Flying career advice for my son

Pilot Fighter said:
I didn’t see any negative. CG aviation is just weird.
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Yeah, they’ll take high-time Navy SH-60s with over 16-18,000hrs on the airframe that the Navy has determined are no longer economically viable to repair, refurbish them, paint them Coast Guard Orange and white, and put them back into service. They literally run the entire service on a shoestring budget that is criminal for what they do…
 
woodreau said:
Yeah, they’ll take high-time Navy SH-60s with over 16-18,000hrs on the airframe that the Navy has determined are no longer economically viable to repair, refurbish them, paint them Coast Guard Orange and white, and put them back into service. They literally run the entire service on a shoestring budget that is criminal for what they do…
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I need to look into that, I’m curious.

I was thinking of their pilots. I have a buddy that has a CG son that went through flight training a few years ago. Other than that, I haven’t met a CG pilot that wasn’t prior service, IST, or DC.
 
Hmm…. I think I might just pursue a Part 107 UAS certificate. I was outside yesterday and heard this drone fly overhead. It’s an Amazon drone and it just dropped a package in my neighbors yard. I go researching and I can get up to 5lb Amazon package dropped off at my house if I want to. Order some inkjet printer ink and it’s delivered in 30 minutes by drone.

Maybe that’ll be my retirement gig.
Amazon Flight monitor or ground handler…

I’m so done burning 270,000lbs of jet A to move 120,000lbs of batteries, flowers, frozen salmon, Bugattis and Ferraris

I wonder how long it will be before people start intercepting these delivery drones to steal the 5lb package…
 
woodreau said:
Hmm…. I think I might just pursue a Part 107 UAS certificate. I was outside yesterday and heard this drone fly overhead. It’s an Amazon drone and it just dropped a package in my neighbors yard. I go researching and I can get up to 5lb Amazon package dropped off at my house if I want to. Order some inkjet printer ink and it’s delivered in 30 minutes by drone.

Maybe that’ll be my retirement gig.
Amazon Flight monitor or ground handler…

I’m so done burning 270,000lbs of jet A to move 120,000lbs of batteries, flowers, frozen salmon, Bugattis and Ferraris

I wonder how long it will be before people start intercepting these delivery drones to steal the 5lb package…
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This report was from almost 6 years ago, but Zipline is still going strong.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjjbeltn4Fo
 
Yeah Amazon is a little more limited. You have to be within 8 miles of the Amazon distribution center that handles drones. I wonder if they’re going to scale that up so that the distribution center serves a larger area?

As I drove by the distribution center there were 3 drones that launched from the distribution center while I was waiting at the traffic light.
 
GloverMan said:
I have a tough time recommending a professional pilot career to any young person. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze imho.
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Mr. Gloverman: when did you stop feeling that the professional pilot juice wasn’t worth the squeeze?
Because I’ve been hearing that noise since the 1980s when I was a student at a prestigious puppy mill.
/not that one
//not that one either

Part two: What IS good career advice for a young person? What would you advise?
 
I think those of us who have burned out in a profession need to be careful when giving advice to the next generation. I got burned out in aerospace engineering, but I still encourage young people to explore their interest in the field and help connect them with opportunities when I can. My burn out was some mixture of a "me" problem and the normal life cycle of a motivated individual in corporate America. Telling a young person not to pursue it because I got burned out would feel akin to an elderly person telling me not to get old because they got cancer. Yes, it sucks. It is also just part of the journey, to some extent, and there are burned out people from every single profession. I think the best we can do is be honest about pros and cons, as objectively as we can, while avoiding blanket do or don't statements.

Regarding humans flying airplanes, I agree it's hard to picture two pilots per airliner 50 years from now. Clearly things move towards more and more automation. In this age of AI, it is also hard to picture what any traditionally high-paying occupation will look like 50 years from now. The bots seem to have everything in their targets. They are even solving exceptionally hard math problems (see Millennium Prize) So, if you are passionate about flying airplanes in the traditional sense, I say do it NOW, while it's still on the menu, and enjoy the ride. But don't be naive. Be frugal and acknowledge that you will have to reinvent yourself in the future. That's advice that holds for young people entering most professions today, not just aviation.

Best of luck to the OP's son as he sorts things out. "Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find, for a mind maker-upper to make up his mind" - Dr. Seuss
 
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