Dear manfred von richthofen and mr p.p.,
I hate to remind you but a wise man once said,good pilots aren't born, they are made.
I sure as hell hate getting into the semantics of things but you cant just classify a bunch of people as ignorants and carry on.
You were no where as good a pilot when you had the experience of some of these f/o's you trash,maybe you were a bit better,maybe you were a bit worse, that is not the point. the point is that there was some one in the left seat you taught you and over the years you became good enough and skilled enough to be an airline commander.
i am a copilot working in an airline, and i dont want to be a commander before a couple of years learning. i, and a lot of chaps like me respect and value the captains flying with us,be you white, brown,black or yellow.
when i see you, i see the vast amount of experience you bring from across the continents and years with you.
and as you said you have served on 3 different continents, you seriously want to tell people that you were welcomed with open arms everywhere.
no one likes an outsider taking away jobs in their own backyard,no one,even if they are not qualified to replace that man or woman.
that just is the life of an expat pilot. get used to it sir.
i respect you, i respect the pilots from mexico,brazil,malaysia,indonesia,thailand, australia etc who fly with me,
i want to learn from them, so that one day, when i have learnt enough, and one day when i can be confident of being responsible of the lives of my passengers i can step up and be an airline captain and continue a tradition hued not in racist and coloured tones but one whose story has been written by the broad brush strokes of responsibility and respect for these machines we fly and feel proud of.
please dont take this little riposte to be in any way designed to anger or invite you to a written tussle.
just remembe that it takes time from being average to being good in a plane,that and inspiration from folks like you.
in that plane no one else but you can polish my techniques, if you hold so deep a bias, should i be blamed?
if you think so sir, i rest my case.
Last edited by airborneforever; 23rd Feb 2009 at 17:53.