Qualifications

You probably hear the most common competencies required for becoming a pilot. Some of them include:

• Being passionate about aviation - motivation, ambition, team-player bla bla bla.
• Have at least secondary education - at least a pass in GCSE English, maths and physics, which a monkey could achieve nowadays.

There's probably a few more in there but you get the picture. Some of these competencies are thrown around quite loosely though. Take 'working under pressure', what does that actually mean? Most people would come up with something like being able to deal with a deadline at work. Yes, well most people can and should be able to do that. But a better answer would be someone who has faced a sudden unexpected change that has significantly increased their workload, but is able to work through and complete their task to a high standard.

Specifics are important when you talk about competencies. I remember when I was a 15 year old wanking myself to death, my careers advisor at school, whom looking back now was utterly useless, asked me what I wanted to do when I was older. I told her that I wanted to become a pilot, to which she stated "well you know that you have to be a good communicator, work well under pressure, be ambitious etc", all of which she was reading from a big guide book (we didn't have the internet in schools back then) and of course I would nod my head and think the world of myself. Looking back on it now though, does anyone actually have any idea what they want to do at that age? If you've only been in the deteriorating education system, how do you know how well you'll cope with stress and pressure? Can you actually solve a social problem when the majority of your social interactions are conducted on snapchat and instagram? 

My question then is can someone at the age of 14-15 really say that they have the competencies to operate an airliner? The simple answer is yes, of course they can. If you're academic then for the most part you'll get through the training and type ratings these days. I mean most job assessments now don't even require you to fly the sim without flight directors now. But getting into the job is one thing, lasting is another beast entirely. 

It's better right now that I tell a story about someone who rose and fell in spectacular fashion. No, there won't be any names mentioned and you won't find out about the airline in question. So once upon a time, there was a cadet who started at a low cost carrier at the age of 21. Worked his way up and successfully completed his command by the age of 24. At the absolute minimum hours he became an LTC at 25, and was a TRE by the age of 26. Fair play son, on paper he did everything right. How many people do you know earn over £100000 a year by the time they're in their mid-twenties? Also, how many people do you know have the power to sign-off licenses by the age of 26? So anyway, we'll call this guy Bill. Bill had what most lads at this age have, a lot of testosterone and a great deal of arrogance. As an LTC, whenever he was rostered to conduct line checks, he would actually stay on the beach and write their line check report and sign them off there without having stepped foot on the plane. He played this smart for a little while and actually got away with it. One weekend, he decided to attend a house party, which he drove to in his new £80000 sports car. He then got involved and started drinking, as you would do. As the alcohol started to mix with his testosterone, he decided that it would be a great idea to show off to his colleagues how fast his new car was. So he decides to go for a drive with some cabin crew. Now years of scientific research and historical fatal drink drive accident data would suggest that the odds won't have been in Bill's favour that day, so yep, you guessed it, he manages to spin his car into a ditch and writes it off. It's quite amazing how him and everyone else survived, however surviving means that he would have to answer to the law. After the incident he was politely dropped from the airline. 

The problem is that if you get away with something, you'll continue to do it. I'm quite confident that the majority of people reading this won't be as mind numbingly stupid, so how did he end up wasting his entire career? Well the explanation is multi-faceted. For one, I think that some of the hoops were far too easy at one point (probably explains how I ended up with a job) I remember in my first airline interview, the assessor said "there are jobs available for ALL of you here, so this isn't a competition, just tick the boxes and you'll get a call". How many people do you know who had that when they turned up? Problem with this kind of supply and demand dynamic, which of course is the case with any job, is that you will get some bell ends that slip through the cracks. Diving deeper here, I think that the root cause of Bill's demise, was that he was simply far too inexperienced in life to be given that level of responsibility. 

This isn't the only case of someone young who ends up ruining their careers by being utterly irresponsible. Most people would say "oh these guys are too young to be given command", but I've flown with Captains who are several years younger than me who are fucking shit hot at their job so that narrative doesn't really fit. In most of these cases, or more commonly, cases where people reach command very quickly, they end up becoming bored and lose all interest far too early. Age does seem to be the common denominator here. However what is important is that we look at the reason why it tends to be the younger folks who end up not really valuing their position.

What I have found upon speaking to a lot of younger guys, including first officers is that background and upbringing have a lot to do with how someone's attitude is when they start their first airline job. I remember in my type rating course, one absolute cunt who honestly didn't put a single bit of effort in and ended up partialling his LST, managed just to scrape through his re-check, then ended up being binned after 100 sectors of line training. What a fucking waste. This annoys me more because I think, why on earth are you here? There are thousands of people who want this job, yet you have these useless fucks who slither into the system and most probably only got there because they had rich parents.

Like I said, not all young guys are like this. We were all young once and many of my fellow comrades started flight training as soon as they turned 18 and are more responsible as 18 year olds than I am now. But, the people who go and either fuck their careers early, or just end up not giving a fuck about it early on are generally the same people who have had zero life experience before being behind the wheel of an aircraft and that is only found with young people.

Think about this, a couple of decades ago we only really saw middle aged guys and girls in pilot uniform when you walked through an airport. It was never unusual to see a bald or grey fella with three stripes either, and even common for people to retire as senior first officers. Now, we've got people who have never heard of Michael Jackson in command of an A320 or 737. It's great that young people can achieve this so quickly and there are a lot of advantages of entering this job when you're young. Firstly, I'm envious of how fast you guys can absorb information, because this really starts to deteriorate when you get past your mid-30s, although I'm sure that my ability to absorb new information started declining after I turned 25. You younger folks can basically learn the systems and ops manual 10 times faster than I can. Another great advantage of getting into this job at a young age is actually being able to pay off your debts before you die, and if you're sensible with your money, you'll be able to get to a stage where you can be financially independent and may not even need to slug it out full time until you're 65. Although I can foresee well paying jobs in this industry being a thing of the past once this pandemic is over.

But going back to the life experience thing, let's tie this with all of those core competencies that were mentioned at the beginning of this blog post; things like the ability to work under pressure, working as a team, leading a team, communication skills, ambition. These competencies aren't just buzzwords that the interviewers want to hear, but they are skills that they expect you to have when you turn up at the briefing. Ultimately, you'll need need these skills to be able to deal with the pressures of the job for the rest of your life. The problem is, if you've gone from higher education and straight into an integrated course, you'll have literally zero life experience. You may think "well, why do I need life experience for flying an aircraft. Seems to work fine in flight simulator". Flying the plane is literally 10% of the job, if that. Building a relationship with the captain and cabin crew are the pillars of a safe day out. Sometimes you'll end up with an utter cock in the left hand seat, and although you don't like it, you'll have to find a way of getting through that day with him or her safely. Having empathy towards others is probably one of the most important skills to have, and that can only be built by exposing yourself to the world. Working shit jobs, and actually meeting people from different parts of society with different cultural backgrounds will help a great deal with that. Also, pick your friends wisely. You don't want a negative bunch that constantly talk you away from stuff, yet you don't want yes people either. Have some humility. From a psychological observation, I think in some ways, being able to have a group where you can insult each other with some pretty dark jokes and recover from it builds great character.

As well as the social interactions, you NEED to deal with failure. Failure is literally the building block of every other skill that you have, I mean come on, if you've gone through private education, had your flight school paid for and suddenly you're in an airline where you will ALWAYS be under pressure, how exactly will you deal with it? Even when attending a job interview, just because you've got an fATPL, doesn't mean that you're entitled to the job. Assessments are one of the hardest things you'll ever prepare for, then once you've passed, you'll go through a type rating, which is fucking rigorous; imagine learning an entire aircraft system and company SOPs in the space of around 6 weeks. Then you have line training, then the rest of your flying life will be continuous checks and examinations. The majority of people get through this and it is just a given for us that are in the industry now. But these hurdles aren't easy, and will only get more tough while we're in the middle of this crisis. This is why I think the CAE and L3 system of basically handing students over to airlines is not only corruption at its finest, but it also completely destroys any sense of competition for the cadets that get put through. It's like having a sports day without a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place.

I think that one of the most important ways to build your core competencies is by just getting any shit job. Be it supermarket, retail, delivery driver, fruit picker, anything. I've done my fair share of these, even this year when the UK went into lockdown. Even if you don't need the money, one of the most enlightening things about doing something like this is that you appreciate life much more. Given the state of the economy and to be honest, the state of the economy for the years to come, you better be prepared to do some of these jobs. We hear a lot of this "stay positive" bullshit from some of these big flight schools, but what good is that? Call me a pessimist or insensitive, but seriously it's time to get real. You try telling a captain with a mortgage and several kids to stay positive. Fuck that. What I would say to him is to get out and find any job as quickly as possible before someone else does. It's sink or swim time for everyone. 

I don't want to make this a post about why you shouldn't get into this job. But with everything there is a silver lining. A few days ago I shared an article from eurocockpit, which you can fine here. In the article they said 'while COVID may be putting the dream of many on hold, it also offers an opportunity to start approaching this career choice with a sound dose of rationality and less emotions.' I've said something along the same lines as this before, but this is so important. All of us will have endured some kind of hardship over the past year. For you younger guys, this presents to you a good opportunity to go and venture into something else. Get uncomfortable, do something crazy, go travelling. If you still decide after several years that this is still the industry that you want in on, then you'll have much better self-awareness and you'll have built some of those core competencies that will ready you for a commercial flying job. You'll also have some funny stories to tell and at least be able to have some banter in the flight deck, which is also what a lot of these interviewers are looking at.