Airline Pilots: Is Anybody Interested in Being One?

[trof]

I received this email from a retired airline pilot friend.
I'm also a retired airline pilot.
There's a lot of aviation nomenclature that I won't try to decipher for you, but you should get the gist of his communication.
Kinda scary.
trof

-By Captain X
http://www.avweb.com/

(Captain X is a training Captain for a well-known regional airline and occasional correspondent to AVweb and our aviation publications. We're publishing his compelling observations as a guest blog.)

"We can't quite put our fingers on what's occurring in the industry right now. I've talked to my counterparts at other regional airlines and they all are seeing the same thing. For lack of a better description, a large percentage of newly hired airline pilots just aren't as excited about their career prospects as they used to be.

During our last hiring boom in 2007 and 2008, it seemed as if we had people climbing all over each other just to get an interview. Now, we'll frequently call 10 for an interview and only five will show up. I don't know if other airlines are hiring them before we can interview them or what, but it just seems the level of interest in our industry isn't there.

Of those who do come to the interview, we are appalled at how many show up and can't pass a written test. Our interview test isn't that hard. It's straight out of the FAA commercial pilot written. We have a couple of questions we took straight from the AIM. I'm amazed at how many people who want to be airline pilots struggle to interpret a TAF! I mean if you want an airline job, wouldn't you at least review the rules on holding pattern speeds and what an ILS Critical Area sign looks like?

Then we send them on to a basic instrument proficiency checkout in an Elite PCATD. Again, it's shocking how many people can't scan a basic six-pack. Is it because Cessnas today have G - 1000's ? I actually interviewed one candidate who got so slow on an ILS that he stalled and went out of control. He probably would have gotten lost in the holding pattern, except he never got there because he turned the wrong way when I told him to go directly to the VOR. He couldn't read the HSI well enough to know whether he was TO or FROM.

Even those who do get hired seem to lack a basic knowledge of operating in an IFR environment. One of my instructors came to me one day in the middle of a lesson and he was extremely frustrated. He said he couldn't introduce any emergencies to the crew he was working with in the procedures trainer because they were struggling so hard just to navigate. And this was with the FMS fully functional!

It seems that there are a lot of students who think "close enough" is close enough. We tell them on day one of Basic Indoc (and every day thereafter) how important it is to learn their callouts, flows and profiles. Twenty-one days later, they're still arguing with us that they have the callouts down "pretty well." In our program, they don't even go to the simulator until they've spent 13 days in the procedures trainer, and we still have students who struggle to get ready for the simulator.

We've discussed this amongst ourselves and think there are many issues at work here:

(1) Maybe the younger generation just has a sense of entitlement. I know I sound like an old man here, but there really is a perceptible difference in work ethic from young pilots today and new pilots just four years ago. One of my most senior ground instructors mentioned that it's just different this time around.

(2) The industry has driven the good people away: The last four years have not been kind to the airline industry. Maybe today's best and brightest have decided to go to medical school instead of pursuing their real dream of aviation. I live in the midwest and I think everyone around here knows someone who used to fly for either Delta or Comair who has been devastated by what happened at Delta over the last few years. A friend of mine on furlough tried to get a state grant to get re-trained with a 737 type rating so he could apply to Southwest. In the past, other pilots have been able to do that. This time around, the state of Ohio denied his request by saying that basically they didn't think there would be enough flying jobs in the future to support him and that his retraining grant needed to be spent pursuing another career. It doesn't take long for word to get around that flying isn't exactly the positive career choice it used to be.

(3) The upcoming 1500-hour / ATP minimum requirement for all airline pilots might be scaring away good people. The ATP rule won't go into effect until 2013, so this is a perfect time to get an airline job. In two years of flying 85 hours a month, it'll be easy to beef up the logbook. This may be the last time in history that a guy with less than 1000 hours has a shot at an airline career. But I'm concerned that some pilots have only heard part of the story and have given up, thinking the rule is already in effect.

(4) Now that we're all wired and connected to the cloud, we just process information differently: My company is taking a hard look at our training procedures to see if we can present the information in a way that's more exciting for tech-savvy pilots. Unfortunately, many regional airlines see their training departments as expenses rather than investments, so there's not exactly an open checkbook for new training initiatives.

(5) Economic hard times have made it difficult for instrument pilots to stay proficient if they're paying for their time themselves. I'll be honest; I don't know if I could have afforded to get all my ratings in today's fuel environment. I paid between $50 and $85 an hour to rent most of my training planes, and I struggled to do that. That was when avgas was about $1.50 a gallon. Throw in reduced hours at work or downright unemployment, and staying proficient takes a back seat. We're seeing a lot of people coming in the door who haven't touched an airplane for three years!

(6) No one is getting Commercial Pilots' licenses any more. The FAA will tell you that the number of commercial pilots licenses issued has plummeted in the last three years. It is only a fraction of what it was four years ago. That means that the regionals are going to be competing for a smaller and smaller pool of pilots. When that happens, the quality of the candidate pool remaining quickly drops.

Everyone on the inside of the industry sees it, but none of us knows exactly what "it" is yet. I personally think it's a combination of all the above factors.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but we are working hard to find one.
We can't quite put our fingers on what's occurring in the industry right now."

Posted comment on the website:
Really? As I see it, a complete lack of leadership is what's missing in today's environment. Gone with leadership are respect, example, dignity, dedication and enthusiasm. I give credit to management, especially upper management who has no clue what real leadership is all about. That goes for unions, too. Its all about me, me and me. Me? I think I'll have another martini ... I love retirement!

[leveymg]

1. Aren't most commercial pilots recruited out of the military? They can't fly or read guages?

There must be hundreds of trained military pilots coming into the jobs market each year. What the f-ck are we paying $800 billion a year for?

[Slammer]

6. problems

There's hundreds of thousands of people coming out of schools each year who can't pass a written test. I used to work in the accounting department of an airline and it was shocking how many people who came in for really basic entry-level jobs who couldn't read, write, or follow simple instructions during a job interview. Out of the ones who could do all three, 70-80% of them couldn't pass a three month training program to do a repetitive job that required four steps then type out the results of what happened at each of those steps.

As for military pilots, there's only a few thousand total. Not many retire in any particular year. Not all of those want a career in commercial aviation when the industry has the habit of downsizing pilots at the drop of a hat. And pilots are increasingly getting hassled by TSA like ordinary people are and it doesn't sit well with many of them.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. No, not any more.

The military services aren't producing nearly as many pilots as they used to because there is not the huge need for them any more. Wars are fought with drones and missiles, not huge fleets of fighters and bombers like the old days. More than half of the pilots joining the airlines are civilians.

[trof]

9. No longer.

That was my case and used to be back in the day.
U.S. military pilots are the best trained in the world.
Hell, foreign governments sent their student pilots to us to be trained.

Now a pilot is usually better off to stay in the military until they get their 20 years in for retirement.
The pay and working conditions are generally better than for entry level airline pilots.

I made a damn good living and had great benefits (medical and dental insurance, pension).
Those days are gone, thanks to deregulation.


In my day we had very few 'civilian' pilots at TWA
Guys who had paid for every hour of their training.

I never paid to be trained.
From service in USAF to employment with TWA, I was PAID for every minute my butt was strapped into an airplane.
Them was the days.

[leveymg]

15. They can't fly cross-country with just a compass, alt, speedo, map, watch and a radio frequency?

and land the plane safely on the right runway 200 miles away in a snowstorm anymore?

Geez. Next thing you tell me, these pilots can't even drive a car with a clutch and a manual transmission.

There must be some inverse relationship between skills and automation, and a point of diminishing returns. Sounds like we've crossed that threshhold, are way high, too slow, and don't know WTF to do now.

[Bake]

48. trof, did you see the 60 minutes piece last night on the new Raptor?

It might not be such a good idea any more to keep flying in the military ... pilots getting hypoxia (or something) and the Air Force won't do a damn thing about it.



Bake

[trof]

49. No, but I've read about it. Also...Military pilots: Dying breed?

More and more combat and reconnaissance missions are being flown by drones.
How long before cargo drones?
And once that's accepted, passenger drones?

[DearAbby]

17. +1

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

28. I know a retiring military pilot

His interest in flying a 737 from Dallas to Kansas City and back six times a day in the right seat after having flown the A-6 and F-18 for almost twenty years is minimal to non-existent.

[Whisp]

2. point #5

very expensive to get those flying hours and I hear the pay is absolutely dismal compared to the good old days. Dismal for the responsibility a pilot has. There are pilots on food stamps and working two jobs to make ends meet. Gone are those days when they were assumed to be well paid professionals, now they are bus drivers in the air.

US Airways Pilot Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger Speaks to Congress: "My Pay Has Been Cut by 40%"

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. Thats confidence inspiring.

Of course, when you have airline pilots living on food stamps, it doesn't bode well for the future of the industry.

Used to be such a lucrative career, too.

[riderinthestorm]

12. Yup, you read those stories of airline crashes and the pilots are on food stamps

or they just came from their second job at Starbucks and were flying....

Terrible wages for so much responsibility. No wonder nobody wants to do it. Its expensive to get trained and for very little financial remuneration, especially at the lower levels.

[peace13]

4. This article is too funny.

My young pilot friend who is 27 with a four year college degree just celebrated his one year anniversary with a regional airline. His salary was $17,000 to start and he only gets paid when the wheels are off of the ground! He loves to fly, is single and can take the hit financially but it is devastating to the morale.

I think that the industry has to look at what they are offering and decide what caliber of people they want in the pilot seats. Don't blame it on the young people.

[trof]

10. I wouldn't call it 'funny'.

I'd call it sad.

[HiPointDem]

36. wow. that pretty much explains the situation right there. $17K starting pay for a pilot? unreal.

[tularetom]

5. I'm 70 years old and I have one eye

And I flunked the Class 3 FAA Medical Exam in 1995 and lost my private license.

But if you could pull some strings...

[RebelOne]

18. Well, I am 73 years old and still only have my learner's license.

I love flying, but it would be a long, long time before I could earn my pilot's license. I would probably be 90 by then and too old to be a commercial airline pilot

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Interesting. And consistent with what I'd been hearing

when I was working in a major airline's training department (I'm also retired now). An awful lot of pilots don't want their kids to follow in their footsteps because being an airline pilot just isn't what it used to be. Many have had to take deep pay cuts and/or have lost their pensions, and with all the bankruptcies, mergers and reorganizations lately the stability isn't there any more.

Additionally, the cost of becoming a pilot has become incredibly high: about $200 an hour just for primary flight training in a single-engine airplane. If you go to one of the college aviation programs like ERAU or UND, you'll graduate with a crushing debt comparable to medical school, only to qualify for a job at a regional airline that pays about $20K a year to start. I know a guy who graduated from one of those programs and is making $800/month student loan payments, and will have to do so for years and years. On a regional pilot salary. And if he ends up at a major airline someday, he still won't have the kind of stability that a pilot used to have. He might be furloughed or lose seniority in a merger; he might have to commute for hours or move to an unaffordable base like JFK. And still stuck with a ginormous student loan.

So who wants to go into aviation any more? Unless you or your family has buckets of money, you probably can't afford it, so you go into another line of work where you can afford to live well and fly recreationally. Maybe the reason the email writer is seeing so many lazy, unmotivated tools is that they are the wealthy, entitled children of the 1% who are used to skating through school on Daddy's money instead of the kids who wanted so badly to be pilots that they'd wash airplanes at the FBO in exchange for flight lessons. Can't do that any more.

I don't fly any more at all myself because I can't afford it - and it's really hard to find a job as a CFI (so someone else pays for my flying) because people can't afford flying lessons at $200/hour. Half the flight schools in my area have gone out of business in the last 5 years or so.

It will be interesting to see what the new 1500-hour rule does to the industry.

[Skittles]

11. I'll bounce it off my beau, trof

yes INDEED

[rsmith6621]

13. No Body Wants To Sit In a CREW Room....

........... for 10 hours in a 14 hour day and only fly for 4 and earn $80 for the day and only do that 3 days a week. The airlines have done a good job at demoralizing employees....

[Edweird]

14. Probably not many people are. The working conditions suck and the pay is worse than Taco Bell.

The only potential up-side I see is the stewardesses (if you're young and single). One of my high school girlfriends was a stewardess for a long time and we used to hook up whenever she came to Miami. The pilots drank A LOT. Basically, if you love to fly and are willing to do it for free then go for it.

[CK_John]

16. The airlines have ensured the pilot position has been downgraded to bus driver.

Cut salaries by 50%, will now claim a shortage and request visa for whoever from wherever, that will be a low wage serf.

[HiPointDem]

37. probably before your time, but bus driver used to be a decent job as well. decent wages,

benefits, and a fair amount of status.

one by one they've turned all those jobs to shit.

[CK_John]

43. I doubt it, I was born in 1940. nt

[HiPointDem]

44. well, then:

http://www.angelfire.com/al/silverball/strikes.html

Before 1982, Greyhound was a prosperous company that prided itself on paying the highest wages in the industry.

Deregulation of the transportation industry made the competition for passengers even stiffer. New entrepreneurs who paid low wages entered the business and offered fare prices much lower than the more established inter-city lines.

The newly deregulated airline industry made things even worse for Greyhound.

Low-cost passenger airline carriers sprang up after deregulation of the industry and gave intercity bus lines a run for their money. People Express, for example, charged only $23 for a flight between New York City and Buffalo. Greyhound charged $41 for the trip. A flight by Southwest Airlines from San Francisco to Phoenix was only $60, compared to a Greyhound's bus ticket to the same location costing $79. By the middle of 1983, Greyhound showed an operating loss of $18 million. Greyhound's operating costs were 30 to 50 percent higher than that of other major bus lines.

A painful seven-week strike had come to an end just a few days before Christmas. But the ATU had suffered a major defeat that would haunt it for years to come. It had to settle for the same 7.8 percent wage cut the company had insisted on way back in November. In addition, the union had to swallow a cut in pay from ten to eight percent per year; a four percent cut in pension benefits, and a two-tier pay schedule that paid new hires 20-25 percent less than employees under the old contract.

Greyhound, on the other hand, boasted that it had gained the wage parity it had been seeking, yet at the same time paid the highest wages in the industry. At that time, labor costs amounted to about 62 percent of total operating costs. The union's concessions had brought the company about an eight- percent reduction in bus line operating expenses over the life of the new three-year contract.

[Blue_Tires]

19. I've kicked around daydreams of starting a new life as a pilot at 35

but for now it must remain a daydream...

Aren't there some other issues not mentioned? I don't know the actual requirements, but could some of the rapidly expanding airlines in Asia and the Middle East be taking a bigger bite of the talent pool?

I also saw an account on another forum about how the air freighters were becoming a more appealing option for new pilots...Although it lacks the high-profile glamour of the big passenger airlines, it is an alternative to those who don't want to slave away at a regional for several years and deal with an overloaded jet of unruly passengers...And if youtube is any indication, those guys do seem to have fun

(I could be wrong on all this, though)

[trof]

42. Spent the last 10 years of my career flying cargo. It was heaven.

And the pay was better.

[Blue_Tires]

47. another point to consider:

A lot of the romanticism has been taken out of the profession among the general public...To many people who don't know any better, in the span of a generation "pilot" has gone from "Someone with a very unique skillset honed from thousands of hours in every imaginable situation" to "Someone whose job is to NOT disrupt the aircraft's automated systems and keep the passengers reassured" (granted, some industry bigwigs do little to dispel this notion)...

[A HERETIC I AM]

20. I can fix this with one word....

Reregulation.

Go back to the days when ticket prices were set by regulation. Make the ticket prices reflect the ACTUAL cost of moving a plane load of people from A to B plus a reasonable profit built in. Yup, this will force ticket prices back up, but the airlines can make money and stay in business


It will also have a corollary effect; people will still want cheap, long distance travel and this country could finally get off its ass and build a proper, ADVANCED high speed rail system ( I'm thinking vacuum tube technology here - capable of supersonic speeds)

[neverforget]

21. Flight training is mega expensive. Where I took my flight training it costs $88/hr for a Cessna 152

and $116/hr for Cessna 172. Add in the flight instruction is $44/hr plus $44/hr for ground pre and post flight instruction and it adds up really quick.

Link to where I took my flight training (I am still a student pilot):
http://www.hillsboroaviation.com/en/page/airplane_flight_training_program_costs

The costs in this program are only to FAA minimums to get the license. The actual cost is most likely going to be higher because most students can't finish a private pilot license in 35hrs. I've seen stats that say the average amount of hours for the private pilot certificate is about 50.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

23. It cost me $35/hour, wet, with instructor.

But that was awhile ago. Avgas was something like $1.30/gal.

When I was working as a flight instructor (also awhile ago) I was paid $9/hour (for having people try to kill me ).

Times have definitely changed.

[Egalitarian Thug]

22. It's the same all over. In a paroxysm of stupid we radically shifted or entire national

economy away from accomplishment and innovation to money and obedience above all. Whether we are speaking of pilots, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc. the best and brightest are pushed toward non-productive extraction instead of exploring the frontiers. Add to this that fact that very few careers are actually careers any longer, rather a series of vaguely related positions to hold until the next round of layoffs, and it is no wonder the enthusiasm level has dropped.

Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks quite eloquently on this issue. You might want to check him out, he has several books and YouTube Channel.

[eqfan592]

29. I believe this is the video you are talking about

&feature=player_embedded

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a hero of mine, and he hits the nail right on the head here.

[Egalitarian Thug]

41. To me as well. This video is a clip from a much longer piece.

I know it's on his channel, I can't remember which one, but they're all great.

[HiPointDem]

38. +1

[provis99]

24. 7. the airlines pay shit wages and suppress unions.

imagine if after going through a four-year college, and four-years of medical school, that hospitals only paid doctors $20,000 a year and were doing whatever they could to destroy labor unions and worker's rights?

You can make more as a cross-border Mexican truck driver than you can as an airline pilot, with a lot less skill, education, and training.

[johnd83]

25. Too expensive for too little return

I have a VFR, and given the amount of time and money that it takes to get enough hours to be hired by an airline it just isn't worth it. If people are smart enough to be the good pilots these people want they can probably find a better job that has better, steady hours and much more pay.

[pscot]

26. And yet I keep seeing airline deregulation cited as one of Carter's

prime acheivements. Great post; fascinating thread.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

27. I know a couple of ex-airline pilots

One quit to fly corporate as she hated the company, hated the lifestyle, hated the TSA, hated the flight attendants and airport staff and above all else hated the sexist and corrupt union that hung her out to dry after she was retaliated against for complaining about unsafe crack house motels where they were being housed on layovers. She quit almost immediately after being upgraded to captain to fly the Bombardier Challenger which is more or less the same plane as the Canadair Regional Jet only smaller. It has been hard but she has adjusted to earning enough money to move out of her parents house and layovers in hotels without bullet proof glass at the front desk.

[pinboy3niner]

30. I guess that old joke is becoming less relevant these days...

Guy comes home every day covered in filth from his job emptying the waste from airliner bathrooms. His wife and friends ask him, "Why don't you get a different job?"

He replies, "WHAT???? And get out of aviation???"

[cherokeeprogressive]

31. I think your (1) pretty much says it all and can be plugged into any career classification.

Here's an example that's as far from piloting commercial airliners as it is possible to get.

For two years, until 2/10/11, I worked as a "Zipline Tour Guide". I'm 51 now. Our zipline was high in the moutains and was a fucking blast. For work, I ziplined every day, either in front of or behind as many as 16 customers per tour. I'd zip down in front of them and catch them, or stay behind them and send them down the lines. I ziplined hanging upside down, spun so fast I got dizzy, pretty much did anything I could to entertain customers while they were in our care. We had 9 lines. I was at least twice as old as all but 1 of the 20 employees the company had.

Now, there are lots of other things involved than just ziplining here. There are bathrooms to clean, ziplines to inspect and equipment to sort, inspect, and store, vehicles used to transport customers to inspect and clean etc.

How easy was it to get the 20somethings to perform those tasks? About as easy as flapping your arms and flying to the Sun. They saw "Tour Guide" as just that, and nothing more. "I don't clean bathrooms, I use them." is what I heard one kid say to another. "My MOM cleans the bathroom at home" I heard in response to the first statement. Clouds? "It's going to rain... can I call the office and cancel the days tours?" Trash? "Why don't the CUSTOMERS take care of that after the tour? THEY made the mess..."

Me and the other guy my age regularly ran tours by ourselves on weekends because the kids couldn't drag themselves out of bed.

I worked there because at the time I didn't NEED a full-time job with benefits. They saw it as some kind of career choice and voiced their plans to build ziplines of their own in different places.

A sense of entitlement. That will be the downfall of society as we know it.

[Major Nikon]

33. It is a little different with the airlines

Back in the day, many (if not most) airline pilots came from the military. The airlines had their pick of the best candidates who already had time in the big machines, and were taught in a completely different environment. Today most airline pilots come from the civilian side where many are trained in cookie cutter schools in a few weeks to minimum standards, and have little to no experience flying anything that burns jet fuel. Many of the instructors are trying to get on with airlines or box haulers themselves and don't have that much more or better experience than their students.

[cherokeeprogressive]

34. I absolutely defer to your experience. Having spent 10 years in Naval Aviation

as a Structural Mechanic (AMS) in the Navy, I understand how competitive the commercial airlines used to be. I'm pretty sure I've flown on a few heavies that were piloted by ex-fighter pilots.

I think it's time though to look at what effects our educational system has had on our present and future. What with social promotion, self-esteem considerations vs actual accomplishment, and the refusal to evaluate teachers based on what their students are actually capable of, I believe there are bad things on the horizon when it comes to occupations that involve real skills. This is especially true in the aviation industry. I believe that we're looking at a situation where D students can somehow work their way into the left seat. In fact, I think that's happening already.

Sooner or later, instructors will be products of the very system I'm thinking of, if it's not happening already.

[HiPointDem]

39. so you picked up all the slack from the slackers? why?

[Major Nikon]

32. I'm completely convinced that the safety record of US air carriers is almost wholly dependent...

on the professionalism of their aircrews.

My instrument rating instructor was an American Eagle first officer. She became a first officer late in her career and had little hope of making captain. She eventually retired as a first officer. Before getting on with the airlines she had spent decades as a flight instructor and was very much old school in her approach to training. It took me over twice as many hours of flight training to get my rating compared to my peers who were getting theirs at the same time. However, I was taught to a completely different standard that far exceeded anything in the PTS. I knew what I was getting into when I asked her to be my instructor as I had flown with her on many occasions. There was no such thing as "close enough". I either flew to her standards, or we kept doing it until I did. My approaches were flown to within 1 dot or I went around and we tried it again. If I didn't land on the centerline, we threw the coals to it and I flew the whole approach over again. Holds were brutal as I trained in the spring in Texas when 40 kt crosswinds were routine, but I learned how to do them with those kinds of winds while staying in the protected area. Everything was done to perfection, every time to the smallest detail. Even all my radio calls had to be done with perfect phraseology. My instrument checkride was actually the easiest one out of all I have taken, including the single engine commercial.

Where I think the entire industry is going south is with the training these pilots receive before they ever get to the airlines. Most instructors today teach minimum standards, and they send their students to easy DPEs who fly the exact same checkride routine every time which the instructors teach. I'm seeing more and more accidents with an instructor in the plane. Just a few months ago there was an accident at DTO where the instructor was trying to fly an approach with two students in the plane. He augered in a half mile from the threshold, killing himself and injuring the students. Although the weather was near minimums, it was a straightforward ILS approach at his home airport. It should have been routine, but you can see him start to make simple mistakes before he got anywhere near the airport.

[Zalatix]

35. Excellent. A day of reckoning is at hand.

No pilots equals no airline industry.

[MrSlayer]

50. Why is having no airline industry a good thing?

Or am I misinterpreting what you are saying?

[Zalatix]

52. There'll be an airline industry. It will simply have to reform itself.

People want to fly, the system will fix itself. It just won't be the system we have now.

[HiPointDem]

40. this thread makes me glad i don't have to fly anywhere anymore. i was already glad because

of the new screening bullshit, this just reinforces it.

[Nikia]

45. My sister's fiance is a pilot

After they had been dating a few months, he told her that he wanted her to understand that he was not a rich pilot and probably never would be. He pointed our all sorts of upper middle class luxuries and said that they would probably never have that and wanted to make sure that she understood that. He isn't paid middle class wages.
In contrast, my husband's uncle, who has been retired as a pilot for 20 years, has two homes. One is in Florida. The other is in Wisconsin. He belongs to country clubs in both states, with the one in Florida costing over $50,000 initiation fee.
When you are paying people much less, you can expect the average candidate quality to go down. No one should be shocked by this.

[trof]

46. I had a6 digit income during my last 10 years, '89-'99.

Comprehensive medical and dental insurance.
No co-pays.
Pension plan AND 401-K.

[FarCenter]

51. Where do NetJets and the other executive jet services get pilots?

[Major Nikon]

53. The same place the airlines do

The military, or commercial pilots working other flying jobs.