What's really going on here?

[Say again s l o w l y]

Courtney, you and I have very differing outlooks on this. I fly because I love to do it. Happily people are stupid enough to pay me to do something I love.

On the other hand, you seem, from these posts, to be devoid of passion for this business. Hand flying isn't about ego, but increasing your skill or at least not losing it by relying on complex electronics that could fail.

Brand spanking new machines don't fail that often, but most of the world still flies things that require a good look at the MEL before you go.
Things break and you may have to improvise. Thankfully, there isn't a computer system or software program that does that as well as humans can.

[mcair]

IT or Flying....hmmm..tough decision...

I'm another IT geek who always dreamed of flying. Got a private license and tons of hours...in MS flight simulator. Give my right arm to have my time over, I would have sacrificed anything to have your job.

Next time you're trudging over to the gate to go to work, be aware that there are many, many SLF's watching who would trade places with you in a heartbeat.

[odb]

It has changed..

It has become a button pushing job.... With the same benefits of tons of time from home, a wavering image of job security and a hostile public....It does get boring and the climate seems to be getting nastier in regards to management.. It was exciting for the first few years, but it lacks a continuing challenge, though that is a good thing, at least in an airplane...

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...s_with_an.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...a_cockpit.html

[320seriesTRE]

i teach the boys to be as inefficient as possible!!! Heart the bottom line as much as possible. When we are treated as professionals again, and when the pay me accordingly, they will get what they pay for. Until then they get what they pay for

atb

[CABUS]

A men YYzguy Its is always sad to hear of people that couldn't pass the Medical and even sadder to hear of people that did and now wish they hadden't, sorry chaps! A happy flying new year to all of you

[GearDown&Locked]

Two different things in discussion: Flying Airplanes and the Flying Job.

Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't trade my current job for a job in an airline, unless it was on a flag carrier or similar. All the rest seems pretty awful, regarding free time and pay. I love my family too much for that.

Now, the flying bit is what really matters, and that's what drives so many people towards becomming a pilot; all in all it's a great challenge anyway you look at it.

In my very own opinion flying cargo should be more interesting than PAX all day long; freight dogs are a very cool bunch of people . It would be my natural choice, if I would be really desperate to become a professional pilot, and didn't mind working when everybody is sleeping or didn't care to have a social life, nevermind a normal family.

If I get to win the lottery, I'll follow J. Travolta's example and would travel the world, with the exception of the plane choice: A319 private jet would suit me fine

[spierpoint jones]

Words Of Wisdom

A real pleasure to read this thread and a lovely perspective that captures the real spirit of transition in our aviation lives. I for one agree with the humble essence of the editorial.
As for some of the Airbus pilots that may feel a smiggen offended about their skills, should not see this thread as an attack on them. I reckon they have not read between the lines and have missed the spirit in which it is intended.
It does remain true with some of the younger group of pilots ,if you ask them to mentally calculate a rate of descent to meet an altitude restriction without the aid of the onboard flight managment devices,the deep space mission to Mars is scrubbed. True, there are laws of physics that govern flight ,I just think the art is fadding like a water colour in the rain.
All the best
jones

[dazdaz]

Hi Guys and gals (pc correct)

I get the feeling (reading above posts) you all sound so despondent...CHEER UP!!!! Guess most of your inputs are 'slightly' negative from the Xmas break and now back to work.

From a pax point of view, you get me from a-b, take the time when pax are disembarking (open flight door) to say hi "enjoy your flight" you'll be very surprised as to the friendly response......Most want to say thanks.

CHEER UP!!!!!!!!!!

ps. Unless the f/o has done a real bummer

[BerksFlyer]

Winter blues eh?

While the profession may not be what it used to be, if you were to tally up every profession I'm pretty sure Airline Pilot will still be pretty high up. Even with the automation decisions still have to be made and great responsibility has to be taken. While it used to be one of the best and most respected, it is now a good respectable job. Nothing wrong with that.

I bet Pilots aren't the only group of professionals to long for the golden days back, but I guess it's just progression and eventually (in the distant future I hope) the only jobs to be had will be servicing the robots that have taken every possible occupation.

Even after reading all these doom and gloom outlooks, it's not going to stop me from doing what i've always wanted and if your children have the passion like me, why stop them?

There are much worse things they could do, and having a goal is only going to have a positive effect on their education.

[frontlefthamster]

In due course we will see a fatal, hull loss, accident caused by two pilots demonstrating their inability to fly an aircraft by hand in slightly demanding circumstances (the clues are aleady there - have a look at medium twin jets flying on standby instruments in Europe in recent years). We won't see the non-accidents which this change in the industry has produced, but it will be a hollow excuse.

This is a VERY COMPLEX matter and one which goes unaddressed by industry and regulator alike.

Hell in a handcart? Yes, slowly and steadily, but in a manner symptomatic of the whole world modern man has created.

What a fascinating topic for proper study...

[Hand Solo]

In due course? Take a look at the Gulf Air 320 crash in Bahrain.

[frontlefthamster]

Not quite what I was thinking, but a fair point...

[GlueBall]

How about the TAM A320 crash at CGH. Two captains, . . . but neither remembered to retard the No2 throttle [reverser inop] after touchdown. Temporary insanity? Or just total stupidity?

[AirwayBlocker]

This one is for Courtney.

I'm just curious as to what you would have all these pilotless aircraft of yours do when a solar flare knocks out the satellites they are relying on to navigate?

Remember one of the things keeping aircraft safe is something called redundancy. When one system fails another takes over. I see no redundancy in a pilotless aircraft.

Furthermore the flying environment is a highly dynamic environment. Do you honestly think that it is possible to program an autopilot to handle every combination of factors that could be thrown at it? As an example how do you think it would interpret weather radar returns?

How would it decide when and where to go in the event of it being unable to reach its destination? Remembering that weather is also highly dynamic. You seem to forget that pilots are not only there for their handling skills but also, and I would say more importantly, for their decision making abilities.

And lastly, when would you be prepared to send your family off on a fully automated flight?

[fireflybob]

This is the dilemma, is not it? Many lay people have this impression that everything is automatic! Great surprise is often expressed when I inform such people that 99% of landings are manual!

NASA established a long while ago that human beings are poor monitors of automation - if anything the automation should be monitoring the humans!

In my opinion we are decades away from fully automated flight with no pilots.

After arduous sectors (one comes to mind in the last year dodging all the CBs on the way inbound to a German airport) I often remark "And they think it's all automatic!"

[sevenstrokeroll]

Freight...will be the first non pilot plane

all you cargo pilots...the first planes without pilots will be without passengers as well.

hmmmmm

[PJ2]

fireflybob;

This is the dilemma, is not it? Many lay people have this impression that everything is automatic! Great surprise is often expressed when I inform such people that 99% of landings are manual!

Yes, it is indeed. And the mythology does not stop with lay people. Such magical thinking can extend right into the upper echelons of management who may know a lot less about aviation and what keeps it safe than they do about marketing, managing share price and negotiating.

Everytime we bring false modesty to a conversation about our profession and what we do in the cockpit we do ourselves a disfavour. While being a professional aviator has had a very rough ride from the corporations beginning with the bean-counters and going all the way to the top in terms of a blasé dismissal of what professional aircrews do everyday for their employer, the skills, professional ethic and resources we bring first to our passengers and then to our company have not changed either in importance or in necessity. They are just hidden behind a veil of partially intentional misconceptions and a populace otherwise largely informed by television.

Once in a while in occasional cocktail conversations when the subject of jobs, salary and working conditions comes up I say, "airline pilots earn $100,000.00 dollars a minute but you'll never know which one. The rest is for free." The remark is of course intended to elicit comment and we go from there, often ending with a bit more understanding, at least until the glass empties and the eyes glaze over...Public support for airline pilots extends as far as "avoiding crashing" but without the comprehension of what that costs or how it's done. Ignorance can be forgiven but not pronouncement from ignorance.

In the end however, we need never apologize for the time off, the salary, (such as it is at the beginning of the profession), or what remains of the prestige and respect at least in the public's mind, (because it certainly isnt' elsewhere).

Automatic flight has been demonstrated with the B707 fuel-gelling experiment, so it can be done. It just can't be done with weather, terrain and 4000 other transport aircraft sharing the same domestic sky at any one time. To me, something like the "natural biological size" principle comes into play when imagining such systems of control and it might be expressed as a "natural limit to human-managed complexity". Now if machines can carry on an extremely rich conversation with one another regarding the usual factors such as position and speed and they can do that with the predictive power of the same machines which helped the Genome Project along then perhaps true automatic flight will be possible, even right to the parking of the aircraft. Thing is, by that time, other technologies may have obviated the need to use airplanes to travel at all.

[Huck]

Many lay people have this impression that everything is automatic!

An impression strengthened, no doubt, by some of the scarier posts I see right here on PPrune. Manual flying = ego massage, etc....

As for PJ2's post, above - spot on. The freight trains that rumble by my house every day have a crew of three. In one hundred years they will still have a crew of three. And aircraft will have a crew of two. Why? Same reason people still fly C-130's after 50 years. "Cost effectiveness."

[ve3id]

Don't blame th ebean counters

The human race has had to adapt to more new technology in the last forty years than in the three thousand before it. We are relying on things that we can see working, because for centuries that is how we knew they were real. We as a people have not learned to be cautious about implementing new systems because things have changed too much for our perceptions to adjust. We see it working and we believe it will continue to work. Like lemmings, we march down to the computer shop and buy Microsoft windows, despite all the security flaws and bugs we hear about. Of course, it is the bean counters that want to implement cost-saving measures in the first place, but their managers are wowed by technology that appears to promise all and let them get away with it.

We are a quick-fix society. If there is something invented last week, we gleefully rely on it if it stops us having to think about the problem. Yes, we rely on governments to keep manufacturers in check, but peple who work for them are humans too, still in techno-culture shock themselves some of the time.

I am not a professional pilot, and usually stay quiet here as my mere PPL demands, but I feel that as an engineer I may have something useful to add. I once had the pleasure of flying an Aztec YYZ-YUL with a former Red Arrow in the right seat to get some instrument time. He couldn't understand why I flew it manually all the way. Now you know.

After taking post-graduate security and software engineering courses, I made a couple of rules: don't fly unnecessarily, don't live near a Nuclear Generating Station, and always keep the backup system running in parallel and well-exercised (that's the aircrew in this case).

Only the paranoid will survive. Keep vigilant!

[lowbypass]

dazdaz

"From the pax point of view"
"ps. Unless the f/o has done a real bummer"

Maybe I should shed some light to you, CAPTAINS DO BUMMERS TOO