I think you have an ideal situation here. In your spare time I recommend you stay as active as you can. Then when your wife finishes school, you should have the financial stability to step out of the box, if something doesn't happen for you before that time(which is a possiblity you can't ignore).

Sometimes you just have to do something you don't necessarily want to do to get where you want to go.

 

As far as I know a couple of CFI's at my flight school have left the business. One went into marine engineering and the other went to work for Jetblue as a Customer service agent scanning boarding passes. Another friend of mine works at a different flight school. Has 3,000+ TT and a over 500 ME and decided to quit aviation all together. He wasn't interested in working for the airlines and he actually landed a job on Wall Street while training one of his students.

So I guess that would be three pilots to add to the shortage altough I think the one guy that went to Jet Blue is taking a break for now.

 

You also need to factor early retirements, loss of medical, growth, and attrition to your numbers. They will all be called back quick. I say 1-2 years they all will be hiring.

 

Colgan is hiring at 1000/100. They need a lot of pilots.

cliff
LFW

 

In this industry, you really have to look at your self and understand that you have to dig deep and keep working towards the top. I'm not bragging but at 35, I'm captain Rated in the RJ, MD-11 and 747-400 and I now fly all over the world. I never once thought that I would just give up and move on! In fact, I loved seeing people do that! Now, I understand that situations are always different. I didn't have kids and extra mouths to feed when I was scraping by. I do have some close friends that did have extra mouths and they now fly 777's, G5's and 747's. I really respect those guys that made it. If not, I really suggest sticking to your guns and be creative. Think outside the box and find ways to build some quality time. For instance, make sure you teach instead of tow banners. I would hire a guy with 500 hours dual over a guy towing banners for 1500 hours any day. The reason why, I know he can pass that hard check ride but most importantly, he or she can communicate. If you can convey the material by teaching, you will show some one some day at an airline interview that your pretty damn smart! Get your MEI. I put off the instructor thing for a few years and I regret that. Teaching is by far an excellent way of learning. In fact, you will always be an instructor even if you have 30 years in this industry. Those are the great instructors. One thing I learned as an enlisted Marine was to not accept defeat. Ride this storm. If you leave and decide to come back, now your competing with people that are current. Staying current is very important. Do what it takes. I did and I will tell you, I absolutely love my career! If you have any further questions I can answer feel free to E-mail me [deleted]

 

It's not just CFI's, there's a bunch of furloughed airline pilots leaving the industry for other jobs.

Are they giving up? Not necessarily, but I think a lot of folks are wising up that it's better to work a better paying job now and come back when times are better than to scramble for the lowest paying airline jobs to somehow "save their career."

 

I could see a pilot shortage happening, with the main reason being that for a while people were content with being "bottom feeders" and I think the bottom has sunk low enough where that is no longer the case.

I go to a part 141 school that isn't all that big so I know pretty much everyone. Most kids say forget it and give up when they find out that becoming a pilot takes hard work and studying (the drop out rate is like 70%)

The rest of us consist of:
-Pilots with heavy accents looking to get their ratings and move back to "home country"
-Pilots pursuing double majors that are interested in professional flying but do not want to sentence themselves to it
-Kids interested in earning a degree in aviation to give them a better shot at getting a flying gig in the military once they graduate

Easy access to information (like this forum) expose that being a professional pilot isn't the dream that alot of kids think it will be when they get started