A few years ago I mentioned in a post about the profession of being a pilot that nowadays we only get to make five decisions as captain.
Which leg to fly.
How much fuel to load.
Which level to fly at.
Which meal to eat.
When to stop the show. (Divert, cancel etc)
Wow, spoken like a true pilot that's either never flown in GA/Military or hasn't for a very long time. You all need to remember that being a pilot does NOT mean you are an airline pilot. There are plenty of us out there that make 100's of decisions a day out in the field flying hunks of cr*p on less money than the English backpacker working at the local roadhouse. This assumption that airliners can be flown by any punter may be true, but it does not apply to the rest of the industry.
If one of your hardest decisions is figuring out which meal to eat then go back to flying singles for a bit, your command decision making skills have obviously eroded away or you never had them in the first place. A few decisions the average GA or medical pilot makes on a daily basis to refresh your memory:
Which patch of dirt you're most likely to survive in when the fan stops
If the drum fuel out in Timbuktu isn't going to seize your engine
Whether you can squeeze that extra freight on so you don't get the sack when you land but don't plow it into the deck and get the sack anyway
Whether or not it's safe to fly a defected aircraft home when a recovery will cost 10's of thousands
Whether or not your passenger is going to die on you if you divert because of marginal weather
What to do when a passenger is abusing you, throwing things at you in flight over the tanami desert with the nearest suitable diversion 1.5 hours away
Whether or not you think your 1978 pa31 will remain in one piece after flying through a squall line at night when your weather radar (from the 70's) decides to show nothing
Deciding whether it's worth it getting up at 3am to be the operations, flight planner, ground handler, bag chucker, refueller, flight attendant, and engineer for the next 12 sectors for a measley 39k a year- oh and did I mention fly the plane in between?
There are plenty of pilots that make decisions like these everyday and they are on some of the lowest wages in Australia, so think again when some of you make the assumption that all pilots are just 'autopilot monitors' these days and aren't worth anything. They are the ones worth the big dollars and deserve to reap the 'rewards' of airline flying ($$$, lifestyle, comfort) later in their career because they have MADE those decisions for a long time for most. It doesn't matter if it's a drop in the ocean (Hudson river crash) experience that saves lives is worth every cent.