I'm doing it for the money.

B@lls. Plenty of money to be had - especially outside the UK:ugh: I DO NOT pay myself to fly. I haven't done so for over 20 years and I WILL NOT for the next 20. Neither have I payed for a type-rating, nor will I ever pay for one. A bond is a different thing altogether.... But I've not spent a penny on a TR!!!!!!

You are prostituting this profession. Period:mad:

I fly because I love flying. But I won't pay for it a la ryanair or p2f (note the lack of capitals there - scumbag outfits).

Such a nice forum! :rolleyes:

Bottom line is, If you love flying you will do whatever it takes to get there. Whatever route you take to get there. It doesn't make you less of a professional.

As you said yourself, you Love flying because you love flying. Well so do they, No matter who they fly for or what they take home in a pay packet, they still hold the same responsibilities and pride as you do.

Kazzie,

Pay is nothing to do with honour, it's to do with responsibility and accountability.

If it's honour you want, best learn duelling and meet your adversaries at dawn.

The salraies payed to pilots nowadays are digusting ...................they are far, far too high. I'd willingly sell my house and all it's contents to fly for an airline :D

Pay is nothing to do with responsibility and accountability,it's pure supply and demand,there are far too many people wishing to do what you do for less money...Isn't this the world you've all wanted to live in? Ultimate freedom and democracy,there's no reason to complain now,everybody gets what they deserve.

Anyone interested in the Profession anymore?
 

Prior to 1985 (a la Lorenzo) I'dve said you'd be crazy not
to be interested. But 26 years later its a mug's game and
merely a means to an end to provide a reasonable income.

I've already talked a few good and highly intelligent lads
(5 I recall now) out of wanting to make an airline career
their prime source of income, and they've gone on to far
more lucrative vocations where they're treated as human
beings, not as mere dog!!!! to be ruthlessly trodden on
and scraped off a stinking beancounter's jackboot.

That's not to say I discourage aerobatics or sport flying as
a hobby - oh no no no. Just not to make pilotage a prime
source of income.

Hey gimme a break - who isn't selling their services to the
highest pay on offer these days anyway? We've all had to
become damn whores to get on in this bloody racket, even
the kids (as well as you WK there in EK-land, even though
you'd never admit it).

And if one isn't a whore yet, then one is simply getting
screwed on the cheap.

You'll also need hock your soul and your entire self-respect.

I personally love the job and despite having been burnt a few times during recessions still look forward to going to work and doing my job. I am firmly in the corner of work to live but I cannot think of anything I would rather do.
I am deeply saddened by the ever deteriorating T and C's as it only undermines our responsibility and the reality of exactly what we do and the lives depending on us. I will also NOT be encouraging my children to follow in my footsteps but I can only hope they find a career that they love as much as I love flying.
Anyone who says or thinks we are paid too much needs a reality check I think. For the last 2 years I have been away from my family more than should ever be expected and combined with appalling rosters, or lack there of, has meant that I have worked for a pittance in relation to the duty time I have put in. I also love the fact that people book a holiday and just expect to get there. There is no reality check of what it takes to get them to their destination.
As I said at the beginning I am a lifer in this industry, for my sins, but I won't be recommending it to anyone!

Profession???
 

What profession are you talking about?
I mainly see self serving cheap imbecils left to do this job and the exceptions are kept down by the vast predominance of that kind. Fact is that nowaday it is understood by airlines that any imbecil can fly.
Look at at EK... remotely controlled pilots! It is not a surprise that local Duabi newpaper refer at pilots as labor. That ii what an overwhelming majority are labor and ..becoming cheaper and cheaper.
As per the one that love flying...you may like your job but you don't tell your employer...fokker !!

An apt comparison with the 1970s and today. Flying is no longer glamourous, exciting but a bloody nightmare for everyone, where SLF fighting is now half expected.

I still struggle with how much the profession has slid even in the last ten years. What particularly concerns me is how there has been a huge increase in demand for pilots, but the t&c s have gone backwards at an unbelievable rate, so does that mean that the supply of labour has increased that much more than demand?

I would not be surprised as comparing an average BEA cadet to an average RYR cadet could be considered like chalk & cheese - just compare the selection processes. In some ways, the profession may get even worse as those on excellent legacy deals retire, and new labour is all on flexi-screw.

On a positive note, there is still something magical about it!

Always said the test of any profession is whether you'd recommend your children to enter it. I certainly would not and, in fact, would actively warn them against it.

I see the convergence of many factors occurring and whilst I still enjoy flying and have had an amazing career through the halcyon days of airline flying I am glad that I will be retiring soon and feel much pity for the newbies who are coming along.

Has anybody considered that the problem is nothing to do with peoples attitudes, and all to do with supply and demand.

Flying has become so easy in the civilian world where it is all automated that just about anybody can do it if they can scrape up the cash, thus loads of people become qualified and the airlines can pay the market rate which is bugger all because new pilots are after the envisaged glamour.

When it was tricky, there were less who could do it, so the airlines had to pay to get you.

Simple supply and demand.

It is of course a false economy, because it is only easy till the automation fails, and then you wish you had good pilots again, rather than pilots who have rarely ever flown hands on since a cessna.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to blame it all on cadets.

So why not put your money where your mouth is, and do it? You could show everyone just how easy it is and prove your point. ;)

Who has blamed it on cadets?

It is all down to the fact that pilots used to be paid and respected because they could do something difficult.

Now it isn't day to day, so even though the public thinks of it as glamerous and impressive, anyone can do it, and unfortunately does.

We are mostly Professionals, but we no longer belong to anything like a Profession.

Everyone now expects to fly half way round the world for a tenner. This is thanks to the rise in Low Cost airlines. This also means however that there are more people flying so more aircraft and more jobs. Yes the jobs pay less but that is due to the fact that the public expect to pay less for the flight than they do for the airport parking, duty free etc.

Its good to cry out for tougher selection criteria once your in a nice job. Everyone needed a break to get into this industry.:=

Like it or not aircraft have become more automated and more reliable, this means the chances of the pilots having to save the day in an emergency with their skillful flying are now very rare (Thank god). Many of the passengers know exactly what the pilot is doing as they do it on their flight sims at home. There is no mystery about it anymore.

12 months can see you fully qualified to gain employment as a pilot, you could then spend most of your day monitoring the FMS, autopilot etc. Yes, there are many negatives and T&C's are declining but this is happening in all industries. (How long do nurses train and how much do they get). Many people I see on here have never done any other job. Go to any industry forum and you will see the same kind of debates about declining T&C's etc.

Im am afraid to say if you long for the days when people admired the pilots as they walked through the terminal and every little boy wanted to be one then you are going to be dissapointed. Those days are gone and never coming back. It doesn't boother me at all when people refer to the role as 'glorified bus driver'. It is actually quite true its just many people don't like to admit it.

Until its simulator time (or a real emergency) and the low
experience of the RHS cadets shows through and through.

To get by this, official CRM was invented (IMO) around the
same time to ensure the experienced captain would then
adequately breastfeed the inexperienced cadet. It happens
every time in the sim and once in a real life event.

I'm not a bloody nursemaid - if you can't at least get the
thing on the ground, engine out, safely in IMC on your own,
then you have NO right whatsoever occupying the SIC seat
of my cockpit. Of course the airline pimps (mainly CEOs and
beancounters and the odd corrupt CP) think otherwise.

CRM occured, and still occurs naturally between professionals
before the advent of kids in the RHS, as demonstrated in
Sioux City years ago.

And once upon a time a pilot was never accepted into the
RHS of anything in the majors, unless he had enough
experience and survival skills that taught him whats really
important, what is minutiae, what will kill him and what
won't.

The dependency of latter day crew on FMCs and computers
is disgusting, if not downright dangerous and obscene. And
I have yet to hear or read of an emergency anywhere that
it was AUTOMATION that saved the lives of all on board. If
that day ever happens I'll eat my words, hang up my spurs
and start doing Forex and commodities full time.

In the meantime I'll continue being a harlot and sell my
services to the highest payer around at the time...

while avoiding anal rape.

Well, I guess I have à question about the beard and moustache myth.

Having heard this many times, the oxygen will burn your facial hair and the oxygen mask not properly sealing?

I find this all hard to believe, having seen many pictures of fighter pilots having big moustaches (Robin Olds comes to mind amongst other). if the sealing myth really had any thruth to it, wouldn't the aviation authorities have long ago forbidden beards?

The UK AR5 'Whistling Handbag' (the noise made by the fan in the seperate housing which held three gas mask cannisters and was worn, rather daintily over the shoulder in the manner of a man bag!) covered the entire head in a rubber bag (parents look away in horror!) thus negating any folicle challenge to either the British 'Stiff Upper Lip' or the Royal Naval 'Full Set'.

Airline flying isn't flying, its driving a bus for the comfort of the passengers and hoping nothing goes wrong. The best day at work is when nothing happens and the aircraft monitors your flying on the managers behalf. Break a limit and the printer rebukes you before the 20/20 hindsight of the junior manager tells you what you should have done, what the SOP says you should have done and what the corrective action should have been whilst being 1000+ miles away from what happened and not having a clue about the extenuating circumstances and the environment on the day.

Flying is operating an aircraft for the purposes of achieving an aim whilst using the aircraft as a tool to achieve that aim utilising the entire flight envelope and, occasionally, a bit more. It's fun, exciting, exhilarating, thought provoking and not a little dangerous. Airline flying is none of that except when the brown stuff really hits the fan and we really start to earn our wage. Then and only in those rare situations does the 'professional pilots' profession really come to the fore.

In those circumstances then I would still consider myself a professional pilot. Some of the drones, who I have come across, who 'graduate' from the 'zero to hero' flight sausage machines need a long, long time to get to that point but, hey, they are the Captains of the future so give 'em time.

Could I have flown Airliners since my early 20's? Possibly, would I want to? After having flown a wide variety of other types/aircraft? Not a hope. If you want real flying, look outside of the airlines and go have some fun.