Pilot career
03-03-2006, 05:50 AM
#41
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2005
Position: 7ER B...whatever that means.
Posts: 3,966
Originally Posted by SkyHigh
A national list would have a difficult time. Imagine all the lawsuits and union fighting. A better idea would be to have a national pilot ID system for 121 pilots that includes a one time background check and nationaly standardized training so it would be easier to jump from one company to another as long as they flew the same type. A pilots entire records could be enbeded in a microchip in the card. Your movements could be monitored on a national computer system to detect any odd patterns. When switching to a new company all it would take was a one week indoctrination class and a few days of diffrences training and you could be on the line. It would make union busting a whole lot easier.
SkyHigh
SkyHigh
03-03-2006, 10:06 AM
#42
Guest
Posts: n/a
OK, here's my 'If I could do it over I would...'
My situation was just like yours at 22. CFII, some hours, even had a game plan that sounded very similar to yours, except it involved a corporate jet and a penthouse (no friggin' Internet then... had no idea what the career was about and no forums to discuss it on... planned on being some type of flying James Bond, and no one I talked to told me any different.) What I would change:
1 - Not listen to the hype from a Part 141 recruiter who made his living slinging bodies into KTUL and KRVS... he had me finishing school in 1 year, CFI'ing for another year or two, then jockeying a Gulfstream to the Bahamas by year 5.
2 - Either taken the high road (Riddle degree plus flying), or the low road (local FBO or flight school.) The middle road was a total waste of time and money. After graduating 141, came home to find a local flying club that rented a C-150A for $24/hour wet, Tach time, not Hobbs, and 2 CFIs that taught for free. The middle road, a Part 141 school with no degree, left me with the same certs I would have gotten at the flying club, only $20,000 cheaper and just as many meaningful aviation contacts (unless you count my group of 10 - 20 friends, who either left depleted of cash before finishing, finished but couldn't live on the low wages and left, or disappeared into some obscure 135 operation in East Bumf*ck.)
3 - Would have stayed in the South to build hours, rather than coming back to the Northeast to attempt to CFI in the 5 flying months of the year we had at a highly unsuccessful FBO. My paychecks for 2 years ranged from $50/wk to a one-time high of $250 when I picked up a few charters. The rest of my rent money came from hustling pizza for Domino's for 50 hours a week, fueling C-150's, de-icing Metroliners, plowing the ramp, telemarketing, then finally smarting up and getting a job as a Crew Chief with the local ANG unit (so at least once a month I made more than a janitor.)
If you want to talk about 'paying your dues', this was it. My first year at this place, I commuted 1 1/2 hours each way (yep, 3 hours of driving), to make said $50 -$250/wk, sometimes stayed overnight in the crew cot to get 4 hours sleep, wake up, and pre-heat the Foxstar Baron for the 'real' pilots (eventually flew Baron, King Air 90 and 200, Navajo Chieftain for these guys - took a lot of de-icing, towing, plowing, catering, and refueling time to get there though.) And guess what? This job only added about another 800 hours to my log book.
4 - Leave the girlfriend behind. I would have never gone through step number 3 above if I had. This career, especially early on, will tolerate no mistress. We're married now, happy, 2nd kid on the way, but you want to know what would be good for your career, not your happiness... they aren't always the same thing.
5 - DON'T let an 18 year-old plan your entire future. Top Gun was wrong, Maverick was an as$hole. If you want a fantasy, become an actor - they get to pretend to be stuff that the rest of us really are - but don't have to deal with the consequences of actually living that career.
6 - Now comes the big break. I was ready to throw in the towel after chasing the career for 5 years and being broke, then got a pilot slot with the ANG unit (no degree, had 99 credits done out of 120 in 'Professional Aeronautics', got into flight slot with a degree waiver because they needed pilots... never think you aren't going to qualify... try anyway - if they want you, there's a way), going to get to do what the 6 year-old boy in me wanted to do since he first looked up. Earned the wings, complete with graduation speech from Dick Rutan (his first name is appropriate, that's all I will say... talked down to us like we were a group of bus boys.) Had the USAF wings, didn't get through fast mover school, see ya, back to trash-hauling in the Northeast.
Here's the big turning point: Flew fast and high for a couple of years, made a real paycheck and had food for the family (instead of leftover pizza), couldn't bring myself to buy a job for $15K and work for the same $15K. I was too snobby since I flew fast and high, wouldn't fly anything that had any external rotating parts, and had grown fond of people calling me 'Sir', rather than telling me 'Keep the change'... oh, and I wasn't going back to Ramen Noodles. There's a name for this. They call it 'shuttle pilot syndrome'. Once you have been to the top of the ladder and have been treated with respect, and have eaten regularly, and accomplished the biggest goal in your life, very, very hard to do anything else... this is doubly so for wives... tell her you're going back to living in the one-room dump like you did 10 years ago so you can get your pilot-jollies off... it's called AIDS... Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome.
Left flying as a profession. Guess what? No degree, no skills, no money, no rich family to bail me out, back to pizza, telemarketing, ramp work, you name it. Leaving flying didn't correct the poverty problem for at least 6 years while I re-trained and re-careered... those same 6 years put into a pilot career would have put me making AT LEAST what I am now, so financially, leaving flying didn't really help... but I am home, which is either a blessing or a curse, depending on how much you value being with your family.
The fix? Suck it up, either go into a Cessna 404 and ice it up in the Northeast, or take a loan and buy a job. Guess what? I was just as poor either way. My job(s) were just as unstable. I had to move around, and take unemployment. Now, wife in tow, second kid on the way, I'm here on this forum looking at all the shiny jet jobs, biting my lip, knowing that I'm happiest in the front office of a jet, but unwilling to drag the family through poverty, and relocation, and 'will daddy be home next week?' I'll poke around in here for a few weeks, look at a few jobs, then the fever will finally break, and I won't be back again until CFI renewal time again in 2 years and I catch the bug.
If you're going to do it, do it now. Soak up every hour you can get, finish all the school you can, and network with every person that even smells like Jet-A. Families will come, and responsibilities, and you will grow tired of being stuck in the 'pay your dues' phase because it seems like forever. Flying as a career is NOT like going to the airport on Sunday. Don't go into it because of your ego or for money, and you won't end up as a 40 year-old stuck with a career that an 18 year-old handed him 22 years earlier (or, an abandoned career that makes you a 30+ 'career changer'.)
As far as being with family, something miraculous happened when I went through USAF flight school. I was happy. When I had free time (which wasn't much, when being on the flight line and studying took up an easy 90 hours a week), I didn't think about anything else except relaxing, being with the wife, having fun. Not so in my present career. I spend half my night fantasizing what I would do if I had a few million dollars. Fly airplanes, spend time at the motocross track, travel, camping with the family - all because I have still never had either the time, or money, or both, to do those things. When you do exactly what you want all day, all of that stuff disappears. If you raise a family, and decide not to fly, you will be home every night... but may not be the person you want them to see... beaten down by the boss and office politics, self-esteem deflated because you aren't on the top of the food chain, or constantly studying for that 2nd, or 3d, or 4th career because of downsizing, outsourcing, bad political moves, or just plain frustration. Will your kids think daddy is a great guy, or daddy is a schmuck?
If you are in this career, be in a very, very big hurry. Don't let a girlfriend slow you down. Don't stay at a 'full time' flight school that only flies you 3 times a week. Don't get bogged down in a job that doesn't build your time quickly or that doesn't speed you along in your career. Hurry up, before time, and family, and commitments, and fatigue keep you from doing what you have to do to succeed. Understand that you have to give some things up to get other things. Don't pick a job based on what you like doing, choose it based on the lifestyle it will give you. The only perfect job is winning the lottery... then you don't have to sacrifice anything for anything... you just do whatever the he11 you want to every day with no trade-offs. If you think piloting will make you wealthy, seriously consider taking the $50 - $150K you would drop on training and buy lottery tickets. I'll even give you the secret to making a small fortune in aviation right now - start with a big fortune, very soon it will be a small one.
My situation was just like yours at 22. CFII, some hours, even had a game plan that sounded very similar to yours, except it involved a corporate jet and a penthouse (no friggin' Internet then... had no idea what the career was about and no forums to discuss it on... planned on being some type of flying James Bond, and no one I talked to told me any different.) What I would change:
1 - Not listen to the hype from a Part 141 recruiter who made his living slinging bodies into KTUL and KRVS... he had me finishing school in 1 year, CFI'ing for another year or two, then jockeying a Gulfstream to the Bahamas by year 5.
2 - Either taken the high road (Riddle degree plus flying), or the low road (local FBO or flight school.) The middle road was a total waste of time and money. After graduating 141, came home to find a local flying club that rented a C-150A for $24/hour wet, Tach time, not Hobbs, and 2 CFIs that taught for free. The middle road, a Part 141 school with no degree, left me with the same certs I would have gotten at the flying club, only $20,000 cheaper and just as many meaningful aviation contacts (unless you count my group of 10 - 20 friends, who either left depleted of cash before finishing, finished but couldn't live on the low wages and left, or disappeared into some obscure 135 operation in East Bumf*ck.)
3 - Would have stayed in the South to build hours, rather than coming back to the Northeast to attempt to CFI in the 5 flying months of the year we had at a highly unsuccessful FBO. My paychecks for 2 years ranged from $50/wk to a one-time high of $250 when I picked up a few charters. The rest of my rent money came from hustling pizza for Domino's for 50 hours a week, fueling C-150's, de-icing Metroliners, plowing the ramp, telemarketing, then finally smarting up and getting a job as a Crew Chief with the local ANG unit (so at least once a month I made more than a janitor.)
If you want to talk about 'paying your dues', this was it. My first year at this place, I commuted 1 1/2 hours each way (yep, 3 hours of driving), to make said $50 -$250/wk, sometimes stayed overnight in the crew cot to get 4 hours sleep, wake up, and pre-heat the Foxstar Baron for the 'real' pilots (eventually flew Baron, King Air 90 and 200, Navajo Chieftain for these guys - took a lot of de-icing, towing, plowing, catering, and refueling time to get there though.) And guess what? This job only added about another 800 hours to my log book.
4 - Leave the girlfriend behind. I would have never gone through step number 3 above if I had. This career, especially early on, will tolerate no mistress. We're married now, happy, 2nd kid on the way, but you want to know what would be good for your career, not your happiness... they aren't always the same thing.
5 - DON'T let an 18 year-old plan your entire future. Top Gun was wrong, Maverick was an as$hole. If you want a fantasy, become an actor - they get to pretend to be stuff that the rest of us really are - but don't have to deal with the consequences of actually living that career.
6 - Now comes the big break. I was ready to throw in the towel after chasing the career for 5 years and being broke, then got a pilot slot with the ANG unit (no degree, had 99 credits done out of 120 in 'Professional Aeronautics', got into flight slot with a degree waiver because they needed pilots... never think you aren't going to qualify... try anyway - if they want you, there's a way), going to get to do what the 6 year-old boy in me wanted to do since he first looked up. Earned the wings, complete with graduation speech from Dick Rutan (his first name is appropriate, that's all I will say... talked down to us like we were a group of bus boys.) Had the USAF wings, didn't get through fast mover school, see ya, back to trash-hauling in the Northeast.
Here's the big turning point: Flew fast and high for a couple of years, made a real paycheck and had food for the family (instead of leftover pizza), couldn't bring myself to buy a job for $15K and work for the same $15K. I was too snobby since I flew fast and high, wouldn't fly anything that had any external rotating parts, and had grown fond of people calling me 'Sir', rather than telling me 'Keep the change'... oh, and I wasn't going back to Ramen Noodles. There's a name for this. They call it 'shuttle pilot syndrome'. Once you have been to the top of the ladder and have been treated with respect, and have eaten regularly, and accomplished the biggest goal in your life, very, very hard to do anything else... this is doubly so for wives... tell her you're going back to living in the one-room dump like you did 10 years ago so you can get your pilot-jollies off... it's called AIDS... Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome.
Left flying as a profession. Guess what? No degree, no skills, no money, no rich family to bail me out, back to pizza, telemarketing, ramp work, you name it. Leaving flying didn't correct the poverty problem for at least 6 years while I re-trained and re-careered... those same 6 years put into a pilot career would have put me making AT LEAST what I am now, so financially, leaving flying didn't really help... but I am home, which is either a blessing or a curse, depending on how much you value being with your family.
The fix? Suck it up, either go into a Cessna 404 and ice it up in the Northeast, or take a loan and buy a job. Guess what? I was just as poor either way. My job(s) were just as unstable. I had to move around, and take unemployment. Now, wife in tow, second kid on the way, I'm here on this forum looking at all the shiny jet jobs, biting my lip, knowing that I'm happiest in the front office of a jet, but unwilling to drag the family through poverty, and relocation, and 'will daddy be home next week?' I'll poke around in here for a few weeks, look at a few jobs, then the fever will finally break, and I won't be back again until CFI renewal time again in 2 years and I catch the bug.
If you're going to do it, do it now. Soak up every hour you can get, finish all the school you can, and network with every person that even smells like Jet-A. Families will come, and responsibilities, and you will grow tired of being stuck in the 'pay your dues' phase because it seems like forever. Flying as a career is NOT like going to the airport on Sunday. Don't go into it because of your ego or for money, and you won't end up as a 40 year-old stuck with a career that an 18 year-old handed him 22 years earlier (or, an abandoned career that makes you a 30+ 'career changer'.)
As far as being with family, something miraculous happened when I went through USAF flight school. I was happy. When I had free time (which wasn't much, when being on the flight line and studying took up an easy 90 hours a week), I didn't think about anything else except relaxing, being with the wife, having fun. Not so in my present career. I spend half my night fantasizing what I would do if I had a few million dollars. Fly airplanes, spend time at the motocross track, travel, camping with the family - all because I have still never had either the time, or money, or both, to do those things. When you do exactly what you want all day, all of that stuff disappears. If you raise a family, and decide not to fly, you will be home every night... but may not be the person you want them to see... beaten down by the boss and office politics, self-esteem deflated because you aren't on the top of the food chain, or constantly studying for that 2nd, or 3d, or 4th career because of downsizing, outsourcing, bad political moves, or just plain frustration. Will your kids think daddy is a great guy, or daddy is a schmuck?
If you are in this career, be in a very, very big hurry. Don't let a girlfriend slow you down. Don't stay at a 'full time' flight school that only flies you 3 times a week. Don't get bogged down in a job that doesn't build your time quickly or that doesn't speed you along in your career. Hurry up, before time, and family, and commitments, and fatigue keep you from doing what you have to do to succeed. Understand that you have to give some things up to get other things. Don't pick a job based on what you like doing, choose it based on the lifestyle it will give you. The only perfect job is winning the lottery... then you don't have to sacrifice anything for anything... you just do whatever the he11 you want to every day with no trade-offs. If you think piloting will make you wealthy, seriously consider taking the $50 - $150K you would drop on training and buy lottery tickets. I'll even give you the secret to making a small fortune in aviation right now - start with a big fortune, very soon it will be a small one.
03-07-2006, 09:07 AM
#44
Guest
Posts: n/a
Now...
Jockeying a desk and reading the forums. This always happens at renewal time. I love piloting aircraft, but just can't tolerate the lifestyle any more. The military really burned me out with all of the travel for training... never want to see another Motel6 again.
I come here because I love flying, so when the regular job gets me down, I start thinking "I'll go fly jets again." I'm older and smarter now, so instead of racing off after something that looks cool, I ask around and see what the lifestyle is like. There weren't forums when I started in 1989, just all of my dad's WWII era buddies telling me how cool it would be and a recruiter backing them up. As far as I read in the forums, it's SSDD, only instead of buying a job for $15K to work for $15 - 18, it's buy a job for $19K to get a job making $18 - 22.
The strange thing is, I feel selfish when I think of coming back. I ask myself, 'what do I get from a flying career?' The answer is 'see neat cloud formations, develop my skills, see new cities'. OK, but what does my family get? Moving to strange cities, dealing with poverty while I start in at the bottom and spend 10 years working up to what I am making now (if ever), getting to be the new kids at school every time I need an upgrade, or more pay, or to fix a furlough, crying when I leave, then not crying when I leave.
My wife told me recently that she was jealous of me. I still have friends that I can say I have literally known forever. She doesn't have anyone like that because she moved 4 times while growing up. I'm not going to do that to my family just so I can satisfy myself with being a career pilot. When I was single, all of my aviation sacrifices were my own. Now, whatever I subject myself to, I subject my family to as well. That's why I said 'don't let an 18 year-old choose your career.'
Flying airplanes is a lot of fun. Flying them all day, all year, is a job. I would never tell anyone not to look at this career, but rather tell them to evaluate the lifestyle it will produce, and decide from there if they are willing to live that way. The only advice I had was from people blowing sunshine up my arse, because either they would live vicariously through me, or because they would receive a hefty bounty for swindling me into it. This career has far more consequences then, say, becoming a dentist, and people need to know that.
I come here because I love flying, so when the regular job gets me down, I start thinking "I'll go fly jets again." I'm older and smarter now, so instead of racing off after something that looks cool, I ask around and see what the lifestyle is like. There weren't forums when I started in 1989, just all of my dad's WWII era buddies telling me how cool it would be and a recruiter backing them up. As far as I read in the forums, it's SSDD, only instead of buying a job for $15K to work for $15 - 18, it's buy a job for $19K to get a job making $18 - 22.
The strange thing is, I feel selfish when I think of coming back. I ask myself, 'what do I get from a flying career?' The answer is 'see neat cloud formations, develop my skills, see new cities'. OK, but what does my family get? Moving to strange cities, dealing with poverty while I start in at the bottom and spend 10 years working up to what I am making now (if ever), getting to be the new kids at school every time I need an upgrade, or more pay, or to fix a furlough, crying when I leave, then not crying when I leave.
My wife told me recently that she was jealous of me. I still have friends that I can say I have literally known forever. She doesn't have anyone like that because she moved 4 times while growing up. I'm not going to do that to my family just so I can satisfy myself with being a career pilot. When I was single, all of my aviation sacrifices were my own. Now, whatever I subject myself to, I subject my family to as well. That's why I said 'don't let an 18 year-old choose your career.'
Flying airplanes is a lot of fun. Flying them all day, all year, is a job. I would never tell anyone not to look at this career, but rather tell them to evaluate the lifestyle it will produce, and decide from there if they are willing to live that way. The only advice I had was from people blowing sunshine up my arse, because either they would live vicariously through me, or because they would receive a hefty bounty for swindling me into it. This career has far more consequences then, say, becoming a dentist, and people need to know that.
03-07-2006, 08:05 PM
#45
Banned
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Posts: 781
BMWMarv, unfortunately when you chose to be a pilot family comes second. Every pilot that I know is either divorced at least once or just given up on family all together. The only ones that are still married are probably the ones that bring in over $150K a year because their wives know they can't find a husband that makes that much again. For now, I will get all my ratings but am still reluctant to pursue a career in the airlines because franky it doesn't look good right now. You know it's bad when people are starting to make the regionals a career.
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