lilflyboy262
Why drink and fly in the first place? Why not just have a Coke? or Juice before you go flying? Booze isnt the be all and end all of life.
Pilots are meant to be intelligent people, so why put years of hard work at risk for a drink?
Precisely. Anyone who does has a drinking problem, a serious problem if they do it repeatedly. Anyone who allows someone do do it is enabling their destructive behaviour and not doing them any favours. Well meaning people like that enabled me to practice my alcoholism as a pilot for almost 30 years until things got bad enough for me to do something about my problem. I did, and managed to enjoy 12 sober years until my retirement, in which time I regained the management position I'd had to resign through an admin error I made 'sober' between drinking bouts.
Alcohol, like many other drugs (e.g. pain-killers), affects judgement - a pilot may be able to sit down and fly very well with a fair amount on board, but a very small amount will always affect his judgement. I'd like to know how many CFIT or fuel related accidents, for example, could have been attributed to a captain's impaired judgement - I don't suppose we'll ever know, it's not easy to blood test a charred corpse.