"most pilots would prefer to fly for a large passenger airline or cargo airline as the pay and quality of life at regional airlines tends to be lower than that at the larger carriers. "

Quite the understatement

"A professional pilot with over a decade of experience and thousands of hours of experience as a Captain would be considered reasonably qualified for an entry level position as a First Officer at a large major airline or cargo carrier. "

That one sentence should be memorized by each prospective airline pilot.

"it is very possible that the tremendous financial investment in the airline pilot career will never pay off."





All good stuff.

On the military route....LOTS of guys getting flight slots in the AF are getting tasked to drones now.....not one minute of that time can be counted for getting an airline job so one must make sure that they are joining the military to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, NOT just try to pad their own resume.

I'm not sure how to set up a forum, but this is probably a better place to discuss topics on this website, anyway. Maybe someday.

I'm not sure how to set up a website to get search engine hits. There's a section on weebly (the host) with settings under a tab called "search engine optimization." Under this section, it says site description, meta keywords, footer code, and header code. If someone wants to tell me what to put into those fields to optimize hits, I'll throw them in. Under site description I put airline pilot career. Under meta keywords, I put airline, pilot, airline pilot, pilot career, aviation. All the other fields are blank.



Well, if you (or someone else on the forum) want to write a few, concise paragraphs about a typical military career path, and its pitfalls like the above comment, I'd like to include it. Maybe include stuff about ROTC, UPT, getting on with a Guard/Reserve unit, pay, quality of life, having to move, etc. But keep it to no more than a few paragraphs. I have a decent idea how it works, but didn't include much because I'm probably not "qualified" to write about it accurately since I never was a military pilot.


Thanks all for the comments via PM and e-mail. Some day I hope to "relearn" how to use Dreamweaver and make a proper site.

I agree with everything you said except the part about the Lithuanian flight attendants. We need to hire more of them. They're hot and don't need the size 38 red dresses.

-Lloyd

Good site. Does no one buy a clapped out Cessna and do flight training on the cheap anymore? No one joins the Civil Air Patrol to fly their C182s and get into the military flying clubs for really cheap initial training?

There are still ways to get most of your training done economically, but students seem to LIKE going in debt and placing their faith in some high dollar flight simulator / Cirrus school.

Also I believed the "pilot shortage" may actually arrive in 2014. It was delayed by September 11th, then age 65, but by golly unless my airline really shrinks we will have to hire close to a 1,000 a year to keep up.

It is a good site, certainly informative for any aspiring professional pilot. I would disagree with some of the absolute statements included though. Instead of steering someone away from an aviation degree it might be better to discuss that it is a hotly debated topic. You're making one person's opinion ( yours ) an absolute. I happen to disagree to a large extent, as do others.


Typhoonpilot

I would say that is NOT one person's opinion..... A poll of 50+ year olds with 25+ years and 10,000+ hours experience would vote 95% in favor of not getting an aviation degree.

So I guess your right it's not absolute but your disagreement and the others you refer to put you in the 5% block that would direct someone to put all their eggs in one very rickety basket.

Excellent!

Should be required reading before one pursues a Commercial Certificate.

So an Aeronautical Engineering degree is out of the question? It's aviation related after all.

The statistics on the poll are interesting, but since it was of 50+ year olds how many of them have an aviation related degree? They really only came into vogue in the last 30 years. How many of those 50+ year olds even had an aviation degree as an option.

I know that my degree has helped significantly in my career ( it's Aeronautical Operations from SJSU ). It's given me the tools to be very good at what I do and has opened doors to positions that are career enriching and lucrative. Can't say that I'd be where I am with a Philosophy degree.


Typhoonpilot

This is something flight schools would not like an aspiring pilot to see.