The pilot profession

If pilots had a union with the power of nurses unions, they could limit the supply of pilots. The nursing schools have state laws that require certain standards and attendance. These schools, like barber colleges http://www.newrain.com/barbercollege/ make it difficult for someone to open a barber shop, restrict the supply of nurses.

Yes, there are pilot schools, but they are not organized. Nor is there a cartel of private pilots to restrict the supply.

Once a private pilot gets an Instructor's Rating they will train more pilots in an attempt to get enough experience to get a job with an airline. The pilots keep training more competition for the same jobs. I used to say that ALPA should organize all civilian flight instructors.

Unlike nurses, the military nation has grown and continues to supply a bumper crop of pilots to compete with each other for the better paying airline jobs. Once deregulation happened it was only a matter of time with startup airlines until pilot pay reached parity with the supply. The free market, if allowed to operate, which is rare, will work to set pay based upon the supply of labor.

I talked to a military pilot, 12 years military, who was anti union. He thought the pilots should be promoted based on merit instead of seniority. I asked him why he got out of the military since their promotions were based on merit. No answer.

I take issue with Kolker's intimation that military pilots are better than civilian pilots. Many civilian pilots simply could not pass a physical to enter the military. Many of the regional pilots had less than 20/20 vision. I know a pilot with UA who was a civilian pilot before UA. He had one of the earliest radial keratotomy procedures in order to pass a first class physical.

During my career I flew with both military and civilian trained pilots. I could not see any significant difference in their performance based upon their training, military vs. civilian. Their experiences did matter. One of my sharpest First Officers had ten years experience flying for Rocky Mountain Airways, but no military experience. He was an excellent pilot and a valuable resource on an irregular flight we had.

Early military pilots were not required to have any college. Then the navy started requiring 2 years of college. Now the military requires a college degree. The military pilots are highly educated and better trained than civilian pilots who do not require a college degree. Not even a high school diploma is required to be an airline captain. http://www.gleim.com/aviation/airline_transport/atpreqs.php Most airlines however require a college degree simply because there are plenty of pilots with degrees.

Kolker says the pilot profession has become less glamorous, which is true. I knew that the day females became commercial pilots. Planes used to have manual cable controls, powered by hydraulics. When hydraulics were lost it required considerable effort to control an airplane. Remember the loss of hydraulics emergency procedure, E-13, on the DC-8. After females were hired they did away with that procedure. Technology has made it possible for a small female weighing 100 pounds to fly a big airplane with the slightest effort.

Feel free to disagree with my assertions. I no longer have the need to be right in subjective matters.

Charles Tolleson
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"My Aircraft"Why Sully may be the last of his kind

By Robert Kolker Published Feb 1, 2009
http://nymag.com/news/features/53788/

"Pilots are being treated as a commodity," says Gary Hummel, training committee chairman for the U.S. Airline Pilots Association. "Until you need them to park a plane in the Hudson. Then you say, "Hey, there might be more to this job."

Pilots and pilot advocates worry that great aviators may be being bred out of the system. "I have a son who is 27 and a software engineer," says Hummel. "I have a daughter who is 25 and is a professional nurse. They both graduated from good colleges. Both of them have flown an airplane, but I told them, Find another profession, because you won't be able to feed your family or have a retirement in this one. My daughter earned more in her first year as a nurse than Jeff Skiles, Sully's first officer on Flight 1549, earns after eighteen years of dedicated service with US Airways. Why would I encourage them to be a professional pilot?"