Originally Posted by bryris

Again, you've never done it, so its tough to imagine. I too, flight instructed, and recently signed back up with a flight school to stay current after the airlines. I loved flight instructing, disliked the airlines.

Flying a 172 with no autopilot down low, with varying students, in different levels of training, etc is cool. It makes you think to sit there and explain some element of the curriculum to a student.

Once you are through training in the airlines (which is difficult), you won't think about flying again until your next recurrent. Its just a program you run every flight. It goes something like this:

PF: Set thrust, gear up, flaps up, climb power, 10,000 feet, 29.92's, direct XXX, 1,000 to go, 100 to go, cruise power, cross XXX at FL240, brief landing, in range check, flaps 9, flaps 22, gear down, yaw damper off, land.

or PNF: Cleared to go, contact dep, climb to 15,000, climb to FL230, contact the next guy, the next guy, the next guy, the next guy, the next guy, the next guy, the next guy, descend to FL190, cross XXX at 11,000 at 250knots, contact approach, "we've got Juliet", turn here, turn there, contact tower, cleared to land.

Done! Just repeat a few thousand times and enjoy the hotels.