A day in the life of a pilot?

[RedBarron2]

Hello all, I am new here. I am a senior in college and hope to become a pilot after graduation.

For you pilots out there, what is a typical day in your life like? How often do you fly, have you seen your flight hours decrease with the recent move towards UAVs? How does a typical day vary depending on if you are in training or have completed training?

Could you include specifics as well, for example;

What do you fly?
At what stage of career are you at?
Etc...?

Thanks for the info dudes and dudets, I searched around a while here but couldn't find a "day in the life" thread.

 

[Fallonflyr]

Wake up, be awesome, go to sleep.

 

[CommodoreMid]

I assume you mean an aviator on sea duty. I'm a P-8 NFO, so I fly on average less than a P-8 pilot on sea duty, but if we're speaking in generalities, no in my community hours have not decreased due to UAVs. Your average day most definitely varies depending not only on what stage of training you are in, but also on where your squadron is in the home cycle, how many planes/flight hours your squadron has to burn, where you are in the ACTC syllabus and if you're an instructor or not, what duties your ground job demands, etc. In a fleet squadron, depending on all of those factors, you could be facing short 7-8 hour days or 11-13 hour days and coming in on the weekends on your own to catch up on work. I've been on both ends of the spectrum and the last 1.5-2 years in my fleet squadron were on the latter end of it.

 

[wlawr005]

Generally the quality of your day varies proportionally to the amount of times you say "dudettes".

Drop a few of those in the ready room and you're gonna have a bad time.

 

[ben4prez]

While on deployment a few years ago, I wrote these letters home to give people perspective on what we were doing out there. It may provide some insight into your question.

About life on the ship: http://conservativeorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2010/05/adaptation-and-reversion.html

about being in combat over Afghanistan: http://conservativeorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2010/04/combat.html

 

[RMP]

Good reads ^, thanks for sharing.

 

[Ralph]

Don't know how you work 10-12 hrs a day without burning out.

 

[azguy]

Don't know how you work 10-12 hrs a day without burning out.

Are you serious? My whole family works in civ life. My younger brother is the "poor one" and makes more than I do as an O-3. 10-12 hour days are the norm for him.

Do you expect to make $100k+ working less than that you fool?

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Are you serious? My whole family works in civ life. My younger brother is the "poor one" and makes more than I do as an O-3. 10-12 hour days are the norm for him.

Do you expect to make $100k+ working less than that you fool?

+1

I have found as have many of my friends that are now civilians that if you expect to make very good money you are going to be working more than 40 hours a week.

 

[MIDNJAC]

I'd say that there were very few days during my JO tour where I worked less than 12-14 hrs. Many were much longer than that, especially once workups and deployment happened. I would also say that one thing I hadn't realized about deployment/cruise was that there aren't weekends.......you may have a no fly day each week, but if your airwing is busy doing real world stuff, don't count on that. Don't let that scare you.....it is the best job in the world, and if you have a good ready room, you're doing it with all your friends too......

 

[statesman]

1. Wake Up
2. Piss Excellence
3. Kill the Al Qaedas
4. Lift (do you even do it bro?)
5. Chase women
6. Kill more Al Qaedas
7. Lunch
8. Repeat steps 2 - 6
9. Dinner
10. Sleep


*Individual results may vary.

 

[insanebikerboy]

Around where I'm at, when there isn't as much work to be done, out of the office by 2:30-3. Other days, it's sunrise to sunset because there is a lot of work to do.

Oh, and piss excellence.

 

[ltedge46]

Also, remember that eventually you may move to a non-flying tour in which case your workday could become more stable but significantly longer. YMMV.

But, as long as you're still wearing wings, you still piss excellence.

 

[Ralph]

Are you serious? My whole family works in civ life. My younger brother is the "poor one" and makes more than I do as an O-3. 10-12 hour days are the norm for him.

Do you expect to make $100k+ working less than that you fool?

What???

 

[wink]

Are you serious? My whole family works in civ life. My younger brother is the "poor one" and makes more than I do as an O-3. 10-12 hour days are the norm for him.

Do you expect to make $100k+ working less than that you fool?

Lighten up Francis! I don't think it was meant as a commentary on an expectation of X amount of work vs X amount of money or success. I took it as a complement on the ability of our military to work those hours under trying conditions from a young man with limited to no experience pursuing a career, as opposed to working a job. That said, there are tons of 9-5 40 hour a week jobs that pay very fine wages. You don't have to work 10-12 hours a day to have a good life if you are in the right field, with the right education, and have modest expectations (civil service anyone).