haha warm and fuzzy feeling from that quote is now gone.

 

see. these kind of comments show how little people know about student debt for people in other professions. med school will cost you around 250k. your first year out of med school you will make about 15 dollars an hour, or around 30k a year. your stubent loan payment which is now due will be near 2000 bucks a month. after going through residency for 4 years making just over 30k for your entire stent you finally get to venture out. so lets do the math shall we. 4 years of college plus 4 years of med school plus 4 years of residency plus 2 years of specialization. hmm in 14 years you will start to finally see the rewards of the career you have chosen.

not saying its not worth it, but people on this side of the fence have no idea how it works so they say stuff like this. the rate of divorce amongst doctors during residency is about 60 percent at the school i was going to attend. they pretty much told us if we weren't married coming in to not do it till we are done. the hardships of being away from home, making little to no money, and student loan payments that are more than you bring in are just to much for some families.

oh and did i mention that pilots like to whine and complain. i think it is in our blood.

 

Sounds like you're going to retire from the military soon...that puts you in a different boat than most folks.

The up-side is that you will have a base income stream to help survive the entry-level, that your family is probably used to moving frequently. Also, if the whole industry collapses (remotely possible if oil doesn't drop or level off) you can coast on your military pension while you re-organize.

The downside for you...

At this point in life are you really up for new adventures, or more interested in settling down somewhere? What does the wife think? Any kids in school? For somebody your age family is THE most important factor...if you lose them to aviation, that shiny RJ cockpit will NOT make up for the loss.

I assume you want to use your GI Bill for flight training...what if aviation falls through? Can you afford to get retrained for another civilian career? (I'm assuming you have a grunt MOS with no real-world marketability).

Considerations:

Do you aspire to major airline international widebody flying? Unless you already have a 4-year degree, odds are slim that you will get there and have enough time left to achieve any quality-of-life.

Would you be happy as a career regional CA? Military retirement plus regional CA pay would likely put you over 100K, which might be enough.

Somebody mentioned that we are in uncharted territory...true statement. Fuel is the big bogeyman, but I'm reasonably confident that artificial jet fuel can be manufactured at a competetive cost this decade. As long as the artificial stuff can be had for $120 equivalent or less, we should be able to sustain the industry. If it gets to $250-300, the airlines are probably DONE...there will be so few pax wealthy enough to fly that the fractionals will be able to handle all of them. It's a reasonable assumption that the american voters will NOT sit still and lose their right to air travel...the government would likely have to do a manhattan project to ramp up artificial fuel production.

 

My best freind is an MD. He made squat until med school + one year, then he was paid a liveable wage. When he completes his specialty training he will be able to walk into $250-300K per year. He knows this, and it is not contingent on knowing someone, passing subjective interviews with personality/psych components, getting a job at one of only two hospitals which pay that much, or spending 12 years as a FO .

He has been working his butt off, but the system he's in has always found a way to pay him enough to live comfortably while a supporting three kids and a mostly-stay-at-home wife (like me he's a career-changer, not a kid).

The economic returns from aviation no longer match up to most real professions. You must have other reasons for going down this road. Justifying all the crap by calling it "dues-paying" is exactly the sort of self-delusional thinking that has gotten us all into this mess...and management loves self-delusional pilots.

 

Lately the idea of a massive manhattan project or another moon program to get us into renewable energy has been really on my mind. I suspect oil is never going to be the same and our future is closely tied to exactly what you are talking about, Rick. Not only ours but the world's. I am not alarmist, but there is some dire writing on the walls at this point in regard to oil supply.

 

great post! finally some common sense. my wife is an attorney. she stopped practicing law for about three years to pursue other interests. three years ago, she decided to practice law again, and was hired right where she left off! None of this bottom of the barrell stuff. in fact, she was hired as an of-counsel, one step above associate. Her bonuses alone are more than a 10 year regional captain's salary.

 

The good news is that most energy-consumption points can be transitioned over to alternatives without TOO much difficulty.

Nuclear, solar, and wind can power the grid.

Methane and coal (with pollution-control systems) can also be used for a VERY long time...these are NOT going to run out this century (or probably the next one either).

Light vehicles can use batteries charged by house-current, suplemented with small hybrid motors for long trips.

Over-the-road trucks and trains can probably use LNG, as can ocean-going frieghters.

Hydrogen might also work for surface vehicles, especially for shorter ranges.

Turbine airplanes are about the only piece of the puzzle which really NEEDS kerosene, or an artificial equivalent. To many chemistry problems with any other fuel...even if we did come up with a way to use a true alternative in aviation, you would need to build new all-new airplanes to do it effectively $$$$$$.

 

I have to agree with Rickair on this one. I did a fairly short stint with the military so I do not have the retirement pay. After I got out of the military I went for a graduate degree and flew part time corporate. I have friends who went for MBAs, and Medical degrees in dentistry and they are all making well over $180,000 a year. In fact, even a starting pharmacist right now can get $85,000 a year to start. I know this because a girl I know who hasn't even graduated from a college received an offer to start at $85,000/yr.

So don't get into this profession if money is important. If money is not that important, and you love to fly and you don't mind the risk of getting furloughed several times throughout your career, then go for it. You have to remember, though, not everybody makes it to the majors. Even then, it is not what it used to be. Maybe it will get better, we can all hope.

 

I'm not sure why you picked a doctor as your example. Here is some realistic math for you, and I say realistic because I personally know the person in the example I'm about to give.

A friend of mine spent 8 years in school, 4 undergrad and 4 in medical school, and 6 years of residency to become a neurosurgeon. Total time: 14 years. Yes, pay through residency wasn't great, but then again residency is still required to become a physician. He was offered a job and accepted it with a practice already established. Starting salary? Just over one million dollars a year. Assuming his college only cost him $250K, and I suspect it was a lot lower then, his first year pay will more than pay for all of that college.

Now let's look at aviation. The whole point isn't to compare student debt in aviation to student debt in other professions. The whole point is to look at the cost of becoming a pilot versus your prospects of landing a decent job and the realistic salaries one can expect. And the fact of the matter is that you are guaranteed to spend a lot of money chasing a profession that will not pay you very much in return.

What cracks me up on these threads is how everyone says you must "follow your dreams" because this "beats working in an office". But you look at another thread and everyone who "loves living the dream" is comparing notes on how to make tomato soup out of catsup packets because they can't afford to eat on a layover.

A person takes their very first flight lesson today. 14 years from now what kind of realistic pay and QOL can they expect? Where in this profession do you see yourself 14 years from the date of your first flight lesson?

It's not that I am intentionally being negative, it's that there isn't much positive left in this industry to make the risk of entering it worth the time and money. The "dream" is only one aspect of this career, but to be fair you must lay all the cards on the table - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

 

Airplanes are fun, but as with all things that are fun they lose a lot off the enjoyment factor when you're across the country from friends and family all the time, not sleeping in your own bed, and getting paid jack. There will inevitably be moments in the cockpit when something you really wish you were home for (maybe, let's say, Christmas) or with your friends for (everyone going out to celebrate a birthday or a concert) is going on without you, and you just wish you could be there and not in this ridiculous hotel or cockpit. Do all careers have similar feelings at times? Absolutely. But what makes the sacrifice worth it in other careers is reward, either in the form of money, creative outlet, prestige, higher purpose, etc.. In the airlines, everything that makes the sacrifice worth it is steadily being snatched away except for the fact that airplanes are fun. So in those moments when the airplane is no fun, the job really, basically, just sucks. Think about it. This is a career that at times is fun, and at times, just sucks. The ratio between the two depends on who you work for and other factors like commuting, but the reason pilots complain isn't because they don't like flying, it's because we've all seen this steady, seemingly unstoppable swing in that ratio across the whole industry. There are a few regional airlines where the ratio is so tilted in favor of sucking that there's more happiness in being a gas station attendant. There are also airlines like Southwest, which reward pilots with a good career and make the sucky parts worth it. The reality is you may end up eventually working for a good one or you may not. You probably won't, though--don't just assume that you're outside of statistics. It's your choice whether to step into the batter's box or not. Again, this is a job that sometimes is fun and sometimes sucks. Make sure you use a level head when you consider changing careers.