Unrealistic Expectations

[BE58 Driver]

I think this is the best post yet and I echo many of the sentiments posted, but will not repeat them. I came from a slightly different background from many who have posted. I have airline relatives, but no pilots just gate agents and secretaries. I was flying no-rev everywhere from a small age and like many of you I remember the early trips. I remember one to hawaii, it was a family trip back when United was white with stripes. I remember being in awe at the size of the airplane and that the men in the front were actually able to make it fly. I had decided that I wanted to do that. My father told me I had to join the military and my sight is less than perfect. So I became a hockey player instead, which is a close second to flying. At 20 and realizeing I was not going to the NHL a decision had to be made. I did some research and ended up going to one of those big universities. I used to be the guy that would look down on the check haulers and think why? I just want to say that the attitude that comes out of those universities is disappointing to me and I was one not too long ago. There are people who graduate and get my dream job and all they do is complain. I had my first interview on Sept. 6th. Never really found out if I got it or not, but what an experience. And now here I am a check hauler myself. I have to agree with the posts that it is the journey not the destination. The journey adds character and in a world like this one character is going to get you to the next level. I just recently got to take my dad along with me on my run and after we took off on our first leg I saw a tear drop from his eye it reaffirmed what I had accomplished. I impressed the most important person/role model in my life(even though he was wrong about the military and appologizes to this day)!

 

[Aeronca]

This has been one of the best threads I've read. Thank you to the contributors.

Compared to many other posters to this thread I am relatively inexperienced. I can say, however, that I am proud to be in the ranks of this group. It goes without saying, but Flying is more than a job or career, it's a way of life. My father was my primary instructor and he introduced me to his passion for aviation. I will forever be indebted to him for this.

Sorry if I'm off topic.

Regards.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

Still

The RJ is one heck of a nicer ride than the Metro was too!

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

I got out of the AF in '91 after the Iraq War I, after flying for them for 6.5 years, and couldn't get a flying job.

I had my ATP, and 600+ Multiengine Jet (400 with a MGTOW of about 340K lbs), and I saved the letter I have from Comair stating that I didn't meet their minimum requirements-a far cry from today's 1200-200.

I was out of aviation for quite a while, and got on with a regional in 2001. I was elated!

My sim check was 9.12-they told me I'd start IOE in a week or two, not to worry. After the furlough, I spent the year substitute teaching and enjoying my kids, but was frustrated that the cockpit was so close again, but no joy, again.

After about a year I got on with a 121/135 carrier, and it's been great (overall) since! I just enjoyed a flight to Kokomo with fair skies, and friendly people to work with. I'm looking forward to flying until I'm 60, and I may make it back into a Boeing, if I'm lucky!

Cliff
GRB

 

[FurloughedAgain]

Boeing

I used to want that Boeing more than anything.

Now I just want a steady paycheck and a good schedule...time at home with the family. etc.

If I dont sit in a Boeing again it wont bug me too much. I'm just glad to have a job flying.

<smile> Not that I believe US Airways was going to recall us anytime soon anyway!

 

[Dot_AK]

FurloughedAgain,

Bravo.

I usually don't feel I should speak up on this board, as I'm still prepping for my IFR written, but thank you for the thread.

I've wanted to fly planes since I was tiny - and I knew full well what was happening when I enrolled in Ground School after 9/11. I am thrilled just to be flying, and learning how to fly, and hope to teach others when I know it well myself, then get a job out in the bush. A lot of the students around me are all about getting to the majors as fast as they can, considering the steps in between some sort of purgatory to be endured. I'm looking forward to barely making ramen and rent, working my tail off. (Not that that will be far different from now, but I'll be doing it in a plane!)

It's really encouraging to see people here who fly for the love of it - and encourage it.

Thank you all.

 

[ArcticFlier]

You know, I wrote this as reaction to the many conversations and arguments I've shared with my flying partners over the last few months.

As a furloughed major airline pilot I often have a difficult time picking which side of the issue (any issue) I want to argue. My perspective is skewed by the time I spent in a Boeing cockpit.

Today though, I'm a regional airline pilot -- and I'm darned proud of it. I'm ecstatic to have found a flying job ... regardless of the fact that it is in the right seat of a turboprop. I love flying, so when one was offered, I took a job flying. I'm a pilot -- pilots fly.

Its different this time though. When I first went to work for the regionals in the early 90s the guys in the left seat had all been there before. Most of them not only flight instructed, but also flew freight or charter for a few thousand hours before being offered the "privilege" of flying a Metroliner into Utica, New York in the middle of a blinding snowstorm. These pilots had upwards of 3000 hours total time before they took this job flying a 19-seat Jetstream or Metro, 10 legs a day, with no autopilot.

I always had a smile on my face when I spun the prop (had to cool the shaft) after each flight because I was proud to be an "airline pilot".

Fast forward to today -- and back to the unique perspective that I wanted to share with you. Many of the pilots who were hired at the regionals in the late 90's (a decade) later were hired directly from university flight programs (UND, ERAU, you name it...). Many of them did very little flying outside of school -- maybe a few hundred hours of flight instruction and not much more. They came to the regionals and in less than two years -- sometimes less than a SINGLE year -- they have upgraded to Captain on high performance turboprops and regional jets. They have autopilots, EFIS, and FMCs...a long way from the Metros I flew a decade ago.

What amazes me is how ANGRY these pilots are.

They're angry that it took them so LONG (?) to upgrade.

They're angry that they're flying a prop, while their ex-room-mate is flying a jet.

They're angry that there is no flowthrough and that this precludes them from going directly to a major with no interview whatsoever.

They're angry that the pay and workrules they are operating under are not what they expected.

I think that their expectations were unreasonable -- and I blame it completely on the aviation universities. For four years these young men and women were groomed to expect greatness. They watched as their friends graduated and moved quickly to the regionals, flew for two or three years and moved on to United. Heck...many of those people were only at United for 4 or 5 years before they upgraded! Why didnt anyone tell them the truth?

These folks dont know what "Peoples Express" is. They vaguely nod if you mention "Braniff" or "Eastern". They heard something about a furlough in the early 90s -- but they were in elementary school then...

All they know is that they have the precious 1000 hours PIC turbine and why the HECK is Southwest not calling? And whats this OLD MAN doing in the copilots seat? "When I tell him that I expect to be at American in a year, why does he grin like that, silently staring out the window?"

Unrealistic expectations. We have an obligation to share what we've learned with these young men and women. To remind them that they really didnt jump any hurdles to get where they are -- frankly, they had it pretty easy compared to the generation that came before.

They'll never know the fear you felt conducting your first single-pilot ILS to minimums-100 in blowing snow with the aircraft covered in ice...the boss yelling, "fly or you're fired!".

They will never be able to understand what it was like being a copilot for 4 years in a 19 seat airliner...no autopilot ... Utica ... Syracuse ... Binghamton ... "May I take your bag ma'am? Yes I'm old enough to fly this thing." ... Watertown ... Ogdensburg ... "Was that lightning?" ... Plattsburgh ...

And you'll never catch them spinning the fan after we land in Binghamton on a snowy winter night.

So pardon me if I take a deep breath and stare out the window when you wax poetic about the Boeing 777 seat which is waiting for you. If I dont respond when you complain about how it took you 18 months to upgrade to captain on a PROP... forgive me.

I'm just happy to have a job flying... and its a beautiful day for flying isnt it? Mind if I take this leg Captain? Nah...I think I'll leave the autopilot off -- just for old time's sake.

Well said FA. Spinning props............brings back memories. LIke the time a pax told me in LAX that spinning the props was going to ruin the mags...........................I politely told him that the Metro he just flew in from YUM to LAX had Garrett engines and that they are turbines therefore the whole mag thing was a non-issue. He looked at me like I was an idiot. He then said, "but it has a propeller, it can't be a turbine" Yeesh!

Can't say I ever flew in blinding snopstorms, but I did enough desert southwest flying in it to know I don't want to do it again. 10 - 12 leg days............oh yeah.

Braniff........the jelly bean airline...............we have a flight attendant that is still with us that worked for EAL.

Gotta go...........SFO BUR DEN...........more later.

AF

 

[VampyreGTX]

Wow, I can't believe I sat here and read this whole thread. Glad you guys resurected it! First post here for me, but I've spent the last week since finding this forum just trying to read even a fraction of the information that is on here. I admit, I am one of those guys that aspires to fly left seat of a 777 to Europe or wherever, but I never thought I'd be there in a short time. For me it was always the thought that if I DO make it to that level, it'll be near the end of my career in about 35 years near retirment. But then again, who knows what kind of planes we'll have by then and what the airline industry will even look like. Does the current state of the industry scare me being a newbie, hell yes. It scares my wife to. She has been a huge supporter of mine in this pursuit and without her, I don't know how I'd pull this off.

I've always loved to fly, from the first flights as a kid going on vacation to watching planes over my house in Chicago. However, I never researched the field and decided to follow in the footsteps of my brother and pursue Finance as a career. I went off to college and got my bachelors in Finance with an Accounting Minor and got a good paying job right out of college. Of course, we traveled 2 weeks out of every month. I had racked up over 160K freq. flier miles on UAL in about 12 months. My favorite part of that job was the flights, I'd sit at the airport and just watch the planes out the window, stare into the cockpit before the doors were locked, etc.

My wife went to Louisville for grad school and I followed her there for another job (with a pay cut) and one day before I actually moved, her uncle flew me down in his Cessna Centurion Turbo 210 into Bowman Field. After that, I decided to look into actually flying. Bought a pilot magazine, looked at stuff on the internet and went to the local FBO and signed on for flying lessons. After about 12 hours, had my first solo and just was absolutely enthralled with it. I had found my true calling, all those years of dreaming as a kid finally meant something. I didn't like my job in Louisville and looked forward to flying as much as I could. My wife finally withdrew from the program as she decided it wasn't what she wanted to do and we moved back to Chicago. My flying stopped for some time at that point.

After about 3 months at my new job, I inquired at a few schools and visited Delta Connection Academy (then Comair Aviation Academy) on September 7th, 2001, The friday before everything changed. I decided on attending that school (knowing that it was more than other places, but I just like the structure and it just felt like a better fit than the other places I looked at. Well after 9/11 I knew the industry was in for a major hit and put my plans on hold again. Finally, I just couldn't take the finance thing anymore, plus I was about to be layed off (hmm.... sounds familiar! too bad the business community doesn't have anything like furloughs) so I took a severance package, and my wife and I moved down here to Orlando. I decided that this would be a downturn, but I figured that what better time to complete my trianing than at a time when people thought it was the totally wrong thing to do! I wanted to have my foot in the door by the time the cycle ran it's course and started an upswing again. I know it's some time away, but hey, I got time.

I hope to fly for SOMEONE outside of instructing within the next 12-18 months, but I know that I'll have to work toward that goal to make it now. Personally, my goal is either CHQ or Chicago Express, as those have bases either in or cities not to far from Chicago and my wife and I could stay with the parentals to conserve cash in the beginning (done it before and survived over 18 months with the in-laws, helps to get along with them well!)

I just love how my brother states that I picked the wrong field to be in right now. However, he left a six-figure job in New York to get his MBA shortly before the markets collapsed and is now only one semester from finishing and has yet to get even ONE interview out of dozens of applications! He has conections up the you know what and outstanding academic and employment credentials and yet the market is so tight he can't even get a call-back! Yet, he's telling me I'm in the wrong field! LOL.... at least I'm enjoying what I'm doing!

So, how reasonable would a goal be in about a year to work for Chicago Express or CHQ? I'm estimating to have about 1000 to 1200TT?

 

[FurloughedAgain]

9 months later...

9 months later we're still hashing it out on this thread.

<smile> I'm glad.

It's nice to see that there's a topic that we can all discuss as professionals. It's really CRM at its finest. We're discussing behavior -- our own and that of our coworkers. Where else can you get a bunch of blue-collar button pushers and get them to talk about behavior?

It's impressive, at least to me.

I doubt we're going to change anyones mind. The young captain who daydreams about his Jetblue interview will not be swayed by our experiences -- obviously we've made some error on our own career-road that he is immune to.

Thats ok. Were it not for similar dreams we wouldn't have experiences to share either.

Vampyre:

Good luck on your change of careers. If you love flying then you'll always fly -- nomatter what happens. Its a great job! (just not much of a career)

My advice? Make sure your wife keeps working -- she can support your flying hobby when times aren't so good!

 

[JBcrjca]

I also read this whole thread for the 1st time today. Thanks to FurloughedAgain for bringing it back to the top. The original post was a beauty...FA hit the nail squarely on the head. I think many of us have been thinking the same thing, but we just don't type as eloquently as he does. It brought back a lot of memories, and I'm not even sure I qualify as an official 'old fart' yet. Some of the other guys posted some really good stories. IPFreleys' story about the RJ capt/fo was one of the best. I also remember spinning the props on the Metro, just wish I could have gotten the SA-227 type rating!

we have a flight attendant that is still with us that worked for EAL.

Ah yes, our beloved Darlene M. She's absolutely a pleasure to work with, and she has lots of great stories from 'back in the day' with Eastern. The cool thing about her is that she almost encourages sexual harrassment! And she still remembers every passenger on every flight by name. I'll never figure out how she does that.