Then I'll take what I quoted and go even further for your edification and bold the parts that Skyhigh will most likely have comments about if he choses to respond:

"I'll be happy when I have a seniority number at a regional and am earning a paycheck"

"...become a new hire regional pilot by the end of college"

"...becoming a regional pilot at age 24 rather than 22."

I won't steal his thunder by suggesting what he might say about each thing that you wrote, but you see that others are already lining up to watch

So have you search the other threads as suggested by myself and Stitches now?

USMCFLYR

 

Well, at the risk of being chastised for having the audacity to not quote your every word...

You really aren't grasping what I'm saying here. You are so fixated (and that's a bad thing in aviation) on the immediate issue of college and a quick trip to an RJ that you aren't grasping that I'm speaking more about what you do AFTER you graduate. That's why I said I really don't care where you go - particularly since you are already decided.

Right now (in CRM terms), you need to dramatically raise your SA.

If your goal is to obtain a steady paycheck as soon as possible, I'd suggest you bag this entire option and head down to McDonalds. You'll have a paycheck more rapidly and it will be steadier (and quite possibly larger).

The goal of higher education (university) should be to gain a variety of life experiences and obtain highly generalized knowledge which you can apply in various contexts. This is where MANY (certainly not just ER) aviation programs fall well short.

If your goal is stated accurately, than any old pilot mill will do an acceptable job of cranking out another sausage to feed the system, and you'll be just fine going straight from ER to an RJ.

And this is why there won't be a pilot shortage.

I don't understand why you fail to grasp what I'm talking about. The only part of this I'm cautioning against is the going straight to a regional. How about I put it differently for you:

You will be an inferior pilot for much of your career because you won't have all the experience, knowledge, and skill sets you otherwise could.

For the record, the last decade has pretty well established that all it takes to go directly to a regional is the ability to fog a mirror, so I would be too excited about that as a measure of anything.

How about being the best pilot you can be? That's what I'm talking about, or are you willing to settle for just PTS standards?

For about the tenth time, I'm not against aviation schools, I'm against anyone not working outside of a highly structured program for at least a portion of their early career.

I'll reiterate another point as well: I'm 100% in favor of people taking good formal ground schools on a variety of aviation subjects. Ground school courses and crew concept training don't get enough emphasis on this or other websites. Twenty five years of professional flying and I seldom look back and think about how to do a chandelle - but I routinely draw on topics such such as meteorology and CRM.

Also, the fact that more people were hired from these programs simply indicates that was the best of what they could get, not that those people were at their full potentials.

I'm NOT against formalized training, in fact I'm for it in many aspects (again, particularly the ground courses). I think it does give one a better framework upon which to build, and think it is beneficial down the road. I don't think it's vital to fly in such a program, but there's nothing wrong with doing so either.

The biggest gripe I and many others have the the cost for what you get, particularly on the flight side. If you have a full ride, then that really doesn't matter.



Twelfth time: I'm not trying to sell you on M&P flight school.

However, I believe you are incorrect - character would be to forgo the immediate gratification (deny your SJS) and take a career route which will help you become the become the best pilot you can be, rather than being satisfied with being good enough to make it through and interview and training.

Go back and re-read what I've said in the light that I really don't care where you go to school. I was merely pointing out other viable options.

If you can't comprehend this, then it's time for me to read my own tag line.

 

Different contexts yes, but it all points to a certain mindset. You'll probably get ###### that I said that, and put up another post in your defense rather than engaging in some introspection on the matter.

SkyHigh - tag your it...

 

...........

 

Come on, is that all you got? You have the benefit of reading what a few people have gone through when it comes to a career in Aviation and making an extremely INFORMED decision. I would think that you would be over joyed at having all this information presented to you for free! It isn't sugar coated, it's straight forward advice that you can utilize to your advantage if you so choose. Take it for what it's worth, most of it comes from the heart.

 

This quote comes from the 'introduction' of the 'Fly Better' books. The link was given in another thread on the forum, but I thought what the author was trying to say about FLYING was part of the advice being given here:
USMCFLYR

 

Great quote. Structured or not, I don't think the magic of flight will ever go away for me. If you can't tell, I really do love it. And I'm sorry to the people who think that people like me "ruin the profession" for that.

For the record, and I know it probably doesn't matter to anybody at this point, but I'm planning on getting my Private at my local flight school before college. (It is part 141, however, so not as "unstructured")

 

But confirm for me that you haven't even started flying yet right?
After I got sick on my second training flight, I almost gave it up myself. I feel the same way you do - and I still feel the same way you do. On the other hand, I've seen students give up an F/A-18 cockpit too because they found out that it was too much work or they just didn't like flying. Amazing in my mind but it happens.

If you have read enough of the posts on this forum too you'll find that even MOST on here still LOVE FLYING. It is the profession that they have come to dislike. This was some time ago but I was sitting duty with another pilot who was in the reserves and flew for FedEx in the *real* world. I asked him what he liked about flying outside of the military. He said "nothing, [He] hated the flying." But the money was good and the time off was good and he spent the rest of the duty time telling me how he tried to manipulate the scheduling system to get as much pay as possible with doing the least amount of flying possible.
As many others would caution on here, be careful what you wish for and keep your eyes open to other possibilities

USMCFLYR

 

Haven't started training yet. In fact, in a few weeks I'm doing one of those "introductory flights" at my local flight school, so that will be very exciting! (forgive me for sounding like one of those "SJS" people)

I have, on the other hand, flown in a computer flight simulator. Obviously not the same, but it's nice to at least become a little familiar with a cockpit. I remember my first time in an actual cockpit was on a KLM 747 when I was something like 6 years old.

I think the fact that despite union troubles, pay complaints, contract negotiations, etc. etc., something really neat about this industry in particular is that (almost) everybody truly loves what they do. That's something that is VERY rare to find in careers today.

 

It would be funnier to see grown men argue with highschoolers in real life...but I'll settle to watch it on the interwebs.