Work for money. Fly for fun.

[hazatude]

Discuss...

[R2000/1830]

Flying for work is fun, involving Little work and no money.

[mooseway]

Hey Tude,

I'm going through this debate right now. I graduated with my Comm. MIFR and have just finished my degree in Physical Geography. I work for an airline and have just secured a position for $36K a year to start and max at $54 also, I do some side work for another $12K a year. I don't know whether to pay off my debt and then go back in by flying for a living or to buy an single and then move up to a twin partnership. I think I'm leaning towards buying the plane but, who knows maybe I can land something that'll lead to a DC-3 or Beech 18 (I wanna fly the old stuff)

Smooth Skies All

[Scuba_Steve]

no reason you can't fly for a living and fly for fun once you start earning some half decent money, and can afford a kit plane or small single. Thats my plan at least..another 10 or so years and I may actually have enough $$ to do it

I sometimes get down about the industry, my job etc, but I'd still rather be sitting in an airplane bitching about my job than in an office doing the same thing.

Cheers

[hazatude]

The pilots that I know that are the happiest are the ones not trying to make a living off of it. I do respect their goal driven determination but am at odds as to why the heck anyone would suffer so much for so little.

[. ._]

Same reason you smoke, haz. It's an addiction. The first one is probably free. You know it's bad for you- makes you poor, costs you relationships, relatively bad for your health (sleep schedules, poor northern diet, vending machine lunches, dehydration which can give you kidney stones, planes crash sometimes, throw your back out loading the plane, hemmorhoids on the long hauls)- but you still do it. I plan on writing a story one day about a heroin junkie who meets a pilot, and they have a lot in common.

We all have our vices, and vices are fun!

My $0.02.

-istp

[hazatude]

Most people addicted to sex are not prostitutes.

Just my 2p

[Yoyoma]

Flying is awesome. I think we can all agree on that. When I obtained my pilot licenses, building time was the best time I've ever had. Schedule picnics, weird flights, get togethers, airshows. I would love to time my flights around sunsets and sunrises. Looking out that front window made me feel as if I was on top of the world. What a great feeling...!! This would often be complemented by a BBQ, or a few beers with friends. At that time, I was sure this was the career I was meant to pursue.

Then came my first job, then the second job, and then the third job... No more flying where I wanted to go. My love of flying was often shared with an older bitter pilot. It seemed that what I was thought in school about Air Safety did not apply in real life. BBQs and Beers became a myth, how the heck can you afford them on a pilot salary? I still enjoyed looking down and seeing this beautiful landscape go by. Unfortunately, most of that time was spent looking down and filling out paperwork.

I soon realised that all this was being compounded by my Pilot Lifestyle. Going home to a small, rat infested apartment. My furniture, a mattress and a chair. My fridge was often empty, noodles were on the menu. But that's OK, cause I'm a pilot, I do what I love to do, fly! It slowly sank in, no money, no life, no girl, but I had flying...

I work for money, money also works for me. When I feel the time has come, I'll buy myself a plane, and relive the moments I so miss. I'll also be sure to have a Beer and many BBQs...

Flying is my passion, my hobby, not my job.

[hz2p]

I'm with Haz on this one ... if everyone who enjoyed sex tried to work as a porn star, entry level positions would be as hard for porn stars as they are for pilots!

I've never understood that mentality: Hey, flying looks like fun, I think I'll become an airline pilot as a living

Why not: Hey, sex looks like fun, I think I'll become a porn star for a living

Sheesh.

[complexintentions]

"I do respect their goal driven determination but am at odds as to why the heck anyone would suffer so much for so little."

"I've never understood that mentality: Hey, flying looks like fun, I think I'll become an airline pilot as a living"

With all due respect, this kind of thinking falls into the "if you have to ask, we probably couldn't explain it to you" category. There are many, many pilots who "make it" to the job they always dreamed of and don't regret the crap they put up with to get there. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy. Nothing! And to those for whom it seemed to, it only lessens the whole experience.

I'm long past romantisizing aviation, but sometimes you just have to be doing what you feel you have to be doing. Trying to make decisions purely on logic and practicality will only lead to grief.

*rubs chin wisely*

[Yoyoma]

From CNN Money, I thought this was pretty interesting. Although I couldn't see pilot in there!

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/15/pf/trai ... /index.htm

Big jobs that pay badly
Some careers cost time and money to take up. But don't expect a big paycheck.
August 17, 2005: 10:39 AM EDT
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money senior writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Most of us work hard for a living. And if we're lucky, we're well compensated for the effort.

But there are some jobs you should take only if you really love the work because the investment you make to get the job and the hours you keep aren't necessarily commensurate with what you earn.

Not that all careers in this category are necessarily low-paying, at least not by national standards.

But they may require a great deal of time and money in graduate education, offer working conditions that only passion can excuse, and there may be such a long run for the roses that you forfeit prime working and child-bearing years just to achieve a salary that college peers were earning a decade earlier.



Here are just three of those jobs.

Architects

For every Philip Johnson or Frank Lloyd Wright in a generation of architects, there are countless more who work without fanfare on the everyday buildings where we work, live and shop.

Architects may spend up to seven years completing undergraduate and master's-degree studies, or up to three-and-a-half years in a master's program if they majored in another area during college. To be eligible to take the licensing exam, they also must log three years as interns working for licensed architects.

Architects with a master's might enter the work force with between $50,000 and $80,000 in student loan debt. But as first-year interns, they might earn only $34,000, the national median according to the 2005 compensation survey by the American Institute of Architects. Meanwhile, several steps up the ladder, senior architects earn a median of $68,900.

Chefs

There's a reason they say if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Restaurant kitchens usually aren't air conditioned, so temperatures can top 100 degrees in the summer, said Stephan Hengst, spokesman for the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

Since most restaurant chefs are not on track to become the next Jean-Georges Vongerichten or Wolfgang Puck, they can expect far more modest incomes.

Culinary school graduates who might have spent two to four years and tens of thousands of dollars to get their degrees might get a low-level job on the kitchen line paying around $32,000 soon after graduation (more if they had experience prior to culinary school).

By the time they work their way up to sous-chef after perhaps three or four years, they might make around $55,000, Hengst said.

Benefits are more likely to be included if they work for a chain rather than a small, independently owned restaurant.

And the hours they log on their feet average about 12 hours a day, Hengst said, although 80- to 100-hour weeks aren't unusual for some.

When you work behind the scenes in a restaurant, kudos aren't delivered directly by the customer, but rather indirectly by their returned plates: the emptier, the better.

Academic research scientists

A career with one of the most disproportionate ratios of training to pay is that of academic research scientist.

A Ph.D. program and dissertation are requirements for the job, which can take between six and eight years to complete. (See correction.) Add to that several years in the postdoctoral phase of one's career to qualify for much coveted tenure-track positions.

During the postdoc phase, you are likely to teach, run a lab with experiments that require you to check in at all hours, publish research and write grants – for a salary that may not exceed $43,000.

The length of the postdoc career has doubled in the past 10 years, said Phil Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. "It's taking longer and longer to get there. You can't start a family. It's really tough."

And it's made tougher still by the fact that in many disciplines, there aren't nearly as many tenure-track positions as there are candidates.

So, to those who earn their MBAs in two years and snag six-figure jobs soon after graduation, your jobs may be hard, but maybe not quite as hard as you think.

[d-to]

As a career-pilot I have always loved going to work . On my days off I enjoy flying my small plane. Yes, times where somewhat challenging in the beginning of my career but more than worthwhile going through. No matter which airplane from small single engine to B744, all are a pleasure to fly.

[pika]

Working for money and flying for fun is a great idea until you want to fly heavy iron. In my mind nothing compares to the challenge and satisfaction that heavy iron provides.

[Yoyoma]

Working for money and flying for fun is a great idea until you want to fly heavy iron. In my mind nothing compares to the challenge and satisfaction that heavy iron provides.

A gentleman I worked for/with back in Europe was a Chief Engineer. That was his career but he did own a small aircraft at a local airport. He has been Type rated on most Airbus aircraft as well as the B777 and regularly flew test filghts and fam flights on the so called "Heavy Iron". Not as a test pilot, but as an Amateur. He's even talking about an A380 type rating now.

[abc xyz]

I think part of the problem with aviation as a career is that too often you make it to the airlines too late in life.

Say your in your early 20's getting your licences this day an age - now you need to build a resume usually 5-10 years of work based on the economic climate of the day. So here you are making an avg wage of 30-40k over that period of time to get your time in. Then your big chance arrives and your stuck making 35-45 k for another 2-3 yrs while on probation.

I dont know about you folks but that seems to me that one hell of a lomng time to be making near poverty wages. Add to that a wife/husband, kids, mortgage. You are just struggling for too long. By the time your making decent coin your already up to your eyeballs in debt.

Throw into that mix a layoff and Bobs your uncle - stricken to poverty