PipeMan

Is anyone like me where you get scared going in to work and flying? I think of the actual flying the plane as a hobby for me more or less, but I have thought about retiring and even home schooling my youngest. I am able to "work from home" with my other job sometimes so this will help. I get nervous going out to grocery stores and such and try to only go during times I know very few people are there, but I find it hard to escape that when going to airports and hotels.

The airports and downtown hotels are so crowded and always think people may make them a target of violence. Thankfully I don't do many overnights due to my bidding seniority and living close to the airport. I don't even park in the employee parking lot anymore because it forces us to walk through the front entrance where people are dropped off/picked up. I only park in the paid garage where passengers park so I can walk right to security. Sucks to pay that every time but I find it worth it. I know, I know, I shouldn't look at the news and see all the violence and shootings going on, I am working on this.

Just curious if anyone else has these thoughts. I'm sure homeschooling and doing more work around the house can keep me busy, but I would feel a bit "lost" not getting to fly cool jets occasionally.

Excargodog

Get counseling.

OOfff

I hope you get everything you want out of this thread

trip

Nope, sounds like may have developed a phobia?

Cyio

Good luck and please stay home.

TOGALOCK

Mods can we please ban this idiot? He’s clearly that N12345 guy who was banned for being a troll and constantly talking about feeling like a “loser” for being a pilot. Let’s just nip this incarnation in the bud this time?

PipeMan

Bump anyone else

METO Guido

Homeschooling. Never understood why parents do this to otherwise normal children. Disadvantage they’ll be lucky to outgrow. The very definition of public is wading through the annoying behavior of others. Unless you’re a netjet frequent flyer, better get adapted to it. https://youtu.be/HBzzdlpISFg

MaxQ

I agree that the children will be disadvantaged.

Having lived 10 years next-door to a couple who homeschooled their children, (and the grandchildren are now being homeschooled as well), has given me a glimpse into at least this family's thought process.
My conclusion (which obviously could be in error) is they do not wish to adapt. Not themselves, their children, nor their grandchildren.
Whatever hardships that any of their progeny endure, it is more than compensated for by living as far apart as possible from this world of sin.

From their perspective, cleaving themselves from the "liberal cesspool" seems to be the point.

JohnBurke

If you're afraid to fly, then you shouldn't fly. This is axiomatic.

Some of us do this for a living, rather than merely a hobby.

I spent a lot of years in which each flight was a takeoff at gross weight in the mountains on hot days and strong winds, with approaches as low, or lower than fifteen feet in low visibility, extreme turbulence, an explosive environment in the middle of a forest fire, often in very old equipment, in very rough terrain, in close proximity to 30 or more other aircraft with no radar, no air traffic control, and so on. When appropriate, I said, "no." I don't recall ever being afraid of going to work. It was a job, performed by professionals. I coined a phrase, now used on posters, which said, "it's not an emergency: it's our job."

If you're finding your job to be an emergency, then you either need to take it more seriously and approach it as such, or get out of the business. A general requirement to every flight operation, whether it's screaming down a mountainside in the smoke or flying an approach to minimums in a corporate airplane, or giving instruction in a light Cessna, is that the outcome of every flight must be a safe one. The practical standard is that the successful outcome shall not be in doubt. If you are in doubt, and you go fly anyway, then you are not meeting the bare minimum standard for an aviator, and nobody should perform at the bare minimum level. We are about judgement; it's what we do and why we're paid. If you are in doubt and go fly, your judgement is in error and you should not be in that aircraft.

If you need a hobby, play checkers, or go buy a light airplane and do turns around the pattern, if you're confident enough to do it, but don't subject your passengers, everyone on the ground, and everyone in the air to a level of competence, that's in doubt. It's more than doing yourself a favor and standing down. You have an obligation. Honor it.