haha nutella? hot italian women will do. by the way watch out for "european sharking" while youre out there! i hear its hilarious

 

What Futureman said is very well stated and thought out.

I want to share a pet-peeve of mine when I sometimes come here and read these boards. Something that is starting to get under my skin lately is the proverbial "well, it beats sitting in a cubicle all day" mentality.

A person chooses a CAREER as a means to provide an INCOME. When a person does something they enjoy which supplies an undesireable or nonexistent wage, that is termed a HOBBY. I will agree that it is important to enjoy what you do for a living, but a hot, heaping bowl of job satisfaction isn't going to put food on the table at the end of the day if the job lacks income.

Yeah, I've done the cubicle thing and I did not enjoy it as much as flying. However, the only reason I continue to fly is because I happen to have an income that can sustain my QOL - and my QOL isn't what many would perceive the proverbial "airline pilot" to desire. i.e., the Jones' are on their own.

It probably sucked, back in the day, to leave the cave and spend all day tracking and killing a Brontosaurus. But when it was brought back to the cave and grilled for dinner, the rewards for the family probably far outweighed that of a dinner consisting of plants and berries.

Flying can still be a rewarding career, it probably won't be as rewarding as it once was. Your job is as enjoyable as you make it, and that goes for every career out there. Ideally you will want the income scale and the job satisfaction scale to be equal. However, one should be prepared to sacrifice some of the job satisfaction in order to raise the income.

 

What Peanut Butter is to American's is what Nutella is to Europeans, its like the inside of a Rocheir(SP?), its a Chocolate & hazelnut spread................its DEEEEELISH.

 

I think some folks are missing a key point. A pilot’s liability is enormous, and the exposure to increased personal risk is also present. If you are not compensated for this liability and personal risk, you are being exploited. A turbojet pilot at F430 is soaking up about 100 times the sea level radiation exposure, and that isn’t even considering the polar routes during a solar flare.

Take the current court award value on a human life, and multiply times not only the number of passengers on your aircraft, but on the aircraft you share the airspace with. Add to that the number of lives in the cars on the road at the end of the runway, and in the buildings along your flight path. Know that longstanding legal practice is to sue the airline, airframe manufacturer, and pilot(or his or her estate) wholly and separately for the cumulative value of loss. The courts have attached pilot assets pending the outcome of lawsuits, and those assets include house, car, college funds, retirement, inheritance, and even life insurance payments. Some of these lawsuits have gone on for nearly a decade, with the pilots’ family having to petition the court just to gain access to frozen bank accounts simply to buy groceries. Flying boxes or biz-jets doesn’t help, look at the recent biz-jet collision with an airliner in Brazil…those boys were held for months overseas, and the case is far from over. Guess what, even if innocent those pilots have to pay their attorneys.

Is $50,000 enough to live on? In some cases, yes.

Is $50,000 fair compensation for a college graduate & experienced professional pilot living in a high cost of living area? No it is not, because it doesn’t cover training costs, liability risks, and physical risks unique to the profession.

Sometimes pilots are their own worst advocates, they "just want to fly".

 

Unfortunately, I don't think this will ever happen. They are too blinded by their own greed and narcissism.

 

Well, I know one thing.....he doesn't think women should be flying airplanes. He thinks we should be home barefoot and pregnant. Whaddya think hotmama?

 

LabDad,
I like your post and agree with much of what you say. The only thing I would like to add is that we live in a very sue-hapy society, and one should be careful and prepared both on and off the job.

Umbrella policies are good to have because they provide a high degree of coverage and the insurance company (in most cases) will provide free legal coverage if needed.

Who knows, if a guy's parachute fails to open and he lands in your yard, it wouldn't surprise me if the family tried to sue the homeowner simply because it was his yard that broke the fall.

 

Greed exists in every aspect of every business, so I don't fault execs too much for that. Heck, I think it's even in the text books in business school.

The skill set a pilot possesses (referencing a previous post) means little or nothing to the people setting the wages - the pay is directly proportional to the amount of people in the suppy chain willing to take the job. i.e., market dictates wages.

 

You know they would.

 

Thanks for bring up this point, it's well worth considering:
What do you think Lloyds of London or any other underwriter would charge for an umbrella policy covering a professional pilots liability risk? Add that to your adequate pilot compensation figure, or you are assuming liability for free.

Very glad you brought this up Led Zep.