Ask Lemmy

Airline pilot.

Sucked at school. Lousy student. Poor grades. But loved planes.

Sucked all the way through high school, even though I took an aviation intro course available at the school. Still loved planes, but liked mechanical stuff too.

Directionless at community college. Couldn’t find anything to hold my interest. Wasted a year.

Worked some odd jobs, picked up a steady, boring job that paid shit. Knew this wasn’t going to work long-term. Knew I liked working with my hands, so went to a vo-tech and aced it. Loved mechanical stuff, made the best GPA I’ve ever had. Honor roll, etc., got certifications for mechanical stuff, etc.

Decided to take a shot at flight school as a Hail Mary, and got accepted at a good college program (degrees were required at the time to get an airline job, not anymore today). Got all my ratings including instructor ratings and an aviation degree. The aviation degree was stupid because as soon as I got my first job the degree was useless, you’ve got nothing to fall back on like if you’d have gotten a business degree or an IT focused degree.

Took a few years of being an instructor pilot to get enough experience to land an ok regional pilot gig, and almost 20 years total to get a “real” airline job thanks to 9-11 and other economic downturns.

Basically poverty wages for my first 18 years of aviation career. Food stamp poverty level for over a decade.

Lessons learned: just because you’re a shitty student doesn’t mean you can’t find success. It won’t be a straight line for lots of us.

Grades do matter. If I hadn’t done well in the vo-tech program I wouldn’t have been accepted in the good school.

Spread out your options. Get a major in digital art? Get a solid minor in business admin. You can be a manager anywhere, and having the business degree will help you not get screwed by people trying to underbid your work or leech off you for your “exposure.”

If you have shot at success (whatever that is to you), sometimes it takes a really long time. I thought about leaving the job field many times. It sucked many different ways. Out of all the 29 people I started my “class” with at my first small regional job there were only 5 of us left after 15 years. People quit, left the field, had families, tried other aviation jobs. Some succeeded. Some didn’t.

Today’s aviation is different that it was when I started. I think things are slowing down, but the low pay I started with ($1k/mo as an instructor, $12/hr as a turboprop pilot (note - you got paid by the flight hour, 60-80 hours a month)) has been reversed and people get paid more as a new hire than I did after flying 15 years. The industry you work for today will change a lot over time, FBFW.

I’m still reeling from the decades of shit pay. Looking from the outside I should be pretty well off, but I’m cramming money into retirement accounts as fast as I can because this job has a mandatory retirement age, so I have to make up for all the money I didn’t have available to put into retirement and the fact that I’ll be out of a job sooner than I think. IOW, far less discretionary money. (Another lesson, save your money in a good retirement account ASAP.) I’d be a cash millionaire and then some if I’d had the money to save over the last couple decades. So we live in an older home in a cheaper area with decade+ old cars that are near or past the 6-figure milage mark. Not the more Upper-middle class life you’d expect from someone in a major airline making decent money.

Best part? I get to fly planes all over the country and now a larger part of the world. Worst part? Took a long time and being poor to get here.