I’m retired and pretty much away from aviation for quite some time but the interest remains. My working life of fifty years was mostly in the maintenance field involving large paper plants, food processing, fifteen years in airline management, and finally self-employed aircraft repair. An exception to that was one year employed by a machine producer developing a food processing device for which I received a US patent.
I earned my private pilot license in 1985 and have accumulated approx. 5000 hours, none of which was commercial, but nearly all in hi-performance aircraft. In the latter years I didn’t bother logging time as I had no desire in collecting certificates etc. A heart attack at 59 ended the flying days. I did manage to obtain a special issuance but the cost and time of the exams every six months was not worth it for the type of flying I was doing.
My airline career involved facility management in the flight simulation department for the first five years. Following that I managed numerous airline positions including data centers, Flight ops, tech ops, and office staff with responsibilities at numerous stations throughout the system. As happens to so many, that career ended with the final bankruptcy of the company as it was merged into another. I chose the early retirement over the stress and never regretted doing it.
The final ten working years I was self-employed, (really part time retired,) which was to be a hobby rebuilding a Beech V35B. It had been severely damaged in a ground accident. The hobby morphed into a near business. Over the years I returned to service several 35s, two A36, two 55 Barons, a D50 Twin Bonanza, C150, C172. All but three had been written off by insurance companies. All returned to service, fully FAA inspected and approved as many of them required recertification. I like to say I put more aircraft back into the air than many pilots took out. To the best of my knowledge all of them are still in service after twenty years.
Since, I’ve kept myself busy with simpler things like garden tractors, boats, RV’S, gardening and computer repairs.