Silver knapper,
Anyone who genuinely wants to be a medic, shows the necessary commitment and more importantly makes the grade wouldn't turn down this career for flying.
I know two doctors who gave up medicine to fly professionally. I know two lawyers who gave up law to fly professionally. I've come across quite a few accountancy-trained pilots and quite a few ex-managers of this or that but I don't know any ex-dentist pilots. Will that do?
AB,
Trouble is, Doggy, that with the sort of super-rigid SOPs that have turned a skilled job involving judgement and experience into an unvariable scripted and choreographed ballet there is no room for airmanship any more.
Think about it - when was the last time you heard that word? Not for some time, I'd guess. Years probably. That is scary. Very scary. What chance do the cadets have of gainng any when its been scripted out of the job?
The skill of an airline pilot still does involve judgement and experience- great dollops of it. SOPs are a guide, quite a firm guide I grant you, and they are principally to allow a wide variety of pilots who don't know each other from Adam to get into a flight deck and operate together with no fuss and few questions. Captains can always disregard SOPs provided they have a sound and pressing reason for doing so (the safe conduct of the flight?) and the law is so framed that a captain may disregard any law or procedure whatsoever in order to secure the safety of his aircraft. That is where judgement and experience come in. Airmanship is a word I use every day in my role as a TRE and I can assure you that the CAA don't consider that it has gone out of fashion.