Am I mental ?

TheMarlin

Take up hang gliding or paragliding. Pure essence of flying with relatively little danger to others.  

There is an initial outlay on gear costs, fully kitted for maybe £4K (used), but you’ll get it all back when you sell up. 

I miss it terribly. May take it up again when I retire. 

Emp_Fab

chillidoggy said:

Emp_Fab said:

Eh?  What does that even mean?  What is a classic Emp_Fab thread? 

Oooh, it's hard to define really, but the thread title kicks it off nicely for me, and the dreamworld, Walter Mitty-style scenario of you flying a plane is yet another of your hare-brained schemes that'll never get of the ground. And let's face, you do have a bit of form in that area.

A brilliant thread, cracks me up every time!

"Dreamworld, Walter Mitty-style" ?  What's so bonkers about someone flying a plane ?  There are over 130,000 airline pilots in the world.  What's so crazy about me being one of them ?  It's not like I'm saying "I want to be an astronaut" or "I want to be a famous rock-god" or "I want to be a millionaire" - those things are mind-bogglingly unlikely to happen to anyone.  However, becoming a commercial pilot is a straightforward sequence of steps that costs money.  It's not like the job of flying a plane is so incredibly skilled that only a select few very special people can do it.

This is nothing like my daft little projects that I never get around to doing - this is my life's dream.  I know my chances are slim in the extreme, and the more I think about it, the slimmer they actually are.  However - I can't take the money with me when I die, so why not give it a shot ?  I have actually flown small aircraft (and a Boeing 767 and BAC 1-11 in proper multi-million pound full-motion sims).  It's not difficult.  It just requires training.  I'm a little put out that you seem to view me as some lunatic fantasist who's just declared he wants to be the first Welshman on the moon.  I'll happily admit I play up the oddball act for comedic effect, but there's nothing 'dreamworld' about someone wanting to fly commercially.

bingefeller

Go for it Emp!

Emp_Fab

You know it makes sense !

speshul91

I believe the correct answer is yes. Yes you are. At least your dream is reasonably achievable unlike mine. 

Emp_Fab

I need to find out whether the airlines get to view your full medical records over your lifetime or if it's a case of them just requiring a Class 1 Medical certificate.  If they see my full record there's no way anyone will take that gamble.  My multiple suicide attempts and heroin addiction phase might put them off a bit.  (I'm joking !).

Assuming I get the medical (which is by no means certain, or even probable), then I think my age is my biggest hurdle to employment.  However, that said, these two airline captains feel that it's not a hindrance in the current and future market....

viz

Emp_Fab said:

I need to find out whether the airlines get to view your full medical records over your lifetime or if it's a case of them just requiring a Class 1 Medical certificate.  If they see my full record there's no way anyone will take that gamble.  My multiple suicide attempts and heroin addiction phase might put them off a bit.  (I'm joking !).

Assuming I get the medical (which is by no means certain, or even probable), then I think my age is my biggest hurdle to employment.  However, that said, these two airline captains feel that it's not a hindrance in the current and future market....

When you added the 2nd vid you lost the 1st. 

TheMarlin

The average experienced uk airline pilot earns £33k or £17ph. 

There were reports that some UK pilots (for budget airlines) were on income support, but that could be tabloid nonsense. 

Sporky

Emp_Fab said:

There are over 130,000 airline pilots in the world. 

[snip]

  It's not like I'm saying [snip] "I want to be a millionaire" - those things are mind-bogglingly unlikely to happen to anyone. 

There are about 14,000,000 millionaires in the world, so that might be the easier ambition, statistically speaking.

Emp_Fab

Stupid bloody editor!

First vid..

LuttiS

It would make me genuinely happy if you did this and succeeded.

I've never had a strong feeling about what my dream job would be.. i've just kind of fallen into what i do and would love to up and leave, but just don't know what i would want to do. Always been a little jealous of people who know what they want to do. 

So go for it. Even if you fail, at least you would have tried. 

(Also if you succeed, remember those of us here who told you to go for it if you get discount tickets )

digitalscream

Emp_Fab said:

I need to find out whether the airlines get to view your full medical records over your lifetime or if it's a case of them just requiring a Class 1 Medical certificate.  If they see my full record there's no way anyone will take that gamble.  My multiple suicide attempts and heroin addiction phase might put them off a bit.  (I'm joking !).

The question is...knowing that if they knew your full medical history they wouldn't allow it, why are you willing to surreptitiously force that additional risk on passengers, crew and whoever's at the bottom of the plane's trajectory as it falls out of the sky?

Personal responsibility has to come into the choice, surely? The fact that the airline's decision-making process has relaxed a bit just means that they're likely to make enough profit out of you during your employment that they can cover the compensation payouts without making a loss.

Hell, if they read your posts on here and saw your ups and downs over the years, that might be enough to either disqualify you or at least make them look a bit deeper. That's no slight against you; most of us here would also fail such an "emotional stability" test too (myself very much included). Then again, most of us aren't thinking about blasting through the sky at the controls of a pressurised metal tube with the lives of a couple of hundred passengers in our hands

Chris777

I would say go for lessons as a private pilot, I believe most start the journey that way, in small planes (piper cherokee,etc), and then build their hours up and become a commercial pilot, that way at least you will have the fun of flying, I'm 60 and wish I could play like Steve Vai, that will never happen, but at least I will have tried

jonnyburgo

Get a private flying license and do some drug running, earn a fortune and retire within 2 yrs. Easy.

digitalscream

jonnyburgo said:

Get a private flying license and do some drug running, earn a fortune and retire within 2 yrs. Easy.

This. All the excitement (and more), and bags of profit. Literally.

FX_Munkee

It should definitely make shouting at the clouds easier.

Emp_Fab

digitalscream said:

Emp_Fab said:

I need to find out whether the airlines get to view your full medical records over your lifetime or if it's a case of them just requiring a Class 1 Medical certificate.  If they see my full record there's no way anyone will take that gamble.  My multiple suicide attempts and heroin addiction phase might put them off a bit.  (I'm joking !).

The question is...knowing that if they knew your full medical history they wouldn't allow it, why are you willing to surreptitiously force that additional risk on passengers, crew and whoever's at the bottom of the plane's trajectory as it falls out of the sky?

What additional risk ?  There is no actual risk in employing me.  What I'm referring to are the times in my life where I've been down and the doc has stuck me on SSRIs (which are entirely compatible with a Class 1 medical certificate), the period of anxiety I suffered and my subsequent heart attack.  None of these things will disqualify me from getting a Class 1 - I've checked in detail.  All of my health events are within the acceptable limits for the medical.  The UK Civil Aviation Authority would pass me as being fit to fly a passenger jet (unknown conditions excluded of course).  However, the CAA would not be the ones considering employing me.  My point was merely that if an airline only gets to see a straight 'fit to fly / not fit to fly' certificate - i.e. they accept the CAAs professional assessment that I am healthy enough, then the obstacles stacked against me getting a job compared to another candidate are down to age alone, which, as I've said, it's illegal to discriminate by etc.

However, if they get to see the candidates' medical histories, then all of a sudden, I'm now not just 'the old guy', but I'm 'the old guy who suffered with depression for x years from 20xx, had two panic attacks in 20xx and a heart attack in 2012' standing next to 'the younger guy' with nothing of any interest on his medical record.  The fact that the CAA had declared me fit in this scenario would mean little to the interview panel I suspect if it were me vs the younger guy.  This is just standard sifting of applicants.  It does not mean I'm more likely than the other guy to suddenly decide to do a Lubitz and take everyone into the Alps at 500mph.  If anything, I'd argue to the contrary ! - at least my health (mental and physical) is quantifiable, documented and treated.  However, I'm not sure the "real world" of aviation employment thinks like that.  Maybe they do.  Who knows.

octatonic

Why do we always fall for these?

chillidoggy

Emp_Fab said:

chillidoggy said:

Emp_Fab said:

Eh?  What does that even mean?  What is a classic Emp_Fab thread? 

Oooh, it's hard to define really, but the thread title kicks it off nicely for me, and the dreamworld, Walter Mitty-style scenario of you flying a plane is yet another of your hare-brained schemes that'll never get of the ground. And let's face, you do have a bit of form in that area.

A brilliant thread, cracks me up every time!

"Dreamworld, Walter Mitty-style" ?  What's so bonkers about someone flying a plane ?  There are over 130,000 airline pilots in the world.  What's so crazy about me being one of them ?  It's not like I'm saying "I want to be an astronaut" or "I want to be a famous rock-god" or "I want to be a millionaire" - those things are mind-bogglingly unlikely to happen to anyone.  However, becoming a commercial pilot is a straightforward sequence of steps that costs money.  It's not like the job of flying a plane is so incredibly skilled that only a select few very special people can do it.

This is nothing like my daft little projects that I never get around to doing - this is my life's dream.  I know my chances are slim in the extreme, and the more I think about it, the slimmer they actually are.  However - I can't take the money with me when I die, so why not give it a shot ?  I have actually flown small aircraft (and a Boeing 767 and BAC 1-11 in proper multi-million pound full-motion sims).  It's not difficult.  It just requires training.  I'm a little put out that you seem to view me as some lunatic fantasist who's just declared he wants to be the first Welshman on the moon.  I'll happily admit I play up the oddball act for comedic effect, but there's nothing 'dreamworld' about someone wanting to fly commercially.

Calm down, you’ll give yourself a coronary.

strtdv

Are you sure your heart attack won't disqualify you from a Class 1 License? It looks like it will under FAA regulations, I'd be surprised if it didn't under UK regulations too. It sounds like you'd need to have a negative treadmill off any betablockers or angina meds (this is the requirement for HGV license holders in the UK too).
I also (from memory, not 100% sure) think your ejection fraction needs to be pretty near normal (ie you can't have "heart failure")