getting out of aviation

[bell47]

I'm getting out of aviation, as an occupation. I'm going back to school for a job in the medical field, i.e. nursing school. I'm guess I'm just tired of employers in aviation thinking they own you. I've been a pilot and A&P for the last ten years and everywhere I've worked was exactly the same old story. Has anyone else on this board just gotten totally fed up with the aviation industry? Don't get me wrong I still like airplanes, but I'm going to make it a hobby again, not an occupation.
list of things I've learned in aviation:
1. Don't sign a training contract, it's a ticket to treat you like crap.
2. Don't take a mechanics word for it, learn how to do aviation maintenance and know the stuff yourself.
3. Icing sucks in a Caravan
4. losing a mag or a cylinder in a loaded ag plane sucks
5. every pilot should at some point own an airplane, it builds "character"
6. pilot's who think they know everything , don't.
7. don't fly with someone who says " I've got something really cool to show you!"
8. When interviewing other pilots for a job, their log books and references don't mean squat, put them in a real airplane and see if they can fly.
9. If you feel compelled to show off, then you're not as good as you think you are.
10. SAFETY is everything, if an employer doesn't share that attitude, run don't walk.
I'm not trying to discourage new pilots, I've just personally had enough and need to vent a little. I'll still lurk around the local airport and this message board in between studing A&P(anatomy and physiology). Good luck and tailwinds to the rest of you.

 

[BenderGonzales]

Just curious, how is nursing school? What is it like? Are their specialties?

 

[bell47]

Just curious, how is nursing school? What is it like? Are their specialties?

Just taking pre-nursing classes now. Lot's of specialties. Lot's of jobs. Lot's of locations. Lot's of job security!

 

[leardawg]

Godspeed and good luck. Remember to tell the world our story (as I'm led into the CPs office with a bucket on my head).

 

[av8rbama]

Just remember you'll put up with a ton of $h!t... literally

 

[pgcfii2002]

Sorry to hear that.....thanks for the pointers though!!

 

[11thHour]

I wish you the best, but I don't think nursing will be much better. My sister is an RN and she goes through far more hell than I ever do in aviation. Hopefully this won't be your experience, however.

 

[satpak77]

I don't think nursing will be much better. My sister is an RN and she goes through far more hell than I ever do in aviation. Hopefully this won't be your experience, however.

Yeah I am sure she is making $16,000 as a regional FO and living in a crash pad eating dog food to log that all important SIC turbine time

 

[SCT]

Hey Bell47,

Best of luck in your new career. You have to do what's right for yourself.

An old CP once told me, "If your going to be in this industry, you better have a wife with a good job!" Luckily, my g-friend just received her advanced rating in nursing (can't think of it right now). Unlike me, she can go anywhere and get a good job.

 

[hindsight2020]

Yeah I second the comments made above, nursing is one of the very few careers right now that has 100% job placement across the board. I hate it when nurses start b%tching about hours or pay. Depending on their location and particular duties, their job can be up there on the "busy work" scale, but by no means was the formal training to get there (I'm sorry, it was a cake, face it), or the economics afforded by the job a harsh reality to bear. (22 y/o recent grad making 40-45K to start for a career afforded by a defacto 2-year degree ain't too shaby, and getting the nurse practitioner designation easily puts ya on 6 figures within 10 years in major metro areas, again not too shabby). Making above 75K before you retire is a blessing in this economy, certainly not commonplace, and certainly not an entitlement for a nurse.

If you don't like the occassional strains on the job, go to any other industry where the schooling is ten times as hard and the income and employment outlook is less than 1/2 that of nursing: engineering, any phD holder in a technical field, hell even recent law grads, who now face an economic reality similar to that of CFIs. Comparing nursing to to part 121 work is further overkill in comparison.

If nursing interested me, even minutely, I would pursue it; I'd certainly kill for the kind of job security and outlook nursing students enjoy. It is almost to the point of creating an artificially sustained alter-reality, where these nurses get an entitlement complex, where they swallow up their posted earnings as a god-given right and therefore start complaining about raises, when we all know that they are afforded that salary by the increasing health care load imposed by the baby boomers, and the gouging of health care costs in this country as the industry realized how much inelastic the demand price is (i.e. we'll pay for granny's vitamins whatever the cost, just save her!). The only reason nursing graduates are not viewed as whores, like 121-hopefuls, is simple demand. If nurses were to be faced the supply-demand reality that pilots face, their mere prescence in the market as nursing certificate holders would also be construed as whoring out; in that sense I don't give them any credit.

In 20 years, when Gen X starts creating a tapering-off on the need for nurses (particularly in geriatrics, where most of the need lies), the nursing profession will become very top heavy (the senior nurses, like senior pilots, will whine about their EARNED 6 figure income and bunker up, and as a result the junior scales will plummet) and the market will flood with young graduates who are still sipping the Kool-Aid of their predecessors, and the salaries will go down and the career will cool off..kinda like aviation, but certainly not as bad on the salary scale for sure.

I've been blessed with the opportunity of entering Reserve military aviation, so if I can obtain civilian employment that would enable me to own a little Pitts S-2A and play around on the weekends, and to stay in the CFI business for the love of education, I can say I've satisfied my passion in life. That said, I wish professional pilots were afforded with a compensation more suited to their responsibility, particularly at the regional level.

My $0.02