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When most people conjure to mind a pilot, they picture a steely-gazed hunk with blindingly white teeth, peering out of a cockpit from behind aviators. He gives a brief wave out the window, a flash of a smile, and then he’s off to his next destination, thrust forward by two turbojet engines and the sheer force of his confidence.
Don’t get us wrong; we are also captivated by this portrayal of the pilot. This pilot has been memorialized in popular media through films like Top Gun, novels like The Right Stuff, and even by Harrison Ford in a galaxy, far, far away. This, however, is merely the public’s depiction of the aviator, and the quintessential representation of a cool-as-a-cucumber pilot navigating disastrous circumstances to emerge unscathed all the while making all the wrong control inputs.
But let’s be honest: being a pilot is not all charm and valor. Nor is it about basking in the supposed glory and sipping whiskey with your fellow pilots on the airstrip post-flight. On the contrary, being a pilot involves a lot of work that would seriously mess up anyone’s neatly slicked-back hair and would definitely get grime under those carefully pared fingernails. Being a real pilot means long hours, meticulous attention to detail, and lots of memorization.
For the uninitiated, for anyone who believes that a bomber jacket and aviator shades complete a pilot, listen up. Here at Aviators Mercantile Post, we would like to bring to your attention some of the less-than-cool aspects of aviation that pilots customarily endure.
Flight training—if we’ve learned anything from movies about aviation—sounds like it should be a fast-paced montage of “learning” footage accompanied with some peppy, upbeat music.
Unfortunately, we can’t rely on anything we see in movies when it comes to aviation. The steps leading up to becoming a licensed pilot are long, arduous, and great in number. While the length of time it takes to go from newbie to professional pilot differs from person to person. The time averages out at about three to four years. Therefore, you’re looking at the better part of four years of your life dedicated to training to become a pilot. That can test the willpower of even the most passionate aviation buff.
Depending on what type of flying you want to do, you will have to acquire all sorts of credentials, jumping through all sorts of hoops that the FAA mandates. First, you’ll need to decide what sort of training you want: fixed-wing (planes) or rotary (helicopter). There are different types of schools, which serve different flying goals. You can opt for flight school, military service (which, in most cases, you’ll need a college degree for), or through an airline cadet program.
Once you’ve decided on a program, you’ll have to be cleared medically whether civilian or military. Medically speaking, you need to be pretty boring. Only then can you begin to work towards a student pilot certificate, allowing you to brave the third dimension all by your lonesome.
Thinking about enjoying your pilot privileges with friends or family? You must earn your private license before you can enjoy bringing up passengers other than your ever-scrutinizing instructor. And if you’re looking to be employable one day, you’ll also need to obtain an instrument rating to fly in or through the clouds, not to mention acquire the requisite commercial license and your multi-engine rating (fixed-wing). There are levels to defying gravity as a profession.
Your first opportunity, typically, to get paid for this admired skill-set is teaching others how to fly. However, you’ll need your instructor rating(s), which of course, means additional training and nerves of steel in lieu of keeping your students from balling up the aircraft. There’s even a doctorate level of piloting called Airline Transport Pilot Certificate (ATP). Yep, you guessed it, this requires more voluntary training, written exams, all of which take time and money.
And if you thought all this would be sponsored, think again. You will have to pay for every accreditation you receive, and take it from us: it’s not cheap. The good news, though, is that you don’t have to pay for everything at once. Because it will take a few years. Have we mentioned that already?
Bad weather is unpleasant on solid ground, and it’s about a million times worse when you’re flying through it in a small, man-made metal contraption thousands of feet in the air.
One of the hardest parts of flying is understanding and navigating weather systems. In fact, aviators study the same bar of meteorology as meteorologists. To keep it specific to aviation, you’ll also need to learn a long list of abbreviations to describe different weather events and patterns. We can tell you from experience that it’s not easy to learn thirty abbreviations all at once. But thankfully, repetition is on your side. You will similarly learn how to decode terminal forecasts, which might look like this:
DCA 221010 10 SCT C18 BKN 5SW- 3415G25 OCNL C8 X ½ SW
Looks like an infant slapped its hands across the keyboard, right? This is actually critical information about the weather conditions within the vicinity of your flight. So you’d better know how to decode it. What use is it to take-off in clear skies to learn mid-flight that the weather at your arrival destination is deteriorating?
And while much can be done to prevent you from flying through bad weather. The cold, hard truth is that you may find yourself unexpectedly caught by a micro-burst, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it other than attempt to preserve the attitude of the aircraft and hope you enough altitude to recover. Things like wind shear, icing, rain, lightning, and, of course, turbulence can seriously threaten the safety of everyone on board. It’s exhilarating, but not in a good way. More in an out-of-body-experience sort of way.
Smart pilots, of course, pay close attention to the weather and will avoid flying despite the worst case of get-there-itis. So while it’s inevitable that you will encounter some rough patches in the sky here and there, you can avoid weather hazards more accurately by checking credible weather sources, ensuring you have enough fuel to fly to an alternate airport, and also by embracing an unconditional love for that less desirable option called “no-go.”
We hope we have brought some attention to the less-than-cool aspects of aviation that pilots customarily endure. Here at, Aviator Mercantile Post, our passion is aviation and how it impacts everyone. It is our mission to cultivate aviation in an everlasting way and incorporate it into everyday lives. We are here to connect people by giving them a clear understanding of aviation and all it has to offer.
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