I do my best.

Skyhigh

A fun thing I use to do at dinner parties when everyone else was complaining about their careers would be to tell them how much I made as a pilot. Try it and you will see a bunch of pale quiet faces looking back too aghast to comment.

In my attic someplace is a box of my old pilot pay stubs. I always dreamed of framing some of them for posterity and horror. It is true that everyone complains about their career but being a pilot usually wins in a "my job is worse than yours" contest.

Skyhigh

Just curious, what career path do you suggest then?

Everyone has a set of skills, opportunities and interests that are unique to them. My advise is to take inventory of everything you have available to you and pick what makes the most sense.

If your parents own a furniture store then be a salesmen. It is a fallacy to think that you can have it all. Some careers are not all that much fun but they also are usually the ones that pay the best.

Specialty skills are usually a good bet. My brother has a friend who has specialized in agricultural irrigation systems and has made a good living. Working for the government also is usually a good deal.

Anything that has true restrictions to entry is also a good idea. I have a few friends who work for the Bonneville Power Administration. Their union entry program lasts for years.

One thing that is for sure aviation is not a good deal anymore. The training is too easy to get. Experience is not really all that important anymore. There are few limitations to prevent pilots from being abused by the market place. It takes longer to become licensed to cut hair than it takes to become an airline pilot.

Skyhigh

Uhhhhhh.......?

Washington State Board of Cosmetology Requirements
COSMETOLOGY: 1600 hours
BARBERING: 1000 hours
ESTHETICS: 600 hours
NAIL TECHNOLOGY: 600 hours

Almost two years of daily training.

Zero to hero in the airlines:

200 hours minimum flight training and a King DVD education to qualify for the first day of ground school at a regional. Some programs can complete that in 3 to six months.

Skyhigh

Also, talk about family life. About what everyone is doing TOGETHER AS A FAMILY on holidays. This will ensure that the pilot is the worst off at the table.

This is pretending that pilots as the only ones missing "togetherness" - which is wrong. You speak like aviation is the only business that has any associated with it.

USMCFLYR

I don't think the cosmetology comparison sticks Sky, because they do not distinguish between left seat and right seat in that business. Nobody gets to left seat of a 121 airline without a bare minimum of 1,500 flight time for an ATP, which equates probably to something like twice that in total time on the job. So, realistically about 3,000 hours to meets mins for left seat, and actual movement is highly dependent on other conditions which tend to slow it down most of the time. I don't have the data handy, but my guess is the actual hours from day one student pilot to left seat captain of an airliner in the US, is probably in the neighborhood of 5 years minimum. 200 hours to be an FO seat is just a bare minimum, real times to right seat are often well over a thousand hours which again, translates to quite a bit more time on the job. Everyone knows you get all the ratings then teach for a couple of years. If a work year is 2,000 work hours, it's more like 6,000 hours.

I used to work at a company that attempted at one point to use commercial pilots with 500 hours of flight time, to fly Cessna 206 Stationairs in predominantly VFR weather. After three or four of them washed out of the training module, they raised hiring mins to CFI, CFII, and 850 flight hours. This, just to fly an overweight Skyhawk. Real minimums were far higher than legal minimums.

I still think it is a good comparison because just a few years ago guys were actually going from zero to regional new hire in six months A wage earning FAA required position in a transport category airliner.

It takes 600 hours to become a nail tech but only 190 to start your first day as a wage earning first officer.

Skyhigh