Posted on 07/19/2023 1:41:35 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Starting in 2020, airlines did two insanely stupid things: They forced a generation of their most experienced pilots into early retirement, then committed to new race-based hiring rules.
A wagon train sounds more appealing to me right now than setting foot on a plane with a pilot more trained in detecting microaggressions at work than changes in airspeed and altitude.
I hate flying. My poor husband still has a sore arm from where I grabbed him every time the plane hit turbulence on our last flight. I didn’t always hate it — I used to fly across the country to and from college constantly without thinking about it. I’d fly to Europe without stressing about anything other than how bored I’d be for 12 hours. The Chuck Yeager voice of the calm pilot telling me to put my seatbelt on was reassuring. I was in good hands — the best.
But after one super bumpy flight through a storm cloud during a landing in Paris, I developed a fear of turbulence. This led to me falling into a plane crash rabbit hole. I learned about every gruesome plane crash from the last 50 years. I began to try to find out what caused most crashes, in a vain attempt to prevent having to go out like that.
What brings down an airplane? 9/11: al-Qaida terrorists. The American Airlines crash right after 9/11 out of JFK airport in New York: pilot error. The terrible Air France flight from South America: frozen pitot tubes and pilot error. The Calgon Air crash: ice and pilot error. The miracle on the Hudson: fat geese.
The miracle on the Hudson flight confirmed that in the unlikely event of a flight mishap, having a skilled pilot is literally your only hope.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
My thoughts exactly.
You don’t know much about flying.
Sums it up right there.
I am thinking of the undeniable water in flint Michigan
Undrinkable
“The pilots are the highly visible right stuff guys, but just important for safety are the mechanics and inspectors.”
And ATCs - another area where “diversity hiring” is gonna kill us.
Also, get race quotas out of the operating room.
It’s not just airlines. Look at the Supreme Court. The latest AA hire just wrote a dissent that read like an op ed piece. in the dissent she claimed, erroneously, that black babies of black physicians had twice the survival rate of those with white physicians. Not only is that incorrect it demonstrates a lack of knowledge of arithmetic and common sense - not to mention the ability of her clerks to check citations.
We lost a few good people in accidents that were 500 hour wonders in developing countries. Even Japan and Korea had troubles with their pilots and reverted to expat pilots with military experience.
If the airline can hire based on race, can I choose my captain based on race? Where do they post that info?
I quit flying when they started fondling you a 1/4 of the way before you even got to your gate.
Because there were no deaths and few injuries, none of the passengers sued anyone. I remember seeing a documentary of many of the passengers and Capt. Sullenberger having a reunion. When Sully showed up, many of the passengers started crying in honor of Sully.
Side note. Capt. Sullenberger was a 57 year old white male.
This is a ridiculous myth. You THINK you can fly a B-777, but as an airline check airman for 40 years I could make you wet your pants in 5 minutes in a simulator.
I quit all flying commercial (and private) in July 186, when TWA800 was shot down. Prior, I flew all over the world for my NYC ad agency’s business. If I can’t drive my Jeep Grand Cherokee HEMI V8 there, I don’t need to go there.
That made my neck hair stand on end!
True that. In my majority black church there are some professionals who open up about work life in our financial small group. There are a few times they've said that they feel like people think they got there by having an AA.
I tell them that in the tech world we care about specific talents and experience (i.e. if you're fresh out of college looking for a junior programmer position, a BS in computer science from a school that required you to build a precompiler would get you the job without experience with me never caring about your race or sex). I don't know if people in other industries look for metrics like that.
I’ve been flying for about 45 years. Not commercial and just single engine taildragger. Given that in all types of flying there are a great many things to know, and know by heart. I don’t care if you are black white brown or green with purple spots. That is irrelevant and not a reason to hire someone or not. What matters is that you flat out know your stuff, and have the ability to make precise decisions very rapidly under extreme pressure. Ability is the only thing that should put a person in the cockpit. Ability and judgement is what keeps you and everyone in the aircraft alive.
“Turbulence has almost nothing to do with the pilots of airliners.”
That’s arguable, but you’re more right than wrong. But overall, I think it was a metaphor for crashes.
I guess time will tell if airliners are now idiot-proof (also a metaphor).
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