Experienced pilots: what was the most expensive mistake you made early in your career?

Posted by RAG_Aviation@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 37 comments

Not necessarily just money.

Could be a flight school you chose, a job you took, a job you turned down, career timing, training decisions, debt, moving somewhere too early, or advice you followed that ended up being wrong.

If you could go back and change one thing, what would it be?

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crimedog58@reddit

Joining the military. Financially it was great but medically, mentally and socially I’m so goddamn tired I don’t want to fly anymore when I get out.

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gromm93@reddit

Did you do any active duty while you were in? Or would that have been further stress on top of all that?

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Foreign_Tomatillo_69@reddit

Patiently waiting for the divorce stories…

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Drunkenaviator@reddit

Shit no, my divorce was the best choice I ever made.

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whys_this_so_hard@reddit

Do stories from the Corps count? Lmao

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Foreign_Tomatillo_69@reddit

Military divorce rates 🤝🤝 airline divorce rates

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Had the chance to make a lateral move to a different regional less than 2 years into my first job. Had I taken it, I would have ended up flowing directly to DL and have been a lineholding captain many years before I ended up at a legacy airline. Thinking back, that decision cost me several million dollars in lost earnings.

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Kentness1@reddit

Becoming a pilot. Does that count?

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pr1ntf@reddit

Sure does, chief.

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justcallme3nder@reddit

Deciding to slow roll getting my hours as a CFI so I could get my degree at the same time. This was immediately post-covid so I bought in to the "5 year recovery" that was being spouted at the time. took me 3 and a half years to get my hours and I finally joined the airlines in early 2024. Meanwhile, a guy that had gone through the same program I had that started 6 months after I did blasted through his hours in 12 months, went to a regional, got his 1000 hours, and has now been at a legacy for 3 years, where I just got a CJO from a legacy last week. That's a mistake that's going to cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars.

HOWEVER, I met one of my best friends in class at regional training and I wouldn't have met him if I had gone any other time, and I'm a sentimental sap so it was probably better this way.

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Prof_Slappopotamus@reddit

Embry-Fucking-Riddle.

The last "class" you take where they explain how financially fucked you are because you took loans out was so etching that needs to beat the end of your sophomore high school year, twice a year during your junior high year, and every quarter during your senior year. Then it needs to be done before you sign a single goddamned piece of paper to go there.

I got lucky-ish. Age 65 burned me a bit, but I hit the regionals when that opened back up and it's been a fairly fast rocketship since...but that still chaps my ass.

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LuthierKv21@reddit

Be born in the 60s

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Majestic-capybara@reddit

Selling my house to use finance my flight training. Yes, I made it through all my training without any student loans or credit card debt but we sold it in 2018 for 400,000 and the people who bought it ended up selling in 2022 for 720,000.

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mustang__1@reddit

Yeah but who the fuck saw the housing prices spiking in COVID coming from 2018.

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breadman_brednan@reddit

Same people on here who claim they can predict the aviation market lol

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mustang__1@reddit

Deciding not to be an airline pilot when i graduated college in 2013.

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braften@reddit

Breaking an FSI sim. V1 cut was going well then the whole thing decided to die. All I heard when I came back next recurrent is that the sim was replaced

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mconrad382@reddit

What did you do exactly that broke it? I’ve seen some fairly horrendous shit and I’ve never seen anyone break one lol let alone on a V1 cut. Roughest thing I’ve seen is people land hard and that seems like it might take a toll but never break one lol let alone

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braften@reddit

My best guess is some computer decided to die at that exact moment

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BathFullOfDucks@reddit

Had the opportunity to buy an ex Swiss fighter. The owner upped the price by a couple of thousand and I got cold feet. The aircraft is now worth nearly 100 times what I would have paid.

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Several-Village5814@reddit

"Not starting sooner"

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Different_Tough_525@reddit

Same here. Now I have a house and kids instead of a plane. God damn it.

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UnfortunateSnort12@reddit

When I was furloughed and had an opportunity to go to Compass with about 50 more hours I didn’t have, instead of charging it to a credit card and getting the delta flow, I decided to rely on my delta flow at Mesaba and wait for recall. Delta phased that out, I ended up at Compass eventually sans flow, and at the majors about 5 years or so after I would’ve.

Also, getting jacked around in the Mesaba, Pinnacle, Endeavor, Compass, Delta and Northwest shenanigans made me never want to work there ever. Also commuting on their jumpseats. Still a hugely expensive mistake though.

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Could be a flight school you chose, a job you took, a job you turned down, career timing, training decisions, debt, moving somewhere too early, or advice you followed that ended up being wrong.

If you could go back and change one thing, what would it be?

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