would you encourage your son/relative to fly?

[Seat1APlease]

I now find myself at the end of my career, and if I could wind the clock back to 1970 and get into my 30"waist Second Officer uniform, then I would follow the same path again.

My problem is that I have a relative who is dead keen to fly, and I am making myself unpopular with the rest of the family, by not encouraging him to realise his dreams to be a pilot.

To spend £50,000 of hard earned money on a CPL for what seems a very unpredictable career strikes me as foolhardy.

Why? well:-

1. Salaries seem to be forever being squeezed and the trend seems to be continuing.

2 Working hours and conditions are getting longer and longer.

3 Pensions are a thing of the past.

4 Employers now seem keen to start disciplinary proceedings for little more than asking for ones contracted terms to be complied with.

5 Airlines are closing down at an alarming rate leaving their pilots back at the bottom of the unemployment seniority list.

6 Even with a CPL there is no certainty of finding a decent job.


Sure, there's still the joy of the Alps on a sunny day, or the deep blue of the Aegean when flying to the Greek Islands, but is that enough, what would you recommend?

[Jetstream Rider]

If that is what he wants to do.

1. Salaries - where are they not being squeezed?

2. Work hours - where are they getting shorter?

3. Pensions - thing of the past in most jobs too. Blame the Government. Who else offers final salary now except one or two large companies who are considering closing them too?

4. Disciplinary - Have you tried referring to a female as a "lady" in an office environment - it is insulting aparrently. As is holding the door for someone who is female as we were all told not to (in an office). We live in a litigious society, it happens everywhere.

5. Going bust - airlines always have done, during the last gulf war, the depression before and the depression before that. Major airlines are beginning to recruit, BA even some fATPL holders, so all is not lost.

6. CPL and no job - always a risk, minimise it by getting an aptitude test done etc. It is likely that plumbers will not be able to get jobs soon.

50K+ is a lot of cash, so it takes preparation and thinking about and is not an easy descision. You need backup plans.

What are the alternatives? Assuming your relative is a switched on chap, then what else would he prefer to do? Sit on the ground and regret all his life?

Let see (slightly tounge in cheek)

Law - difficult to get a really decent job and you have to be surrounded by lawyers and generally nasty people all day.

Engineering - no money in it, and you face being shipped out to the far east

City - large chance of redundancy (greater than airlines I reckon) and DULL DULL DULL!

the list goes on....

Seriously there are some great jobs out there. My descision was to go flying as I could fly and then do something else if I wanted, but couldn't do something else and then fly. I made the right descision for me and am very glad. I am off sick right now, I really miss work and want to get back as soon as I can, how many jobs can you say that about?

[noisy]

Aaaaaargh!

I am working towards the PPL at the moment in order to get it over with. Flying purely for fun and planning to get rich doing something else

But right now I am in engineering;

Engineering - no money in it, and you face being shipped out to the far east


I am not God's gift to aviation by any stretch of the imagination but there is the tiniest germ of an idea in my head that I should go all the way and try becoming a commercial pilot. However;

6 Even with a CPL there is no certainty of finding a decent job.

On balance, spending £50-60k and no guaranteed job at the end is Lunacy.

N

[visibility3miles]

Is there anything else they would really enjoy doing if they skip the idea of becoming a pilot? I mean that as a serious question.

Every job has its downside, and times when people wonder why they bothered.

It would probably be just that much worse if they got stuck doing something they didn't like while thinking, "What if..."

You had a career as a pilot. When you were first learning to fly, you had no promise that it would turn into reality. Why didn't you quit and save yourself the uncertainty?

[flyblue]

what would you recommend
I'd give him an idea of what's ahead of him and let him decide.

[Jetstream Rider]

Noisy - Is it more or less luncay than borrowing 6 times your salary and spending half of your take home on a mortgage? I bet a lot of people reading this forum are in that position.

Another example - you buy a fast car and the depreciation is how much?

It depends on your priorities, your dreams and what you want to achieve. If flying commercially is not for you, then let someone else have a go. If you want to get rich join the boring people in the city. I want to be comfortable and enjoy the scenery, as I fly over Africa or Eastern Europe or any of a million places as the sun rises or sets....

I must say here, and perhaps I should have done above, that I didn't spend that much on my licence. I was in the extremely lucky position of being sponsored (and paying it back now from my salary). A colleague of mine took the other route and he now earns more than me, although in real terms probably the same and he will be in debt longer than me.

As a career - fantastic. As a bank manager, possibly not your best investment.

[eggplantwalking]

seat1Aplease,
If you or I were to have been advised early on in our formative years as to which professions were most sensible, it isn't likely that an association with "flying machines" would not have been at the top of most people's list. However, we chose to ignore any and all advice and firmly put out heads in the clouds. To this day I have never regreted the choice I made. In fact, when I walk down the street, I feel a couple of inches taller than everyone else because of the great people I have met in aviation and the unbelievably fantastic experiences I have had. And, generally speaking, my (our) fellow airmen feel the same way as do others associated with aviation. Why not point the kid in the direction we went and let him experience the things and events that only aviation can give.

[Seat1APlease]

I didn't want too say too much at first because I wanted other pilots views.

I was lucky in that I was sponsored and had another string to my bow, so that if things went pear-shaped I had other options.

My heart still says yes, but my head advises caution.

Aviation always has been bust or boom, full forwards or reverse with nothing in between.

I hope the end is in sight of these silly 99 pence fares which are not realistic in the long term, and are dragging the industry down.

Hopefully the industry can re-establish a sensible way forwards whereby the passengers pay a fair price and the airlines make enough profit to see beyond this year's accounts.

As others have said the answer may be to make sure he is aware of all the pros and cons and let him decide.

Thanks guys for the comments.

[PPRuNeUser0172]

If the guy wants to do it then yes I think you should encourage him. Project your mind back 30 years, I am sure there were older guys giving it the, "its not the same as it used to be" Did it stop you, obviously not.

I am not surprised that the family are not keen on you discouraging it, most people when they were wannbies would have loved to have someone in "the know".

Fair enough tell him about the pitfalls then he can make his own mind up.

There are a lot worse ways to make a living, and in this day and age, aviation is no more volatile than a lot of jobs.

[Old Smokey]

Seat1APlease,

If you re-phrased your question to "How do you STOP your wife, your son, and your daughter from flying", I would have to reply that there's no way that I know.

[MkVIII]

All I can say is IT IS IN THE BLOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was never pushed, cajoled, or even encouraged per se - it is something that I wanted to do REGARDLESS when I was knee high to a cat!

You have to chase your dreams - just ask me how I learnt that the HARD way.

[G-ANDY]

My Dad (military) and Uncle (CX) are both pilots and I have grown up into a world of aviation. I'm 22 now and am hour building before starting my CPL and I cant think of anything else I want to do as a career.

Like everyone else says, there is uncertainty in every career. My only concern/worry is that my love of flying might be tarnished by flying the same routes all the time. But at the moment, even flying the post around in a Shorts 360 in the middle of the night sounds good - it beats flying my desk, thats for sure.

My Dad and Uncle have never encouraged me to fly, but deep down inside, I'm sure they're proud to have an offspring who wants to follow in their foot steps - or wake turbulence!!

G-ANDY

[Capt Claret]

Seat1APlease

My oldest son is going down this path too. I wouldn't try to encourage or discourage him, as I want him to make his decision for him, rather than for me.

What I can do, and I would guess you can too, is give him guidance to get the information that he needs, to make the decision and warn him of the pitfalls that he hasn't observed growing up with a flying dad.

[radeng]

The only safe jobs these days are midwife and undertaker.....

[oxford blue]

If you're not turned on by flying then, not only is it an awful job (in terms of pay and condition, compared with what a clever person could get elsewhere), but you'll probabaly fail the course anyway, because it demands so much motivation to succeed.

If you are turned on by flying, you'll go through hell and high water to get there and have the guts and balls (or female equivalent) to get through the bad days. You'll make a reasonable salary, but far less than if you deliberately chose a high-earning profession.

How much is the lad turned on by the prospect of flying? Only he can decide.

For me, there was no choice. It was unthinkable NOT to fly. Is he like that? If not, he should do something else. Becaue otherwise, he'll probably fail his course.

[Krallu]

Hi all!

I think you are on dangerous waters if you try to decide for someone else what to do. You can get a lot of crap later in life from him. You don't know if he will suceed or not.

The only thing you can do is neutrally describe the situation and then let him/her decide. If there are something they still want to do, then I think that person need to be able to go for it. Then I think you would encourage that person and help whatever you can even what your own toughts are.

My suggestions.

[Hudson]

Oxford Blue - right on. The vital thing is to have a second string to your bow, such as a good trade skill. Because for sure you will fall back on it to eat, sometime during your attempts to build a sound flying career.

The saddest things I see include young inexperienced low hour flying instructors festooned with big wings, nameplates,ID cards and gold braid, who owe thousands to their parents or bank manager, hanging around the crew room of flying schools and drinking gallons of coffee, bored witless, gazing out of the window at the silent Cessnas on the tarmac waiting for students who never arrive.