Look how easy it is to be a pilot!

JB1842 said:
According to Yahoo, you need no training, experience, or a degree to get a $67,500.00 commercial pilot job. Wonder how much training and experience you need to write for Yahoo? I'm guessing not much.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-highest-paying-jobs-you-can-get-without-a-bachelor-s-degree.html
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The article appears to simply repeat what is written in the BLS document that it links to.

Besides, the article was written for the Business Insider web site, not Yahoo.

It is quite true that no college degree is needed for a commercial certificate, or the jobs one can get. The BLS article makes clear they aren't talking about ATP.
 
Jim Logajan said:
It is quite true that no college degree is needed for a commercial certificate, or the jobs one can get. The BLS article makes clear they aren't talking about ATP.
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Here's what the article claimed:

16. Commercial pilots

Median annual wage (May 2010): $67,500
Degree required: Postsecondary non-degree award
Projected job openings (Through 2020): 19,300
Work experience: None
Description: Fly and navigate airplanes or helicopters.
On-the-job training: None

Now how many people that hire commercial pilots are going to take someone with a commercial ticket and no on the job training and pay them $67,500 to tow banners, drop skydivers or patrol pipelines?

Because I'm pretty darn sure no airline is going to pay $67,500 for that level of experience.
 
BurtM said:
Here's what the article claimed:

16. Commercial pilots

Median annual wage (May 2010): $67,500
Degree required: Postsecondary non-degree award
Projected job openings (Through 2020): 19,300
Work experience: None
Description: Fly and navigate airplanes or helicopters.
On-the-job training: None

Now how many people that hire commercial pilots are going to take someone with a commercial ticket and no on the job training and pay them $67,500 to tow banners, drop skydivers or patrol pipelines?

Because I'm pretty darn sure no airline is going to pay $67,500 for that level of experience.
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All I can tell you is that if you review the BLS article they linked to, you'll see the information you quoted is a summary of the information in the BLS article's Table 2 and on page 32.

If the Bureau of Labor Statistics has screwed up the statistics part then you need to contact them and correct them. If there is any fault, it doesn't appear to be with Yahoo or the author of the Business Insider article. And to be clear, the BLS article defines the "Commercial Pilot" group thusly:
"These pilots fly and navigate helicopters or aircraft on unscheduled routes. Their jobs are different from those of airline pilots, who fly on scheduled routes, usually for major air carriers. Commercial pilots may fly helicopters or planes that monitor traffic, spray pesticides on crops, or transport people to hospitals. Some fly private jets. Others are flight instructors."
​
 
Jim Logajan said:
All I can tell you is that if you review the BLS article they linked to, you'll see the information you quoted is a summary of the information in the BLS article's Table 2 and on page 32.

If the Bureau of Labor Statistics has screwed up the statistics part then you need to contact them and correct them. If there is any fault, it doesn't appear to be with Yahoo or the author of the Business Insider article. And to be clear, the BLS article defines the "Commercial Pilot" group thusly:
"These pilots fly and navigate helicopters or aircraft on unscheduled routes. Their jobs are different from those of airline pilots, who fly on scheduled routes, usually for major air carriers. Commercial pilots may fly helicopters or planes that monitor traffic, spray pesticides on crops, or transport people to hospitals. Some fly private jets. Others are flight instructors."
​
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OK, you win, good for you.
 
I think the basic problem is that tracking things like work experience required and degrees required doesn't really tell you anything about what it takes to become a commercial pilot. As for no on the job training, I would think that the recurrent training required for many operations would qualify, if nothing else.
 
BurtM said:
OK, you win, good for you.
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Not trying to be argumentative or trying to win anything, just trying to be informative. I find the numbers in the BLS article to be little white lies, so understand your annoyance with them.
 
BurtM said:
Median annual wage (May 2010): $67,500
Degree required: Postsecondary non-degree award
Projected job openings (Through 2020): 19,300
Work experience: None
Description: Fly and navigate airplanes or helicopters.
On-the-job training: None
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Note the first line - especially the word "Median" - you won't find an entry level job paying that much - which is exactly what you'll recieve if you have no work experience and not much education. Median spans the range from first commercial paycheck to experienced 777 captain in international routes.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Not trying to be argumentative or trying to win anything, just trying to be informative. I find the numbers in the BLS article to be little white lies, so understand your annoyance with them.
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No harm, no foul.

Someone mentioned that the $67k/yr number excluded ATPs. If that's true, than how would someone reconcile that $67k/yr number? There are a bunch of people working at subsistence wages flight instructing, doing pipeline and powerline patrols, banner towing and so on. I'd count hauling checks, but that business is disappearing, just like it did for the people that hauled photographic film to and from the labs not that many years ago. Who's getting the big bucks that raises the median to $67k?
 
Gee, I had no prior experience and my employer gave me training and room and board. (I did have to get a degree first however.) Took a long time to hit the median listed in the article. :D
 
airguy said:
Note the first line - especially the word "Median" - you won't find an entry level job paying that much - which is exactly what you'll recieve if you have no work experience and not much education. Median spans the range from first commercial paycheck to experienced 777 captain in international routes.
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And median isn't the same as mean. Folks always miss little stuff like that in these types of reports. Easier to look at graphs and charts with skewed axes.
 
I've said it before, statistics can be tortured sufficiently to reveal whatever the authors intent is. All the BLS article proves is that there are people holding jobs, being paid well, without any college degree. While that may be quite true, what is not mentioned is you don't start off at the top pay. When I started in Information Technology (then Data Processing), I was making $1.85 an hour. It took me several different companies to break $10K annual. It took changing to Operating Systems Specialist (or aka systems programming) to further accelerate my salary.
When I fill out those surveys, I click off no degree. All my OS experience is either OJT or self educating. Though I started in an associate degree program, what I did (accounting) had nothing to do with IT. All it did is get me a job for pay, running the college computer after 4PM.
As to the ATC and Commercial Pilot not having any formal training, we all know that's BS. You don't learn to direct planes nor fly them without some serious training time. It's not necessarily a college degree you need, but you do need some serious training. It ain't cheap which this article implies a high paying job without formal training can be had.
Didn't Mrk Zuckerburg drop out of college to build facebook? Now reportedly worth BILLIONS, wouldn't just his stat skew her results?
 
BurtM said:
I loved the part about the nuclear reactor operators not needing any more than a high school diploma.
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QMJobCrop.jpg
 
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