Airline pilots, just babysiting the airplane?

Hi, so as a private pilot and as a prospect ATP student I respect every pilot’s knowledge and abilities to fly a multi-million dollar aircraft full of passengers. Sadly, I’ve encountered so many people at my job at the airport, family members and friends who believe pilots are not really doing anything. At first, I really didn’t pay much attention to their opinions, but after encountering so many people with the same belief I began to ask my self, why do so many people around my life tell me that my future job is easy and anyone can do it?, pilots are just sitting drinking coffee and babysitting the Autopilot. The people that tell me this, don’t have any experience in flying or just have basic knowledge of aviation, but I don’t know why they think this way, is it because of movies damaging pilots image? news about drunk pilots? or just trying to discourage me?. Most of the people that have this erroneous belief are in their 40s and 50s and tell me that they like aviation and always wanted to have an important role in aviation, but then they ask me, “your training to be a pilot, but what do airline pilots do? they don’t do anything!”, I don’t really know how to answer them since I’m not an airline pilot yet, I instead get angry because they’re basically telling me I’m training for nothing, But I do tell them… “well they are getting paid very well for not doing anything then?!”. is not just people around my life but even the general public has a bad image of pilots, I recently read this online Magazine that stated "A computerized brain known as the autopilot can fly a 787 jet unaided, but irrationally we place human pilots in the cockpit to babysit the autopilot “just in case.”. People that are part of my life and social circle, unfortunately for them, they never accomplished their dream job but still they unintentionally (or intentionally?) try to discorege me about my training and future job. what do the mentors of this forum think of this Topic? how should I answer these people?

Jasson,

I like to put these people in the same category as the people who have a similar attitude towards not having joined the military. The types that say, “Yeah, I was thinking about joining the military…but I would’ve punched my DI the first time he/she yelled at me hurr durr durr” and so on. K guy, cool story. You either joined the military or you didn’t. At the end of the day the people that did were just doing another job. The difference, and like being a pilot, there is a certain amount of “implied badassery” in having served. The people who are secretly salty about that fact and never took the leap for themselves will always downplay and distract from that fact, usually in the form of putting those that did down in any way they can think of. Aaaaand as such, espouse some really ignorant beliefs about said careers. Being a pilot certainly has it’s cushy parts and gravy trains, but it is certainly not without its demanding technical elements as well as an extensive pool of knowledge required. They may be paying you to push buttons, but as a pilot you know WHICH buttons to be pushing and when, as well as proper monitoring that your layman just could not do.

So how do you deal with them? Honestly, as frustrating as it sounds the best thing to do is laugh all the way to the bank. They can have whatever beliefs they want but you still fly the planes they take travel on. If there are some you are closer to like family, talk to them about some of the technical aspects of flying in an informative manner without being accusatory in nature on their lack of knowledge. Just giving people an idea of the sheer amount of information can usually provide perspective. For those that it doesn’t, they won’t be convinced by anything you say anyways and you really do just have to leave those individuals be. Take a humorous stance if possible when that happens.

TL:DR Inform where you can, let the rest be salty. Don’t get too worked up over idiotic opinions and enjoy the crap out of flying.

Caleb

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Jasson,

I’m not really sure what you should tell them or why you even care? What I can tell you is we (the pilot’s themselves) are responsible for a fair amount of what people say or believe. I’m as guilty as any of responding to the question is “your job difficult, challenging, stressful, etc?” saying “nahhhh, anyone can do it”. Call it sarcasm or false humility but the fact is not everyone can do it. Ever see the movie Sully? There’s not a computer on the planet that could’ve made that call. People are fond of saying these planes can even land themselves (arguably the most challenging part of any flight). What these people don’t know and what’s not advertised is there are ridiculously tight parameters that dictate if autoland can be used and whether it will work (wind components, equipment (both in the plane and on the ground). There are airports that if the aircraft relied on autoland not a single airplane would ever touchdown. Are there times when we’re in cruise sitting back just chillin’? Sure there are. I bet there are baseball games where not a single ball gets hit to right field. Should all the right fielders get fired?

As I said I don’t have an answer for your friends who have no clue or concept what we do other than I guess I’d ask if it’s that easy and everyone can do it, why aren’t they all lined up? If I heard there was a babysitting gig that paid $300k plus and required no skill or talent I’d quit whatever I was doing and ask where do I sign up?

Adam

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Michael,

Take a look at this article I wrote: https://airlinepilot.life/t/hand-flying-at-the-airlines/437

No real experience in aviation here, but from my understanding Autopilot doesn’t really do too much more to fly the plane than cruise control does to drive the car, except with ‘steering’. I’m pretty sure the autopilot, to my limited knowledge, cant tell if its about to fly through volcanic ash, a major storm, a flock of birds, turbulence… Does your cruise control double as brake control?

We found out recently that a computer isn’t even safe to operate a ground vehicle even while it’s being monitored. I would just ask them, “As often as your phone or your computer messes up or glitches or lags, would you trust the thing to fly a 50-ton fuel-filled missile that you’re strapped to?”

Paul,

Good points. And to further the discussion, Boeing’s MCAS system has not exactly done a great job of keeping people safe recently.

Chris