What exactly does the pilot of a modern airliner do?

[Ripsnort]

"If you moved to NYC and got education as a nurse, you could have had your choice of $45,000 a year jobs."

Damn, your Nurses are underpaid.

[Dinger]

Yeah, let's go bust all the unions and pay everybody 12k/year.  Don't like being paid $12k/year?  Go work for someone else. Oh, wait, they're paying crappy wages too.  Afraid we'll run out of skilled labour? No problem. We will always need nurses and pilots, so it'll be no problem finding them.  Just cut down on the training required.  Besides we got computers to do the hard part of their jobs.  Now if we could just reform the legal system to get rid of those pesky punitive damages that are holding back america's corporations....
Unions are why there are 20-year-old males without jobs.  If we just let companies run businesses as businesses, we wouldn't have that problem.  Women are a drag on the bottom line.  They get pregnant and suddenly they're having kids.  Now their cost tot he company is higher, since we're paying for "sick leave", child care, maternity leave, and all the hidden expenses.  So let's pay chicks less to reflect the added cost they incur us.
Oh yeah, and experience is good to a point.  But really, after about age 40, the metabolism slows down and for most jobs, a younger person is a better choice.  So let's just fire old people.  Afraid of lawsuits? Well, A. change the law to favor the employers (once again those nasty punitive damages.  Get rid of them I say).  B. bust the unions.  Who cares what the law says if the victim is a single unemployed schmuck who can't afford representation?  Corporations are like loving parents to their employees; always forgiving their ungrateful transgressions.  It's just one big happy family.  We don't need no stinking unions.

[LePaul]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
"If you moved to NYC and got education as a nurse, you could have had your choice of $45,000 a year jobs."

Damn, your Nurses are underpaid.

Good thing housing in cheap in the Big Apple...oh wait...

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Miko, you are way off. The salary of two pilots are "neglectible" compared to the operating cost of the plane.

Add ground crew, ground equipment, mechanics, scheduled maintenance, fuel and fluids, insurance compared to pilot wage/pilot training.

In Europe it's not incomon to have the co-pilot who is actually a guy in training PAYING for his training, and plane tickets prices are still higher than in USA.

Aviation is a funy business. It's not like :

- I invest 30k in a computer engeneering bachelor degree and 4 years later I go work for T.I. at $4,000/month.

it's more like :
- I invest 50K to be a flight instructor, I have 300h single engine.
- Then I need to work 900h as a flight instructor at $10/h (if you fly 4h a day u are lucky).
- Now I have 1200h I can work for a little cargo/charter wohoo!!! oh wait ... I need 200h of multi-engine time, I have only 20h ... if not working for a flight school who has twin engines, take a loan $200/h.
- Yeah I got a job paid $80/day waking up at 5am coming home at 7pm flying cargo!
- wohoo I have 2000h 1 year later, now I can apply for an airline and hope I can make it as a first officer making $2000/month.
- I have 3000h, I just upgraded to captain, I make $5000/month (5 years later after graduation). I think I can afford to pay back my 50k loan and get a payment in a car.
- 3002h ... Oups toejam, just got a letter, in 2 weeks company is furloading me ... I have no job  ... maybe I'll find a job in an another airline, how lucky I would be!!! Off course, I';ll start back at the bottom of the seniority wage ladder:cool:

Aviation AT ANY LEVEL is a diddlyed up world to work for, but it has great rewards from time to time.

As far as the pilot thread. When you fly L.A. - Tokyo, yeah it's borring as hell. The next reporting point is 2h of flight away. Autopilot is set on NAV/GPS, all systems ok, navigation ok ... let me look by the window ... ohhhhh ocean everywhere ... like the last 5h..... radio ... no radio, we in the middle of nowhere.

Now, if you fly national, that's work on those commuters. Take off from here, checks, talk ATC, monitor, climb, talk, checks, monitor, tune, lvl, checks, talk, set, already descend, talk, monitor, fly obey orders, find ur way in, be as told, land, talk, check . ... run to an another plane .... do it again ... land , run to an another plane ... fly 3rd route of the day ... land ... drive home, sleep.

As far as a doctor and a pilot. When the doctor is operating you and you ear "OUPS" ... the doctor goes home to his brunch with his friends. When you are on final at JFK in the winter fog and you say "OUPS", you are not coming home nor are your passengers. Moreover, the airline you work for lost a $$$plane, lost a carrier for it's route, lost faith from it's customers, and has to pay XXX$ in law suits ... in a word, if you are a medium airline, you are going in.

Aces High is pretty good for the example, I dare ANYONE FLYING ACES HIGH, not at least one time crashed his plane for no reason, coming in for landing w/out gears, stalling/spining while turning final, runing off the runway on take off hitting the reload pad, crashing in a hill while chatting ... well ... it's not much different in real life, except that at best you loose your job and can throw your licences to the trash can while still having to pay back your loans.

my 2cts:p

[vorticon]

hmm lots of money to oversee machinery according to some...

thats why i willk become one (might have to have a m16 in the cockpit but still)

[AKDejaVu]

Originally posted by Creamo
Miko, you ramble on here, touching on some points you obviously have no hands on knowledge of, explaining other points with impossible vagueness, all the while generalizing your own roadkill to a incomprehensible babble of really hard to understand nonsense. Yet it's delivered like it should be Gods word and the truth.

Fricking brilliant post!

You've just summed up half of the posts in this forum.

AKDejaVu

[wulfie]

1. I like having former military pilots in the cockpit if I'm being given a ride, for a number of reasons. Some of the main reasons being that anyone who learns to fly in the military:

1. Isn't paying money to the school or the instructor(s).
2. The school and the instructors don't need the student to become a pilot. If they don't think the student has what it takes, bye bye to the student.
2A. There aren't cases of applicants 'failing the bar' 21 times and *then* becoming a military pilot.

2. I don't care for 'supply and demand' when it comes to Doctors, Pilots, and certain other things. I'd never want anyone I cared for (anyone I didn't want dead for that matter) flying on an airline with the unofficial motto of 'We save you $$$ on tickets because our pilots were hired by the lowest bidder'.

In some things, you get what you pay for, and there's no 'maximum value'. A very, very good friend of my Dad's (one of the guys who *really* 'taught him to fly' after he got his license) was the #1 pilot for United for no small period of time some years back. He made a ton of $$$. Considering that he did the check rides for alot of the younger pilots at United - overpay the guy and I don't mind that cost going to my tickets on United.

How can anyone accurately gauge the worth of a good airline pilot? Accidents are random and unexpected almost every time. There are numerous occasions where the pilots of an airliner alone saved the lives of hundreds of people. Not all pilots are equal. If you had pilots that couldn't get hired (due to competition) in those same emergency situations you'd have alot more fatalities more likely than not.

Mike/wulfie

[Montezuma]

Only trust fund babies deserve to have any money.  The rest of you can just go ahead and die in the street.

[28sweep]

Hey, SFRT - Frenchy

Did u really fly cargo for 80$ a day?  I got a cushy job making 60k and have always thought flying cargo would be kinda of romantic .  I would luv to give up my easy job here and put on a Indian Jones uniform...jump into a Dc-3 and fly cargo over the Himalayas.  After arriving-bang some chicks- drink some jack and coke-get into a few bar-room fights and do it all over again....ahhh the life...........

[Dago]

'We save you $$$ on tickets because our pilots were hired by the lowest bidder'.

Funny, people think the aircraft should be flown by the highest paid pilot in the world, but they seem comfortable with airlines farming out the maintenance of those aircraft to the lowest bidding third world maintenance base.  

Given the reasoning of some, why pilots should be paid huge sums, how about we pay them all a million bucks a year?  Aren't our lives worth it?

Its a sad fact, most Americans consider the most important issue when choosing an airline to fly on to be the price of the ticket, not the quality of the crew or the operation.

dago

[wulfie]

Dago,

Maintenance is as important. I would have mentioned that but the thread was about the pilots.

Mike/wulfie

[miko2d]

Creamo: Miko, you ramble on here, touching on some points you obviously have no hands on knowledge of

 Who do you think have a hands on knowlege of how market economy works? God? Universal spirit? Owner of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand"?

 I may not be as good at explaining advantages of the free market and dangers of collectivism as Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman, but then again - even they needed hundreds of pages, not a dozen line post.

 In fact a person in a free market society does not have to have any knowlege beyong his/her narrow speciality for the economy to work effectively - interplay of individual margunal utility functions resulting in supply and demand ensures the most efficient allocation of resources - uncluding labor.


Dinger: Yeah, let's go bust all the unions and pay everybody 12k/year. Don't like being paid $12k/year? Go work for someone else.

 Maybe let's study some economics first. Economy is a closed system - with lower salaries the products will cost less, so the effective real wages would stay the same - everything produced will be consumed.
 It's because of union restrictions that a pilot cannot start with a decent airline for $50K and has to go for crappy one for $18K.
 Competition exists for labor as well as the customers - and there would be more of it, not less without unions.

Now if we could just reform the legal system to get rid of those pesky punitive damages

 What do those have to do with a free market?

Corporations are like loving parents to their employees; always forgiving their ungrateful transgressions. It's just one big happy family. We don't need no stinking unions.

 You think you will love it better living in a socialist country? When everyone is in the union and you have no people to take advantage of?

 I bet that in your personal spending you absolutely do not care about all that high-mimded crap you've just said. When you have two groceries selling the identical apples for $1.50 and $2.00, you will sey that the second guy is trying to rip you off and go buy from the first one - rather than inquire if the second one has three employee on maternity leave unlike the first one.

 Companies pay for work. If we as a society decide that certain people are entitled to be paid while not working - sick, pregnant, elderly, etc. - fine. But a society as a whole should be saddled with that cost rather than a hapless fellow who happened to be their employer at the moment.


SFRT - Frenchy: Miko, you are way off. The salary of two pilots are "neglectible" compared to the operating cost of the plane.
 Add ground crew, ground equipment, mechanics, scheduled maintenance, fuel and fluids, insurance compared to pilot wage/pilot training.

 Quite possible that overpaid union labor other than pilots contrubutes much more to the airlines problems. I stand for the free market in general - not just for pilots.

 miko

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by miko2d

 Maybe let's study some economics first. Economy is a closed system - with lower salaries the products will cost less, so the effective real

You mean all the super benevolent corpoations won't just pocket the profits??  But pass it on to the consumers??

That's a relief, sign me up!  

[udet]

they use te autopilot to make just about every maneuver. it's like programming a computer. I agree sometimes they have to take over and actually land the plane, but it's not hard at all.
I believe anybody with dough and motivation can become an airline pilot ...it takes ABSOLUTELY no special skills, just not to be a blind deaf uncoordinated dimwit.

[funkedup]

Originally posted by Thrawn
You mean all the super benevolent corpoations won't just pocket the profits??

Only if the corporations in the market are conspiring to fix prices, which is generally illegal.  Otherwise they will lower their price to beat their competitors.  Supply and demand.  Lower price, more volume, more profit.