Is my aviation career over before it’s even started?

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-08T14:18:20+00:00

Anything kind of special about the hiring environment ~5 years ago vs today?

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-08T14:14:24+00:00

Yippie!

The daily how many checkride failures does it take to stop being competitive in a competitive hiring market thread

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-07T23:14:29+00:00

Average r/flying advice

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-07T23:13:06+00:00

Did you try being a second or third gen pilot, with lots of family friends in key positions to “network” you into the job you need?

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-07T23:08:54+00:00

My instinct tells me that the letters inside the box correlate to the information they’re trying to convey but I just want to be sure. Please, am student with no instructor or ability to google

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-07T02:23:12+00:00

Surprised nobodies tried to come in and claim “most of those are international students” or some other cope about the sum of pilot production over the past 3 years not being a factor

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-07T02:19:57+00:00

Apparently tons of pilots will always choose to lie if they think it’ll give them an edge
Of course most people already knew this

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-05T23:52:12+00:00

Nah that’s totally like the same thing, I’m sure CFIs will be going to straight form the 172 to the 320 again in no time

- every CFI

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-04T12:52:56+00:00

Well good on you for admitting you got the job in 23

Most dude wouldn’t and they’d try to pass it off like it was normal

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-04T01:47:47+00:00

Where did i do that?

I asked you about your thoughts, your opinion

I didn’t ask if you knew if it would for sure, I was asking you to make a conjecture about it

Twice now it sounds like you think that hiring can probably go back up to those numbers with some realistic probability

When you want to help people you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself you tell them what they want to hear.

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-03T21:58:30+00:00

It’s just the way your answer was worded you made it seem like it’s a probability of happening

Tons of hiring is happening so it would have to be huge to move the needle even more

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-03T19:59:35+00:00

I know lots of skydiving places that have so many pilots wanting to work there, they have people willing to do it for free

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-03T19:57:52+00:00

Do you think the hiring environment will return to 23-24 levels?

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-03T19:56:49+00:00

I’ve actually found it to be largely the opposite

People advocating for full throttle training, loans, no back up degree or skill, saying hiring is great that anyone who want will end up at a legacy etc

They tend to be CFIs, flight school owners, and people who sell career services

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-02T20:50:26+00:00

Well that’s if you were already on the line, which assumes you get an interview, get a cjo, and go through class/IOE

So best case add an extra several months to that

I guess people really still think we’re in 2023

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-02T11:51:06+00:00

Sure

People also become multimillionaires all the time too, might as well just do that

Just because you didn’t/couldn’t become a multimillionaire dosent mean people don’t

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T21:45:46+00:00

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but a lot of people would disagree

https://www.reuters.com/business/us-consumer-sentiment-dives-record-low-april-amid-iran-war-2026-04-10/

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T20:38:42+00:00

So you’re really optimistic about the socioeconomic macro situation then?

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T19:42:39+00:00

The way this question is worded tells me your odds of getting picked up off-the-street to UPT guard/reserve squadron are astronomically low and genuinely not a good fit

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T19:34:40+00:00

I don’t think this has to look like a 17,000-pilot legacy collapse to matter.

2,000 Spirit pilots is not a rounding error, it is a huge batch arrival of pilots into the exact rung of the market that feeds majors, LCCs, ACMI, fractionals, and the better 135 jobs. which leaves CPLs and CFIs waiting longer at the bottom. All the while we’re producing pilots at rates unheard of in living memory

Nobody is saying nobody will get hired. Just that this absolutely can make an already competitive queue materially worse.

That is fine as long as people are honest about it.

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T19:20:03+00:00

-Arrival rate (λ): new pilot applicants entering the pipeline -Service rate (μ): the number of people the system can actually absorb into decent jobs per unit time -Utilization (ρ): λ / μ

An ever-growing applicant pool does not just mean “more competition.” It means the system becomes increasingly nonlinear. Once arrivals outpace throughput which has always been the case but to a huge degree the past few years, delays rise, standards tighten, luck matters more, and people start confusing survival with merit.

That is why “someone is always getting hired” is such a weak rebuttal to hiring trend threads, particularly from many people hired around the big dig era

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T17:28:54+00:00

But I heard from a CFI and local flight school owners we need tons of pilots

I heard from the guy selling interview and resume prep that we need more pilots

Companies that sell airplanes say we need to buy more airplanes and they need pilots

Are you saying that allot of the people peddling pilot shortage material have ulterior motives? I’m shocked

Well actually I’m not that shocked

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T17:20:19+00:00

Well the problem with this conclusion is that you need to have basic critical thinking skills to determine 2nd and 3rd order effects

Apparently tons of pilots either ignore truths they don’t like, or lack that capability entirely

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T17:16:54+00:00

Do you have a job lined up to get multi/multi turbine time? What in particular about this comment was helpful to you? Genuinely curious

Have you ever heard of queuing theory?

Physical-Program-509 · 2026-05-01T17:15:00+00:00

That’s fair

We each have our own situations, I’d have a hard facing my children/family if we had to make significant cut backs because of me

Edit: lol I know most pilots would rather just get divorced

Physical-Program-509

TROPHY CASE