Aviation is not stable. It never has been. Globally, had it not been for government subsidies, bailouts, bankrupcies, and the military, there would be no aviation industry like there is today. It's NEVER been self-sustaining for any period of time. It fluctuates. Companies come and go.
Most of us who have been around the block more than once or twice have seen this; I don't personally know anybody doing corporate who hasn't had the pleasant experience of being given a day's notice that their job is over, that the department is being closed, that the airplanes have been sold...take your pick. I had almost two days' notice.
I've seen it happen in government service, corporate service, private service, at all levels. That it happens, and is a fact of life in the industry, is beyond discussion; it's a given.
I do believe that to discourage someone from pursuing a dream, is fruitless and very cold. Unless you plan on living someone else's life for them, let them have their choice. Is aviation gold plated, a secure future, the american dream? It's far from secure, and in many cases, the money isn't there. But a dream? You betcha.
You can't eat a dream. But I've left aviation, stopped flying, in the past, to try to scrape out a living, and was miserable. I was blessed to be able to do this, and will probably never amount to much else than an aviator, and for that, I'm very grateful. I cannot imagine my life in any other way, nor would I wan to.
I would not have met my wife and would never have had, nor known my children, without having aviation put me in the right place at the right time. My wife is gone, but there are no finer human beings in the world to me, nor no company as pleasurable or satisfying, as my children. That alone, is priceless.
I've seen sights from the confines of a cockpit that mankind has dreamed of seeing for millenia. You couldn't pay me enough to sit behind a desk and miss those sights. I've seen an eagle eye to eye in a thermal. I've looked up at pine trees and cliffs and canyons as I flew among them. I've worshipped in cathedrals made of cloud that make the most ornate of churches pale in comparison. I've looked down on earth and seen not canyons and rivers and fields, but the fingerprint of God, layed out in the same way that it shows in the decaying framework of a maple leaf in the fall...all seen from the right perspective. All priced beyond measure, but for the chance to see it.
I am not wealthy, nor do I anticipate being so. I will never drive a Jaguar or a Ferrari, nor could I afford to rent or lease time in the airplanes I'm paid to fly. Or to go the places that my passengers have me go. Or to see the sights I've been sent to see on missions I've been privileged to fly. I've been a nomad, never a saint, never educated, never much to see by social standards. But I can close my eyes at night and replay images of fields of wheat slipping beneath me, only a few feet away, the sensation of speed and oneness with my machine indelible in my mind...a sensation much like a drug. Euphoric, wonderful.
I can close my eyes and still smell the sweet scent of smoke in cockpit, or spread my arms and feel them pulled back in the slipstream of freefall. When I do I relax, the troubles of the world melt away; I'm in my "happy place."
In my dreams, my feet never touch the ground.
I'm not rich, but how blessed can I be, how understated the privilege, how fortunate I am but that for a few minutes of any given day perchance my feet really don't touch the ground, but levitate above it...suspended by millions of dollars of asthetic flowing metal and plastic. And more, I am paid to do it? I believe it was Dick Scobee that said it's a crime to be paid for doing something you love so much. He was killed shortly after in the Challenger, dying doing what he lauded in that statement. I feel the spirit of that statement; I don't believe he would change a thing at age 23, even if he saw the end in his dreams, knew what lay in store. Neither would I. I've seen the end in my own dreams, for whatever worth they may be, and see only inspiration to be all the more consumed in what I do in the time I have to do it.
Would I hold back a young 23 year old who seeks the chance to learn and grow and celebrate a dream into reality in this industry? I would not. I was that 23 year old. I was that fifteen year old in the airport fence, begging rides, washing airplanes, eeking out a solo and then a private and then...and then I'm here. I don't regret what brought me here; I thank God for it, I'm grateful for it. I would no more deny one who desires a future here than I can deny myself or who I am. I'm sorry that others can; their vision, I fear, has been destroyed if indeed it ever existed. Never the less to each his own.
For me, I say without reservation that you should pursue your dreams. No promise exists in this industry. Accept that and know that there is no future but what you craft from day to day. Millions of men, women, and children have cast their eyes skyward and yearned to fly, wished it with every ounce of soul they could muster. And then died never knowing a taste of the reality of their dreams. Millions. I find the fact that I am able to enjoy that dream immensely humbling. I find the fact that I get paid to do so overwhelming. I have for many years now.
When I first flew, after years of buiding models and paper airplanes as a child, I was always awestruck by the absence of wires or a giant hand holding me aloft. I would glance aft in flight, making a turn, looking for the massive arm that reached up to support me in thin, invisible, fluid air. But it wasn't there, and I marvelled at that wonder.
Today, I still do the same thing.
If that ever goes away, it will probably be because I'm already dead, or at least I hope so. There's far more to what I draw from this industry than a paycheck. You can take that to the bank.
s forever.
