Originally Posted by scubabri (Post 1637406)

I went back to sitting behind a desk doing systems engineering. The bad part, I have a window seat that allows me to see the final approach corridor at SLC. :(

Originally Posted by Cubdriver (Post 1630567)

Welcome Boxed Foods- interesting screen name, thinking about tv dinners maybe? You sound like a candidate for an online degree in something besides flying. I would suggest suggest seeing a career counselor about it, and while you are there ask for the Myers Briggs inventory. The Briggs is a non-judgmental test that determines basic personality traits and your career counselor should be able to give you a list of jobs that match with your personality. Money will be an issue, so look for in-state tuition which is much cheaper. Looks like you need to stick with the flying for a while though until your new career plan is hatched. Ideally you could use your advanced flying skill to get a job in airport management or some other extension of pilot experience. Good luck, you are not the first person who found the pot of gold strongly resembles a pot of lemons in many ways. No need to do something you do not like, but you will need to pay your dues for the next career.

Originally Posted by CrimsonEclipse (Post 1661688)

Went on to I.T.

(Greener on this side)

Originally Posted by Boxedfoods (Post 1630530)

So this is my first post but i've been reading this forum for awhile its the only one where i can find a leaving the career section. I am a regional FO who feels that i was lied too when I was in flight training, maybe I was dumb not quite sure. This job was exciting at first and continued to be for the 6 months after. Now I realize how screwed im getting and how far off a major job is. I despise going to work and leaving my family for 5 days. My counter parts who went to school for as long as I did have great jobs where they are respected. On the other hand I feel as if I'm treated like a child. So Ive come to the conclusion that I deserve better. I dont want to be one of the 50 year old guys begging for a job at women in aviation. So I'm starting my search on ways to get out. I would like to hear from a few of you on your action plans? If your self employed what are you doing ? How did you get there? Tell me how much greener the grass is on the other side.

Originally Posted by Columbusohio (Post 1850690)

I get what he is saying. When you get into aviation you are normally single. You like being gone from home. Fast forward 10 years, 2 kids later and you wonder if it is worth it. I am lucky to currently have a job flying where I am home most nights and almost every holiday and weekend (expect for when I am deployed). I am exploring going back to civilian flying because I dont want to deploy again and I have wondered if civilian flying is worth it. If you are social person like me then being home is nice because you have friends, family, and things/events that you dont want to miss out on. I get it.

Originally Posted by UASIT (Post 1788024)

IT all the way...Federal government job in IT if you qualify would be my recommendation...

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1851987)

I believe that an essential element of preserving ones satisfaction with the profession lies in planning to be single your entire career. No kids, spouse, or extended family to have to pay for or satisfy. Sleep when you are home. Visit other single airline friends on days off. Jumpseat alone to far flung corners of the globe. Move when the career asks you to and the salary should be able to adequately support a studio apartment, cable bill, and Toyota Echo. And who knows, you might actually even make it to a legacy airline.

Apart from that if you have a family or want one an aviation career can make it very hard to be able to accomplish your goals in either category.

Skyhigh

Originally Posted by 550pilot (Post 1630649)

You should try to find a good corporate flying job if you're still interested in Aviation. Your QOL will be much better.

Originally Posted by JohnBurke (Post 1852013)

Hard for you, perhaps.

You've been on about this lie for some time, that if one is a pilot, one must be single, live in a single room apartment, have no life. Was this you?

I have a family, live in a home, and am quite happy with my life as a career aviator. You never established a career. You abandoned it. How could you possibly know what's possible in a career? You're not qualified to say.

Originally Posted by Boxedfoods (Post 1638737)

Thanks for all the replies! I am waiting on a spot to open marketing for a hospice and homecare business. 65-80k a year with great benifits and real growth potential. I would be home every night with holidays and weekends off. After the last few months at my regional almost anything sounds better. Even if im not at the homecare business for my whole career it still gives me the option to go back to school if I need to.

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1852143)

A better plan is just to stay single.

SkyHigh

Originally Posted by JohnBurke (Post 1852388)

How would you know?

What a ridiculous generalization that is.

You assert that pilots who began flying in the late 80's had it rough and couldn't have made it in a career, yet this board (and airline cockpits) are full of pilots who did just that.

You assert that a working pilot should be single, but nearly everyone I know, myself included, is married. My wife stays at home, incidentally. She could work, but we have a family life, and she's comfortable with that, in our home, not single-bedroom apartment.

I flew long haul, and when I came home I didn't find a cleaned out house with legal documents on the counter. I came home to a wife who picked me up at the airport, and we went out to lunch, then dinner. We had a great life while I was on the road, and we still do when I'm out and about. The difference is that as a working aviator, I spend a lot more time at home and have a lot more opportunity to interact with my family than most people in the work place. Even on jobs that keep me away for a period of time, I'm still home a lot more, and when I'm home, it's not just for a few hours of the evening.

The better choice may be for you to stay single. You can't really say what's best for working pilots who didn't abandon their careers, because you wouldn't know about that.

At the entry rungs, finances are tight, there's no denying it. It seems that you never got past that point, and don't know what lies beyond. It's too bad, really, because the career can be very enjoyable and very beneficial for those who commit. You just didn't stick around enough to find out, and now spend your time in false pretense to share your hollow expertise of what you suppose the industry to be.

But how would you know?

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1852724)

John,

I spent 20 years in the effort. Over that time I worked a wide variety of pilot jobs and had contact with hundreds of pilots whom I studied and followed in their careers. Beyond that I enjoy reading and analyzing aviation as an interest that I follow. That is plenty of time and experience to be able to hold an opinion.

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1852724)

Here is something else for you to get upset about:

Originally Posted by SkyHigh;1852724
Last summer USA Today ran an article regarding what it costs the average family of four to provide for the full cost of the American dream. To save you the time to read the article the amount is $130,000. That is what it costs, on average, to provide for everything including savings for college and a self funded retirement.

[url=http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/07/04/american-dream/11122015/

Price tag for the American dream: $130K a year[/url]

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1852724)

No matter how lucky a new pilot expects to be in their career it is still very difficult to be able to expect to be able to raise a family and retire given the average career trajectory unless they are sponsored or have a spouse with a real job to pay for everything.

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1852724)

My story is well known here while you have remained a virtual mystery. I don't know if you have suffered a stagnated seniority list at a regional or are a trust fund baby. Perhaps you should list your credentials?

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1852724)

PS I did not leave the career I was laid off from my 757 FO position when my company shutdown with a stay at home wife, two kids and one on the way. We had no health insurance and no job prospects anywhere at the time that could support a family in the USA as a pilot.

Originally Posted by Cubdriver (Post 1853307)

JB, how many years of low wages, job swaps, time building and so forth did you endure before you reached the threshold of "good" money (define "good")?

Originally Posted by JohnBurke (Post 1853225)

You've told us about your 20 years of failure, before. Yet you tell us you got in during the late 80's, and have recently told us how hard it was then. Your stories don't add up, not one of them. Lies, all lies.

In 1988 when you say you entered the aviation work force, nobody was getting on with a commuter without 2,500 hours or so. I remember well. Most had to go out and fly night freight, instruct, and do anything they could find to get enough experience to look toward a commuter, and EVERYONE knew it was starvation wage. Your story is very different; either you were the most uninformed, naive person in the aviation community, or your story is all lies. You see, I was there then, too. That is to say, I really was there. You weren't.

You've expounded at great length about the fact that airline pilots were living like kings back then, but the market went bust, leaving you high and dry. Not true. Apparently you don't remember deregulation. do a little research. If you don't remember deregulation, then you don't remember what it was like before that, and you wouldn't know...despite your pontification about king-like wealth and bounty. You simply don't know.

You claim 20 years of experience, and you also claim to have come from a family where everyone was an aviator, and yet you claim at the same time to have been fooled into an aviation career. You've said this frequently, about being tricked into your career; you've often called it "deceived" and "mislead." This, despite having grown up in a family of all aviators, and then you went 20 years, all the while deceived about your career? Hardly.

You can't keep your stories straight, can you? I was especially entertained by your tales of fire experience, because you surely didn't have it, and you had no idea what the hell you were talking about. Did you simply suppose that there wouldn't be anyone around with the experience who knew you were lying, and who would call you out?

So you lie about this experience, and use the lies to attempt to build credibility to decry the industry in which you failed. Not a very intelligent way to make a case, is it? You really should do a little research, first.

20 years of utter failure, and yet you pressed on, and one day the lightbulb simply came on? I don't think so. Not one iota of your story adds up. None of it.

You were 20 years into a career, and yet you were "studying" the careers of hundreds of others around you? Who does that? If you were really studying others around you after 20 years on the job, why is it that none of your information is correct? You couldn't have "studied" very hard, could you?



I'm not upset in the least. I'm not sorry about my past, and not here to whine to the masses. I'm not here to talk about 20 years of abject failure, and to spread sorry and misery, or to rain on anyone's parade. I'm interested in the truth, and you can't own up to it.

I'm not upset at all, but you certainly appear to be. Why else would you be sitting by the gutter in the tatters of a pretend airline uniform telling us to sit with you a while as you share your sorrowful tale of martyrdom?



We've already debunked this one, though you continue to spout it, over and over. With the average national income nearly a third of what you propose as the bare minimum to get by, the vast majority of citizens in the United States manage on far, far less than the numbers you propose. I already provided links to actual sources, with the correct data. The best you can come up with is a pop-rag op ed article ? Where are your two decades of studies? You never could address the links I provided to government sources for income, which clearly showed your assertions to be lies. It's already been posted, so there's no need to turn that leaf over again. You were already shot down in flames on this; repeating the lie over and over doesn't make it true.



My wife stays at home.

Sponsored? Wild foolishness. Entitlement, then?

You wouldn't know about making a successful career or the ability to create one. You have no credibility.



Apparently you don't read well, or simply suffer from difficulty with basic reading comprehension. B747 captain, and a fairly broad range of aviation employment activities that run the gamut from flight instructing to crop dusting to flying fires, law enforcement, ambulance, charter, fractional, corporate, etc. Five FAA certificates. A maintenance experience history longer than my flying, and I've been flying since my mid teens. The only relevant part of any of it, whether it's time spent in Iraq and Afghanistan or flying approaches into Hong Kong in inclement weather, is whatever my current employer needs, at any given time. I work more than one job, and do more than one thing both because it's lucrative, and because I enjoy it. I also enjoy considerable time at home; recently I took a month at home with no other duties to do nothing but write. Why? Because I could. That's what aviation duties do for you, and there is a very wide field of duty from which to choose. Again, something you wouldn't understand.

Am I working for a regional? Not hardly. Nor do I have any need, nor intention of doing so.

Trust fund? Nobody gave me anything. It's been earned every step of the way. Perhaps that was your problem. Far too much a sense of entitlement.



Previously you worked for ------- (a regional) as a FO, I believe, and now you were a 757 FO? You carried on at great length about the inability to get past a first officer position at -------, and your inability to move to ------- Airlines. Was this you?

You claim you were laid off as a 757 FO; many were furloughed or laid off over the past few years (and it would have had to be in the past few years, if you got out of college and started your flying career in 88, and spent 20 years on the job)...so you lost your job during the time when everyone else was losing theirs? I was furloughed, too. You quit aviation, and I went to Iraq and kept flying.

That same time frame, before I went overseas, I was out of work three weeks before picking up duties turning wrenches, which lead to charter, and a check airman position. Airline pilot after airline pilot, freshly furloughed, came by looking for work. I had a single engine night freight position, carrying radioactive materials, available, but often flown in a twin due to weather. None of them took it; they turned up their noses and moved on. They came back not long after, saying they'd take anything, but it was too late. The job was already snapped up by someone who knew better.

That's the difference, you see. Those who quit too easily, who expect life on a silver platter, and those who are willing to get in the trenches and make it work even in the lean times, even in the down times. Not too proud to do whatever it takes. I suspect that if you had any career at all (and given your inconsistencies and your frequent lies, I very much doubt you did), you were typical of those who turned up their noses at the job and moved on, only to find that they weren't going to get fed with the silver spoon.

You rabbet on about the low wages and the inability to raise a family, pay for a car, pay the bills. If you had the slightest inclination what I get even for single engine work (it's six figures), let alone other assignments as well, perhaps you'd be shocked. If so, it wouldn't be because your experience tells you otherwise; you didn't have the experience to know, and you still don't. You never will. You'll never be able to command a salary like that, because you walked away.

I'm not going to break down my finances for you, nor am I going to post a resume; unless you're interested in hiring me, you really have no need to know. Unlike you, I don't spend my time on a semi-public forum posting endlessly about my sad state of affairs and crying to all who would listen about the martyrdom of my failed dreams. Unlike you, I'm living them, and my employers are quite happy with my resume; enough so that they pay me well, treat me well, and I enjoy my jobs. It's a shame that you don't, but perhaps if you hadn't quit, you wouldn't be so unhappy all the time.

How many years will we continue to hear your drivel before you've finally satisfied yourself that you made the right choice? When will your cavalcade of self-affirmation end, that we may no longer year the ignorant preaching about the failure of the industry?

Make no bones about it: the industry didn't fail. YOU did.

Originally Posted by JohnBurke (Post 1853335)

...The regional path is a tough one if a fledgling aviator intends to stay, even with ample seniority. The schedules are tougher, the pay is less, and the industry is clogged with the same cookie cutter types trying to climb up. The willingness and ability to move, even laterally, to other paths is essential, and those who feel that jumping onto the regional bandwagon, with no other experience or qualifications or background, will fast-track their careers often find themselves dammed or stymied with.

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1853395)

John,

We are all glad for you. I am not here to beat up on guys who have made it to where they want to be, in a flight deck no questions asked.

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1853482)

Years ago during a simulator session some UAL guys explained to us that they did not study in preparation for recurrent checks or for proficiency because as they explained, "if the company had wanted us to study they would have built credit hours into the schedule for it". Essentially they were not getting paid to study so they were not going to do it.

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1853395)

I was here long before you and I will be here long after. Lives need to be saved.

Originally Posted by SkyHigh (Post 1853482)

Years ago during a simulator session some UAL guys explained to us that they did not study in preparation for recurrent checks or for proficiency because as they explained, "if the company had wanted us to study they would have built credit hours into the schedule for it". Essentially they were not getting paid to study so they were not going to do it.

The prospective of aviation was more professional and not the working hobbyist/religious zealot as it is today. When I started aviation my aim was that of a professional practitioner and not as a starry eyed dreamer. It was the same as with my peers and instructors. They told us that "getting there is not half the fun but all of it". It was common knowledge that flying part 121 was boring, unfulfilling, and completely void of fun. One did it for the wages, benefits and access to a better life. Any suggestion that the job was "fun" was scab talk.

Had we known that aviation was going to devolve into a martyrs paradise none of us would have taken our first lesson. We had lives and dreams to provide for. So long as people will accept as compensation "fun" flying will continue to loose ground as successive generations come prepared to undercut the previous one just to get into the saddle.

Old union pilots would not do anything more than what they were paid to do. Plumbers don't subscribe to "Plumbers World" magazine nor do they do anything for free and that is the attitude of a professional. You set the value of your worth.

Skyhigh[/QUOTE
Then you made a great decision Sky and I for one, am very happy for you but, in all honesty you are full of so much $% it makes one wonder how you get through a day. Get over it, people have made it in the airline industry and no matter how much you try to convince people otherwise they will continue to make it. Keep up with the half truths and don't acknowledge the obvious successes, you're very good at that.

Originally Posted by scubaash (Post 1864729)

Back to the topic...

I left for ATC. I think it was a smart move, stable, good pay, retirement, benefits, home life, etc. I left 135 flying in South Florida for this opportunity. I'm single and 27, yet I miss being in the flight levels and seeing new places everyday. I feel like I was born to fly and thinking about going back to it... Is that crazy?