Two pilot household

Osn410

Osn410

Filing Flight Plan
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Osn410
Hey all! I'm new and I joined a day ago :) Currently I am working on my CFI in the central Florida area. My husband is also a pilot and in the future we both would like to work for the airlines. Is there any two pilot households or anyone that can give us some insight on what airline life is actually like?
 
We are... :) Never discussions about what to do during vacation or upgrades for the plane... ;):D I have to share my flying time though but it is definitely a benefit to have two pilots in the cockpit as we usually split tasks and the co-pilot does the radio work. :)
 
Not here but we have some good friends who were a two pilot household, one CFI one not.

They eventually had to make a rule that unless they were about to die, the other pilot in the cockpit needed to shut up and leave the PIC alone, whoever it was. Haha.

Can't tell ya about how it works out for two pro pilots working in the same household but it certainly could create interesting scheduling problems. Especially with kids.
 
denverpilot said:
They eventually had to make a rule that unless they were about to die, the other pilot in the cockpit needed to shut up and leave the PIC alone, whoever it was. Haha.
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@Mtns2Skies and I definitely have this rule. Considering he has 5x the hours as me and is checked out in more, he's mainly PIC while I catch up. He's also made the (somewhat unfair rule) that I'm not allowed to PIC his (future) Cessna 180 :(, in exchange, the second plane we get, is mine and I get to choose it. :p
 
MrsMtns2Skies said:
@Mtns2Skies and I definitely have this rule. Considering he has 5x the hours as me and is checked out in more, he's mainly PIC while I catch up. He's also made the (somewhat unfair rule) that I'm not allowed to PIC his (future) Cessna 180 :(, in exchange, the second plane we get, is mine and I get to choose it. :p
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Don't sell yourself short. PIC is PIC. Tell him to sit up, shut up, buckle up, and don't throw up... your airplane. LOL!
 
Osn410 said:
Hey all! I'm new and I joined a day ago :) Currently I am working on my CFI in the central Florida area. My husband is also a pilot and in the future we both would like to work for the airlines. Is there any two pilot households or anyone that can give us some insight on what airline life is actually like?
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Just make sure u guys join competing airlines

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
I know a few 2 A&P households, one is FX/UPS and the other is FX/FX. As mechanics go, they live a very nice lifestyles. Can only imagine what a 2 Airline Pilot household would be like. Good luck.
 
denverpilot said:
Don't sell yourself short. PIC is PIC. Tell him to sit up, shut up, buckle up, and don't throw up... your airplane. LOL!
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Hahaha, for what it's worth, he's made me sick twice in a plane because of "turbulence" (I'm suspecting pilot induced :D), so maybe there's a hint for him to let me take the reigns more.

I am PIC with any rental we fly that I'm checked out in. But when it comes to his 180, all bets are off. I guess we'll see if he actually enforces that rule when he gets it!

@Osn410: As @Mtns2Skies said, we're not airline pilots, but we've deal with PIC, logging hours, etc., currently with rentals and talking about how things might change when @Mtns2Skies gets his 180. Not sure how much help we can be, but if you have specific questions, feel free to ask!
 
MrsMtns2Skies said:
I am PIC with any rental we fly that I'm checked out in. But when it comes to his 180, all bets are off. I guess we'll see if he actually enforces that rule when he gets it!
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Just steal the keys.

If he hides them, tell him you know where he sleeps, while slicing a banana with a large butcher's knife.

LOL!
 
To me, airline2airline marriages are only workable without kids. The logistics of that job simply don't afford the kind of schedule rigidity that toddlers, gradeschoolers, and even teenagers require. Which is that of afternoons, overnights and weekends HARD OFF, by at least one parent. To each their own.
 
Osn410 said:
Hey all! I'm new and I joined a day ago :) Currently I am working on my CFI in the central Florida area. My husband is also a pilot and in the future we both would like to work for the airlines. Is there any two pilot households or anyone that can give us some insight on what airline life is actually like?
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This is probably not the best forum to give you insight on married life as a both airline pilots. The biggest challenge is kids, and working your schedule to accommodate them. When my friends in this situation (who both flew for the same regional) faced having kids, the wife held off on upgrading to captain so she'd have a higher seniority as an FO and could set her schedule around his to ensure coverage. It also helps to have grandparents nearby.

Between, flight training costs, low starting salary, difficult to mesh schedules where you often don't see your spouse, etc. being a twin airline pilot household is stressful on a marriage. Since it will be a while before you'll be able to afford flying GA together I won't worry about that too much, other than to say you'll probably develop a CRM that works for you in the cockpit.
 
I've flown with a few captains who's wives were pilots as well. The going trend is they don't have any kids. Not saying it can't work, but it will definitely make it harder.
 
We've got one two-pilot family on the airport and I know a few pilot-flight attendant combinations.
Alas, your biggest issue is going to be scheduling. Most of the time it will be fine, but if you start to have kids it's going to be dicey (every one that I know about has had one of the couple give up airline flying for a while).
 
Can't speak to the airline end of it, but it seems (knowing some of those folks) that scheduling would be a nightmare.

Ellen and I are both pilots...opposite ends of the spectrum, tho. She's been corporate pilot (C441, then C550) for 30 years (for the same owner!), CFII and A&P. I'm a country boy pilot/restorer and got to show her the Fisk arrival to KOSH for her first time.

Our key is 'decide PIC in advance and stay with it', regardless of who's in what seat....saves a lot of 'discussion'.

Jim

PS- How rude of me not to say "Welcome aboard!!!"
 
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The kids are really the hard aspect if you both want to work for the airlines, and thus also have a life where you see eachother. If you're able to both schedule your working days and off days the same, then it can be pretty nice. That was more or less how my wife and I were before kids. But if you're going to do that with kids, then you also need grandparents (or someone) to watch the kids while you're working. Simple daycare won't do it since you'll be gone for days at a time. For us that simply wouldn't work for a lot of reasons. You probably won't fly together professionally.

Now if you work at different times than one of you can be parent while the other works and that is a possibility. If you wait a few years and try to work your upgrades then you can try to get routes where that's workable, but trust me it will still be hard.

Or if you don't want kids, the above doesn't apply and the only thing to consider is the time away from eachother. If kids weren't a factor, there are a lot of things that were fun about the two-pilot lifestyle, specifically the travel enabled by the time off. Really we didn't take enough advantage of the time off as we could have.
 
I have a friend where one of them is an airline pilot and one is a flight instructor in the Navy. They have a live-in nanny type to help with the kids. I believe the goal is eventually to both be at the airlines.
 
Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it! I did figure it would be harder to have the airline pilot life with children. As of right now we are planning to put kids on hold! The travel factor of a two-pilot household seems to be one of the best perks for sure!
 
Osn410 said:
Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it! I did figure it would be harder to have the airline pilot life with children. As of right now we are planning to put kids on hold! The travel factor of a two-pilot household seems to be one of the best perks for sure!
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I'm assuming you're in your early 20s. If so, there's lots of time for you and your husband to get your finances in order and also get enough seniority to a point where you'd have more reasonable time off, get on an aircraft where your trips give you more time at home (long haul 777 comes to mind).

Just realize that if you ever want kids, there is never truly a convenient time. There are just less inconvenient times than others. Kids are inconvenient. I also think that waiting until your late 20s or into your 30s is better anyway. My 20s were great, and a lot of the things I did then were things I simply couldn't have done were I a parent. The same goes for my wife, and so we're glad we did the things we did when we could do them.
 
It is senseless to both be pilots and fly together most of the time and have one just sit there (and "shutup"). So we split duty, one as PIC the other handles radio, has the EFB (synchs flight plan/tracks flight as backup), ATIS, scan sky, play music, split preflight, split hand flying, watches fuel, watches engine temps, notes crew alarms, watches oxygen use and wears a second pulse oxymeter.
 
I met a couple that was a two airplane couple and they had TWO MATCHING CESSNA 140'S! When they flew around they liked to fly real low and talk to each other incessantly on the radio!
 
citizen5000 said:
It is senseless to both be pilots and fly together most of the time and have one just sit there (and "shutup"). So we split duty, one as PIC the other handles radio, has the EFB (synchs flight plan/tracks flight as backup), ATIS, scan sky, play music, split preflight, split hand flying, watches fuel, watches engine temps, notes crew alarms, watches oxygen use and wears a second pulse oxymeter.
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I agree with you mostly. I think the real issue is that we are taught from private pilot how to do single pilot work, but we really don't spend much time on crewed flight. You get used to the dynamics with your instructor, and the instructor/student dynamic is different from the crew environment.

I'll fully admit I had issues with that, because I was used to the dynamics of being single pilot or being an instructor (or being a student), rather than being a crew. I had a brief stint as a 135 pilot (2-pilot crew) and that really helped me on crewed pilot interactions. Even though I was typically the senior pilot on those flights and was teaching my SIC things, we did our ops as a crew. After that I was a lot better about having other pilots as crew members, depending on the pilot, his or her experience, and the mission for the day. Generally now I'll treat the 2nd pilot as a passenger, student, or crew member depending on the situation, and we brief that before flight.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I think the real issue is that we are taught from private pilot how to do single pilot work, but we really don't spend much time on crewed flight.
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Yes. In order for two pilots to share duty those duties have to be clearly defined and a sterile cockpit rule still applies when listening to and responding to the radio. We had problems in the beginning but worked them out over time. There is still a PIC and who is PIC is an affirmative call-out just as in training.
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
I'm assuming you're in your early 20s. If so, there's lots of time for you and your husband to get your finances in order and also get enough seniority to a point where you'd have more reasonable time off, get on an aircraft where your trips give you more time at home (long haul 777 comes to mind).

Just realize that if you ever want kids, there is never truly a convenient time. There are just less inconvenient times than others. Kids are inconvenient. I also think that waiting until your late 20s or into your 30s is better anyway. My 20s were great, and a lot of the things I did then were things I simply couldn't have done were I a parent. The same goes for my wife, and so we're glad we did the things we did when we could do them.
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Yes, I am in my mid 20s. I absolutly realize there really is no convenient time to have kids. As of right now we are both focused on our career ahead (I didn't spend all of this money in flight school to stay at home!) and in the future if it happens, it happens. I thank you for you honest advise and opinions, what you said was what I mainly wanted to know originally posting this topic! The plan (for him at least) is long haul, so I assume he will be home more often. For myself, I haven't figured what path I'd rather take (still to early to tell) :D:D
 
Osn410 said:
Yes, I am in my mid 20s. I absolutly realize there really is no convenient time to have kids. As of right now we are both focused on our career ahead (I didn't spend all of this money in flight school to stay at home!) and in the future if it happens, it happens. I thank you for you honest advise and opinions, what you said was what I mainly wanted to know originally posting this topic! The plan (for him at least) is long haul, so I assume he will be home more often. For myself, I haven't figured what path I'd rather take (still to early to tell) :D:D
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A few pieces of worldly advice from someone who's BTDT:

1) Living near useful relatives is a huge help with kids, and especially going to be helpful if you two are going to both have flying careers. You need people who you can reliably and dependably leave the kids with when you both are on duty. They need to be on board with this, too. My wife and I have no useful relatives, but if you do, this is worthy of consideration for where you choose to live.

2) One of you may end up "taking a break" for a few years, or changing the job a bit to be a stay-at-home parent. For example, if you care about your babies getting breast milk, you'll basically need some sort of break from flying. Pumping while flying? Ain't happening. If you don't care (or prefer) bottle feeding, then no problem. You'll probably have to take a break for some period of your pregnancy anyway.

3) You'll end up having to make compromises of some sort. Maybe you really prefer short haul routes, but you might end up finding the time off associated with long haul routes is more what you need to actually get to spend time with your husband, kids, etc.

4) Realize that you don't know what you'll want now, and that's fine. It's all stuff that's just worth considering as you get closer. Opportunities will also present themselves between now and then, and you ultimately don't know where you'll land. You may also find yourself flying King Air 135 and are able to work something out that works very well for you.

Don't overthink it, go with the flow.
 
Also realize that what you want from life, or from your career, is probably going to change over time.
 
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