Originally Posted by CLT Guy (Post 2178718)

When I had 50 hours and a PPL, I did not consider myself a real pilot. It wasn't until I was signing my name for a jet with paying passengers in the back that I felt like a real pilot. Even when I was flying a turboprop on the west coast full of rubber dog doodoo, I didn't consider myself to be a "real" pilot yet. I still had way too much to learn to be that cocky.

I still have a lot to learn, but I do consider myself a real pilot.

Maybe for a military guy, it was something different - a stage when they issued you wings that you earned.

But that is just me.

Originally Posted by CLT Guy (Post 2178718)

When I had 50 hours and a PPL, I did not consider myself a real pilot. It wasn't until I was signing my name for a jet with paying passengers in the back that I felt like a real pilot. Even when I was flying a turboprop on the west coast full of rubber dog doodoo, I didn't consider myself to be a "real" pilot yet. I still had way too much to learn to be that cocky.

I still have a lot to learn, but I do consider myself a real pilot.

Maybe for a military guy, it was something different - a stage when they issued you wings that you earned.

But that is just me.

Originally Posted by CBreezy (Post 2178769)

So what were you then, if not a pilot?

Originally Posted by CLT Guy (Post 2178718)

When I had 50 hours and a PPL, I did not consider myself a real pilot. It wasn't until I was signing my name for a jet with paying passengers in the back that I felt like a real pilot. Even when I was flying a turboprop on the west coast full of rubber dog doodoo, I didn't consider myself to be a "real" pilot yet. I still had way too much to learn to be that cocky.

I still have a lot to learn, but I do consider myself a real pilot.

Maybe for a military guy, it was something different - a stage when they issued you wings that you earned.

But that is just me.

Originally Posted by Riverside (Post 2178423)

TSA doesn't have wings. Unless you were a cqfo from xjet then we do.

Originally Posted by Celeste (Post 2178874)

Au contraire, because of all of the b*****g about lack of wings, and people wearing their jacket wings on their shirt anyways, we now have official shirt wings. They're optional and only lIke $10 that Trans states will gladly deduct from your paycheck in case you can't live without them.

Originally Posted by Hacker15e (Post 2178681)

You can't think of the wings as being symbolic of an aviation achievement, like you probably do of military wings.

Instead, they're simply symbolic of your employment at a particular shop. When you are given them varies between where you work.

At the regional airline I worked at, I was given the wings unceremoniously by my the examiner after my LOE simulator session at the very end of training.

At the major I work at, I was given them after only a few weeks of non-flying indoctrination training (basically still at the beginning of training -- I hadn't even see the inside of a simulator yet) in a fancy-ish formal ceremony that family/friends are invited to attend.

Overall, it is simply a uniform item that socially has less value and meaning than in the military.