and speaking of taking a ****. an xgf "type" of girl's brother in law is the f16 demonstration pilot for some base in utah. his name is dax so you can search him very easily. anyway, at some point he was in a group crossing the pacific and one of his wingmen had to poo so he unbelted and was going to crap in his helmet bag. well somehow his harnesses got wrapped around the f16s super sensitive stick and pushed it down. without harnesses he got pastered to the canopy and crashed into the pacific.

"oh did he get shot down over iraq?"
errrr.. no he was taking a **** over the atlantic

oops. atlantic* finally 25th post

Time2Fly
 

Time2Fly,

Some dreams are best left as a dream. If you ever ventured to flightinfo.com you would be able to read a story about how the founder passed away in a plane crash a month or so ago. He left behind a wife and several young children. You have much bigger things to think about. You have already made your choices in life. Aviation is dangerous and offers low pay for the first decade or so. It probably would take you 15 to 20 years to become competitive enough to apply to fly a big jet. By then your kids will be grown and gone and you will have missed it all while on reserve in a strange city. I don't even think that you can get life insurance until you reach 500 hours total time. I would let it go if I were you.

SkyHigh

I enlisted - finished my BS on active duty then commissioned.

F-15 will be phased out and replaced with the F-22. F-22s are operational as of two weeks ago...I see them at Langley all the time.

The AF medical center at Lackland preformed the PRK surgery on me - I didn't complain - the pre/post operative care was incredible...My eyes have never been better...

-LA

Time2fly...you are 27, a wife and 4 kids...forget about a career as a pilot. I`m assuming you don`t have an extra 35,000 bucks to buy your tickets and flight time and if you tried to do it on your own, you would spend years doing it part time. I spent 39 years in aviation, am retired and glad of it. My son is a 38 year old, flying copilot for a major airline in bankruptsy and doesn`t know what he can or will do if his company fails, and I dion`t know what to advise him to do. You can shake a tree and 5 pilots will fall out of it. If you have a good job with benifits and medical, think hard about chucking it for aviation...My two cents worth.

If you have money to burn - take the lead of my avatar...Invest it in an education related directly (engineering) or indirectly (business) to computers/technology...

The best money I spent was on my BS in telecommunications (yes, there is such a degree offered - its close to EE)...

-LA

Save your marriage. Having grown up flirting with the poverty level I wouldn't wish that on anybody. If I had kids I'd probably be taking a different path at this point on my career because I'm having a hard enough time making ends meet with only one in the household, me.

You could still take that unfulfilling job and do some cool stuff in aviation. By all means, learn to fly. Don't make it a career, make it a hobby. Build a homebuilt, instruct part time, become a pilot examiner, or buy a plane and use it to take your (still in-tact) family to cool places. It would be much more fulfilling than making it a career at this point in your life.

Time2Fly
 

I don't think that Time2Fly is even reading our carefully thought out gems of wisdom. Are you even out there Time2Fly ??

SkyHigh

Try the Cirrus
 

Check out AirSafety at Glendale Municipal. The prices are VERY comparable and most of your training is done in a Cirrus SR-20. If you are not failure with the aircraft, check it out on Cirrus' websight. It sounds like this aircraft would be right up your alley. The owners name is Dee Pinkston and if you set up a tour he will set you up with a free Cirrus demo flight. Have fun!

Pathway to becoming a pilot
 

if you're thinking of doing it in the AF, do it now. Cut off age is 27.