JohnBurke

"Critical thinking" is a fairly recent college term. I took an entire class on the subject and thought it was one of the most idiotic things I ever heard. It was a glorified presentation that boiled down to "think for yourself"...just like mankind has always been expected to do.

Imagine what people did before someone coined the phrase. Did the world just recently begin actually thinking, because now we've discovered "critical thinking?" No. Someone simply coined a catch phrase.

Should people be expected to do a little research before they commit to a major life decision? Yes. I don't care if they're 18 or 40.

Kids research the college they wish to attend. If they're going to take out loans to seek flight training or embark on a career, then they had best do a little research. It's really not that hard.

Someone undertakes an aviation career completely ignorant of reality, there's no need to feel sympathy for them. Someone who says they were "duped" into an aviation career, or who blames all their career woes on the industry and not on themselves, however, shouldn't be in aviation.

A core tenet of being a pilot is the ability to accept responsibility. It's essential in most things in life, but in aviation, it's everything. If someone intends to blame everything but themself, then they really aren't cut out for a career as an aviator.

kevbo

Next time I will choose to be born into a wealthy family as well. According to your logic, that was my responsibility after all. Lets see, there is 200 people and 100 positions. Does that mean 100 people chose not to make it? Way too much conservative rhetoric here.

brianb

Yes, it's amazing how we made it as a human race before all these institutions and agency's made our lives better. Unfortunately, there are many thieves in the aviation business and to lay the blame solely at the feet of the consumer is inaccurate at best.

flap

I think the original point was that a potential pilot doing his due diligence may be getting biased information from those that will profit from the decision.

Not many people would put a value on the sales pitch of a used car salesman, but would be more willing to accept the sales pitch of a successful university as to the job prospects when graduated.

I know Sky bugs his share of members, but the career is not without its drawbacks.

Sky goes a bit too far, but I get the point. Go into this career with your eyes wide open.

I grew up in the business, so I had a great handle on seniority and the pitfalls. Even still, I was disappointed to see it change from a career to a job over the last 30 years. Almost done, and looking forward to it, but like most that are retiring, I will miss the great people I have worked with.

Cubdriver

I really do not get the "they should have all known" argument, JB. This is some more of your smug rugged individualism. 18 year olds coming out of high school should all do some research to get a reasonable picture of what the career entails before launching down such a long expensive road, and the smarter ones make a serious study of the subject. But there is no question in my mind that much of the domestic pilot supply in the US had no clear idea what they were getting into even AFTER reading up on the subject. We know that anything produced by the flight schools is at best biased towards industry, and that leaves us with industry itself which is about as trustworthy as a new car dealer. What's left? Some actual working pilots if they can find them to ask at the critical time, plus a few disinterested third party sources like the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's not much to go on, JB. Would you want to be one of these kids who pays $150 for an aviation degree (on credit) for a few hundred hours of Skyhawk time, then enters the pilot work force making $18k with food stamps, with a $800 a month loan repayment? Do you really think that a typical flight school applicant would even do this if they really knew what they were getting into?

eman

Right on man...




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hindsight2020

I don't feel entitled to a lucrative flying profession. As a mil dude, it pays me a wage I can raise my family with. It's also not going to last an entire career and I accepted that opportunity cost. The point is, if it didn't pay well, I wouldn't do it for a living, when I'm otherwise academically adept to hacking other forms of employment. That's rational.

The snapshot rang true for me in 1998 and it still rings true for me now. That is, the image of a senior furlough-protected major airline pilot and a $1.20, gets me a cup of coffee, when it pre-requires economic faltering and sub-median wages (normalized for employment gaps) for the majority of the two most important income decades of my life (30s and 40s).

Spare me the "instant gratification" demagoguery. That's too long of a time, too high an opportunity cost. I was able to remediate that with military employment in much the same way others go the "second-career" route in order to bypass the internship; but that is a pageant, a relative lottery ticket in a sea of aspirants. If the Reserves hadn't called when they did, I'd be a doctor by now (which perhaps is the irony of it all). Financially insolvent internships shouldn't last 15 years. That's a religion, not a job. It's a recipe for hobby pilot proliferation. As a passenger, I feel that's a safety issue going forward.

hindsight2020

My observation of the Purdue kids while I was pursuing engineering grad school (was never affiliated with their aviation department even though I got all my post-IR ratings at KLAF part 61) was that the majority were from well-to-do families that were absorbing the cost, so as to effectively make the opportunity cost of starving/flailing during a hung-start attempt at regional airline employment not a particularly damaging affair nor crippling to retreat/re-train from. The rest who couldn't afford it went the part 61 route.

Mortgage-sized student debt is viewed by many from the previously middle class as a sunk cost to the attainment of generational socioeconomic parity; a side effect of a growing labor surplus. A National Tragedy really. The same argument could be said about most liberal arts major who gets pursued as out-of-state tuition (10s of thousands every year). So it's not just pilot wannabes that commit that level of financial folly. But your point is noted, it's an absolute and rampant propaganda that weaponizes optimism bias against both parents and students. That's the machine gun in the front, the pistol in your back is the labor surplus that tells you "you got no alternative".

Albief15

I make pretty good coin as a FedEx pilot and business owner. My daughter got accepted to Auburn--my alma mater--and for a lot of sentimental reasons we both wanted to make it work. Working hard, she got an AICE diploma and will get the highest Bright Futures Scholarship in Florida, which means her degree at UF or UCF will run less than 4-5 k in tuition, fees, etc. Out of state--the total for 4 years rings up around 120k. My point is even though we could do the out of state thing--even she has decided it would be "dumb" to pay that much. She is not pursuing aviation but another career that will be a challenge to make happen. For pilots, an in-state business degree could save the aspiring pilot enough to buy a 30-50k plane and fly the hell out of it for 2-4 years part 61, and maybe even get a little A&P work in along the way if so inclined. A degree outside aviation might also help insulate against the ups and downs of the industry. A Bachelors with a reasonable GPA are all you really need to get hired or into many graduate programs, so while I know there may be some schools that have enough cache to warrant the extra debt, I don't think many aviation schools are worth the extra cost.

Thedude

You have to remember this business is highly cyclical.

Some folks have been lucky and been in the right time, at the right place, with the right qualification and have had a golden career.
Some of them have never known furloughs or companies going out of business and being booted to the curb for the umpteen time.
Some hit the military pipeline at the right moment, if they were medically qualified they got the coveted pilot slot, did there time and got picked up by a major fairly quickly.

Some know they are lucky and some think they hit a triple because they woke up on third base.