Kaman
Beech 1900 pilot's; "Fly it like you stole it"
There is much truth in what you say, and it is a VERY easy job once you get through the schoolhouse, and experienced out on the line...It can be a very good career if the timing is right, the company is right, etc...No one can really predict how that all plays out. I have a bit of a different perspective, because for one reason or another my planets didn't align very well and I am working for a regional airline, but live in-base, which is good...I fly an antique by airline standards (DASH-8-100/300), but I DO enjoy flying the DASH. Just this last trip, we had to shoot 2 LOC-DME approaches with a tailwind into a 4400' runway down to minimums...This I DO ENJOY, after all a person of my demeanor likes to fly airplanes...I used to fly something that was very modern, automated and it was...BORING and the pay wasn't very good (concessionary contract, pay scale frozen, work-rules out the window, etc...And, I had a cushy position in the training dept. that went...poof!) Honestly, I feel very fortunate not to be sitting in cubicle hell in some office building for sure...But, I often ask myself if I should have done something different...Then I think to myself I born to an AF family and an AF career officer and pilot, so I dropped out of college, enlisted in the Navy and flew in helicopters as a sensor operator/rescue swimmer and acquired a lifetime of stories to tell that most airline youngsters cannot begin to relate to...
My greatest heroes were always pilots, especially the Naval Aviators that I flew with a young guy that taught me how to behave, how to think and evaluate a situation before going off on some tangent...I flew with some VERY good pilots in the Navy and it has served me well in the cockpit now...Some of the stuff that guys get all worked up over, I don't even bat an eye...After all, I could be in the Persian Gulf on the USS Kitty Hawk sweating my ass off...
