Quote:
Originally Posted by Giesemaschine
You only live once, I'm glad you have figured out what makes you happy in life.
I'm 31 years old, working on getting my PPL and hope to be doing what you do within the next 5 years. I was worried I was too old, but I quickly learned that you are NEVER too old to pursue a lifelong dream, or do something you love (even if it means a 60% paycut - worth it). It's a long road ahead of me, but reading your post has given me a kick in the ass and the motivation to REALLY stick with it to get my training done. So thank you for sharing this.
The PC-12 is a gorgeous plane and looks fun as hell, CONGRATS!
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the only thing sadder than a dream you don't pursue, is one you walk out on.
now given, when i fulfilled my dream of becoming an airline pilot back in 2005, the industry was still feeling the effects of 9/11. I was one of the first pilots hired by the company i worked for after a near 4 year freeze on hiring. I was faced with an 8-10 year upgrade time to get a captain seat, and the more reasonable pay that came with it.
In the mean time i would have to just deal with the sub $25,000 annual salary. That proved too great a burden. No way i could save money to buy a home, for the first year i was borrowing a family member's vehicle to get to work. Twice i had to call in because the transmission had failed in the vehicle i was borrowing. the realization quickly set in that i had attended years of tech school and sweated it out as a flight instructor just to "swing landing gear" for "+/- $20K a year and that realization made the "dream" into more of a nightmare.
its not that i didnt love flying, its just that i couldnt make a living at it.
for whatever reason, that has changed. I like to point at the "colgan air law" which mandated that airlines couldnt hire a pilot or any pilot position unless he met vastly increased minimum experience requirements.
In the old days, if you had the required licenses and 400 or 500 hours in the logbook, no matter how warm the ink was, you could be hired to right seat in a flashy regional jet. All that changed when a Colgan Air Dash 8 made a flaming nasty crater in a neighborhood in Buffalo, New York
suddenly you have a lot of pilots fresh out of school who just werent able to be hired, which kinked the hose that was once flowing fresh pilots to seniority lists at airlines all over the country.
now it seems the pilot bucket needs to be filled back up at lots of airlines, EAS companies, regionals etc... and the slow trickle coming out the end of the hose is creating a lot of competition for companies thirsty for fliers. $20,000 bonus if you sign a 2 year agreement with Company A, $25,000 bonus if you come to Company B, $45,000 bonus if you have airline experience and come to Company C etc.
Some companies arent offering bonuses simply because they are already a revolving door for pilots seeking experience. but most companies are.
I turned down a $45,000 cash offer with an immediate captain seat on an E-175 simply because it meant a two year commitment as a reserve captain in LaGuardia or Chicago. It wouldn't require me to move there. I could still live in the greatest place on Earth... Texas
but i would have to maintain a secondary residence known as a "crash pad" in New York or Chicago and commute there and live there 4 days a week. (picture an apartment full of sleeping bags and bunk beds except for in the kitchen) no thanks. i wouldnt live in either of those places for 2 years for $100,000 bonus.
Being an EAS company, i wont go to a wide variety of places. a few locales in New Mexico, a couple in Texas, Tennesse and Alabama. 3 legs a day. starting normally around 7am and done by 1pm, or starting around noon and done by 7pm. typically 4 days on 3 days off. If my wife wants to make dinner plans with our friends, or throw a back yard BBQ next Saturday ill be able to tell her "Saturday wont work but Sunday is good" instead of "Have a good time and send me lots of pictures" or "ill be able to make it if you host it in November"
My job in the insurance business paid me well. I wont divulge the exact annual income, but 2017 was in the ballpark of a quarter of a million dollars. Unusually high earning year, but my typical annual income was still in the 150K-180K range. I had to go a lot of places and do a lot of things i didnt want to have to do, and suffer through a lot of stress, rope and harness off on 2 and 3 story roofs with very steep and complicated designs, I had to complete sometimes complex and involved insurance investigations, correct large and complex estimates which were generated by other people which contained a number of errors and omissions while having little original information or inaccurate and incomplete diagrams to go on.
even maintain calm on more than one occasion while trying to deal with combative, angry, frustrated people who were talking to me the way i wouldnt talk to a stray dog. The job saw me cussed at by women well into their 80s, thrown off peoples property, i've had my truck broken into three times. all the while i have to tell my wife on the phone it will just be 4 more months before im released from the project and can come home. The job certainly had its redeeming qualities too dont get me wrong. I provided an elderly widow a $10,000(+/-) settlement for the replacement of her roof due to hail damage once and she went into tears of absolute, honest, sincere gratitude. I was only doing the job i was sent to do, investigate, estimate and settle her claim... but i will never forget the pride i felt at that moment in helping this woman out. it was a very moving experience to be honest. I remember handing her the check and she just looked at it and said to me "Nobody has every given me this much money at one time in my life."
But if i have to choose between doing all that for +/-$150,000/Yr and flying a PC-12 or something similar 3 legs a day 4 days a week for $60K a year
toss me the keys cowboy! where do i sign?
good luck with your own pursuits. If i have learned anything the last seven years in the insurance business its that success belongs to the man willing to show up early, stay late, and put up with the crap nobody else wants to deal with.
hopefully that attitude will serve me well in my new endeavor. I suspect it will.