Want To Be An Airline Pilot- Folks Disagree and I'm Questioning Myself Too

I have no idea. But you're 16 years old. You have time to figure things out, and more than likely you'll change your mind another 10 times before you go to college.

 

Don't let anyone or anything hold you back.

If you don't believe in yourself who will?

It took me a long time to realize that.

 

What would you do every day if you didn't need to worry about money?

 

That's a great question for anyone looking for a career.

 

Whatever it is try to go that direction in your life. Even if it's not feasible as a career, find something that brings you close to it and makes you happy. Too many of us made poor decisions when we were young and have lived long enough to regret them. Don't let that happen to you.

 

Be a pilot. Have lots of sex. Everything else will figure itself out. If you don't, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. If we don't dream, then we're no more than ants; moving from job to job without purpose or happiness. I moved to another country to fulfill my dreams, and I don't regret it for a second. That's what's great about your 20's, you have the time to screw stuff up and still recover.

 

Between my last post and this one we paint a bleak picture for the lad!

 

My uncle is a pilot. It's a cool lifestyle in your 20's. It does put a strain on your marriage and raising your children. Good income but you might have to wake up at any given moment and fly. He told me that with the technology nowadays all you have to do is take off and land, the rest is just punching in coordinates. He ultimately did it because he couldn't cut it as a Doctor.

 

Airline pilots get paid a lot of money because they have to be able to make crucial decisions in a crisis. 99.9% of the job you could train a monkey to do, it's the 0.1% that is where the crucial bit comes in.

If you really want to fly try the airforce, or air arms of the other military fliers. The flying is much more exciting and rewarding, but the financial rewards aren't the same.

 

If you are serious join the air force and see if you can make it as pilot. If you fall short that's ok because you still come out a better man and better prepare with the skills you learned.

 

How's your eye sight?

Are you in good physical shape?

Family health history?

Look for possible disqualifiers.

If you can find a job that's not "like work" all the time when you do it, then you'll know.

Any job can hurt a marriage if it's put above the marriage. Sometimes it's necessary (i.e. long overseas routes), sometimes it's not (i.e. puddle jumper routes). It's all about the sacrifices you want to make.

Focus on your career first. A lady will come along later and then you can work it out.

 

I have a slightly different take than a lot of people. I say find something you LIKE and make it a career and save the things you LOVE for fun.

No matter the career, there are always aspects that take the joy from it. Whether it be dealing with bosses or clients or just the daily rut. Even porn stars call what they do work. Keep what you are passionate about free from all that.

I view it like this, you have 3 sets of 8 hours in a day. 1 set is spent working, another is spent sleeping. That leaves only 8 hours a day for you to do as you please. That is even knocked down by commuting, eating, bathroom, dressing, etc. If you don't save what little time you have everyday for things that qualify as a passion then there's no point in life in the first place.

 

I would fish. Hence my decision to join the pro bass tour... I wish...

 

Did you watch 'Catch Me If You Can' again? Not all pilots can mack like Leo

 

Study medicine, earn a shed load of money then become a pilot. You'll always have medicine to fall back on if planes aren't around by 2015...I'm still waiting for my flying DeLorean Zemeckis, still waiting..

 

Do drugs and bang hookers. Next question.

 

My advice is don't go into medicine unless you really want to help people or really want money, because anything in-between means you will be miserable.
Don't go into law unless all you care about is money, unless you decide to go down the path of something you believe in like environmental law, where you won't make any money

I find, through all the many college kids I used to instruct, that many of them picked pre-med or pre-law because they couldn't find something they really wanted to do instead. Don't make that mistake and waste four years of your life.

 

Everyone who I know who is in law school, is in hell.
Its that ****ing difficult, even for grad school apparently.

 

I was once thisclose to going through that career path. I decided not to but from what I remember the hardest part was getting the job after school.

There are plenty of pilots out there so the competition is really high especially from guys that have flown for the Armed Forces.

If you are willing to take your lumps looking for a gig after school and you love to fly by all means do it. Just remember that way before you even finish school you need to network and try and get on somewhere, anywhere (any airline or even charter) so that you can land the/a job and they dont see you so green. Doesnt mean you need to get a pilot job ahead of time but a job working with an airline/charter wouldnt hurt either.

 

maybe consider a prestigious and thorough flight education in the airforce. you could always goto college first, and then enter the airforce as an officer. i'd have to think thats the absolute best way to learn to fly.

 

Lots of good advice in this thread, so I'll try and come at you from a slightly different angle.

You've said you love sports. It's something your passionate about. This might sound a little off the wall, but depending on your level of passion, you may want to consider how your career path will impact your ability to enjoy these things.

Using myself as an example, I've always been passionate about the Dolphins and football in general since I was a kid. When it came time to work as a teenager and in college, I made sure up front that my Friday nights and Sundays would be free. If that didn't work for them, I thanked them for their time.

In my 25 or so years of fandom, I've missed one Dolphins game (as a teenager, for work). And it just reaffirmed how much I couldn't do without it. As an adult, I stayed that course. And I'm not ashamed of it one bit. It's something that's important to me and, above all, makes me happy.

Basically what I'm saying is, you'll be flying plenty of weekends as a pilot. As was mentioned by others, it comes with an unpredictable schedule. Do you think you'd love flying enough to miss Dolphins games? Or anything else that piloting would conflict with?

 

Two chicks at the same time man

 

George, I sooooo much wanted to post this exact point, I remember working on Sundays during a Dolphin game and it would KILL me to know I was missing them play, it made me sick.

But I didn't post it because I wasn't sure if I was the only one who would consider this a valid reason to consider what you want to do as a career, but since you did I am just going to happily jump aboard.

 

A very relevant point. ONe of the decisions I had to make at the end of graduate school was to either become a professor or go into the pharma industry. The latter option freed up my weekends and gave me the opportunitiy to do the things I love, including football. Of course, my weekdays are much more hellish than a professor's life, but still made the right choice.

 

When are you running for Mayor of DC?

 

Small point:

- Most commercial airlines pilots do NOT make a lot of money. In fact, most of them make crap money. Only the big carriers pay well and there you're faced with insane competition to get hired in the first place. If you don't get in and need to hire at a regional carrier or a low cost airline, you're not getting paid much better than a janitor.

 

It's highly under-rated.

 

Not to be a dick, but I'm pretty sure science is a huge part to not only become a doctor, but also to the everyday of the job.

I (personally) would never consider being any sort of doctor if I didn't like science.

 

Not if you're me and you turn into Peter from Office Space when you get your degree.

Seriously, it is a good question. But I wouldn't worry too much about it right now. I had no clue what my major would be until the end of my sophomore year, much less what my career was going to be. I chose political science because it was really interesting.

From there I thought I wanted to go to law school. I didn't get into the schools I wanted so I took some time off. Two years later I go to grad school and just recently got my masters. And I still don't know exactly what I want to do for a career.

But I have very few regrets. I really enjoyed the college and grad school experience. I'm very different from what I was when I was 16, and for the most part I'm happy about that.

I'm not sure how you would go about being a pilot. But I would assume there is something you can do at a 4 year college to help with that career path. If so I'd go that route and enjoy the experience of having some responsibility but no so much that you can't have a great time.

 

Dude, my grandfather was a Yale graduate pediatrician who was a flight surgeon over Normandy in WWII and he told my sister that it was a better lifestyle nowadays just being a nurse. He said with lawsuits and modern technology it's nothing like the old days of making house calls and what not.

His son (my uncle who I told you about earlier in the thread) started out wanting to be a doctor but found it to be too difficult and then began flying planes as a second option. So trying to be a doctor first is a good idea, but don't discount the lifestyle of an airline pilot either. There is definitely a prestige factor with being a pilot. He once had a job flying the Charlotte Hornets NBA team in NC. He had free home game tickets and a lavish lifestyle that included being a guest on the owner's yacht once a year. He told me once that it doesn't matter how much money you make in life and he went on to say that the owner of the Hornets was the most miserable person he's ever met in his life.

Some food for thought...