Adlerdriver

Until they're on an airplane with a problem.

It is blue collar. We're hourly equipment operators. NASCAR racers are probably viewed as blue collar in come circles too. Doesn't mean they can't demand pay and respect for their skills.

I think they might be right. Take a look at the daily count of light airplane accidents in the US on the NTSB website.

LowSlowT2

Not going to argue either side of this coin. I'll only point out that sheer number of incidents on the NTSB site is not a valid comparison. Accidents per some controlled hour figure of flight hours is the only fair comparison. We have more GA than just about anywhere else, so our total numbers will always be higher. I'd be more interested in the comparison of accidents per 100,000 flight hours or something like that.

"Figures lie and liars figure." --unknown

Adlerdriver

I get the concept of a per flight hour comparison. I wasn't making a comparison of the US to anywhere else. My comment was on the observation from outsiders that we give a license to pilots too freely.

My point was that perhaps the almost weekly fatal crashes in GA aircraft in the US might support that theory.

HIFLYR

I did not know professors teach, I thought that was a his current lackys job. I can count on my hands the times I had a real professor teach a college course.

zondaracer

You are right, people in other countries think that the FAA knowledge tests are a joke. However, as a holder of both a JAA and FAA CPL, I can tell you that the flight tests are much harder in the US than in Europe (I can't speak for other countries). Well, actually I found the IR to be about the same in both countries, but the CPL was night and day, and my JAA Flight instructor rating was easier to obtain than my FAA CPL.

To be honest, some of the theory exams in Europe are a bit excessive... for example, is it really necessary to memorize all the annexes to the ICAO convention? Do I really need to be able to manually calculate great circle distances between two coordinates?

The Europeans like to think that they have a superior system compared to FAA, but statistics in Europe show that FAA instrument rating holders have a better safety record than JAA IR holders.

RH1228

IT. I should have got my Bachelors degree in IT. My brother did. He graduated in May of this year and is now pulling 6 figures working for HP.

And let me tell you about my brother. He went to Baylor, the last two years he literally had to go into the deans office every semester and beg to not be kicked out of school because his grades were so low. He graduated, but he won't be including his GPA on any resumes.

The thing is he didn't have to! Last fall companies were literally on campus offering jobs to him and his classmates before they had even graduated! Salaried jobs making 3x what I am (3 years out of college) and they hadent even finished school yet. He had two confirmed offers last fall to start the day after he graduated in May. One was 80k a year, the other 111k.

He took the 80k due to location but has already been promoted and is pulling 6 figures.

It really just blows my mind. I mean flying is fun and everything but damn...sometimes I just think, what am I doing?

End rant.

opas76

You're not sitting in cubicle staring at a computer all day. After being in IT for 7 years, I've had enough. Try sitting in 3-4 hours long meetings looking at powerpoints and gantt charts until your head spins. I'm making the transition to full-time CFI next year, can't wait!

RH1228

Best of luck to you. At least you have an excellent career (financially speaking) to fall back on.

opas76

Thanks! Fortunately, I have been able to build a savings account over the last few years.

block30

Yeah, and keep us posted on how things go.