OK Rob, here goes:
1) Agreed. The whole object of the exercise is to get the little blue licence and then get a foothold on the employment ladder. This forum is stacked out with people trying to do just that, and I can easily see why – once ensconced in the cockpit – the trials and tribulations of getting there lose relevance and fade into the background.
2) Maybe, just maybe, it’s because when they do try and offer an insight into what the job is really like, they are very often shot down by an audience that doesn’t want to hear the message. That is precisely the point I tried to make 3 pages ago. Bonkers if you ask me, as it simply puts people off trying – maybe it’s a reflection of the ages of some of our posters, maybe it comes from being anonymous - I really don’t know.
3) I can’t argue with that. Like I’ve already said, I’d love to hear some words of encouragement from experienced (say 5 years plus) commercial pilots, but they are conspicuous by their absence. All the pilot’s I’ve jumpseated with were welcoming, encouraging and positive about the future in aviation. Obviously that was before 9/11.
Your description and prognosis suggests that fewer and fewer people will decide this is the career for them. That must trouble you as much as anyone?
4) Correct. Now that the flightdeck door is firmly shut, we rely more than ever on information such as this forum provides. We can hang around airfields and hope to meet someone on their day off, but what else can we do?
5) No, I don’t disagree at all. You might also have mentioned strange smells from the forward toilet, lowered immune systems from having a permanently disjointed body clock, the effects of spending your working life cooped up in extremely dry rarefied air. Some of us are aware that the job isn’t really that glamorous – or even healthy – and we still want to do it. I must be barmy.
6) Nope, not at all. You’ve got no axe to grind and you’re not trying to make a profit out of me.
7) Like you, I can think of a few exceptions, but yes, they are few and far between.
8) No argument.
Not exactly a point by point rebuttal, but I think I’ve at least managed to spell most of it correctly.
And a quick question for you; with the benefit of hindsight, if you could turn the clock back, risk it all and follow your dream, would you do it all again? Answers (a) as at September 10th 2001, and (b) today.