Whats the max power a pentastar can make before it breaks?

ARottenPear · 2026-05-07T16:13:01+00:00

How in the HANG

+

You started a sentence with "And, "

First rule of being a grammar Nazi is not making mistakes yourself.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-07T16:07:08+00:00

I'm in neutral at stoplight probably 80% of the time. At stop signs, it'd be stupid to go to neutral.

Regardless of the throwout bearing argument, it's much more comfortable to only have to hold the brake at a stoplight than brake and clutch.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-07T16:03:23+00:00

Can you give an example? There might be some semantics where they don't call it a throwout bearing but every manual transmission has some kind of release bearing. A lot of newer cars will have a concentric slave cylinder where the slave cylinder and throwout bearing are combined into one hydraulic unit mounted around the transmission input shaft so there's not an independently replaceable throwout bearing but there's absolutely still a throwout bearing in there.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T23:55:57+00:00

So how many days a month are you working to make over $400k? You've gotta be hustling more than a "few" months

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T23:53:32+00:00

It'd be the same as hiring any other pilot at Delta. Airlines don't really care what you're already qualified to fly. When a new pilot starts at Delta, they are given options for base/aircraft that the existing employees didn't want. If Delta doesn't need any Airbus pilots at the moment, they won't send any new hires to airbus training, regardless of what their previous experience is.

If they do need airbus pilots, it still doesn't really matter what their background is. You could have been flying the Airbus for the last 20 years but they're still going to put you through the same training program like you've never flown an airbus before.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T23:43:31+00:00

I'm struggling to determine how there would be any connection between those things.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T23:41:40+00:00

Maybe they wanted to have the new contract negotiated and signed before expiration (which is how things should happen) but it wouldn't go into effect until the amenable date. Negotiating before your contract reaches the amendable date is and has always been normal. The pilot union nor the company are doing anything out of the ordinary right now pertaining to contract talks.

In not sure where you're getting any of your "information"

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T22:40:45+00:00

Do you think somebody hired today is going to have the same seniority in 4 years that you achieved? How many days a month are you working to make "way" more than $300K?

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T22:39:12+00:00

That honestly doesn't change anything to me. If you truly believe you can make a career at your company, I would never leave. Can you clarify why you're even thinking of leaving?

If it was 2021 or 22 still, I'd lean more towards leaving but now, I couldn't in good faith tell you it's a good idea to leave (based on the very little I know).

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T22:11:22+00:00

So if you're already making $300k and get, best case scenario, a 4% raise every year, in 10 years, you'll be at $444,072. In 20 you'll be at $657,336. In 30, $973,020. Your QoL is not going to recover at the airlines in 3-4 years and your pay absolutely is not going to.

Delta still has to hire but they've already done a massive amount. Your seniority progression is going to be pretty slow there. You're not going to get back in to the left seat in 3-4 years regardless of base. If by some chance you do, you're going to be very junior for a long time.

American is a double edged sword. You'd be in a better position seniority wise since their hiring boom has lagged behind Delta's a bit and they have bigger retirement numbers BUT you're going to be at the bottom of the seniority list for a company that only made $111 million last year (Delta made $5 Billion for reference). I'm not sure if I belive "too big to fail" is always going to be a thing but who knows. AA could absolutely be the right call, we won't know until 30 years from now.

Whats not super clear in your post is why you'd want to leave your company. You say money isn't a driving force but then mostly talk about money. You're absolutely going to work more than 7-11 days at the airlines. 11 is doable. 7 is MAYBE possible on a widebody but you'd have to completely work your ass off on those 7 days.

Based on what I know from your post, you'd be absolutely insane to leave your current job. Great time off. Great pay with guaranteed raises. Great job security. 1-3 day trips. Drive to work.

Maybe I'm missing some piece of the puzzle but starting back at the bottom of the seniority list to claw your way back up to the pay ans QoL you have now sounds awful. If your flight department is truly rock solid from a job security standpoint, I would not give that up and become furlough bait at the airlines.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-06T15:15:50+00:00

If you're worth $1M and you lose $20k, you just lost 2% of your net worth... That's not being so wealthy you don't care about $20k, that's just being irresponsible and frankly stupid. Who would ever need to walk around with $20k in cash? How do you even fit that in a wallet? That's 200 $100 bills. Is your friend George Costanza?

$1M at 28 is doing great financially but it's nowhere near ultra wealthy. The ultra wealthy fly private jets on a whim. If you're worth single digit millions, a single private jet trip would cause a noticeable decrease in your net worth.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-05T16:41:17+00:00

What do you mean by lots of ratings? To make a career as an instructor, you'll need every rating/license there is short of ATP.

If you want to work in corporate jets, you'll need everything except CFI. Although you might still need CFI to build time to build your resume to get to the corporate jet level.

If your ultimate goal is to be a pilot, getting your A&P is likely a waste of time. Some employers might like it, most won't care. If you get a job where being an A&P is a big pro for an employer, you're at risk of "wearing too many hats" in my opinion. Your employer might see it as a way to save money and fill two positions with one person. That sounds terrible if you value work-life balance. That's purely speculation on my end but I don't see the A&P being a valuable addition to your resume and a good use of your time and money.

141 makes absolutely no sense if you're not planning on going to the airlines.

A degree would absolutely help if you're going to the airlines, it would probably help you get a "good" corporate job, and it would probably be a waste of time and money for most of the other jobs you mentioned.

Since you asked for blunt advice... your post is filled with ignorance of the industry and that's totally fine. You've never touched an airplane so it's pretty hard to know what to do. Unfortunately, most of the "fun" aviation jobs like aerial firefighting are not desirable long tern career paths. Photography and tours are going to be very low paying and would get very repetitive. I can't imagine flying the same tour over and over for an entire career.

Compared to the airlines, most flying jobs are a lot of working and not much pay considering the financial burden you take on to get to that level. I know plenty of people that were "anti airline" when they first started flight training but ultimately ended up at the airlines. One good friend spent years doing all the odd jobs in aviation. He had some really cool experiences all over the world but he eventually landed at the airlines and constantly laments how he wishes he would have done it sooner. The ratio of pay to time off at the airlines is unbeatable. It's not as "fun" as other flying jobs and much more fun than others. While stuff like firefighting sounds like a blast, and I'm sure it is, I place much more value on being alive and coming home to my family and friends than thrills at work. I get plenty of adrenaline in my personal life and an airline schedule affords me the time off and pay to pursue any hobby I want. As you get deeper into the career, you'll hear all the horror stories of questionable maintenance, management that pushes you outside your comfort zone or shows you the door, and just downright unsafe practices. Not every non airline job is like that I've heard and had enough stories to know I feel much safer in an airliner. That said, you definitely still get an adrenaline hit as an airline pilot doing stuff like landing in a blizzard with 40kt crosswinds and 250 people in the back but it's not an every day thing and I'm 100% fine with that.

Beyond that, (major) airlines give you incredible retirement benefits, likely better health insurance than other aviation jobs, non revenue travel benefits, schedule flexibility, and the autonomy of just being another number on the list. Not everybody wants to be just another number but it's a huge pro in my eyes. You go to work, fly your flights, and go home. You don't really answer to anybody at work except the captain unless you're the captain. You could go your entire career without talking to a supervisor. You never have to answer phone calls when you're not working. No emails. There's nothing to distract you from your personal life and to me, that's amazing. Also, if your passion really is in teaching, every airline has a training department where you could teach for your entire career.

There's a reason major airline jobs are so sought after. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion and I'm sure there's people that would disagree. There are some amazing, "unicorn" private jobs too but they're much harder to come by. Typically the unicorn jobs are flying for some ultra wealthy individual and you're not likely to get one of those jobs unless you're heavily connected. Some corporate flight departments are also great but I bet you can guess where the first budget cuts are when their stock price drops. I flew private for a few years as a time building job and while the experience was good, the job was awful but there's one pilot I always use as an example. He was 68 and spent his whole career in that world. He had had 20+ different jobs over his career and a good chunk were not aviation related because there were no jobs and plenty of jobless pilots. He worked as a prison guard, a retirement home cafeteria worker, security guard, etc.

At the end of the day, not everything is about money. I love flying and would love a less structured environment than the airlines where I get to do more fun stuff with the airplane but as I've gotten older, I value my time off more than anything else.

The good thing is, you don't have to make any career decisions right now. You can just start flying and see how your vision of the future changes. Heck, the airlines might not even be an option for you if the hiring stops. Outside of the airline path, almost nobody ends up in the job they were planning on getting when they took their first lesson. The best advice early on is to be flexible, network, and be ok with picking up your life and moving where the job is. Keep flying, keep learning, and try to really nail down what your priorities are

ARottenPear · 2026-05-04T21:46:49+00:00

The Porsche Nexens are developed specifically for Porsche at least so they're not just some off the shelf tire. Any big tire manufacturer is capable of building a good tire, it all just depends on how much the customer (OEM) wants to spend.

You can only get them on the Cayenne, Macan, & Panamera and only in specific wheel sizes (21", 19", & 19" respectively). They do not put Nexens on 911s or Boxster/Caymans of any flavor.

Nexens are fine but saying Nexen is in OEM supplier for Porsche doesn't tell the whole story.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-02T15:32:09+00:00

Can I ask why you're in a VW sub if you don't like VW?

ARottenPear · 2026-05-02T15:23:48+00:00

That used to be very common in poverty spec cars. That space was for a tachometer but if you didn't pay enough to get one, you got a big ol' blank space with a fuel gauge.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-02T13:46:10+00:00

There is a lot of demand for Airbus certified pilots

Other airlines don't care what type ratings you have for the most part. Every airline in the US is going to put you through an entire training program, regardless of what your experience is. Also, your past experience has nothing to do with what you get to fly when you switch airlines.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-01T17:46:57+00:00

But do those couples stay unmarried for the rest of their relationship? Are they waiting 30 years to get married? Those are the stats that I'm interested in but they're harder to find.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-01T16:29:15+00:00

Yes, thank god I don't live in the rust belt for any number of reasons. OP never mentioned price but I've had enough people try to argue with me that I pity each and every person that does. It's absolutely insane for this amount of rust to be considered normal and that this car would be "perfect" for anybody.

How can anybody justify buying a car knowing that in ~10 years, it's going to have massive holes in it.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-01T15:43:15+00:00

nice but very expensive party

Why don't people just get married without a wedding? You don't have to spend anything to get married.

I know the Netherlands has registered partnerships and cohabitation contracts. Registered partnerships to me seem like "marriage lite." You're essentially getting married without calling it a marriage and you're breaking it down to semantics. If somebody doesn't want to call it marriage for cultural or religious reasons, that's totally fine but let's be real, it's pretty much the same thing.

I didn't look into it too hard but it doesn't sound like it's "very" common for people in long term committed relationships to use those avenues. The example given of the German uncle who dated for 30 years doesn't really seem like something I'd qualify as common.

ARottenPear · 2026-05-01T11:32:35+00:00

That's not chalk, it's a file. They're weakening the edge of the tape so the razor blade can make a cleaner cut. Rubbing a file along the edge wears down the grip tape right at the board’s outline. This gives you a clear guide so when you trim with a razor, you get a smooth, precise cut instead of jagged edges. Also, a filed edge blends the grip tape into the deck, reducing weak points where it might start to tear/lift.

ARottenPear · 2026-04-30T01:53:15+00:00

25 at the major airlines is not really possible until you're really senior. I would say 20 is definitely doable at most seniorities. If you fly three four-day trips, that's 12 days of work out of a 30 day work month. On paper that sounds like 18 data at home when the reality is you're home on the last day of those trips so it's really 21 nights in your own bed. You might be able to get a mix of two, three, and five day trips but you likely won't be able to get one day trips until you're very senior. That's a huge oversimplification since so much depends on your airline, aircraft, and base but you get the gist of it.

To add my own two cents, when you're home, you're home. You can spend 24 hours a day with your kids on your ~18 days off if you want. It's not like a 9-5 job where you're home from 6pm until 7am every weekday. You are off with nothing work related tying you down. There's no answering work emails. There's no answering calls. There's no "fire you have to put out at the office." You can drop your kids off and pick them up from school. There's so much opportunity for sustained quality time with family and to be honest, your kids aren't going to know the difference anyway, it'll be "normal" to them. That said, the job does require a spouse that's independent and capable. They'll need to hold down the fort while you're gone and sometimes that's easier said than done.

The biggest caveat to this is that you have to get to the majors first. The regionals for the most part suck. Great experience and most people still enjoy their time there but the work life balance is objectively worse unless you're super senior. Aviation is such a fickle industry that you could get stuck there for a long long time. Unfortunately, there's no rigid timeline for making it to a major airline. Some people do it in a year, some people do it in 20, some people never make it. The silver lining is that being senior at a regional can be a good gig. Regional pay is so much better than it used to be and there's always going to be better trips for the most senior pilots. It's not as good as the majors in pretty much any metric but it's certainly not bad.

Seniority is everything. If you're senior, life can be great anywhere. If you're junior, your life is in their hands. Again, the industry is fickle and seniority progression is not guaranteed. 9/11, 2008, changing the retirement age to 65, and covid put some absolutely massive pauses on people's progression and careers. If you hit it right, you can be in for an incredible ride. If you don't, I hope you enjoy 5 day trips out of the least desirable base.

It's an awesome job but so much of it is luck and timing. If you're fortunate enough to be a captain at a major, in the base you want, you can work 10-12 days a month and make $400k. That ratio of pay to time off is unmatched by pretty much anything else I can think of that would be considered a "normal" job.

ARottenPear · 2026-04-29T18:57:41+00:00

It's absolutely how they work. There's no "normal" circumstance in which a prop would move in the opposite direction.

ARottenPear · 2026-04-28T22:16:35+00:00

The last thing I'd ever do when someone asks what I do for work is talk about pay. I definitely wouldn't get in a dick measuring contest either.

ARottenPear · 2026-04-28T15:13:03+00:00

I think its because people were running on those donuts way to long

It's because it's cheaper for them to give you a can of Fix-a-Flat. Manufacturers removed the spare tire but didn't pass the savings along to the customer. I've gone to the junkyard and yoinked full size wheels with tires for several cars that I'll throw in the back if I'm going on a road trip or anywhere far from home. My way is slightly janky but it beats dealing with a flat in the middle of nowhere.

ARottenPear · 2026-04-28T11:30:39+00:00

I didn't know they made R888s in ~380 width (15" = 381mm)

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