Aviation Degree & Night Of The Living Dead

[Colonel]

My goal in life is to have my stock broker call me "Sir".

[Nark]

You just need to instruct in a J3 to earn the 5th, or more gold bars.

[trey kule]

What are the core classes, and aviation specific classes in a Canadian Aviation degree?

And how do they relate to being a pilot.

I am aware of a couple of the US universities. Their degrees in Aviation seem to be very good, but they are not really meant for pilots. More into design, manufacturing side of aviation.

I occasionally noticed some Canadian college students doing papers that were at the junior high school level in terms of quality, but maybe there were others that were valuable.

[Colonel]

Get an MBA and become VP then CEO of the airline.

Or get an ATP and just drive the aluminum tube.

[Slick Goodlin]

Or get an ATP and just drive the aluminum tube.

You say that like it’s a bad thing. I never knew I aspired to be a faceless number until I finally became one.

[Colonel]

You say that like it’s a bad thing

Ha. There is nothing wrong with a well-paying McJob where you go to
work, do your thing, go home with $$$ and it's over. No worries.

Some years back, I had an Italian company contact me about some
code I had written twenty years before that. In a certain configuration,
with a certain failure mode, the system did not behave optimally.

I looked at the code I wrote 20 years ago, and they were right - a looping
variable wasn't being updated correctly. It wasn't caught in testing and
no one had noticed the bug for 20 years. So, I fixed it.

Do you go home and worry about flights you did 20 years ago, that are
going to come back and haunt you?

I didn't think so.

Nothing wrong with a good-paying McJob. My experience is that management
tends to be scummy with those companies though, and treats their employees
(and customers and investors) like shit. Not all companies, though. I hear
Costco is good to work for.

[David MacRay]

I just cringe when I see 20 year old pilots who are cunt struck thinking that a new wifey will handle the early years. It affects their thinking as well since the little head is in control.

I blame that for not buying a plane but I suppose I'm ahead of most of the guys I worked with who even five years into the boom still had payments on their crappy pickup.

[Colonel]

I blame that for not buying a plane

It's important to accept responsibility for the decisions in your life.

You are making them, and no one else. There are consequences to
decisions. Risks and rewards.

My 2nd ex-wife told me it was "her or flying" - really. I replied: See
you at the airport. But I was a bit older then. Nearly 40. I wasn't
her bitch or @sshole Arlo's for that matter. It was really important
to both of them, that I was their bitch. Not gonna happen.

It cost me to not be her bitch (or Arlo's) but I'm comfortable with
those choices in the long run. I realize I'm not a GOOD CANADIAN
and I can't visit Canada any more because I don't suck Transport
Canada cock, and that's ok. There are lots of nice places in the
world, and in the meantime, I'll work away at becoming as good
a pilot as a TC Inspector, whom everyone knows are the best sticks
in the world.

[JW Scud]

I always thought that the degree requirement by the major airlines in any subject was complete B.S. Who would be so stupid as to believe that a degree in something with nothing to do with aviation would make you a better pilot as compared to four years of flying and learning the ropes. Yet the degree freaks took over the major airlines in the US with their blanket requirement. It was total discrimination that excluded so many good pilots from great paying jobs. The excluded ones had to settle for non-major airline jobs and many of them ended up at freighter carriers, which still did allow them to fly some really cool airplanes. Have done it myself.

As an interesting side note, with freighter airlines booming and the major airlines cutting back massively to become a shadow of their former self and the reality that even if things bounce back it will be years of stagnation for advancement within the majors....a few of those non-degree pilots in the freight industry might be grateful these days about those ridiculous discriminatory requirements. Interesting how things turn out. Maybe the freight companies can discrimination hiring policy for people with degrees.

Seems fair.

[Colonel]

It used to be, that the US major airlines hired almost exclusively
ex-military pilots. There were enough of them retiring to allow
that policy.

Note that military pilots (well, fixed wing anyways) have to be
officers, and officers have to have degrees. So pretty well
everyone getting hired by a US major had a degree.

Note that Canada's objectively greatest fighter pilot of the last
century, did not have a degree and was rejected by the RCAF
for pilot training. He was one hell of a pilot, and an even better
shot, but in fact a terrible officer, and the Canadian government
hated him so much they would not even claim his dead body.

See what's important to the bureaucrats?