My experience in leaving aviation

Rocky

Well-Known Member
I hadn’t even noticed JC had a section for people to talk about getting out of aviation and what they’ve done. Here’s my story. It’s pretty long, so I wouldn’t blame anyone for skipping through it.

Was a Radio DJ for about 6 years, had a very successful morning show, absolutely loved my job, and it was something I was really really good at. After 6 years of eating Cup-O-Noodles, I decided that $15k a year wasn't working for me. So I thought and thought about what to do next. I already knew I didn't want to be a banker, lawyer, doctor, manager, burger flipper. I had a serious interest in aviation from a very young age. Played MS Flight Sim since it first came out. Tried to build my own glider when I was 13 just so I could try and soar. Built it out of tarp and 2X4's. It didn't work very well.....So one day I was sitting in the radio studio reading the newspaper and saw an ad for Rocky College in Billings MT having an open house for their pilot program. Then "BAM", it hit me. I decided to become a pilot. After all, I had wanted to fly since I was a kid, loved hanging out at the airport and watching planes, and besides, ALL pilots are RICH, filthy RICH. Or at least I thought so at the time. So I went to the open house and loved it the more I thought about it. But I wasn't interested in their program. It was a 4 year program, I was 24, had a family, and didn't want to go back to school for another 4 years. So I shopped around and finally decided on ATP. May 2006 I packed my bags and moved to Arizona to start my 6 month program.

ATP wasn't a terrible school, met a lot of great people there, had a blast flying their Seminole cross-country all over the US. I will say though that their instructors, not all, but most, were only concerned with building time and getting out of there, rather than teaching. I had a couple of each. I got through their program minus the Instructor ratings. I already knew I had no desire to teach and instruct what-so-ever. And after seeing many instructors there that felt the same way, but did it anyways to build time and get out, and seeing what that did to students when they got this kind of instructor, I knew I didn't want to be that type of instructor. So I didn't do their instructor course. Instead I went down to FL, rented a plane with a buddy, and flew all over the US in a 172 for another 500 hours. It was an expensive route to go, but I got to fly into a lot of different areas and airspaces that was very educational.

I did that for 3 months, then got a job in Daytona Beach flying banners. Or at least that was what I was hired to do. Found out later this guy was running a scam operation though, but I didn't know better at the time. So he hires me, but tells me I have to pay $2500 for a banner tow endorsement training course. I ask him if it's full time and should I move my family down from Montana for this job. He said "of course", he was always really busy. So I wrote him a check for $2500, flew up to Montana, rented a U-Haul and moved my family down to Florida. We were there for 3 months. I got my training knocked out in a week. Then I would call him all the time, "Hey, got any banners for me to fly yet", he's say, "No, but I'm expecting it to get really busy next week." Next week would come, and it would be the same. So he told me he owned a shop where he built and repaired generators that I could work in until things picked up, because, according to him, they were going to pick up next week. So I agreed, and worked in his slave shop for $8/hr helping to repair generators, mowing this guys yard, washing his car, etc. I did this for 2 1/2 months, until one day I did a google search of this guys name, and actually found several sites dedicated to stopping him from ripping people off, from other people he had ripped off. So I decided to get the heck out of there. A week later I interviewed at Pinnacle, but didn't get the call. Two weeks after that I was called to Midland, TX for an interview to fly pipeline patrol for a company. So I flew out, interviewed, and got the job. I called my wife on my way back to Dallas and told her to start packing. I flew back to Florida that night, and by 8am the next morning we had the U-haul packed and on our way to Texas.

I flew pipeline patrol for 11 months and absolutely loved every minute of it. I spent most of my day at around 200-300agl checking for production and pipeline leaks. I had great co-workers and a great owner. I worked 5 days a week, and was making about $30,000/year. Not bad for a starting job. Of course, I had thought before I got into this industry that all pilots were rich, but wasn't until I got done with school that I really learned how much pilots DON'T make! I got a lot of total time with this job, flying in a 172. I would fly on average of 30-40 flight hours a week. One day I was looking on Trade-A-Plane at their employment section and saw a 135 operator in Midland was hiring, not only that, he was paying $200/day!!!! Several people that flew and lived in this area for years new the guy, and told me not to go there, but I couldn't resist the pay. Also, two of my co-workers had just bought the company I had been working for, had a total 180 flip in their personalities, and ran around acting like Hitler. So I applied and was hired. I worked there a week.

It was a 135 operation run by a 1 man show, the owner. He had a pretty bad reputation for treating his employees like crap. But being an idiot, I thought, "Hey, for $200/day I can put up with anything!" I was wrong. This guy did nothing but yell and scream at me the whole time. He didn't have an intercom system in the airplane, so when we would fly, he would make these stupid hand gestures to me that didn't mean a thing, and expect me to know what he was saying. So on day 5, we were practicing touch and goes at an airport in the Queen Air. I landed and didn't think we had enough room to take off again, so I immediately closed the throttles and applied the brakes, I was going to taxi back. He knocked my hand off the throttles, and went full throttle again. I closed the throttles again and told him I didn't feel comfortable taking off with what little runway we had left. He called me a pus_y, and punched me in the arm so hard it almost knocked me out of the seat. So I taxied the plane back to the ramp, and left. Never looked back over my shoulder.

I was jobless now and feeling pretty stupid for quitting my pipeline patrol job. Luckily a friend of mine had walked my resume into Airnet. So about a month later, I flew up their, interviewed, and was offered a job. I went back to Texas, packed everything up, and moved my family back to stay with my parents in Montana while I trained. I started training in March 2008. It was pure pilot boot camp hell from the very beginning and I LOVED IT! We had a class of 6. Everyone but me had airline experience. But I worked by azz of big time. I had a great study partner that without, I doubt I would have made it. I didn't take anytime off from studying the whole 6 weeks. Nights, weekends, days, whatever, I was studying like crazy. Out of the 6 of us, I was the only one to pass. We lost 1 in ground school, 3 in the sim, and my study partner quit on the night of his 135 checkride. It was the hardest thing I had ever completed. So here I was, a 135 pilot flying a Baron. I loved my time at Airnet. It would be an understatement for me to say I LOVED LOVED LOVED my job at Airnet. That job was a blast. The people were great, every single one of them. Very good people over there. I held a line based in Columbus OH for 6 months and flew my butt off. If I never fly again in my life, I will still be glad I had the opportunity to fly for them. Awesome awesome time. Then in the Fall of 2008, the "Crash" happened and as quickly as I was hired, I was suddenly furloughed. Crap! Just when things were doing so good, and I had a job I worshiped!

So I started putting out applications as quick as I could. I was offered a position with Flight Express our new Sister Company. But I thought getting downgraded to a 206 and drop in pay just to fly the same kind of routes was too much of an insult, so I passed it by. A couple weeks later I was in Mass, interviewing with Cape Air. I had a great time with Gene, the recruiter there. I loved the company, loved the vibe, thought the people were great, and decided it was the next best thing to flying for Airnet. I was offered the position that very day and I gladly accepted. I was set up for a Class in December. But then I found out if I worked there, I would have to live in Puerto Rico for 6 months, then Mass for 6 months and rotate till I became more senior. Having a family, that wasn't really going to work well for me. So after thinking about it a couple days, I called them back, told them I was very grateful for being offered a chance, but I had to respectfully decline for now. Gene was very understanding and told me if I changed my mind to call him back and he'd get me in a class. By Feb of 2009 I had realized what a mistake I made, again.....I had sent out literally hundreds of resumes all over the place, but nobody was hiring. I called back Gene, told him I wanted to fly for Cape, and he told me he was still interested in putting me in a class, but they just weren't putting through classes for the foreseeable future. So I called him every couple weeks and checked in with him, and kept putting my resume out. Then in Aug 2009, the old company I had worked for doing pipeline patrol was needing someone pretty bad.

So I packed up my things and moved back to TX to fly pipeline patrol. Had a great time doing it again. Though, I could tell from the very beginning that it wasn't the same company I had worked for before. My two former co-workers still owned it, and it just wasn't a friendly atmosphere anymore. Most of the other pilots I had worked with, that had flown there for the last 5-10 years had quit by this time, describing it as a he!! hole, but I didn't care, I had a job. And it wasn't too bad, it wasn't a he!! hole by any means, but it didn't have a friendly atmosphere anymore, and you could tell that several of the pilots were pretty miserable. During this past year working for this company, I had decided to make Midland my home. My daughter was in school, and I was tired of moving around from one flying job to another. We bought a house, and I decided to make flying pipeline a career, at least for the next 5-10 years. But then about year into this job, the two owners had a huge argument. I mean, huge, like cops called and everything. I was pretty good friends with one of the owners, but still didn't want to get involved so I kept my mouth shut, my head pointed down, and just went about my job. Both owners were getting ready to take each other to court and were trying to get pilots on their side. I still kept my mouth shut, stayed out of it, tried to stay under the radar, and do my job. So one day, the owner that I was friends with told me he had reached some kind of agreement with his former partner, and he sold his half to his former partner. As soon as this deal went through, I was out on my azz because I didn't pick a side, particularly the winning side. So my friend got a ton of money, and I got fired. Ha ha! But oh well. So I owned a home and couldn't move, and if you live in Midland TX, the only other thing you can do is work in the oil field.

By best friend for years had been working as a Mud Engineer in the oil field. He had been trying to talk me into doing it too but I had always told him, "I'm a pilot, not a Mud Engineer". But now I needed a job. So he walked my resume into his company, I was interviewed, and hired. I had finally gotten out of aviation. At the time I was kinda glad, kinda sad, you know how it goes. But I was ready for the huge huge pay increase this job was bringing. I had to go to class for 4 weeks, and about a month of field experience before I was put out on my own. Class consisted of Advanced Chemistry, and I had no prior experience, not even High School Chemistry. But I got through it. Basically what I do, is drive out to a rig and get a sample of their drilling fluid. I check the chemical properties of their "mud" and decide if there is some kind of contaminate that needs to be treated. If they are drilling through a porous formation and their fluid starts leaking into the formation, I tell them what to mix to plug up the holes. If their pipe gets stuck in the hole I recommend products to ad to get them unstuck. The schedule is a little rough. I work 26 days on, 4 days off. During my 26 days, I am on call 24/7 and can be called out at anytime day or night. Sometimes the 26 day schedule isn't so bad though. For example, August has been pretty slow. I have 1 rig at the moment, that I check every other day. So I get the every other day off. I only work every other day. And on the days I do work, I leave the house by 8am, drive out to the rig, check their fluid, print out their report, and am home by noon. But it's not always like that. July was busy busy busy. I had 3 rigs, and 2 of them were having problems, and there was a 3 week period where I only saw my bed 3 nights during that time. The rest of the time I was on the rig, sleeping in my truck, eating crackers and vienna sausages, because we don't have any way to cook in the truck, lol. But when you are spending time on the rig, it still isn't hard work, just long hours. You run a mud check, tell the workers, "Yeah, mix 300 sacks of this material, 200 sacks of this, and 4 drums of that." Then you go back to your truck to wait for 8 hours while they mix it. You can watch DVD's off a portable player, play on the computer, sleep, whatever. There is absolutely no manual labor involved with this job, you just tell everyone what to do, then wait the 6-20 hours for them to do it, and run another mud check. If the properties still aren't right, you run your math calculations again, tell them how many more sacks of this and that to mix, wait some more, and give it a check.

It's a lot of responsibility, with no recognition. The basic rule of thumb is, if something bad happens out on a rig and things aren't going well, it's ALWAYS the Mud Engineers fault, even if it's not. If things are going well, it's because the Company Man is awesome at his job. The Company Man is the grand poobah on the rig. He is the king, and whatever he says goes. He is the guy how runs the whole drilling operation, makes all the decisions, and tells people how much he doesn't like them for any reason. It could be he doesn't like the color of your shirt that particular day, and then he will decide to tell you about it, then make your day miserable. That's the bad part about this job, 99.9% of the Company Men out on these rigs, are rough, crusty, grumpy, rude a-holes that would just-as-soon shoot you as look at you. 95% of my job is to go out and be an emotional punching bag for these company men. And you're not allowed to say a word about it. If he tells you he doesn't particularly like the temperature to be above 100 degrees outside, it's all your fault, and you're a piece of crap (not really crap but a lot of words that aren't fit to print here) for allowing the sun to shine so bright, all you're allowed to say is "Yes SIR! You're right, it is too hot outside, and it's all my fault. I am a piece of crap, and I'll try and do better." Of course I've never been yelled at for it being too hot outside, but I've been yelled at for things that are just as much, if not more, out of my control. It's a day filled with a lot of emotional abuse, and there's absolutely no reason what-so-ever for these guys to talk to people the way they do, except for the golden rule out here, "That's just the way it is out on the rig".

All in all though, it's a good job. It starts out around 80k per year, and you can easily be making 6 figures within a year to a year and a half. No manual labor at all, you just tell people what they should mix. The actual mud check is easy, you just check the pH, chloride content, and calcium/magnesium content and a couple other things. The schedule can vary between running non stop for 3 weeks straight, sleeping in you truck every single night and sitting in your truck all day. Or it can be slow like August where I have only worked every other day. The only hard part is dealing with Company Men who believe they are God, let you know it, and wait for you to bow down to them and lick their boots. But the Company Men don't sign my paycheck, the company I work for do, and they all think I'm doing an excellent job, so I only care what the Company Man thinks of me up to a point. You just have to have really really thick skin to work out here. I'm 6 months in, and still learning how thick my skin really is.

I miss flying everyday. But I don't miss the low pay, the uncertainty, the moving, or the checkride every 6 months. I made some mistakes along the way, and maybe could have positioned myself for a better flying gig, but I did the best I could with what I knew at the time. I still fly skydivers from time to time just to get into the air. I don't do it as much as I would like, this job keeps my busy. But it's something to get me in the air once or twice a month. I haven't really decided whether I am going to ever go back to flying or not. I hate getting yelled at every single day for things that have nothing to do with me. But I get paid way too much to stop now. This is the first time in my life I'm not living from paycheck to paycheck.

The other day our dryer went out so we decided to buy a new washer and dryer. Any other time in my adult life this would have been a major financial catastrophe that would have taken us at least 6 months to recover from. I got my paycheck 2 days later. My wife and I went out and bought a new washer and dryer. A couple days later, I had a bad tooth ache, went to the dentist and had $800 worth of work done. I paid off all my credit cards. Paid the bills for the whole month. Bought my wife and daughter each a new Ipad. I checked my bank account balance, and still had $800 left in there. Never in the history of my working career has that ever happened and it felt really good, like for the first time in my life I was actually able to provide for my family like a man should. There's just no way I could describe that feeling. I get an itch to go flying nearly every single day, I miss working for Airnet very badly, I go to work everyday and get called every name in the book just so the Company Man can feel better about himself, but as bad as that all is, I feel like I'm finally able to provide for my family. If I can't have my life 100% perfect in able to give my family everything they need and want, it's well worth it.

I’m still not sure what the future holds for me. I’m still learning how thick my skin is, and if I will be able to deal with all the F you this and F you that, that I have to put up with out here. At least for now, I’m going to make some good money, pay my bills, try and pay off a couple loans and go from there. Aviation was a very bumpy road for me. Some of it bad decisions on my part, and some of it bad timing/luck. I am glad to see hiring is picking up a little bit now, and that I have a lot of options already if I do decide to come back to flying. So for the next year or two I’m gonna sock away as much money as I can, pay off some loans, and get myself into a better financial situation should I decide to take a pay cut and come back to flying. Thanks for reading, hope it wasn’t too long and boring.
 
Thanks for sharing Rocky...wow can't say you didn't try! I think it really makes sense sometimes to get the good paying job and just go BUY your own airplane instead of putting up with a bunch of crap.
 
Rocky... I know exactly who you flew pipeline for and who the 135 operator is with the Queen Air... I used to fly pipeline for the same company back in the day. Aviation has been very tumultuous for me as well and I am sorry that you haven't had the same luck I have. But I am glad to hear that you are doing well and that everything has worked out for you.... you certainly aren't the first to leave aviation for the oil fields and won't be the last. My old man once told me that a man whom takes care of his family first and himself second is a man to be admired... I would have done the same if I were in your position. Well done. If you do get the itch to return in a few years I am sure there are many here that can help. Enjoy the new job....... worm! (oil field humor)
 
@rocky

A big plus is that you have is a very understanding spouse...... Looks like you are very flexible in where you wanted to live & you could move anywhere you got a decent job......

That's why I thought of suggesting you...

Have you thought about going & flying for a foreign company in Dubai or something....
Live like a Miser, save every penny, get on with a regional like eagle or someone like that for abt 2 yrs to get 1500 to 2000 jet time & then off to Dubai

It's not for everyone but if someone is flexible & willing to adapt, it is a decent life......
 
@rocky

A big plus is that you have is a very understanding spouse...... Looks like you are very flexible in where you wanted to live & you could move anywhere you got a decent job......

That's why I thought of suggesting you...

Have you thought about going & flying for a foreign company in Dubai or something....
Live like a Miser, save every penny, get on with a regional like eagle or someone like that for abt 2 yrs to get 1500 to 2000 jet time & then off to Dubai

It's not for everyone but if someone is flexible & willing to adapt, it is a decent life......
I've always wanted to fly overseas. Yes, my wife is very understanding and has always supported my 110%, and has always come along for the ride. I've heard great things about Dubai, and hopefully I can work my oil field job for the next 2-3 years and save every penny and eventually be able to go back to flying and take the pay cut to pay some more dues. I hope hiring will be booming around that time still. If not, I've got a good career that has lots of room for advancement and even more money, eventually I could make enough money to buy a plane and fly for fun. I've just got to work on growing thicker skin for the time being.

EDIT: That's another good thing about this job. If I stick it out for 2+ years I will have enough experience to pick where I want to go. Lots of companies have bases all over the world for what I'm doing and I could easily go over seas and get paid even more that way too. They are usually on a rotation basis where I fly over to the middle east for 1 month, fly back to the USA for 1 month. There's also the option of moving to an off-shore rig in a few years, and that pays reeeeeealy good too.
 
You done good, son. Congrats on fulfilling your obligations, many don't.

Flying can be for suckers some times. Take the money, do what's right for you and your family.

I know you said CFI wasn't for you, but consider giving it another shot. When you aren't doing it for flight tine or money, the perspective is quite different. And I have found it to be quite rewarding with my advanced age... Since you do have both the free time and the itch to be in the air
 
Thanks for sharing.

I've never worked in the oil business myself, but people generally talk down to the new guys in blue collar jobs. Hopefully in a year or so, you'll have the experience to go work somewhere that is a more positive environment.
 
Thanks for sharing.

I've never worked in the oil business myself, but people generally talk down to the new guys in blue collar jobs. Hopefully in a year or so, you'll have the experience to go work somewhere that is a more positive environment.

I have worked for oil companies, I would not say it was any more blue collar than being a pilot. And the "company" guys do take care of their people.
 
Flying can be for suckers some times. Take the money, do what's right for you and your family.

I know you said CFI wasn't for you, but consider giving it another shot. When you aren't doing it for flight tine or money, the perspective is quite different. And I have found it to be quite rewarding with my advanced age... Since you do have both the free time and the itch to be in the air
If I had more free time I'd fly more jumpers down at the drop zone. But I only get 4 days off a month. Even when I have every other day off I can't plan anything cause I can be called out at anytime day or night for any reason. So other than my 4 hard days off, if I'm not working, I'm sitting by the phone waiting to be called out.
 
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