why are people still learning how to fly? (for a living)

Morav · Post by **Morav** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:30 pm

I guess I do feel inferior to an anonymous poster I've never met and probably never will.
It's evident to most people your ego is just to big to contain its self.
Don't get me wrong you do throw out some good information and are obviously pro active with many issues regarding the aviation industry in Canada. Its just that I'm tired of hearing the same meow of how great you are!

But then again its a public forum, so go ahead and meow away.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:52 pm

Morav, get a grip and do a little research.

I am as far from an anonymous poster as one can get.

What you take as this::

Its just that I'm tired of hearing the same meow of how great you are!

How do you figure that? When asked a question that I know the answer to I answer with my opinion based on having done it.

This DC3 thing was pretty straight foward, someone asked a question I gave my answer.

So where do you get the idea that I think I'm great?

Like you said though you have never met me and therefore really are not in a position to determine what my ego is or is not.

Now if you want to give someone shit for posting about me why don't you complain to Driving Rain?

" Don't get me wrong you do throw out some good information and are obviously pro active with many issues regarding the aviation industry in Canada. "

I am not all that up on aviation in Canada as I have not worked as a pilot in Canada for eleven years.

My biggest problem is I have to much time on my hands and I spend to much time here screwing away the hours.

. ......not really ananomyous.

Morav · Post by **Morav** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:20 pm

My biggest problem is I have to much time on my hands and I spend to much time here screwing away the hours

At least there is one thing we can agree on.

Back to the topic

I'm sure a cabinetmaker at it for 30 years + might start to find his job boring and not so stimulating. Probably because he stopped evolving. Same goes with any profession.

Driving Rain · Post by **Driving Rain** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:29 pm

Now if you want to give someone shit for posting about me why don't you complain to Driving Rain?

I'm terribly sorry Cat, did you loose your anonymity? Now I've gone and done it....again.

Go ahead give me shit, at my age I simply don't care anymore.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:05 pm

Naw D.R. you didn't expose me Im real good at getting my self in trouble all alone.

I just thought maybe I could get you to tell these guys what a real prick I really am.

" I'm sure a cabinetmaker at it for 30 years + might start to find his job boring and not so stimulating. Probably because he stopped evolving. Same goes with any profession. "

You have that right Morav flying sure does get boring after a while, but at least I can pick up a few dollars whenever I want by getting bored for a while.

About this evolving thing, what exactly do you mean by evolving?

All I was trying to do was point out that flying is just another medium skills job with more rules and B.S. involved than any other occupation I can think of.

I think I'll buy flight sim and do a trip from Vancouver to London England on my computer....just for old times sake..

sky's the limit · Post by **sky's the limit** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:11 pm

Morav wrote:
Back to the topic

I'm sure a cabinetmaker at it for 30 years + might start to find his job boring and not so stimulating. Probably because he stopped evolving. Same goes with any profession.

I just picked up two stools made for my wife and I by a 60yr old cabinet maker from solid Maple he cut 15yrs ago.... was pretty stoked about it too. He's also pretty pumped about several projects he has on the go, so it can't be all that bad. He looked a lot better than most of the 50 something AC/WJ guys I see wandering around various Terminals....

STL

Morav · Post by **Morav** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:32 pm

By evolving I mean trying new things, learning, bettering yourself, setting higher goals, teaching etc. As soon as your profession becomes a routine you pretty much become stagnant. That goes for everything.

Sure flying can become a medium skills job if you let it, but for some its more than that.

C-FABH · Post by **C-FABH** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 3:41 pm

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 4:02 pm

" By evolving I mean trying new things, learning, bettering yourself, setting higher goals, teaching etc. As soon as your profession becomes a routine you pretty much become stagnant. That goes for everything.

O.K. we agree there.

My problem was I just decided I had had enough of aviation and want to spend a few years just fu.king the dog so to speak.

I had accomplished most everything I wanted to in Aviation and found no real pleasure in doing the same things over and over, I got stuck with flying in the air show circuit in Europe and it was the most boring thing I can think of spending ten hours a day on a blazing hot ramp answering the same questions over and over and over and flying the same routine for ten to twelve minutes a day....the guy that owns the aerobatic school was trying to encourage me to fly the Pitts in the unlimited competetions but I just could't see beating the living hell out of my body for no good reason. So I just decided I'd had enough and quit last April 29.

For whatever it is worth I went from the biplane era to fly by wire and the glass cockpit technology and managed to get approved to teach under S.A. CAA, CASA, and JAR in Europe as an aside I flew for two seasons with France's first astronaught teaching him how to fly the Cat and use his hands and feet, he was delighted to go back to real flying and he used his position as a test pilot in Airbus Industries to get me free training on the A320 Sim at the factory in Toulouse as a gift for giving him the opportunity to fly hands and feet again.....

...so anyhow I evolved far enough and decided to learn to sail a sail boat, and as soon as this fu.king weather gets better I will be putting the sail boat back in the water.

Sure flying can become a medium skills job if you let it, but for some its more than that.

I guess that may be true, maybe I just got tired?

gli77 · Post by **gli77** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:17 am

I have come across this phenomenon a lot with pilots, mainly airline pilots. Why is that any time someone makes more money than a pilot it is an injustice? This goes beyond the grass being greener in this case as the two professions are not even related.

Yes being an airline pilot does have some responsibility but you are a small part of a big team. In my opinion the biggest part of that team is the design engineer who continues to design systems idiot proof and reduce pilot workload.

If you enjoy flying then great! If you are jealous of everyone that makes more money then change. But likely whatever you change to wont make you happy with that ego anyways.

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:49 am

If you enjoy flying then great! If you are jealous of everyone that makes more money then change. But likely whatever you change to wont make you happy with that ego anyways.

This ego thing is really an interesting thing with pilots.

Have you noticed when I try and point out the simple fact that flying an airplane is a medium skills job at best and use examples like this DC3 question I get jumped on and accused of having a big ego?

And if it is not my ego I get put down because I'm old?

You just can't win with a lot of these pilots because they are skills wise myopic.

mbav8r · Post by **mbav8r** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:14 am

I myself can't believe some of the crap thats being spewed out in here, to say that flying is a medium skills job and we're just glorified bus drivers. The people with that opinion of flying should have never had their licence to begin with. Why not say a monkey could do it!
Ego aside, a great cabinet maker didn't start out like that, it took years to perfect his/her trade but we're comparing apples to avocadoes. I have always said I could fly a plane with a blindfold on, one hand tied behind my back but when the shit hits the fan, who do you want making the decisions about how to get you safely on the ground, a monkey or a highly skilled, experienced pilot who respects aviation for it's inherent dangers!
Why don't you ask your cabinet maker what type of wx to expect with a complex low or what to do if your pitot system fails or the many other things that can go wrong in aviation. I'll agree that flying straight and level and going from ILS to ILS doesn't require alot of our learned skills, but it's what we did to stay alive, to get to that stage that does.

When you feel that there is(edit) NO more you can learn from aviation, it's time to get out

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:56 am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I myself can't believe some of the crap thats being spewed out in here, to say that flying is a medium skills job and we're just glorified bus drivers. The people with that opinion of flying should have never had their licence to begin with. Why not say a monkey could do it!

So you feel I should never have been given a license to begin with?

If that is the case why would so many different countries have given me the license to teach in aircraft registered under their regulations?

I have never suggested that you do not continue to learn as long as you fly, what I am saying is flying an airplane is a medium skills / knowlege occupation.

I will agree that a monkey probably couldn't do it safely unless you could teach them to read weather reports.

So we are close in agreement there.

gr8gazu · Post by **gr8gazu** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 9:23 am

mbav8r wrote:
I myself can't believe some of the crap thats being spewed out in here, to say that flying is a medium skills job and we're just glorified bus drivers.
Well, let me add a little more disbelief for you. It is very much a job that can be performed by anyone with reasonable eye-hand coordination and spatial orientation. The "monkey" thing would never work and we are more similar to specialty equipment operators than anything else.

The people with that opinion of flying should have never had their licence to begin with.
People have differing opinions and fortunately, they don't all have to be "like" to operate an aircraft.

Why don't you ask your cabinet maker what type of wx to expect with a complex low or what to do if your pitot system fails or the many other things that can go wrong in aviation.

Why would a cabinet maker know, or need to know this? Well, unless it has an impact on the finish he is applying. The fact is, pilots do not need to know this. All they need to do is be able to decifer TAF's and METAR's and apply it to his planned route. The effect of a failed pitot system is a trainable scenario. Just refer to "Flying for Dummies", commonly referred to as SOP's.

When you feel that there is more you can learn from aviation, it's time to get out

I don't get it. After nearly 30 years, I am still learning and know there is more to learn, so it is time to get out??

complexintentions · Post by **complexintentions** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 9:48 am

The real title of this post should be "Why are people still posting these irrelevant job comparisons".

I'm not going to wade into the debate about skilled vs unskilled per se. I AM curious of this bizarre need to constantly denigrate our own profession, but then again virtually all Canadian pilots suffer from low esteem due to making an average wage somewhere between a McDonald's worker and the guy who parks cars at a nightclub. Sad but there it is.

But what I will say about skills is this....there is so much more to becoming a pilot than hands and feet, so much more that has very little to do with airplanes at all...that it makes trying to become a woodworker absolutely trivial by comparison. Show me a cabinetmaker that has been kicked by his industry as many times as I have and bounced back, and we can start to talk comparisons. There just isn't any. And I make a lot more (FINALLY) than 60 or 65k or whatever. Not bragging...but seeing as most of my career serves more as cautionary tale than good example, I wanted people struglling to know it IS possible...

Carry on!

mbav8r · Post by **mbav8r** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:23 pm

mbav8r wrote:
When you feel that there is more you can learn from aviation, it's time to get out

gr8gazu worte:
I don't get it. After nearly 30 years, I am still learning and know there is more to learn, so it is time to get out??

Clearly I meant "if there were NO more to be learned"

Cat Wrote:

So you feel I should never have been given a license to begin with?

If that is the case why would so many different countries have given me the license to teach in aircraft registered under their regulations?

What you have said in this thread leaves me the impression that you have low self worth and believe that anyone with good hand eye co-ordination can accomplish what you have, I guess it would be arogant to think otherwise, I suppose since it is after all, a medium skilled labour we are talking about and other than interpretting weather a monkey could do it.

But I'm willing to bet that somewhere, sometime you were paid a healthy salary in excess of say 100k, and by your view, you were grossly over paid for your medium skills.

Futhermore, I believe a healthy dose of confidence(not arogance) makes a better pilot. You seem to lack this confidence, or is it possible that this thread started out by insulting your fathers profession by comparing the two and therefore your view was clouded by emotion. Either way you should probably look at the fact that you have such a low opinion of what you did for 30 years, I hope I'm not that disatisfied in 20 years. Just my humble opinion.

MrMerth · Post by **MrMerth** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 2:02 pm

Theres 10 minutes of my life i wont get back, get over it...........Different strokes for different folks. next

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 2:05 pm

Futhermore, I believe a healthy dose of confidence(not arogance) makes a better pilot. You seem to lack this confidence,

Thanks mbav8r, that is what makes Avcanada such a great place to come and get our weaknesses pointed out.

I had no idea that my arrogance was not hiding my lack of self confidence.

Oh by the way you are just a tad off in how long I have managed to bluff my way through aviation....in June I will be starting on year 55 as a pilot....

But what the hell, I'm always willing to learn so how much would you charge me to go flying with you so I might learn something and get over my lack of self confidence.....I'm free for about four months before I head back to Africa to finish up a commitment doing some flight training over there.

So let me know if you are avaliable.

bbb · Post by **bbb** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:20 pm

CAt, I was having another one of those " why the f--- am I doing this" days, and your reply
O.K. @#$! IT, I GIVE UP!!

YES, YES I'M SCARED SHITLESS LANDING IN STRONG X/WINDS.

ESPECIALLY IN A DC3.made me howl! And for the rest of you- it doesn't necessarily take 50+yrs to get realistic (I prefer to think that I still have the ability to reason) about this industry. And no, we're not rocket scientists! We're pilots, a diverse group with an unnormally high percentage of people who think they are smarter/know more/are worth more/have better ideas/can do it better than the next guy/profession. Grow up! And yes this is a forum so we can all post what we think, but can we pleeeaassee think first? (ok, maybe the "grow up" remark needs deleting, but we all have shitty days!)

wingtip · Post by **wingtip** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:33 pm

complexintentions wrote:The real title of this post should be "Why are people still posting these irrelevant job comparisons".

I'm not going to wade into the debate about skilled vs unskilled per se. I AM curious of this bizarre need to constantly denigrate our own profession, but then again virtually all Canadian pilots suffer from low esteem due to making an average wage somewhere between a McDonald's worker and the guy who parks cars at a nightclub. Sad but there it is.

But what I will say about skills is this....there is so much more to becoming a pilot than hands and feet, so much more that has very little to do with airplanes at all...that it makes trying to become a woodworker absolutely trivial by comparison. Show me a cabinetmaker that has been kicked by his industry as many times as I have and bounced back, and we can start to talk comparisons. There just isn't any. And I make a lot more (FINALLY) than 60 or 65k or whatever. Not bragging...but seeing as most of my career serves more as cautionary tale than good example, I wanted people struglling to know it IS possible...

Carry on!

WOW! Your avatar and your comments speak volumes about you! I bet you like to have those volumes read aloud to you as well.

Sorry, theres another "KICK"

planett · Post by **planett** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:14 pm

We as a group are better described as Rocket Surgeons. Surgeons were the smartest group overall in the CBC IQ competition. We have to be that smart in order to overrule the AFM, Cap Gen, and approach minima whenever the trip is important enough.

npg · Post by **npg** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:17 pm

FLYING KICKS ASS MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:36 pm

FLYING KICKS ASS MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!

Like I was saying the bar is not high in this industry.

Falken · Post by **Falken** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:58 pm

Cat Driver wrote:
FLYING KICKS ASS MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!
Like I was saying the bar is not high in this industry.

MrMerth wrote:Theres 10 minutes of my life i wont get back, get over it...........Different strokes for different folks. next

mmhmmm... I think the dead horse has been well tenderized, so to speak... no point in turning it to pulp, gentlemen.

npg · Post by **npg** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 9:14 pm

u fellas are nerds get off ur computer and do something constructive