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RE: Flying the 787 from a pilot's perspective.
Wow what an upgrade. I'm also a pilot but no where near your calibre. I fly light aircraft as a hobby. Please keep posting, I wanted to be an airline pilot but after 9/11 the airlines were not hiring and well I couldn't risk getting a loan for the money.
Please keep posting. I would love to hear more about the lifestyle. I enjoyed your post about the frequency of tests. I was invited to Oxford Aviation Academy for a trial on the Future Pilot Scheme. I loved looking round the simulators.
I'll be posting about my light aircraft adventures. Here's one from today
https://steemit.com/pilot/@wphelpandfix/a-morning-at-the-airfield
thx for your comment, it’s funny because I really miss light aircraft flying but haven’t done so for years now. In life is all about perception. I remember my first flight on the 757, nervous as hell, which was a base check flight in Chateauroux. Basically had to do 3 take offs and landings and show that you can reasonably do that.
I can remember still how crazy I thought it was to fly this massive thing around at 1500 feet. Now 7000 hours later it seems the most normal thing in the world when I hop in the front. Not different then flying a light aircraft.
It is only when I do the walk around it still surprises me how big these planes really are.
Airline flying is still a good job, but unfortunately due to the likes of RyanAir, people nowadays end up with massive loans and struggle to pay those loans off. Quite often living in places they don’t want to live, but what do you do if there are no other options. Whilst truck drivers are limited in the amount of hours they can drive without rest. Pilots for some reason are allowed to fly 16 hours straight if the conditions are right.
Seniority is also not helping, everytime you change companies all that seniority you build up in the company is lost and you would have to start at the bottom again.
As a first officer that usually means you will have to wait years again to become a captain.
I always say, in the old days 20 years back it was a fantastic job, nowadays it has to be a crazy passion, if u want to do it and even then you would only know what the job is like once your already in debt, so it is quite risky in that respect. It is still a very good job and you can’t beat the scenery, but sometimes get’s over romanticized. There is nothing fun about being tired, sitting next to someone you dislike for ten hours over the ocean in an alluminium confined tube, in a relatively stressy noisy environment.
787 luckily isn’t that noisy, and luckily most of my colleagues are nice :). But just showing you the downsides of the job.
I think you made the right decision, I will check your posts soon, have to sleep now!
Will post more about flying!