Calling all pilots!!!

[davidkimchee]

Im scheduled to take an intro flying lesson and while perusing the website I saw some info for a commercial flight pilot license course.

I was wondering if any pilots here can give me some insight on what it takes to build a career in flying.

Although Ive read as much as I could from a few websites, lets assume I know nothing (not that hard) =P I know Im probably misinterpreting half the stuff Ive read.

Now GO!

edit: and If im being too vague lets say I just want to fly. No preference for more money, more high tech stuff, just fly. No family to worry about being away from, etc...

thats still too vague huh?

 

[liftshard]

well, you'll have to be a CFI for a long while first.

If you want to fly as a career, I'd suggest the Air Force.

 

[CL65 Captain]

DON'T DO IT! THERE IS NO CAREER ANYMORE!

We have guys/girls giving up there life long dream of being an airline pilot AFTER they have spent $50k+ and many, many years of flying CFI or freight or military to get this job.... which by the way pays crap, has long hours and you are away for days at a time. Oh, by the way, they now want you to accept lower wages... so now it's less than crap to make up for the fact that management is incompetent and sold all the fuel hedges to keep the company out of bankruptcy.... and now we are in Chapter 11 and have no hedges and Bob and Sally want to fly from NY to FL for $69 each way even though it would cost 5x that in gas if they drove.

As a Capt, I am being displaced back to First Officer in Dec. And a few hundred at the bottom are being put to the streets. And besides taking that 40% pay cut from the new FO pay, they are going to come after us for more cuts otherwise they will file a 1113c with the Bankruptcy judge to gut our contract. In the past it was cyclical and you could expect to bare through the bad times, the furloughs, etc..... but the career has gone away, it's not going to come back like it was!

So if you want to fly.... great! If you think this is still a career.... don't succumb to SJS (Shiny Jet Syndrome).

"We know you have your choice of many Bankrupt airlines, and we are glad you chose to fly our Bankrupt Airline."

Captain Max Delay.

 

[davidkimchee]

Thanks Cap!!!
Useful info

I went on my discovery flight during lunch today and man oh man I had loads of fun.
I will definitely pursue my private license thats for sure.

too bad about the industry =( I wasnt too worried about the money situation since I have investments to keep me happy but if its that tough I guess Ill forget about the career.

So then....whats the best way for me to get my private license?
Im about to enroll at a small school here that says cost should come out to around $7,xxx.

I figure all schools are not the same...any recomendations for schools in the bay area?

Thanks again guys
David

 

[nsxtcy85]

My brother spent 4 years at Embry-Riddle University to come out with nothing. He after that realize the hours you needed to fly comercial was unrealistic without being rich or finding the perfect job. now hes a Manager at a plant in out home state settling for prolly 40k a year.....

 

[jalnjr]

jr birdman....

enjoy your hours in the air, as they ARE the best!!!
and btw...bring your checkbook! :smile:

my girls....

 

[liftshard]

The career is never coming back.

Cuz, really, we don't actually need pilots anymore. Computers fly better than people do. Even when I'm flying, I prefer to set the autopilot and stare out the window.

 

[liftshard]

Hummmmmm. Still hafta takeoff & land. We hand fly approaches down to 700 feet visibility using the HUD, (Heads Up Display) system. No autopilot here! :wink:

No. The computer can take off and land. We have tons of UAVs now that do exactly that. Airliners do too. Pilots are needed to drive around airports, but a transponder system w/ GPS could do that more safely, too...no runway incursions and whatnot.

Human pilots are obsolete technology.

 

[jalnjr]

Human pilots are obsolete technology.

WOW!!
and soylent green is people...
bummer dude/droid.... :wink:

 

[davidkimchee]

side question...
lets presume I do get my private license...

How does plane rental work? Is it basically rent a plane and get charged until the time you bring it back? Or are there companies that have affiliates at other airports that you can fly to and drop it off there and be off the rental clock?

Say you take a trip to Reno and want to spend a few hours on the ground...do they charge for leaving the plane parked there?

sorry for the newb questions.

 

[jalnjr]

side question...
lets presume I do get my private license...

How does plane rental work? Is it basically rent a plane and get charged until the time you bring it back? Or are there companies that have affiliates at other airports that you can fly to and drop it off there and be off the rental clock?

Say you take a trip to Reno and want to spend a few hours on the ground...do they charge for leaving the plane parked there?

sorry for the newb questions.

you will be off the clock, but good luck finding someone who'll rent to you knowing their plane is static... renting/ owning....ah now there's a thread!!!

with my own cherokee, for example, i'll fly tommorrow to philly for a hockey game, park next to the florida panthers plane, & use their terminal [ atlantic ].
5 hr roundtrip by car/ 1.2 with the plane... very cool
GO FLYERS!!!!!
time machine!!! :biggrin:

 

[CL65 Captain]

You pay by the Hobbs meter.... time the engine is running. Most FBOs will have a minimum block (for example 5 hr) if you take the plane all day and most are flexible. For example, I took a Cessna 310 from STL out to SFO and spent three weeks traveling around the West Coast and we agreed on 30 hr block. I ended up flying 25 or so when I got back so I went down to Jazz Fest in New Orleans the next day and used up the remaining.

It depends on the FBO and the time of year and the aircraft. For example a C-150/2, C-172 or PA-28 during the spring/summer get alot of training use so they may be booked most of the day... but during the winter they may let you take it for a long weekend with no minimum. A Bonanza, Arrow or Mooney is more of a x-country plane and they expect it to be booked for a two or three day trip in which you may only block 4-8 hours.

Jim

 

[davidkimchee]

Cool beans. The more I read and hear about flying the more excited I get.
Thanks for all the info guys.

Last question...what kind of costs are associated with owning a plane aside from the plane itself?
again pardon the newbie question Im digging the wealth of knowledge on the board.

 

[jalnjr]

rob a bank...planes make GREAT getaway devices....

Cool beans. The more I read and hear about flying the more excited I get.
Thanks for all the info guys.

Last question...what kind of costs are associated with owning a plane aside from the plane itself?
again pardon the newbie question Im digging the wealth of knowledge on the board.

this is entry level aircraft, cherokee 140...... some $$$$:

aircraft 0 smoh $$ 32k
new vacumm pump[x2... grrr] $600
annual every yr $900-2k [did i say every year...]
whelan strobes[ cheaper than a midair....] $1700
flat nose tire $134
aviation map services $125
tie down at $65/month $780
insurance $900
starter failure[ off field...called W.I.F.E. taxi...] $500
av fuel[ now at 3.75/ gallon...] 8 gal/hr burn ???? [lots of kash....]


ability to go almost anywhere, almost anytime except near POTUS... priceless :biggrin:

i'm sure i missing some other costs, but this may give you a good idea....

 

[Ben]

If you want to be a commercial pilot, are of ethnic background, and eligible for citizenship (dual or otherwise) in the country of your ethnicity, that may be a viable route.

For example, I know a few pilots who fly for China Airlines (the national flag carrier airline of Taiwan) who grew up in the US, and are dual US/Taiwan citizens. They were trained by the airline (at UND or in Brisbane, Australia), and 3 years after starting from scratch, they achieve First Officer status on a major commercial airliner (The airline flies 747, A300, A330, A340, 737), and depending on their progress, achieve Captain 12-15 years after starting from scratch.

Of course, this path isn't without it's "gotchas", but I see it as the quickest path to being a commercial pilot on a major commercial airliner from scratch.

- You have to be a Taiwanese citizen who has completed his mandatory 22 month military service.
- You have to sign a 20 year contract with the airline, and if you break the contract, you have to pay the airline something like US$500,000. The airline uses this to their advantage when determining salary, benefits, etc. as time goes on.
- You have to be 28 years old or less
- You have to be a college graduate, and pass math and science proficiency tests

A recent article about this (one of my friends who went through the above program, an A340 captain, is actually quoted in this article):

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/08/01/2003265987

Granted, this is for China Airlines, but I would imagine that many countries have similar programs for their State airlines.

As for Taiwan, EVA Air, the other major carrier (privately owned), has a similar training program.

 

[jalnjr]

If you want to be a commercial pilot, and are of ethnic background, and eligible for citizenship (dual or otherwise) in the country of your ethnicity, that may be a viable route.

For example, I know a few pilots who fly for China Airlines (the national flag carrier airline of Taiwan) who grew up in the US, and are dual US/Taiwan citizens. They were trained by the airline (at UND or in Brisbane, Australia), and 3 years after starting from scratch, they achieve First Officer status on a major commercial airliner (The airline flies 747, A300, A330, A340, 737), and depending on their progress, achieve Captain 12-15 years after starting from scratch.

Of course, this path isn't without it's "gotchas", but I see it as the quickest path to being a commercial pilot on a major commercial airliner from scratch.

- You have to be a Taiwanese citizen who has completed his mandatory 22 month military service.
- You have to sign a 20 year contract with the airline, and if you break the contract, you have to pay the airline something like US$500,000. The airline uses this to their advantage when determining salary, benefits, etc. as time goes on.
- You have to be 28 years old or less
- You have to be a college graduate, and pass math and science proficiency tests

A recent article about this:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/08/01/2003265987

Granted, this is for China Airlines, but I would imagine that many countries have similar programs for their State airlines.

As for Taiwan, EVA Air, the other major carrier in Taiwan (privately owned), has a similar training program.

i'd rather jump thru a fruit loop... :wink:

 

[Ben]

i'd rather jump thru a fruit loop... :wink:

Hehe, just throwing it out as an option. The chances of becoming a commercial pilot from scratch on a commercial airliner at a major airline in this country, as has been pointed out, is pretty slim.

Most of the flight school classmates of my friend (the A340 captain) who didn't have the choice to goto a foreign flag carrier airline's training program are still flying prop based commuter planes for regional airlines.

 

[jalnjr]

go figure that the path to becoming a successful commercial pilot would be a long, winding road :smile:

 

[CL65 Captain]

If you want to be a commercial pilot, are of ethnic background

Or be of the female sex.... Prior to 9/11, I personally know of several First Officers that I had flown with, that had the bare minimum experience and were hired by United and American. And if your a minority and female, take your pick of what airline you want. A few of them are furloughed now, and can't get jobs because they still barely meet the minimum hours and the "competitive minimums" are now much higher with all the pilots on the street.

Before anyone flames.... those are the facts. The girls that I flew with were decent pilots, never had any problems with them. But they do get the career short cuts, and that's just the way it goes.

 

[DonPablow]

Human pilots are obsolete technology.

Now that's funny. I don't care who you are.
liftshard is arguing with Skyguy, an airline pilot.

 

[jalnjr]

maryland's a beautiful bird!!!!
krazy paint job.

 

[RPM217]

maryland's a beautiful bird!!!!
krazy paint job.

BLING!!!!!

 

[liftshard]

There is NO commercial Airliner that can "Auto take-off."
UAV's are remotly piloted.

This was about takeoff and landing.

UAVs also have automatic loitering functions that do not require constant human intervention. Also, they have computerized digital target recognition.

Quote from PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 24 June 2005
"Normally have two or three operators flying one vehicle, and more on the ground to support the aircraft. Unmanned systems can actually increase manpower, even if the operators are in a safe place."

Cheaper planes, cheaper, easier-to-train support staff.

Most of today's unmanned vehicles must have human operators to monitor and control their every move. Rather than simply giving the unmanned vehicles tasks to carry out, existing vehicles often need a human to teleoperate them.

"Most." The most recent do not.

We already use the transponder on at many major airports. The ATC system uses ground mapping radar to follow our track. We are also getting installed a GPS interface on our MFD, (multi function display) for the ground taxi, (Already been developed.)

Yes. That is what I said, isn't it? A transponder system w/ GPS would handle the ground taxi.

Would you put your family in a airplane without a Pilot?

Absolutely. The reason that crash rates have gone down is because humans are out of the loop with increasing frequency. Machines don't fly into mountains in bad weather.

General Aviation is much different than Commercial flying.
A little research on the current technology would help.

[/quote]

Huh? Current technology makes a pilot an unnecessary risk factor.

 

[liftshard]

Not really an argument just a discussion... :smile:

Yeah, I didn't think it was an argument either.

But, anytime you ride the subway around here, you place your life in the computer's hands. Many rail systems have no human operator, including the frightfully fast MagLevs in China.

ANY wreck at those speeds will prove fatal. If the computers fail, you will wreck.

Also, the B2 and F117, as you well know, aren't capable of being piloted by humans alone. They are unstable airframes. I was hoping that the Sonic Flyer would be produced by Boeing, because it was just such a design.

Additionally, you fly Airbus or recent Boeing jets, right? They are fly-by-wire and cannot be flown without computers.

So, there is no family ANYWHERE that is not putting their life into the computer's hands. If the A320 computer decides to go HAL9000 on you, there is literally nothing any human operator can do because there is no mechanical linkage between the flight control surfaces and the sidestick in the cockpit. The 777 is the same; you can comment on the next-gen 737s. The upcoming 787 will be fly-by-wire. All new jet designs are.

Also, Airbuses are known for their design philosophy being that the human should not fly the plane. Thus their pioneering of fly-by-wire on commercial jets and their lack of a "manual override" on the yolk (and lack of even a yolk) as Boeings have. Airbuses have actually been crashed by pilots attempting to disengage the autopilot. There was a Korean Airlines jet and the pilots ended up in some strange subroutine of the autopilot program and whatever happened at that point, I don't recall, other than they crashed it. The point is that the pilot is supposed to keep his damned clumsy human hands off the plane or else he might break something or perform a CFIT maneuver to the detriment of the full-fare passengers in Business Class forward.

The true future of aviation is unstable airframes being flown entirely by computer. A pilotless plane is unhijackable and will suffer a lower error rate than a human-piloted one.

 

[Viper Driver]

A couple of points to make, but first I must state that computers are great at AIDING humans in the aviation industry, but will not completely replace them for quite some time.

There are fundamental differences between subways and planes, the most significant being that aviation is by nature a fluid and ever-changing envirnoment. A computer with an 8086 processor can handle a fleet of subway cars on what is barely a two-dimensional scale. Inject things like severe weather/turbulence, talking to air traffic control, aircraft emergencies and system failures, navigational aid (ILS/VOR/GPS) failures, and so forth, and you won't find an engineer in the world who is worth his weight who will trust his family to being piloted by a standalone computer. Pilots are relied upon day in and day out to make decisions that no computer will be able to handle. The buzzword is "Situational awareness," and nothing short of a true AI platform will ever be good enough to pilot a plane filled with human cargo anywhere.

UAVS/Technology demostrations at Edwards AFB are great to show that it's possible for a computer to act autonomously from takeoff to landing, but they are a long way from being able to fly outside of the "laboratory" where the weather, air traffic, and other factors must be taken into consideration.

Until the geeks can answer these questions, I see no threat on the horizon to my job-

What if airport X has high winds out of limits? What criteria does the computer use to figure out where to go next?

What if the plane loses all of it's hydraulic systems in flight? Can the computer use it's noggin to improvise a solution, much as the UAL pilots did when they limped into Sioux City by steering with differential engine inputs?

What if one of the passengers has an emergency medical condition, and requires a divert to a specific airfield because the nearest airfield does not have suitable medical facilities? How in the heck can you make the computer understand this situation?

What if a solar flare temporarily knocks out the GPS constellation and navigational aids, and the only way to navigate is by dead reckoning?

In the summer time, the midwest is always dotted with major thunderstorms in the afternoons. How do you teach a computer how to look at a growing storm cell in front of it and guess the right direction to go around it? Or, if it is "light" enough to just go through it? (weather radar only tells you so much...if you can see a storm cell, it's often a lot more telling.)

As is often the case, how does a computer locate and avoid small general aviation aircraft (Cessnas, etc.) that aren't using their transponders? TCAS is only good for planes with operating transponders. How about avoiding a flock of birds on short final? A pilot would see them and steer away. A computer would fly through them, lose it's engines, and crash.

On top of all this, you'd have to develop some pretty awesome voice recognition technology in order for the computer to be able to communicate with the various agencies out there, as well as other aircraft if need be. Let's not even think about planes that fly internationally, where broken english is the best you'll get sometimes at foreign airfields.

As long as there are general aviation aircraft flying, there will ALWAYS be humans piloting aircraft in the skies and humans looking at radar screens controlling them. Even if you overcome all of the hurdles I mentioned above, integrating computer-flown planes into the human-dominated skies overhead will be as daunting a task as Orville and Wilbur had leading up to their achievements at Kitty Hawk.

Naive people harp on "human error" as the leading cause of aviation-related accidents, yet they don't realize that those same humans are responsible for saving more lives per year based upon the ability to make timely decisions in a very complex, fluid environment.

Just my .02 as an aviator.

Chuck