Payment Expectations

I am working on ejection factor plus a couple other relatively minor things. It's one thing to pass a DOT exam in some mass intake clinic, but quite a formidable mountain to confront a FAA Medical exam for private pilots (Or any pilot I suppose depending on levels of certification.. Im focused strictly on small planes like the Archer or the 152...I recall the Archer was a good working plane better than some cars actually)

Even today Im not certain if I want to proceed. I have some stick time and a bit of instruction long ago, but those days are long over. Maybe I hope for a future where I don't need to take medicines and overcome some of the limitations and get going. I should stop hoping and get started. This would be the year to do it on my end. I have begun to take steps towards that goal.

Even if I did not get licensed, it would still be a journey worth taking up again, because you only get one life and it will be a shame to let it dribble through your fingers doing nothing.

 

Just do local tanker work. You don’t want to live in a truck man.

I work a casual 45 hours a week(paid hourly with overtime), eat healthy food, get out of the truck 5-15 times a day. Home at night and it’s just like any other job except I drive a truck. You don’t have to make it a lifestyle. I sleep in my truck once a month.

Do I like driving a truck? Sure, but it’s not a lifestyle it’s a job. If someone offered me more money and the same hours to run a loader or cook in restaurant I’d consider. You don’t have to do one thing your entire life.

 

HEB a grocery chain here in TX has prepared meals for 6-8 dollars. You get a piece of meat, a side of veggies, and something else. It’s like a TV dinner except it’s real food. There’s no mess at all afterwards, quick and easy. Of course parking and getting yourself in there with that huge truck? Maybe not always easy.

But for me right now I live on those things. Two of those feeds me for the day. No preparing and no mess to clean up after. Leaves lots of time for me to procrastinate other things that need to get done.

 

I wouldn’t worry about pay too much. I’d say pretty much any local tanker job you’ll be able to make a decent living then in a year or two you can shoot for a 80k a year job.

As far as driving in traffic you just gotta do it. I learned in down town Minneapolis. Did I do some dumb things looking back? Yeah of course but now I don’t think twice about holding up 4 lanes of traffic to back into a stop real quick.

 

In my time I learned I had too heavy hands trucking is well and good. Dock at the dinner table just so without tipping the wine glasses. But try to hold a light plane at a assigned altitude just not working well. Trimming is the key here. I discovered I was a way better nav with the map and radio stack in the right seat so we would team up and go on cross country, draw a triangle say from Camp David exclusion to Dulles then to Harpers and back And try to stay on track while air traffic filled the sky. It was motivating.

Sometimes I wonder since 9-11 things have seriously changed in that part of the USA in the air. It's almost like you cannot come upstairs without permission from Washington Center and a filed plan. It's different now.

Someone should set a dinner table dock challenge. Fill a couple tall unstable wine glasses on it. Put a 53 foot against it to one inch across the entire tailgate doors without tipping those glasses.

 

I would do about 6 months OTR personally. Whatever these fools tell you, seeing the country is fun for pretty much the whole first 6 months.

 

The USA is still fun to me after a lifetime. In fact I am such a wanderbug that traveling around the USA is still FUN. Just so long there is time to spare prior to delivery or a little bit of downtime after.

Some of my memorable days happened when we leave the trailer and bobtail downtown to go do something for morale purposes. And learn the local culture etc if at all possible. Sometimes it's fulfilling when a spouse guides to old stomping grounds of childhood somewhere or to visit a buried sibling etc. It takes a Dispatch that is very aware of what is happening, how long it will take to load a given trailer and be able to say here, take off. Be back here in 9 hours ready to go. Yes Daddy.

 

Local work only enhances your pay. It never hurts.