Your management doesn't care if you flew Fantoms inverted whilst shooting flames from your arse or if you honed your skills on some clapped out turboprop when hurricane Bertha blew you around the sky. As equipment gets more reliable and the whole system gets increasingly more dumbed down, 100 hour MPLs become the norm. Sticking the autopilot in at 400 feet and taking it out again after touchdown doesn't concern the beancounter any more than your ability to fly some 4 holed smoke stack down to minimums on partial panel whilst reciting the Lord's prayer in Swahili. Yes, all thats just glorious; but so what? Airbus has all but eliminated the word 'pilot' from any of their mission statements. The people that buy the aeroplanes for the airlines of the world think this is great. It adds to their level of respect for our noble profession. They couldn't give a monkeys if being a Cathay Pacific pilot, or any sort of pilot, actually used to mean something.
Military background, GA or commercial. You'll all be replaced by someone with heavily gelled spiked hair who looks great in a pair of aviators and a chunky pilot's watch. We'll still be squabbling about being upside down in jet provosts or hand flying iron ducks across the pond using nothing more than a slide rule and a sextant.
Last edited by Callsign Kilo; 11th Jan 2016 at 22:10.