Originally Posted by
Mach E Avelli
Plotter you are fortunate if you have a saleable skill. Some pilots (myself included) are not all that good at working for a living. That's why I took up flying in the first place - I tried work and did not like it.
But picking mangoes on an all expenses paid holiday in the tropics; now if I was 20 years younger, needed money and unemployed, I would do that in preference to joining a queue at Centrelink. Dealing with that lot must be quite depressing.
That's true Mach, but as with everything, there is always a trade-off. My years in construction prior to making the switch to aviation has left me in the position of probably being one of those career FO's that someone mentioned earlier, albeit with a solid fall-back option. But I'd pick career FO at 55 over still swinging a hammer at 55 any day of the week.