Aviation is a very niche industry, and you kinda have to be in it to truly understand how it works. I'd like to try and shed some light on flight training, our roles at the airlines, and some of what I hear non-aviation people say in the hopes that it clears up some common misconceptions. For the sake of simplicity, I'm only going to talk aviation in the USA and I'm only talking about fixed wing airplanes. I'll also answer some of the questions I get asked frequently. For any of my friends in the industry who might be reading this, none of this will be new.
Flight Training Explained
Pilot training can be pretty intense, and for most people there's something about it that makes it one of the most difficult achievements they'll tackle in their lives. Most people start out pursuing a Private Pilot license, or PPL for short. This allows us to fly for fun and bring people with us, but does not allow any sort of compensation. In fact, we're not even allowed to let anyone we might take flying pay for fuel or any other sort of expenses unless we split the cost evenly. The other rating that you can go with is a sport pilot certificate which allows you to fly only by yourself with some other restrictions.
For some people, sport pilot or PPL is enough, but anyone who is interested in a career as a pilot or just wants to further their skills will typically start instrument training next. This training focuses on flying the airplane using only the instrumentation in the cockpit. It also allows us to fly in the clouds and with much less visibility outside than if you just had a Private Pilot license. The importance of precision is heightened during instrument training. There's of course more to it, but for simplicity's sake we'll keep it at that.
Making Money As a Pilot
If you want to make a living as a pilot, the next step is to go for a Commercial Pilot license, or CPL. You might think you can just go buy a plane and start selling rides, but it's actually hilariously limited. I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty on what's allowed and what isn't because it's a massive gray area, but it does allow you to get hired by companies for paid work. It also requires that you have a minimum of 250 hours flight time depending on how you do the training. This is where terms start to get a little bit confusing because everyone thinks of the airlines when the term commercial pilot gets thrown around. This is absolutely true, but there's actually another rating specifically for airline pilots that we'll talk about later.
Here's where people's paths start to change based on professional goals. Some people will go on to use their commercial certificate to get paid for gigs like flying parachute jumpers and doing aerial photography. There are also some small passenger and cargo operations at which a new commercial pilot can get hired. It's important to mention the multi-engine add-on rating here which allows the operation of airplanes with more than one engine. Having this add-on makes a new commercial pilot much more competitive. There's an add-on for landing planes on water too, and that's divided into both single and multi-engine as well.
Most people these days become flight instructors, or CFIs (Certified Flight Instructor) which is what I did. There are three different flight instructor ratings. The first one is referred to as CFI-A (A for airplane) which allows us to teach private pilot students and commercial students in single engine aircraft. The second is CFI-I (I for instrument) for teaching instrument. You'll commonly hear it referred to as "double I." The third is the MEI, or multi-engine instructor.
The final rating that people can acquire is the Airline Transport Pilot certificate, or ATP. This is what allows us to fly people from point A to point B on the big commercial airliners. It is sometimes considered the PHD of aviation due to its requirements; we need a whopping 1500 hours to qualify along with some other requirements. This amount of flight time can sometimes be a little hard to grasp for those not in the industry; it took me over four years to get to that number. Some people do it in less time than that, but I was a manager at a flight school for awhile and didn't fly as much as my instructors. A solid monthly average is about 70 to 80 hours of flight time a month, meaning that if you've flown 250-300 hours by the time you start working as a CFI (or any other flying gig), you're looking at roughly a year to get the minimum required time (give or take).
Frequently Asked Questions
These are probably some of the most consistent questions I've heard from people who aren't in the industry.
"Do you have a route?" - Not exactly. While I fly to places more than once, we're not assigned the same trips every month. At the beginning of each month, we build our requested schedules (also called lines) for the following month. It's all about seniority at the airlines which means the longer someone has been at a company, the better their seniority. This allows the building of a schedule with better time off, more time off, better trips, and so on so forth. Those who are newer and do not have good seniority are usually placed on reserve which means they are on call for a certain number of days per month.
"Are you the pilot or just the co-pilot?" - This is a perfectly valid question, although it's not really how we refer to one another. These days we refer to the two up front as either the captain or the first officer (FO). The captain has four stripes on his/her shoulder and the FO has three. The captain is the boss and has the final say regarding everything when it comes to operating a flight, but the FO is always part of the decision making process. It is very much a team environment up front, and the ability to work together to use all of our available resources to make decisions and execute a flight safely is referred to as crew resource management. And yes, the FO is allowed to land the plane.
Aside from captain and FO, we also have the pilot flying and pilot monitoring roles. The responsibility of the pilot flying (PF) is to fly the plane including the take off and landing and the manipulation of the autopilot. The PF also calls for checklists in the air (the captain always calls for them on the ground because they are busy taxiing the airplane). The pilot monitoring (PM) handles radio communication, monitors systems, and follows along with how the PF is flying the plane. The PM runs checklists when the PF calls for them as well. We often will talk about technique for different parts of the flight so that we are both on the same page with what the airplane is doing.
"Don't airplanes just fly themselves these days?" - Not exactly. We do have autopilot which reduces workload and allows us to focus on everything else that comes with flying an airliner, but I'll routinely hand fly the plane myself quite a bit as long as it's in a phase of flight where I'm not making my PM work too hard. Not only does it keep skills sharp, but it's a lot of fun too.
"Do you know where baggage claim is?" - Probably not.
"Do you know which gate my flight leaves out of?" - No clue.
"Do you know where Starbucks is?" - No, but if you find it come and tell me because I want a blueberry scone. And a cappuccino.
I'm sure this article will just end up being a Part 1 eventually, so stay tuned for more!
Notes
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