infiniti757 said:
Been looking through the threads for a while. What is DCA?
DCA = Delta Comair Academy. Buffet's comments are actually a welcome dose of disgust with the industry. It was because of people like Buffet that I realized this industry was simply a young, rich-kid's game. Two years ago I was riding a Beech 1900 run by Gulfstream Academy. If you could only see the look of disappointment when I realized that I would have my life in the hands of some rich kid trying to play pilot for a day. I, being from the west coast, decided to travel east for a visit to FL. Upon boarding, I peeked my head in the cockpit and said "hm, I didn't know this 1900 had
20 fare-paying passengers aboard?" Ah, yes, the stunned look of silence.
There is always the option of getting out, finding another industry, and still flying for fun. It's simply not worth it to beat yourself up in the hopes of one day getting an airline job. So long as we are disillusioned with the industry, we shall continue to be recepticles for the shaft.
What troubles me about this industry the most is that one is considered a "loser" (not my phraseology, but that of others) if one doesn't work for the airlines. There are other jobs in aviation that can be equally rewarding and not be airline jobs.
What I have noticed here is that some folks have simply been "flight schooled." Being "flight schooled" is unlike going to flight school. You can be flight schooled and have never attended a flight school. In fact, people all over the world are being flight schooled every day and they are silently unware of that very fact. Here are some of the signs that you are being flight schooled.
1) Someone asks you: "How much multi-time do you have?" even though you don't have a multi-engine rating.
2) In the CFI lounge, you are constantly pestered by a fellow CFI with the following: "Hey, did you get your thousand hours yet?" This question is usually asked multiple times a day when he knows that you're at 600 or so hours and simply didn't complete that 400 hour x-c trip to hell.
3) "Are the airlines hiring?"
4) "I bet you can't wait to get the class date for the jet!"
5) "I calculated my actual IFR total. It's 2.1229 hours"
This sad representation of "intelligent talk" is usually conducted, with the exception of #2, on the flightline where instructors walk around in their captain's uniforms with the "Top Gun Anthem" blaring in their skulls as they see a fellow CFI's 172 taxi by. Being flight schooled, of course, is as common as the skidmarks on one's underpants at places like Wastewind, Pan-Scam, and Delta Comscare Academy. However, aviation isn't the only field. Financial services, engineering, and public service all have their versions of being flight schooled. A wise man once said: "Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat." The sad thing with CFIs is that there are so many rats that cheese is a hard item to find. And I'm not talking buttcheese, folks. There will always be plenty of those morsels lying around. Just pick up a copy of
AOPA Flight Training or
Flying and you'll find it dripping with such garbage.
I know a guy who was a DCA hopeful and now works as a baggage screener for TSA. I walked up to him one day and asked him how it felt to be "Thoughtlessly Standing Around?" (TSA). He nodded and asked me: "How do I get the fark out of this mess?"
You just do. Get out and breathe a sign of relief when you do. It'll be the biggest psychological dump you take and when you hit the flusher on the way out, you'll feel mighty good you did.
.
