Unrealistic Expectations

[bayoubandit]

I must say thanks to all who have shared the stories here. After being furloughed a year now, sometimes I lose sight, get angry, bitter, frustrated, and all those other things that we experience as pilots and people in our business. This thread definitely reminds me of what we have even when being furloughed. Eventually I'll get back in the cockpit, even if it's not at my airline.

After reading here, it's nice to think about those things that made me want to be a pilot. The walk through the terminal observing people, walking down the warm jetbridge with the smell of jetfuel getting stonger (so I'm wierd that I like that smell), climbing into the neatest office in the world, preflighting the shiny metal bird I always envisioned myself doing as a kid. The list goes on and on. Even in the worst of times with the economy, managements, unions, contracts, etc., I am still grateful that I have been blessed to work among the greatest profession and the greatest people even though we always don't agree.

FD109 made me think of my highlights. I remember getting the call from both the regional and major offering me the job. I could barely contain myself both times. My dream job finally came true. But the proudest moment was having my father in my jumpseat. On my last trip before jumping ship at my regional, my old man tagged along in the jumpseat. To have that man, the one who encouraged me to pursue my goals, the one who taught me how to fly, and the one who taught me how to be a professional to finally get to watch what I do gave me more satisfaction than most anything, as it did him.

So I may be out of a job now, but I will always have that memory, and the many other memories to hold me over and keep me in check when doom and gloom becomes too much. I may not be doing what I want to right now, but it's these thoughts that keep me going and keep me plugging away for a flying job. I would do it all over again, and this profession is definitely the best kept secret in the world. Let's not let it out.

Happy flying to all!!

 

[F.Gump]

I guess I'll throw in my .02. For the last couple of weeks Ive considered changing the title of my autobiography from So Far, So Good to When Dreams Turn Into Nightmares: The Life and Times of a Regional Airline First Officer. This thread has helped me reconnect a little to why I got into flying professionally.

As a teenager, I lived about three miles from the approach end of the local airport. In 1986 I got a motorcycle and was able to ride out to the airport and lean against the fence. All through college I went down to the local airline airport and sat at the end of the runway watchig Saabs, J31s, EMB120s and 1900s land (no regional jets yet). My first job out of colllege had me in an office that looked out at the final approach for RWY 16 at FYV, a localizer only approach into a bowl of a miserable airport that Im sure alot of you have flown into.

A couple of weeks ago on a high speed from JLN to MEM, I was flying and went Dir RZC for the Gilmore 3 into MEM. I had a scanner in my vehicle for two years while I was accumulating my ratings and heard hundreds of such clearences given to airlines, and it was nostalgic when I got that clearence.


In a thread above someone mentioned flying over some highway and seeing all of the suckers piled up in gridlock and it reminded me of coming into DTW from a high speed and seeing the same thing.

I have a good friend who has flown the same airplane for the same company for atleast twelve years. I used to pick his brain all the time about flying professionally. I asked him if he thought he could get out of it. His reply was no because to this day every time an airplane flys over he looks up to see what it is. I started playing golf recently, and somewhere on the back nine a AA F100 flys over and I looked up. I guess the guy was right.

See Ya

 

[Capn Lucky]

Slightly different perspective...

I'm 39 and this is my second career. I'm a beech FO who is darn happy to have a seat. I feel like any day I get paid to go to the airport, its a good day. My mentor in the industry encouraged me to become a CFI for when I would become unemployed. It's inevetible in this business. Also, since I was taking a huge pay-cut, I knew that I should have an income outside of flying. My wife and I have a business on the side. You never know when you'll need it.

Be Smart and Fly Safe

Steve

 

[GuppyPuppy]

I've gotta get in on this one!

When I was in first grade I was given an assignment to draw a picture and write about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Like many on this board I knew I wanted to be an airline pilot. My mother saved that drawing/story had it mounted and framed and gave it to me when I was hired by UA. I wrote about how I'd fly the "Super DC-8" and that the airline would be Delta. Looking back, I was lucky enough to fly that plane and, as far as Delta goes, at least I flew Delta passengers at SkyWest.

I started flying in 1985 and paid for most of it myself (as well as my college tuition). I remember that almost 100% of my paycheck went to the local flying club. Even though I was poor, I was happy. Alright...I've got to share an excerpt from one of my favorite poems, The Joy of Being Poor...

...When, though my pockets lacked a coin, and though my coat was old,
The largess of the stars was mine, and all the sunset gold;
When time was only made for fools, and free as air was I,
And hard I hit and hard I lived beneath the open sky;
When all the roads were one to me, and each had its allure...
Ye Gods! these were the happy days, the days when I was poor

OK...enough of the sappy stuff.

Eight years ago I remember flying my fourth Glacier Bay tour (1.5 hours each) of the day. I flew the same route, pointed out the same features, the same mountain goats, used the same jokes...etc... I was rapidly becoming bored. I remember shaking my head back and forth as if I had just waken up from a coma and saying to myself, "I'm flying, I'm getting paid for it, and I'm in the most beautiful place on earth that most people won't ever see." Everytime I start to get that borish attitude, I think of that day over Glacier Bay. I get to do what I've wanted to do since I was a kid. Today I flew a Juneau Icefield tour and absolutely loved every minute of it.

I'm starting back at UA next month, unless I get laid off! I am so going to miss taking off from Juneau and not knowing for sure which route I'm going to take to get back home....over the ice?, over the water?, low?, high?. These past five plus months I've lived "The Joy of Being Poor". I've realized that material things don't mean nearly as much as the beauty of seeing a humpback whale bubble feed, a brown bear resting on a 3,300' ledge, a glacier calve, a moose running across the runway, sea lions playing or even morning dew on a leaf. These are the things I will think about and cherish for years to come.

I am truly fortunate to be one who can honestly say "It beats working for a living"!

Cheers!

GP

 

[Typhoon1244]

Okay, if we're all going to take turns telling misty stories...

My mother used to put me in my stroller and take me for walks (rolls?) around the block. If I saw a contrail overhead, or heard the hollow-tube rushing sound of a jetliner at altitude, I would smile, point at the sky and try to imitate the sound. (Of course, I don't remember this myself...)

When I was three, I finally asked my father what he did for a living. Just where was he going in his black suit with the gold stripes and all that luggage? He told me he was an airplane pilot. (He was a DC-9 F/O at E.A.L.) That sounded like a pretty good thing to me, so I decided I'd be one too, someday.

My little brother and I used to make cockpits out of Tinkertoys and Lego blocks. It was easier to make a convincing looking throttle quadrant--complete with reverser levers--out of Tinkertoys. Legos were better for fire handles, master caution lights, etc. To make our play more realistic, dad used to give us his old Jepps when he did his revisions.

We also drove our mom nuts making airports with those same Legos. They got pretty intricate, too. Runway lights, VASI, ALSF, REIL's, the beacon, jetways, localizer and glideslope antennas, VOR's, even a four-course range!...all were re-created as best we could with little plastic blocks.

(By the way, get involved when your children decide to play like this. It will mean a lot to them. I remember my dad sitting on the floor with us, scheming a way to make a sort-of working VASI with white and red Lego blocks stacked together!)

I used to drive with my father to MIA when he went to check his mail, turn in bids, etc. I remember the clerks, dispatchers, and crew schedulers, and especially the pilots treating me like I was supposed to be there...even at age six. Most especially--and this is a little weird--I remember the rich leather smell of the flight bag room. To this day, I associate that smell with professional flight operations.

When I was about ten, dad took me--and just me--on a Buffalo NY overnight. Not long after takeoff, Captain Mel Keene had the senior F/A sneak me into the cockpit, and I went almost all the way to Buffalo on the jumpseat. Getting to share a cockpit with my father and his captain on a night flight sealed my fate. I knew that somehow, I was going to be an airline pilot.

And I made it, too, with a lot of twists and turns along the way.

I love every airplane I've ever flown, but to me no aircraft will ever feel quite so...welcoming as those white-and-silver DC-9's with their two-tone blue hockey sticks.

What's wrong with us that a conglomeration of carefully machined aluminum, steel, and plastic, kerosene and rubber, silicon and glass can drive us to such distraction?

...or is it the people we meet along the way?

...or is it just the view from up there...?

 

[I.P. Freley]

Misty Mountain Hop...

Should I even get into my fuzzy memories of repeated trips on Piedmont 727's, visiting grandma and granddad down in Virginia, and multiple rides in the cockpit jumpseat as a wee tot?

"JOEY... Do you like movies about... Gladiators?" ROFL!!

Boy, their flight attendants sher were purty! I remember THAT much!!

I'll just leave the rest of it to myself.

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

Is it hereditary?

As a parent, one of the highest compliments a kid can offer is when they want to be like you. When I did my training in Louisville both my instructors were sons of UPS pilots. Both are good, honorable young men who have furthered their aviation careers.
My Dad never took the plunge to be a pilot but I can remember watching "Twelve O'Clock High" with him which sparked my interest in flying. I kick myself now for not getting involved directly with aviation. Oh well, at least I can smash bugs on the weekends.

 

[Huck]

My dad retired in '99 after 31 years red-tail NWA. Started on the panel of the 727, retired captain of the whale.

When I was about 10, he sneaked me into the cockpit of a 747 as we went to Hawaii. I was overwhelmed, and can vividly remember what it looked like - the pilots seemed like giants, and the lights, bells and whistles were frightening and exciting.

About that time my uncle (now a 76 captain at UAL) let me sit in the left seat of the brand-new BE-200 he was flying. Again, I can recall every detail of that big old panel (I later got 500 hours flying it!)

Now I try and pass this on to my son. He's just three, but last fall I managed to sneak him into the cockpit of an MD-11 for a few precious seconds. To paraphrase Garrison K, my dad and uncle just thought they were giving a little cockpit tour, but what they did was paint a permanent picture in my memory....

 

[Timebuilder]

Most of you have read my posts about my flying with my father, and how, for a few years, I felt I had to strike out in my own direction rather than take this obviously wonderful opportunity (in hindsight of course) to have all of my ratings before age 20, fly air taxi VFR out of the local airport, and get my ATP at 23.

I still kick myself a little for not taking that path, but I take some satisfaction in the fact that I eventually "found my way home."

 

[TurboS7]

911 has messed all this up. You can't sneak your kids in anywhere anymore. I did sneak my 10 year old into the sim the other night when no one was looking, this thread makes it worth the effort. Time builder, my oldest son 19 is totally into baseball, no interest in aviation except that is what will take him to a game once he makes the majors. Time will change that I am sure.