Is it a crime to fly because you love it?

Parabellum

New Member
Lately, I've been exposed to a lot of bitterness from professional pilots. Not quite so much here on the JC forums, but if you go to flightinfo.com, you run into threads such as "Mesa, the anti-christ of regionals" and "CFI pay too low." The actual content of these threads is not the subject I'm presenting here. I don't know or understand what the bashing of Mesa is all about, and the fact that CFI pay isn't the greatest is not at all news to me anymore. What I'm trying to get at here, is that it seems like there are an awful lot of pilots who simply don't enjoy flying.

As in my case, I love flying. I always have. Every time I get in a 172, I get the same adrenaline rush and excitement taking off as I did when I flew for the very first time. So my question is, is this a crime? I mean, there are bitter airline pilots out there (not saying all airline pilots are like this, but there are a few) who might look at someone like me and accuse me of being one of those pukes who accepts a low paying regional job for the "glory of being an airline pilot." Supposedly, my acceptance of such job is contributing to the overall decline in pay of flying jobs in the entire industry.

Well who knows? They could be right. I know that money is definately important, but that's not my reason for pursuing a flying career. If you forgot the reason I'm doing so, read above. I'm very well aware of the fact that a $19K/yr starting salary for a regional FO is not very good pay, but I don't expect to be making that my whole career. But if worst comes to worst and that ends up being my salary cap by an act of god, I'll either learn to live with it or do something else for a living. Whatever the case, I refuse to do something with my life that I hate doing. If someone offered me a job being a psychologist for 70K/year as opposed to a flying job paying less, I'll take the flying job any day.

Sometimes I wonder if the over-supply of pilots we have would exist if the pilots who have, for whatever reason, grown to hate flying would find something else to do that they actually love. I also have to wonder, did they even have a passion for flying in the first place? Or did they read some section in a "great careers" handbook about piloting aircraft that some school counselor gave them and say, "Wow! Airline pilot, sounds great! Where do I sign up?"

To me, it seems like the most successful pilots are the ones who have wanted to fly ever since they first laid eyes on an airplane.
 
Nope, not a crime and I practice heavy moderation to insure that jetcareers doesn't sink into the often visited, but extremely "oderiferous" quagmire that is flightinfo.com.

Enjoy!
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Thanks Doug, you're the man! The good moderation of this site is probably part of the reason why I've made more posts to these forums than any other out there.
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But just out of curiosity, does anyone know what all the bashing Mesa has been getting on flightinfo is all about?
 
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But just out of curiosity, does anyone know what all the bashing Mesa has been getting on flightinfo is all about?

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Mesa pilots ratified a pretty lame contract and other airlines that are currently in negotiations are having their people say, "Why should be improve your working conditions because Mesa pilots just agreed to a contract with worse provisions".

I haven't seen the contract, but let me put it this way -- I haven't met a Mesa pilot as of yet that voted "Yes" on the contract and I think (don't quote me on this) it passed with an 80%-plus "Yes" vote.
 
Doug please don't say that. Mesa ratified a very good contract if you consider the position they were in. This industry is not what it used to be.

As for bashing flying - no it is not a crime to love flying! What is a crime is that you think you love it so much that you are willing to do for free what should be a paid job, or even worse, paying for a job that should be paying you.

That's where the negativity comes from. All us "negativity experts" (thats my new term heh heh) really love flying and we are just trying to restore what was once a great profession and a great industry.

It starts with education. I wish someone had educated me on patience and dues paying, I might have been even more prudent in my choices. Fortunately I never did the big gaffe, PFT. Or as it is today, PFJ!
 
Well, that's just how I it was explained to me by one of my pals and a couple of captains while begging for a jumpseat to DFW.

But beyond that, admittedly I haven't read it.
 
I think a flying career has not lived up to many peoples expectations - therefore people are bitter.
 
I fly because I love it. I choose not to listen to all the BS and whining. I'm happy doing what I'm doing, and I know others are too. It just seems those who are happy don't go around posting their glee on Flightinfo.com.

Just keep plugging away, and when a fellow crewmembers starts spewing the rhetoric just nod and say "uh huh, yup, uh huh, I see" and look out the window before rolling your eyes.
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A few things nobody seems to want to talk about..

...including, especially, Doug.

and, which you need to understand going in, Paul, and think about.

Paul, I don't know you, but judging *solely* from your post, let me see of I can paint a picture of you:

--you are 20 years old, +/- 2 years.

--you are unmarried and live with your parents in a comfortable house in a suburb

--you have never worked a full-time job

Am I close?

If so, understand that none of these things is your "fault," and I'm not blaming you for them.

What I *am* saying is that you might look at the realities of employment in the aviation industry much differently than you do now, when you are on the back side of forty and with a wife & children to support.

Don't you think so?

Add to that, this: That success in this business...however you measure that, or define it...is not obtained solely on the basis of ability, hard work, and experience. Think about that until you understand what I'm trying to say.

And, finally, keep this in mind: Sometimes your best friends are people who tell you what you do not want to hear.
 
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I fly because I love it. I choose not to listen to all the BS and whining. I'm happy doing what I'm doing, and I know others are too. It just seems those who are happy don't go around posting their glee on Flightinfo.com.

Just keep plugging away, and when a fellow crewmembers starts spewing the rhetoric just nod and say "uh huh, yup, uh huh, I see" and look out the window before rolling your eyes.
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I totally agree with you. I love flying too, but I love my family even more, so I think most are coming from that perspective. I can feel other pilots frustration since you want to provide as much as you can for your family and your passion doesn't compensate you fairly enough, early enough. I look at my situation and get very bitter that if I stayed on track to become a regional, I would have to support a wife and kid on a paltry $16,000 a year. That's cool when your single and can take the Top Ramen diet, but that's not cool for me to force my family to do so when I could do better. A lot of pilots are in the same situation, but you gotta look at the other side of things instead of being one dimensional.
On a more positive note, I am still training to get to regional status(even though it'll take much longer). I just had to get a higher paying job out of aviation and will enroll into ATP's 10 month program. Then I'll buy my own plane to accumulate time. Then maybe I'll get hired by a regional or into a corporate outfit at a decent wage, if not oh well, my main point is to make sure my family is taken care of. But the point is, it can still be done even with a family in tow!!!!!!!
 
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Is it a crime to fly because you love it?

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Not at all. Hell, its the ONLY reason that I fly- for a living or fun. Sure, I certainly don't love my ornery boss, or some of the B.S. that goes with instructing...but every time I go up I know that I'm doing what I love to do.
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Flying should first and foremost be fun.

And this is what scares me most about these "big" academies. They scare the crap out of people, work them to death (flying twice a day in 105 degree heat is not fun for the student and the CFI is getting dehydrated to death flying three to four times that every day) and essentialy regiment everything so precisely (or try to anyway) that there is no fun left in flying. Hell there's a school here in town that has guys reading checklists at 500ft AGL on final.

I'm all for checklists but if you need to be reading a checklist a 500 ft AGL in a 172 ... something ain't right.

Now, I don't have anytihng in particular against these big academies but hang out around a few of 'em and everyone ( <--exageration) is tired and worn out and generally hating life. This attitude then gets instilled as the status quo and it's carried on up through the ranks and jobs.

I read or heard a quote once and it said "if you can't walk in and fly (as a student) wearing the clothes you have on you probably don't belong there."

I feel sad for a lot of folks at these school because they just aren't having fun. They're already treating flying like a job! We've got another 30 or 40 years to do that ... when we're learing, especially, it should be about fun and adventure.

Now I'm not bashing these academies and I realize a lot of people attend them because of the structure. It's just, IMHO, they focus a little too much on the rigidity and not enough on the spirit.
 
Re: A few things nobody seems to want to talk about..

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--you are 20 years old, +/- 2 years.

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Correct.
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--you are unmarried and live with your parents in a comfortable house in a suburb

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Incorrect. Well, correct in that I am unmarried, however I do not live with my parents in a "comfortable suburban" house.
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--you have never worked a full-time job

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Incorrect.

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What I *am* saying is that you might look at the realities of employment in the aviation industry much differently than you do now, when you are on the back side of forty and with a wife & children to support.

Don't you think so?

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That's always a possibility, yes.

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Add to that, this: That success in this business...however you measure that, or define it...is not obtained solely on the basis of ability, hard work, and experience. Think about that until you understand what I'm trying to say.

[/ QUOTE ]

Such as life. That's not only true for aviation, but many other professions as well.

Expectations kill.
 
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