The Left Side of Normal Airplanes, The Internet, and Everything Else

After much consideration and deliberation, I've decided that change needs to occur. With a heavy heart, I'm putting my dreams of a career in aviation on hold for the time being. Unless something incredible happens or I win the lottery, it just isn't financially feasible to do all of the things that need to be done to get to where I want to be and still be effective at anything else at the same time. I love flying, and I would need to do hundreds more hours of training and flying before I could even consider a decent job as a pilot. Even then, it would be a relatively low paying job that would put a serious dent in my income and leave me in serious debt at a critical time (the time when I'll be buying a home, starting a family, etc.).

I will, however, continue with my university degree program. I'm half way through already, and the attention that I have to put into it is minimal compared with everything else I'm doing (as sad as that sounds, the degree program just isn't difficult for me at all, just time consuming and tedious). The degree program will still be expensive in its own right, and I'll be taking on additional debt to pay for it, but it's not nearly as much as I would be if I were doing both that and continued flight training and time building. Perhaps it would be possible to transfer my general education credits to a computer science program so that the degree can at least be in the field I'm working in.

For the time being I am going to re-focus my attention on my existing career and do whatever I can to make that as successful and effective as possible. I am going to try and bring a renewed energy to my full-time regular job, as well as my contracting work and personal projects. I've already begun to reduce my personal responsibilities for supporting older personal applications and clients so that I can focus and be more attentive to the present. The DtDNS service, while stable and successful, needs some attention and updating. ZonkBoard needs to be sold off or allowed to rest in peace (hardly anything has been done with that since 2003, though there are still people using it). The revenue it generates really no longer justifies keeping it online.

In any case, I still love to fly, and would love to continue on with my flight training and time building. Perhaps after my existing debt is paid down and I have some spare cash to burn, I will take to the skies as a student once more. For the time being I will have to enjoy the benefits of my private pilot certificate as time and finances allow.

It's been a tough decision and a rough couple of months of internal struggle, but for now reality and practicality need to reign over my lofty goals. I learned to fly, and I will have to be satisfied with that much for now.

Flying can be dangerous business. One of my instructors once held up a copy of the Federal Aviation Regulations book, which weighs in at a hefty 1,000 or so pages, and said, "You see all these rules? You've read them? You have to understand that each one of these was added because somebody died. This book was written with blood. Consider it your job to make sure you don't make this book any longer." If everyone follows the rules and performs their inspections properly, and flies the airplane properly, you significantly increase your chances of making it safely to the ground. There is always some amount of risk in flying, and you have to treat it with a healthy amount of respect. You're going to get back on the ground one way or another, but you should be fully in control and landing on a proper surface when you do so. Unfortunately, even the best of us can make a mistake, or our equipment can fail on us. Aviation lost a great female pilot last week, Chandy Clanton. She was practicing for an air show when her Edge 540 aircraft crashed into a field. I do not know the circumstances behind the crash or whether it was mechanical or pilot error, but I do know that she will be missed by the aviation community.

"Gifted? No, not many of us are. But dedicated and focused upon excellence, you bet! I have told my kids one thing many times since they were little children: “I don’t expect perfection, I expect excellence.” I expect 100 percent effort in all you do. This is the creed of every pilot I know."

That is a quote from the Freakonomics blog regarding airline pilots. They have an excellent article regarding the public perception of airline pilots and how they make the difficult task of flying seem routine. Unfortunately, economics and competition have forced airline prices down, and airlines (especially smaller regional carriers) have had to "settle" for lower pilot salaries, which means they're getting younger, less experienced pilots at the helm of their jets. I'm 28 and have been flying for about a year and a half now. I've flown a variety of aircraft and spent some time in a twin-engine Piper Seneca with my instructor. That airplane is like a sardine can compared with the large jets flown by the carriers, and I had trouble keeping up with that airplane (that will improve with experience though). Airline pilots have hundreds of hours of training, thousands of hours of experience, and are subject to an enormous amount of government regulation. Someday I hope I can gain the experience necessary to join their ranks. For now, all I can do is sit back and agree that yes, every pilot I know gives 110% to their flying, and that drive tends to carry over into other areas of their lives. I'd like to think I do the same.