rude to ask a fellow pilot their hours?

Flyinhigh728

Flyinhigh728

Well-Known Member
I had a very shocking interaction with a fellow pilot today. I’m finishing up my Cfi now, but I have always been following the industry in many ways including multiple forums for over 10 years now.

Anyway, this person is a CFI and just got hired at a small airline in the northeast. I asked them what there hours were out of curiosity. It was a totally innocent question. This person then went off on me. I was told how asking a pilot their hours is like asking someone about their bank account. This person said all of the senior pilots they knew told them this. I was then told to never ask a senior pilot their hour out of respect. They were genuielly upset with me.

The interaction did not end well and I was completely shocked with that viewpoint. Am I wrong for asking a fellow pilot their hours?
 
Flyinhigh728 said:
I had a very shocking interaction with a fellow pilot today. I’m finishing up my Cfi now, but I have always been following the industry in many ways including multiple forums for over 10 years now.
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Sounds like a real piece of work.

No, you can ask politely. That said, there isn't really any reason to unless it is someone you know and you are trying to figure out if you can get a job somewhere or something.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Sounds like a real piece of work.

No, you can ask politely. That said, there isn't really any reason to unless it is someone you know and you are trying to figure out if you can get a job somewhere or something.
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I was asking partly because I was curious to know what they were looking for in terms of hours.
 
They're wrong, any anyone who would freak out or be offended by that is probably a weirdo.

But for the more diplomatic answer... it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask someone. What if I wanted to gauge what kind of experience range the company is hiring people from? Sounds like a tool.

Or he can't remember the amount of fake time he's put in his logbook and got defensive.
 
JordanD said:
They're wrong, any anyone who would freak out or be offended by that is probably a weirdo.

But for the more diplomatic answer... it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask someone. What if I wanted to gauge what kind of experience range the company is hiring people from? Sounds like a tool.

Or he can't remember the amount of fake time he's put in his logbook and got defensive.
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That’s exactly what I was doing. I was just trying to gauge the amount of experience this company was looking for. It’s unfortunate that it went the way it did.
 
Flyinhigh728 said:
That’s exactly what I was doing. I was just trying to gauge the amount of experience this company was looking for. It’s unfortunate that it went the way it did.
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I wouldn't sweat it. Sounds like there's a pilot group that's in for a headache.

The bank account stuff is funny too considering pilots openly talk about their salaries. Hell, there's websites dedicated to posting them.
 
Flyinhigh728 said:
I had a very shocking interaction with a fellow pilot today. I’m finishing up my Cfi now, but I have always been following the industry in many ways including multiple forums for over 10 years now.
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They say one in five is a nut case. Look at four other people, if they're not nut cases, it must be you.

In this case, you're safe.

redneck-demonstrates-how-to-i-dead-handle-a-burmese-python-3915500.png
 
You ran into one toolbag.

What, had you asked him what ratings he has, he would think it cool to punch you next?

What an ass you ran into. Of course, had I been you, I would've been dumping gasoline on that fire once that thin-as-hell skin had been exposed. If only for sheer entertainment purposes.
 
One more thing: You are going to get asked this about a billion times for the rest of your life. Have good answers, because for all you know, it is someone looking to offer you a job. Or someone you might be trying to get a job from. Or someone that is just curious. Treat it like an icebreaker. This website is about networking, after all.

("how many hours you got" is a crappy icebreaker BTW. But we are pilots here, not PR reps)
 
Never run into a “senior” pilot who cares. I’ve run into one who isn’t sure because he stopped copying hours from his notepads he uses for tracking it all, into a more formal logbook, but his real world number is up well over 30,000. His first paid flying job at an airline was in a DC-2. He runs a busy flight school in “retirement”.
 
Nah, this was something else. Back in the day, during some dark times, people got very defensive when asking about jobs. If someone was hiring, sometimes people were VERY defensive and kept leads to themselves or their close buds. I overheard one or two conversations, with zero expectation of privacy from those talking about it, and then they made it point to tell me to mind my own business.

This person was probably trying to keep the job under wraps for a bud(s) after the fact.
 
Thanks for the words of wisdom everyone. I am a strong believer in networking and paying it forward, so I really wanted to make sure that I wasn’t doing something wrong.
 
What’s a “senior” pilot? Age? Time in the industry? Time at a particular air line? Total time flown?

I’m 53, been airline flying for 22 years, been with SJI for 18, got north of 11,000 hours. I don’t consider myself senior. This guy sounds like an assclown.
 
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