Blue Collar Pilots

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kath said:
If you want to be encouraging to the next generation of young aviators, I will recommend one thing:
Avoid using language that implies that only men read these threads, and can do the things that earn your respect.
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And that's coming from a woman that has earned more respect than most men I know.
 
Mom left my dad (who was a pilot and when he was between jobs on that he built houses) when I was 13. We were poor! Tried college for a couple years and said screw that and joined the Navy. Although I always had a passion for airplanes I never considered becoming a pilot. After six years in the Navy with a wife and a kid went back to college to get a teaching degree. Worked as a soccer coach, ski instructor and delivered the WSJ from 1-5 am, and still made it to Calculus class at 7 am. Moved to Utah and got a job teaching math. Ten years after beginning my teaching career and my wife watching me spend money on sim flying and RC planes she suggested I should just go get my pilot license. Took me 4 long years due to financial struggles to complete my ppl. First thing I did was join a time-share outfit, paying for 50 hours for a year for access to a 160 hp 172. The flying was cheap but they jacked the rate when it was time to renew so I had to quit. Three more years of sitting on the ground looking skyward before I found a flying club that I could afford and now I get to fly a lot! Or at least a lot more. Working on my IR and thinking of getting my commercial and maybe cfi and hopefully get a job aerial mapping or something maybe in ten years so I don't have to teach forever.
 
I immigrated to USA at age of 18 and worked construction for 4 years. At age 22 sold my car to pay for truck driving school and got a job driving truck. Always want it to fly but after one visit to airport i knew i will never be able to afford it. Well at the age of 48 last may i took one hour discovery flight and it was it. I knew if i don't do it now i will never do it. Two month later having only one hour discovery flight and hundreds of hours of youtube videos under my belt i bough Pipper Warrior and now taking lessons in my own plane and enjoying every moment of it. Driving truck gave me opportunity to see most of the country in 2D, flying lets me see it in 3 dimension.
 
@kath I think perhaps you’re referring more to the nuance of feelings than language. I’m not particularly #woke. As a rough around the edges, tattooed, scarred, combat arms veteran and industrial athlete, I’m a pretty crummy guy to proffer advice or encouragement to young women. It seems you are probably much better suited to provide that. When I’m trying to encourage my daughter, I don’t point at myself, but to women who have met or exceeded her goals. In general, that’s what I was hoping to see here...bootstrap stories of encouragement or advice. Thin-skinned responses aside, there are some great ones that have been posted.
 
woodchucker said:
Mom left my dad (who was a pilot and when he was between jobs on that he built houses) when I was 13. We were poor! Tried college for a couple years and said screw that and joined the Navy. Although I always had a passion for airplanes I never considered becoming a pilot. After six years in the Navy with a wife and a kid went back to college to get a teaching degree. Worked as a soccer coach, ski instructor and delivered the WSJ from 1-5 am, and still made it to Calculus class at 7 am. Moved to Utah and got a job teaching math. Ten years after beginning my teaching career and my wife watching me spend money on sim flying and RC planes she suggested I should just go get my pilot license. Took me 4 long years due to financial struggles to complete my ppl. First thing I did was join a time-share outfit, paying for 50 hours for a year for access to a 160 hp 172. The flying was cheap but they jacked the rate when it was time to renew so I had to quit. Three more years of sitting on the ground looking skyward before I found a flying club that I could afford and now I get to fly a lot! Or at least a lot more. Working on my IR and thinking of getting my commercial and maybe cfi and hopefully get a job aerial mapping or something maybe in ten years so I don't have to teach forever.
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Go for it! I just talked to someone recently who went from teaching to flying to CFI. He said he hasn’t looked back.
 
As a $78/month E-1 Air Force enlistee, I joined the Vandenberg AFB aero club and got my private certificate flying a club C-150 for $7.00/hour wet. Dual with a Lt. Colonel CFI was another $5.00/hour. Of course that was in 1964, but you don't have to be rich to learn to fly.
 
Stan Cooper said:
As a $78/month E-1 Air Force enlistee, I joined the Vandenberg AFB aero club and got my private certificate flying a club C-150 for $7.00/hour wet. Dual with a Lt. Colonel CFI was another $5.00/hour. Of course that was in 1964, but you don't have to be rich to learn to fly.
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Let us throw a little math at these numbers.

At $12/hr your monthly $78 paycheck would get you 6.5 hours dual.

Current E-1 pay is $1,600/month. Around these parts a wet 150 goes for around $130/hr and Basic instruction is $55/hr. $1,600/month would get you 8.6 hours dual.

Looks like flying has actually gotten cheaper in the last 60 years. :p
 
The idea that white collar means privileged or to have sufficient means automatically is preposterous.
The idea that blue collar is somehow beneath that is even more preposterous.

I’m truly PO’d at the original post.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Aviation is inherently a skilled blue collar job. The pedigree associated with a college degree is an American thing and complete B.S.

Anyone that says differently is just trying to justify the wasted time and money to obtain the degree.
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I don’t consider my degrees to give me any sort of ‘pedigree’, and I don’t give a crap about white collar/blue collar status.

But I also consider the time and money spent to get them to be anything but wasted.
 
OP, you might want to define what you consider white and blue collar, to clarify and refocus the thread. Many dentists and doctors now consider themselves blue collar, and a second level manager in a welding company might consider herself as white collar.
 
Kritchlow said:
The idea that white collar means privileged or to have sufficient means automatically is preposterous.
The idea that blue collar is somehow beneath that is even more preposterous.

I’m truly PO’d at the original post.
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My friend and occasional mentor “X” has a nice airplane because he likes to fly and has a net worth of around $200mil.

I’m a lumberjack. I bought a much cheaper plane because I like to fly and don’t have much ‘net’ in my net worth.

I have a different, not better, path from my friend “X”... I was simply interested in those who have a similar path. I’m not trying to knock privilege (which we all have to one degree or another, starting with living in the USA).

I know what it’s like to go hungry. I know what it’s like to fight, and struggle. I just wanted to hear from others like me, who had dreams bigger than their obstacles. That’s it.
 
GrummanBear said:
Go for it! I just talked to someone recently who went from teaching to flying to CFI. He said he hasn’t looked back.
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That’s awesome. Just want to get the house paid off and vest some more years into my retirement. I get 2% added each year I work so there is still a pretty decent benefit to continuing on with teaching for a while yet.
 
GrummanBear said:
My friend and occasional mentor “X” has a nice airplane because he likes to fly and has a net worth of around $200mil.

I’m a lumberjack. I bought a much cheaper plane because I like to fly and don’t have much ‘net’ in my net worth.

I have a different, not better, path from my friend “X”... I was simply interested in those who have a similar path. I’m not trying to knock privilege (which we all have to one degree or another, starting with living in the USA).

I know what it’s like to go hungry. I know what it’s like to fight, and struggle. I just wanted to hear from others like me, who had dreams bigger than their obstacles. That’s it.
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Sounds like you’re doubling down on your original statement. I could be misreading your post, and I hope I am.
If not, you are just wrong on too many levels.

perhaps you don’t know what white collar means...???
 
I came from a white collar family, but most of my early aviation career was flying in a blue collar job (photogrammetric mapping); first as a camera operator, then as a pilot. That's what I thought you were referring to with the thread title.
 
flyingron said:
While I had a "white collar" job as an engineer, i started my flight training the moment I got out of college so I wasn't making much. It was a scrape to get by. As I once told someone, I drive 12 years old cars so I can fly 30 year old airplanes. Not having a wife/girlfriend, not dining out a lot, not travelling on vacation, brown bagging, etc....
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yeah that was me for sure too. As I wrote earlier I wasn't making any serious money, but I was frugal with what I had.
Time was another thing I had more of back then, single and able to be an airport bum

Kritchlow said:
The idea that white collar means privileged or to have sufficient means automatically is preposterous.
The idea that blue collar is somehow beneath that is even more preposterous.
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Agreed

Tarheelpilot said:
Aviation is inherently a skilled blue collar job. The pedigree associated with a college degree is an American thing and complete B.S.
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I can see you what you mean about aviation being "blue collar". Not so sure about the other thing being an american thing though. There have been lots of folks over many generations that have college degrees but choose to work a skilled trade/blue collar type job.... I've known quite a few. and I think any such pedigree that attaches to a degree is "seen" world wide form what I can tell.
I think there's some sort of pedigree or mystique attached to aviatiors too.

and one more in line I think with the OP's spirit that hits home with me.
I've always wanted to fly since I was a little kid. I was always told that you had to be really good with math to be a pilot. I never was in school so it seemed out of grasp. Later in college I knew I could get by with that but GA flying just seemed out of reach...something that doctors and millionaires did. I'd never even met anyone that flew. Until I found out that the father of a friend of mine was a pilot and he was just an engineer. That put it into reach mentally for me.

I started my first real job out of college in mid July. My first discovery flight was August 12
 
Brad W said:
I've always wanted to fly since I was a little kid. I was always told that you had to be really good with math to be a pilot. I never was in school so it seemed out of grasp. Later in college I knew I could get by with that but GA flying just seemed out of reach...something that doctors and millionaires did. I'd never even met anyone that flew. Until I found out that the father of a friend of mine was a pilot and he was just an engineer. That put it into reach mentally for me.

I started my first real job out of college in mid July. My first discovery flight was August 12
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That is the heart and spirit of the post. There is a strange number of people getting their epaulets in a wad getting wrapped around the axle of the colloquial use of blue/white collar. There isn’t even a “point” for them to miss. Just a request for stories from those who have struggled.

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Kritchlow said:
The idea that white collar means privileged or to have sufficient means automatically is preposterous.
The idea that blue collar is somehow beneath that is even more preposterous.

I’m truly PO’d at the original post.
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How would you suggest the question be asked without harshing your mellow?

There are more important things to be PO'd about.
 
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GrummanBear said:
I’m interested in hearing from others who also paid their own way into aviation...but not those who started out with trust funds, inheritance, or white collar jobs. Not whatsoever knocking those blessed with lucky circumstance, but just wanting to hear the other stories of those who ground it out on their own or are still in that process. I’m interested in the self-made, the successes and failures of the quixotic.

Just for fun, and maybe it will encourage someone out there to slug it out (pursuing aviation).

**Edit: Just interested in histories made or in the making, e.g “geezer” below. Not knocking the wealthy or privileged. Geeze.
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Blue vs White color? I got thru PPL, Commercial, Instrument and Multiengine while ‘blue collar.’ But the color of my collar doesn’t tell the story. PPL was while enlisted in the Navy. Flying Club had good rates. Yeah, I committed to it and didn’t waste money on to many other things to get it done. I was a Cab Driver through most of the rest. But saying I did it ‘Blue Collar,’ implying I was living hand to mouth, would be a lie. I had the GI Bill. My hat is truly off to those who scraped and sacrificed without help, be it family, scholarship or whatever. It’s an expensive pursuit.
 
Timbeck2 said:
I was born a poor black child...

In rural Arkansas, the rich kids went to college and the poor kids went to work. I drove tractor and other related (sweaty) duties from the time I was old enough to reach the tractor pedals at about 12 until I was 19. I did this because my family could not afford to buy the school clothes everyone else had. I played basketball in K-Mart slide arounds (those gym shoes that the soles didn't grip anything and turned yellow in about two months) because my family couldn't afford the $12 for Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars. They only came in white back then. I wore a lot of hand me down clothes from my cousins and my mom sewed a few shirts for me. She even made a decent attempt at one of those chambray shirts with the western scene embroidery on the back shoulder part. But I still got laughed at. Nobody from the local colleges ever came to my high school and explained that student loans, grants and scholarships were available to kids like me. Nobody. I remember for Christmas money, my job when I got home in the fall was to pick up pecans from the 11 trees in our yard which we'd sell for $6 a pound. In the summer when I was too young to drive tractor, I'd mow other people's yards along with my dad and uncle for $5, of which they'd get two dollars each and I'd get one.

I realized that I didn't have much of a future in Arkansas, so I enlisted in the Air Force; I wanted to see the world. Where did they send me for my first duty assignment as a jet engine mechanic? Columbus AFB, MS - 4 hours from where I grew up. I volunteered for world wide overseas and got Kadena Air Base, Okinawa when is where I started to fly in the Aero Club. After my goals of getting my bachelor's degree, making at least E-7. I cross trained into ATC after 10 years as a jet mech. I retired from the Air Force after 24 years and got a job with the DoD as a controller. Only then was I financially able to buy a plane and finish my pilot's license.

I wanted my kids to have more than I did so I paid for their college educations, I paid for their first beater cars and insurance. Now that they're pretty much on their own, I am proud of them. Not all the apron strings have been cut but that's okay with me and I'm still about as blue collar as one can get.
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I was a knuckledragginboogerpickinfactorydirtball.

My late wife dropped $10.00 fer me to get a "discovery flight." I was hooked but couldn't afford regular lessons with 3 girls.

I puttered around at it.

Later, I had a side business while still working at the plant... It wasn't doing well, so I packed up the shop in boxes, took it all home and put it in the basement. Sayin' "Eff it, I'm gonna get my PPL!"

That's when I learned that 4 hours of overtime bought 1hour of dual. I worked a lot of overtime, and got my ticket.
 
luvflyin said:
But saying I did it ‘Blue Collar,’ implying I was living hand to mouth, would be a lie.
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That's the first time I ever heard "blue collar" described that way.
An awful lot of the blue collar workers I know could certainly afford to fly, IF THEY GAVE UP THEIR FISHING BOATS, but have just never been exposed to flying. I have a carpenter I use a lot. He was amazed when I told him I own a plane and my wife is a pilot. He never knew a pilot before. One day he was doing some work for me and he told me he took flying lessons. It would never have occurred to him without being exposed to it and hearing stories about it.
 
JOhnH said:
That's the first time I ever heard "blue collar" described that way.
An awful lot of the blue collar workers I know could certainly afford to fly, IF THEY GAVE UP THEIR FISHING BOATS, but have just never been exposed to flying. I have a carpenter I use a lot. He was amazed when I told him I own a plane and my wife is a pilot. He never knew a pilot before. One day he was doing some work for me and he told me he took flying lessons. It would never have occurred to him without being exposed to it and hearing stories about it.
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Exactly! Mostly a matter of desire and priority. The auto mechanic I usually go to is a pilot. Of course, based on what he charges me, he ain't hurtin'..... :)

The "butt hurt" in the thread comes from things like this:

...getting wrapped around the axle of the colloquial use of blue/white collar. There isn’t even a “point” for them to miss. Just a request for stories from those who have struggled.​

That seems to imply that those in white collar jobs didn't struggle to get there, or struggle to pay for flying. You, @JOhnH , are yourself a good example of why that just ain't so. @GrummanBear is trying to clarify that isn't what he meant, but I'm sure he can see how he could have been interpreted that way.
 
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I chew tobacco and drink Budweiser, does that count?
 
kayoh190 said:
I consider myself lucky with my circumstances - my parents were middle class but I was brought up around computers. My Dad ran his own small computer consulting business, and while modest, it put food on the table and I got all the old hand me down machines that he'd bring home from clients after upgrades. So by the time I was in college I had a small portfolio of programming projects I had done since middle school (including the core of a custom logbook program I still use today). Anyway, that portfolio and a little networking led to a job writing code at a game development studio in Austin. That job paid for college and all my certificates after private (I paid for my private while back in HS by doing odd jobs over the summers). Once the tech industry collapsed in the late 90s and our studio finally closed in 2001, I got a job at a local flight school, finished up my CFI/CFII/MEI, and the rest is history.

So it's not a hardship story by any means - writing code isn't exactly roofing! But I've always been happy that I was able to pay for college and all my flying stuff as I went along. With the increased cost of flying and the crazy cost of college these days, I doubt I would have been able to do it today.
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But then again, you can teach a good coder to roof. I don't think you can teach most good roofers to code.
 
eman1200 said:
I chew tobacco and drink Budweiser, does that count?
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I don’t know, brother. Budweiser and Copenhagen, you might as well be Daddy Warbucks. PBR and Grizzly, on the other hand...
 
Timbeck2 said:
In my defense, one never knows when you might have to shoot a possum on the runway.
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I’m picturing you out at the front of a phalanx of a Flying Cajun Navy, landing on flooded streets with with immediate aid: dip, beer, whiskey and bullets
 
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