New student, worried about prospects

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oneflyguy

Filing Flight Plan
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oneflyguy
Hey, everybody. I'm a new face here, looking for that little bit of advice that my Jeppesen books don't seem to cover...

As of the summer before last, I'm a new student to piloting, and I'm really enjoying it. Going in, I had the idea that I'd like to make a career of it. I've been getting lessons in edgewise when the availability of funds and instruction overlap... but it has been slow going. Now, nine hours and thirty-some landings into my logbook, I'm liking it more than ever.

But I'm worried.

I'm entering my second year of college at NC State University. Aerospace Engineering intent, and I think I can do it. I'm worried because being at college grinds my flight training to a halt. I've got a few books I can review, and I've hit them pretty hard, but I know they're no substitute for real practice.

Specifically, my Jeppeson private pilot manual suggests that aviators who want to make a living off it should consider attending flight schools or universities which specialize in this sort of instruction... and NCSU is nothing of the sort. Will grinding through a public college for the degree be any crippling blow to my (hopefully) career in aviation, granting that I wouldn't be able to afford future instruction at a dedicated flight school?
 
Well, aerospace engineering doesn't have a medical to lose, pays the bills decently, and has no mandatory retirement age. But it doesn't usually involve being PIC.

You have a decision to make. Aviation as an avocation among aerospace engineers is not rare.
 
Don't go to embry riddle. I graduated from there and I wish I had gotten some degree other than professional aeronautics. Keep chipping away at the aerospace engineering degree because that will net you at least one job that will let you pay for flight training AFTER you graduate. I flight instruct right now and drove a van for a local airline hoping to instruct for them next summer. It is not good money.

Get the engineering degree, worry about flying after. The flight only degrees are not worth in IMO.

Creds: ERAU grad, SEL/MEL/SES commercial, SE/ME instructor, instrument airplane.
 
oneflyguy said:
....my Jeppeson private pilot manual suggests that aviators who want to make a living off it should consider attending flight schools or universities which specialize in this sort of instruction...
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Wow, that's total BS, yeah that's actually making me not want to buy jep stuff anymore.

ERU is a overpriced joke, maybe half a step up from ITT tech. North Dakota has a real university that's priced nicely and has an aviation program.

Another option is to do your training privately and transfer your credits over, enroll in something like Utah Valley University online and get the degree while flight training, probably save some $$ too.
 
Seems pretty redundant to get a degree in professional flight. Don't you think a degree in something else to fall back on would be a better plan? I'd say stay in aeronautical engineering.
 
Think about what Jepp is in the business of selling, and to whom.

Now think about what your business is and what you're "selling" if you want to fly for a living.

Think about how Jepp can use your fears to sell their stuff.

Welcome to the awakening. Plan accordingly. Fly if you want to fly. Degree if you need it to fly for whomever is hiring. Jepp's opinion and sales tactics really have very little to do with your life.
 
Thanks for the advice. I do try to reassure myself that it'll be better to have a career that's there even when the aviation isn't.
 
I doubt aviation is going anywhere, I mean its part of life.
 
But the money and opportunity to access it won't always be there, I mean.
 
An engineering degree will bring the money to pay for flying. Don't do what I did. I bought the hype and now I make about 1700/month take home working about 80 hours a week but only getting paid for about 45. (This includes driving back and forth and outside study and etc.) Engineering is money. Flying is for fun. I found a doctor to marry so I am more inclined to go gravate towards a career in flying.
 
OP,

Your plight is not unique. I did aerospace engineering in college under the auspices of "backup value" and having a pointed interest in flying airplanes. I even got a Masters Degree in the same. I fly jets for the Air Force Reserves full-time now. I never did a day of engineering work after i graduated. But I would have never pursued a mickey mouse professional aviation degree. That's a poor vocational choice and offers no upside. I completed my ratings part 61 on the summers in between college semesters. Being in college was never really an obstacle to pursuing flight training. Like I said, I just did them in the summers. No sweat.

To be honest, I don't see this as a question of flight training. This smells to me like a soul-search about the engineering pursuit on your part. BTDT. Here's the thing: Figure out early if you're truly sincere about pursuing engineering as an actual backup career. I was very intellectually dishonest in pursuing the degrees I did. Just because it's labeled "aerospace" doesn't mean it's going to quench your desire to fly airplanes. Professional pilot ranks are riddled with engineering graduates, aerospace included. There's a reason for that.

If you don't sincerely see yourself drudging away at an engineering desk in the event you can't make a living as a pilot, don't go through with the academic haze of engineering school. Pick something you can actually tolerate. I was in the process of applying to entry-level CFI gigs in the Southeast US when I graduated from aerospace engineering grad school. Tells you where my head was at. Parents about stopped talking to me. I got lucky that I found a Reserve unit to sponsor me to pilot training two months after graduation. Of course that was after 3 years of applying aggressively since graduating undergrad. Wasn't what I wanted to fly initially but it got me out of the soup kitchen line and into the privileged world of military aviation. The rest is history.

Life sucks without money, but life's too short to hate what you do for a living. The goal is balance.
 
Do well in engineering school and it will afford you the option of the flying after graduation. My sister has an AE degree from Georgia Tech, spent 4 years in the USAF (was ROTC), and has had a great career as a flight test engineer for McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing. On the side she is a tailwheel and aerobatic CFI. If the big iron is what you want, there is more than one path to get there.

Jeff
 
James331 said:
Wow, that's total BS, yeah that's actually making me not want to buy jep stuff anymore.

ERU is a overpriced joke, maybe half a step up from ITT tech. North Dakota has a real university that's priced nicely and has an aviation program.

Another option is to do your training privately and transfer your credits over, enroll in something like Utah Valley University online and get the degree while flight training, probably save some $$ too.
Click to expand...

Gucci Pilot said:
Seems pretty redundant to get a degree in professional flight. Don't you think a degree in something else to fall back on would be a better plan? I'd say stay in aeronautical engineering.
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Agreed. You're Aerospace Engineering is a WHOLE lot better than an Aeronautical Science degree. My dad has the "degree" from ERAU and flies for Delta now. I'm really glad he told me not to do it. He told me to get a degree in something else. I'm currently a student CUNY Queens College finishing up my last year pursuing an Economics degree. I will have most, if not all the ratings that an ERAU graduate will have but I won't have thousands of dollars worth of debt. Try finding a job at the airport, network, and meet some people with planes that will take you up.
 
nimdabew said:
I bought the hype and now I make about 1700/month take home working about 80 hours a week but only getting paid for about 45. (This includes driving back and forth and outside study and etc.) Engineering is money. Flying is for fun. I found a doctor to marry so I am more inclined to go gravate towards a career in flying.
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Once you get a bit over a thousand hours that'll pick up, low pay and low hours go together. Also why are you working for free?

Also a degree in anything does not = money, there is much more to it

As time goes on degrees are going to be going down in value, as it stands a housewife with a few hours a day can get an fully accredited masters through her ipad.

Short of going to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, etc a degree isn't appreciating in value nowadays. Guys at my work are getting their bachelors and masters in their free time online at work.

You want money, network, have a few brain cells to rub together, and hustle, that will make you money in ANY industry.
 
Even if there was nothing else going for me, I am confident in the Aerospace discipline as a career interest for me. I've been attracted to and academically on point for engineering work since my earliest years, and I'm confident that at least that much won't fall out from under me.

And my record is promising. One of those "résumé-has-everything-but-a-job" types. I think, when it comes down to the wire, I'll be able to sort out the details so long as I'm on track with the big picture.

I can't thank you all enough for your input. There's no substitute for hands-on experience, and I've only had a chance to really talk with one lifestyle pilot before now.
 
My take on professional flying as a career prospect: dismal. There is no question that non-passenger flying (freight, crop dusting, etc) is going be automated. The technology to do it doesn't have to be invented, it exists now. Eventually airline flying might be reduced to just one pilot. It won't eliminate a pilot for a long time because of pax anxiety.

On the other hand, there's going to be significant demand to design and build these large, drone flyers. So stick with engineering and fly as a hobby.


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Buggsy2 said:
My take on professional flying as a career prospect: dismal. There is no question that non-passenger flying (freight, crop dusting, etc) is going be automated. The technology to do it doesn't have to be invented, it exists now. Eventually airline flying might be reduced to just one pilot. It won't eliminate a pilot for a long time because of pax anxiety.

On the other hand, there's going to be significant demand to design and build these large, drone flyers. So stick with engineering and fly as a hobby.


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How long have you been a professional pilot?

As for your drone idea.... lol, yeah and I'm reading this right now from my flying car as my robotic maid folds my boxers :rofl:

Drones are cool, but they ain't the solve all and have and will always have some major limitations.

Some day soon one will pile into a large airliner or something and there will be some major carnage, that will all but cripple the drones. It's sad, but that day is coming, read the NASA callbacks on it, right now were just playing Russian roulette, click click click
 
I don't know about all that... a UAV crashing into an airliner would be a failing on the part of air traffic control, right? Because they're still manually controlled...

And I'm pretty sure drone technology has yet to see a lot of proliferation before its limitations really start to hold it back. I mean, even Amazon is gunning for a drone-based delivery system. It's an industry which is, if you'll pardon the intended pun, really taking off.
 
@James331 FTW in complete lack of imagination and even simple extrapolation. Everything is controlled by economics, and the entities that own aviation businesses would love to dump the flight crews for the cost savings, if nothing else. The US Marines recently completed an experiment using unmanned supply helicopters in country, great success (http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/ne...-to-keep-k-max-unmanned-cargo-helicopter.html).

Software connected to commonly available autopilots, can fly your experimental aircraft from flight down to the best available runway, accounting for aircraft flight characteristics, terrain, and winds (http://www.flyingmag.com/we-test-vertical-power-vp-400). Sold for maybe a year, don't know why it's no longer on offer, maybe liability?

Flying has to be one of the easiest tasks to automate. Car driving is much harder and that has been solved for the freeway, not quite yet for the city.

As for am I a pro pilot and the robot maid, both irrelevant distractions.

The biggest impediments to this are legal and societal inertia, which is why non-pax flights will be the first.


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lots of good advise but you are going to have to find your own way. Back in high school i wanted to fly at any cost. I decided my path to the airlines was to fly for the military first. That meant a college degree and so why not get an aerospace engineering degree since I thought I would enjoy it and may help my flying career as well. Got accepted to the University of Florida but by my second year there I had to sit on the front row of the lectures to see the blackboard.

without 20/20, my flying days for the military were over before they started. I finished my aerospace engineering degree and had a good job waiting for me
immediately after graduation. That was 26 years ago and I'm still working as an aerospace engineer. No regrets. As others have said, it pays the bills and has allowed me to pursue flying for pleasure. I own a Mooney and fly it as often as I like. My career as an engineer has been very rewarding and I still enjoy going to work every day. As I get closer to retirement I'm making plans to upgrade my Mooney with long range tanks so I can go on some real advantures. Now and then, however, I think about what might have been if I had stuck to the professional pilot dream.

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Getting an Aerospace Engineering degree was the hardest thing I've ever done. Even though I've only worked as an actual Aerospace Engineer for 3 months I'm glad I did it.

I will say you might consider taking the same courses and having them call it a Mechanical Engineering degree. Because an Aerospace company has no problem hiring an ME, but a non-Aerospace company would prefer an ME.

Even though they took almost exactly the same courses in college.

In any case, I don't think you'll ever find a professional pilot who wouldn't recommend getting a marketable degree in addition to any flight training you might obtain.
 
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