Let me get this straight. A pilot is a pilot, and doing any other duty is degrading and beneath the high, lofty status of being a pilot? What absolute claptrap. Such highmindedness. I stand blinded in the dazzle of sparkeling epaulets and polished caps. I'm just not worthy.
Is it common to perform other functions in addition to flying the airplane? As a corporate pilot, I also served as Director of Maintenance.
As an air ambulance pilot, I also served as director of maintenance, restocked the airplane, serviced oxygen, visited hospitals for public relations, vacumed the airplane, rented hangars and established a satalite operation, serviced and mowed runways, changed engines, painted, tuned up, and adjusted, and a host of other duties.
Flying charter in everything from light piston single engine airplanes to large multi engine turbojet airplanes, I've carried bags, polished, waxed, cleaned, restocked, maintained, etc. I've sold flights, managed the books. Written training manuals, operations manuals, etc. Instructed, and so forth. Pretty much any related duty, right down to scrubbing facility toilets in smaller operations.
It's okay though, because I'll never be worthy of the same high mindedness with which some apparently feel themselves gilded.
As an air tanker pilot, I have flown, washed, waxed, repaired, loaded, you name it. Often covered in oil, with burned hands, arms and fingers, cuts from safety wire, bruises, and bloodshot eyes from very long hours. I can't imagine anyone in that segment of the industry being foolish enough to say, "but I'm just a pilot."
As an ag pilot, I've turned wrenches, loaded and mixed chemical, visited fields and examined crops, counselled with farmers about both chemicals, crops, insects, and weeds. I've plowed fields, worked on farm machinery, performed various acts of husbandry in pursuit of agricultural work...all associated with flying as a lowly crop duster.
As a flight instructor, I performed maintenance, taught ground schools, gave scenic rides, put up displays in malls, did presentations to high schools, towed airplanes through parades, kept the books, helped manage the office, and so forth.
While flying skydivers, I packed parachutes, maintained the airplanes, helped teach, visited schools and various groups to talk about skydiving and sell skydives. The same while towing gliders. While working with Civil Air patrol (albeit a volunteer project), all of that and more. Same for volunteer work with EAA.
Aside from flying duties, I've had all manner of other types of work. I flew a Sabreliner to detroit once, and spent a week measuring railroad tracks with engineers in the inner city...the same engineers whom I'd flown to that location. I flew mechanics into the field, and then spent days and nights repairing airplanes alongside them.
I started a banner towing operation, and soon found that I spent a lot more time maintaining the letters, visiting prospective clients, setting up tows, selling advertising, meeting with the media and the FAA, and all other duties associated with that operation. I didn't own it: I started it and managed it for someone else. But I had all the duties associated with every aspect of the business. Pilots who wanted to fly for that operation were expected to do the same.
Are you shocked that additional duties may be be required of a pilot outside flying? The purist might suggest that a pilot need not get his or her own weather, calculate his or her own weight and balance, or do any other duty that might be beneath the lofty station of one privileged to manipulate the controls. But I don't think so. I have returned from flights into the brush, covered in mud and soaked through to my underwear, only to be assigned the duty of driving the passengers to a hotel or other place of lodging.
Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever accepted employment in which my job description was "Pilot, Only. Manipulates the controls of the aircraft, performs preflight functions, provides direction to flight crew. Performs no manual labor, does no other assignments which might soil his precious hands."
Perhaps some yuppie scum larvae have had that honor, but not lowly old me.
