HeloTeacher wrote:
"Given the choice of 747 Captain or Puma Offshore IFR Captain, my choice was and IS easy.
What do you think it is??"
Well, judging by what a nitwit you are, I'd say helicopter pilot.
It's amazing how helicopter pilots get their panties all in a wad when someone says that we have a sucky career.
To tell an aspiring pilot that making it to the airlines is an impossible dream, or even a ridiculously impractical dream is just nonsense. Just look at how many pilots are employed by the domestic U.S. airlines alone, then look at the number of commercial helicopter jobs in the U.S. Now tell me that the odds of acheiving "success" in both are the same. Get real.
To prejudge that someone will have the abject and irrational love of helicopters that "success" in our industry requires, and he/she will therefore have a "better life" or "enjoy flying more" or any of that other crap I've heard spewed on this forum is just crazy. The original poster of this interminable thread is simply a guy at the beginning of his career who wanted to compare the jobs with an eye toward pursuing one or the other. Then all these helicopter pilots started waxing poetic about their loser, low-paying jobs and how great they are, and what fun old Rob Powell will have if he'll just "go helicopters" and how helicopters compare favorably to flying with the airlines.
Yeah, well...maybe. Then again, maybe not. YMMV, as they say.
I wonder why it's so impossible for helicopter pilots to think that someone would find any other line of work enjoyable? I wonder why helicopter pilots feel so adamantly that they themselves would never find happiness in any other job? (What kind of a ridiculous, self-imposed limitation is that??) ...And why some of them continue in the field for THIRTY YEARS at a pay level that most non-aviators would find laughably pathetic? Helicopter pilots frequently refer to their avocations as "addictions," then get all uppity and defensive when told that most addictions (drugs, internet porn, masturbation) are psychotic or at very least neurotic. But one needn't be Siggy Freud to know that.
As for myself, although some have presumed arbitrary figures for what I would consider a "decent, honorable, and dignified" salary for what we do, I have never mentioned a specific number. I just think that, in general, helicopter pilots are not paid nearly enough considering the qualifications we have to have to even do our jobs and the risk we take every time we pull up on the collective. It does not equate, and those of you who think it does are simply delusional.
But what I find perpetually and infinitely puzzling is the fact that so many helicopter pilots have this self-defeating attitude that we'll *never* make any more than we make right now. They seem to be indicating that "big bucks" (whatever they are) are elusive and we don't deserve them anyway so why try? I don't know how many helicopter pilots over the years have told me in an exaggerated huff, "Oh, we'll NEVER be able to make good money in this business!" Right! With an attitude like that, we never will!
I am 46. I've been a helicopter pilot for twenty years. I have my fixed-wing ratings. Today, if I started with a commuter airline (never mind shooting for the majors), I could finish out my career making $100,000/year or maybe more. (Who knows where the pay is going to go in the fourteen years I have left?) That's not bad. But more than that, it wouldn't take very long at all until I was at a salary/benefits level that FAR surpassed what I was making during my last year as a helicopter pilot. And yes, salary and benefits are important to me. Hate to burst the bubbles of you guys who think we should do this job for free or at a mere subsistence level.
For a young pilot who is just coming into this industry, the goal of a seat in the pointy-end of an airliner is a worthwhile and attainable one. Yes, you'd have to prostitute yourself for awhile to get into the "good stuff." But unlike helicopters, you wouldn't have to prostitute yourself for your ENTIRE CAREER. And, concomitantly, you wouldn't have to justify prostituting yourself for such a long time that you start believing your own crap.
True, it's not all about money. But it's *SOME* about money, because we all have to eat and adequately take care of our families. And frankly, I'm not all that "addicted" to helicopters. It was great fun and I had a good time. But in the end I saw how selfish I was being. So it's over for me. I wish I had quit a good ten years sooner. Good ten years.
Would I do it again? Sure! But only for a little while. Heh- I may be dumb, and I may love helicopters, but I ain't sick. I'd ultimately go airlines. And you know what? I'd love it just as much as I love helicopters. I'm funny that way; I just love to fly.