Quote:
Originally Posted by ratdude747
Maybe, but not by much. Pilots don't make a whole lot and some of the younger ones have to moonlight another job just to get by.
No. There are two reasons this isn't so:
- Most aircraft that I've seen still use manaul control for landing and takeoff.
- If Autopilot fails or there is a problem, guess what? Pilots take manual control! The "autopilot fixes all" mentality has actually been the likely cause of fatal plane accidents, such as Adam Air Flight 574.
So while in practice most of the air time is automated, you still have to get in and out of the air, and if anything breaks, you need somebody to manually fly the plane. |
A few things to expand upon what Larry said:
1. The pay is TERRIBLE at first. My first year I made approximately $20,000, which is just about the same as what you would make full time at a fast food restaurant. That's really bad considering it takes about $120,000 investment to get to your first flying job. You can expect that to go up to the mid $30k range after a few years, but you might get stuck there for a while before upgrading to captain and then eventually moving on to a major. The pay is great once you get to a major, but that may take many years.
2. The autopilot is not required equipment on many if not most planes. That means if it goes out of service, you're flying the plane around manually that day (as I have had to do on a handful of occasions). Therefore, you have to keep your manual flying skills sharp. Some people on CD familiar with aviation might say "but no airline would fly a plane below RVSM all day - that's too expensive". It's not more expensive than cancelling flights. I once flew a leg from Detroit to Houston at 20,000 ft due to inoperative equipment, and one flight down the east coast at 4000 ft thanks to inoperative equipment (that was fun). Also, as Larry mentioned, takeoffs and landings are all done by hand unless you're testing the cat-III equipment or flying a 777.
3. I found airline flying to be remarkably unstressful. Taxiing on the other hand can be fairly stressful - I used to remember how relaxing it felt to finally get in the air. When the weather is down to the bare minimums it heightens things a bit on approach, but I wouldn't call it stressful. When something goes wrong - that would be stressful. Also, training is very stressful.
I thought the flying part of the job was great fun. The rest of the job got to be a real drag unless you don't mind being away from home all of the time or not being able to plan for anything.