Introduction

The main cause of this pilot shortage pertains to the youth of our nation. They are not deciding to become pilots anymore because the pilot career does not hold the admiration and power that it used to so many years ago. This is because earlier on, aviation and aircraft were such a monumental innovation. It was rare for someone to fly in an airplane, so pilots were very well-respected. Now, since planes have become a common source of transportation and way more main-stream, people see pilots more as transportation drivers to where they want to go rather than the “conquerers of the skies”. This results in our youth, from the get go, not willing to put in the work to “just to be a pilot”. Better yet, our schools have transformed from actually teaching critical thinking skills, to just teaching kids how to ace exams. Having critical thinking skills is such a huge component in becoming a pilot that it would be extremely hard to become one without those skills. This continues to turn our youth away from the career as a whole. Moreover, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University claimed that youth “have a hard time contemplating that high cost of entry into the industry and the later financial reward.” (ERAU). It is such a long and hard road to become fully certified to become any kind of pilot, and there will be no gratification until much later on, which is hard for youth (who are so instantly gratified in today’s age) to grasp. Part of that is also because flight training is not fun anymore. Today, flight training is mostly computers, simulators, and ground school; not actual flying. All of these factors continue to affect our youth and the shortage of pilots.