Hey Paddy, although I hear your argument... you are way off base and missing so many comparisons its not funny.

1. Becoming a Surgeon is much more expensive than becoming a pilot yet you dont mention anything about the student loans the Surgeon would have. Is Doctor's school free in your country? Also, becoming a Doctor is much harder than becoming a pilot. Any Tom/Dick/Harry can go to flight school and get a commercial pilots license. Why don't you try an experiment and go apply for Med school and see what answer you get.

2. You mention about pilots being responsible for people's lives. What about the sergeon? I am a pilot and carry 250 people behind me, but generally I am just operating a heavy piece of equipment. I am trained to react to emergency situations and save people's lives. However the Surgeon is paid to "play" with people's lives in a very precarious and balaced way. Are the passengers in the back on the knife's edge of life as a patient being operated on with some kind of cancer? NO! They are sitting in the back with 100% health sipping their favourite drink. Is the pilot slicing into your bowels and taking out something while your life is precariously on life support? Come on man...get real.

Im sorry...I am a pilot...but dont even beg to compare our profession to that of of Surgeon.

I don't deny we are a skilled bunch, and most are professional and deserve recognition, but don't even dare to compare our profession to that of a Surgeon. The fact that you did so leads me to believe that you do not live in reality and have a blown up version of yourself because you can fly an airplane.

I follow your cause but definitely not with you.

We are not all underrated;

"My name is "Marc", I started flying after failing my first year at university at the age of 19. After finishing my expensive 100 K ab initio course at a reputable flightschool I was inmediately hired by a flagcarier off a small country. They provided me with a typerating and a 44 000 E starting salary.
After 18 moths with this airline I was hired by a major airline. Currently making less money then at my previous airline but I will earn a 6 figure salary before the age of 30 with a good chance of flying long haul soon. My 100 k loan will be paid within 5 years. I enjoy going to work, I like the lifestyle and feel appreciated in doing my job. Although we are in a financial crisis my pension is still save and their is a still a big chance that I can still retire at the age of 56 and maybe move to another country to be able to play golf 12 months a year.:rolleyes:"

Not too short but too far
 

@ Tommy Robinson and Birdy 767

Having read your coments, I would like to reply that whilst you are undoubtedly skilled personel, I really don't think ( personal opinion) you represent the peak of humanity you believe you are and should be , either by natural ability ( TR) or bureaucratic means ( B767 ).

B 767 first.

Since I am renovating an old house, I often consult UK tradesmen ( artisans' )websites. Plumbers are always calling for restrictions on their work because of cheap Poles and others spoiling their market ( by the way we are only talking about water here, gas is regulated by law ). To me this sounds a lot like you pilots bitching about market conditions although you are already protected by licencing regulations and learning costs ( barriers to entry as Warren Buffet would say ) and are already complaining from a much higher level ( but that would explain the much greater level of self-pitying whining, wouldn't it ? )

When times are good you naturally don't post about how superb things are and how easy it is to screw the airlines, but when they are bad you are out in force and the employers are Beelezebub whereas they are simply your mirror-image !

B767 - This is a zero-sum game: your gain is a loss for airlines and passengers, so try and accept it as that and live with the swings and roundabouts. If you really want to involve the tossers in Brussels, then I think you ought to be sectioned ( means sent to a hospital for mad people ) because they truly are the arseholes of the world.

TR - No longer have your mail in front of me because I haven't mastered this forum by a long way, but will try to reply from memory.

Was it unfair that your relative failed his ATPL ( ?) on a bad day ? Obviously the stakes were enormously different but I failed my driving test on a "bad-day" i.e. I wasn't good enough on the day, which was judged o.k. for the test.

Irrespective of the money/time involved testing procedures are still open to variation due to human involvement: if there is no proof of fraud/incompetence/breach of procedures, then better to forget and try again or give up and try something else.

Finally , as a comment to the pilots' self-image as being 1 in 100,000 , I would like to summarise ( from memory) something I read several years ago ( don't know where) about pilots in WW II.

This basically said that after basic screening for health and sight, a group of young men ( 18 - 25 ? not volunteers ) could be taken for pilot selection - ) and approx 20 % would be taken for pilots.

This was for combat missions lasting 6- 12 hours, in sub-zero temperatures with phenomenal adrenaline-boosts when crossing the enemy ( !) coast with AA -fire, night-fighter attack until the target and then AA- fire over the target, followed by exactly the same all the way home with miserable navigation-aids.

The sober conclusion was that a significant number of young men were capable of being pilots during a period that was 100 times more demanding than is currently experienced by airline-pilots.

Take this into account, compare and think where you are in this situation

Don't push it.

Pilots are not super-humans but skilled individuals selling their services like accountants, salemen, architects( lots of lives at stake there)

Alpine Skier
 

Some good points there.

However, on the point of WW2 aircrew..

The recruitment/selection process at the time threw up some incredibly brave and talented individuals - the names are legend now and we owe them a great deal. But..theirs was a completely different job, prioritising bravery and basic 'stick and rudder' skills. They frequently acted as renegades and ignored rules just to get the job done - and as I say - we owe them an awful lot for this. Today's commercial pilots are required to operate in a totally different arena where flying the aeroplane is but a small part of the job - OPERATING the aeroplane is what we do with all that this entails. It's certainly NOT encouraged to be too brave - rather, considered and safe.

I've no doubt that any candidate with reasonable co-ordination can be taught to fly an Airbus/Boeing - it's not that difficult - but consistently safe performance in the commercial environment is a skill that is a little rarer.

If we had a big war now I think I would be in touch, pronto, with the flight sim computer nerds with lightning fast reactions and high levels of situational awareness and try them out in Typhoon/F16 simulators - I wouldn't waste my time recruiting airline pilots, they are just (mainly) different animals.

8846.
Your last paragraph is utter bollox.

Well perhaps you would like to expand on that?

Just saying that it is bollocks is not really worth much...

BTW perhaps I ought to reveal that a very close freind of mine helped design aircrew selection for the RAF and I am well aquainted with what testing of potential pilots is all about.

I also have 20 + years experience in selection of individuals for complex physical/co-ordination tasks with an in-depth knowledge of learning theory,genetics, neural pathways e.t.c.

Whilst you may not agree with what I have said, I do have a considerable amount of experience in human performance, perhaps you could be a little more specific?

Why? Because you are willing to be a low-cost pilot!! Why should the airline pay you more than you're willing to work for??