[Porsche-O-Phile]

I made just barely over $20k a year for flying cargo (usually sacks full of bank checks and cash for ATM deposits, as well as UPS feeder stuff). This was for being up before dawn every single day, out there in the weather (rain, sleet, cold, whatever) to preflight, load my own cargo and fly off to some god-foresaken corner of the world, then sit around there all day in some dumpy hotel or crappy company apartment, and in the evening do the opposite route finally getting home at about 9 or 10 at night, only a few hours before having to be back at the airport to do it again.

Often the flights were single-pilot IFR, in nasty conditions, in dilapidated, 40+ year old airplanes with torn seats, beat-up avionics and many, many cycles on them.

However, it was also the best job I ever had. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, because I loved the flying. Unfortunately the love of flying affords sleazeball businesses with a "carrot" to manipulate people with - exactly what happened to me and what happens to many others. The line they spew is, "think of all the valuable experience you're getting - that has a value that you should consider in addition to what your [meager] paycheck is..."

Yes, it's a stinkload of B.S. But there are people (like me) that will line up around the block for the opportunity because we LOVE TO FLY. I used to say (and still do) that a bad day flying was better than the best day sitting in an office somewhere. There are a lot of people who believe that and it allows the carriers to lowball their pilots and be "carrot danglers". The "carrot" is the promise of "someday" making it into the left seat of that commercial jet with the six-figure paycheck and the 10-day-a-month flight schedule because of all the "valuable experience" you're getting by eating turd sandwiches and working for less than an In-n-Out Burger employee today.

Most guys never make it that far. It's a tough, gritty, dirty, sleazy industry. But a lot of us put up with it because we LOVE TO FLY.

I will do it again in a heartbeat. Gladly. So maybe I'm the problem. Or maybe the industry's eagerness to exploit my enthusiasm is the problem. Or maybe both.