Airline pilot means no control over your life!

[Ty Webb]

As Mark Twain observed, "Most folks are as happy as they make their minds up to be". Some people will never be happy, no matter what, and others will be happy as a pig in s#!t with nothing.

I enjoy flying, and I like my job just fine, but all the rest of the crap is getting old, especially the commute. I have been working hard to develop new income streams so that I am not dependent on my airline. When the time comes that I feel it's no longer worth doing, I will walk away from it, and you guys will be welcome to it.

In the meantime, I resolve to try to change the bad parts and enjoy the good parts, and not just spend my time bitc#ing. That gets old fast.

 

[FN FAL]

As Mark Twain observed, "Most folks are as happy as they make their minds up to be". Some people will never be happy, no matter what, and others will be happy as a pig in s#!t with nothing.

I enjoy flying, and I like my job just fine, but all the rest of the crap is getting old, especially the commute. I have been working hard to develop new income streams so that I am not dependent on my airline. When the time comes that I feel it's no longer worth doing, I will walk away from it, and you guys will be welcome to it.

In the meantime, I resolve to try to change the bad parts and enjoy the good parts, and not just spend my time bitc#ing. That gets old fast.

Rodger that!

 

[FlyChicaga]

Getting paid to defy gravity makes me feel like I've won the game. Ask a little kid if he rather sit in a cubicle all day and prepare Quarterly Business Estimates...or fly an airplane wearing cool sunglasses.

Then be that kid.

Perfect.

 

[schoolio]

Also: "Biggus Dickus", but you have to be in the right frame of mind...

C

I'd be scared if a woman ever got that title...

 

[Skyline]

Yea !!!

Plan B or C or D or ECT......


Hey man, why is it that whenever one of my big deal major airline guys calls to console me and my ended flying career I end up consoling them? They are crying about "low pay" and "long hours" then they carry on about "being away from home too much". I'm thinking like "dude you are like flying a brand new 737 and making some real dough bro". They don't care. They want to do their own thing like me. It's just sad man. They need our help yo.

Skyline

 

[Goose Egg]

I would like a job that pays well and does mostly off airport type of flying. It also needs to pay well and let me have a lot of time off. It also needs to be located in the northwest and I don't like bosses to much. I also would like my magical fairy to make me 10 years younger and to make me president of the world.

Good luck with that. I would like a job that pays "enough," and may or may not include "off airport" flying. It doesn't need to pay "well," just "enough," meaning "enough" for a normal house in a normal subdivision, with a couple used cars, a few kids, and a dog. (Don't forget a good gas grill!) Time off isn't a huge concern with me--I don't mind working, but I would like to be home as many nights as I can be. Maybe if I do extremely well I'll be able to buy my own glass ship sometime. If not I'll just join a club that has one--I'm cool either way. This job also needs to be located anywhere in the country, but I would prefer the western states (CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, UT (home state), NV, AZ, NM, CO, and I'd even consider AK, but I wouldn't plan on staying for more than a couple years) in order to be closer to my family and to be closer to what I would consider "real" skiing and "real" mountain biking and "real" wave soaring. Bosses are a fact of life and I don't mind having one at all. I look about 7 years younger than I am, so I guess I've got that one already. And if I were president of the world, this is what I'd do anyway.

Hey man, why is it that whenever one of my big deal major airline guys calls to console me and my ended flying career I end up consoling them?

Maybe they've figured out that airline flying isn't all it's cracked up to be and that there's more to life than chasing a fat paycheck.

-Goose

 

[Skyline]

Mother Goose

Mother Goose,

I hear what you are saying about the airlines, but there is little else. You mentioned that you would like to earn enough dough to have a house, kids, and the rest of the classic middle class life style. Where esle is the average person (not like you) going to find a job in aviation that will do all that? Of the non airline jobs within 100 miles of where I live only one makes it beyond 40K per year and that is for a seasoned lear captain. It takes around 55K to make it (middle class family of 4) in the outburbs and 80K to make it in the suburbs. There just are few aviation jobs that pay anything let alone a real wage. I was offered a job piloting a Kingair but the pay was only $32,500 and I had to spend my down time in the potato shed. Is that your idea of a job outside of the airlines?

Skyline

 

[Goose Egg]

I was offered a job piloting a Kingair but the pay was only $32,500 and I had to spend my down time in the potato shed. Is that your idea of a job outside of the airlines?

Nope. I like that "Mother Goose" thing though.

-Goose

P.S. Check your PMs

 

[Skyline]

Check it out

M Goose,

Look it up man. I think the national average for the majority (like 90%) of professional pilots is like below 33K/year. Why don't you buy a Eclipse 500 microjet and fly your own single pilot IFR charter service. I think that is where the future of the best jobs will be.

Skyline

 

[pilotyip]

Skyline where did you get only 10% of the professional pilots make over $33K/yr. Even in non-sked business we start at $35K/yr

 

[FN FAL]

Skyline where did you get only 10% of the professional pilots make over $33K/yr. Even in non-sked business we start at $35K/yr

He was talkin bout professionals, not air trash like you and me brother. We'd skew his sadistics on pro-pilot pay for sure.

 

[Goose Egg]

Why don't you buy a Eclipse 500 microjet and fly your own single pilot IFR charter service. I think that is where the future of the best jobs will be.

Good point. I've heard that before.

-Goose

 

[Skyline]

National Pilot Earnings

Less than 33K National pilot average wages

It was a statistic that was given to me by the unemployment office. They were using it as a reason for not giving me another type rating. They claimed that aviation was not a growth industry anymore and that I should look at taking a welding class or getting a CDL. I could ask my counselor to tell me where she got that information? It came from a labor and industries web site. I think it take every possible pilot position into consideration, CFI ect.

Skyline

 

[FN FAL]

They were using it as a reason for not giving me another type rating. They claimed that aviation was not a growth industry anymore and that I should look at taking a welding class or getting a CDL.

Skyline

Wow, a bureaucracy making sense for a change. We must be moving into a veritable age of reason, like the one they had in France. And not a moment too soon.

 

[jetfo]

Skyline:
Do you still fly for a living? Do you commute? How did you get that great QOL?
Looking forward to your response. Thanks