Your big jet cross-country pilots with 20 years or more of experience are probably closing in on $200k. And working less hours for it. Union pilots bid for schedules, and once you get up in seniority, you can get some pretty choice schedules. Enough so that many senior pilots can run full on side businesses.

On the seniority note, the Vietnam era pilots must be mostly retired by now, they used to dominate the seniority charts. People would get trained to fly by the military and then go straight into the airlines afterward.