galaxy flyer

I agree with "Ski Fish Fly"--it is a "gamble with your life" bet. I know plenty of guys like his story. Outside of the airlines, I've meet and worked with guys who had all the quals, great guys, mil experience that just never got THE job offer.

Don't just look at the upside--B777 or even A320 Captain--look at the potential, depending on AA's BK actions the increasing potential--of being a RJ F/O for years and topping out at your present real wages 10 or 20 years from now. Not saying either will happen, but both outcomes are just as likely.

Successful gambling isn't just about winnning, it is about walkin' away from the table.

GF

Timbo

If you want to quench your appetite, go buy a Pitts and G your brains out. Since the Majors have gone bankrupt, most of the Major Pilots have been selling off their toys, the price of a good Pitts Special has dropped considerably. http://www.barnstormers.com/cat.php

You can't have it both ways, if you want to be an 'Airline Pilot', then you need to jump in with both feet, and know that you will be poor for many years, maybe furloughed, more than once, may invest 20 years into a Major only to have them go bankrupt at a future time.

If you want to be a Corporate Pilot, then talk to the corporate pilots about how to build enough time, quickly, to meet their insurance mins.

Remember, you can't be in two places at once. You can't keep your full time day job...and build a lot of flying time too, there are only 24 hours in a day. So, if you want to build a lot of time quickly, you'll have to quit your day job and get a full time flying gig.

I think 27 is still young enough to get a pilot slot at an Air Guard unit, have you looked into that? You won't build much time, but you will have a fall back job if/when the airline thing doesn't work out. And if you want to fly corporate, the Guard is a good supplemental income and great flying.

Stitches

IrishFlyer,

I've been in aviation for about 12 years although I'm fairly new to this forum. My analysis after reading 6 pages of people trying to help you out on this thread is that you're a fairly smart guy who's so stubborn you're about to make a really dumb decision. So I'll approach it from another angle.

To put it into perspective, imagine if your MBA final exam consisted of the following questions:

1) You are the CEO of airline X and its time to renegotiate the pilot contract. You decide to...
A. Reduce company profit and increase wages/benefits because your pilots are awesome.
B. Increase profit and lower pilot pay because you can and there are numerous pilot candidates willing to work for a fraction of what you pay your current pilots.

2) You quit your airline CEO job and move to an even higher paying aviation insurance CEO gig. One of your clients wants to hire a low time pilot that doesn't meet mins. You...
A. are cool with this since your client swears this pilot is a "good guy"
B. say no since this is so dumb it doesn't even warrant an explanation


If you passed my little MBA exam and you still want to quit your job then before you do you owe it to yourself to do the following.

Keep your current job for 1 more year but only allow yourself to live off $20k. No cheating for your wedding/honeymoon/other life event. If you still want to fly full time after that then go for it, at least you will understand what you're getting yourself into financially.

If not then your wife will thank me and you will have $60k left over to throw a really big party to celebrate good decision making!

Good luck

ImperialxRat

I really enjoyed this post.

Timbo

This is a great summation, the only thing I would add to the excellent idea of trying to live off of only $20K for a year is, while you are living on that budget, at least 4 days a week, you need to pack up and go stay in a crappy Holidy Inn near an aiport, but not the same one, a different one every night.

Next, get up at 5am, dress up with a coat and tie, pack up and drive to the nearest airport, stand in line, get your junk massaged by the TSA, then sit around for...8 hours, staring at the arrivals/departures board, pretend all the Cancelled flights are yours.

Then go find another crappy motel, but don't eat all day, and you must stay up until nothing's open at the motel, then you can eat, only by walking to a gas station and buying a bag of Doritos for dinner, at 11pm. Call your wife, tell her you'll probably be home in 3 days, if it doesn't snow, then go back to bed and get up at 5 am to do it again.

Do this for 4 days a week, for a year, take 2 weeks off somewhere in the middle for a 'vacation' (but on your budget you can't go anywhere!) and then see if you and your wife still think it's a smart move.

Airhoss

(FUNNY!! Timbo wrote his while I was writing mine, and these are both correct posts as to what it is to be an airline pilot in this brave new world so I'll leave mine as it offers some good additional insight to Timbo.)

I'd like to add several things here for your simulated year as a Jr. puke airline pilot.

Make sure and spend every weekend at a cheap motel in some garden spot like Harrisburg, PA or Des Moines IA, and without a doubt leave the house at 02:45 on December 23 and don't return until the 27th then come home for 12 hours a leave again until January 2nd.

At random intervals stay up all night, and I mean all night, going to bed at about 0800 or so the next morning then sleep 8 hours during the day then get up the following morning at 04:00 and put in a 14 hour day.

Make sure and mix these up so that you can't ever get on a solid sleep schedule.

Make sure and have somebody call you on your cell phone at all hours of the night or day but always at random times and demand that you get to the airport as fast as possible or loose your job.

That would be a small taste of what you are going to be doing for the foreseeable future as an airline pilot. I'm still doing it or I should say I am once again doing it with 15 years seniority at this company and did it for several years straight at my previous companies.

PS

I started carrying one of those portable coolers that looks like a flight bag so that I don't have to count on anything being open at 00:45 after I get in to the motel.

Timbo

It just proves great minds not only think alike, they do it at exactly the same time!

Luv2Rotate

Add random romps with 20 something FAs

Timbo

Well he won't be a 'real' airline pilot until he gets divorced anyway, so yeah, romp away!

See how many months you can go before your wife catches you and takes your house, car, etc.

Then you will have 'arrived'.

Airhoss

Maybe if I was deadheading on your airline. There is no such thing as a 20 year old F/A at mine and I've never much been into granny romping.

But I've been married to the same Dr. (vet), for 18 years now and she can castrate a stallion in about 4 seconds flat. I wouldn't stand a chance with that kind of experience against me. Not to mention that cutting my junk off would be about a quarter the job she that she cuts off on a daily basis. I figure it'd take her about 1.5 seconds to turn me from stud to gilding!

I rather fly low, slow, steep and inverted than take those kinds of chances!