Originally Posted by john smith
You seem to have some ingrained prejudice when it comes to low experience pilots flying jets. It just seems to me that you have a chip on your shoulder; perhaps because you were unable to get such a position when you were a low hours pilot, and think that everyone should have to suffer through the same hardships that you had to.
You have just clarified an important point for me, about your problem and the problem of those other low time guys that chase the big shinny jet dream right after flight school.
When did I ever mention anything about "hardships" ? I said I was PAID for every commercial flight I ever flew. Whenever someone paid me to fly an aircraft, any aircraft, I was in heaven. Those 6500 hours I did before joining an airline with large jets were the best years of my flying career. All my good stories are from that period. All my good souvenirs are from that period. Most of my flying experience was gained during that period.
I was not even thinking of flying heavy jets when I had 1500 hours, because I was following the normal path that everyone around me was following. At 1500 hours, I was looking up to become a Curtis C-46 pilot, a Douglas DC-4, a Douglas DC-6 or maybe an HS-748 pilot. My wet dreams were about flying a P-51, a Sea Fury, or maybe a PBY in the Caribbean. I knew the big jets would arrive later, naturally and in due time. And they did. Just like grey hair and baldness do.
Plus I never had huge flight school loans to pay back. I never had more than $10,000 USD in flight training debt in my whole life. And I paid all of my initial training myself. When I had 1500 hours, I read
Flying,
PlaneandPilot,
Business and Commercial Aviation, and magazines about War-birds. Not about airliners. To me, transport category jets were boring buses in which one hauled people in a boring way when one got older. The pilot I admired most was my 30 year old Capt "Duke" who could three point our C-46 on Montserrat's 3300 foot runway (now buried under lava)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Bramble_Airport
So you see, there are two kinds of pilots. The kind that live their dream, and the other kind, your kind, that think that those other pilots living their dreams have a chip on their shoulder and went through "hardships".....
Our very reasons for flying are so different.
I now understand your point of view very well. That statement was so eloquent.......