Thoughts on this?

🦈💜

🦈💜

Well-Known Member
I came across this website:
pilotbible.com

Airline Pilot Mental Health - Impact of the Job Role - Pilot Bible

The role of a modern day airline pilot has evolved into a recipe for a mental health disaster, the consequences of which could be catastrophic
pilotbible.com pilotbible.com

and even though it's british (I WISH our min rest was twelve hours, not 10), it's very on-point to all the things I try to explain to people.

It's long, but it hits really hard, for me.

Just wondered if other people had experienced this, and how they dealt with it.
 
🦈💜 said:
I came across this website:
pilotbible.com

Airline Pilot Mental Health - Impact of the Job Role - Pilot Bible

The role of a modern day airline pilot has evolved into a recipe for a mental health disaster, the consequences of which could be catastrophic
pilotbible.com pilotbible.com

and even though it's british (I WISH our min rest was twelve hours, not 10), it's very on-point to all the things I try to explain to people.

It's long, but it hits really hard, for me.

Just wondered if other people had experienced this, and how they dealt with it.
Click to expand...

I've got a number of unfinished but forming thoughts that I will share later. For now, I'd say that the article is a well-intentioned blog post that takes a narrow scope/view of the industry while claiming said scope is the entire industry. Written as is, and taken at face value, it would be an excellence source for citing why we should all be replaced for our own good.

More later.
 
killbilly said:
I've got a number of unfinished but forming thoughts that I will share later. For now, I'd say that the article is a well-intentioned blog post that takes a narrow scope/view of the industry while claiming said scope is the entire industry. Written as is, and taken at face value, it would be an excellence source for citing why we should all be replaced for our own good.
Click to expand...

I get what you're saying, but from my point of view it perfectly describes what I see, only not as bad. It's one of the few pieces out there that doesn't talk about how much time off pilots get, how they can travel the world, etc, which doesn't apply to pretty much anybody I know. I know it's a bit "a tale of two cities," but . . . aren't we all a bit closer to this truth than we'd like to admit?

I've been awarded three weeks of vacation this year. Sounds great, right? Each vacation was a single week, and was barely enough to let me veg a tiny bit, while trying to catch up on all the responsibilities that had stacked up. I dunno—this guy's writing reflects an idealized version of my reality, and I can't help think that it must be common. A twenty-year captain at my airline recently posted about having the same immutable 4-on, 2-off, 4-on, 3-off grind that I've been working since becoming a lineholder, and how it was wrecking her, and I really felt it. I heard the same thing from a 30(!) year captain friend of mine here not long ago.

killbilly said:
More later.
Click to expand...

I look forward to your thoughts.
 
🦈💜 said:
I get what you're saying, but from my point of view it perfectly describes what I see, only not as bad. It's one of the few pieces out there that doesn't talk about how much time off pilots get, how they can travel the world, etc, which doesn't apply to pretty much anybody I know. I know it's a bit "a tale of two cities," but . . . aren't we all a bit closer to this truth than we'd like to admit?

I've been awarded three weeks of vacation this year. Sounds great, right? Each vacation was a single week, and was barely enough to let me veg a tiny bit, while trying to catch up on all the responsibilities that had stacked up. I dunno—this guy's writing reflects an idealized version of my reality, and I can't help think that it must be common. A twenty-year captain at my airline recently posted about having the same immutable 4-on, 2-off, 4-on, 3-off grind that I've been working since becoming a lineholder, and how it was wrecking her, and I really felt it. I heard the same thing from a 30(!) year captain friend of mine here not long ago.



I look forward to your thoughts.
Click to expand...

The author has used a very broad brush with a very broad canvas in an effort to communicate with the larger, non-flying public.

The problem I see with this piece is that their view is a soda-straw view of a larger picture. I believe you relate heavily to the piece because your reality very much reflects the picture they paint; but you are also well-aware that that reality isn't the complete picture for most of the industry.

TL;DR - regional life is not the totality of aviation, not even the totality of Part 121.

The author seems to want the job to be all things to all people in life, and that's simply not possible. There are plenty of health-and-life-affirming choices one can make within this industry to ease the pressures and avoid the traps that it presents.

But one has to make choices to do so. Those choices, like most things, usually involve trade-offs. And not being aware of that - or ignoring it - is either willfully ignorant or blatantly naive on the author's part, and shirks accountability in some ways.

I do applaud what they're trying to do here, but the way they're going about it is deeply flawed, in my opinion.

That and a buck will get you a really bad cup of Crew Coffee at JFK.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top