short bus wrote:As hard as it is for professional pilots to accept, there is very little difference between them and a professional driver.
From someone who's done both, you're totally out to lunch.
No, wait!! He's right! I wonder how many of you pretentious, self-important pilots would be able to fly a good ILS approach in a Peterbilt 18-wheeler, or touch it down on glassy water on a short lake, or land it and bring it to a stop from highway speed on a seven hundred foot patch of esker?
How many of you could take a look at the infrared satellite image of the sea ice off Axel Heiburg Island and make an intelligent decision not to drive your Mack dump truck on it, taking into consideration the amount of time last month's open leads have been frozen and how many storms have deposited snow on the new ice?
How many of you pilots would bother to consult weather maps to decide if the icing would be worse than forecast and cause a problem for the de-icing boots an your international harvester? How many of you would be able to land a fully loaded cement truck after a night circling approach at minimums in blowing snow?
None of you, that's who. That is a job for a truck driver, not a snivelling, wimpy pilot who works harder trying to make his job sound important than he does loading or "driving" his plane.
Actually, being a truck driver is more like being a foreign diplomat. Here are some of the similarities:
They both have a job
They both work hard (or claim to)
They both have unpredictable schedules
They both spend lots of time away from home.
They both sometimes have to go to work early.
There is an embassy and a truck driving school in Toronto
They both live in houses, or apartments.
They both occasionally choose to drink Dos Equis
They both sometimes use stimulants
&c.