Pilotyip not anti-college

[Goose Egg]

...it is incorrect from the pro-college posters to say that the only way to the cockpit is full time college for four years.

I may have said that earlier when I was among the unititiated, but I certainly haven't said that lately. There are ways "to the cockpit" without a 4 year degree. And there are those who are quite successful in aviation and other fields without degrees.

I believe it is a extremely small percentage of pilots in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s that loose their medical, so having the degree as the fallback for unlikely situation is not a valid reason for making the degree mandatory.

While I suspect that the actual percentage isn't so small, let's assume for the sake of the discussion that it is. Now, you can look at life in one of two ways, as an engineer or a statistician. Let's say that 10% of all pilots loose their medicals before their retirement age. Now, the statistician would say "hmm, 1 in 10. It's probably not going to happen." And the statistician would be right. However, the engineer would say "That's a 10% chance that a pilot could loose their medical," and would deem it completely unacceptable. After all, you don't design stuff with a 10% chance of failure.

I prefer to look at my life as an engineer would. Sure, for the sake of our discussion, the possiblity of a lost medical is remote (although as I said earlier, I suspect the odds are somewhat higher than 10%.) But what if I am in that 10%?

And this is to speak only of the "fallback" value of a degree, nevermind becoming well rounded being made aware of more than one's tiny little slice of life.

-Goose