Posted on 07/01/2002 3:58:15 PM PDT by Lazamataz
Name calling? By the same token, being a professional pilot gives you no credentials to look down upon "bus driver" as an insult. You're in the same league, except bus drivers work harder hours.
Would you rather ride in a bus driven by a commercial pilot or fly in a plane flown by a bus driver?
The point is that there is a significant difference between piloting a Cessna and commercial airliner.
As for which mode of conveyance I would choose, I'll drive myself. Doubt either one will arrive on time.
Spend much time flying a commercial airliner or driving a bus?
As for which mode of conveyance I would choose, I'll drive myself. Doubt either one will arrive on time.
Still ducking the question...
By the way, you ducked my question, too.
Wow, a private pilot with a half hour of simulator time. You are definitely an expert in commercial aviation.
By the way, I am not a commercial pilot.
By the way, you ducked my question, too.
What question?
LOL
Still waiting for an answer to my question. I will answer your question if you restate it.
I've employed mechanics on contract in the past 9 years (some guys working out of their hangers, just doing three or four basic customers at a time, some on a contract just to me), and currently it's a bit multi-level: the aircraft has light maintenance done by the flight school that I'm a partner in and major maintenance done by an ordinary shop, although the main use of them is for recurring inspections (100 hrs, annuals).
The flight school used to have full timers but we simply can't afford it, so the formula now is: inspections by the dedicated shop (and heavy maintenance like engine overhauls) and light maintenance by contract part-timers. The post Sept. 11th world hasn't been kind to us, but we're getting back into the groove again.
The contract part-timers I've used run the gamut: some are moonlighters, some are pure contractors, some are simply retirees looking to do something.
As far as the comment about "crap conditions", by that I mean that they don't have air-conditioned offices and lavish facilities. We had a nice hangar that was reasonbly spacious (although lacking in certain tooling) up until...a few months after 9/11, when they bounced us out. Oh Well.
So, how 'bout you? How much did you personally spend last year on maintenance? Where did your guys come from? And how much of your own capital have you ever risked on an enterprise in aviation? I'm well over the $100 thousand mark (actually, I've lost track. It's too scary to think about). You too, right? Otherwise you wouldn't be asking, of course.
Suspected Mr. Self-Man? Tell me...have you ever owned your own aircraft, owned your own school? Or were you just another instructor/135/corp guy 22 years ago, just like all the rest of us? I suspect you were. That's nice. So was I. Only I left a little later; about 4 years.
Sorry, guys. Didn't stay on the pilot track. Never intended to. Was happy to do my time in GA: I knew I'd come back, but like I said before, in those days, bad eyes = lousy jobs. Like corporate flying ("chauffer and valet") or charter (how many guys died flying checks in beat up Seneca's? How many does Ameriflight really kill?) or 121 Supplemental stuff...like good 'ol Key Airlines, where all my friends in Salt Lake ended up...but I digress. I went on to Engineering, because that's what I set out to do, it was really hard, but I excelled, and off I went! Incredible opportunities, undreamed of. And some not so incredible, but you have to avoid those carefully...
But a lot of the kids I either hired or trained with or trained myself went off to join you August characters: They're all still there! That's how come I get to keep up, in addition to still flying in the system, still training new pilots (and upgrading the hard chargers).
So lets wrap it up here. What did the one guy say, "astronaut wanna-be's"? You know, I haven't applied, but the guy down the hall recently made it into the "top 50" and was told what was necessary to get further. He'll get there, he just needed to finish his doctorate at Stanford. We launch satellites all the time: on American, French and Russian rockets. Shuttles? Nahh. I'm a commercial space guy. Someday we'll do commercial manned space, but it won't be in the U.S. Too much inertia from NASA. But someone will! You can read about that future here: Kelly Space
And now on to some of your specific complaints:
You allege that we all don't understand just how much effort it is to do your job, how hard it is, how valuable you really are, and what a bunch of ingrates we all are for thinking that way. OK. Here's my view:
The value of a pilot is the combination of experience and judgement that he has.
The medical, the schooling he has..those are just prerequisites for most companies; one necessary to ensure health, the other necessary to ensure intellectual capability. And to be just another filter on the masses trying to get in...
But back to the basic point: Mr. America West 1 and Mr. America West 2 just bombed value component #2 Big Time. And they had NO REASON to, other than the lack of discipline and perception of themselves that they had. They just proved that their judgement was so bad, that they might have put the nail in the corporate coffin of a struggling airline, a carrier that never totally got over bankruptcy.
Now I have a comment as to why I believe they were like that. It has to do with the time that I have spent with my friends and compatriots who went on to your world, after I had given them their first jobs in aviation, or been trained by them, or trained them myself, or simply knew them as fellow working pilots. And that comment is that once hired, they seem obsessed with pay scales, and work rules, and bid arcania, and generally wallowing in a self-pitying ego trip that seems to trivialize the good fortune (and it is fortune in most cases, as any honest pilot will tell you) that they have to be in a job that for many of them is the best they could ever have hoped for, especially the guys who got on without a degree, or had a degree, just not a technical one (a prerequisite these days for the military, although it didn't used to be).
This is what lead these two pilots to lose all sense of proportion. It's not just them; it's their environment. The "we may have a 5:20 a.m. call, but it's only 9:30, so we still have time for one more beer" attitude. Don't tell me this doesn't exist, because I've seen it with my own eyes, been there when that exact statement was made. In my own case I simply stopped drinking in October of '79 when I got my basic CFI. I considered it a matter of discipline and commitment: you can't be even a little hung over. Not at all. It's bad enough to fly all day and be tired in the evening - much less start OUT impaired!
But the "Oh Poor Us" culture endures, and legitimizes it.
I noticed that both those HP pilots were trim guys, not too big. It's harder for them: they're on the wrong side of the body mass / number of drinks ratio. They should KNOW that, and be hyper careful. But Oh No, not Poor Us...we shouldn't have to sacrifice..we're already too put upon: by the management, the customers (cattle!), our co-workers, the press, the public....on and on, ad nauseum.
They needed to get over that. There are lots of pilots who have (like, you?)...and lots who haven't. If these two got caught, we all know a lot didn't. And that makes you less valuable in the eyes of the public. Kinda bursts the carefully constructed bubble of perception that's been so lovingly nursed all these years. And speaking of value again, what is a pilot worth? What ever he can get, by maximizing the value equation above, or using artificial value multipliers, i.e., levers.
You have a few levers that have skillfully been employed on your part over the last 65 years to try and maximize that:
The first bullet is disgusting. Do you have any clue what it looks like to the flying public to see a bunch of grown men marching around in costume, carrying signs? Worse yet, where in God's name do you get off talking about "air rage" passengers when you have crap like what the Continental pilots did in 1986? Keying mikes, bomb threats (remember they actually had the material?), petty violence...How on earth can you imagine people wanting to pay you more after that? It's so pitiful. Most people I know are astonished. They ask, are they really like that? I have to say, Yup. You want to be paid like doctors? Ever seen an M.D. on strike?
Speaking of which, SPEEA went on strike last year for the first time in 50 years. "No nerds, No birds". I heard a couple of UAL pilots showed up for a teeny bit of support; not much though. Read about it here: SPEEA Strike history
Believe me, Engineers Never want to strike. And there was no violence (a few dustups in the parking lots). For Boeing to have pushed it that far....bad.
Bullet #2 has been a big boon to you and your companies. The airplanes you fly may be French, and even the engines, but there are no French carriers going from Dallas to Chicago without stopping in Paris. Which mostly means that there won't be any French pilots competing with you. Funny, but this protection never seems to have been extended to us. Lockheed and Douglas are gone, and Boeing is going to China and Russia for manufacturing and engineering. It's kinda all over. I don't expect Boeing to be anymore than a holding company in the U.S. with in 20 years; if they build airplanes here, they will almost certainly be UCAV's (oh, JSF will eventually be a much smaller contract then is advertised now) on contract to the DoD. Everything else will be predominantly designed and manufactured overseas. How long do you think the globalists will take before they force you to compete?
Bullet #3 is a fascinating study that echoes down to this day. In 1935, the aircraft trust companies were broken up by law, so that an aircraft manufacturer can never own a carrier! In other words, I could build an airplane (and I can), but I would legally be enjoined from operating it in common carriage! Good Job, ALPA! Bill Boeing, the founder of United Airlines, as head of the United Aircraft Trust Company (Boeing Aircraft, Varney Airlines, Boeing Air Transport, and Pratt/Whitney Engines) was put out of the airline business which he helped start. It was the reason the old man retired. He was forced to testify before Congress, where they all but called him a criminal for trying to build his company. And why? Because the smaller airlines which had no manufacturing capability could not compete - so they used the government to get their way. And benefit themselves in the process. My comment: they should have learned how to build airplanes, and competed with Boeing on capability. But that's not how y'all operate, now is it?
And Bullet #4...ah yes, the old bogeyman, deregulation. A boon to some...a horror to others. But after a few convulsions, it hasn't been so bad, right? Thousands of new jobs...new carriers...but, you're not making RELATIVELY as much as you used to. True enough...but UA and AA and DL are still on top; it's only TWA and Pan Am that croaked. You know, I had a good friend: Vince M., Retired TWA. "I got more time in the bunk of a Connie than you got total time, kid!" after I noticed L-1049 on his ATP. Taught his kid how to fly...his other son was already flying for Comair (Before they became the PFT capitol of the world). He's gone now too...one of the great guys I met. He really did make a lot of money for his day and age. But the top salaries aren't far behind now..and I haven't met guys like him. A real competitor.
So you can keep pulling those levers, but here is the future that will make them irrelevant:
One other little piece of downward pressure on salaries will be increasing automation, reducing the skill level needed (or, hopefully, just the accident rate). I mean, been in the front end of a Citation 10 or a Falcon 9000 lately? Makes the big stuff look silly. Hot starts? Not with these birds. Thing of the past. But you have those toys too, now...
I'm sorry, but you really are going to end up with the Axe and the Dog. But don't worry. You'll still have a decent living. Why the whining? Nothing lasts forever.
A little clean-up. Sat-Man thinks my Regulator handle is a little odd. That's surprising coming from a southerner who's knowledgeable about Southern history. My ancestors settled the Yadkin River valley in North Carolina, about 1745. You know, Rowan County. Some of them were involved with the Regulator Movement: Regulator Movement . This was actually in Alamance County, and they were relatives of my direct ancestors who were involved in the Mountaineer Militias that participated in the Battle of King's Mountain, under the command of Col. Benjamin Cleveland. I would have used Mountaineer, but I believe that handle is taken. We were also on both sides of the War of the Rebellion / War Between the States, with the majority on the Southern side, most of whom were North Carolina regimental soldiers. "Farthest at Chickamauga, Last at Appomattox". One great-great Uncle died on second day Wilderness, the other great-great Uncle was an N.C. Regimental Captain paroled at Appomattox by General Grant, after surrendering with Lee. 140 family members for the Confederacy, about 90 I believe for the Union.
Sat-Man is also worried that I may not actually be an Engineer! Well, short of showing you my sheepskin (you gonna fax me copies of your ATP?), I guess we'll just have to do it with a little quiz!
We could do more! I like it. Almost as much fun as a good sim check. What is it - "fly out of the volcano"? I like that one. Better than engine out approaches...boring.
By the way, I'd like to leave you with some resources on how to build airplanes, because in the future, you may be stuck doing this on your own, since engineers are leaving the profession as fast as they can.
Airplane Configuration and Flight Control Design: DAR Corp.
Stress analysis so it doesn't break: MSC Nastran
You'll need engines: David Japikse's ConceptsETI
And of course, you'll need to test it: NTPS
If you can't find any engineers you'll need to go to school again, so: MIT Aero Engr. Curriculum
I would have included some venture capital so you could finance all this, but hey: just pool all that Union money. You'll get there. After a century or so...
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