Airline Flying, Once Daring Now Dull - Washington Post
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Ah, BEags, sadly you may be right - in part, at least. I have fond memories of tickling your recptacle with my probe 
- and then descending to carry out more interesting tasks lower down 
.
But the RAF became far too trivial and beuraucratic when I was on the ground, which was too much of the time in later years. Despite a dalliance with the display world, the attractions of spending my working life in the air, and my non-flying life at home, were - and still are - too strong to deny. The flying is routinely boring - as was the AAR and AT stuff in the RAF, for the most part - but there are occasional bursts of excitement to keep the blood pressure high enough to worry the docs! And, perhaps surprisingly, there is sufficient opportunity for artistic interpretation and expression in a fully manual approach to some of the world's airports. Even with no problems, the workload in a two-crew large aircraft can be very high, and there is still considerable satisfaction to be had from doing it well. With a few emergencies, the workload is phenomenal, and certainly the equal of anything I experienced in old-tech multi-crew aircraft of yore. And yet most of the routes I fly are still 3 crew (one is 4).
I also still enjoy life down route. The advantage of working for a scheduled longhaul airline is that min-time groundstops don't fit with the schedules, both from the daily timings and the flight time limitations points of view. So it's not necessarily anywhere near as bad as you fear. However, low-cost shorthaul may be another story - but then boredom is probably the least of those guys' worries....
- and then descending to carry out more interesting tasks lower down .But the RAF became far too trivial and beuraucratic when I was on the ground, which was too much of the time in later years. Despite a dalliance with the display world, the attractions of spending my working life in the air, and my non-flying life at home, were - and still are - too strong to deny. The flying is routinely boring - as was the AAR and AT stuff in the RAF, for the most part - but there are occasional bursts of excitement to keep the blood pressure high enough to worry the docs! And, perhaps surprisingly, there is sufficient opportunity for artistic interpretation and expression in a fully manual approach to some of the world's airports. Even with no problems, the workload in a two-crew large aircraft can be very high, and there is still considerable satisfaction to be had from doing it well. With a few emergencies, the workload is phenomenal, and certainly the equal of anything I experienced in old-tech multi-crew aircraft of yore. And yet most of the routes I fly are still 3 crew (one is 4).
I also still enjoy life down route. The advantage of working for a scheduled longhaul airline is that min-time groundstops don't fit with the schedules, both from the daily timings and the flight time limitations points of view. So it's not necessarily anywhere near as bad as you fear. However, low-cost shorthaul may be another story - but then boredom is probably the least of those guys' worries....
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Airline Flying, Once Daring Now Dull
The "dull" flights are those when you've done everything right. Excitment comes from ignorance and errors. Never forget though... "dull" flying beats any sort of journalism! Let's see now, ambulance chasing? sitting in court for days or weeks? chained to a desk? hiding in bushes? embellishing the facts? How many journos have experienced the sublime satisfaction of a beautifully executed precision approach with wx at minima? How does that compare with a hastily scribbled obituary which appears at the foot of page 17...maybe? Dream on scribbler.... the envy and jealousy in your article is screaming out for all to see!! Those who can, do. Those who can't, lie about it! bm
Globally and Boeing MEL: Excellent points about the jealous or ill-bred mentalities of many journo hacks out there. You all echoed my sentiments exactly. So many elements in our US society (not to mention in certain educational sectors, as you stated) want to rub out anything which requires standards and extra pay for responsibility and complex training, just dumb everything down so that everyone feels equal and no feelings are hurt. No more uniforms which they totally confuse with authoritarianism-they detest any vertical structures, whether corporate, educational or otherwise. Even the professional demonstraters (SDS...Panthers) in the late 60's had to find a job, as bad as that was. Or work for a newspaper; maybe teach left-wing sociology and political theory. A huge bureaucracy is their only solution-that way, huge taxes on large paychecks and corporate profits ensure that they are taken care of and even their lack of much personal initiative to join the real workforce is camouflaged or obscured and forgotten.
We had one exception to this view, and he once wrote articles for the local newspaper on any topic dealing with aviation. The guy owned or rented planes and then quit to become a cropduster! He hit a powerline and almost got killed, and believe he came out ok. The article might have been in "Air and Space" not long ago.
At least THAT writer, Dave "X", is a pilot. Too bad he left the area and the newspaper.
We had one exception to this view, and he once wrote articles for the local newspaper on any topic dealing with aviation. The guy owned or rented planes and then quit to become a cropduster! He hit a powerline and almost got killed, and believe he came out ok. The article might have been in "Air and Space" not long ago.
At least THAT writer, Dave "X", is a pilot. Too bad he left the area and the newspaper.
Last edited by Ignition Override; 20th Dec 2003 at 13:23.
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>>At least THAT writer, Dave "X", is a pilot. Too bad he left the area and the newspaper.<<
Was that Dave Hirschman, who now writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution?
He also did a great book on Auburn Calloway's attempt to crash a DC-10 into the Fed Ex sort. Brother Auburn is now in club fed in ATL.
Was that Dave Hirschman, who now writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution?
He also did a great book on Auburn Calloway's attempt to crash a DC-10 into the Fed Ex sort. Brother Auburn is now in club fed in ATL.
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To be honest I thought that it was one of the more enjoyable and more researched articles that a non aviation journalist has written. The fact is that he is aiming it at modern automated jet airliners. How many of you guys flying these aircraft actually reminisce, or go fly other aircraft to remind yourselves of the reason you got into aviation.
That said I also don't agree with everything said and still think I've got a great job. Sure I miss the "stick and rudder" flying but as we all know there are still a million and one things about this job that leave you with a satisfying feeling at the end of the day.
Unfortunately the more you get paid the less satisfied you seem to become!!!!
That said I also don't agree with everything said and still think I've got a great job. Sure I miss the "stick and rudder" flying but as we all know there are still a million and one things about this job that leave you with a satisfying feeling at the end of the day.
Unfortunately the more you get paid the less satisfied you seem to become!!!!
