Off The Hoox

It was roughly this time last year that I decided to hell with life on the road and living in crazy places and acquiring crazy amounts of air miles. It was also then that I decided to go ahead and do my CPL (Commercial Pilot’s License). It was then that I decided to mothball and pack away my multiple passports for a while.

Well now it’s roughly one year later. Things change.

It’s time to cut the cord. Are we human?

~The Killers

Yup, I think you’ve guessed it. I am now deciding to hell with flying and going back to “The Life” out at 32000ft, departure lounges, crazy places and environmental situations that you will never truly “get” unless you have lived it and lived it hard!

There are many reasons for this re-change of mind. Many that I will talk about, many that I can’t talk about since they are simply feelings and thus relatively difficult to put into words. But in a nut-shell, I just don’t think it’s for me. I gave it a shot and by God I had some fun doing it. There were tough times, great times, nervous times and exciting times.

• The aviation industry is a crazy, backstabbing and thankless one. I am not saying that the corporate world in the land of construction and throat cutting isn’t but at least I understand that. I might as well stay in craziness that I “get”!
• Everyone at my level of piloting and hoping to join the industry are mostly 10 years younger than me. I don’t have an issue dealing with age but I do find it frustrating dealing with the young, dumb, full of… shit, cowboy attitude. It kills! It has killed!
• I am very new in the industry and already I know of loads of people that have crashed by no fault of their own but they all get blamed with “pilot error” until they can prove otherwise. There is NO professional support. I had a saying in IT that I will still stand by when comparing to many careers such as flying and medical support and security. When I have a bad day, NO ONE DIES!
• I guess I have to say it. Money is an issue. Unless by some miracle and speedy advances in the industry, I am almost too old to earn enough to retire. I am 34 years old now and the best salary I could expect per month entering the industry with my “massive” 200 hours and a baby pilot CPL is R10 000. That’s roughly $1000 to live, eat and imagine a life when not airborne. Not much at all when you consider the 75% pass mark requirements on very tough exams and almost R500 000 in expenses when taking accommodation into account for the year of training.  All of this and then to be responsible for 6, 10, 20 + lives and a $1 000 000 + aircraft which you will immediately be blamed for if anything should happen to it. Fair? Hmmm!
• I love flying and I guess I also just don’t want to remove the fun and joy I get out of it. To make it a job and forced to work more than your legal limit while hour building in your first 2 or 3 contracts would just destroy the dream I think. I recall a situation I was in some months ago when I was forced to fly against my wishes as I wasn’t feeling well and was down right irritated but it was out of my control. I just ended up staring out the window thinking to myself, “Is this as good as it gets? Is that what I can expect for the rest of my life?” Earning reasonable money and flying privately I get to do what I want and where and how! And by that I mean actually enjoy the flying!
• I love Port Elizabeth and I love my new life but I have to admit there is a huge something missing from it. I am missing the adventure, the new story to tell and the new drama from around the world. I have had recent adventures which I have loved and written about but even that outlined the fact that I wouldn’t have been able to do it had I not saved up enough from my previous life and if had to work a normal life and job.
• That gets me on to the “normal” discussion. I have officially declared, that is a fallacy! There is no such thing as normal. Normal is what your blinkered views will see when you look at your life and compare it with everything else around you. If there is anything that doesn’t fit into your little cookie cutter size and shape of what you think life should be like, you declare it “not normal”. The life I live certainly doesn’t fit into the average cookie cutter, but it’s the normal that I forged for myself. Yes it isn’t always easy and I end up bitching a lot about everything but show me life that is easy. Since I have been home I have seen many people bitching about a whole lot of stuff. At least between my bitching I get to live and experience the world a million times over and meet incredible people that I can truly share this life with. That’s normal! The Old Hoox returns.

I really could go on but what’s the point? If you are even remotely interested then let’s get together for that bottle of red wine and let’s have a L&J (laugh & joke) about it all and life in general! No matter what you think, I can almost guarantee I could convince you that what I have chosen is the way forward! However saying that I have been told I should have been a lawyer or politician! God help us all!

So now the plans for the future? You should know better than that. I don’t discuss the future, I make it daily. So just for now the plans are to get back to work, back into the thick of it and settle back into “the life”. Options are open for now. Option 1 is I have a great opportunity to go and work for mates that I used to work with in Iraq. It’s a different company and now they are operating in Afghanistan, in and around the Kabul area. I would be heading up all their communications installations and IT infrastructure. Option 2 is an email that just popped up the other day for incredible work on a 3 on and 3 off rotation in North Africa for a major oil company. Option 3 is an unknown entity working with another good friend who has also changed companies and is trying her damndest to keep me out of war torn territories! Great girl! Miss the Italian conversations!

So I guess that sums it up. I can assure the world that this has not just been a fleeting decision. This has been coming for a some time and I didn’t want to rush into anything. I am still not rushing and these 3 options can take a while to come to fruition but at least it’s in that direction. I have not regretted taking this time and continuing my flying as I have done. It has been a wonderful year of catching up with good friends, buying a house and half settling down and spending more time with my folks than I have done in the 10 years prior to this. I have done so much in this last year. Loads of travel and seeing amazing people and learning new skills. Simply amazing. But now its time to pack that suitcase again, dust off the passports and make my way through security, immigration and the departure gates.

Goodbye Sleepy Hollow. See you soon!