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i dont want to be a pilot anymore

Old 04-10-2016, 09:22 AM
  #31  
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Originally Posted by Vital Signs View Post
Herc i agree with you but the problem is with so many pilots....
Years ago was at a non aviation career placement class, I tell the lady all of my education and experience, and her reply.." So you are qualified for nothing"

Excellent reason to major in something other than prof aviation degree.
Sounds like that HR person wasn't qualified for the job!

My standard reply to/for anyone that says that aviation training isn't good on the outside is to work harder on selling yourself.

I point to the 7 tenets of CRM an did take those skills into any job/career out there.
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Old 04-10-2016, 11:04 AM
  #32  
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Everything connects.

We learn about calligraphy by throwing a football. We can learn about throwing a football by driving a car. We can learn about driving a car by making toast. Everything connects.

There are aspects and skills in everything we do which transfers to other things, whether it's the raw mechanical skills, or more esoteric but essential elements such as patience, attention to detail, or the all-important sticktuitiveness of following through with a project once begun.

To say that a professional aviator isn't qualified to do anything else is to express a great deal of personal ignorance, both on the topic of flying, but on the transfer of learning, as well as the capacity of the human mind. It speaks volumes to a bias that disregards what's involved in being an aviator in the first place.

Think about what you do as an aviator. You're an operator of mechanical and electrical equipment. You're a computer operator. You're a meteorologist. You're a shadetree mechanic. You're a jailhouse lawyer. You land things at speeds that exceed race cars. You deal in precision, calculations, data, and have considerable expertise at thinking in three dimensions, and excell at spatial orientation. If you're an instrument flyer, you play a psychological game, an intellectual one, always thinking five or ten steps ahead. A chess player that works at just under the speed of sound.

You're a manager. You manage equipment, you manage a crew. You manage systems, coordinate events across time zones, and you manage time. Hold an incredible level of responsibility, more so than the CEO at most companies. You hold the fate of the company in the palms of your two hands every time you push the power lever up, every time you set up for an approach, every time you land. You hold the futures of a hundred fifty passengers for a few hours of their lives, and have the power to alter thousands of lives in a second, and consequently to preserve them and to benefit them, their families, and their descendants. You are a crucial element in terrorism and piracy prevention. You're a security specialist.

When the door to the airplane closes and pushes back, your authority exceeds that of the president; you've been given ultimate authority over the conduct of that aircraft, enabled to violate any regulation for the purposes of safety, if need be. You can do anything necessary to ensure the safety of that flight. Most employees at most companies have a thin employe manual to learn. Yours is fifteen hundred pages thick, and that's just the first manual. Your company finally issued them on a disc because the fifteen volumes, each too heavy to carry by itself, were overly burdensome, and you're responsible not only to live by them, but to know them, back to front, at all times. Your'e tested on that knowledge, operationally, regularly.

You're vetted. If you're working, you've been tested, you've been checked. You've been examined, and you've had to compete for your job. This is no small thing. Employers have found you worthy to take on these responsibilities over and above dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of other applicants, and you've effectively had to re-interview and re-test for that job every 3 to six months, ever since. Nothing taken for granted.

Good luck for a company outside aviation to ever have an applicant who's been so proven, been given such a level of responsibility. You think nothing of taking one hundred fifty million dollars worth of equipment in your hands, along with the reputation of the company, the legal responsibility and duty of every bag, box, and passenger, and the lives of their wives, children, husbands, parents, employers, and loved ones, every time you go to work, day in and day out, and you do it with ease. Where else is an employer outside aviation going to find someone who does that? Not many places.

For someone to say you're not qualified to do anything outside aviation is a deeply ignorant act. If only they knew.
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Old 04-10-2016, 12:08 PM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by Yow av8r View Post
I am in the early stages of the career but know that the career is not right for me.

I am just having trouble changing my career because it is hard to tell everyone especially my parents who paid for my training/schooling.

Part of my issue is I know that switching over to sales/business isn't going to be smooth. I sort of have a plan, but the issue is i need to stay at my parents home because i want to move back to my hometown with no money.

even without these problems i am sure people will ask why i am making the change with something i appear to be passionate about. truth is am not anymore.

any tips or personal experiences would help me out
What's the issue? Do you suck at flying or just not love it? What kind of flying Job do you have.

I spent about 2 years looking at jobs outside the industry and I discovered.

1) I don't want to collect the debt of law school
2) I don't want to spend the time in school getting my Phd
3) I don't have the dick for porn
4) I don't have the abs for dancing
5) flying companies keep giving me interviews

I gave in and went to a flight department for a Fortune 500. People are nice and the pay is great and the schedule okay so I can continue my own real estate investing business on the side.
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Old 04-10-2016, 05:24 PM
  #34  
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Originally Posted by JohnBurke View Post
Everything connects.

We learn about calligraphy by throwing a football. We can learn about throwing a football by driving a car. We can learn about driving a car by making toast. Everything connects.

There are aspects and skills in everything we do which transfers to other things, whether it's the raw mechanical skills, or more esoteric but essential elements such as patience, attention to detail, or the all-important sticktuitiveness of following through with a project once begun.

To say that a professional aviator isn't qualified to do anything else is to express a great deal of personal ignorance, both on the topic of flying, but on the transfer of learning, as well as the capacity of the human mind. It speaks volumes to a bias that disregards what's involved in being an aviator in the first place.

Think about what you do as an aviator. You're an operator of mechanical and electrical equipment. You're a computer operator. You're a meteorologist. You're a shadetree mechanic. You're a jailhouse lawyer. You land things at speeds that exceed race cars. You deal in precision, calculations, data, and have considerable expertise at thinking in three dimensions, and excell at spatial orientation. If you're an instrument flyer, you play a psychological game, an intellectual one, always thinking five or ten steps ahead. A chess player that works at just under the speed of sound.

You're a manager. You manage equipment, you manage a crew. You manage systems, coordinate events across time zones, and you manage time. Hold an incredible level of responsibility, more so than the CEO at most companies. You hold the fate of the company in the palms of your two hands every time you push the power lever up, every time you set up for an approach, every time you land. You hold the futures of a hundred fifty passengers for a few hours of their lives, and have the power to alter thousands of lives in a second, and consequently to preserve them and to benefit them, their families, and their descendants. You are a crucial element in terrorism and piracy prevention. You're a security specialist.

When the door to the airplane closes and pushes back, your authority exceeds that of the president; you've been given ultimate authority over the conduct of that aircraft, enabled to violate any regulation for the purposes of safety, if need be. You can do anything necessary to ensure the safety of that flight. Most employees at most companies have a thin employe manual to learn. Yours is fifteen hundred pages thick, and that's just the first manual. Your company finally issued them on a disc because the fifteen volumes, each too heavy to carry by itself, were overly burdensome, and you're responsible not only to live by them, but to know them, back to front, at all times. Your'e tested on that knowledge, operationally, regularly.

You're vetted. If you're working, you've been tested, you've been checked. You've been examined, and you've had to compete for your job. This is no small thing. Employers have found you worthy to take on these responsibilities over and above dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of other applicants, and you've effectively had to re-interview and re-test for that job every 3 to six months, ever since. Nothing taken for granted.

Good luck for a company outside aviation to ever have an applicant who's been so proven, been given such a level of responsibility. You think nothing of taking one hundred fifty million dollars worth of equipment in your hands, along with the reputation of the company, the legal responsibility and duty of every bag, box, and passenger, and the lives of their wives, children, husbands, parents, employers, and loved ones, every time you go to work, day in and day out, and you do it with ease. Where else is an employer outside aviation going to find someone who does that? Not many places.

For someone to say you're not qualified to do anything outside aviation is a deeply ignorant act. If only they knew.

Awesomely put!!!
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Old 04-10-2016, 06:09 PM
  #35  
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Originally Posted by JohnBurke View Post
Everything connects.



We learn about calligraphy by throwing a football. We can learn about throwing a football by driving a car. We can learn about driving a car by making toast. Everything connects.



There are aspects and skills in everything we do which transfers to other things, whether it's the raw mechanical skills, or more esoteric but essential elements such as patience, attention to detail, or the all-important sticktuitiveness of following through with a project once begun.



To say that a professional aviator isn't qualified to do anything else is to express a great deal of personal ignorance, both on the topic of flying, but on the transfer of learning, as well as the capacity of the human mind. It speaks volumes to a bias that disregards what's involved in being an aviator in the first place.



Think about what you do as an aviator. You're an operator of mechanical and electrical equipment. You're a computer operator. You're a meteorologist. You're a shadetree mechanic. You're a jailhouse lawyer. You land things at speeds that exceed race cars. You deal in precision, calculations, data, and have considerable expertise at thinking in three dimensions, and excell at spatial orientation. If you're an instrument flyer, you play a psychological game, an intellectual one, always thinking five or ten steps ahead. A chess player that works at just under the speed of sound.



You're a manager. You manage equipment, you manage a crew. You manage systems, coordinate events across time zones, and you manage time. Hold an incredible level of responsibility, more so than the CEO at most companies. You hold the fate of the company in the palms of your two hands every time you push the power lever up, every time you set up for an approach, every time you land. You hold the futures of a hundred fifty passengers for a few hours of their lives, and have the power to alter thousands of lives in a second, and consequently to preserve them and to benefit them, their families, and their descendants. You are a crucial element in terrorism and piracy prevention. You're a security specialist.



When the door to the airplane closes and pushes back, your authority exceeds that of the president; you've been given ultimate authority over the conduct of that aircraft, enabled to violate any regulation for the purposes of safety, if need be. You can do anything necessary to ensure the safety of that flight. Most employees at most companies have a thin employe manual to learn. Yours is fifteen hundred pages thick, and that's just the first manual. Your company finally issued them on a disc because the fifteen volumes, each too heavy to carry by itself, were overly burdensome, and you're responsible not only to live by them, but to know them, back to front, at all times. Your'e tested on that knowledge, operationally, regularly.



You're vetted. If you're working, you've been tested, you've been checked. You've been examined, and you've had to compete for your job. This is no small thing. Employers have found you worthy to take on these responsibilities over and above dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of other applicants, and you've effectively had to re-interview and re-test for that job every 3 to six months, ever since. Nothing taken for granted.



Good luck for a company outside aviation to ever have an applicant who's been so proven, been given such a level of responsibility. You think nothing of taking one hundred fifty million dollars worth of equipment in your hands, along with the reputation of the company, the legal responsibility and duty of every bag, box, and passenger, and the lives of their wives, children, husbands, parents, employers, and loved ones, every time you go to work, day in and day out, and you do it with ease. Where else is an employer outside aviation going to find someone who does that? Not many places.



For someone to say you're not qualified to do anything outside aviation is a deeply ignorant act. If only they knew.


To put it simply, at my last 121 job, my job description as a line captain was about 2 pages in the FOM, add in the sim instructor, LCA and SCA responsibilities and it was another page and a half. The CEO was one small paragraph.
But John, as always, you covered it from start to stop better than I ever could.

Last edited by dustrpilot; 04-10-2016 at 06:19 PM.
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Old 04-10-2016, 07:04 PM
  #36  
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Every time I read one of these "Leaving the Career" threads I'm tempted to post something. Then I realize that if I just hold back I will read a post from USMCFlyer or JohnBurke or also in this case HercDriver130 and it will say what I had in mind much more eloquently and completely.

...Unless it's from SkyHigh. Then I'm "Goin' In For Guns!"*

*Head nod to Dos Gringos.
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Old 04-11-2016, 03:46 PM
  #37  
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You may have to relocate and work weekends but we pay Cadillac a month wages. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad, is it?
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Old 04-12-2016, 12:34 PM
  #38  
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Originally Posted by kevbo View Post
You may have to relocate and work weekends but we pay Cadillac a month wages. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad, is it?
LOL, spot on
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Old 04-02-2018, 05:27 PM
  #39  
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I am going through this now. I am just completing a 22 year military career as a flight engineer. I just hit my ATP minimums after thousands of $$$ in debt.

I love all facets of aviation, I have A&P, dispatcher, comm, as/mel/s, glider, gyro, all the CFI tickets.

I began to add heli and was in an accident week 1. I now question flying helicopters and flying in general. I took my daughter up other day and the joy was not their at all. My wife hates me being gone and does not want an airline career.

I've worked to get where I am with the goal of a major airline all this time and now can't be bothered to interview. I read gouges and feel like my brain has dumped all the knowledge that is basic.

I think it's a phase and don't want to miss out on the opportunity to get in with an airline.

Looking for some motivation.
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Old 04-03-2018, 07:27 AM
  #40  
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Originally Posted by C37AFE View Post
I am going through this now. I am just completing a 22 year military career as a flight engineer. I just hit my ATP minimums after thousands of $$$ in debt.

I love all facets of aviation, I have A&P, dispatcher, comm, as/mel/s, glider, gyro, all the CFI tickets.

I began to add heli and was in an accident week 1. I now question flying helicopters and flying in general. I took my daughter up other day and the joy was not their at all. My wife hates me being gone and does not want an airline career.

I've worked to get where I am with the goal of a major airline all this time and now can't be bothered to interview. I read gouges and feel like my brain has dumped all the knowledge that is basic.

I think it's a phase and don't want to miss out on the opportunity to get in with an airline.

Looking for some motivation.
Sounds like you have almost made it to a complete transition as a professional airline pilot.

Skyhigh
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