Aw, yeah, I looked real awesome standing next to the gate at O’Hare puking into a trash can from fear going “I have to get on that airplane… I have to get on that airplane…” before a business trip. Felt really stupid because I had already been taking flight lessons two months - call myself a pilot and I couldn’t get on a nice, safe passenger jet? On take-off I was white-knuckling the armrests. The nice flight attendant came by “Ooo, you poor thing - is this your first time?” Soooooooooo embarassing… two days before I’d been doing touch ‘n’ goes off a grass strip in Wisconsin in an aircraft that, Og help me, really did have things held on with duct tape and now I was having a meltdown over a stodgy, reliable old Boeing. :smack:
I always loved flying until a Bad Thing happened to me on a flight between Detroit and Chicago - took me years to get over it. I got comfortable with myself on the controls in an ultralight and small planes about four years before I learned to relax on a passenger airline again.
You can stay afraid, or you can go forward despite being afraid. I wanted to get back to loving to fly. As an extra plus, I can really related to frightened passengers. I get the biggest kick out of taking someone all nervous and skittery up, showing them a really fun time, and when the flight’s over having them say “Do it again! Do it again!”
In my experience, there are two classes of flight instructors - those working their way up the educational ladder into an airline job, and retired or second income earners - older pilots making a little on the side teaching on weekends, guys doing it part time to help pay through school, etc.
That puts the salary a bit more in perspective. After all, we don’t complain about the meager pay doctoral students get - we recognize that the pay is basically just enough to allow them to get by until they reach their doctorate. Same with flight instructors - The chief value the instructor is getting is not the money, but the valuable PIC time needed to find more sophisticated work.
I second that. I enjoy flying airplanes, but I love flying gliders. A club is the way to go if you’re willing to put in some work to save money. My club’s gliders rent for about $5/hour, definitely worth a few hours pushing gliders around on a Saturday afternoon.
Well, there’s a few commercial pilots on SDMB. However, the easiest thing for don’t ask might be an introductory instructional flight. I think Be A Pilot has certificates for a $50 first flight. See if you like it.
If money’s an issue, there’s the new Sport Pilot/Light Sport Aircraft which promises to be a less expensive way to fly recreationally in airplanes, powered parachutes, gliders, gyrocoptors, and trikes. Sorry, no helos Johnny L.A.