How to Succeed in Aviation

I’ve always found aviation to be an instant friendship, as well as an instant acceptance field particularly among flight crews. I’ve spent over 35 years as a major airline pilot and 20+ years helping pilots advance their careers and continue to see the importance of 4 basic ideas for a successful career and a fulfilling life.  These are:
 

1. Show your passion for your chosen work (flying in this instance)
2. Show those who can help you that you’re serious
3. Be proactive on your own behalf
4. Make it easy for others to help you

Most important is to show your passion for flying.  Whatever your niche may be, show others who can help you that you are serious.  For pilots that means hanging out at the airport, which we’ve all done (and enjoy doing), talking flying, learning from others, sharing the excitement of aviation with others and letting them know you’re EXCITED.  Go that extra mile to let them know it’s a pleasure to be there and you’re ready to get involved.

 

Then comes the part that counts…showing others who can help you that you are serious.  My book, Flight Guide for Success: Tips and Tactics for the Aspiring Airline Pilot, is all about demonstrating to those who can help you that you’re serious about aviation and will make sacrifices to show that you’re not just a ‘wannabe’.  Remember that we have all been helped by someone at some point in our careers and were able to move up thanks to their assistance.  As we advance, it’s our job to help those coming up behind us.  It is important to be concerned about making sure we help the REAL ones, not just the ‘wannabes’.  Therefore, your job is to demonstrate that you’ll make good use of the advice received, follow through with the job leads and report back to your advisor on your progress.  Staying in touch is the essence of successful networking.

 
Being proactive on your own behalf is crucial to your success.  If you need to find a contact in a particular company, talk with your source first, then send them an email reminding them of your needs. Provide them with the info they need to do the task you have requested, be it an address or a refresher on how you met and why you feel the reference would be appropriate.  Don’t make them extract the information from you. 
 

Finally, make it easy for others to help you.  If it’s a letter of recommendation you’re seeking, you can give them a de-identified letter that someone else has prepared for you, helping them to know more about you and what others think of you. If you’ve had special interactions with them, give them a short list of what you’ve accomplished.  Rather than making them feel it’s a burden or a big job to comply with your request, show them you’ve practically done their work for them. Remember, give them the tools to help you do what you’re asking for and you’ll quickly get what you need. 

Women Pilots: Why so few?

Celebrating 35 years as a commercial airline captain opened many memories and thoughts about being one of the first women to reach this goal. This led to my thinking about why are there so few young women today who are as passionate as I was to have such a career? Doing a bit of research, I recently read that “fewer than 500 women are flying as captains with major airlines worldwide.” They went on to say that fewer than 4 percent of jet-qualified pilots in the world are women. (I’m the first to agree that even these numbers don’t accurately reflect the category “flying as captains with major airlines worldwide” since many are flying as first officers, and I have no stats on how many non-US women ATP-equivalent pilots are out there.) Since I was amazed by these numbers, I began to query fellow pilots as to their thoughts on why so few women choose to go into professional aviation as well as did a bit of digging on my own. My first concern came when I came across a set of women pilot stats while cleaning out my files, dated 1987. The approximate number of women pilots with ATP ratings (which I assume is how they still determine numbers of women jet-qualified pilots) at the end of 1986 was only 3 percent, showing a mere 1% gain over the next 25+ years. So, assuming the number is still very small, I began to ask questions of pilots I flew with to get their input on why we still have so very few women interested in pilot careers. It quickly became apparent to me that there are many reasons which could account for the lack of female aviators and there’s no viable way to discover which may be real vs. those that are imagined. From my perspective, there are probably 7 categories for consideration: 1. Upbringing: How were they were raised and were they encouraged to consider various careers? Did she socialize only with other little girls or did she integrate well into a male oriented/dominated upbringing? 2. Influence/Encouragement: Did she have parents or close adult friends who encouraged her to become involved in non-traditional career paths? 3. Technical Skills: Did she have a natural bent toward things technical and/or enjoy how things work to help with the high technical skills/training needed to survive in the aviation world? 4. Passion to travel: Did she possess a wanderlust or passion for the apparently nomadic lifestyle pilots lead and did she find constant travel exciting and enriching? 5. Survival skills: Were strong survival skills a part of her personality allowing her to pursue a non-traditional career with little regard for possible harassment or discrimination? 6. Mentorship: Did she have access to the how-to information needed or at least a mentor to assist and encourage her program? 7. Funding: a most basic need for our expensive and extensive training. There are so many issues that can complicate the completion of what’s a rather long career path. Getting interested in the field is just the beginning. Enjoying the long road to a well-paid job is quite another. You need some real passion and desire to stay the course and arrive at the destination eager to continue. If you have any ideas on the subject, I’d like to hear from you. Next time we’ll talk about what it takes to survive the trials of a pilot job once you decide that this lifestyle IS for you.