Spectators Balcony (Spotters Corner)If you're not a professional pilot but want to discuss issues about the job, this is the best place to loiter. You won't be moved on by 'security' and there'll be plenty of experts to answer any questions.
most engineers will recognize that pilots come above them
Quote from an older thread "I have no axe to grind with the engineers, the vast majority I have met are hard working, professional and good at their job. there is, however, a job hierarchy within every profession and most engineers will recognize that pilots come above them. No malice, just reality."
Sorry to bring this one back up but I just had to say you are so right, we do know our place, below you, we view you as the best form of life there is. This should be brought out in the open PILOTS ARE GREAT.
Have you any thoughts on where God comes I assume he is below you also. By the way whats that autopilot thing do, fly the plane for you? They dont seem to have an auto engineer yet.
Engineering apprenticeship - 5 years Engineering degree - 3 or 4 years. SARTOR route to CEng - 8 years SARTOR route to IEng - 7 years Self improver to frozen ATPL - 3 years.
I am an engineer, I also fly. I enjoy both and don't intend giving up either. But I have no illusions that a self improved ATPL is anywhere near so hard as my engineering qualifications.
The big difference is cost, it is much CHEAPER to train an Engineer than a pilot, and that's what seems to set the culture. None of us started work with a £40k debt to pay off, and it should be admitted that whilst learning our trade we usually made enough to live on, even if we were never actually well off. No engineer had to sell his granny to become one.
It takes an Engineer (or more likely several dozen) to design, built and install an autopilot. I'm not saying that an autoengineer isn't possible, but no pilot could design it, and no engineer would - we aint that daft.
G
[ 19 October 2001: Message edited by: Genghis the Engineer ]
I have never had a problem with ANY engineers in my life! I always find them very professional and willing to help. I think all this rivalry stuff is stupid. An airline would not operate without any of us. We all have the same standing. The engs' do a GREAT job (especially during a busy summer) in fixing an A/C and getting it out in min time, and with max quality! Lets just all live happily ever after. Eff Oh.
Aye, son, and Air Traffic Control Officers - especially those of us in the rare, but heavily Brylcreemed, Heathrow stratum are way, way above all flying types...!!
What a load of school yard crap! Surely we can just have mutual professional respect?
Personally I think the engineer's job is much more involved than the pilot's and being a pilot myself, married to an aircraft engineer for many years, I know what you guys say about us behind our back!
Aircraft engineering does not get the respect and compensation it deserves, especially in the UK. Most people are unaware of the rigorous professional qualification route . Say "engineer" and people think civil, electrical, mechanical... but say "aircraft engineer" and they think of someone in blue overalls with his name velcroed to the front, unaware many go to work in a shirt and tie and those who don't have similar qualifications anyway. A shame the pay does not reflect this.
In Germany they even have special title similar to Dr to denote someone who is a professional engineer.
More power to you guys.
(Is it because of the British "class" system that people feel compelled to "totem pole" people? Get a life!)
Actually Oleo, there's an equivalent to the German "Herr Eng." throughout Europe and there are a fair number in the UK. I have the dubious pleasure of being Eur.Ing. Genghis. [I seem to recall my illustrious forebear doing a much better job of impressing the Europeans than this, I must read up on his techniques.]
The problem with "Eur.Ing." is that it both sounds silly, and never fits into the box in forms. Roll on the day I finish my PhD and can call myself "Dr.", which is technically a lower qualification but at least people think that they know what it means.
Lets face it, whatever your job is, the only reason you get fed at work is 'cos the company thinks they'll get more extra work out of you than the value of the meal. Your job has nothing to do with it.
difference between engineer and pilot, the engineer goes to the crew room, the pilot flys it. if it goes wrong the engineer is still in the crew room and in the worse case senario lives to tell the tale.
Pilote always think they know more than engineers, we engineers just humour them
I looked into a mechanic's tool box the other day, and it was full of pencil's, nothing else...
Aye, if flying was so easy Geng, the engineers would surely be doing it.
The fact however is: It takes a real man to fly them big airplanes and no engineer has the talent, brain or courage to do it. Sad fact, but so true.
More and more engineers tend to agree, so now the latest thing is that the engineers are volunteering to give half their pay check to their favorite pilot. (All because even engineers understand they are over-paid and pilots are severly under-paid.)
So all ya grease monkeys and ramp rats out there, be good chaps now and pass the hat around: Take up a collection for TowerDog and his beer fund. Don't be shy spanner boys, just wire the total right over to my favorite pub and ya will all sleep better now.
I hope that you read your aircraft manual and flightplan a tad more carefully than my post towerdog. I have quite enough flying hours, about half of them paid, to know that flying well is considerably easier than engineering well. Arguably there are low-level jobs in engineering that need rather less skill than low level jobs in flying, but I've not done one of those since I was 19, and suspect this is true of most of the other engineers on this forum.
This may sound glib, but I would rather enjoy the technical challenge of getting new aircraft designs right than of flying a 300 seat London bus across the atlantic twice a week. Frankly I'd rather enjoy the salary that goes with bus driving, and so would Mrs Genghis, but I've not given her the choice and have seen how much my bus driving friends enjoy all those nights in the back of beyond away from their families.
Now get back in your box and read your operators manual, written by an Engineer, to tell you how to operate your aeroplane, designed by an engineer, safely, because it was maintained by an engineer (or technician, but I'll keep that particular argument to another forum, where we enjoy it from time to time).
Towerpup, i believe you had your tongue firmly in your cheek, either that or you should increase the interval between your deep dives & pressurised flight.
You are correct about the pencils though ,personally i use them to remove the s***** from pilots ears. This can be difficult to acheive as it tends to calcify in the rarified intellectual atmosphere on the flt deck.
All that talk of pensions,pay & expenses !,frightfully interesting ,oh & status blah blah,tres ,tres drole. Yesterday i could'nt spell rectitude & today i still don't understand the concept !.
most engineers will recognize that pilots come above them
