Originally Posted by wombatsauce

I did flight training when I was young (16-18), as my goal was to be a commercial pilot and eventually progress to my dream, to be something like a news-copter pilot. This never happened, but a huge part of it was talking to airline pilots, years ago, when this started being the case.

I know a guy I work with who is an airline pilot now, and has a side job as a web developer so he can pay his bills. He says the same thing, that it's terribly boring unless something terrible happens, which is never. I believe he is a competent pilot, but that does not matter when you are not allowed to fly the plane.

Another reason I couldn't become a commercial pilot, is the pay. The pay they are given is not enough to live. That's right, the people who are mostly in charge of the wellbeing of tens of thousands of lives a day are not paid enough to survive.

I know that automated systems in a way are better, and I would have liked to see the failsafes at SFO enabled, but - this automation also allows people like this pilot to "just barely make it by" a zillion times so that it is not outed that he should be NOWHERE NEAR the controls of an aircraft. If they were forced to do some periodic visual landings in order to retain their certificate, the skies would be safer. The people that did not suck at this would have practice, and the people that did would be eliminated.

Personally I love flying so much that I go to the airport and watch planes take off and land. I watch youtube videos of flights in all kinds of aircraft. I would love to take a crack at flying something as big as a B737 let alone a 777. The largest thing I have flown was a Beechcraft King Air, and that was awesome. If I thought that being a pilot would pay enough to support my family, I would be one.