What's really going on here?

[saffron]

What is lost by some posters is that we are in a profession where most of the people you interact with are also professionals,anybody with an IQ of less than 120 will struggle in this profession (or in any other for that matter) that is the top 25% of the population,so stating that you can take any person off the street and teach them to be a professional pilot is laughable.It is important not to denigrate the work we do,even in self deprecating humour,(a very British trait) otherwise people might start to believe you when you say any fool can do this job.
To those who are bored I say change your job,not your profession,I flew for a LOCO airline & began to hate flying,I took action,moved to corporate on a Gulfstream & absolutey love it & love flying again,however for the best fun you can't beat egg-beaters,now if only I can persuade my boss to buy one!

[767bill]

Perhaps you are disillusioned with your current job and should consider a change...or a least seek a change in working conditions.
As for my view, usually you get out of a job what you put into it. It appears that some professional pilots do not interact with their passengers. You could try greeting the so called SLF at the end of a flight as they are ultimately paying you - and relying on you performing the task skilfully. Most will be grateful for the service you are providing. If this task could be performed reliably by a computer you wouldn't be there; economics wouldn't allow it.
To do a job - most jobs - is not difficult; to do a job well takes considerable effort and practice. Keep at it !

[Rootie]

Aviation vs Dentistry

Well, I am a dentist and not a professional pilot. Perhaps I should not partake in this forum but I do fly my own P210, here in darkest Africa, purely for pleasure. Every flight is an adventure and I enjoy most of them to the fullest. Like many I have initially been duped into believing all the romantic nonsense about the (professional) pilot's life, but soon came to realize that all that glitters is not gold. There is one great truth about airline flying which has dispelled all the fables for me and it is called flying solo. All student pilots dream of and live for flying solo and eventually achieve it, celebrate it and always remembers it. But what happens afterwards? A career in the airline, initially as co-jo and later as captain. Solo flying? Never again. Now where is the romanticism of flying when always sharing the responsibility? When reading through never ending checklists? Always the same, boring. I would rather stick to "drilling in other people's mouths" and enjoying my bit of flying when the opportunity arises-like tomorrow morning.

[bnt]

As a younger kid, I wanted to be a train driver, like so many other kids; as a teenager, I started playing a musical instrument (electric bass), and wanted to be a rock star. However, I got a bit of a wake-up call when I was about 16, living in South Africa, when I went to a concert: I can't remember the name of the band, but they'd had a couple of number one hits . They looked tired, p-ed off to be playing another gig, and even though it was a medium-sized town there was less than a thousand people there, and the best audience reaction was not to their songs, but to a couple of popular cover tunes. A year later, they were gone; hardly inspiring, and I left school and got a job.

I tell this story because it was an early lesson in how any job, no matter how glamourous, will inevitably become routine. Even touring the world as a rock star, followed by months in a studio recording that "difficult second album"! The people who survive and progress are the ones who learn to moderate their expectations and make long-term plans.

Loving your job also helps, of course. I've watched the careers of musicians like Steve Vai - a Grammy winner who is among the greatest guitarists working today - who still gets a kick out of touring, playing places where few beyond guitar geeks have heard of him - like an air show pilot, he gets his satisfaction from a job well done, less from how fickle people perceive him.

What's the connection with aviation? Well, I sense some disappointment among the pilots here that you're not the "rock stars" of aviation, getting the money and respect to match that. Others are better positioned to talk about the reasons why that is the case - as you have - and even as SLF I'm not exactly happy about it. If you have my safety in your hands, I want you to be as pampered as a rock star - though without the rock star lifestyle. (Sorry, Bruce!)

[frontlefthamster]

I want you to be as pampered as a rock star - though without the rock star lifestyle.

So why would you expect anyone to do the job?

[bnt]

Originally Posted by frontlefthamster

So why would you expect anyone to do the job?

Um... to get paid? Give and take, quid pro quo, and all that? Rock stars do a job too, and the good ones earn their pampering - that was one point I was making.

[Pugilistic Animus]

some previous comments were very funny, flying is a disease----I'm no longer allowed by anyone----[outside of aviation---the FBO goes a little quiet and cold too---- to "talk about planes, planes,planes" I do anyway and accept the consequences

[CarltonBrowne the FO]

If courtney reckons modern aircraft never lose the autopilot he's never done an airbus sim... or an embraer sim... or a 146 sim.
Straight autopilot failure: very rare indeed (although turbulence could make the embraer autopilot drop out, especially wake turbulence- it didn't like excessive roll rates)
System failure that makes the autopilot unusable; pretty common, whether it's an aircraft failure (gotta love those hydraulics failures) or a ground equipment failure. Anyone here managed a year of airline operation without going anywhere without a working ILS?