Why aviation

[Andy Neill]

I seem to have backed into it. As a kid, I won an airplane ride (V tailed Bonanza) and a helicopter ride (Bell 47). I even had my picture in the local paper captioned "Future Pilot?". How ridiculous, I thought. I'm going to be an architect.

When I decided to join the Army after a year as an architecture major (so military service wouldn't interrupt my studies at a later date), I couldn't get the jobs I wanted (draftsman, photographer, survey) but I could get Warrant Officer Flight Training for helicopters. I thought why not (I had grown up with my father saying "If only I had learned to fly" and I didn't want that as my lament the rest of my life.)

When I had the chance to get out a couple of years later, I decided to stay in (having too much fun) and stayed in for 25 years. When I took a commission, I tried to do the adult thing and develop my ground career along with my aviation career, but the Army kept throwing me back in the cockpit.

When I retired, I considered what to do and didn't want to have my livlihood depending on how well I could see or hear. I went to grad school to become an industrial engineer. But I couldn't get a job in the filed so I decided to join SkyWest as a classroom instructor. While there, I had the chance to get line qualified and did.

So while I have enjoyed my flying and have done some things I never imagined I would have done, it was not my first choice. I'm glad things have turned out the way they did.

 

[BornFromJets]

Our high school guidance counselor said there were other ways to get high, so I just took it literally...

Kidding aside, when dad and uncles are mechanics for the majors its hard not to fall in love with the planes. I remember going to the hangars when I was kid, everything was much larger than life. Tires taller than I was, Wingspans longer than I could walk, it was all destined to be. My uncle took me for a ride in the L-1011 galley elevator. It was game over from that point. I wanted to be the one who operated all those parts and pieces as one enormous trans-sonic hulking mass. I love my job. I'm proud of what I do. Some people just have a passion for what they do and always have. I mean a 500mph elevator...How cool is that?

 

[cargoflyr69]

I'm in it for love. There is nothing i've wanted to do more in life and it became obvious to me the first time my dad took me for an airplane ride that this was to not only be my advocation but also my vocation.

I think someone else said it best here. "If you are getting into the business for money, you might be greatly disappointed."

 

[pilotpat]

I was actually phobic of flying 'til '97, but still liked airshows and airplanes. I was in business management 'til 2000 when I was on a regional jet and looked at my wife after having taken a few months of flight instruction with her father. I said, "I could do this". Over a decade spent in a cubicle or looking out windows had gotten old and I'd lost life's passion. I quit my pretty decent paying management job and put myself full tilt into a school in Tucson, AZ. Got my tickets in 3 months and began instructing 8/01. I've loved it since and my wife knows I'd be a miserable fack if I was back in the office being kindergarten cop to a bunch of 40 year old children.

 

[flyer172r]

One of the teachers at my high school ran an extracurricular aviation club after school one day a week. I joined it kind of on a whim (yes, I am that big a dork) and got hooked.

 

[SKYWRJGUY]

A real study or a real question? Content analysis from open-ended questions without follow-ons is going to be difficult at best; nor would I expect a very good sample. Anywho, wanted to fly since a wee tot, sidetracked in AF during drawdown, pipeline opened up when I was 26 (too late, not sticking around), civilian route, here because I love flying but the company and security is only OK. Like Andy, broadening career appeal by expanding through school, who knows five years from now. May be just a $100 hamburger guy by then...

 

[av8er2]

It started out as a love and then the airlines ruined it.

 

[knewhigher]

One of the teachers at my high school ran an extracurricular aviation club after school one day a week. I joined it kind of on a whim (yes, I am that big a dork) and got hooked.

I must be the king of dorks then... I founded one at my highschool.

 

[DannyNoonan]

I got into it for the money and hot flight attendentsimp:.

definetly the money....OH and the glory

 

[pilotpat]

Ahhh...the glory of surfing FI.com and various porn sites...