ChrisH
 

ChrisH,

This idea that airline pay is compensatory with other lines of work is flat false. You have to take the entire picture into account; training, education, low wages as a struggling CFI, low wages as a regional new hire, multiple furloughs and layoffs, multiple moves. You are only looking at the end result. You can not even be assured that you will make it that far.

Compare two careers one a new hire police officer, the other a newly minted CFI. After 20 years the cop will be easing into retirement and perhaps considering a second career. The pilot might just be reaching a livable situation for the first time in his life.

There is a time value to money. People who are able to earn more during their younger years will be far better off since they will have been able to pay off student loans faster, buy a house a decade or two sooner while they are still affordable, save more for a longer period and start families much sooner. In the end slow and steady wins the race.

In the airlines you have to place all your years on one company and hope it doesnt fail. Your only value is to that one employer. If it does fail then start over. As far as small business goes you are correct it has risk. As an employee you still take the same risks except you don't receive the benefits if the company succeeds. The company doesn't even have to fail a simple slow down can bring personal disaster in the form of a furlough. Pilots can expect to be furloughed three times in a career.

After experiencing the down side of being an employee I would much rather face risk on my own terms as a self employed person. In answer to your question; last year I made more than during my entire 16 year employment as a pilot combined. I am embarrassed that I wasted so many years as a struggling pilot.

Do us both a favor and sit down and add up all the costs of a college education and training expenses. Then project out perhaps 4 years time for college, one year for flight training, three years as a CFI four years as a regional FO, two years as a junior captain. Then double it all and you will have a close approximation of what to expect.



SKyHigh

A minority "group of activists" at best. The future? FedEx, UPS, SW...I'm sure they're all pretty pleased with their future. And, I'm pretty sure everyone (passengers) is just going to stop flying around the country/world therefore United, Delta, NW, etc. will just park their planes...right?!

I used to think that SkyHigh had just been a victim of bad luck. I am beginning to see now that he is a product of his own making. If you are convinced you will fail, you are right.

I say the following not to brag, but to inspire. If I can do it, anyone can.

I worked full time through high school and earned more than my single parent.
I washed and gassed airplanes for flight time and washed the cars and mowed the lawns of CFI's for instruction.
I took my private checkride with 40.3 hours logged because I had run out of money.
I received a USAFA nomination but failed the eye test.
I wasted the next eight years believing that there was no hope of ever being an airline pilot, in part, because of listening to boo-birds like SkyHigh tell me all the reasons I could not pursue my dream.
I couldn't watch a plane go overhead without looking up or pick up someone at the airport without yearning to fly for a living.
A good wife told me to follow my dream. I made a goal to be a Captain at a major within 10 years.
We sold everything we had and I did my IFR, Comm, CFI, CFII, Multi, MEI in 90days. Most of that was in an old 150 on mogas because it was the cheapest thing available.
I was so limited in budget that I did my Comm and Multi at the same time doing 5 hours in a 172RG and 5 hours in a Seminole in the same week. By the time the checkrides were over I had both certificates and 12 hours of retract time.
At age 26 I got hired as an FO at a regional.
That same year I got a type rating in a B737. It cost half what I earned that year and to pay for it I used the insurance settlement from a flood that took most of what we owned and the rest I put on credit cards. Several SkyHigh types said I was nuts.
At age 27 I upgraded to Captain.
At age 29 I got my degree going to school part time.
At age 31 I got hired at Southwest. I had four kids by then.
At age 35 I upgraded to Captain. That happened four months shy of my previous goal of ten years.
In my 40's I have never earned less than 200K.
I live in a seven figure house with a 20 minute drive to work.
I will be in at least the top 10% of the seniority list the last decade of my career.
I have a son who also wanted to fly.
I bought an airplane and taught him most of his ratings.
I could sell the airplane today for more profit than I have expended in his ratings.
I sponsored his flying because he worked hard enough that his college was scholarshiped and didn't cost me anything.
He just started at the same regional where I previously flew and his career track is years ahead of mine.

There is nothing special about us other than we made goals and worked hard to achieve them. We made hard sacrifices and sound decisions that have paid off in spades.
The biggest thing is that we didn't let the naysayers drag us down to their level.

I followed my dream and now I am living it. In my neighborhood of Doctors, lawyers, and MBA's their wives comment frequently to my wife about how much more time I am home than their husbands or wish that they could be stay at home moms like my wife.

Every week I fly with pilots who's stories are much more inspiring than mine.
Being pilots isn't what they do, it is who they are. It's worth it.
I am glad that it is hard. The challenge separates the wheat from the chaff.
If it were easy then everyone would do it and it wouldn't mean anything anymore. It happens to still mean a lot even after 20 years.

SKY High

Give it a rest EE-yore. You have made your opinions known.
Go spend time with your kids...............Ahh yes "Tutt Tutt looks like rain..........."

Amen
 

Inspirational and dead true. Almost all the new FOs I fly with share your attitude and have some incredible stories of how they got there. It is an honor to work with them because they are winners not whiners. Most are young guys who will have long fulfilling careers. I, like you WS, share the excitement of waking up ready to fly and never forget how blessed I am to have this wonderful career. Sky and his followers will continue to dream but will find some convenient excuse for why they will never accomplish it. That just leaves more jobs for those who are willing to work for them. Congrats on a great success story and hopefully your son will do even better. I have said everything I feel the need to say on this thread as listening to others wallow in self pity is not my cup of tea. Calcapt is on to more positive things!

Widow's Son, and calcapt;

Thank you for the encouraging words, for us all.

SkyHigh,

Not even close to everbody who wishes to become a pilot is going to be in the kind of debt you speak of. I will not be in any more debt than my friends going into other careers. I am actually paying as I go, and do not plan on being in any debt, if I can help it. Most people get their flight ratings while attending college, do I wouldn't add for years of college, plus another year of obtaining your ratings. Those go together. Many flight instruct while in college as well. For those who flight instruct out of college, they usually instruct for a year or so before sending out the applications. Really you are looking at 4-5 five years of education/training/instructing, which is the same as someone simpling getting a degree for another career. I would not add it up as 4 years for a degree + 1 year of obtaining ratings + 3 years of instructing. That is 8 years total. Nobody I know who is, or is becoming a pilot, spent anywhere near that time.

IF we assume your idea that it takes 8 years, lets also look at becoming a doctor. 10 years of schooling, hundreds of thousands in debt, working as an intern, earning very little, and working VERY long hours in a VERY stressful job. For what? An average of $216K per year, and then paying ridiculous amounts in malpractice.

I agree furloughs are the pitfall, but, not everybody gets, or will get furloughed. It ashame for those that do, to have to start over, but that is part of it, you deal with it. There is no way that a pilot is just making a livable wage after 20 years. Not the ones I know. I know plenty of regional captains making wages that they are raising a family comfortably on, and not even 10 years into their career. One of the guys I know just got on with SWA.

That sentence alone changes my mind about Sky(he's)High. Perhaps he is providing a valuable service to our industry by keeping the defeatest whiners out of the business. Keep singing your song of doom and gloom Skyhigh, you are doing the winners a big service.
Great posts WS and CalCap. Sounds like WS is another winner that never quit. SH will just say you were lucky. Just take solice in knowing that there are pleanty of us out here that have lived your story. Life is tough and those things that have meaning take sacrifce and hard work. I'm livin' the dream!

And there yet is another way to get to the golden ring. If we are telling life stories here. I didn't know the front end of an airplane from the tail, but joined the navy to earn those wings of gold. I wasn't the ace of the base by any means but I stuck to it, AND DIDN"T QUIT, like many others. 50% attrition rate. Realized that what I was flying in the navy had zero career. Got out with no job prospects and got hired by my fourth choice. Lucky, there I guess.

My point being, it didn't cost me a dime of money. Oh yeah, some serious sacrifices, but......So all I am saying, we all have our stories, some good some horrible. Some were of our own making, some we were bystanders and had no control. I just can't figure you out there Skyhi. For whatever reasons, your career and its choices hit the crapper. Live with it and let it go. It sounds like you enjoy living where you do, have a family that is meaningful, so what's the beef. Let those who have the ability and dream and the POSITIVE attitude go for it. You were in the game, just didn't get a call to the majors. But leaving the game, you took yourself out of the running. Every minor league ball player, every college football player all had dreams of making. Should I tell my 9 year old grandson to quit playing basketball because his chances of playing for a division one school are probably nil.

One more story and I'm out. A good friend of mine had a dream of being a pro basketball player. Had a full ride to a division one powerhouse on scholarship. The summer prior to entering his freshman year, he destroyed his knee playing pickup-knee replacement, scholarship, the works-dashed. Today he is a "line check" dispatcher for an airline, with other airlines trying to recruit him. Sure he was disappointed, sure his chances, evenwith the full ride were slim, but he didn't give up the dream.

Ah forget it, Skyhi, you have your misery and bitterness towards an industry that has been very good to thousands. Some haven't had it as good, geez, as I said, PUT IT YOUR REARVIEW MIRROR, and walk away totally. Cold turkey it man, go throw the ball with your boys or make a dream for your girls how they can succeed, but get off the computer.

Gentlemen it's called choices and that is why you can either ring the bell and quit or hold your head up and go for the prize.
Your not the first and not the last and I thank God every single day of my life for choices (FREEDOM).

Web Site
 

This web site is full of aviation dorks for lack of a better word. The nature of a site like this has a draw for a certain personality type. Everyone here is unbalanced to one degree or another. I am a rarity among those who are drawn to this web site since I am a contrarian aviation dork, but I can assure you that I am among the vast majority who have been let down by aviation. The statistics tell the tale. I am sure all you guys worked very hard but there was a lot of good luck thrown in there as well and perhaps many of you have lost more in the attempt than you are willing to share.

I made different choices. My story is well known. Only you can asses the price you paid for where you are. For myself at least I believe that I may have lost the battle but am on the path to a bigger overall win.

SkyHigh

ChrisH, I don't know what else to tell you. Seek the information out for yourself. Go to flight school and report back to us all what your progress is. If you succeed we will all celebrate. If you fail we will be here to help you through it.