed away. And hoped I could crush it where I was. But it wasn’t in the cards. Even if I made millions, I’d be flying some overpriced turbo prop I bought for a million or something. Meh.

In a few years if it’s not working out, I can likely go back to doing something similar on the street. But my question is, if I DO progress quickly, then something happens health wise and lose my medical, are there other routes to go in aviation? Or does the airline just toss you and say see ya later?

And btw, I know plenty of people, good people (sometimes the best!) in my industry that have been screwed over and missed those high earning years through no fault of their own (political or corporate BS, reorg, etc) but that’s another story. And in terms of frustrations on the job, have you seen the movie office space? I am too familiar. How awesome it would be to go to EWR for work. Yeah, I think I can deal with whatever scheduling or paperwork bs they can throw at me, but that’s it, I just don’t know the negative side, maybe it’s really bad or there is something I don’t know about the day to day that I will hate. Any threads you can point me to are appreciated. And why do those good candidates you mention not get interviews and wind up on the outside? Just the way things turned out? Bad luck? DUI? Not kissing enough ass? Wrong equipment? And when you say lots, is there a large percentage of people?

All your comments are much appreciated. Sorry if I am a bit rambling. This has got me up nights lol.





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NewCareer

Ha! That’s awesome to hear. I guess what I need to seek out are those people who are leaving not having done it for that long.

NewCareer

Interesting. The corporate sounds like I could get an F/O without having ATP?

I wouldn’t mind the Groundhog Day effect at all I don’t think. Seems like it would make things easier. But maybe too easy is the point.


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NewCareer

How come I am posting on here and somethings Post immediately and some go into a black hole. I just spend 80 minutes typing something out, submit, and poof. Like it never happened.

mainlineAF

Delta no longer has md80s in nyc. They also just displaced 50 md80 captains in ATL. The super quick upgrade is gone for now.

NewCareer

I wouldn't exactly call myself the "doe-eyed uninitiated", seeing as how I have almost made the plunge for 20 years. But thanks, ProdigalSon. I guess I should be flattered that you created registered for this forum just to respond to my one post. What line of work are you in exactly? My wife points out that the people that hang out on this forum might be the happiest with their decision to fly professionally, though I'll keep reading and looking for reasons why I might not like it. Even if it becomes a J O B, what do you think I doing now has become?