The truth about being a pilot

The perception that folks not in aviation have is definitely skewed.

The part I like is I spend my time at work planning what to do with my time off.

One part that sucks is being away from the kids.

Before school-aged kids, the wife could just drop whatever she was doing and on a whim try to non-rev to where I'd overnight and so time at work away from home didn't necessarily mean time away from the family.

Now that the kids are school-aged, technology/facetime has definitely made things easier in terms of minimizing the impact of being away, compared to the time before facetime/skype
 
I have found the pilots who complain about how crappy the job is are usually very miserable people to be around. My guess is that this is another troll attempt by the OP.
 
mshunter said:
I think a lot of people who think this career sucks have never done anything else.

This job isn't that hard, neither is the schedule.
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I'm still pretty young (28), and very new to professional aviation(CFI), and I completely agree with you. I started out in aviation a little bit later than most. It seems most people who commit to this profession do so at a very young age, 18-24 ish. I think coming from other jobs/fields before working in aviation makes a huge difference in how one perceives this line of work. At least that's been my experience, and seems to be the experience of others who have changed careers to aviation. This job is the best job in the world. Wouldn't trade it for anything. I worked so hard to get here. If I had to do it all over again, I honestly don't even know if I would endure the suck and repeat this all over again. I probably would have just gone through the military or some other path. But now that I'm here, I am so much happier than I ever was before. I see others in this profession that complain to no end. It's unfortunate. And more often than not for those individuals, aviation is all they've ever known in life.

I love aviation, it beats anything I've done before. I would never go back to where I came from, ever. A lot of pilots who complain don't realize life could be a hell of a lot worse. Yea, there's aspects of this career that suck, but that's to be expected with ANY job/career. My worst day as a CFI is still better than my best day in ANY other job I've done before this.
 
How could it be a bad job? I know someone who got onto Endeavor less than 6 months ago, bids absolutely the least amount of flying and sits on his ass collecting his guarantee. How can anyone complain about a job that pays you to do nothing?
 
From APC apparently someone fired at Delta, making the job harder than it has to be:

LCA I recently flew with told the story about a newhire on the narrow body fleet in ATL. Said new-hire was let go during IOE for supposedly blowing off walk-arounds. When confronted, said pilot said " I was a captain at my regional for over 10 yrs, and non-flying pilot always did the walk-arounds."

LCA supposedly says "well culture here at Delta is that Copilot does walkaround unless pre-arranged with the Captain, but in the absence of an arrangement, copilot walks"

Apparently new hire didn't think that was appropriate and wanted to start "changing culture". According to LCA, said new hire is no longer with Delta (could have been multiple factors as one supposes if a newhire really takes that stance, probably going to have other "culture" issues with the company).
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MikeD said:
How difficult is it to do a walk around? Do a walk around.
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But dues are all already paid up goddammit

On a more serious note, read the fine print. You might or might not like it, but that's what you're signing up to do so might as well know what it says.
 
Mavmb said:
I am just amazed that people think my career is so awesome. It has gotten to the point where I want to tell them how much it sucks lol. I don't want to sound negative but sometimes I just feel that way. There are definitely a lot of negatives with this career, just like any other career.

What would everyone say are the worst parts of this career?

I would honestly say that the tests every six months, and the time away from home are some of the biggest negatives.
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I just wish people knew what they were getting into with this career and that it might not be the best for relationships, marriages, having dogs or sustaining friendships as most 9 to 5s. I've known plenty of awesome guys and pilots that went through at least one bad divorce and if kids were told what the job was actually like maybe they could ask themselves what their goals in life are and if flying's right for them. Like a lot of people have said before only a few of the times I almost kind of hated being a pilot was working with a few miserable pilots (thankfully not many) who made everything a dick measuring contest. It's really pathetic that there are some people who need some sort of validation from this career beyond the actual flying itself and expect people to hold them in some regard higher than most.

I also think a lot of people really make their jobs their life when it's just a reason to pay the bills. Working so you can do the things you enjoy and take care of the people you love probably starts to make a lot more sense than doing a fun job that keeps you away from your family and friends. Everything's a trade off and there's no shame in a pilot moving on to a desk job or something where they can have the QoL they wouldn't otherwise.
 
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