Flying versus Engineering
 

I was wondering what people's opinion's of this are and strictly discussing pay, I would rather not be home every night and definitely do not want a typical 40 hour workweek doing engineering/management. I am about to graduate college with a mechanical engineering degree and go to flight school, both luckily will be funded for me and I will have 0 debt. I know many fellow students are getting out there starting around 50-60k with a couple percent raises in the next few years. I know starting off at a regional is low pay but for the pilots who do make it to the majors I feel that they will have higher incomes relative to engineers. Most college degrees have median career salaries between 80-100k with my school's average around 90k.
Median career is about 40-45, I feel most major airline pilots assuming they were hired around 35 should make more then this throughout their entire career. It is just a thing that bothers me knowing everyone else might have it nicer to start out but I think they are just going with the system, where I want to pursue a career I can love. It seems even regional lifers will get above engineering salaries around that median career mark and I assume if they stay at the regionals that long not only will their pay be nice (not as nice as major pilots) but their schedules will be what they want. Thoughts?

I'm a pilot with an engineering degree. I've done both for work.

Fly if you can. Engineering can always be a backup in case of furlough, loss of medical, etc.

If you advance expeditiously in the airline industry youll be better off financially than an average desk job.

But due to the wonders of compound interest, investments made young work far better than those made in mid-life. For this reason there is a lot of lost opportunity cost in the early years of aviation....especially if you get stuck due to economic downturns.

If you go for aviation, have a financial plan and stick to it. Include an escape clause...after your third regional liquidate s and you still don't have any TPIC, be prepared to move on to a real job before it's too late.

The steady but sure progress of a regular job is hard to beat for financial security. A regional "career"is no longer a valid game plan, if it ever was.

Flying versus Engineering
 

The Guard. The Air National Guard.

My humble opinion... you can't want to be in aviation for the $$$. Granted, the potential to make $$$ will be there eventually... most likely when you get out of the regional world and into a major or corporate gig (depending on which way you go). I have heard though of instructor pilots / check airmen at regional airlines do actually make some money. So when the $$$ does start to flow, consider it an added bonus!

I agree with others that entering the regional pilot business is not something to do with a view towards making good money, you are going to lose money from start to finish in both gross wages and opportunity cost (lost investment in interest accrual over time). It is anything but a winning proposition, it is at best a case of mitigated loss financially speaking. Even if you have an average success rate in flying, you run a strong risk of getting furloughed or stuck somewhere. It is simply not a good career proposition if it once was, there is far too much risk and not enough reward to add up financially. Be that as it may, I do know a few successful regional airline pilots who struggle to match the incomes of engineering counterparts. If you fly on the side for many years and save a lot of money, at some point in your engineering path you may feel you need a break away from it and fly, but without a doubt you will endure staggering financial losses in so doing. It's up to you to decide whether you really need to do it.

Well.... engineering is not particularly lucrative either. On the aerospace engineering end, it's de facto freelance work these days. The job loss cycles of aerospace work compete with airline work, frankly. That's why I ran from it. Here I was, doing engineering school and engineering grad school when it became clear to me (and I kinda knew it, I was a bit intellectually disingenuous when it came to that question) that in order to stay employed, would require a multiplicity of cross-country relocations. Otherwise, to secure homesteading would entail doing generic mechanical engineering employment, defeating the point of the specialization in the first place.

I endure the same relative job nomadism and insecurity in the military but make a hell of a lot more, whilst flying a jet upside down, than I would gouging my eyeballs out in front of a CATIA scope at Lockmart. Granted, such access to military aviation is not available to all. Had my only option out of engineering work was working for a regional, and assuming a rather probable hung start run at it with no timely career progression, I would have most likely gone into debt for lucrative medical education, pursuing flying recreationally full-time and professionally part-time. On a dentist wage, one could totally make that happen. Then again, most pilots are not smart/tolerant enough to get accepted to dental school, so for many that's not an option either.

I can't speak for other engineering regimes; perhaps those are benefited by better job stability (say, petroleum engineering et al). I just was simply not impressed with the aerospace engineering job market and income scales. Flying an airplane for high five figures beats the hell out of engineering for the same money and volatility. Flying an airplane for widebody FO money (assuming on-domicile living) is just stoopid better than engineering drudgery.

In the end, I was intellectually dishonest because even when I pursued the degrees for the "backup value", I was never really serious about sitting in that cubicle, feigning vocational and life contentment. Certainly not for 80K anyways. We all need to find a tolerable balance. YMMV.

I'm a former mechanical engineer working at a regional, and I'd say at least every 10 trips or so I'm paired with another former engineer. Is it a financial hit? Sure. Am I happier now? Yep.

Here’s how I decided to forgo money for passion.
Think about how much you think you would fly general aviation with a “regular” job. I assumed I would like to fly around ten hours a month. Renting at $125 per hour will cost you $1250 per month. But you want your own airplane…lol…that’s going to run you $1925 per month for the privilege of owning your own 30 year old airplane. Here s the cost breakdown


Fuel @ $7/gal7gal. Per Hour= $5880 per year $49 per hour
Annual $2,500 per year; $10 per hour
Over Haul fund $15,000 at 2000 TBO assuming 500 hour plane; $7 per hour
random maintenace $10 per hour
Total per hour cost $76 per hour
Hanger $1,200 Per year; $100 per month
Hull Insurance @.66% of value ($160k) $1056 per year; $88 per month
Liability $1,500 per year; $125 per month
10hrs of flight per month $760
Aircraft Loan for $128000@ 7% after 20% down; $851.79 per month
Per month cost of ownership $1,925.


As an engineer you’ll make $55,000 to start. After taxes that’s $3479 per month (Florida). If you’re going to starve to fly you might as well be an airline pilot!

Regarding money and aviation...

As others have said, it's not a good idea to go into it expecting to get rich. But sometimes people see the focus on six-figure salaries as greed or a desire to get rich. That is a fallacy...due to the high entry cost and low initial pay, a solid six-figure salary is the only way you are going to financially recover from the early years. If your career trajectory is not going to get you to somewhere near $150K then you need to re-evaluate. That number could be lower if you started very young and got there quicker (ie some regional CA's who were RJ CAs in their mid-20's).

In today's world the standard-issue American dream (house, cars, vacations, kid's college, and comfortable retirement) will cost at least six figures anyway.

It is possible to get rich from airlines...start young, hit every wicket without any inconvenient furloughs or economic crises and get hired by a high-paying major by age 30. Invest very wisely and by age 55 you might be set. But don't assume that all the stars will line up for you, because all the talent, motivation, and connections in the world can't keep the seniority list from moving backwards at times.

Also consider that engineering need not be limited to rank-and-file engineering...if you go get an MBA or similar and have some people skills there are certainly management jobs in the engineering realm which will pay more. I have a peer who's doing very well in that regard. He always wanted to fly too, a few years ago I helped him get his PPL and he recently bought a surplus Eastern European trainer.