Flying seems so far away.

GRG55 said:
The good thing is you have a plan. And there are times in life when the best thing is to bear down and just power through the immediate bad situation for a while longer in order to work the plan.
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Yea...that's my hope anyways lol. Most of my friends have no goals or plans at all. It's "what RZR part will I buy next week - maybe a new $1500 roll cage to make it look cool". At the same time I have to admit I am bummed I am missing out on the good times they are having out offroading.
 
CC268 said:
Yea...that's my hope anyways lol. Most of my friends have no goals or plans at all. It's "what RZR part will I buy next week - maybe a new $1500 roll cage to make it look cool". At the same time I have to admit I am bummed I am missing out on the good times they are having out offroading.
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Life is like flying VFR. You gotta keep your eye on the horizon.
 
CC268 said:
Yea make sure she is cool with you never being home as a pilot :p I joke with my wife about this..."I'll hardly ever see you!"

One of my good friends jokes he has a successful marriage because he is never around (he is kidding of course - the guy hardly works - like 10-12 days a month).
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Ten years ago I sold a business I had co-founded and built up. I decided I would try "retirement". My wife told all her friends it was 4 times worse than when I was working - twice as much husband, half as much income.
 
I am WAY late to the party but F*CK that noise! Bro, my advice is to deal with this BEFORE you get married or get used to this being your new normal...

CessnaTom said:
I have, multiple times over the years, She say no Pilot talk until after the wedding. Been biting my tongue.
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I've been married for 29 years as of Sunday. Fortunately, I was already a pilot when we met. I took her flying on an early date, though she was not (and still is not) a fan of flying. I told her early on when she wanted me to change plans from flying to going shopping with her, "Do not ever ask me to choose between airplanes/flying and you. You probably won't like the answer."

She has never pushed the issue again. I have forgone a great deal of flying over the years and didn't own my first plane until several years later because of buying a house, kids, college, etc. But it was always by choice and never for very long. My wife knows it is my passion and will not deprive me from it. In fact, if I haven't flown in awhile for some reason, she will suggest I go fly some because I'm typically always in a better mood after flying.

Marriage, kids, home ownership are all great, but so is flying. You need to find the balance with your soon to be wife if you want to move forward. Later is NOT a good time as you will be at a severe disadvantage. This is a hand which needs to be planned and played before taking the vows.
 
Kelvin said:
I am WAY late to the party but F*CK that noise! Bro, my advice is to deal with this BEFORE you get married or get used to this being your new normal...
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Does the OP think there will not be a new thing he is expected to focus on after the wedding?

If you want to enjoy it, life needs to be a balance, not an obsession.
 
CC268 said:
Lol don't worry I am indeed alive and well in America. This is a LONG story (the free overtime thing) that quite frankly I don't feel like explaining on here. It's much more than asking for free overtime. I have no issue putting in extra hours. It is the expectations, evaluations, etc that surround the overtime that are very frustrating (and TRUST me - I am not the only one PO'd about this. Most of the engineering workforce shares the same thoughts, including much of the management). This has a hell of a lot more to do than just free overtime lol. Just want to make that clear. Not to mention it is practically impossible to hire anyone with experience. The only recs we can even get are new grads lol.

My dissatisfaction with the job is multi-faceted. This particular situation is only but one layer of the onion.
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When I worked for Intel unpaid OT for engineers was not uncommon. Not for me, my position was that if they routinely needed people to work unpaid OT they needed to hire more people. Not that I didn't work extra hours, I spent a lot of time traveling around the world to standards committee meetings. But, OT for the sake of OT? Did not happen. Of course, having retired from there 3 years ago, that OT thing is all in the past. Standards committee meetings still happen, but "work" is a four letter word. :D
 
CessnaTom said:
Getting married in a month, looking at houses to buy within 2 years, missus wants to start with the kids shortly after. Life seems great. But I want to fly. Been pouring all my efforts into trying to make it happen within 5 years. I'm 34 now and would love to make a career out of it. I like my job but every time I walk outside my work (10+ times a day) I look up and see approaches/departures in and out of KIPT, I wish I was up there. But with all the financial obligations the missus wants to do, flying seems so far away........
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You know those days when the weather is crap? Go outside on one of those days, look up at the gray sky as you listen to the poor soul that's up in that likely grumbling about the weather trying to get on the ground.
 
Salty said:
Does the OP think there will not be a new thing he is expected to focus on after the wedding?

If you want to enjoy it, life needs to be a balance, not an obsession.
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This.
 
Going to keep this short:

@CessnaTom Communication between you two is way more important than any wedding, and your hopes and dreams aren't any less important than hers. Her cutting off discussion about it may be a sign of a serious communication and goals problem, or may be a sign she's just stressing out about what ultimately is, a party. Do you two have a written budget done yet? Knowing how expensive it is to become a professional aviator, if you don't already have a written budget and haven't talked about how you'll be paying for all of that as a TEAM, you'll never get it done. I'm stopping there, you need to have a serious discussion with your teammate. Written budget is just a START to the topics you should already have discussed and know about each other. It isn't going to get any easier three years into your time-building phase and making less than schoolteacher pay, while you're away from home 50-80% of the time, and the water heater bursts in the Barbie DreamHouse when you're on the first leg of a four-day.

@CC268 you need to be shopping for a different job. Nobody will hit their deathbed saying, "Gosh I wish I worked more 'mandatory overtime' because my company couldn't manage staffing levels correctly." I've done it, and I guarantee it wasn't worth it. Quietly look for an employer who has their crap together. Don't wait, unless there's some benefit or perk of that place that's sooooo good, you want to put up with their staffing and management deficiencies. Sometimes you just need a reminder that there are businesses who don't do garbage like that. So here it is.
 
I say this as someone who will be married for 39 years this weekend, and who waited until a few years ago to finally get my pilot cert. It's not that my wife "wouldn't let me" get flight training for years. I made my choices, which included kids and a happy married life and putting off flying until we could afford it.

If she's telling you now not to talk about flying until after the wedding, I would bet you a big fancy cake and a bowl of punch that she will also squelch all talk of such nonsense after the wedding. I'm not saying not to marry her. What I am saying is, if you really want to fly -- especially as a career -- you'd better get this figured out NOW, before you're married. Waiting until afterward in hopes that she will somehow change her attitude for the better is a good way to end up not flying because you can't afford to with all the alimony and child support you're paying.
 
"She say no Pilot talk until after the wedding"
"She feels as though with all the planning going on about the wedding we need to focus on getting through this"
"After the wedding she says "I can do whatever the hell I want".
"she said that's fine..We will see..."

You are describing a person that only cares about her priorities and not yours.
Not saying she is. Your description of her seems that way.

What else isn't she letting you do / talk about?
What things are you asking her to not focus on / discuss so you can get through this wedding? I bet nothing.
 
How would the conversation go if you proposed you focus on your aviation career first and all talk of a wedding or anything else should be tabled until that was achieved?

It's easy to say these things when you're not the person involved. But you're the one that posted something that seems like you aren't prioritizing it as you feel it should be. Take stock and maybe another conversation with your partner on the seriousness of your commitment to this career is in order. Or maybe, you'd give up the dream of flying for this relationship, so it's better to wait and see if you can make them both work, it's a bonus. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Only you know that answer.
 
Salty said:
How would the conversation go if you proposed you focus on your aviation career first and all talk of a wedding or anything else should be tabled until that was achieved?
Click to expand...

This is why I Karen and I recommend pre-marital counseling for couples.

It’s not because people need counseling per-se, but as you mash two lives together into a common plan, it’s a lot easier to have a third party asking questions across a table like, “What are your goals in five years?”, “What are your expectations of the perfect spouse? Is there a perfect spouse?”, “What are your views on child rearing?”, and “How will the family budget be determined?” ... where both people can answer without feeling like they’re turning it into a litmus test or a contest for the person they love to “pass”.

I highly recommend discussion of the possibility of scheduling some time to discuss things with the pastor or whomever is marrying you. They’ll know your short time frame and be able to offer options that can meet your schedule. You both just need to make it a priority and give a little time to the process.

Our pastor and good friend who married us started our wedding with the words, “The Indianapolis 500...” and proceeded to talk about marriage as a long term race with a lot of variables. We had people remark later to us they found it odd. We loved it and remember it to this day as one of our favorite teachings from any pastor in our lives.

Replace “pastor” with someone non-secular and still a professional in this regard, if you’re not religious, but get a third party involved and talk about the long term.
 
PoA - breaking couples up since 20XX

LOL
 
denverpilot said:
This is why I Karen and I recommend pre-marital counseling for couples.

It’s not because people need counseling per-se, but as you mash two lives together into a common plan, it’s a lot easier to have a third party asking questions across a table like, “What are your goals in five years?”, “What are your expectations of the perfect spouse? Is there a perfect spouse?”, “What are your views on child rearing?”, and “How will the family budget be determined?” ... where both people can answer without feeling like they’re turning it into a litmus test or a contest for the person they love to “pass”.

I highly recommend discussion of the possibility of scheduling some time to discuss things with the pastor or whomever is marrying you. They’ll know your short time frame and be able to offer options that can meet your schedule. You both just need to make it a priority and give a little time to the process.

Our pastor and good friend who married us started our wedding with the words, “The Indianapolis 500...” and proceeded to talk about marriage as a long term race with a lot of variables. We had people remark later to us they found it odd. We loved it and remember it to this day as one of our favorite teachings from any pastor in our lives.

Replace “pastor” with someone non-secular and still a professional in this regard, if you’re not religious, but get a third party involved and talk about the long term.
Click to expand...

My wife and I did pre marital with our pastor. It was good.
 
CC268 said:
PoA - breaking couples up since 20XX

LOL
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Heh! That’s what I was thinking. We’re going to have Tom reconsidering before it’s all said and done
 
denverpilot said:
Going to keep this short:

@CessnaTom Communication between you two is way more important than any wedding, and your hopes and dreams aren't any less important than hers. Her cutting off discussion about it may be a sign of a serious communication and goals problem, or may be a sign she's just stressing out about what ultimately is, a party. Do you two have a written budget done yet? Knowing how expensive it is to become a professional aviator, if you don't already have a written budget and haven't talked about how you'll be paying for all of that as a TEAM, you'll never get it done. I'm stopping there, you need to have a serious discussion with your teammate. Written budget is just a START to the topics you should already have discussed and know about each other. It isn't going to get any easier three years into your time-building phase and making less than schoolteacher pay, while you're away from home 50-80% of the time, and the water heater bursts in the Barbie DreamHouse when you're on the first leg of a four-day.

@CC268 you need to be shopping for a different job. Nobody will hit their deathbed saying, "Gosh I wish I worked more 'mandatory overtime' because my company couldn't manage staffing levels correctly." I've done it, and I guarantee it wasn't worth it. Quietly look for an employer who has their crap together. Don't wait, unless there's some benefit or perk of that place that's sooooo good, you want to put up with their staffing and management deficiencies. Sometimes you just need a reminder that there are businesses who don't do garbage like that. So here it is.
Click to expand...

I could write a lengthy post on the details, but I will likely refrain from that for now. The only reason I have stayed at my current job is because I am 10 minutes from the airport, which allows me to fly and build hours on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, most other engineering jobs are in downtown Phoenix, Tempe, Chandler, etc. There just isn't a lot of engineering opportunities on this side of town. So I would likely to have to take a job in those areas of town. Which means no flying after work (battling traffic to AND from work). I enjoy night flying, but I do try to avoid it when possible due to the added risk. Not to mention, I could go elsewhere and have them require me to work 50-60 hour work weeks. There are a lot of unknowns that could take a toll on my ability to complete my flight training. Meanwhile my job continues to decline. Were operating on bare bones within my group. My boss left, my main mentor retired. It's becoming quite overwhelming. I've become the Materials Engineering lead on the majority of our programs - I simply don't have the bandwidth to support it all, but we don't have anyone else. The last senior guy in my group will likely retire at the end of this year. I will have the most experience within our group once he leaves and we will be down to 3 engineers within our group (which includes the new university grad who started this week). EVERY single young engineer I worked with when I first started here has left. That's close to a dozen people (doesn't sound like much, but there are not a lot of young engineers here at this site). On the positive side it is good experience. Good resume booster I guess. But it sure is frustrating. Unfortunately, management is good. Upper management is completely disconnected. Our director said, "if you want to promote and move up you'll have to leave the group". LOL. Were one more step from becoming the "Apple of the software industrial world" ha.

If it really got bad enough, I would say screw it, take the loan, get out and go get this done. For giggles I contacted ATP to see what they would charge to get me my commercial, multiengine commercial, and CFI. They wouldn't even take me lol. I'm too far along. They want all your money or none. I was actually pretty surprised they wouldn't accommodate me, but oh well.

If the flying thing didn't work out I could always go back to engineering.
 
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CessnaTom,

I was about to add my 2¢ but re-read your original post and I don't see a "?". Are you looking for advice, opinions, etc. or are you just venting?
 
This REALLY hits home with me. I'm the wife. We are old now but started out much like you. The difference is, I also wanted to fly.

But here is what happened: Babies came along and with babies, something happens to women. Suddenly there is no priority higher. I thought I'd continue working full time but could not stomach the idea of daycare. Suddenly our income was cut almost in half. We had both taken flying lessons in our early twenties and both dropped them to get through college. My husband badly wanted to get back into flying. But I was all about the babies, and about financial security. So we got boats instead.

One day he said, "I'm going back for flying lessons. I don't care what you think I'm doing it and that's that." It's one of the only, if not the only, time he has put his foot down like that, therefore I knew it was something he really needed. Understand, I too loved flying. I "got it", because I had the flying bug too.

But being a mother trumps everything. I did not let him fly my kids until he had an instrument rating and several hundred hours logged. But after he did, we made great use of flying, we have owned three airplanes. I eventually went back for lessons again myself. We flew to visit relatives, flew for vacations, flew to our beach house and our mountain house. I loved GA travel and the kids loved it too.

But it is expensive. After five years off work when they were babies, I went back full time for another five years, then quit again and was home full time when they were teenagers. I solved the work vs stay home dilemma by sequencing. It is not possible for a woman to "have it all". If you work full time, you miss a lot of your children's lives, and it's very stressful for both because Dad must pitch in a lot more. If you stay at home, you have a lot less money. It's a sacrifice either way.

Now we are facing retirement, and as a female I can tell you the top priority now is financial security. Men seem to see retirement as the opportunity to do a lot of fun things they have missed while working, and rightly so, where women see it as 30+ years with no job income, so you better be tight with your money, and also rightly so, especially since statistically the man is going to die long before the woman.

So from my lifetime of experience I will give you my advice:

Marry this woman ONLY if you deep in your soul want her and know her very well, and want children, and want these things so badly you'd bleed yourself dry for them, want them so badly you would even give up flying if it came to that. Because it very well might. Marry her if she is your best friend, and you cannot envision a life without her. If she says she plans to work after having babies, assume she won't. Imagine her fat and grumpy and old and you are poor and cannot afford any fun. If you still would prefer to be with her than without her, then you should marry her.

But if you do, also fight for your flying, like my husband did. But you might find yourself flying alone, looking for places to go and people to share it with, unless you can fly for a living, but that is not a career you want to begin just as you are starting a family.

I think it's normal for women to focus on the ceremony and for men to worry about the future, but that doesn't mean your worries are unfounded. You're doing the right thing to seek input from others. Best of luck to you!
 
Dude...….. you've got to figure this out for yourself. This thread is TL dr but, I did read the first post where you aren't allowed to talk about flying, then a few posts later, that you just have to get married then you can do what you want, so I'm lost. I will tell you, that unless you are making big bucks kids consume most if not all disposable income leaving very little for flying. I hope you figure this out.
 
PaulS said:
I will tell you, that unless you are making big bucks kids consume most if not all disposable income leaving very little none for flying. I hope you figure this out.
Click to expand...

There... fixed that for you.
 
idahoflier said:
CessnaTom,

I was about to add my 2¢ but re-read your original post and I don't see a "?". Are you looking for advice, opinions, etc. or are you just venting?
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All the above.
 
TL;DR don’t have kids
 
Buy a plane now and start. You have nobody to answer to but yourself for a month.

You'll thank me later.
 
Tom, as you can see, opinions vary around here. However there is common thread, that being that the "dont even talk to me about it until ______" that you are getting.......well, many of us have seen that before and it seems universally we all know how it ends. Marriage absolutely is a partnership and it takes metric tons of give and take. The thought of my wife being hurt by something I might do or say is obscene to me, I could never do that. She feels the same way I know because in 16 years it has never happened. We do disagree, sometime disagreeably, but it is never from a position of superiority and never with words or actions whose sole purpose is to wound the other. I say all that to say, each partner must be selfless to make it work. let me repeat that, EACH partner must be selfless, if only one is it wont work out because the other will take advantage of it. You must do some serious thinking about her motives. If they are at all selfish....you are in for a tough ride that will commonly end with you "going along to get along". That is a terrible way to live, in fact it is miserable. Talk to your girl, find the give and take. Always respect her opinion even if you dont agree, demand she do the same. I'll end with this, whoever started the saying "happy wife happy life" was a moron. Good luck Tom.
 
I mentioned this thread to my wife this morning. She said, "you just told me not to make you choose. He needs to do that." She agreed that the grooms role is basically to show up on time wearing what she chose. She finished saying, "He really needs to talk to her about this or he will never get to do it."

So, there is one "airport widow's" opinion.

As for going along to get along, I'd say there is some degree of it in all marriages. It is called compromise, but it can't be all the time or on BIG ISSUES or you will definitely be unhappy in short order.
 
For a lot of women, they've been mentally planning their weddings since they were adolescents, so on some level I can understand her reluctance to clear out the mental space to think about your career change. What I am concerned about here is that once you do get married, she's going to tell you that the idea of doing a career change while starting a family is a bad one. I'm a father of two, and knowing what my life experience is, I sure wouldn't attempt what you're proposing. Young children are extremely time consuming, and moderately expensive. They become a little less expensive as they get through toddlerhood, then start costing more starting around third grade.

You described the two of you as a team. My wife and I are a team as well, but up until recently we played very different roles. When I first met her, I had just turned 39 and she was about to turn 35. We got married a year later, child #1 arrived when I was 42 and she was 38, and #2 when I had just turned 44 and she was three weeks from her 40th birthday. Our eldest is just about to head off to college, and the younger one will be doing so two years from this fall. I will be 62 at that point, so if she manages to get out in four years, I will be 66. She's wanting to go to nursing school, so she may need five years, and I would be 67. Can I stay in the job market that long? Only time will tell.

I believe you said you were 34, and were planning on starting your private training in two years, at age 36. Assuming you'll be working full time, figure you're done in a year, at age 37. You'll probably have spent around $11,000 for 40 hours of dual and 20 solo, plus ground school. Now you need to add your commercial and instrument ratings and get to 200 hours. If you're still working full time, that's going to take another year or two, and cost a bunch more. Once you get to that level where you are going to be trying to fly for a living, what will your income be like for the first few years? I'm guessing not much.

If I could suggest anything to a newly married couple, it would be to try to be done with having babies by the time you were 40. I'm fortunately in very good health and am very active, but it's still kind of wearing to have teenagers at age 60. Also, up until last year, my wife worked very limited hours, less than 10 per week. We are now both full time, and we don't have a lot of free time. I don't want to think what it would be like if we had young children and were both full time. I know one thing's for sure, I never would have attempted to get a private ticket under those conditions. I wanted to go hang gliding, but I waited until my youngest was in kindergarten so that my wife had some time to herself during the week, since I was gone a good bit of Sunday.

I don't think that starting a family and learning to fly at the same time is very practical, unless you have a really large income and a lot of schedule flexibility. I really don't think that starting a family and trying to start an aviation career from scratch at the same time is likely to be successful.

Sorry to be a buzzkill, but if you love aviation, it may be better realized as a hobby rather than as a livelihood. I have a cousin who loved golf, so he became a teaching pro. Now he doesn't love golf anymore, and his income isn't all that great.
 
CessnaTom said:
All the above.
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OK, then here’s one more opinion/take…

I’m going to skip the relationship advice, there’s a whole industry and many resources devoted to that…

First off talk to your friends and seek advice, they know you and your situation much better than any strangers on the internet.

You mentioned in your first post that you liked your job, is it currently a career or just something to pay the rent? In other words, do you have a lot of experience in your field and is that important? The reason I ask is because if you’re looking for an airline career you’re looking at probably two years and at least $70K of debt plus whatever your living expenses are before you will be in a position to be hired. During that time you won’t have much of an income. If you’re currently established in a career, how much money are you giving up? If things don’t work out with flying, would you be able to resume your old career? In other words, what’s the opportunity cost?

Money aside, you will have to put your life on hold for two years. Unless you have a large sum of money saved up that precludes buying a house and starting a family. After a couple of years and once you get that airline job you won’t be around a lot, is your fiancé OK with being more or less a single Mom? Keep in mind that there is no guarantee you’re going to get that dream job and fly at a major air carrier. You may end up at a regional carrier and make a comfortable living, which is great and arguably better if you really like flying. Unless you are one for the few that just LOVE aviation and can’t get enough of it, after a year, maybe two, it will be just another job. And of course there is always the possibility of another economic recession and the inevitable furlough. Back to the old job…

OK, that about covers the doom and gloom. As you probably know, in the current environment, your chances of landing an aviation career are the best they have been in a generation. I wish I was 10 years younger because it would be very tempting… If I was 34 and single I’m pretty sure I would pull the trigger and take a run at it! The airline industry is all about seniority so the longer you wait the less opportunity you will have for the best schedule, most money and adventure. In other words the best lifestyle.

That said, I don’t see how it can be done after getting married unless your fiancé is willing to put the house and kids on hold for at least three years while supporting you in your endeavor…

You have many decisions to make that honestly you should have made a long time ago. Whatever you do, it would be worth getting a First Class medical or at least getting a consult from an AME just to make sure you’re not about to disrupt your life only to find out your aviation career is over before it even starts.

Good Luck with it!
 
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