Took me 1750 TT and 350 multi with a couple recs to get me the call from Pinnacle in 2003. I was the lowest time interviewee in my class...

Yeah, those were the easy days!

 

Heck, when I learned to fly:

• GPS did not exist

• Class B was a TCA, Class C was an ARSA, Class D was an ATA (I think)

• A 'fancy' panel meant you had 2 navcomms instead of just one. If you had DME, you were some sort of sky god.

• Written tests were...actually written tests, not computerized tests.

• Sometimes you'd actually drive over to the FSS to get an in-person weather briefing

• The hardest part about departing IFR from an uncontrolled field without a decent RCO was the sprint from the payphone (after you'd been given your clearance and void time from FSS) to the aircraft, and then the quick startup and 40-knot taxi to the runway, just so you could make your void time. True story: once at a airport without a working payphone, the guy on the field drove me to his house so we could call FSS and ask for a 15-minute void time, which they gave us.

• Most of the instructors remembered flying the old 4-course radio ranges

• Flying an NDB approach was just something you did every day

And so on, and so forth...

 

Sounds familiar, in 78', just before the "Great pilot shortage".

$600 a month and all the flying that they could shove up your arse. No per diem, no FAA over site, no adherence to flight time/duty time regulations (try 10 or more days in a row, 120 of actual time a month). Overnights two to a room, 4 if it had twin beds. Maybe in a firehouse, or adjacent to an overnight maintenance hanger.

"• Flying an NDB approach was just something you did every day"

The "hub" had a localizer, no DME.

The F/O station had a "repeater" from the captains side.

You are all a bunch of whiners.

 

Back in my day, we had to fly uphill to work, in the winter, carrying 50 lbs of Jepp charts, using NDB's, down to minimums. Both ways.

 

ah, the good old days where war stories were war stories.

 

And you paid the company for the privilege!

 

Funny how Bedford n pals mysteriously forget that. The new ATP law is problem of course....couldn't possibly be the regional whipsaw that is the problem. No way, not possible.

 

I know, right?

Did some of my primary training with a gentleman who was the quietest, most humble and retiring guy you'd ever meet. Never talked much about his earlier life. Years later I found out that he had 7 or 8 kills over Western Europe as a P-47 pilot, and I believe he had spent time as a POW.

I wonder if we will see a generation like his again.

 

No.

Every person I've met who definitely has bragging rights, doesn't brag. They are all old school guys. One guy I flew with (Part 91) was a U-2 pilot and was getting qualified in the SR-71 program before it got cancelled. I had to drag that information out of him. There's no way I'd be able to keep that inside if I had those kind of credentials.

His humility was remarkable.

 

Yeah, I've learned that the folks who instantly volunteer to tell you about their combat experiences...are usually the guys who never got anywhere near the action.

One of my best private-pilot students was a medical doctor. Very quiet, polite, soft-spoken. If you met him, you'd instantly peg him as an accountant. I knew him for about three years before I managed to find out that he had served multiple tours as an Army Ranger and had fought in the Mogadishu battle depicted in 'Black Hawk Down.' I only got this out of him after a large number of beers, and even then he refused to say anything other than that he had been there and he lost some buddies.

My wife's dad served as a Marine infantry lieutenant in I Corps, 1966-67. To this day he refuses to say anything about the experience, even to his own wife, other than his rank, dates of service, and the fact that he did see combat.

And yet, as a nation, we glamorize and celebrate pop stars, rather than the people who fight and die to keep us safe.

To keep this aviation-related...I learned that SkyWest started with a couple of Cherokees. Who knew?