Tried to sign up for some school and the dude tells me they aint accepting students interested in flying. Its a sad day when a school of aeronautics wont take student pilots. The FAA changed from a credit point system to an hourly system to judge how much someone knows. Someone down there at the FAA must finally be thinking for a change. These schools that are charging $90,000.00 and wasting peoples time for 3years had to stop. After 4 years of college you hit the street with a whopping 200 hours of TOTAL TIME. Now its time to get that dream job you have dreamed about and worked so hard for for so long. Finally you can take off that stupid suit and tie and put on your shorts and your Richard Petty T-shirt and hop in the left seat of a brand spanking new Gulfsteam -V. Fly 2 maybe 3 hours a day and sit around the Hotel room waiting for Mr.Dickhead millionaire to call and say lets go. OHHH yes this is the life you have waited for. But wait its only a dream a very big dream at that. You see now that you have woken up you find yourself in the right seat of some piece of crap 65year old turboprop looking into the face of a Winter Storm Watch flying Mail across the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Oh and that aint the worst of it . You are making an unheard of $13/hr for your trouble. Cool you can pay off your student loans in about 490 years if you don’t get killed first. I dont care who says what. Id rather ride with a pilot who flew for 4 years straight 8 hours a day who walks out of college with 12000 hours in his log book wearing ajeans and a cowboy hat than some GQ pretty boy with 200 hours total time and a degree in political scienc. Hands on experience cant be replaced. The starting salary of a pilot proves that. The reason you dont make nothing is because you dont know anything. You have 200 hours in your log book you basically have the equivalent of 1 month experience of verifiable work experience. Now a kid that walks out of 4 years of college with 12000 hours in his log book is a different story all together. Thats something worth paying for. You don/t need to dress up like you are going to the prom and play mr kiss ass if you have that kind of time. You write your own ticket then. Thats the way it should be. The way it is now is a dam disgrace.
flying for $13 an hour is how 99.9% of all of us started. You need experience to be a good airman.
A person who wants to be the best at something will be at that level in 1/10th the time it takes someone doing the same thing that isnt trying to be the best they can be. When I was a 100 hour pilot I could have outscored the average 1000 hour pilot. Anyone could. See it all the time. Some 50 year old thats been doing some job for the last 30 years and sucks at it worse now than when he started. Its everywhere you look. The last flight training I was involved in was the biggest joke. Instructor is a hell of a pilot but he isnt a teacher. Not everyone who flys an airplane is teacher material
You might want to check you ego at the door it’ll get you fired or Captains will refuse to fly with you.
And I can say with 100% accuracy that when you had 100 hours you didn’t know di*k about aviating, you can be as gung-ho as you want but when it comes down to it you have to touch the controls/talk on the radio/fly through a few thunder storms/have so much ice on the wings that you don’t think it’ll fly anymore/WORK A 14 HOUR DAY THEN BE BACK TO WORK 10 HOURS LATER/Fly more then 10 hours in a day (8 if you’re single pilot)/Sleep in your car cause you don’t make enough to eat and rent an apartment/ Be on the road 26 out of 28 days…etc etc etc.
If you want my advice- become a stock trader, or a lawyer, being a pilot sucks
I moved to Alaska when I had a 1000 hours, I didn’t become a great aviator till I had flown in the harsh conditions up there for a few years.
If after reading my rant you chose to continue the path to become a pilot for a living (and 3 divorces) then I have some advice-
- You have to hold yourself to a higher standard then any instructor, you can only gain knowledge and learn from someone else if you ask them educated questions and LISTEN to the answers.
- learn to FLY the airplane, I’ve met too many button pushers, you might know all the FAR’s and can calculate a 3.5 degree glide slope in your head, but if you can’t fly by the seat of your pants it don’t mean sht. LEARN TO FLY. rent a J-3 cub and get checked out on spins and spin the sit out of that baby.
LOOK OUT SIDE if you’re VFR. F**k all that glass they put in the new airplanes these days, do all your IFR work in a non-gps airplane, you will be a better aviator for it.
Exactly!