Flying Magazine's Day in the Life of RJ Pilot
 

'Day in the Life of an RJ Pilot'

'an' would appropriate for an airline pilot, but 'a' is correct for RJ, since regional does not start with a vowel.

But that small thing aside, what's up with this comment:

'The autopilot and authrottles keep the airplane right on course, flying more smoothly than I am able.'

Gee, thanks. The one opportunity an airline pilot has to show the public that we are in control and safe pilots, and this guy goes on a limb and reinforces the public opinion that we are just monkeys who push buttons and that indeed the autopilot does fly the plane the whole time and better than we do.

Also, the E175 is not a RJ. It maybe in the US, but in countries where the pilot unions have balls, the E175 flies at mainline.

This article had nothing to do with 'day in the life' instead it was more like 'musings of a regional pilot.' We find out they fly MSP-DFW-LGA and then the article ends with a comment they still had one leg to go, so it wasn't even a real 'day in the life of.' It was a partial day filled with random musings on a trip.

Lastly, he talks about how regional guys are doing it for the eventual hopeful shot at the majors, and that it is worth it in the end. Why didn't he write that he himself will be guaranteed to be at Delta in less than two years? I didn't think I'd come a pilot who could top Les Abend, but this might take the cake.

don't forget the female writer at Flying who recently talked about her "techniques" on IFR rides

Yes, and I did see this month's June letter to the editor by a B757 pilot and ex-military checkairman about how he couldn't believe an examiner would sabotage a checkride by changing the ADF station tuned in. He writes that if the examiner wanted to reinforce or see an applicant listen to the morse code, there are better ways to do this without sabotaging the approach, and he is correct. Martha was wrong to do this!

Since you brought it up,

From Purdue OWL: Articles: A versus An

"...The choice of article is actually based upon the phonetic (sound) quality of the first letter in a word, not on the orthographic (written) representation of the letter."

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...rty_141265.png

Flying used to be pretty good, AOPA too, but some of the old-school editors/writers have left. If I read another "cheap ADS-B solution you can velcro to your yoke" article I am gonna vomit

They still publish these?

Thank you soon2b. I knew that saying "an RJ" had to be correct, if for no other reason than "a RJ" sounds onerous and trips up the tongue.

Thanks for the research.

That does make sense. I didn't know there was an exception based on how it sounds. I'll agree off the tongue, an RJ sounds better. I stand corrected on this one.

Airbus already works hard to keep the pilot out of the loop. Soon they won't even need the warm body.

Your inexperience shines through.

Wow, I always wondered about that! Thanks!

Regarding the article, blah. I should've written about my eight leg Brasilia days a couple of years ago.

Countries like where?

A while ago a friend of mine started at Air Canada and this is the plane he was assigned:

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviatio.../9/2247977.jpg

Hard. Not. To. Make. Comment. About. Having. Friends.

Link to article?

Mustache, your opinion will be based on APC forums, not real life, but go for it anyway!

Seggy, it's in the latest June edition of Flying's magazine. Aviation News and Resources for Pilots | Flying Magazine won't release the June articles until July. You'll have to wait til then. I don't have a scanner so I can't load the article.

Oh really? Google Sky Regional E175 and get back to me with a full report of your findings:D

Yeah I saw that. "15 EMB175s will be transferred to one of the regional carriers (SkyRegional), with the transfer occuring between Feb-Jun 2013
"

This is recent, after he was hired.

I wrote the article, so now ya'll have a target to fire at....

1. "The E175 is not a(n) RJ"... I agree wholeheartedly! Did you miss the part where I wrote that the new generation of RJs are regional in name only?

2. "A Day in the Life of an RJ pilot." A vs An aside (an is actually correct, as another poster mentioned) the title was chosen by the editor. It doesn't necessarily describe the content of the article, which I would say is more about regional pilots and their place in a changing industry. I framed it within the device of a single flight. "Musings of a (so-called) RJ pilot" would probably be accurate.

So far as the content is concerned, I think I pretty accurately conveyed the turmoil in our corner of the industry and the challenges faced by our overall pilot group, considering I'm writing for a largely recreational pilot audience that isn't very knowledgeable with conditions at the regionals and isn't predisposed to be horribly sympathetic to airline pilots in the first place. Your mileage may vary.

Haters gonna hate I guess. --Sam

It takes guts to stand up and answer, thank you for that.

If you don't mind, can I ask these questions:

How did you get them to publish this article? Did you just write this randomly and submit it to them?

Were they looking for a day-in-the-life article? Or did you just submit at random?

Did you receive any compensation for this?

Why write the autopilot and autothrottle able to fly better than you comment?

It seems you meant well (obviously) otherwise you wouldn't have written it. Did you choose the title (day in the life) or was that the editor?

This is a pilot writing a by-definition day-in-the-life article:

America West Pilot Trip Report — Trip Reports Forum | Airliners.net

America West Pilot Trip Report #2 — Trip Reports Forum | Airliners.net

he wrote 5 others.

Why go with musings, as opposed to an actual day in the life trip?

Anyway, yes the industry turmoil stuff was mentioned properly. But with the description of the airline, it seems like it is Compass. If that's the case, you and a majority of your fellow pilots are all guaranteed set to be at Delta in 2 years or less. You guys are very lucky, other regional pilots are not so lucky to be in a position like that.

8-10 leg Brasilia days are alive and well.

This.

How anyone can read 'FLYING' anymore is beyond me. Since the sellout/change of staff, I can't stand reading any of their articles.

Now that would be a real day in the life of a regional pilot. I think by leg 6 even the reader will be fatigued! :eek:

Can you describe this sellout/change of staff? When was this? Who was outed?

Good times, wait no they aren't.

Yikes, so many questions, where do I start :confused:.

Long story short, I've had an aviation blog since 2005. Have been a subscriber to Flying since I was 13 (1994). Current Editor-in-Chief of Flying reads my blog, liked what he read, & asked me to write for them. I started doing a straight day-in-the-life piece and it bored me to tears, and the average non-airline pilot, having no context of the regional industry, would be hard-pressed to understand how it's any different from a day in the life of a major airline pilot. I could have gone the eight-leg-day route but that's quickly becoming obsolete in the regional world. I chose to use a day that would have been performed by a mainline pilot <10 years ago, now done at RJ wages, largely by pilots who have already been furloughed & reset to year one wages at least once. That seems to be the way the regional world has been going, and not much of the general public or even GA world is aware of it. It was never going to be a "woe is me, I'm so overworked and underpaid" piece because neither Flying's editorial staff nor their readership is very interested in that sort of thing. It was an honest look at the ups and downs of the industry as I've seen them, and I felt fortunate to be afforded that honesty with very little editorial input. Keep in mind that much of Flying's advertising revenue comes from the flight training industry.

"flying more smoothly than I am able" = a bit of artistic license, a bit of wry self-effacement, and a bit of the truth. The vast majority of airline pilots these days leave the autopilot on for 95% of the flight. In reality I take pride in hand-flying smoothly, accurately, and for a decent portion of climb & approach, but I recognize that the autopilot usually does as good of a job and it's not what I'm paid for. I'm paid for my experience & judgement.

When writing it the two things I kept in mind were 1) will the average GA pilot understand this and find it interesting? and 2) will this ring true to my fellow regional pilots? The article has already garnered positive reaction from Flying's readership; hopefully most of the regional guys who read it understand where I'm coming from better than a few of the posters here. :o

My friend who flys a challenger 300 said that he really enjoyed your article.

I enjoyed your article and found it to be honest and realistic. The average APCer was looking for you to write a poor me article with a laundry list of hate for the industry and most of all, management:D

Looks like the "union with balls" succumbed to the economic realities of the business

LOL!!!! I need to use this more often.

Auto-throttles and crew meals? What are those? In 7 years I have yet to see that stuff in any of the planes I flew..

W T F

Economic reality is that someone with no experience in the industry will do your job for less because they don't understand that it is perpetuating the downward spiral of the profession. Or is it that one can always find a way to justify their actions. Only reason most of our jobs exist is due to a lack of unions with balls.
Cheers

This guy tells it like it is. Funny stuff:

This Is Your Copilot Speaking / Pilot X | Nowhere

Les Abend invented the term first officer because he is never second.

Amazing book

Kudos for having the manly bits to out yourself for writing this article, Sam. :)

I already gave you appropriate crap for the AP/AT comment, and I get the artistic license thing. You own a freaking tail tragger and can fly circles around me I'm sure, so that's where we're at.

Sam has fought the good fight and continues to do so for the recovery of the overexpansion of the regionals back to mainline (and thus higher wages and more good jobs). We've worked together to fight ALPA on the divesting of Compass out from mainline ALPA.

If he keeps this up, I'll have to renew my subscription for Flying that I cancelled years ago!


Curious, Trip7- didn't AC just start a new low cost carrier with 767s? Is that flown by AC seniority list pilots?

At least they made it that long, compared to the pilots in a country below theirs voting yes to pay cuts and scope concessions.

The Canadian government forced AC pilots to accept the spin off into an LCC. The ERJ's are no longer flown by "mainline" there.

I understand your motives, but why write an article like this at all? I get that nobody wanted a "poor me", but it definitely doesn't serve a purpose to glorify our existence, with long mainline legs, autothrottles and crew meals. You should have jumpseated around with an RJ-200 crew. Until pilots stop selling their souls to fly a Big Shiny Jet, we will continue to get treated like a commodity by management, and continue with the "seniority recycling" you mentioned. Articles like this, as you say, cater to the training industry. They used you.

It's a shame this guy stopped writing. If anybody knows this guy tell him to start back up. His musings are hilarious.