Airline pilot shortage coverage on NPR
12-28-2012, 07:14 PM
#81
Day puke
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Position: Out.
Posts: 3,865
Alright, we have a H.A.M. over here. I find it hard to believe that any generation had it this hard. You're not telling me anything new. People 'only' need ATP mins?
1. How many hours did you have before you manipulated the controls of your first turbine aircraft?
Somewhere between 15-1700. Don't remember if I had all the xc for an atp or not. That first turbine aircraft was a Caravan, and I flew it a year and a half before taking a 421 job to pad my multi time.
2. How many hours did you have when you got your first 'real' job that wasn't instructing, banner towing or otherwise similar?
See previous answer
3. How much did your flight training cost?
About $2k for my private at a flying club. About $35k for the IFR, Commercial ASEL and AMEL, CFI, and CFII. Of that $11k was paid by the GI bill, $15-18k was paid by working a full time job for my last year and a half while on active duty. The rest came from working in a bowling alley while I was in training. Keep in mind at that time minimum wage was $4.75/hour.
4. Were there hours to be had when you were building time?
Yes, but you had to beat the bushes to get them. I talked to everyone I saw about giving them lessons, sight seeing, joy rides, etc. I had one guy pay for 10 hours rental plus a case of scotch to do fish spotting for him in the Keys. I drove to every single airport between Orlando and Ormond Beach, Daytona and Deland. I passed out resumes to every single person I saw in every single hanger. I must have passed out well over a hundred. Finally got a CFI job at a PPL factory that catered to Brits. The owner was a real pr#ck, but it was okay pay (at the end better than most regionals) and I got 1200+ hours in about a year (with two months off following a surgury).
There are a lot of success stories out there right now, but most people can't get hours because people can't afford flight training, and that's after they shelled out their own 70K plus for flight training. That 70K doesn't adjust for inflation, neither does the 14K they will make.
I spent $37k+ from zero to hero. In today's money that would be about $55k. So yes, it is more expensive today. But flying has NEVER been cheap. One of the problems is that the training (especially the cross country time building) isn't being done in 152s anymore. We used to plan a VERY conservative 6 gal/hour for our students in our 150s. Now the school where I trained is flying 172s and SR20 burning about double the fuel. Find a school that still has 152s, and you can save about $30/hour for 50-100 of those hours.
Some people don't do the leg work to find the jobs. Some aren't willing to move to Armpit, Alabama followed by Sphinter, South Dakota. That's what some of us did because we had no choice. It sucked. But if we wanted it badly enough, we did it.
I will grant that regional starting salaries (corrected for inflation) are about 20% lower now than they were in 1997, but median incomes (all industries) in the US are down about 4% during the same period. So yes, aviation has been hit worse, but it isn't ridiculously so.
You sound like the old timers that call the newer generation of veterans wimps when most young vets spent more than the entire duration of major US involvement in WWII deployed.
YOU get over it. Just because you want to think that new people have things easy doesn't mean you're right.
1. How many hours did you have before you manipulated the controls of your first turbine aircraft?
Somewhere between 15-1700. Don't remember if I had all the xc for an atp or not. That first turbine aircraft was a Caravan, and I flew it a year and a half before taking a 421 job to pad my multi time.
2. How many hours did you have when you got your first 'real' job that wasn't instructing, banner towing or otherwise similar?
See previous answer
3. How much did your flight training cost?
About $2k for my private at a flying club. About $35k for the IFR, Commercial ASEL and AMEL, CFI, and CFII. Of that $11k was paid by the GI bill, $15-18k was paid by working a full time job for my last year and a half while on active duty. The rest came from working in a bowling alley while I was in training. Keep in mind at that time minimum wage was $4.75/hour.
4. Were there hours to be had when you were building time?
Yes, but you had to beat the bushes to get them. I talked to everyone I saw about giving them lessons, sight seeing, joy rides, etc. I had one guy pay for 10 hours rental plus a case of scotch to do fish spotting for him in the Keys. I drove to every single airport between Orlando and Ormond Beach, Daytona and Deland. I passed out resumes to every single person I saw in every single hanger. I must have passed out well over a hundred. Finally got a CFI job at a PPL factory that catered to Brits. The owner was a real pr#ck, but it was okay pay (at the end better than most regionals) and I got 1200+ hours in about a year (with two months off following a surgury).
There are a lot of success stories out there right now, but most people can't get hours because people can't afford flight training, and that's after they shelled out their own 70K plus for flight training. That 70K doesn't adjust for inflation, neither does the 14K they will make.
I spent $37k+ from zero to hero. In today's money that would be about $55k. So yes, it is more expensive today. But flying has NEVER been cheap. One of the problems is that the training (especially the cross country time building) isn't being done in 152s anymore. We used to plan a VERY conservative 6 gal/hour for our students in our 150s. Now the school where I trained is flying 172s and SR20 burning about double the fuel. Find a school that still has 152s, and you can save about $30/hour for 50-100 of those hours.
Some people don't do the leg work to find the jobs. Some aren't willing to move to Armpit, Alabama followed by Sphinter, South Dakota. That's what some of us did because we had no choice. It sucked. But if we wanted it badly enough, we did it.
I will grant that regional starting salaries (corrected for inflation) are about 20% lower now than they were in 1997, but median incomes (all industries) in the US are down about 4% during the same period. So yes, aviation has been hit worse, but it isn't ridiculously so.
You sound like the old timers that call the newer generation of veterans wimps when most young vets spent more than the entire duration of major US involvement in WWII deployed.
YOU get over it. Just because you want to think that new people have things easy doesn't mean you're right.
There is one one thing that is MUCH easier today than back then: finding hiring information and job boards. This website alone is worth its weight in gold!
I can never thank Freight Dog and HSLD enough for setting up this site!!!!
You see, back in '97, I bought a "kit" that had much the same information found in the airline profiles except it was often a year old and it cost almost a month's rent. The only employment "site" was a newspaper that came out once per month and cost about four times what the orange site cost.
Some of us get upset when we hear folks complain about how hard it is to enter this field. What we forget is many of the folks with low time now only know about that several month anomaly when a dripping wet commercial and a pulse was all it took. These low time folks have only heard about the golden time. It's no wonder they think they are being scr#wed.
This industry has always taken your first born (and often his/her mother) to enter. And it always will.
12-28-2012, 07:21 PM
#82
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 480
The baby boomer generation???
You mean if they only knew they sold out scope (on this industry level) and this entire country (on a generational level) to try and preserve as much as possible for their generation?? They literally sold out their kids to keep their quality of life as close as possible to their parents?? If only they knew chasing the bottom buck, and walmart prices has sold everyone out to globalization, massive debt, et al.
You mean if they only knew they sold out scope (on this industry level) and this entire country (on a generational level) to try and preserve as much as possible for their generation?? They literally sold out their kids to keep their quality of life as close as possible to their parents?? If only they knew chasing the bottom buck, and walmart prices has sold everyone out to globalization, massive debt, et al.
X 1 MILLION!!! HAHAHAHAHA!! Exactly. The entitlement generation are the baby boomers. 'entitled' to pensions they knew the next generation couldn't pay for and so on...
I'm 'complaining about entitlements' because I want a job? I have college, a decade in aviation and a lot of elbow grease. I'd like someone to let me work hard and pay me fairly for my hard work and hard earned qualifications. I'd fly a cargo plane full of rubber dog #$%^ out of hong kong for 25K a year with a smile on my face.I'm spoiled for wanting to be 'entitled' a job. ha!
12-28-2012, 07:30 PM
#83
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 480
I only have fantasies about that. I shotgunned and cold called everywhere I could imagine in 2011 and finally got an instructing job early this year. I don't know every manager and chief flight instructor and their varying levels of integrity, so I took a gamble and it turned out I was lied to pretty bad by an outfit in a crappy town. I moved all my crap and girlfriend for it. You live and learn! If I had the money to sue them I wouldn't have had to work there in the first place.
I don't have the answer to that. I didn't start out affluent, I worked my face off in school and buying flight training. It only took me 7 years to get my CFIs.
12-28-2012, 07:32 PM
#84
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 480
The generations post WWII that were fortunate enough to be Americans or Europeans didn't have trouble putting in hard work and investing in training and having careers and jobs. Right now there is nothing a young one can do that will guarantee them a job or success.
12-28-2012, 07:39 PM
#85
Banned
Joined APC: Jan 2008
Position: Pilot
Posts: 2,625
The constitution, nor life, does not guarantee anyone a job or success. That is left up to the individual and their determination/ work ethic. But if you ask the current generation (of which I am a part of) they think it is a constitutional right to a higher education and a guaranteed job and success in life.
12-28-2012, 07:44 PM
#86
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2012
Position: Commercial
Posts: 37
Was that the context of my post, or are you trying to talk me into a corner?
I'm open to being showed how I'm wrong. Do you have links to 121 jobs a guy with less than ATP mins can realistically compete for and win? I'm all ears. Let's be realistic here; don't link me to a regional single pilot 135 outfit that stopped hiring CFIs in 2012 because they don't have to, but still kept their page showing 135 IFR mins.
Let's say you had 1,200 hours and 300 multi. You can't get the rest of your cross country done in time for the ATP rule to drop. What would you do?
I'm open to being showed how I'm wrong. Do you have links to 121 jobs a guy with less than ATP mins can realistically compete for and win? I'm all ears. Let's be realistic here; don't link me to a regional single pilot 135 outfit that stopped hiring CFIs in 2012 because they don't have to, but still kept their page showing 135 IFR mins.
Let's say you had 1,200 hours and 300 multi. You can't get the rest of your cross country done in time for the ATP rule to drop. What would you do?
As a low timer with 1,100 hours and no CFI, I have been finding it no trouble obtaining ATP minimums and will have it by the middle of next year at the latest even before the ruling goes into effect...how quickly did you expect to get them???? We as the young guys need to step back and look at the positive side of this rule and quite gripping about it. Im not sure where your frustration is coming from, but if you are not enjoying CFIing then please find a different job cause there are a ton out there for you with those kind of hours. What about 135? Ameriflight offers better than first year pay at regionals with amazingly fast upgrade time if willing to move around and you still obtain valuable PIC. Then a year later you are way more qualified than doing another year of instructing and could even be looking at the more reputable regionals if you still want to go that way. Just some food for thought. This forum is not a place to get hot headed...instead to use great technologies of today by sharing our experiences while trying to help out others like yourself.
12-28-2012, 07:58 PM
#87
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 480
It seems the prevailing attitude is one that un or underemployed people can kiss their @$$ and quit whining? I know a girl that graduated Harvard Law and has never once been able to secure a job beyond waitressing. Most jobs she applies for she is well considered, along with 5,000 other applicants. I guess she is a whiner from an entitlement generation.
12-28-2012, 08:00 PM
#88
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2011
Position: Volleyball Player
Posts: 4,024
When I was little, these guys made good money. Whether they did or didn't, I was going to be a pilot. On the same token, I was going to try my hardest to become a pilot whether pilot jobs were around or not.
I only have fantasies about that. I shotgunned and cold called everywhere I could imagine in 2011 and finally got an instructing job early this year. I don't know every manager and chief flight instructor and their varying levels of integrity, so I took a gamble and it turned out I was lied to pretty bad by an outfit in a crappy town. I moved all my crap and girlfriend for it. You live and learn! If I had the money to sue them I wouldn't have had to work there in the first place.
I don't have the answer to that. I didn't start out affluent, I worked my face off in school and buying flight training. It only took me 7 years to get my CFIs.
I only have fantasies about that. I shotgunned and cold called everywhere I could imagine in 2011 and finally got an instructing job early this year. I don't know every manager and chief flight instructor and their varying levels of integrity, so I took a gamble and it turned out I was lied to pretty bad by an outfit in a crappy town. I moved all my crap and girlfriend for it. You live and learn! If I had the money to sue them I wouldn't have had to work there in the first place.
I don't have the answer to that. I didn't start out affluent, I worked my face off in school and buying flight training. It only took me 7 years to get my CFIs.
It's the difference between telling a kid from a low income family he can become a doctor if he goes to community college for 2 years, a state college for a few more years, work one or two jobs on the side at the same time, then do a 6 year state doctor program to ensure that one can work during the schooling and not get overwhelmed, which turns into a 10 year program, which is probably realistic, OR telling the person that for only $200,000, they can go to a 6 year program that will get them their MD and that they'll be earning $150,000 in 3 years. It seems like a good idea, but you realize how much has to go right and you can't back out at the end without losing a lot, and the person that was working and minimizing costs the entire time has invested much less cost into it, probably has better stand-alone degrees that allow sidestepping into other jobs and specialties, whereas the lump-sum/quick program is probably going to involve huge sums of money just a few times. IME, the worst thing you can do for someone that doesn't have the financial ability to just blow $200,000 is to encourage them to do that kind of a program. It's a fact of life that you shouldn't spend money you don't have. If you don't have 70K, you shouldn't spend it. I know, I'm guilty of this too, so this is what needs to be spread.
Last edited by JamesNoBrakes; 12-28-2012 at 08:18 PM.
12-28-2012, 08:05 PM
#89
Are we there yet??!!
Joined APC: Apr 2006
Posts: 2,010
12-28-2012, 08:49 PM
#90
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2009
Position: 121 FO
Posts: 209
Really there is no such thing as a good union! I live in a right to work state. First job I have ever lost was working for a union. Want nothing to do with them ever again!
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