Free at last

airbornredneck · Post by **airbornredneck** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:56 pm

I enjoy being addicted, speaking of which I NEED A FIX

Yoyoma · Post by **Yoyoma** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:57 am

I broke free wrote:
I am in no cult, but I think you lot in aviation might be, with all your talk on this forum. I am stunned that so many are viewing the postings. Registered Nurses go home to their families when they are free and don't forum with other RN's about the latest medical devices or who might be hiring.

Have you ever seen Golf clubs? or perhaps Old British Car clubs? How about Parrot society or a Bonsai club? Enthousiasts and Professionals enjoy to share their wealth of knowlegde, and their passion. There is no shame in doing so.

So Avcanada is that place where we get together and chat, argue, debate, laugh and bash Hazatude! The fact that we have such a forum proves many things:

- We have a passion for aviation
- We enjoy our jobs enough to discuss it outside of work
- We're lucky to have someone like Joe to put this together!

And BTW, this is AVcanada not Pilotcanada. So any aviation professional can post on here including ATC, FSS, AMEs Aviation owner and managers! I fall into 3 of those categories so I think I'm entitled to post here like anyone else!

Anyhow, good luck with you Nurse career,
All the best,

Yoyoma

Flaps 1 Billion · Post by **Flaps 1 Billion** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:34 am

I've read through some of these and have thought if it was worth bothering with a reply. First off, I enjoy my job and have worked hard to get it, like everyone else. I have friends who are lawyers and doctors and PhD researchers in training and I gotta say they work much harder than I have had to. Granted they will one day make more money than I will but that's the way I've decided to go. Cash isn't everything in this world. Is enjoying your job and addiction? Is talking to people about what's going on in the industry so wrong? I don't think so. My previous life was a musician and not much was different. We loved our lives and lived music and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't know who you are or what your back ground is but who are you to tell a group of people that love to do something that it is wrong? Who are you to come on here and bash us all because you decided to do something else? I commend for leaving this industry that you perhaps didn't enjoy working in. Not many people have the guts to do something like that and live the rests of their lifes wanting something they didn't go for, regardless or job.
So, leave those who love this be. There's nothing wrong with happiness and pride in one's life and job. Not all of us walk around hoping for a chance to tell a stranger what we do for a living. For most of us, I think, it's a job, but a job that we love.

airliner · Post by **airliner** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:24 pm

hey one billion.... i got to say well put. this post did hit a nerve, but you softened the blow.

Big Pratt · Post by **Big Pratt** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:46 pm

but i guess aviation is the industry with the highest rate of loosers, idiots, ignorants, and stupid people

Hmmm.... replace "aviation" with "internet" in the above quote and you'll get a much more acurate statement.

SkyDog · Post by **SkyDog** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:59 pm

What a brilliant post this was, I broke free.

and I mean that.

Big Pratt · Post by **Big Pratt** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 5:06 pm

Registered Nurses go home to their families when they are free and don't forum with other RN's about the latest medical devices or who might be hiring.

Well apparently they do...
http://www.nurse-forum.com/nursing-2.html
http://www.nurse-forum.com/nursing-3.html
http://kcsun3.tripod.com/
http://allnurses.com/forums/index.php
http://www.nursechat.com/

monkeyspankmasterflex · Tue Sep 20, 2005 5:38 pm

I broke free,

Good for you, nurses are too far and few between. Which in and of itself is the strongest arguement for your decision to leave aviation. I have the utmost respect for nursing as it is far too honest a job for myself to ever tackle. I absolutely agree that flying is nothing more than a job and does become monotonous. However, I'll take the monotony of coasting into Europe at nightfall over emptying a shit bedpan, but to each their own.

Much respect.

Rowdy · Post by **Rowdy** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:15 pm

LostinRotation wrote:
No...that's to get us all laid

-=0=LIR=0=-

MCA · Post by **MCA** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:43 pm

haha! big pratt, nice search results, that's too funny!

BTD · Post by **BTD** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:42 am

ROTFLOL

Big Pratt that was one of the best things I've seen on here in a while.

BTD

wallypilot · Post by **wallypilot** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 10:36 am

it is what you make of it. if you're an idiot, your going to meet a lot of idiots. If your an individual with a balanced life with interests outside aviation, you're probably going get more out of it and meet more interesting people in aviation. I myself am a big supporter of balance in your life. those that know nothing other than airplanes are missing out on a lot. i love my job, and i love the flying i do, but i need the balance.

-wp

Piston Broke · Post by **Piston Broke** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 7:08 pm

I had to get a job as a pilot. I’m too lazy to work and too afraid to steal.

Expat · Post by **Expat** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 9:44 pm

Some very good posts here!
Yes, aviation always had an aura about it and it is nice to see how young people are attracted to it.
On the other hand, many other jobs offer chances of unique experience that outsiders have no clue about.
Take nurses for exemple; I know a few who have worked in Dubai, Switzerland, and other exotic places, as supervisors, with salaries in the six figures, USD, after taxes, without an MBA. And experiences they get...
On the other hand, I also know professional tube drivers who want nothing to do with aviation after coming home from work. You won't even find them on an aviation web site. That is a balanced life. If you are a professional fisherman, will certainly not go fishing with your son for the week-end.
I had a passion for restauring old English sport cars, that lasted 10 years and cost me a bundle. When I bought a service station, I hated it and gave that up, and started flying...
Go figure...
Cheers,

SplitS · Post by **SplitS** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:28 pm

No one has bothered to ask I broke Free what her problem is?? Why post here and start telling everyone they have an "addiction"?!?! WTF? What bloody nonsense is that?? Who the hell is she to "diagnose" us?
Please - save me from from her dissullionsed prosthelyzing. Who needs it.
The world needs nurses, it needs garbage men , it needs Wal-Mart greeters and it needs pilots too. So we happen to like our jobs.

On behalf of all the addicted, our sincere apologies.

Iron Eagle · Post by **Iron Eagle** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 7:06 pm

I am really sorry you could not make it in the game and perhaps your way of dealing with it is to right the whole thing off as some kind a ‘addiction’ I mean if that works for you and helps you sleep at night then more power to you, But don’t come to an aviation enthusiast web site and expect us to even remotely agree. No one likes the “un-named religion” that knocks on your door and tries to save us from our life of sin!

Yeh I am addicted to flying… and a promise to think of “how you broke fee when I fly over you at 300kts at 10,000ft as you sit stuck in traffic!!!

Try prozac!

noonespecial · Post by **noonespecial** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 10:03 pm

I have occasionally read some posts on this site. And I have rarely been tempted to comment. Maybe I'm hiding, but mostly I think I've decided to stay off this site because I find most of you guys rather rude.

I'm no prude, but I don't need to get into the kid stuff crap slinging that you seem to love so much on this site. So if this is my first and last post, that suits me.

But I'm writing in to this thread because it gets me. Flying is, what? I don't know… I wouldn't think of it as an addiction. I have not decided to leave it, I have accepted leaving it for the welfare of a greater purpose; my family. Though I would have preferred that it work out differently.

I live in paradise. I have a perfect small town with clean air and clean water. I moved here for a flying job but when the company went bust I started one up myself. I had guys working with me who I thought of and considered my partners. But they never believed it. Somehow I dragged those bastards every step of the way for ten years. I'm not saying they didn't work, but they made my work harder in outrageous ways.

When they finally engineered my ouster from the company that would not have ever existed without me, I left flying and went away numb. I had a few offers right away, but when I moved here I had decided that I was through with chasing airplanes and this was where I was going to raise my family. So I'm still here.

After I left my own operation, I flew a Beaver on the north coast. But that only lasted for a few months and that job is gone.

Now I work in an office 40 hours a week. I am very well paid, I am very well respected by the people I come in contact with. I get a huge amount of positive feedback in my job. From all accounts, I'm doing a great job, I make enough money to live where I want to live, people respect the work I do.

But I've never been so miserable.

I don't like the work I do; I find no satisfaction in it.

The best days of my life were out in the bush with the raw labour of finding a way to get the job done. I loved flying round engine freighters, negotiating with the weather and the mountains. And I loved tenting them up and cleaning them off in the morning before the sun was up so I could fly all day when the sun shone. Or didn't. The best part of that job was the kind of tired you had at the end of the day, when after you flew and humped the loads in and out, and you spent a sweaty hour tenting up your airplane and guarding her against the frosty night so you could do it again tomorrow if it wasn't snowing too hard.

That was good. And the sweetest night of the year was the first night in the spring when you decided that you didn't need to put on the wing covers.

I did other crap too, I worked at real airlines and did training and dealt with Transport as a Chief Pilot and worse. I even impressed the shit out them every so often in the sim, etc.

But Boys, for me it never got any better than it did out there when I worked my ass off all day.

That's not what I'm doing now, but there isn't a day that I don't wish that was doing that. I worked hard to become a good pilot. I miss flying. But what I miss most is the company of pilots. You guys are different from other people. I enjoyed your comradeship. But that's over for me now.

An addiction? I don't think so. I just think it's the best damn way to make a living that God ever invented. And that's why She made it so hard to do.

D.

i broke free · Post by **i broke free** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 5:20 am

I wrote initially because I have friends who are trying to reach the "dream" of making a good living at the job of being a pilot - yet they are miserable, for the most part, held together only by the companionship of others trying to reach the same dream. They are mostly in debt to pay for the hours etc. Their whole life is enmeshed in it and sacrificed to it. I was there too, and I left and my life is better.

I compared it with an addiction, because there's an "aura" surrounding the job, which may be the propeller of the dream, along with the lure of achieving "freedom and independence." That's why I called it a mirage for a lot of young people coming in, and it seems to deliver slavery, not freedom. Sure, it's a great job if one is at the top and earning a decent salary, but why is the industry so lowly paid for years and years, considering the training costs involved, and the responsiblity? Is it only because they can get new people? Young ones are still pouring in at the bottom, chasing the dream. I just wish this word would get out about how difficult it is to make a decent living, for years, at this work, and the misconceptions about it. Maybe then conditions will improve - when there's a shortage.

The ward clerk at the hospital where I work is making more than my friends who have paid thousands for their training. That's a different kind of work, I know, and money is not the only measure for choice, but it is one measure. It becomes an important consideration where stability and a family are involved - around age 30+

A lot of people would have admired the pilots for landing that plane in LAX recently, but how many knew how poorly paid he/she probably was? Why is nobody talking about this?

SplitS · Post by **SplitS** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 5:47 am

Very nice post noonespecial. Kudos.

i broke free · Post by **i broke free** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:22 am

noonespecial wrote:

I had guys working with me who I thought of and considered my partners. But they never believed it. Somehow I dragged those bastards every step of the way for ten years. I'm not saying they didn't work, but they made my work harder in outrageous ways.

When they finally engineered my ouster from the company that would not have ever existed without me, I left flying and went away numb. I had a few offers right away, but when I moved here I had decided that I was through with chasing airplanes and this was where I was going to raise my family.

But what I miss most is the company of pilots. You guys are different from other people. I enjoyed your comradeship.

I'm confused here about this seeming contradiction.

noonespecial wrote:
Now I work in an office 40 hours a week. But I've never been so miserable. I don't like the work I do; I find no satisfaction in it.

The best days of my life were out in the bush with the raw labour of finding a way to get the job done. The best part of that job was the kind of tired you had at the end of the day, when after you flew and humped the loads in and out, and you spent a sweaty hour tenting up your airplane and guarding her against the frosty night so you could do it again tomorrow if it wasn't snowing too hard.

But Boys, for me it never got any better than it did out there when I worked my ass off all day.

That was good. That's not what I'm doing now, but there isn't a day that I don't wish that was doing that.

But that's over for me now.

You're an outdoor man, a person who likes physical work. Why are you working in an office? Why?

noonespecial · Post by **noonespecial** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:46 am

1) The "partners" weren't pilots.
2) Priorities are different now.

i broke free · Post by **i broke free** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:10 am

noonespecial wrote: 2) Priorities are different now.

Yes, but is a balance not possible, somehow? Is being miserable at work helping your family or your own health?

Axial Flow · Post by **Axial Flow** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:46 am

Isn't it simple....MARRY RICH !

Squidward · Post by **Squidward** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:53 am

To noonespecial-- yours is one of the best posts I've read on this forum.

mellow_pilot · Post by **mellow_pilot** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 12:18 pm

Dear noonespecial,

You are someone very special.

Free at last

Re: Free at last