The Future of JC

FlyChicaga said:
I hadn't been around for so many years, so I feel a bit weird making suggestions for how to go forward with your website. It's like walking into your house and suggesting a bathroom model after I haven't seen you for 10 years. But, if you asked what kind of tile you thought would look good, I'd tell you... I mean you did ask...

I am teaching at a college program, and my boss works in career development. So I'm seeing the newbies to this industry, their enthusiasm, and how they get information. There is a thirst for it. I just don't think they have the desire to weed through a lot of "stuff" to find what they need.

If I was running the website (and I'm not lol), I'd keep the forums going for now. However, I'd cut them down a lot, and definitely get rid of the lavatory. Too many people might stop by and read a few things completely unrelated to aviation that they don't agree with and get turned off forever. That's unfortunate. I'm sure after a week everyone who likes to argue in the lavatory will have found a new Reddit or Facebook group to pontificate about politics.

Next step: Make a Discord. Link it from the forums.

You can build announcements (things like job fairs, recruiting events, etc.), resources (links to manuals, books, good websites, etc.), chat pages (maybe even make an "off topic chat" so people can argue, but those will stay contained and people can easily avoid clicking on it). Even more great would be voice channels. Hold "chat nights" with a couple airline pilots to chat and answer questions from newbies. How cool would it be for some private pilots to get on Discord on a Saturday night and talk to three or four actual airline pilots? Most of my students have never actually talked to one. Sure, there might be some goofballs that come by and ask ridiculous questions, but maybe they are in need of some mentorship.

Discord actually has forums, but I like the format here better. What I do like about their forums is you can sort by topics. So you could put "airlines" or "corporate aviation" and "military" and it'll filter threads on only those topics. For you Derg, I think it might be a refreshing project to tackle something new to build from the old. Make a QR code for the Discord that we can save to our phone, so I can tell a student "here, scan this and join in, these people can answer some of your questions." Maybe some people here might enjoy doing some help for a few students who have questions about cross-country flight planning and the E6B? Like a virtual office hours?

Maybe it'll flop. But I'll say my students talk a LOT on Discord in the Aviation Club, and do a lot of sharing on their class groups on Signal. They're looking for something like JC, message forums are just sooooo 2003.

Just an idea.
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@derg I think Matt is right about this, open a discord server. It's all the rage with the kids these days and if you want to meet people where they are, this is an excellent idea.
 
MikeD said:
Your mentioning of this made me wonder, regards industry evolution. Almost seems as if the Careers portion of JetCareers, has become obsolete. Not in a bad way. Just in that, it has served its purpose for the members who are here. While, as has been mentioned, the new generation of pilots don’t use forums for anything, they use the aforementioned TikTok, FB, etc. Almost akin to starting a new airline today, and purchasing a fleet of 727s to do it with. Instead of being like a toll road that has been paid off, and stops being a toll road. Just an observation.
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It seems this way, most of the regular contributors here have been around a long time and have 'landed' where they want to be. I like airplanes and all but don't really want to discuss them outside of work.

Forums are still a thing, but certainly less so for the Tiktok generation it seems.
 
bike21 said:
It seems this way, most of the regular contributors here have been around a long time and have 'landed' where they want to be. I like airplanes and all but don't really want to discuss them outside of work.

Forums are still a thing, but certainly less so for the Tiktok generation it seems.
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I think it's a product of the old guard of JC growing up, getting married, having kids, etc. Those things eat up quite a bit of free time.

I wish too I had a little bit more to provide any newcomers. I feel so disconnected from what the process is now and I'm not even 10 years into the industry.
 
I think a JC discord would be cool. Especially if we went to setup virtual networking events. Using voice/video. But I personally don’t think it fits the needs of completely replacing the forum. It’s more of a chat platform vs a forum platform.

Also I think we can have civilized discussions about politics when it comes to certain aviation related items. Think of it like the ALPA PAC. They’re bipartisan and look out for the best interest of aviation regardless of the party. I don’t think having the cockpit rule of no politics and no religion in here is a bad thing.

This website has to be one of the best websites I’ve ever been a part of in terms of moderation. Hell I’ve should have been banned numerous times, but somehow I’m still around. A little tightening of the belt to respect Derg’s living room and enforce some reasonable rules wouldn’t be a bad thing imho.
 
MikeD said:
Len Morgan’s “Vectors” column was one of the best, with his stories of Braniff flying, and all the flying he did before that and people he crossed paths with.
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Early at Northernjets, I flew with folks from Braniff who had flown with both Len and his son Terry.

No one had anything to say one way or another, so I just assume IRL he was just a guy with a good side gig and knew which side of the bread was buttered. Since almost the whole run of Flying is on Google Books, I managed to read most of his stuff, and it seems like he was very careful to avoid anything related to labor/management.
 
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MikeD said:
The best advertisers were TAB Express. 😂

Bunch of both-loops backpack wearing, ear buds in wearing kids! :)

@derg Speaking of ear buds, I had to smack one of my agency’s late-20s age IPs because he was flying training flights with ear buds and listening to music while instructing and doing mission checks.
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The new Doug Masters
 
jhugz said:
I think a JC discord would be cool. Especially if we went to setup virtual networking events. Using voice/video. But I personally don’t think it fits the needs of completely replacing the forum. It’s more of a chat platform vs a forum platform.

Also I think we can have civilized discussions about politics when it comes to certain aviation related items. Think of it like the ALPA PAC. They’re bipartisan and look out for the best interest of aviation regardless of the party. I don’t think having the cockpit rule of no politics and no religion in here is a bad thing.

This website has to be one of the best websites I’ve ever been a part of in terms of moderation. Hell I’ve should have been banned numerous times, but somehow I’m still around. A little tightening of the belt to respect Derg’s living room and enforce some reasonable rules wouldn’t be a bad thing imho.
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But I can still call you "scumbag" and other names, right? I mean, we ate BBQ that time.
 
WacoFan said:
But I can still call you "scumbag" and other names, right? I mean, we ate BBQ that time.
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I’ve been called worse, and things that are less true so I’m good with it.

How’ve you been bud?
 
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WacoFan said:
I'm troubled by the seeming lack of interest the utes have in airplanes/flying. When I was a single-digit age kid, all my spare change went to copies of Air Classics, Air Progress, and Flying that I could get at the grocery store every month. The only time I wanted to go to the store with mom was the first of the month when the new copies came out. And, I had the AAA newsletter coming to the house, and a free newsletter monthly that came monthly detailing airplane accidents and causes (and I always read "Aftermath" first in the Flying issues I'd buy). Also, in same Kroger, they had model airplanes on the toy aisle, hobby shops existed with loads of model airplanes, and kids seemed interested in it. Today, unless it is one the TikTok or whatever kids just aren't enamoured with airplanes or anything requiring outside, get off the couch activity. It baffles me. Want to make a gazillion dollars? Figure out the future pilot shortage by actually getting this useless lump children engaged in something.
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The lack of community that the utes have, outside of digital spaces, is really saddening. Then again, it's not just the utes who don't have community, it's everyone—we've forgotten how to associate in public, but anyway.

For example, while I didn't like sleeping in the dirt much, it was really nice once a month to go on a camping trip if for no other reason than I got to hang out and do semi-supervised adventure-y stuff with my friends for a weekend while neglecting my homework. Scouting also provided a good amount of career exploration too and while I did not agree with some of National's policy I will still put my Eagle Medal ahead of my high school graduation in terms of things I'm proud of.

The death or severe curtailment of print journalism doubtless has something to do with it, too, like you said, along with how wonderfully short attention spans are made in the digital era. I dunno. A symptom of a greater ill, perhaps.

WacoFan said:
Finally, as for JC - what I'm hearing from people is "More WacoFan". Many people are saying this. Big strong guys are coming up to me frequently - with tears in their eyes, saying "Sir, Sir...you need to be featured more on JC".
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We can have a whole association of Sanna Marin fans here. Er.
 
JordanD said:
I wish too I had a little bit more to provide any newcomers.
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This seems like the bigger factor, to me. I don't know crap about how the entry-level rungs work, anymore. Gives me a lot more sympathy for all of the old bastards who told me to "go wash some airplanes and maybe you can get a Guard slot if you meet the right people". They were probably giving the best advice they had...for 1985. And it's probably just as frustrating for a kid today when I say "Instruct to 1200 and then get yourself a check-flying job!" I mean sorta just-kidding, even I know there aren't any check-flying jobs, anymore, but you get the idea.

That said, I think *some* of the lessons still carry over. I remember talking to some old dinosaur (in person, in this case) about how there was this imperious part-owner of one of the jets at my first jet-job and he was, well, a huge jerk (and regularly did stuff he shouldn't have). I was adjured to just put my foot down (respectful-ishly). I did and the bad behavior stopped (at least with me). I wouldn't have done that without someone a little further up the ladder telling me that it wouldn't be the instant kiss-of-death to my career that I was imagining, at the time. So we are not totally irrelevant to the Kids, I would posit.

Now, how we reach them, and whether that's to be done on this message board is a separate question.
 
I think the advice these days isn't "go fly checks," but more like "don't bring your mom to the interview" and "ensure you wear deodorant."

I think the focus should be less on helping someone get a job, but instead guiding cultural change in aviation by molding pilots who are still in their beginning stages of learning. Help guide them to focus on CRM/SRM, risk management, good decision making, and a debriefing culture. That's what I'm trying to do in my aviation classes. Stop worrying about getting hired at [insert regional here], but instead worry about not dying in your first 1000 hours because you didn't pay attention in class and ended up doing something really stupid to get yourself killed. Or get yourself in trouble with the FAA. Or fired from a flight school. Build an intelligent professional and the job will just fall in their lap.

I'm weird though. I would rather talk all night about aerodynamics than politics.
 
I hit reply and thought of something that's interesting. In 2022 I took my two daughters to Oshkosh. We've gone the last three years in a row and it has been a blast. Back in that visit in 2022 my daughter went to the NASA booth and "got a picture with an astronaut." That "astronaut" is actually NASA Armstrong test pilot Nils Larson. Nils Larson is currently one of the test pilots on the X-59 supersonic demonstrator. Fast-forward to this past year in 2024. We are walking around and happen to see Nils talking to someone at a booth. He's alone, one on one with the woman having a conversation, wearing his NASA flight suit. We stood quietly by for about 10 minutes or so waiting for him to finish his conversation, because my daughter wanted to meet him again. You'd have thought she saw Taylor Swift. When he was done we approached him and introduced ourselves. We spoke for about five minutes or so, and he said he remembered my daughter from 2022. She excitedly took a picture with him, then he handed me HIS phone and asked for a picture as well. She was glowing all evening that day for meeting her hero. Very big proud dad moment.

This same year there was some meet-and-greets with popular aviation YouTubers. The lines were incredibly long to meet these "celebrities." Now, don't get me wrong, I do think some of the things the YTers are doing for aviation is great. Particularly for general aviation. But here you have a world-renowned test pilot who has a line of four people (being us), and lines for YTers of maybe 100+. If this group is looking for a goal, my suggestion is find a way to reach young people and make them want to meet Nils Larson. Make them excited about the future of aviation, and not trying to be the next "star."
 
JordanD said:
Excuse me what?
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