Air Force, Air Lines eyeballing shortage and 1500 hour rule

FlyingAccountant said:
The monotony mostly. Sitting in a cubicle without windows for 45 hours/week truly is a soul smashing experience.

I always wanted to fly but convinced myself doing the conventional college thing was the better way to go. I graduated in 2008 when the economy was in the process of bottoming out and the airlines were at their worst in terms of hiring and retaining, so it looked like a good idea at the time. Fast forward almost a decade, I’m 33, and the airline industry has rebounded and I’m rapidly reaching the point where I need to either attempt this or forget about it. The idea of spending another 30 years caring about things that don’t really matter, dealing with the types of personalities this profession attracts, and working in an office environment makes me nauseous.

I realize I’m probably never going to be in the left seat of a widebody flying across the ocean, but I’ll settle for a job that I don’t loathe.
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Yea the aviation industry sure has been doing great as of the last 2 years, with signs of further improvement in the future (at least we all hope lol). I was planning on returning to school to finish a business degree. People have been telling me don't get a desk job if I ever decide not to become a professional pilot or the profession doesn't work out. I ask why, and they pretty much say the exact things you said. There's a few people on my wife's side of the family that are accountants. They tell me they would do anything to get out of their corporate office jobs, even with 6 figure salaries. I was honestly very surprised to hear them say that to me. In fact, they even seem to envy what I wanna do. My wife's uncle said if he had to do life all over again he would have done what I'm wanting to do and went to flight school. Then I have to remind them "yea, well...aviation has its downsides too.."
 
Bamaaviator said:
Yea the aviation industry sure has been doing great as of the last 2 years, with signs of further improvement in the future (at least we all hope lol). I was planning on returning to school to finish a business degree. People have been telling me don't get a desk job if I ever decide not to become a professional pilot or the profession doesn't work out. I ask why, and they pretty much say the exact things you said. There's a few people on my wife's side of the family that are accountants. They tell me they would do anything to get out of their corporate office jobs, even with 6 figure salaries. I was honestly very surprised to hear them say that to me. In fact, they even seem to envy what I wanna do. My wife's uncle said if he had to do life all over again he would have done what I'm wanting to do and went to flight school. Then I have to remind them "yea, well...aviation has its downsides too.."
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My personal opinion,

There is nothing in aviation worse than doing to the same drive, at the same time, to sit in the same chair, at the same desk, in the same cubicle, every Monday to Friday for 8 hours, looking at numbers on a computer screen, and talking to the same people you don't like. That would be a career jail sentence to me. I barely could handle 6 months of it when I did it.
 
FlyingAccountant said:
The monotony mostly. Sitting in a cubicle without windows for 45 hours/week truly is a soul smashing experience.

I always wanted to fly but convinced myself doing the conventional college thing was the better way to go. I graduated in 2008 when the economy was in the process of bottoming out and the airlines were at their worst in terms of hiring and retaining, so it looked like a good idea at the time. Fast forward almost a decade, I’m 33, and the airline industry has rebounded and I’m rapidly reaching the point where I need to either attempt this or forget about it. The idea of spending another 30 years caring about things that don’t really matter, dealing with the types of personalities this profession attracts, and working in an office environment makes me nauseous.

I realize I’m probably never going to be in the left seat of a widebody flying across the ocean, but I’ll settle for a job that I don’t loathe.
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Meh, I was almost ready to jump from cube, but then I realized just how close retirement is / can be. Also can't psychology get over a six figures pay cut.

So I just dumped the idea and quit flying altogether........
 
NovemberEcho said:
The AF pilot shortage is getting out of control

http://www.duffelblog.com/2017/02/fighter-pilot-shortage-results-in-recruitment-of-average-looking-uncool-people/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=Duffel Blog&utm_content=Air Force to allow average looking, uncool people to become fighter pilots
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While most fighter pilots have this self-image of us all being Tom Cruise riding the motorcycle, we're actually all fat, balding family men driving around in minivans with carseats in the back. My wife, on more than one squadron social event, has commented, "you're all a bunch of total dorks!"

But we can still kill people and break stuff like nobody's business.
 
NovemberEcho said:
I lost it at "oh good I'm SOF"
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Did any of the towers you worked in have SOF word games?

At Moody, they had something called the "pizza wheel", which was a list of word-offenses that, if the SOF said, meant he had to buy everyone in the cab pizza.

The only one I can recall that was apparently the most egregious offense was use of the term "SOF tower"...but there were a ton of funny ones.
 
Hacker15e said:
Did any of the towers you worked in have SOF word games?

At Moody, they had something called the "pizza wheel", which was a list of word-offenses that, if the SOF said, meant he had to buy everyone in the cab pizza.

The only one I can recall that was apparently the most egregious offense was use of the term "SOF tower"...but there were a ton of funny ones.
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I actually never worked in a tower so I have no idea but I used to always hear the tower flowers bitching about the SOF lol
 
NovemberEcho said:
The AF pilot shortage is getting out of control

http://www.duffelblog.com/2017/02/fighter-pilot-shortage-results-in-recruitment-of-average-looking-uncool-people/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=Duffel Blog&utm_content=Air Force to allow average looking, uncool people to become fighter pilots
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So much truth in the last paragraph:

“As long as they oil up beforehand and don’t skip leg day, they shouldn’t have any issues becoming proud and successful aviators,” said Larry Knight, a critic of the Air Force’s exclusion of uncool people like him, a policy that forced him to become a loser Army helicopter pilot instead.
 
MikeFavinger said:
So much truth in the last paragraph:

“As long as they oil up beforehand and don’t skip leg day, they shouldn’t have any issues becoming proud and successful aviators,” said Larry Knight, a critic of the Air Force’s exclusion of uncool people like him, a policy that forced him to become a loser Army helicopter pilot instead.
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I was talking with a pilot this weekend who had started out doing CFI work in Annapolis, teaching primary flight to Naval Aviators. He said the ones that coughed up a little extra dough to get some time/hours (the Navy would only pay up to 25 hours to get them to solo) did pretty well. The rest either washed out of the Navy or became helicopter pilots.

I laughed. I felt bad about it. But I laughed.
 
killbilly said:
I was talking with a pilot this weekend who had started out doing CFI work in Annapolis, teaching primary flight to Naval Aviators. He said the ones that coughed up a little extra dough to get some time/hours (the Navy would only pay up to 25 hours to get them to solo) did pretty well. The rest either washed out of the Navy or became helicopter pilots.

I laughed. I felt bad about it. But I laughed.
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The weird irony in both the USAF and USN training pipelines is that the helos generally fall to the lowest-ranked (in terms of grades, and by extension, skill) pilots in the class. For those pilots who have never actually tried it, flying a helo is very challenging, especially if you bring fixed wing control input habit patterns to it.

I've flown in the left seat of the UH-60 twice, and both times it made me feel like a total ass-clown. I know that the first time, the pilot I was riding with took a great amount of schadenfreude watching the fighter pilot get his come-uppance in a rotary-winged monster.

If any of you pilots think you're billy badass with the stick-and-rudder, go pay for an hour in an R22 and try your hand at hovering.
 
Hacker15e said:
The weird irony in both the USAF and USN training pipelines is that the helos generally fall to the lowest-ranked (in terms of grades, and by extension, skill) pilots in the class. For those pilots who have never actually tried it, flying a helo is very challenging, especially if you bring fixed wing control input habit patterns to it.

I've flown in the left seat of the UH-60 twice, and both times it made me feel like a total ass-clown. I know that the first time, the pilot I was riding with took a great amount of schadenfreude watching the fighter pilot get his come-uppance in a rotary-winged monster.

If any of you pilots think you're billy badass with the stick-and-rudder, go pay for an hour in an R22 and try your hand at hovering.
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I think more and more, military helicopter pilots are getting more opportunities in the civilian fixed wing world, which is great. I'm biased, obviously, but I'd love for the airline world to recognize the difference between, say, VFR only helicopter operations in simple helicopters vs. those who do routine IFR operations in complex, multi-engine turbine helicopters.

I kind of understand why the USN/USAF assign lower scoring pilots to helicopters - you'd arguably have to be "better" when it comes to the higher speeds and decision making associated with pointy nosed fighters. I don't think it would make a lick of difference though when comparing operations with transport/fueling planes though. You'd kind of figure you'd want to split your "2nd Tier" between heavies and helos to balance the talent pool across airframes.
 
MikeFavinger said:
I think more and more, military helicopter pilots are getting more opportunities in the civilian fixed wing world, which is great. I'm biased, obviously, but I'd love for the airline world to recognize the difference between, say, VFR only helicopter operations in simple helicopters vs. those who do routine IFR operations in complex, multi-engine turbine helicopters.

I kind of understand why the USN/USAF assign lower scoring pilots to helicopters - you'd arguably have to be "better" when it comes to the higher speeds and decision making associated with pointy nosed fighters. I don't think it would make a lick of difference though when comparing operations with transport/fueling planes though. You'd kind of figure you'd want to split your "2nd Tier" between heavies and helos to balance the talent pool across airframes.
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They just figure if they they aren't as good at flying fixed wing they won't have as many habits to break going rotor ;)
 
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