Over at Freight Dog Tales John's announced he's leaving his Van driver job this week. I guess this hasn't been a surprise to most of us here — talking with John in person over the past month or two it's been obvious something like this was probably going to have to happen. It's just too hard to live decently in the Bay Area on a junior Freight Dog's income, especially if you have a wife and a mortgage. I know — I tried it for a while as a pro photographer, with virtually no real income for a couple of years before I had to start the long trek down to Silicon Valley and back every day to make a real living in computers again (and I have neither a wife nor a mortgage). I've always harboured vague dreams of flying for a living, but I'm too damn old now (hint: I'm a year or two shy of being twice Sam's age…) to want to have to move from the Bay Area and starve again like a student for a decade before making enough to not just survive but thrive.
But as Sam says, once a Freight Dog always a Freight Dog — and as John said this morning, he'll never be cured of being a Freight Dog, he's just in remission :-). He's definitely got other aviation things up his sleeve…
2 comments:
Freight dogging was the most interesting flying I did, but it's not something most people can do for a long time. There are good reasons I left freightdogging for the airlines, money being one. I can understand why John's getting out of it. Still, I'll miss his unique perspective on the job. I fly to a lot of the same airports as his company, I often hear their callsign & wonder if it's John.
I hear John on-frequency every now and then, both with the Van company and as an instructor (and I have to admit, every time I see a Megawhacker departing Oaktown I wonder of it's our Sam in the right seat :-) ). Anyway, I'd just love to be a freight dog, but I can't see how I'd survive financially. Oh well. Maybe one day when I'm a grownup...
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