If I had to fly a long trip with some of you, I'd probably hate my job too. The attitude of your colleagues can really make or break a work environment, especially in a smaller outfit.

 

Valid, shot taken. It was moron...

I couldn't agree more, I think you're thoughts have a lot to add to the discussion. I'm just saying, I think your delivery causes more people to gloss over your posts, rather than actually read them and think about it...maybe I'm wrong, who knows. Anyway, I'm done with this, I hope things get better for you.

 

Grew up in a NAVAIR/ Army Aviation family... Living in a huge NAVAIR town helped out a lot too. Getting to see A-6's, F-14's, A-7's, and legacy Hornets buzz around my house 24/7 (we had 4 active fighter bases at one point) fueled a lot of it for me.

 

Interesting that you'd bring up that name here. It's almost like you two are somehow connected?? In fact you posts read almost like it's the person writing them. Strange......

 

What do you want from life?

Why do you want to Fly? Do you want to do it for a full time Job, or just when you feel like it? How much have you flown already? How much time and money have you spent on lessons?

Do you just want to go out and "have fun" when you fly?

If that's the case, then get a job on Wall Street as a derivitives trader, take a few bazillion $$$ out of the market, on the float, go buy a Pitts, and go G your brains out. There are so many different kinds of "Flying" it's impossible for any pilot to say, to a newb, "Just do this and you'll be fine."

When I was 12 I wanted to work with Jaques Cousteau as a diver and underwater camera man. When I was 15 I wanted to be a photographer...for Playboy Magazine.

When I went to college, it was to be an Aeronautical Engineer. By my sophmore year, I'd decided I didn't want to spend my life in a cubicle drawing airplane parts.

My Dad was a CFI who put me in his Cub when I was 8, so I'd grown up with flying, but all his budds were furloughed airline pilots. It didn't seem like much of a "job" to me. But after a couple years at college, I came home for Chritsmas break and said, "this engineering thing sucks, maybe I should get my comercial and see if I can get a flying job..." So I got serious about my flying lessons and got all my tickets by the end of my sophmore year, then got a job flying checks at night.

When it comes to "Flying", there is everything from Piper Cubs, to F15's, to A380's, but you have to have some idea of what it is you want to do in life, and then go do it.

Two years out of college, with 4,000 hours of night freight time, but no airlines hiring, I joined the Air Guard. There I met a lot of guys who just wanted to fly fighters and never wanted to fly straight and level in an airliner. That would be death to them. Of the 35 guys in my half of my UPT class, only 25 graduated and only 7 of those got fighters. 1 F15, 2 F16's, 2 F4's, 2 A10's (if we consider a 220kt wart hog a fighter) All the rest got to be heavy pilots or instructors, not that there's anything wrong with that...

One of my best friends in UPT wanted an F15 worse than anything. He had two older brothers who were both F15 pilots and they told him if he didn't get one, he couldn't use their last name anymore..."If you don't get an F15, we don't know you!"

He got a Lear Jet and wanted to kill himself, no lie. I had to talk him out of it. He really wanted to die. But he flew the Lear for 3 years and loved it, then flew a C 5 for 3 more then he got out.

That was 27 years ago, today he's a 777 Captain at Fed. Ex. I doubt either of his brothers earn more than he does today, but he never flew an F15.

I only wanted to fly for fun. I never considered the money. The way I look at life is, if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong. Life is too short to spend it doing something you hate. But you have to decide what it is you want to do, and then go do it.

Like I tell my 19yr. old son, "You want to be a Pro Surfer? Fine, but expect to live in a van, down by the ocean."

Forget about the money. You can't control that. It's not what you make, it's what you spend. The most "fun" flying job I ever had was my first flying job, the lowest paying job, $150 a week, flying cancelled checks at night, 25 hours a week. But I was 19 and had very limited expenses, no wife, no kids. I think my rent was about $90/month. I loved the job and had enough money for beer and an occaisional movie and a weekend date. No responsiblities, just show up and fly.

As you age, and collect the wife, kids, mortgage, bills, etc. the pay and benefits become an issue. Even if you do everything right, and get a good paying gig at a major airline, one dip-schidt CEO can come in and ruin it all, in less than a year. Ask any pilot from Eastern, Pan Am, TWA, US Air, American, Delta, United, Continental, Air Tran, or even South West now. You will have zero control over your airline career, as soon as you hire on. So be ready with a plan B when Plan A goes down the tubes. But this is pretty much true no matter what profession you chose. Ask any VP at Enron or Merril Lynch. The only garuntees in life are death and taxes.

Like Forest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get."

 

I started out as a 93B Aero Scout Observer (for you old Army guys who know what thats MOS was), then I paid out of pocket for all of my fixed wing ratings up thru MEI. That was the early to mid 90's, when you had to pay for your training and had to have 1200hrs or more before they would look at you. I flow sky divers, traffic watch, flight instructed, ferried planes, etc.... Just to put hours in my log book while going to school full time and I was married. I flew for two charter companies in Little Rock before I was lucky enough to be excepted to Air Force UPT. I left the AF in 2007 and went to work for an airline which is where I have been for the last 5 years. I currently fly CH-47 for an Army Guard unit.

Thats my history.

All I am saying is several folks come on here a complain all the time. It is sad when they have a position at UPS, FEDEX, NetJets, Delta, SW, etc...

As long as they have all the facts and they still want to enter this industry, more power to them.

 

I became a pilot because I was too scared to steal and too lazy work. I just rode around sitting on my ass for 25 years. Now that I have retired, the same still applies.

 

I got into flying when I was about 4 when my did introduced me one of Microsoft's first flight simulators (ms-dos, remember that?) Over the years I continued to upgrade the software and the last Flight Sim I used was FS2002...After that I went into High School, after my stint with that I ended up working 2 jobs, one waitering and my other was part time at a lawn mower repair facility up until 2009. With no dream of flying really.

Fortunately for me somebody had plans to prepare my future as a pilot as I flew with this person a few times and he was impressed from what I knew and how I flew from actually taking controls of an aircraft for the first time (2009)

One day, I came into work (restaurant) and my boss sits me down outside and told me Mr.xxx (My bosses best friend) is sending you to Flight Academy. Mr.xxx was a pilot for a mainline carrier as well as a corporate center as well. 3 months later I was indeed sitting in ground school at FlightSafety with a big check in my hand sponsored from that corporate center.

This changed my life forever. I never asked for it, nor did I believe I deserved it, but someone saw my potential and didn't want to see it go to waste. But I guess it was just a blessing from God.Some may call it fate, but whatever it is I'm thankful. Still good people in this world.

But in a nutshell, I worked my tail off and 2 years later I was a commercial pilot. That's how I got into flying =D

Yea, nobody believes this story, its a fairytale of sorts...I should make a call to LA and have them make a movie about me lol.

 

^^ Classic

 

My mom used to work for Eastern Airlines for 6+ years as a reservationist. I never flew Eastern because she was let go in 1985, the year I was born. She then went to work for United for 18 years as a Reservationist, and I got to travel across the world for dirt cheap. I have 4 passports fill with international stamps before I even reached the age of 18, and i'm now 26. I want to keep that inspiration alive.

Also, when sitting in airports on delays, cancellations, or bumped off stand-by lists due to overbooking, Captains and FO's would walk up to me (when I was really young) and would just talk to me, hand out stick-on or pin-on badges, and also would give out those cool coloring books, and even metal model planes. I'd also be the kid who would be 6 years old and instead of making a right turn to the seats, i'd make a left turn to the flight deck. Most of the Captains would stand up, get out of their seats, and let me sit in the cockpit (pre-9/11 of course) and even push buttons before the flight. Minus the kid in the cabin part i'd like to keep the friendly face shining. Saying hi randomly to people you don't know does a lot of good, and it's something I haven't seen in YEARS, if not at least a decade...