Long haul truck driver
#21
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2008
Posts: 384
When was the last time you heard of pilots peeing in a water gallon in the cockpit?
#22
When I started flight instructing I knew that income wasn't going to be enough. I had a CDL from driving dump trucks during the summer for the family business. I was offered the first job I applied for. I'd be driving a brand new Pete 387 with a 525hp Cat diesel for a mattress factory. They only needed me to work two days a week to cover for the two full time drivers so I could easily schedule my flight instructing around it. I had to unload the mattress at my stops by myself. The customer wouldn't touch them until they were at the end of the trailer. To unload all 120-140 mattresses I'd have to walk 1.25 while carrying a mattress for half that distance. The work was grueling and driving in ND, MN, SD and Manitoba in winter was challenging, but it paid pretty well and I got along well with the factory owners. If I did it full time I would have been making $50,000+ as a 22 year old. Since I already had a college degree and I had invested a decent amount of money in flight training I never considered it as a career.
I've been flying freight for about three years now and I've been exceeding my CDL earning potential for the past 18 months. I don't recommend leaving aviation by choice to become a truck driver, but it's a good fall back plan given the horrible job security of this occupation.
Also, The plane I fly had the lav removed during the freight mod so my trucker powerade bottle skills still come in handy.
I've been flying freight for about three years now and I've been exceeding my CDL earning potential for the past 18 months. I don't recommend leaving aviation by choice to become a truck driver, but it's a good fall back plan given the horrible job security of this occupation.
Also, The plane I fly had the lav removed during the freight mod so my trucker powerade bottle skills still come in handy.
#24
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2005
Position: Lantis 838 k-loader/Freightliner FL70
Posts: 133
Hate to break it to you New B but everyone has done it at least once while in the cockpit. And bad bathrooms? wait until you fly a jet with loaded passengers and a bad lav. Check out an airplane lav sometime, especially after a turbulent flight, aim seems to be a problem. eeeeewwww!
But too each their own. My business as an owner-operator cratered pretty badly in the end but it was a lot of fun at times.
Doing fun stuff was the straw that broke the camels back, in the end though.
I used a lot of fuel and time driving around looking for parking spots instead of staying put at the truck stop; then finally my truck got sideswiped by a hit and run driver while parked on the street in an industrial area near Camden Yards in Baltimore causing moderately serious damage; didn't have the cash to fix it and ended up having to sell for next to nothing.
I'm kind of hoping to go back, I probably learned enough to have a good shot at success but right now getting away from various personal commitments to be gone for weeks at a time or just get retrained in a specialized field that I can work locally is tough.
#25
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2009
Posts: 41
Hate to break it to you New B but everyone has done it at least once while in the cockpit. And bad bathrooms? wait until you fly a jet with loaded passengers and a bad lav. Check out an airplane lav sometime, especially after a turbulent flight, aim seems to be a problem. eeeeewwww!
#27
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2009
Posts: 41
LOL, tell that to the poor chap that has to mow the tall grass along interstates during the summer. With hundreds of "trucker bombs" lurking underneath the blades.
#28
Pilot Bombs
Let me rephrase. I obviously flew before as a passenger and I have yet to see one urine jug on an airport taxiway or runway. Next time you are on a rural interstate on/off ramp count how many containers are left about. You see the problem I was referring to isn't so much USING a jug but rather how you dispose of it. This is actually an epidemic in the trucking world. There are other even grosser problems that I won't go into.
Skyhigh
#30
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