Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
If a single pilot night freight guy (correct me if I'm wrong) is perpetually bored, what's left of professional aviation?
I do it because it's fun and usually gets me a paycheck. I'm not bored, and of course things happen that are er "exciting" from time to time. I like my job, or at least I prefer it to just about any other thing I would be likely to find myself doing. Certainly, there is a fair amount of knowledge and perhaps even a little skill that I've picked up over the years, but if I'm better than the other guy, it's because I have more experience, not more classroom time, razor-sharp reflexes, or (confusingly suggested by 767) perfect grammar, diction, and spelling.
I don't think we do ourselves any favors pretending that you need a Phd to fly an airplane, and I submit that if you think "some people just can't hack it" in the high-speed world of pushing buttons and doing crosswords, you probably watched way too much "Top Gun" as a kid and either weren't a CFI or were a bad one.
If you want improved compensation for professional pilots (and who doesn't) concentrate on getting it through negotiation, unity, and playing hardball with morally (and all too often fiscally) bankrupt managment. Looking down your nose at your erstwhile "brothers" isn't the best way to show solidarity, and inventing a level of education that simply isn't necessary for this particular job (and I should know, I have it) in order to "improve the breed" or whatever smacks of self-impressed silliness and really can't even be attempted to be taken seriously. For example:
B767Driver said:But you have to wonder...if he was so lacking in the basic 3R's...what other type of deficiencies did he possess that may not show until other, more critical times.
Unless my own "rithmetic" is off, he only evidenced failings in one of the "R"s: "Riting". I'm going to assume he could read a checklist and compute a crossing restriction or you wouldn't have been so shocked at his atrocious composition skills. Now, granted, I use my writing skill professionally all the time on those NASA reports, but I thought that was a bad thing.
B767Driver said:How would you like this guy to show up to represent your profession at a local high school, community college or other civic funtion?
Are you serious? If I understand your argument correctly, pilots should be required to acheive a terminal degree because you would be embarrassed to be associated with the hoi polloi? I'll bet you're a blast at parties.
Lest I be misunderstood; I'm proud of my education, I worked hard for it, and I feel that it was incredibly valuable to my personal development. I wouldn't trade it for the best aviation job in the world. If it were a choice between never flying another airplane in my life and losing the essential freedom of a classical education, you could clip my wings.
That said, being able to decline Greek verbs or explain Faraday's theory of electromagnetism just doesn't have much practical application in being an aircraft operator, and acting like it does just makes one look clownish.