Any LDS (Mormon) Pilots out there??

H

horizonq400

New Member
I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a Private Pilot with Instrument Rating currently working on my Commercial certificate and have been seriously questioning my decision to be a professional pilot. All of my life I have dreamt of flying professionally. I have pictured myself in the cockpit of an airliner or whatever and I thought nothing could change that desire, but I have come to realize lately that to me, family is FAR more important and being there for them.

I want to have a family, and be with them more than not. Financially, it's a worry also, and I also want to diligently serve in the church.

So many worries have surfaced as of late and I need a little help. Whether it's from members of the LDS faith or not. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Either on here or via e-mail. I'm sure many if not most of you can relate to my dilemma. Thanks everyone.

PS, this is my first post.
 
I don't have one of my own yet, but I am seriously dating a girl and we will most likely be getting married in the near future, so that is part of the reason why these things have been coming to mind.

She wants me to fulfill my dream, but I want to be able to provide for her and our family once that gets started and I want to be there for it.

I understand I need to work to support my family, but I don't know if I could be away for 4 days at a time. What if she gets hurt or sick, and I'm out of town unable to come home? These may be minute worries, but to me they are very real and this is a very hard choice.
 
I don't know how pertinent this is, but I happen to know that NetJets has a dedicated team that caters to the needs of pilots out on trips and their families
 
mtsu_av8er said:
What kinda crap was that?
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Because he mentioned supporting a family. If you have a big family it will be very tough to support a family as a pilot, not to mention the issues of being away from home. I know I couldn't afford to have a kid, much less more than one of them but that is a choice I am comfortable with.
 
31 years ago I was advised by the wife of a Pan Am Capt that an airline pilot career is not a good choice if you want a family. I blew the advice off. Today I know that sentence as the most profound statement ever made concerning a pilot career.:(
 
I would try and find a job as a corporate pilot, or something with a schedule allowing for you to be home every night. I would think it'd put too much stress on your wife to leave her at home for a few days at a time with all those kids.

Also, I would think with only day trips, you could swing it to where you could go to church on Sunday.

Hopefully that didn't come off as bashing or anything, cause I'm really not trying to poke fun.
 
Thank you all for your words of advice and considerate recommendations. It's a hard reality to come to terms with when a life-long dream may be just that; a dream.

When you say corporate jobs, do you mean like a fractional, or one directly with a company? Those are tough to get requiring a lot of hours right?
 
what does being Mormon, or "LDS" have to do with being a pilot? Not being sarcastic, just wondering.... most faiths usually have families.
 
SIUav8er said:
what does being Mormon, or "LDS" have to do with being a pilot? Not being sarcastic, just wondering.... most faiths usually have families.
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Well mormons are known to have larger families (it ties into their beliefs, but that's irrelevant). They also take Sunday off. People I know around here pretty much go to church and then home to hang out with their family (no tv or anything that day).
 
Being LDS has nothing to do with being a pilot. I know there are many LDS pilots out there but I thought it would be nice to get the perspective from someone of my faith.

In the LDS church, we serve in different positions if we accept them and I want to serve in the church diligently and want to attend services weekly. I just wonder how others of my faith have done it, and how others of other faiths do it.

I'm looking for all angles and all advice I can get to ease my decision.
 
horizonq400 said:
Thank you all for your words of advice and considerate recommendations. It's a hard reality to come to terms with when a life-long dream may be just that; a dream.
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Yes, you CAN have a family and fly for an airline. May be challenging, and you won't be home every night. But, yes - you can.

Those are tough to get requiring a lot of hours right?
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Getting lots of hours is the fun part.

;)
 
Most LDS families are larger and they are required to give a certain amount of their earnings to the church something like 10% I believe. When you have to support a larger family and give money it can come kinda tight on the budget. If you make 20k as a first year FO and have to give 10 percent that is 2k less you have to make ends meet. I do know that the church also supports during hard times. My friend was out of work for a couple weeks and they were able to get food, counseling, etc. from the local wards office.
 
To have the "traditional" job of airline pilot, you WILL be away from home for multiple days.

Whether or not that is good or bad for a family depends entirely on your family. Not anyone else's. Believe it or not, there are women out there who LIKE being pilot's wives. I do not speak for ALL pilot's wives, I only speak for me, but I like the "me" time I get when he's gone. I love having him home, but I like the independence and "room" that it brings. Do not buy into generalized statements like "being a pilot is bad for having a family" or "you'll never have a happy family if you're a pilot". Are there unhappy aviation families? Sure. But there are also very happy airline families. Make the decision for YOU and YOUR family.

Now, if being away from home on overnights is something you absolutely can't deal with, then that means you will need to eliminate "airline" pilot from your possibly future jobs. However, that doesn't eliminate all flying jobs. You could be a career CFI, they don't have overnights. You could find a corporate or fractional job that doesn't do overnights, there are some outfits out there that don't do overnights. So just because you don't want to do overnights doesn't mean you can't fly, but if you want to go the traditional "airline" route, you will have to deal with multi-day trips.

(As a personal note, have a little faith in your future wife, that she's not a helpless fawn and can deal with things if you're not immediately available. ;) )
 
The best corporate jobs are found via networking. Making friends, talking to people, etc. Get out there at the airport, find out where the corporate planes you see are based, who operates them, get to know the people involved in their operation. A lot of corporate aviation is who-you-know :)
 
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