Addiction
12-31-2006, 04:36 PM
#91
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,242
Kansas,
Here is a pirated quote from another happy pilot who I can add to the list of the uncounted majority. I took it from the thread about going to ERAU.
"In 1984, when I said "F++k it, I have had enough of this s++t" I had:
ATP- MEL
Commercial- SEL, SES, MES, Glider
CFI-A,-I,-MEL,-Glider
4,500 hours Total
I went back to school and got an engineering degree at a state university that cost me $700 a quarter. I almost went insane making enough money to pay off Riddle loans, second degree tuition, rent and food.....BUT my first job out paid $40k a year. It was definitely worth the 4 extra years and the best investment I ever made. It would take you at least 10 years to reach the same salary with an Air Science degree.
I haven't flown in 5 years, my licenses are expired due to lack of BFR and I do not have a current medical. I really don't care if I ever see another cockpit.
F++k Riddle." From: ERAU1978grad
If you look there are a lot of guys around that were pilots. Most however don't frequent aviation forums or airports. I am not the only one who shares this attitude.
Skyhigh
Here is a pirated quote from another happy pilot who I can add to the list of the uncounted majority. I took it from the thread about going to ERAU.
"In 1984, when I said "F++k it, I have had enough of this s++t" I had:
ATP- MEL
Commercial- SEL, SES, MES, Glider
CFI-A,-I,-MEL,-Glider
4,500 hours Total
I went back to school and got an engineering degree at a state university that cost me $700 a quarter. I almost went insane making enough money to pay off Riddle loans, second degree tuition, rent and food.....BUT my first job out paid $40k a year. It was definitely worth the 4 extra years and the best investment I ever made. It would take you at least 10 years to reach the same salary with an Air Science degree.
I haven't flown in 5 years, my licenses are expired due to lack of BFR and I do not have a current medical. I really don't care if I ever see another cockpit.
F++k Riddle." From: ERAU1978grad
If you look there are a lot of guys around that were pilots. Most however don't frequent aviation forums or airports. I am not the only one who shares this attitude.
Skyhigh
You guys know what I'm going to say next...
-LAFF
(www.allatps.com)
12-31-2006, 04:42 PM
#92
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,242
I don't have the source but I know the USAF only trains maybe 1500 pilots a year give or take a couple hundred? No where near the 11000 you claim, in fact I think there's less than 15,000 pilots in the military TOTAL. Even in the cold war we were barely training over 3000 a year. I can't speak for Naval training but it's smaller than USAF.
Also consider that a significant number of those pilots never leave military flying or join the civilian world.
I'm thinking that you're at least 6000 pilots/year off right there. And those are guys who rarely go through the regional world, they're typically hired right to the majors.
Also consider that a significant number of those pilots never leave military flying or join the civilian world.
I'm thinking that you're at least 6000 pilots/year off right there. And those are guys who rarely go through the regional world, they're typically hired right to the majors.
I don't know about the other services...
-LAFF
(www.allatps.com)
12-31-2006, 04:45 PM
#93
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2005
Position: XJT F/O
Posts: 144
http://airlinepilotcentral.com/airli...xpressjet.html
By year 5 you are making around 70,000 a year. Tell me why nobody can live on that kind of wage after five years in a job. You are not eating caviar every night but I know my family and I could survive on that, wait we are surviving right now on less and doing well. Like I said if you are that passionate on the problems you see with the aviation industry, go out there and make a real difference or stop preaching your skewed stats and thoughts about an industry you no longer work in.
By year 5 you are making around 70,000 a year. Tell me why nobody can live on that kind of wage after five years in a job. You are not eating caviar every night but I know my family and I could survive on that, wait we are surviving right now on less and doing well. Like I said if you are that passionate on the problems you see with the aviation industry, go out there and make a real difference or stop preaching your skewed stats and thoughts about an industry you no longer work in.
12-31-2006, 04:53 PM
#94
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2006
Position: 737 Right
Posts: 1,385
Even 1500 in the Air Force is a lot. I am sure that each one would be competitive in major airline hiring upon separation. Add to that every Navy and Marine Corp pilot and you could satisfy the entire annual needs of the major airlines without ever searching the street for civilian pilots.
SkyHigh
SkyHigh
Right now the re-up bonus for pilots includes a 25 year option that effectively removes a USAF pilot until he's about 48 years old. Even if he does enter the civilian market at that age, he's not there for long.
The FAA predicts 3% growth in numbers of airline aircraft per year over the next 10 years. At the same time, the number of ATP qualified pilots is expected to increase at only 1.8% annually.
12-31-2006, 05:09 PM
#95
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Posts: 2,838
Lets re-examine the evidence:
1. Minimums at the majors are skyrocketing while the regionals are falling, interesting.
2. 1980 there were 357,479 private pilots. Now there are 228,6190, only 64% of what there once were. However in 1980 there were 60,440 CFI's and now there are 90,555 current CFI's. We have much fewer hobby pilots now but much more instructors. To me this is an obvious indicator that aviation as a hobby is almost completely dead. The majority of private pilots have professional intentions that will go unfulfilled.
3. The regionals are hiring like carzy yet there it not place for them to go. Turn over is largely due to people leaving the business.
4. There are 262,606 current commercial and ATP rated pilots in America. Soon I will have the data to prove that there is easily another quarter of a million professional grade pilots who are capable of working in the industry still who have let their medicals lapse, totally quit flying and are now doing something else for a living.
All of the data above came from this web site:
http://www.aopa.org/special/newsroom/stats/pilots.html
Besides myself there are plenty of others who are making the same argument as I. Ranger himself is the one who quoted "one in twenty five" odds. I use his statement since I know you wouldn't accept my own.
SKyHigh
1. Minimums at the majors are skyrocketing while the regionals are falling, interesting.
2. 1980 there were 357,479 private pilots. Now there are 228,6190, only 64% of what there once were. However in 1980 there were 60,440 CFI's and now there are 90,555 current CFI's. We have much fewer hobby pilots now but much more instructors. To me this is an obvious indicator that aviation as a hobby is almost completely dead. The majority of private pilots have professional intentions that will go unfulfilled.
3. The regionals are hiring like carzy yet there it not place for them to go. Turn over is largely due to people leaving the business.
4. There are 262,606 current commercial and ATP rated pilots in America. Soon I will have the data to prove that there is easily another quarter of a million professional grade pilots who are capable of working in the industry still who have let their medicals lapse, totally quit flying and are now doing something else for a living.
All of the data above came from this web site:
http://www.aopa.org/special/newsroom/stats/pilots.html
Besides myself there are plenty of others who are making the same argument as I. Ranger himself is the one who quoted "one in twenty five" odds. I use his statement since I know you wouldn't accept my own.
SKyHigh
SKY high Most the Majors have not changed their Minimum requirements.
Fedex is still what it has been ever since I've been here. The difference is when few others are hiring, those that are can afford to be more Picky. No different in any industry.
You are also looking at a snap shot of the Industry when it is at the bottom of the hiring wave. Delta is going to start Hiring, Northwest will begin hiring soon and United will follow as they are at the end of the Furlough recalls.
A year from now (God Willing) when all the Majors are hiring again I wpromise I won't say "I told you so" You can also quote me that in the year 2016 plus or minus a few years (10 years from now) there will be another round of long furloughs. It is a 10 year cycle always has been and probably always will be.
Pick a job where things are as good now as they once were.......
HMO's have reduced incomes of many Doctors.
Most engineers major grads aren't walking into high paying jobes like they did in the 80's
Computer software folks don't make what they once did because of low cost labor in India and Pakistan.
Your Average lawyer is just scraping by.
Airline pilot's No different. Either Get back into the industry or go find a Cabinet maker forum.........
12-31-2006, 06:10 PM
#96
Bored
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Position: Grumman Torture Device (weekends only)
Posts: 445
Most engineers major grads aren't walking into high paying jobes like they did in the 80's
Dr. Wages: depends on what your field is. A Bro (former flight surgeon) finishing his anesthesiology residency is fielding multiple offers, the lowest are public hospitals @ $380k. Working in outpatient clinics is over $1 million (offset by having to carry his own malpractice)...
Like anything else, other than being an airline pilot or in the military, you get paid according to how good you perform, not just meeting the minimums.
I'm leaving the military after 14yrs, decided not to fly and am starting work as a consultant on a Navair contract. My starting salary is more than a max'd out Capt at any of the regionals.....
If you love flying, you gotta do what you gotta do, just don't go into it with blinders on and realize what you are giving up for those sunsets.
Spongebob
12-31-2006, 06:14 PM
#97
Self Employed.
Thread Starter
Joined APC: May 2005
Position: Corporate Pilot
Posts: 7,119
Hiring wave
SKY high Most the Majors have not changed their Minimum requirements.
Fedex is still what it has been ever since I've been here. The difference is when few others are hiring, those that are can afford to be more Picky. No different in any industry.
You are also looking at a snap shot of the Industry when it is at the bottom of the hiring wave. Delta is going to start Hiring, Northwest will begin hiring soon and United will follow as they are at the end of the Furlough recalls.
A year from now (God Willing) when all the Majors are hiring again I wpromise I won't say "I told you so" You can also quote me that in the year 2016 plus or minus a few years (10 years from now) there will be another round of long furloughs. It is a 10 year cycle always has been and probably always will be.
Pick a job where things are as good now as they once were.......
HMO's have reduced incomes of many Doctors.
Most engineers major grads aren't walking into high paying jobes like they did in the 80's
Computer software folks don't make what they once did because of low cost labor in India and Pakistan.
Your Average lawyer is just scraping by.
Airline pilot's No different. Either Get back into the industry or go find a Cabinet maker forum.........
Fedex is still what it has been ever since I've been here. The difference is when few others are hiring, those that are can afford to be more Picky. No different in any industry.
You are also looking at a snap shot of the Industry when it is at the bottom of the hiring wave. Delta is going to start Hiring, Northwest will begin hiring soon and United will follow as they are at the end of the Furlough recalls.
A year from now (God Willing) when all the Majors are hiring again I wpromise I won't say "I told you so" You can also quote me that in the year 2016 plus or minus a few years (10 years from now) there will be another round of long furloughs. It is a 10 year cycle always has been and probably always will be.
Pick a job where things are as good now as they once were.......
HMO's have reduced incomes of many Doctors.
Most engineers major grads aren't walking into high paying jobes like they did in the 80's
Computer software folks don't make what they once did because of low cost labor in India and Pakistan.
Your Average lawyer is just scraping by.
Airline pilot's No different. Either Get back into the industry or go find a Cabinet maker forum.........
We most likely are at the beginning of a hiring surge. What I address is what is the average. If you were to take the last five years of almost zero hiring and pilots who are still on furlough into consideration then we are far behind.
I don't know how long you have been at FedEx, but I remember well in 1996 when they increased the minimums to 500 hours of turbine SIC time. Soon after they went to 500 121 preferred and so on. Hiring minimums at the majors are on an upward move and have been for the last 20 years. In five years I am sure that it will be common to require 2000 hours 121 PIC in a jet aircraft of over 50 PAX. Alaska Airlines chief pilot has already suggested as much.
Pilots like to perpetuate the mass delusion by trying to paint other professions as poor. (There has been more than one doctor on this forum who has undone the myth about poor doctors.) The truth is vastly different. Some of your stated career examples have declined over the past five years, however other professions have improved over the last five years. Give me a sheet of paper and I can prove that a private in the Army will be vastly better off in 15 years that a kid who goes the college/pilot route. Any other profession that demands four years of college and $45,000 in additional training plus an average of five to ten years of indentured servitude before they even begin to earn a sustainable wage and they are paid a kings ransom. I have a family friend who at 45 went back to college and became a nurse. The day after graduating she had a job that paid over 65K. That was two years ago and now she earns 85K.
Pilots surround themselves in what amounts to a security blanket of self delusion. They assure themselves that they are doing well and accumulate as many lies and bad stories about the outside world as they can. Then they are puzzled at why their cousin the plumber shows up with a brand new boat behind a $40,000 truck. They also like to focus on what they might make 10 or twenty years from the present (assuming no furloughs, mergers or shutdowns) and fail to recognise the power of the time value of money. (120K at 55 is nice but 85K at 35 would have been much nicer.)
I have never said that there will not be pilot jobs in the future. What I have consistently stated is that the cost of training and education is far to high for the compensation received by the average pilot and the odds of actually making it to a real major is to slim for the sacrifices and risks taken. The profession of Airline pilot is in decline and never will attain its glory days. 20 years ago when pilots earned more than twice as much it made more sense, but today those entering the profession are braced for martyrdom and as well they should be.
SkyHigh
12-31-2006, 06:42 PM
#98
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2006
Posts: 1,151
Dr. Wages: depends on what your field is. A Bro (former flight surgeon) finishing his anesthesiology residency is fielding multiple offers, the lowest are public hospitals @ $380k. Working in outpatient clinics is over $1 million (offset by having to carry his own malpractice)...
I don't know any anesthesiogists making over $1 million, and I know quite a few of them. I would say more like $250 to $350K. If docs are making that much these days, then it's true - I was too damn nice to my husband when we divorced!
12-31-2006, 06:47 PM
#99
Line Holder
Joined APC: Nov 2006
Posts: 47
"Give me a sheet of paper and I can prove that a private in the Army will be vastly better off in 15 years that a kid who goes the college/pilot route. Any other profession that demands four years of college and $45,000 in additional training plus an average of five to ten years of indentured servitude before they even begin to earn a sustainable wage and they are paid a kings ransom. I have a family friend who at 45 went back to college and became a nurse. The day after graduating she had a job that paid over 65K. That was two years ago and now she earns 85K."\
Skyhigh
Well then go enlist, or maybe you already have, I can't remember from your previous post's. But either way you are giving up waaaaay more in those years as a private then the same number of years as a pilot or ALOT of other jobs for that matter.
I spent four years Active Duty Air force. In those four years (mid 90's), not during war time, I was gone from my wife for over 2 years and three months total. Including 5 months in Kuwait followed 7 months later by a year long deployment to Korea to finish up my four years. Would I trade it for the world? Not on your life, but there are plenty of sacrifices a military person makes that aren't even comparable to any thing in the real world. Owe yeah, did I mention you can't quit until your contract is up, or you go to Prison. There's also this little thing called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, wich in most cases supercedes your constitutional rights.
If you want to compare this job, or that job, be my guest. But please do not compare a Military career next to a Civilian one. It's almost disrespectful.
Happy New year, off to get drunk!
P R
Skyhigh
Well then go enlist, or maybe you already have, I can't remember from your previous post's. But either way you are giving up waaaaay more in those years as a private then the same number of years as a pilot or ALOT of other jobs for that matter.
I spent four years Active Duty Air force. In those four years (mid 90's), not during war time, I was gone from my wife for over 2 years and three months total. Including 5 months in Kuwait followed 7 months later by a year long deployment to Korea to finish up my four years. Would I trade it for the world? Not on your life, but there are plenty of sacrifices a military person makes that aren't even comparable to any thing in the real world. Owe yeah, did I mention you can't quit until your contract is up, or you go to Prison. There's also this little thing called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, wich in most cases supercedes your constitutional rights.
If you want to compare this job, or that job, be my guest. But please do not compare a Military career next to a Civilian one. It's almost disrespectful.
Happy New year, off to get drunk!
P R
12-31-2006, 07:01 PM
#100
Self Employed.
Thread Starter
Joined APC: May 2005
Position: Corporate Pilot
Posts: 7,119
Career
"Give me a sheet of paper and I can prove that a private in the Army will be vastly better off in 15 years that a kid who goes the college/pilot route. Any other profession that demands four years of college and $45,000 in additional training plus an average of five to ten years of indentured servitude before they even begin to earn a sustainable wage and they are paid a kings ransom. I have a family friend who at 45 went back to college and became a nurse. The day after graduating she had a job that paid over 65K. That was two years ago and now she earns 85K."\
Skyhigh
Well then go enlist, or maybe you already have, I can't remember from your previous post's. But either way you are giving up waaaaay more in those years as a private then the same number of years as a pilot or ALOT of other jobs for that matter.
I spent four years Active Duty Air force. In those four years (mid 90's), not during war time, I was gone from my wife for over 2 years and three months total. Including 5 months in Kuwait followed 7 months later by a year long deployment to Korea to finish up my four years. Would I trade it for the world? Not on your life, but there are plenty of sacrifices a military person makes that aren't even comparable to any thing in the real world. Owe yeah, did I mention you can't quit until your contract is up, or you go to Prison. There's also this little thing called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, wich in most cases supercedes your constitutional rights.
If you want to compare this job, or that job, be my guest. But please do not compare a Military career next to a Civilian one. It's almost disrespectful.
Happy New year, off to get drunk!
P R
Skyhigh
Well then go enlist, or maybe you already have, I can't remember from your previous post's. But either way you are giving up waaaaay more in those years as a private then the same number of years as a pilot or ALOT of other jobs for that matter.
I spent four years Active Duty Air force. In those four years (mid 90's), not during war time, I was gone from my wife for over 2 years and three months total. Including 5 months in Kuwait followed 7 months later by a year long deployment to Korea to finish up my four years. Would I trade it for the world? Not on your life, but there are plenty of sacrifices a military person makes that aren't even comparable to any thing in the real world. Owe yeah, did I mention you can't quit until your contract is up, or you go to Prison. There's also this little thing called the Uniform Code of Military Justice, wich in most cases supercedes your constitutional rights.
If you want to compare this job, or that job, be my guest. But please do not compare a Military career next to a Civilian one. It's almost disrespectful.
Happy New year, off to get drunk!
P R
I mean no disrespect, merely that a 19 year old kid can join the military and have all of his/her needs addressed from clothing to health care and retirement without ever having to pay for a single college credit.
Skyhigh
Enjoy your drunk,
