Joel Fehr

ECF 40S
December 8th 2015

My Future Career in Aviation Personal Essay

The feeling that I get when flying through the sky high up in the clouds is like no other.
Its like an adrenaline rush every time I look down from the window. Aviation is something that I
really enjoy, and I am writing why I want to pursue a career in aviation. This essay is about what
I need to do in order to get into a career in aviation, and what the pros and cons are to pursuing a
career as a pilot. Whether my future lies in aviation, or anything else, its good to think about the
many aspects of my future career.
In the future, I would love to be flying all over the world in many types of aircraft, except
not as a passenger, but as the pilot. My dream is to one day get a pilots license. Whether its a
private license or commercial license, just being able to fly would be a dream come true. Since a
young age I have been really interested in both cars and airplanes. However I have grown to love
airplanes and cars equal, except cars I like to work on and drive, and airplanes I would like to fly.
The times that my family has gone on a winter vacation, we have flown south. Whenever we
have flown I have never seemed to feel or get sick, I always get a great feeling, and still cant
believe how its possible to fly like the airplane is doing at that moment. I have always loved the
window seats, and especially the times when they are right over the wings. From this I have been
able see how some parts work, and get to watch the engine, and imagine how it is pushing the
massive airplane forward. Then when landing being able to see the flaps and most of the wing
separate mechanically to different locations in order to slow down and land properly amused me,
and I think seeing that just added to my passion for airplanes and aviation. This has made me
desire to attend flight school eventually, to learn all about the principles and physics of flight.
From what I have researched, I would most likely attend Mountain City Aviation, because the
staff are friendly and educated, it is close to where I live, and I have heard of some great success
stories from their training. I love to travel, and in the future I hope to travel to many places or do
some sort of missions work in different areas of the world. Just getting to transport people from
place to place driving vehicles makes me happy, and whether flying a large or small aircraft, I
believe just getting the people to their destinations would give me a sense of pride and joy. This
summer I got to attend a discovery flight that is offered at Mountain City Aviation. At first I
helped move the aircraft, and then the instructor showed me how to perform pre-flight checks. I
was nervous to begin with, and then he told me to get in, except in the pilots seat. I thought I
would just be in the co-pilots seat, so this was a surprise. After getting past the nervousness, I felt
great. Knowing that I was controlling the airplane for the flight felt so awesome. I learnt many
things from that lesson, and can only imagine how much more there is to learn. Even though it
was a small Cessna plane, its a start, and I cant wait to see what types of airplanes I could be
flying in the future.
In addition to why I want to pursue a career in aviation, I need to plan and research what I
need to do and accomplish in order to get into it. I plan on finding more information about
different flight schools, because I know its not always the best to go with the first one that I saw.
Sending emails to different flight schools or setting up meetings with the flight school instructors
would be great in order to get information on the various schools here in Southern Manitoba.
This is a hard decision for me, because I am still unsure of what I want to do after high school. I
think it would be best to set up another sort of discovery flight lesson before making the

Joel Fehr
ECF 40S
December 8th 2015

decision, in order to get the feel for if its something I would actually like to do whether for fun
or as a career. After high school, I have thought about it, and think that it would be best to take a
year or two in order to figure everything out, and save up money. Many things cost a lot of
money these days, and flight school is no exception. Getting the many different ratings for flying
can add up real quick, however it shouldnt get in my way of pursuing a career as a pilot. If I find
that its something I for sure want to do, then applying to a flight school would be the next step.
Many flight schools have easy to navigate websites, and applications right on their websites.
Should I get into a flight school, I would try my best to be determined with learning all I can
even if it gets hard, staying positive is also hard, but helps. Focusing on the goal of attaining my
license whether it be private or commercial, would be my focus until I graduate from flight
school, and then I would search and apply for companies if I go for my commercial license, or
just be a private pilot, and fly family, and friends to different locations and just have fun doing
the career or hobby that I am passionate about.
Every job has good and bad things about them, even the careers that I am passionate
about contain there pros and cons of the job, and its impossible to have all pros, so its best to
make the most out of the cons and bad parts of the job. I have always worried that in order to be
a pilot, I would need to be a genius at math. Pilots have to calculate their distance to and from
whatever destination they may be travelling to, and then calculate how much fuel they are going
to need in order to get to or from a certain destination. This has scared me because I feel I would
do something wrong, but I know that I would be trained properly, and would most likely not start
doing stuff like that right when I would start. If I decide to pursue a career as a pilot, I think it
would be best to start soon while Im still younger because if I would only start later in life, then
if I would have family I would never be around unless I managed to get a job in and around the
area where I live at the time. Its a really hard decision because even if I would do it soon, sure I
would be travelling the world, which is something I would like to do, however I would never see
my friends. Even though it takes a while to get the commercial license I would still not want to
be away from family and friends. The one guy who graduated from Mountain City Aviation was
around 18 or 19 when he got his commercial license, and Im sure he chose to go, but he got a
job in Germany with an airline company. Now he is in his 20s, and seems to make a good salary,
but I guess that is the sacrifice that would have to be made if its something youre really
passionate about. According to a paper I have from Mountain City Aviation, the cost of flight
training after everything is said and done, will be equal to the amount spent on a university
degree, however an airline pilot is more employable, and the costs can be made up for by the
salary that is made after a few years. Being a commercial pilot, you would spend many hours
sitting in the same spot. Even though you can take small breaks, it can get tiring sitting in the
same seat and being in such a small area with 2 or 3 other co-workers. Another pro, is that it is a
great time to get my pilots license if I still want, because the aviation industry is about to hit the
biggest surge in pilot hiring in history. The biggest positive in my opinion is, by 2029 an
estimated 466,650 commercial pilots will be needed, which is about 23,300 new pilots a year.
40% of these is to cope with the booming air travel in the Asia-Pacific region in the next while.
Among the other factors is a large amount of pilot retirements in the USA, changes to rules that
increase pilot training, resting, and working time, and an increase in demand in the USA as the
economy improves. Whether I get to fly large, cool airplanes, meet lots of friendly faces and

Joel Fehr
ECF 40S
December 8th 2015

bring them across the world, or just pilot a small aircraft with my private pilots license, and
bring my family and friends on short trips. It will all be doing the thing that I dream of and love
so much flying. Even the cons about the job whether it be aviation, mechanic, or anything else
wont stop me from pursuing the future career that I would enjoy.
Im not sure what my future may hold, but I would love to be a pilot. This would allow
me to travel, transport people, and have a career that I have dreamed about since a young age. I
may need to do quite a bit in order to accomplish this goal, but if I continue to get information on
different flight schools, save up money, and be determined and positive, my dream of flying
could one day become a reality. Any career has its pros and cons, however if I dont think about
the cons, or try to get a job near family and friends, and dont worry about the costs, and if I will
be able to calculate and do the stuff that is needed, then the cons wont seem so bad. Even if they
continue to be bad, then I will make the most of the pros of being a pilot. I will be doing
something I love, I will get to see the world while meeting new people, and there is a good
possibility of getting a job in the aviation industry. The cons of the job shouldnt stop me from
doing the things I love, and I need to just find a way to have the pros outweigh or completely
evaporate the cons. I think that in the future I will go for my private pilots license, because that
is the one I feel I want the most at this point in my life. Thinking of why I want to pursue being a
pilot, what I need to do in order to get it done, and what the pros and cons are of the job, are
good things to do because its good to think about the many aspects of my future career. Doing
so has helped me think of things I never have thought of before. Instead of just saying I want to
be a pilot because it looks cool, it made me think deeper and into why I actually want to be a
pilot. Even though I may not be a commercial pilot, or even a private pilot in the future, I will
still always have the feeling and views from flying in the sky in the back of my head.