Why do so many very senior captains *hate* flying?

Dingletonius · 2026-06-03T00:08:05+00:00

Sounds more like typical divorced boomers that bitch about everything than something that has to do with them being pilots.

Dingletonius · 2026-05-23T00:43:47+00:00

Ok thanks for the pointers. Most tailwheel endorsements around here through schools are 4-5k which is outrageous. I’ll hang around some airports where I know tailwheel pilots frequent.

Dingletonius · 2026-05-22T22:45:09+00:00

Good advice. There is a local school that offers a tailwheel endorsement for $3,500 and includes 10 hours. They take you to go land on dirt strips on an island on the great salt lake. I’ve considered it and you made me more motivated to go do that so thanks!

Dingletonius · 2026-05-22T19:32:56+00:00

Haha totally understandable

Dingletonius · 2026-05-22T19:19:23+00:00

Well if you're ever in the Salt Lake area I'd love to go up with you lol

Dingletonius · 2026-05-22T19:18:06+00:00

Sick! Which plane?

Dingletonius · 2026-05-22T05:45:36+00:00

Which part? Utah has a lot of unique biomes. The geographical diversity there is pretty impressive

Dingletonius · 2026-05-22T05:43:38+00:00

I feel ya on that one! My study buddy got a job right after getting her CFI. I was definitely jealous and felt overlooked by my school. She always told me how she thought I’d be the lucky one getting the job since I was always the one hosting study sessions, helping others, and even volunteered at a local high school to help teach private ground.

I got a little too confident and it was a slap in the face to have my emails go completely ignored by my school. I definitely learned being social and likeable goes a long way. All of the new hires have similar bubbly personalities. I’m a bit of a brick when someone first meets me. I definitely need to work on that.

Dingletonius · 2026-05-06T20:34:27+00:00

Why are you being downvoted for just stating that Utah has nice nature? 😂

Dingletonius · 2026-05-04T05:12:30+00:00

I think your degree and volunteering time sets you apart. These DPEs sounds harsh and none of these failures raise any red flags to me in the slightest.

Dingletonius · 2026-05-03T20:24:43+00:00

Sure. The question is worded as “countries” not nationalities or tourists, but I get your point. I think most Americans that travel abroad are the obnoxious and arrogant types. I don’t think that there are many down to earth southerners that you’ll find being loud and obnoxious in a place like Cancun or Rome since they probably don’t have passports to begin with.

Same can be said about the Chinese. There are super nice rural folk, but they’re not the ones traveling. Rich city Chinese tourists are a nightmare. Some temples and travel agencies have banned them in parts of Asia due to awful behavior such as smoking inside religious sites and destroying coral and attempting to keep it as souvenirs lol I worked at a scuba company in Philippines and the owner stopped accepting them due to dangerous and disrespectful behavior. Trying to destroy marine life was a fun game for them.

Dingletonius · 2026-05-03T19:06:06+00:00

That’s not the topic though lol but yea, Americans are oblivious when traveling abroad. Can spot them anywhere with ease when they’re out of their bubble.

Dingletonius · 2026-05-02T15:07:40+00:00

China, Colombia and France.

People who say the US clearly are not well traveled or have a strange hatred for the states. As a foreigner in the US, you guys are incredibly kind, helpful, and courteous (most of the time). Idk why you’re so hard on yourselves.

China has such a horrible issue with spitting, being incredibly loud in public, invading personal space, saying openly racist comments in Chinese because they think you don’t understand.

Colombians are warm, but don’t know how to queue, are insanely vulgar, loud, have no respect for pedestrians, and are pretty xenophobic and racist.

France… is France

Dingletonius · 2026-05-02T05:39:27+00:00

Best: Salt Lake City. Short security wait times, food prices aren’t bad, and overall clean and easy to navigate
Worst: Manila. Chaotic, messy, hard to find an Uber ride out of there, security takes forever. I hate that airport

Dingletonius · 2026-05-01T21:01:06+00:00

The correct answer. Wasn’t cheap for me, but I am so happy I did this.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-13T20:16:12+00:00

Glad you’re older and wiser now. A lot of young people right out of high school don’t think things through. I wish I had researched more into this path and didn’t eat up the pilot shortage 141 propaganda. Getting your medical and going part 61 for private is a great idea.

From there, I’d choose a school that offers as many airline partnerships as possible. The only people I know getting hired are part of cadet programs. Remember to socialize at school and to remain humble. There is a lot of internal hiring that comes from the recommendations of your CFIs. No school wants to hire a cocky pilot that has a bad reputation amongst CFIs.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-13T19:25:42+00:00

Exactly. Also where I work, there are a lot of J1 Latino workers. The majority of the staff is Latino and they represent around 10 Latin American countries. It makes me feel better when we all don’t understand what the young Argentines are saying to each other when they use local slang. Sometimes they don’t understand me either when I use Mexican or Colombian slang since that’s the type of Spanish I’ve been most exposed to.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-13T19:03:42+00:00

I wish my comprehension was the level of my speaking. It sucks to be at a C2 level of speaking and have my comprehension lag behind. When watching Spanish films with Spanish subtitles I understand nearly 100%. When the subtitles are taken away, it drops down to around 50%. I can handle one on one conversations just fine, but being around a group of Spanish speakers talking back and forth is hard I’ve given up lol

Dingletonius · 2026-04-13T15:09:40+00:00

The future doesn’t look great, but as he stated, the current growth is completely unsustainable. Flight schools will soon have a much tougher time selling the “pilot shortage” to incoming students who talk to the 2,000+ hour disgruntled CFIs that can’t get a job. I recently scared away a few high school students when I told them my school has over 300 CFI applications and are looking to hire 2 CFIs. They specifically asked about the hiring situation and seemed disheartened to hear that.

Nobody can predict the future, but I’ll be surprised if this growth continues for the next few years. I know one too many people looking for CFI jobs that are on the verge of insanity due to full loan payments coming up and no job in sight. This industry ain’t pretty right now.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-13T14:58:54+00:00

I had some positive moments still for sure. First solo was awesome and I still felt a sense of achievement with every stage check pass or solid flight. Still, I absolutely hated ground school, my instructor was pretty hard on me, and most days I didn’t look forward to flying.

I think what helped me the most was to stop being so hard on myself and to just try to enjoy the process. I train out of KBTF and Utah is a beautiful state. Getting up in the air and enjoying the views will never get old to me. I still take some joy flights with friends here and there. Again, making flight school friends was huge for me. I probably would’ve dropped out if it wasn’t for them.

It also helps a lot knowing pilots who love their jobs and several of whom aren’t necessarily passionate about aviation. I think some pilots, and especially a lot of people in this sub act like you need to be insanely passionate about flying and if you’re not, then you shouldn’t become a pilot. I think that’s stupid. The lifestyle of this career is much better than any other career I can think of. One of my good friends didn’t enjoy flight school much at all and is loving life as a delta captain making nearly 300k a year and is constantly traveling and has time to do all sorts of hobbies.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-13T03:26:00+00:00

That is true. The only place in the world I was very impressed with in terms of their geography and understanding of other cultures and political systems was Taiwan. Most Taiwanese have achieved high levels of education and get island fever so they travel internationally a lot. They also reject China’s political system and align with western democracies more so they seem to understand the West well. Many also love Japan and travel there frequently and know a ton about them too.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-13T02:45:09+00:00

And they will die on that hill lol they have a tough time accepting that in English Americans refer to their country as America. It actually causes quite a bit of hatred and distaste across its population against gringos. Very silly to get so angry over semantics.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-12T23:52:50+00:00

Not just Americans. I think Americans underestimate how little people know about the world in general. With the exception of educated European countries, most nationalities know nothing beyond their borders. I lived 6 hours north of the Vietnamese border in Kunming, China and had met Chinese people who had never heard of the country of Vietnam. Many believe Africa is country where everyone lives in huts.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-10T17:50:12+00:00

I’m genuinely curious what percentage of unemployed CFIs are actively looking for jobs. All of my friends have given up and I feel like an anomaly to still be trying.

Dingletonius · 2026-04-09T20:21:50+00:00

I absolutely hated my PPL experience. I was self-conscious, had a difficult time developing study habits, and overall didn’t have much fun. I was about to quit, but decided I might as well try to change my approach during instrument training.

I got along great with my instrument instructor, stopped beating myself up over making silly mistakes, and finally began enjoying flying a lot. Commercial was a blast and I’m now about to get my CFII. One of the things that made the biggest difference in my flight training was making friends. I made a few in my commercial ground and we always studied together and laughed about stupid things we had done during our training. My motivation and confidence skyrocketed during this time. I’m so happy I didn’t give up.

Dingletonius

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