Aieee, splat. You're dead. You've brought 100 other souls with you as you smacked into a commercial jetliner filled with good little girls and boys heading to Grandma's for Thanksgiving. Luckily, you were drunk so you didn't feel a thing.

You're a mediocre teacher who once loved flying once but then fell out of love. And now you're stuck in a dead-end (maybe literally) job. You just hope your side business restoring used furniture works out.

You work for a large(ish) instruction company. You make a decent salary. You have a relatively steady and stable job. You get a bonus of $5,000 every few years when times are good—and when they're bad, you feel relatively secure that your company won't go belly up. You'll have taught 597 pilots in the course of your career. Lotta granted wings.

You train trainers. Your skills were identified early. You're not the nicest guy in the world, but you turn out amazing pilots. Students fight for your time, even though they know that it'll leave them scarred. In a good way.

You train F-16 pilots for the military. You're Top Gun in real life. You've even got the Ray-Bans.