There's an old aviation story, usually credited to
Jimmy Doolittle, who was a
famous American stunt pilot in the 1930's. At a posh
cocktail party a lady
guest happened to ask the barnstormer what he did for
a living. On hearing
that he flew daredevil stunts to entertain people at
air shows, she commented:
"Isn't that terribly dangerous?"."Oh yes, Ma'am" came
the reply, "...the chief
danger in my business is that of starving to death".
Any aspiring aviator
would do well to heed Doolittle's implicit warning, for
little has changed. It
is true that a Concorde captain receives a reasonable
salary, but it is poor
relative to what can expected at the upper reaches of
sport, music, or
business; and the chances of making it to the top just
as slim, if not
slimmer.
If poverty is no deterrent, there is another hurdle you
must confront at the
outset of your aviation career and learn to live with
throughout it. That is
the medical. Before even learning to fly you need to
convince the authorities
(in this case the Civil Aviation Authority, more of whom
later) that you are
fit to do so. A note from your GP won't do, you have
to be thoroughly examined
by a team of doctors and specialists who are recognized
by the CAA as
specifically qualified in aviation medicine. Aviation
works on a GOFAI
'specify, quantify, and ensure a safety margin' principle
and, since the pilot
is an essential component of the aircraft system, the
doctors, like the
engineers, have to guarantee that there is less than
0.1% chance of failure
during any flight. This is a pretty stringent requirement
of a human being and
the medical reflects this stringency. To fly as a private
pilot you only need
a class three medical. You need to be able to hear pretty
well in both ears,
to see in full colour (remember that about 10% of men
can't) and be free from
conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy, and any cardio-vascular
problems which,
obviously, might potentially be incapacitating. Women
are less likely to have
problems with colour vision, but are, for example, considered
medically unfit
to fly if they so much as 'have reason to suspect' that
they might be
pregnant.
The class three medical is strict, but not daunting. I
have relatives in their
70's still flying regularly. Glasses and contact lenses
are acceptable, though
your licence may be endorsed as only valid provided you
have at least two
pairs accessible during flight. The glasses have now
become part of that 0.1%
chance of failure calculation.
But of course you want to fly for a living, so
you're going to need a class
one medical. This is the one that your captain on the
transatlantic airliner
has, so you may be reassured by the fact that it is correspondingly
more
strict. You need to be able to see in full colour in
the dark as well as in
normal light and to hear tones up 20 kilohertz in both
ears. Just about
everything is included - I once had a medical certificate
refused because they
didn't consider some recent dental work to be of a high
enough standard. If
you don't meet the required medical standard, it doesn't
mean that you are
unfit in general, but it would be a good idea to find
out before going any
further in your aviation career. One consolation is that
renewing a class one
medical is easier than convincing the doctors to make
the initial issue,
though this is moderated by the fact that you will need
to renew every year or
six months (depending on age) and that it is expensive.
Everything in aviation
is expensive, so there's no reason for the medical to
be cheap. Expect to pay
about 150 pounds a time and more if you need further
tests (or dental work!)
Finally you have arrived the point at which you can get
around to considering
actually learning to fly. For an airline job, the minimum
qualification you
need is a CPL/IR (Commercial Pilot's Licence and Instrument
Rating). It would
probably help to have a 'frozen' ATPL (Airline Transport
Pilot's Licence - if
you had an unfrozen one, you'd probably have an airline
job anyway if you see
what I mean) and some experience flying heavy, multi-engined,
jet aircraft.
You could buy training for this licence, but you should
budget for a minimum
cost of about 100,000 pounds and considerably more if
you want to build up
that heavy jet experience. Did I mention that everything
in aviation is
expensive?
Assuming that you are not the son or daughter of a generous
oil sheik, you
will need to consider other routes. You might, for example,
join the Air
Force, as the Queen has plenty of jet aircraft and is
prepared to train people
to fly them. You even get paid while you learn. The Navy
also trains pilots,
if you think you'd look better in dark blue. The disadvantages
include needing
to sign up for a minimum of 16 years, having to go wherever
in the world you
are told to go, and most importantly, that the competition
for places as a
pilot is extremely intense. If you are only there to
get the flying training,
you will not get far in the selection procedure. If you
are only there for the
flying, you won't get far in the services either. If
you fail to obtain
promotion into the senior ranks both Air Force and Navy
will terminate your
spell with them at an early opportunity (no later than
the age of 38). This
has a knock-on effect on aviation careers to we which
will need to return.
While we are on the subject of age, the general rule
is that you need to be
under 22. This is certainly the case if you want to join
the forces a a pilot.
One way or the other, your flying career with them will
be over by the time
you are 38. It's a good idea to be under 22 elsewhere
in aviation too.
A small piece of good news is that there is, at least
for the moment, another
route into aviation which is less expensive. This does
not mean cheap for
everything in aviation is expensive, nor does it mean
easy. This is known as
the 'self-improver' route. Essentially, if you get yourself
a more basic
licence and gain experience in some areas of aerial work,
pass the relevant
exams, you can eventually reach that CPL/IR qualification
and be of some use
to the airlines.
In detail it might work something like this. First you
learn to fly. This part
of the process is universally known in aviation by the
Latin tag 'ab initio'.
After a minimum of 40 hours in the air (and much more
studying the books) you
take and pass the PPL (Private Pilot's Licence) examination.
You should budget
about 4,000 pounds to get to this stage. You are now
entitled to fly your
friends and family about in a small single-engined aircraft.
(I like to visit
Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, if you want to come along).
You will need to
fly your friends and family about quite a bit because
you can't go any further
until you have a total of 200 hours experience. One important
restriction on a
PPL is that the holder must not 'receive any valuable
consideration in respect
of exercising the privileges of the licence'. This means
you have to pay
yourself. Hire of even the cheapest aircraft is 80-100
pounds per hour and
there are incidentals like maps and landing fees which
are surprisingly
expensive. I believe I already mentioned that everything
in aviation is.
Armed with the necessary experience and a class one medical,
you can begin to
move towards that goal of a CPL. You need to pass 15
written exams for the
CPL. These cover a extremely wide area from human performance
and limitations,
through meteorology, morse code and air law, to engines,
electronics and
aerodynamics. It should not surprise you to hear that
the CAA charge fees of
about 500 pounds to sit the exams, but it may surprise
you to hear that the
pass mark is 75% and most people fail first time. If
you really want to go for
the airline job this is the time to start on that 'frozen
ATPL' which means
that you should sit the exams for the ATPL rather than
the CPL. This includes
extra papers on subjects such as global navigation and
requires you to study
climatology as well as meteorology. To achieve a sufficient
level of knowledge
requires intense study, but as an academic colleague
pointed out, at least
when you study meteorology you can be sure that you are
learning about the
real world! You sit the exams in groups of eight or nine
papers and have to
complete all of them within a year of starting and the
relevant flying tests
within three years.
Talking of flying tests means further training of course.
Further training
means further expense and I don't know if it's worth
even giving estimates by
this point. You could probably break it down into 5-10
thousand pound chunks
but if you were worried about money you'd have given
up long before this
stage. Many people make substantial savings by doing
this part of the flying
training and the so-called 'hours building' in the United
States. The US
offers better flying weather in many areas, much cheaper
aircraft hire, and a
noticeably more positive attitude. I have flown many
hours in the US and it is
generally much more fun than in this country. The attitude
of the US
authorities seems to be that this type of flying, known
as general aviation,
is good for transport, for the US economy, for the US
aircraft industry, and
above all, for the freedom of US citizens. The attitude
of the CAA seems to be
that all flying should be done by uniformed professionals,
preferably trained
in the US, and certainly in US-built aircraft. If the
British were given the
freedom to use the skies, they might get a taste for
freedom in general, and
no collection of administrators is likely to take that
sort of risk.
The usual next step is to take a BCPL (Basic Commercial
Pilot's Licence)
needing a minimum 20 hours training and an AFI (Assistant
Flying Instructor's
Rating) which requires a further 20 hours training. At
this point you can
actually start looking for a flying job. Assistant flying
instructors can
teach people to fly, provided they both belong to a recognized
flying club and
that it is done under the supervision of a QFI (Qualified
Flying Instructor).
For this the CAA generously allow you to 'receive valuable
consideration', but
you will be dismayed to find that you have undergone
all this training to
receive so little. Most flying clubs pay instructors
by the hour and you can
expect to start on about 10 pounds per hour. Remember
this is hours actually
in the air instructing, and the British climate will
give you many days, or
even weeks, when nothing flies. This is not low pay;
it is starvation pay.
Flying instructors are a hollow-cheeked, itinerant bunch,
living in caravans
or small rooms near airfields, rushing to get back into
the air if they have a
student, or trying to scrounge a sandwich if the weather
is bad.
One reason they relish this life is that after 700 hours
experience, they can
gain a CPL simply by passing the test. This may involve
a little more
training, especially for the Instrument Rating, but 700
hours is great deal of
experience and you will rightly feel that you are an
accomplished aviator by
this stage. Flying in varying weather conditions and
with varying student
abilities builds qualities usually called 'pilot judgement'
which cannot be
acquired from text books or from a short taught course.
When airlines recruit,
they like to take self-improvers. These people have demonstrated
a great deal
of determination to get to this point and have a great
deal of experience of
real flying. It is true that the flying they have experienced
is very
different from airline flying, and the aircraft very
different from airliners,
but the need to make a cool assessment of a difficult
situation may occur
daily for an AFI, whereas for an airline pilot the system
ensures that it
happens very rarely indeed. The downside is that passing
exams, tests, and
acquiring all this valuable experience will take quite
a few years and
therefore make you proportionately less attractive to
potential employers.
Now we have got to talking about airlines, you may want
to know why they
collude in this system, rather than simply recruiting
people and training them
ab initio. The answer is simply, because they can. Remember
that there is
constant supply of forces-trained pilots coming on to
the market around the
age of 38. In slack times these pilots will completely
fill any demand from
the airlines. When business builds up the airlines can
usually meet their
needs simply by vacuuming up pilots from the layers of
aviation jobs below.
What typically happens is that, for example, British
Airways take on some
first officers by poaching them from a charter company
which is flying similar
Boeing aircraft, but employing pilots on a seasonal basis
or simply paying
them less. The charter company replaces those pilots
from a smaller company
flying turboprops and they in turn have to replace their
pilots from people
employed in the air-taxi business. Eventually some time-served
instructors
will find that they can finally get a job which pays
enough to be able to buy
a decent meal. When there is a downturn in the airline
business, pilots may
have to trade down. Unlike doctors, lawyers or academics,
pilots lose their
qualifications in six to twelve months if they don't
actually use them. They
have no option but to fly. This, and the number of people
always keen to do
it, ensures a buyers market.
Which brings me to the final point, why do people tolerate
this state of
affairs? The answer is actually most eloquently put in
Wind, Sand and Stars by
Antoine St. Exupery, though you will find it somewhere
in the works of almost
all aviation writers. What these people don't realise,
says St Exupery
(meaning those poor, ground-trapped individuals who have
never seen a
full-circle rainbow) is that it's all worth it. All the
hardships, the
unsympathetic attitude of the authorities - it's all
worth it. In that
respect, I submit, it is just the same as philosophy.