No one ever said those seats were obtainable to 250 hour commercial pilots.
No but they have to start somewhere.
Could you survive on CFI pay today?
Would you carry liability insurance?
Have a medical plan?
Have kids or a spouse?
I know I'm perhaps in the lucky minority, but even when I was holding down three part-time jobs in school, one of them offered a high but reasonably priced medical plan, that was higher than their plan for full-timers, but it worked out for me.
If I'd have continued the airline/pro flying route in 1994 or so, I'd have been charging $25/Hr as a CFI and dead broke for many many years. It was a bad time in the cycle.
The only people hiring then were the upstart regionals about to rape the industry such as Mesa, Air Wisconsin, and back East, Comair, American Eagle, and the like.
All of them had just learned the "you come to us and pay big bucks for us to see if you can fly our simulator" trick, and flight schools and colleges were cranking out about double the number of pilots that were being hired.
Easily double. Maybe triple.
It's timing. Get in the right year's class and have the right SSN or Last Name so your seniority number beats 2/3 of the class, you might survive the inevitable furlough.
These companies had (and many still have) tenuous or flat-out flawed business models. (Deregulation has been messy. Very messy.)
Right around then was also when the regionals stopped being operated by the mainlines and you didn't get any time toward seniority at the main carrier anymore.
That was a huge change and screwed up a lot of folks. Everyone adjusted, but it hasn't ever been the same since.
Were you "in" before that? 30 years seems to be during that sweet spot of a few hiring classes that moved on through without getting caught in the melee of regionals, and later the RJ craze.
Your rant about "poverty level" flying is amusing. Perhaps that's all you've been associated with.
Ha. Well, I've never met a rich CFI and I'm definitely squarely a GA pilot only, so perhaps.
I've met plenty of *happy* CFIs though, and quite a few who aren't just building time -- they want to stay CFIs and teach.
I've also met a lot more poor pro pilots than I have rich ones. About a ten to one ratio, I suppose.
Granted there are CFIs with contracts to airlines and high-performance GA simulator and Type Ratings places like FlightSafety and Accelerated training companies like PIC -- Hi Ron! -- who (I hope) make a reasonable living at it.
My experiences with those folks so far are nil, other than to lose a CFII to a monster contract that had him in a simulator from sun-up to sundown teaching folks to fly Beech 1900s.
FBO CFIs seem constantly broke. Maybe happy, but broke. Take food into any FBO and watch how fast it disappears. Same with charter pilots. My fishing buddies and I fed a bunch of floatplane pilots for days on the left-overs we brought out of the bush in Northern Ontario after our catches of Walleye were big and we didn't have to eat our packed-in staples. They were really excited. Those coolers saved them a week's salary I'm sure.
I haven't had a need to go beyond Private yet. I still don't, but I miss the challenge of the Instrument stuff. Is it justifiable financially or by the weather where I live? Heck no. It's just a personal challenge.
The CFII I lost was saying the only time we could meet was 05:30 on only a couple of weekday mornings a week...
I politely told him I'm generally worthless at that hour of the morning, and that I appreciated his tough curriculum and organization (rare, by the way) but I wouldn't be his student if that was the only time he could meet. This is my hobby, not my job.
"Fun per dollar" had fallen through the floor.
The contract came up suddenly for him and I could see he was willing to kill himself to finish up FBO students like myself, but that would have been silly. The poor guy was half-asleep the two times we met that early, and I happily paid him in full the time I got paged to work at 2AM and then slept through a lesson, showing up 1/2 hour late.
He was asleep on the couch next to the simulator when I arrived, barely dressed and not prepared to fly even a Sim.
We parted amicably and no harm no foul. But he was the only contact I've had with the "high-end" of the CFI (CFII) pay scale. So far.
I've been in professional aviation for 30+ years. I have many acquaintances that started out like me, worked their way up and made out very well.
I never said it wasn't possible. I just said there's a lot of drop-outs and force-outs who never made it to where you are today. The attrition rate is really high in pro aviation.
People saying they "picked the wrong airline" holds some truth, but sometimes the "good guys" aren't hiring and you need a job.
You take what you can get and hope to [deity] you don't get squashed by the seniority system.
Pro pilots don't compete on skillset once they're established in a company, other than against themselves in the Sim rides and checkrides. It's all about that Seniority number. Nobody says, "That FO is Sierra Hotel! Get him out of the Beech 1900 and move him into 777s! He's going places!"
You bid your line, fly to standards or above because you challenge yourself, and you wait. When someone retires or dies, you move up a rung. If a corporate raider kills your company, you start at the bottom at the next place. You might bypass the turboprops and go back into a mainline, you might not.
I don't think "All ATPs" or "American Flyers" or the ratings mill ilk go around putting that nugget of truth into their flyers for ab initio programs.
It's always "guaranteed interview!" and "fastest way to the left seat!".
Universities are better about the realism, but ERAU, UND, UNU, and my Alma Matter, Metro State... Are selling and pitching almost as hard as the ratings mills, and you're going to be a lot poorer at the end of their curriculum if you're not careful to pay as you go, or have parents/family hoisting you financially up the ladder.
I didn't have that luxury. It was three jobs, school, and little sleep for years. I would have made it to CFI, exhausted and broke but without significant debt.
I got an offer from one of the employers for full-time with bennies. I had to jump. Married to a lovely nurse (an underpaid position if there ever was one!) I travelled extensively as an Appeasement Engineer (er... Field Engineer) and hit the timing right in tech to be managing people 1/2 my age within just a few years. I got to argue with rental car people who wouldn't give me the keys to the car to go to a customer site that the test gear I was carrying was worth more than twice what the car was worth by the time I was a Product Support Engineer at the third "tier" when they said I was too young to rent a car.
Eventually, I learned something about myself -- that I prefer being able to get a job or a raise on merit. I've been the guy told, "No one else in the department is getting a raise this year. Please keep this quiet," and handed a raise and a bonus, more than once.
That's not bragging, it's just how I do business. You hired me for a job, you're not going to regret it. I was brought up that way. You'd better be prepared to pay for it. I know what the rate of inflation is, I know what you're getting paid (I read financial reports), and I know how much money I made or saved you this year. I also know if it's a good or bad year.
Many just don't pay attention to any of that. It's a job. They have other things to do, or kids to raise... Okay. Sometimes they just do the minimum to get by. I don't.
Reminds me of a conversation I once had:
A few years back a crew scheduler commented to me "It's not fair you pilots make so much money, get all that time off."
My reply? "Not my problem you decided to skip career day back in High School."
Heh. Good ol' "Screw Scheduling." There's a whole world of system gaming going on there, but that's a different topic. Computers took all the fun out of that game.
I get it. Really I do. I've had the same conversation with aspiring Junior techs. I'm usually a *little* kinder than telling them they screwed up in high-school, though.
I usually suggest some ways they could wow the boss and move up, or explain that while they're asleep, I'm reading release notes and writing plans for the systems to stay ahead.
In my line of work, they can do that. Move up. In pro aviation the seniority system won't allow it. You bide your time and wait.
It's one thing to "pay your dues" while trying to work your way up. It's another to have a rigid structure as your only career path.
I don't fit well in that system. I could live with it -- and would have -- if my analysis had shown that I would have made it to a livable paycheck in say, five years time.
But I hit the cycle wrong, and I'm okay with that.
I really enjoy the tech work that I do now. I really enjoy that it affords me enough "disposable" income (what an awful word) to own part of an LLC that owns a nice 182. And I think there's still plenty of opportunity out there for those willing to buckle down. Want an "exciting" career in tech? Answer your cell phone at 2AM and *know* how to troubleshoot the problem.
I joke with junior techs... "When the engine is on fire, it's probably too late to break out the Pilot's Operating Handbook." My aviation background of "be prepared for emergencies" serves well in the universally poorly planned and executed IT world.
"What's your out when this goes wrong?" is another oft-quoted phrase I use with gung-ho techs. Straight out of my aviation-addicted head.
Dislikes in tech are inept businesspeople without a profitable business plan trying to muck with computer systems (always a disaster) or outright business liars (I worked for Continental on the ramp right after the Frank Lorenzo rape and pillage stuff - a lot of people hurt by that guy for his own personal gain, and I've seen it repeated in tech companies in the late 90s).
Another downside: I've been on-call now since 1994 virtually 24/7 with a cell phone long before they were common, and it's kinda like holding a permanent Reserve line.
That part isn't great, but my VP shows up when the you-know-what hits the fan. I won't work for guys who sleep through crises that put the company's business at risk. They're the worst people you'd ever care to meet.
I'll also go out of my way to try to make systems work that weren't properly engineered, so we can both sleep at night.
Right now I also have a beef with companies that chop vacation time to nil when you go to work for them. It's ultra-common to hear "non-negotiable" on that one in today's job market. Fine. I'll get my time back eventually in spades, legitimately, if we're playing that way. I write a mean proposal for off-site training. Really, I do. One whiff of hearing you have a training budget and I'm going somewhere. You'll find my arguments very compelling. Timing. Always timing.
You made aviation work for you. It's cool. Very cool.
I've made tech work for me, so far.
I try to add some more aviation accomplishments to my list of "no regrets", and who knows... maybe someday that'll include "CFI" just for the fun of teaching and sharing aviation.
My first CFI flies 777s now. He was broke and hungry when I met him. Divorced. Running ragged.
Awesome teacher, a natural. He passed on to me knowledge that has kept me alive now for 20 years of aviating with a big gap in the middle.
He's had another divorce later. Aviation screwed his personal life for years. He now is happily married again, grandbabies popping out all over, making a wicked good living in the 777, and doing great.
But that is, like you, 30 years in. He started when he was a pup. It wasn't easy. His company has whittled at his retirement, the mandatory retirement age jumped, his bennies have been chopped at, he's been through mergers, he's now treated like a criminal to board the aircraft...
Would I have enjoyed it? Sure! Always enjoy what you're doing. Or change it. There's no second chances.
Did I personally end up a LOT better off bailing out of pro aviation when I did? Absolutely!
The kids going in today have it harder than I would have. I'm in awe of their love of aviation that keeps them eating Ramen noodles in a 20 person crash-pad. They're tough! Really tough! I applaud them.
But I never sugar-coat the fiscal risks they take getting into the pro aviation biz via the airlines.
Almost none are fiscally sound on their balance sheets, no matter how pretty their leased jets are, and there's only a few left with sound management. And world events seriously jack with airlines.
It's a tough biz. There's tough pilots who'll gladly take the jobs. That's very cool. But pro aviation as a primary career for me is water waaaay under the bridge. Or so I think, anyway.
Kent's going to pop in here any second with his, "My Commercial rating got me right-seat time in a jet" story, any second now.
