Airline Pilot: Top 10 Things I Should've Known

whether you're a student pilot flight instructor or brand new commercial pilot who's hoping to be an airline pilot one day there's some things that you just truly can't understand until you're loving the daily lifestyle and operating as an airline pilot now keep in mind I love my job but there are pros and cons like any career so in this video I want to tell you about 10 things that I wish I had known before becoming an airline pilot number one understanding how tough commuting can be now I used to commute both to Hawaii at one point and then also from Fargo North Dakota to here in Chicago and now I live in Chicago being an airline pilot living in base is a totally different job than commuting you have the ability to have much more free time to pick up ot to make more money now commuting does allow you to live almost anywhere in the country and sometimes all around the world but it takes days and days off of your schedule the schedules are really hard you don't always have the flexibility or a certainty that you're gonna make it on certain flights to be able to make it to work on time and it's it just adds a lot of stress to your life so commuting is really tough you can make it work plenty of plenty of people do but just keep in mind that the job is a totally different world once you have the ability to live in base number two is eating habits before I started working as an airline pilot I didn't really understand just how challenging it would be to manage a good diet on the road and when you're at home for a few days might have the opportunity to buy fresh fruits and vegetables but they'll expire oftentimes by the time you come back from your next trip so managing grocery shopping is a whole nother beast in and of itself and when you're here at the airport there's only one of those options if you don't have very much time sometimes between terms to run up and grab food so you try to pack food have some healthy snacks with you or even a few meals if you can and one of the lunchbox coolers that you can bring with you is one of your crew bags number three is an interesting one being social and naturally talkative is something that you'll be forced to learn as an airline pilot when you're stuck here inside a really small metal box for a few days in a row with one person you have to find ways of having conversation and relating to that other person and if you're not normally a socially outgoing person this job will teach you how to be one very quickly so you have to find ways of having commonality between the two of you finding conversations that will keep you going throughout the few days because the end you know for the three of us on this airplane we really do become a small family unit on this for a few days and you have to become friends with your crew number four is understanding a monthly schedule as a pilot I didn't really get it until I started working full-time as an airline pilot but your monthly bed and your monthly schedule suddenly changes your entire life into a series of dates and times that you'll be a work versus being off all of your life is planned around this in terms of what you're going to be doing on your off days what days you have work your entire life is based on a calendar and if you're not already using a calendar I promise you will be soon number five when you're working as a pilot your life your schedule your pay all of the contracts stipulations that form your job are extremely important to you and until you're working at an airline understanding these contractual requirements and stipulations that are going to affect every single day that you work and every single day you have off is extremely challenging every airline has different policies they have different ways of paying their employees just an hourly rate is not a full picture about how much you're going to make an airline so try to talk to your friends who work at different airlines start taking notes about the different contractual requirements that each company has and that will give you a really good picture for what to expect at an airline when you're applying number six is workout habits when you're working on the road all the time you're often working all day you might be exhausted by the time you get to the overnight and if it's a short over night finding a time to go work out in the hotel gym go on a run or find a gym nearby might be really hard I struggled with that at the beginning and I really had to find a way of making that a priority for me on overnights where it was feasible where I wasn't just at the minimum rest requirement for the overnight to actually go to the gym to try to stay in shape on the road the other half of that is that when you're home you only have a few days off right so you have to manage your entire life you have to go grocery shopping catch up on errands and chores and have time to relax and see friends and in between all of that you stop to find time to go to the gym so it's a lot to manage that was a really hard part about starting number seven before I started I wish I had a better idea of the dip between trip efficiency and flight hours between smaller regional jets and larger regional jets so here on the Embraer 145 many of our flights are less than an hour and a half long so for a four-day trip to meet a good threshold of flight time and block time and thus pay you oftentimes have to work many more flights throughout that four-day trip that's a lot more work than you might find on the 175 which has longer routes with less flights throughout the day that's a huge difference when you're talking about the actual amount of work that's going into your job versus just a basic amount of pay or a basic amount of flight hours number eight now something specific to the airlines and jet flying in general is that visual approaches are much more challenging than in slower aircraft in the general aviation world now keep in mind one of the easiest approaches that we have at the airline is flying an ILS sometimes even down the minimums because we have lateral and vertical guidance almost all the way to the runway people start to get into trouble when they mess up visual approaches when they're too fast especially at night or they overshoot finally managing your speed and configuration in de jet is much more difficult on a visual approach than in a smaller aircraft because you just have less time to get ready for landing now that's why we always follow an instrument approach all the way to the runway when we have one available as a backup to make that visual approach a little bit easier number nine the destination for an overnight isn't nearly as important as your attitude or the attitude of the crew that you're flying with in terms of whether or not people are willing to be adventurous to go out and explore a little bit and find group activities I've had some of my best overnights and places like Manhattan Kansas or Dubuque Iowa whereas my overnights where I've been alone and had nothing to do in New York City have been not nearly as fun so try not to focus on whether or not the destination is exotic but whether or not you and your crew is willing to try to find something fun to do as a group number 10 the last thing that I wish I would have known before becoming an area pilot is that when you're a student or CFI the idea of flying up to five legs a day for an airline might sound really exciting but once you do it over and over it is a job it is tiring work and you might feel exhausted by the end of the day especially when you've dealt with weather and maintenance issues and delays and cancelations it piles up and it is hard work now keep in mind it's all about your attitude choices so when you have those five leg days and you are tired it might not be the fun exciting job that we're hoping for but you're still flying an airplane you're still getting paid to be a pilot and it's still a really cool job so trying to keep that attitude positive is one of the things that I wish I would have been better prepared for before starting in an airline that's it those are 10 things that I wish I had known before starting as an airline pilot and I hope it helps you manage your expectations better before you start on your first day at an airline there are plenty of times during this job where you'll be tired because it rarely starts late end times and plenty of days spent away from home but this job is all about having the right attitude choice and that's really the only way that you can make this career the best decision ever

Channel: Swayne Martin

Views: 569,731

Rating: 4.9347787 out of 5

Keywords: Swayne Martin, Airline Pilot, pilot job, become a pilot, learn to fly, pilot, airlines, aviation, jet, cockpit, first officer, captain, how to fly, pros and cons, pilot life, wish i'd known, downsides of being a pilot, flight school, flight training, envoy air, embraer, e145, regional airline, regional pilot, top 10, top 10 things, pilot pay, pilot salary, airline pilot training, airline pilot motivation, airline pilot life, airline pilot day in the life, pilot jobs

Id: HTF0vazjmjI

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 07 2020