Good for you, enjoy it! That should be exciting, and I hope you enjoy the heck out of it. FWIW - that doesn't sound like SJS, that sounds normal.

Computer sims are a great training tool - it can definitely help you with various aspects of training - particularly instrument navigation. On the other hand, when you get in the actual aircraft and start working on your private rating, don't fixate on the instruments. Learn to control the aircraft using outside visual references. Trying to use the instruments excessively is a VERY common problem for new students (and I suspect flight sim programs tend to negatively reinforce that), but they are still great tools.

As USMC has correctly pointed out, most of us still like flying - we just don't like the industry. I'm actually one of the sick people who always enjoyed going to training - what can I learn today or do better than last session? It's tremendously personally satisfying.

The difference comes when you realize that loving what you do isn't paying the bills, or watching your pay and quality of life decrease year after year as you become more qualified, due to forces beyond your control.

I can't fault you too much in all of this - I was in your place once. I distinctly remember a HS-125-700 pilot I was talking to at my local airport trying to explain some of these same things to me. I didn't really get it either, but as I look back I see the accuracy of his advice.

Love of flying is not what ruins the profession, and no one has made that claim.

I don't want to turn this post into another downer - so I'll let that go at that.

I can tell you are very passionate about it, very much like I was at your age. Flying an aircraft IS a lot of fun, I still enjoy the heck out of operating the machine. Again, it's very ego satisfying to do shoot an approach well, or make a crosswind landing on the centerline, with no drift, on speed, at your intended touchdown point. It's a great view, whether you're over the patchwork of the midwest, near the mountains, or along the coast. You will see things from a different perspective, and develop a deepened appreciation for many natural phenomena. It's a wonderful thing, I hope you don't lose sight of that as the years go by.

For now, go out - explore, discover, learn, and enjoy.

Please post on here and let us know how it goes.

 

Try setting up MS fight simulator on a flight from LAX to JFK in a transport category jet. Start at around 11PM your local time and fly it in real time the entire night. You can only get up three times during the entire flight for short five minute breaks. It must be accomplished in a dark room with the autopilot on for all but three minutes of the flight.

No TV. No radio. No phone. No iPad. No one to talk to. Do not sleep !! Just you staring at a dark unchanging screen for 6 plus hours. That is what it is like to fly for the airlines.

Boring
Uninspiring
Unrewarding



The best way to simulate it is to do that for at least three days in a row. Report back when you are done. If everyone had to do this before starting flight school and then had to study real airline pilot wages and trends we would have much fewer pilots around.

Skyhigh

 

The thing is, not only do I like the "pilot" part, but I like the "airline" part as well. Call me crazy, but I love the airport environment, with a constant time crunch, passengers, luggage, crew overnights, etc. Maybe I won't love it as much when I join the industry, but still.

 

That's not exactly true...aren't you still talking with your Captain or FO, jumpseaters if applicable, and ATC? I get that a cross-country overnight might not be so super-thrilling, though.

 

Skyhigh, i've used a example along these same lines to tell people what the job is like on long haul or the night freight ops. its amazingly close to real life.

 

Well, for the love of god, consider this (but it's not an ultimatum either):

There are lots of things one can do in aviation, sometimes those things can lead to jobs and positions that are infinitely better than being an airline pilot, such as a test pilot, or FAA airspace inspection pilot, being an engineer and being sent all over to test designs (one of my Uncles worked for MD and helped design the DC-10, MD sent him all over Europe and other places in support of this). There's airline and aviation safety, operations, various regulatory positions, and on and on. You can interact with aviation with all of these, and it may be a lot less likely that you'll get "burnt out" doing the same route every day and never straying.

Lots of these positions pay well enough that you could own your own plane and fly anywhere you want at any time. This is not even getting into the fact that you could look to a career outside of aviation and still do the same thing (have your own plane and fly around). Personally, I like aviation, but I've realized over the years it's not airlines that I like, I just like flying and doing different things. Luckily, the field is quite large if you have an open mind. If you just have the goal of being an "airline pilot", your options are much more limited, and the industry has not worked as in the past for some time, making that intercontinental 777 or 747 job impossible to reach, just because there aren't really that many jobs relative to how many regional jobs there are.

Good luck, but I'd plead with you to open your eyes. The great thing about now is that the internet has most of this information available, whereas in the past NO ONE would tell you what was up with being a pilot and what it really entailed. There aren't many professions where you have to "sell your soul" and "hope" your airline doesn't go under or get screwed over, but that's happened to many people on this website, so you can understand where they are coming from. We are warning you, but it's not meant to discourage.

(and yes, I've gone extremely long periods of time without talking to ATC, where you wonder if the radios are broken)

 

The captain and first officer usually are a generation apart in age and do not have much in common. There are some things to talk about but when you are paired up for a month the conversation well runs dry pretty quick.

Jumpseaters are polite for a spell and engage in industry rumors and the like then sleep or go in back where it is more comfortable. Most of the time it is just you and your thoughts staring out a black windshield for endless hours upon hours.

Try the test then I have a few more for you.

Skyhigh

 

Placing a hard wooden chair a foot or two away from a blank white wall an then staring at it for several hours also works. Using MS Flight Simulator I think is sightly more realistic and drives home the boredom better.

Skyhigh

 

The real test would be to set up MS Flight Simulator on a trip from LAX to Hong Kong on a moonless night over the black ocean for twelve hours and you do not touch the flight controls at all because it is the captains leg. You just sit there for hour upon torturous hour.

At the end of it all you are so ruined by the experience that all you want to do is get to the hotel room as fast as you can so that you can let the reparative qualities of sleep work to erase at least some of the mental damage you just endured but have to stand in the rain for 45 minutes because the hotel van is late.

Finally you get to your bedbug infested sheet stained room and murderously now lay painfully awake because it is broad daylight out and your brain is telling you to be up. That is the real test but we are not trying to drive the guy insane just give him a taste of what the glamorous world of airline life is about.

Skyhigh

 

I understand the attraction - there is a certain energy there, and particularly from the outside it seems sort of exciting and mystical. Sadly, I'll tell you that veneer wears off pretty quickly. It becomes a place where you leave your home, family, friends, dog, smoker (I like my bbq), etc. behind.

To me one of the more depressing elements was when I came home from a 20+ day trip. You'd walk out through security, past all of the waiting families and friends - excited to see whoever it was that was coming to visit or coming home. Of course, no one was ever there for me - why would they be, it was the same routine every month. It just pointed to how isolating this career path is.