Is Todays' airline pilot career really flying?

[Gorilla]

This may be a bad analogy, but the dude running the CT and MRI machines at a hospital is just pushing buttons, yet has a deep underlying knowledge of what's going on. Pushing buttons is misleading. You can push buttons on a microwave, which a 2 year old can do, or you can push buttons on a heavy-water nuclear reactor.

One is trivial, the other has enormous importance and consequences if not done correctly.

 

[jws717]

I belive the term is switch b1tch, not button pusher. monkeys can push buttons but i dont see those chimps playing with any switches.

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

So what did they do, suck half the brains out of those NWA pilots?

Depends who you ask...:laugh:

CE

 

[D'Angelo]

Technically it is flying however its more like being a babysitter. You monitor and make sure nothing goes wrong. Another argument that is getting old is the fact that some people pay a lot of money to do their flight training so they should automatically be making outlandish wages. Thats a load of crap I say. We all make the choice on how we do our flying. Some do the military thing, some pay as they go, some take out student loans. The bottom line is what you spend on your training is irrlelevant. If someone makes the choice to piss all their money away in student loans thats not the airlines problem.

 

[Black Hawk]

Technically it is flying however its more like being a babysitter. You monitor and make sure nothing goes wrong.

The term "manager" is more like it. Automation is a tool to make the flight go better but we are in charge of it and select which systems to use or not use. We aren't just along for the ride.

 

[no1pilot2000]

Using stick and rudder skills to fly

When I spoke to a couple of airline pilots, they told me when a pilot uses actual "stick and rudder skills" of physically controlling and airliner is during take off / departure and approach / landing. When they are at or around cruising altitude, the flying is mainly automated.

 

[Gorilla]

When I spoke to a couple of airline pilots, they told me when a pilot uses actual "stick and rudder skills" of physically controlling and airliner is during take off / departure and approach / landing. When they are at or around cruising altitude, the flying is mainly automated.

This is true. No transport yet that I'm aware of has "auto-takeoff." It's just an airplane like any other.

Same deal with I'd say 99.6% of all landings, which are A/P off and flown manually. Throw in an occasional real CATIII autoland, and practice autolands, there's the remainder.

Cruise flight? Boring to hand fly, and illegal for RVSM operations. It's more fun to B.S. with your podner or read the USA today.

 

[xdays]

Guys,

Not to put a damper on this otherwise enlightening thread , but I remember handflying a 767-400 a few times on the Expressway approach to runway 31 at LGA, and if I recall that's a 7000' runway . Can't do it on autopilot. I also remember departing EGE in the winter. Can't do that on autoplilot either. Anybody here hand flying their aircraft at 350 because they really want to? We live in an automated world, and it has certainly reduced the accident rate in our chosen profession. Why would we not wish to take advantage of what we are given.

x

 

[AWACO]

Technically it is flying however its more like being a babysitter. You monitor and make sure nothing goes wrong.

I guess you have never left the cockpit of your crappy CRJ for say a DC-9.....You Fool

 

[Ready2Fly]

About as much technology as a Cruise ship captain uses. I don't see what the big deal is. You get paid for what you know and are capable of doing. If that were not the case, half my professors would be out of a job, and so would pretty much every other profession unless you're in construction or plumbing. Lawyers don't get paid for the physical exertion they use for typing drafts. They get paid for their knowledge.

These questions/issues are getting stale.

Is that why regional pilot pay is so low?