?two roads and i can only travel one?

[carlbruno]

As i sit here tonight i am faced with probably the biggest decision i will ever have to make durring my lifetime. i am torn do i listen to my parents or my closest buddy?
i am 17 years old and i am a senior in high school. my father was an air traffic controller he was left with out a job after regan fired all the controlers. left with no back up he has been going on job to job for the last 25 years never to be happy with a job again. my friend is about 32 years old he is a furloughed pilot with delta and a lieutennant in the USANG.
i want to be an airline pilot, this is my dream as it allways has been. my choice is:
A) my parents way; go to suny maritime get a deck licence learn to drive the tankers work 3 mo on 3 mo off. starting sallary 60,000. get my pilots licences (private, instrument, cfi, cfii, cfmi, commercial) while in school with flight safety intl. or similar. and then use the maritime $ as a back up and a job while im waiting for an aviation job. flying durring the off time. the college is 4 yrs

pros as i understand them- back up plan, good $ source, way to pay for hours and atp if worst comes to worst

cons- who wants to be on a ship in the middle of no where, maritime degree, lack of hours upon graduation, ?inferior training?
no internship prog? only fly on weekends, not as many hours

now my pilot buddy is suggesting a different route:

B) go to florida tech, embry riddle, dowling for their fligt program
get an aplicable degree in aviation management with flight (private, instrument, multi, comm, cfi,cfii,cfmi) get in with their internship program and hook a commuter job and well u know the deal

pros- aviation degree aviation school, fly all week, time to do instrutor stuff, internship prog, ?superior flight training?

cons- !?!?WHAT IF!?!?!? i cant get a job?
get stuck in the commuters?
how to live on a 1,200 salary a month?
limited low paying management job as backup


i just want to fly asap and with the best possible training. which do u think is the best route for me to take?

DONT FORGET TO VOTE!!!!

[jorvad]

Go for the flying training full time, get the commuter job and see what happens from there. Lots of pilots in Australia are happy not flying with the majors. Personally, I always had the dream to be a major airline pilot but grew to really enjoy regional airline flying (commuter). Why would you be stuck with a commuter airline anyway? Give it a go!!

Safe Landings.;)

[scroggs]

Carlbruno,

don't take this as trivial carping; it's important whichever career you decide to follow. I assume you are a native English speaker? If not, I apologise - but this is still important.

In either aviation or the marine industry, you will be expected to be able to express yourself clearly, accurately and concisely. When you are asking advice of people already in the field, show them the respect they deserve and make your question easy to read and understand. Your somewhat rambling post is barely worthy of a child in 3rd grade. I'm sure you can do better...

[Send Clowns]

Don't underestimate the Maritime degree or over-emphasise the aviation degree.

Pilots don't need a degree, so no specific degree is very helpful as a pilot, though if it gets you work within the industry it may help you get a job. You yourself mentioned that the back-up careers the aviation degree allows you are poor management jobs, and that the maritime back up has good pay and time off (for hours building!). For your CPL and eventually ATPL exams the aviation degree may help, but so will the maritime degree - I come from a Naval background, and my Royal Navy academic training helped a lot with my JAA ATPL exams - enough that I now teach the course!

As for the flying training if you carefully select your school you can have excellent training. Having flown from Ormond Beach Fla, so in the air with Embry-Riddle students, I am not especially impressed with their training anyway. Their procedures were not always correct or even safe, and considering they were being trained for international aviation the fact that they all seemed to use RT which is illegal outside the USA and extremely dangerous (made illegal after it caused 800 deaths in the most deadly air accident ever) did not strike me as very professional. As often is the case try to find the right organisation for you, and then go and train with them, and you may well find one outside the university system that is excellent.

[Flying Chicken]

It has taken me to the tender age of 36 to realise that over the years my parents have always known best. My advice would be to go with your folks. I know it's tough to admit that they are right - but I'm afraid it's usually true.

[FRIDAY]

Well already you see different points of view, Of course your parents are reluctant to see you in the aviation industry as is did'nt work out for your father and the industry is very unstable at the moment they would prefer to see you settled and sure of an income as most parents would including mine.
BUT its your life, you will have to wake up every morning and live it, a stable job and secure income is grand but job satisfaction begins to influnce everything and it can make your life hell.
Point is you could choose a safe option but live with regret and unknowing what may have been in aviation for you, you may of course take the pilot route and fail but at least you tried.
It comes down to your will and shear determination to fly for a career. I have a stable job in engineering and a wage that would equal a senior pilots income and then some but ever since I was a young boy I've wanted to fly. I would rather hang around an airfield and fly, clean/fix airplanes do anything in the industry that would aid me in landing my first job, I would work a crap night job to survive on the basics for the duration and I am talking years if needs be.You will of course read posts here and hear stories off people in the industry warning you its not all its cracked up to be blah blah blah in one ear out the other as far as I am concerned.
I know what I want as do plenty of other wannabe's , stop pondering what may be and do it, get your training/qualifications
fire out those c.v's push push and push some more, talk to people and network,its what you have to do because already there are hundreds of competitors out there for the same job regardless of current industry lows. What is a sure thing in any industry, aviation is not extra special, its a career, pilots are hired when needs be and those in the right place at the right time with the qualifications and the right ATTITUDE will get the job it may take you years but just think how you will live your life with the job you wanted or how you would live your life and the open waves, one option is for you and you should know deep down!

[Desk-pilot]

I am 33 and have taken the 'safe option' of an office job for the past ten years when all I ever really wanted to do was be an airline pilot. I make a decent living but have come to realise how unfulfilled I am.

Don't waste ten or so years as I have doing something you don't want to do - making the commitment to train as a pilot gets harder not easier as you become older and more settled. I've just come back from a trip to Ireland where I had the pleasure of a jump-seat both ways (I work for an airline on the ground) and can tell you - when I was up there on the flight deck I felt ten years younger, happier than I do during sex and knew as I have always known that this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. If you feel that way too then nothing on earth apart from flying will make you truly happy.

Don't listen to your friend or your parents - listen to your heart.


I have at last and it's the best feeling in the world - I have indicated my desire for severence this morning and hope to start training this Summer and I feel elated.

Desk-pilot

[RTDC9]

Hi, reading your posting brought back memories. I like you had a desicion to make back in 1993 when I had to chose a college. I liked the water and all it had to offer but I liked flying even more. At the time, airline pilot hiring was pretty flat. They were hiring as pilots retired and a few extra for growth. As I said, I liked the sea and I lived in Boston at the time. I figured that I would go to Mass. Maritime and get my ratings during college on the side and gradually built my time to hopefully get picked up by a commuter. My parents and friends said I should go to a aeronautical college to fully concentrate on flying. My gut wanted to go maritime because jobs were readily available and I could afford extra training after college.
I listened to my parents and after researching ended up at FIT! . The school was nice but over rated as to the amount of actual flying time. Before accepting, the college admin and flight staff told me anything I wanted to hear to get me into the school. My 1st year I was only flying 3.0 hours per week. It was not before the middle of my second term did I get my private. I did meet a lot of JR's and Seniors there and they told me the real world. FIT considers a job placement as getting someone a CFI position anywhere in the country. Yes, a very select few did get beginning positions with small commuters. Seeing this, I knew I had to change the way I was going about this. After the first year I left FIT and went maritime, it was a fight but I did it. Finished maritime with a 3.75cpa and a CFII rating. I got my first choice of jobs after graduation on a American flag car carrier. 850 ft freighter that held about 1,000 cars. The stint was based out of Boston we would take European cars that came into port and ship them down to Baltimore, Jacksonville and New Orleans. Once there we took Japanese cars from New Orleans and did the trip in reverse. In total RT was 3 weeks and were never more than 20 miles of shore. I did 4 trips in a row and clear 28K after taxes. Then went to Flight Safety to pick up advanced ratings and was hired on as CFI. I did that until I ran out money which was about 9 months. I then went back and did 2 more stints at sea and picked up more cash and went back to FS. About 8 months later was I picked up by Continental Express. FS got me the interview, they had 20 openings and 500 resumes. What convinced the chief pilot to select me was my maritime background. He said that I was "thinking outside the box" meaning I had gone a different route to obtain my ratings and that I had current experience in a highly responsible job. He figured that if I could run a 500 million dollar ship and cargo that I had already proven my leadership capatilites and showed that I can accept responsibilities. Kiddingly he said an aircraft only cost 25 million. I worked my way up the ranks and was flying rt seat in a DC9 beginning march 01. Then 9/11 came and I and 2500 pilots were gone. Seeing that it might be a long stretch I went back to my old shipping company back in Nov. and worked for 3 months. In March I went out west and picked up my 737 rating and now I have an interview with Southwest in May.
To sum things up, I have no regrets going the maritime route and actually think I'm ahead of the game over my friends that stayed at FIT. It's your call but I was reading other posts and thought you should hear another view. Good Luck