cloud69, whilst very commendable for persisting with a routine such as you have detailed, you are - after all - building up the worth of your OWN business. Something that you are going to be able to sell at a future date, and realise (hopefully) a significant profit for YOURSELF.
(By the way, I wasn't able to see when you find the time to fit in those private flying lessons
)
Obviously you feel the return is in it for you, down the track, otherwise you wouldn't be volunteering your efforts - and needless to say, you don't plan on working that sort of lifestyle
ad infinitum...only until either (a) the business is up and running, and you can then take a far more relaxed approach, or (b) you flog the business off!!
Although many of our tasks have become automated,
colegate, that doesn't mean the workload has lessened.
Certainly the Flight Engineers are not necessary on modern aircraft, but that meant shifting THEIR areas of responsibility to the pilots, thereby INCREASING pilot workloads.
Your example of a Concorde pilot transitioning to a 777 doesn't carry too much weight (and highlights the fact that you are
not a pilot, when you cite GPWS, and to a lesser degree, EFIS, as "examples" of skills being automated, as neither of those replaced any pilot "skills), as a 777 pilot transitioning to Concorde would experience LESS automation in areas, and thus an easier systems understanding.
Automation means one
still needs knowledge of the BASIC workings of the systems, PLUS a knowledge of how the automatics work, and what they do when they malfunction.
In the case of malfunctioning automatics, most pilots will revert to BASICS (ie. disengage/disconnect auto-systems), to maintain control of the aircraft!
Thus a knowledge of BOTH systems is required.
Unlike a car, bus, or train, aircraft are NOT able to be pulled up, and parked, while we try to figure what went/is going
WRONG....the aircraft continues hurtling through the air at 3/5/6/8 miles per minute!!
So the job of pilot hasn't been "de-skilled" - quite the contrary, in fact.
Pilots today are far MORE multi-skilled than their counterparts of 20 and 50 years ago were.
It is obvious that the job of the pilot is very different from what it used to be. But you cannot reverse that process.
TOTALLY AGREE there.
Finally it is worth remembering who pays the pilot. It is not the airline. It is the customer. They are voting with their wallets now very much in favour of a new order.
Pilots' salaries represent about
1-2% of the price of a passenger's ticket for the LCC's, and
2-3% of a normal carrier's pax ticket!