Connundrums of aviation

[apache]

I was thinking to myself the other day just how backwards aviation is. It is an industry unlike any other. I thought it might be fun to start a thread on how Aviation is the reverse of other industries.

1/ You are taught to be a COMMERCIAL pilot by someone with NO commercial experience - generally

2/ You are taught to fly in IMC by someone who most probably has NEVER had to fly in IMC.

3/ We barter with FELLOW pilots, and FELLOW union members for the most meagre of pay increases.

4/ The airline is the ONLY industry which cannot produce a roster for christmas well in advance. Indeed some companies have even put out a memo asking pilots who wish to have a certain crew meal for lunch on xmas day to put fwd their preference by friday..... but the roster for christmas will not be published till the following Monday!

5/ By working for an airline, when paxing for DUTY, you are the ONLY one aboard the aircraft not eligible for frequent flyer points.

6/ we have amongst the HIGHEST initial training costs, yet the LOWEST initial starting wage, and no guarantees of anything better.



just to start!
not a whinge! just thought it was quite amusing how any other industry is different!.... or should I say how WE are different from any other industry!

[Orion Delta]

I agree Apache, however the love of flying is worth it! :)

[ZEEBEE]

2/ You are taught to fly in IMC by someone who most probably has NEVER had to fly in IMC.

Agree with most of your points, but have to take issue with the one above.

I did my IR with Clamback and Hennessy.

At the time, both were very experienced and were well versed in REAL IFR flying. In fact, their real-world background and the lessons imparted saved the day for me on several occasions.

Not only that, but Ray Clamback was probably the most experienced "ditching" pilot in existence. :}

I know that the other good IR instructors of the time were seasoned IFR pilots.

[777WakeTurbz]

I agree Apache, however the love of flying is worth it! http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/smile.gif

Orion Delta hit the nail on the head. And in a way this is a problem, with pilots prepared to work for peanuts and pay all expenses themselves, why would any company offer to pay more!? :ugh:

[fasterblaster]

Nice plug there

[snoop doggy dog]

3/ We barter with FELLOW pilots, and FELLOW union members for the most meagre of pay increases.

It's the only industry that I know of that will allow pilots' to be members when they get traitorised (management).
On top of all that, also allow them to have access to member websites?!?#$ :ugh:

It's got me phucked! :{

7/ Eat their first born and sell their mother to get the gig. :p

[ReverseFlight]

Yup, the flight industry is in reverse, hence my callsign ... :bored:

[eocvictim]

I have to disagree with 1) 2) and 6).

Like said its your choice to fly with these inexperienced guys. I know plenty of instructors who have gone back after years in the commercial world. I only flew with experienced charter pilots. My IR instructor had more IF time than I had total.

My partner is looking at spending 130k for her uni degree but doing so over 6-10 years. In a shorter time frame I've spent half that and I'm now on More money than she'll be on after 2nd and 3rd year let alone first year.

[thunderbird five]

Never mind that, here's a connundrum or three:
Why is it that the Captain has to turn the seat belt sign on?
Why can't the plane land with the window shades down or the tray table down? Linked to the landing gear or flaps are they:eek:

[MakeItHappenCaptain]

Why can't the plane land with the window shades down or the tray table down? Linked to the landing gear or flaps are they?

Ah... you were watching the comedy festival the other night, weren't you.

Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
Why is abbreviation such a long word?
What colour does a smurf go when you choke it?
When a cow laughs, does milk go up it's nose?
What do they use to ship styrofoam?
How do they get teflon to stick to the frypan?
Why are people vetted and animals doctored?
Why do american drive through ATMs have braille on the keypads?
:}

[Ixixly]

Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets? Probably because their headsets were attached
Why is abbreviation such a long word? To get the point across about the need to abbreviate
What colour does a smurf go when you choke it? Green if you leave it long enough
When a cow laughs, does milk go up it's nose? No, don't be silly
What do they use to ship styrofoam? Nothing, it won't break, why protect it?!
How do they get teflon to stick to the frypan? They first apply a sticky molecule that helps the teflon stick!
Why are people vetted and animals doctored? Two different things, how can you compare them?! To be vetted is to be examined, to be doctored is to be medically treated!
Why do american drive through ATMs have braille on the keypads? For the purpose of common parts

There we go, all cleared up!!


...Sorry, couldn't help myself

[apache]

why are they called "Apartments" when they are so close together?

[b_sta]

Why are they called "buildings" when they're already built?

[HarleyD]

Hahahahahaha

Good one apache. nail - head - hit

Yes this seems to be the way the "industry", he says laughlingly, in generally structures.

Also another inversion is this ste where if you happen to actually know some thing about a topic, like this one, and you post your wisdom, there are immediately 27 or so spotty 19 year olds that will tell you that you are wrong and how you should go about doing it properly, (to wit: "disagree with points 1-6 as i would do it diffently cos i'm smarter, even if i didn't read the post properly in the first place") hahahahaha!

Then they will go off to the "bag the boss and CP cos theyr'e idiots not to listen to me" thread, after which they will post a few lines about how we should use those old saturn V rockets as water bombers for the up coming fire season.

item 7 may well have been:

7 - we work in an industry where the newest newbie is far more informed and intelligent than all the old hands about every thing, no need to ask him/her, he/she will tell you all the things you need to know in the first 5 minutes after you meet him/her, whilst he/she taxiis across gable markers, takes off downwind with the cowl flaps closed and abuses all the oncoming traffic for broadcasting their intintions for the wrong rumway and says "traffic XXXXX" 16 times in every one of hisher 12 position broadcasts around the circuit. SPROGS Grrrrr

HD

[Ixixly]

Now now HarleyD, everyone was a sprog at some point, even Chuck Yeager himself!

I'm a sprog and i'd like to think that even though i'm not perfect nor was anyone else when they started! :D

[gettin' there]

Slight thread drift but when does one cease to be a "newbie," as the term so often used in these forums, and become a............whatever else?

Don't mean to take the piss, im genuinely intrigued to hear people's answers. Guess it's relative to the ammount of time YOU have? If you had 500hrs a CPL would be a newbie? If you have 1000hrs, someone with 500hrs would be a newbie and so on and so on?

[Worrals in the wilds]

7 - we work in an industry where the newest newbie is far more informed and intelligent than all the old hands about every thing, no need to ask him/her, he/she will tell you all the things you need to know in the first 5 minutes after you meet him/her, whilst he/she taxiis across gable markers, takes off downwind with the cowl flaps closed and abuses all the oncoming traffic for broadcasting their intintions for the wrong rumway and says "traffic XXXXX" 16 times in every one of hisher 12 position broadcasts around the circuit. SPROGS Grrrrr

Sadly, they're not exclusive to aviation and they're just as irritating in other industries. I keep checking with our OH&S people and you're still not allowed to run them over. :(

P.S. does not apply to all young 'uns.

[Pinky the pilot]

Have to disagree with 1 and 2, at least in my case Apache. :D

TK at least had 'been there done that' when he started his Flying School. At the time I was going through CPL training in that smoke filled Seneca 1 I often wondered just why he seemed almost fanatically obsessed with simulated engine failures.:eek:

I actually telephoned him late one evening from PNG to say thank you for that 'fanaticism' after the second time I had one let go on me in the space of about a month!:uhoh:

Even though I was only in a 'Bongo van,' I was still thankful for the way he had indelibly drilled into me how to handle such an occurrence.:ok:

Dontcha miss the garlic bread occasionally? I do!:E

[glekichi]

Who would you prefer to have tutoring you in yr.12 physics; a 1st year science degree student that did yr.12 the year before, or a nuclear physicist?

Junior instructors have their place, but should be doing commercial ops in parallel. Its the senior instructors with no commercial experience that are the problem!!

[Horatio Leafblower]

My IR instructor had more IF time than I had total.

Mate I don't know how many hours you had when you did your MECIR, but if you did it in your initial training (<200 hours) and your instructor had that many IFR hours, then he really wasn't THAT experienced :rolleyes:

If I knew then what I know now, I would pay attention to these ads:

Ads by Google
Cessna C206 Courses
Go to your first job ready for work - Train with working charter pilots
www. airspeedaviation. com. au

[gupta]

But then remember -
the surgeon who works on you only had to get 50% pass rate...........

[Fonz121]

Horatio,

Considering that on average actual IF time only makes up about 5% of a pilots hours, if someone had 200 hrs IF then they would have approx. 4000hrs. Enough to to probably consider yourself competent to instruct.

[Horatio Leafblower]

Yeah sure Fonz - agreed. but 200 IF doesn't make you a skygod. :ugh:

[43Inches]

Points 3 onward are all completely valid,

Point #1 - Agree that some commercial experience will improve an instructors capabilities, more so experience as an instructor tends to expand the bag of tricks. The CPL test is just a test of flying ability and airlaw aplication, that is fly within the tolerances and understand the rules and you get through. The newer pilots may have a better grasp of law and new procedures/techniques as they have just been through the process.

Point #2 - Very similar to point #1, and agree with horatio in the way 200 hours IF means nothing without context. 200 hours monitoring an coupled autopliot mostly straight and level may not have improved your techniques much at all. 200 hours of night freight minus an autopilot or radar with many approaches in bad weather and you might have learnt a thing or two.

Just because a pilot has vast experience in no way makes them a good instructor, if anything some older pilots may be the equivelent of doctors who still practice leeching. Having trained a number of instructors in the past I have seen this first hand, there are good and bad from all experience levels. No matter how experienced an instructor if they can not explain how to achieve something clearly they will be ineffective.

[Trojan1981]

3/ We barter with FELLOW pilots, and FELLOW union members for the most meagre of pay increases.


Backwards industry! New entrants walk all over each other to get a gig with crappy pay where they get to live in a house or eat people food, not both.

I made four times as much dosh as my instructor last year! No, I don't fly for a living...