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Aviation Pathways for Aspiring Pilots (version 80 – June 2015)

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“Please help me!” write Emily Redmond

“Dear Richard,

I am currently undertaking my private pilots licence with the intentions of hopefully becoming an airline pilot in future.  I am just wondering if you could possibly take a short amount of time to give me some tips with regards to flying and the best approach for me.

I have read you book “QF32“.  It  has inspired me even more to continue with a career in something I am so passionate about.”

Richard Responds

Thanks for your question Emily.   I don’t have sufficient time to respond personally to the hundreds of people who ask me similar questions.  So I have amassed all of my answers into this blog that I will update regularly.  Please:

  • post any unanswered questions at the end of this blog,
  • revisit this page occasionally to find new and updated information, and
  • select “FOLLOW THIS BLOG” at the top right of this page to receive updates

Aviation Pathways for Aspiring Pilots

John Barkas in the front seat in Sep 2013.  (John occupied seat 4K on QF32 on 4 Nov 2010)

“Thanks Rich” said John Barkas. “It was awesome to be invited to the flight deck yesterday morning after our chat on flight QF10 from Dubai”   (John had occupied seat 5K on QF32 on 4 Nov 2010.)

  1. Aviation Pathways
  2. Constraints
  3. Training Options
  4. Employment Options
  5. Employment Tests & Interviews
  6. Career Development
  7. Alternate Career
  8. Aviation Industry
  9. Aircraft
  10. Life Plan
  11. Money
  12. Where From Here?
  13. Summary
  14. For more Information
  15. Answers to Questions
  16. Ask a Question,

I urge not just aspiring pilots, but all people working towards a dream to read this article (Brandon Bullhorn)

The Lancet

“Science, Freedom, Beauty, Adventure… aviation offers it all!”  (Charles A. Lindberg).

Lancet_1918

I include (for fun) italicised quotes from “THE LANCET” dated the 28 September 1918.  

The report is headed “The Essential Characteristics of Successful and Unsuccessful Aviators” by T. S. RIPPON (Captain RAMC, attached RAF) and E. G. MANUEL (Lieutenant RAF)  (Thanks to Robert Wilson, Editor Flight Safety Australia, CASA for the research)

Disclaimer

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Aviation is more than just a difficult career, it’s a difficult life as well.   (I am writing this paragraph on a Sunday morning sitting in a hotel in Dubai 7,000 miles away from my loving family)

Nothing in life comes easy.   Aviation is a hard and time consuming journey and not one for the distracted or impatient.  You will have to work hard if you want a successful career in aviation.  The effort needed to learning to fly is less than 1 percent of the effort needed to gain the knowledge, training and experience to become a safe and efficient jet pilot.  The challenge is to improve your skills commensurate with increasing responsibility as you methodically work your way towards the jet’s left hand seat.

Your aviation life will have highs and lows.

The highs are real and measurable.   Your feelings and emotions of  love, thrill and excitement of flying result from surges of the human body’s natural (and sometimes addictive) hormones.

 You will remember the natural “highs” that we feel after the pleasure of:

  • passing your Wing’s Parade, Conversion courses and licence tests (dopamine);
  • fly the fastest most powerful and complex aircraft in difficult circumstances (dopamine);
  • commanding an expert crew of pilots and cabin crew (serotonin);
  • being a leader who creates a safe, supporting and productive environment  (serotonin);
  • bonding with the crew and passengers (the parents and grand parents, nervous fliers and excited children)  (oxytocin)
  • being respected and thanked by passengers who tell you as they leave the aircraft that your flight was “the best that I have ever had”  (serotonin)

The unfortunate (though case-hardened) pilots will never forget their negative feelings of panic, fatigue and fear that might have accompanied:

  • surviving emergencies (adrenaline); and
  • flying to a safe landing in adverse (fog, ice,  turbulent, windy) weather (cortisol).

Rewards in your life lie beyond your comfort zone

The cost of entry to the cockpit is high; physically, emotionally and financially.   You need to be determined, confident and courageous because there is no easy path to flight, and rewards lie beyond your comfort zone.  Don’t plan nor expect to be helped through these stressful phases as they are ultimately your own personal challenges.  If you don’t have the money to learn to fly then it’s your responsibility (not others) to research the alternative paths.

If you are older than 15 then you probably have less than twenty five thousand days remaining to live.   For anyone working towards achieving a dream; make the most of these days, live and enjoy every one of these days, love these days.

Hopefully the information below will help you kick-start your career.

1. Aviation Pathways

Back to: Aviation Pathways

There are many pathways to taking up a career in Aviation.      Careers exist for pilots, engineers, technicians, air traffic controllers researchers and journalists.

Chasing the sunnset  (Photo:  Richard de Crespigny)

Chasing the sunnset (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

The best pathway for any person is one that suits the applicants interests, passions, skills,  physical fitness, and financial capability.

Aspiring Aviators need the same  Situation Awareness to plan their careers that professional pilots use when flying.

My definition of Situation Awareness is knowing:

  • Where you were
  • Where you are, and
  • Where you will be


Review these aspects of your life at least ever year to ensure that your career plan is  achievable and on track.

2. Constraints

Back to: Aviation Pathways

2.1  Mental Constraints

“there are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots” (E. Hamilton Lee)

You must remain in perfect mental health to be an effective pilot.    This leading edge industry is flooded with threats, where the survivors live by Neil Armstong’s mantra:

“Expect the Unexpected”

Pilots are the most expert managers of risk.    Pilots identify, classify and negotiate risk as part of their daily functions.   The best pilots (risk managers) are those who possess the mental aptitude to appreciate threats, then develop skills and discipline to manage the risks.

Do not panic if you lack these skills.  Most of us start without these skills but fortunately they will develop along with your maturity over time.  Learn by talking to the older and wiser aviators who by definition have the “right stuff” to survive.   You will be surprised how happy the experienced pilots will be to help point you in the right directions, to “give back” and to mentor.

You are expected to possess the following personal traits when beginning a career in aviation:

  • Passion (the Why)   (Why I want to be a pilot)
  • Core ethics (values and beliefs)
  • Determination, drive, aspiration
  • Independence of thought
  • Thirst for unlimited knowledge
  • Pride, dignity, respect & empathy for others

THE LANCET – 1918:  …..[the successful pilot] possesses resolution, initiative, presence of mind, sense of humour, judgment; is alert, cheerful, optimistic, happy-go-lucky, generally a good fellow, and frequently lacking in imagination. ..

THE LANCET – 1918:  …. [He]  possess in a very high degree a fund of animal spirits and excessive vitality.

Personal traits you will be expected to acquire throughout your career include:

  • Maturity
  • Confidence, courage and persistence tempered by modesty and even vulnerability
  • Decision analysis
  • Teamwork, communication and leadership

 “the minute pilots think that they know everything is the second before they do something really stupid”

  •  Successful aviators are confident but never overconfident.   I am reminded of this every three months when I revisit the simulator!

Personal skills you will be expected to acquire throughout your career include:

  • Computer literacy.  The ability to use computerised systems.   The knowledge to understand and recognise when automated systems fail and the ability to take manual control to ensure safe flight.

2.1.1  Passion

Passion is an emotional turbocharger that resides deep in your fast and instinctive mind.   Passion empowers your values and beliefs.   Not everyone has a passion, but you  can observe it in others and you know when you find it.  You can feel your own passion, yet cannot describe it in words.  Passion inhibits the negative and inhibitory processes that dominate processes in our mind.   Passion engenders a focus and offers unlimited energy to pursue thoughts or actions.    Passionate people wake up with the energy and inclination to devote almost unlimited effort to achieve results.

2.1.2  Maturity

consider completing your academic training before commencing flying training if you are immature for your age.

Maturity provides the ability to control our thoughts, impulses and emotions.   The mature mind harnesses three brain centres:

  • Emotions and fear (flight and fight circuitry in the limbic system)
  • Thoughts, impulses, motivations,  sociability (grey matter,  that peaks at puberty)
  • Wisdom (white matter connections, that peaks at about 25 years of age)

The brain does not mature by getting larger.  The brain matures when the “hyperlinks” in our white matter, correlates the “knowledge” in our grey matter to become more interconnected, and specialised to respond to the environment.

Teenagers take on risky and emotively behaviours because these three brain functions peak at different ages.   The feisty limbic system develops in the first years, the grey matter tops out at puberty, and wisdom doesn’t peak until our mid 20s.  These development mismatches explain the teens’ propensity for risky and reckless behaviour, free thinking, experimentation and socialisation.

RecklessnessThe timing in my graphs for Thoughts, Wisdom and Recklessness vary for every person:

  • Wisdom (the green line) first peaks at about 25 years of age, and slowly increases afterwards.
  • We are reckless (the amber line) and more inclined to do irresponsible acts from the age of puberty until about 25 years of age.

Interestingly, a graph of “aviation accident rates versus age” follows this graph of recklessness up until 65 years of age.

The mismatch is greatest in our formative years from ages 13 to 25.   Tennagers’ brains have insufficient wisdom to resolve their abundant knowledge.  Their minds are like “cities” of knowledge being flooded by tsunamis of challenges, but without the wisdom to select the best defences.

We act recklessly when we have insufficient wisdom to control our thoughts and emotions.   In these cases we have trouble controlling impulses or managing risk.  We act irrationally, make wrong decisions and take unwise risks, often to our detriment.

The mismatch in the brain’s development is well suited for expansion and evolution of the species, however it is not well suited to disciplined, conservative procedural pursuits.  This timing mismatch explains why our young teenagers’ appetite for socialising and risk taking, peaks just after puberty.  Perhaps it explains why some teenagers opt out of reading and relaxation for the higher risks associated with:

  • social media,
  • violent computer games,
  • shoplifting, reckless car driving (car accidents account for 50% of teen deaths),
  • homicide, suicide (second and third cause of teen deaths), and
  • drugs, firearms, street gangs and terrorist activities.

To make matters worse, puberty is now starting earlier, boosting hormone responses when the mind is even less mature.

Understanding that maturity grows as recklessness falls in the late teens and early twenties is information we need when planning our careers.  Where does your personality appear on the reckless-maturity graph, and why does it matter for your aviation career?

A mature mind is more capable to identify, rate and work with risk and thus maximise survival.  So consider completing your academic training before commencing flying training if you are immature for your age.   For example, you have only one opportunity to complete your flying training in the air force, so don’t fail because of immaturity.  This was my strategy.

I was probably too immature at 17 years of age to attempt and pass the Air Force Direct Entry pilot course.  I started my four years of RAAF Academy academic training when I left school at 17 years of age.  My full time RAAF flying training commenced when I was a more mature 21 year old.

2.2 Pilot Licences

ByronVanGibsone

Photo: Byron Van Gisborne

The world’s aviation authorities are currently harmonising with ICAO’s range of Pilot Licences.

For example, the new Australian licences include:

  • Recreational Pilot Licence (RPL):   >= 16 years old, > 25 hrs (20 dual, 5 solo),  Fly within <= 25nm from aerodrome
  • Private Pilot Licence (PPL):  >= 17 years old. 35 hrs experience
  • Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL):   >= 18 years old
  • Multicrew Pilots Licence (MPL)
  • Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) >= 21 years old, 1500 hrs (for fixed wing).  Must undertake Multicrew Co-operation course, and flight test.

EASA licences pic.twitter.com/A3fXccRb4E

The airlines will most likely require a CPL as a pre-requisite for employment

2.3 Financial Constraints

Dad's Turbo Piper Arrow (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Dad’s Turbo Piper Arrow (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Another Dad in Paradise (Photo Richard de Crepsigny)

Another Dad in Paradise (Photo Richard de Crepsigny)

You will need about USD$150,000 to pay for flying training and flying hours to obtain a Commercial Pilot’s licence.   If you cannot finance this training then you must search for less costly entry options via:

  • Airline Cadet Courses (if available)
  • Military

2.4  Education Constraints

2.4.1 Research

Recruit pilots must attain the employers’ required skill levels.  These requirements are  realistic.  They based upon the skills that you need to become a pilot then have spare mental space and capacity to develop into captains, managers and leaders.

It is your responsibility to find out airlines’ requirements for employment as a pilot.   Don’t ask your parents or friends to research this for you.  It’s not their job.   It’s your job to do the research for your career.

The best airlines and defence forces generally require the highest levels of practical skills.   These requirements are the first filters that separate those who have the highest motivations and potential to become a pilot from those that don’t.

(Photo RDC)

(Photo RDC)

2.4.2 School

You must acquire some basic skills at school if your want a career in aviation.

Take charge of your time at school.  Don’t waste your school years.  You are responsible for your learning.  You are responsible for your ignorance.   I list a few essential education criteria below.

2.4.2.1  Maths and Physics (essential)

Plan to graduate school with Mathematics and Physics subjects.   Chemistry would also be an asset for an aviation career, but is certainly not a requirement.

It’s not hopeless if your academic skills initially fail to meet the grade.  In this case however it’s now up to you now more than ever before to alter your values, beliefs and motivations.  You will have to work harder to pass the subject or consider repeating school until your marks improve.

Gaining mathematical skills is one of your most important steps to ensuring a successful and secure career.   Surveys show that people with superior maths skills are creative and become effective contributors and leaders in critical roles.  25%-40% of people with maths skills earned doctorate degrees, compared with just 2% of the entire USA population.

Focus on maths if your maths skills are lacking.   Be seduced by the beauty of maths.   Read and re-read the maths books.    Dream the maths.  Find the beauty in maths. Repeat the maths exercises until you reach perfection.  Enjoy the addictive dopamine high that you feel when you solve a problem.   When you make this commitment, you’ll gain a sense of understanding, purpose and meaningfulness for maths, experiencing the joy  of using the equations and processes as tools to solve problems,  just like the screwdrivers and hammers in your toolbox.

Your joy for maths can be as emotionally strong and addictive as your passion the that you feel for music, art and poetry – you just have to commit yourself to study it.  You just have to try.

No-one can help you with this.  It’s up to you.   You can do it!   Prove to everyone else that you can do it!

2.4.2.2    Computer Coding (desireable)

Everyone who works with mechatronic  (engineering, computers & electronics) technologies should have computer coding skills. Coding skills include the fundamentals of computer communications, algorithms, logic and code.   These are the blood vessels, brains and universal languages through which  computers monitor, process and respond to the environment.

Coding skills help us to survive our future in a digital world increasingly dominated by algorithms.   Coding builds critical thinking skills and an appreciation for why technological is designed, how to use it effectively and what to do when the technology fails.

Here are a few of the many ways that you can develop and maintain your coding skills.  :

  • Complete a computer course at school
  • Join a STEM club at school or local community (or create one if it does not exist).   The Code Cadets at Canberra Grammar is a great example of how a few students can help each other to achieve great results.
  • Write “Hello World!” on your iPhone or iPad using Apple’s Swift  program.
  • Build exciting computer controlled sensing and interactive controlled machines in minutes with remarkable Arduino kits.
  • Learn Java, Visual Basic or  Delphi if you are just interested in software languages.
2.4.2.3   Stress of Study and School

It is normal to be  stressed by the activities of study and school.  The art of learning is a personal journey and starts only when we become aroused.   Stress is a personal state and some scenarios that stress one person will not stress another.

Canberra Grammar Code Cadets  (www.codecadets.com)

Canberra Grammar Code Cadets (www.codecadets.com)

I am a pilot not a psychologist.  However  my small understanding of  how the brain is designed, its functional makeup and its limitations has helped me to study more efficiently and effectively.  Here are some of my thoughts to improve your study techniques and to reduce stress. These methods worked for me – I hope they help you.

Please consult your teachers or perhaps psychologists if  you are unable to manage your stress levels.

2.4.2.4  Focus

It’s natural to be distracted whilst studying.  However distractions destroy focus and thus the quality of study.  So how can you minimise distractions?

Learn to love the term “study”.  Planned, focussed and prioritised study is the path to your success!  Study processes and assimilates knowledge into your mind.  Knowledge is power.  Power is is success in this competitive world.  Power comes through focussed study, deliberate practice.   The major skill that separates us into our separate track, careers and outcomes is NOT intelligence, it is our study, our deliberate practice.  Mozart, the Beatles, Tiger Woods, Federer, Neil Armstrong are the best examples of experts who have excelled through deliberate practice.  This is your method if you wish to join their ranks.

Focus deeply until the topics that you are studying consume your mind.   Don’t just give the thought a fleeting interest, focus deeper, going into the detail then deeper again.  Get inside the thought.  What if….   Extend yourself…   Immerse yourself…  Drown in the thoughts.

Vestibular System (Photo R de Crespigny)

Vestibular System (Photo R de Crespigny)

When we focus on a thought or sense, the brain’s inhibitory neurons block extraneous senses and thus enable us to narrow our focus even more.   We become “tunnel visioned” when we focus on a thought or sense to the detriment of others.  Feelings, noise and distractions vanish.  Attention is maximised.  Time flies.   (Click here to read more about the neuroscience of inhibitions)

It’s easy to experience how we can tunnel our senses and avoid distractions.   Work through a Sudoku puzzle the next time you run on an exercise machine. You’ll find that focussing on the puzzle has the effect of the suppressing the pain and awareness of running.  The discomfort and fatigue vanish, time quickly passes and you will reach your exercise goal with less mental effort.

2.4.2.5  Study Breaks

Plan your study time to include breaks.  Frequent breaks improves focus and mental agility.  The Pomodoro Study Technique  is one example of how to plan breaks into study time:

  • Decide on the task
  • Set a “pomodoro” (iPhone/kitchen) timer to n minutes (default 25 mins)
  • Begin working on the task
  • Take short (3-5 mins break) after every “pomodori” time interval
  • Take a long (15-30 min break after every 4 “pomodori” time intervals

2.4.2.6  Social Media

Social media is  distracting,  addictive and counter productive to study

Avoid the distractions of social media during study time.

Social media is distracting, addictive and counter productive to study.  Social media hooks us with hits of the dopamine hormone that is released every time we accept a new friend-connection.   We get a hit even if we don’t know and will never meet the other person.

Social media absorbs time for no work benefit.   We are now spending more time alone on social media that at any other time in history.  Time spent on social media is time lost to listen to our peers, learn, develop our skills and to advance our careers.

  • Allocate the first hours in your day (or after exercise) to study when your mind is fresh and primed with new neurons for learning.
  • Spend free time to socialise and network with real peers and friends.
  • If you must use social media, then spare time for this only during the last hours of the day when your mind is effectively worn out.
2.4.2.7  Confidence

The key to remaining in control is to keep confident physiologically, mentally and emotionally:

  • Physiologically – via exercise! It clears the mind, helps simplify thoughts and keeps your body agile.
  • Mentally – make a plan for your studies and keep to it. Socialise, but leave the wild parties until next year!
  • Emotionally – keep some time to yourself to relax and doing what YOU want to do (electronics, motorbikes, bicycle….)
2.4.2.8.1  Memory
(Painting Jaak de Koninck  www.jaakdekoninck.be)

(Painting Jaak de Koninck http://www.jaakdekoninck.be)

Whilst pilots are very “left brain” factual types, the brain appears to be more suited to remembering artistic and visual patterns that are handled in the “right brain”. This means that it is important to give a visual or image context to any data, formulae or facts that you are trying to remember.

The “left brain” processes characters, words and expressions, the “right brain” receives sensor data (images, sounds, taste, smell, touch).   So for example describing an image tends to moves the memory from the right brain to the left brain where the image is more easily “lost”. This “Verbal Overshadowing” means that describing an image often has the effect of impairing your otherwise effortless ability to subsequently recognise that object!

Memories are reinforced when accessed by many sources (cross-linking). This means that you ideally want to create notes that link and cross-link/hyperlink to all your other data. Only a few PC programs do this properly, but mind maps can achieve the same though they reside in your right brain and cannot be stored efficiently in PCs.

2.4.2.8.2 Memory – Practice
Oliver Klaas  (3 yrs old) (Photo Jason Klaas)

Oliver Klaas (3 yrs old) (Photo Jason Klaas)

Memories are also reinforced through repetition.

Sleep!   The sleep processes selectively weaken short term memories and as a result restores plasticity in the mind.   The consequences of this behaviour include:

  • The best time to study is during the first few hours after waking
  • Memories are best retained if laid down during multiple sessions, each after a period of sleep
  • If you do play computer games, then play them at the end of the brain’s day when you have the least capability for form new memories.

The extreme form of practice is called “Deliberate Practice” – practicing the things that challenge us repetitively over periods of years and over 10,000 hours. Mozart, Tiger Woods and Michael Federer are proof that Deliberate Practice works. Whilst you won’t have time to fit in 10,000 hours, any repetition helps!

Celebrate success.   The dopamine hormone hit we get when we achieving goals rewards the work mentality in our mind.   Success sponsors changes to improve happiness, confidence, courage and thus our future successes.

Make a “To Do” list.  The first item must be “Make my bed“.   You will get a dopamine “high” with a sense of pride that you have accomplished the first task of the day.   It reinforces the belief that the little things do matter.   Even if you subsequently have a bad day, you’ll have the pleasure of coming home to a comfortable bed!

2.4.2.8.3 Memory –  Exercise

Exercise improves memory and reduces stress.   Exercise increases the rate that brain neurons are created in the Dentate Gyrus.   These new neurons increases the brain’s plasticity which aids learning and the rationalising of previous previous experiences-stresses.

2.4.2.8.4 Memory –  Summary
  • Feed your mind.   Study.   Take every opportunity to gain experience in all aspects of your field.
  • Facts are easier to remember when they are associated with images, photos or patterns with other facts
  • Build mind maps to replicate and associate and cross-link facts residing in the “left brain” with images in the “right brain” – indeed in this case the two sides of your brain now reinforce each other
  • Reinforce memory by either associating it with great stress (this is risky!) or by revisiting the memory many times. Lay the memory then strengthen the bond by revising (studying) many times at regular and increasing intervals.

2.4.3 Personal Traits

Employers require more from job applicants than just academic results.

Once you have jumped over the academic barriers (raw IQ and education scores), employers then divert more attention to your personal health.  Personal health is a study of your attitudes, beliefs and behaviours.   You will be assessed in the areas of conscientiousness, extraversion, openness and agreeableness and neuroticism.   You will also be assessed about your behaviours such as exercise, drinking and smoking.

Take part in active sports.  Sport improves your brain’s motor skills, social skills and confidence.

I recommend school military cadet programmes.    The military drills, courses and camps foster and develop skills in discipline, teamwork and leadership – attributes that every professional pilot must possess.

Beware – a pilot’s life is one of continual study, learning and development.  Technology is always changing and improving, so you will have to study for your entire life if you choose to fly professionally.

RIP the world's best friend - Neil Armstrong who said "expect the unexpected"   (RDC)

RIP the World’s best aviator – Neil Armstrong who said “expect the unexpected” (RDC)

Pilots undertake training courses and frequent check flights.  My employer requires that I be re-certified to operate seven times every year:

  • 4 x simulator check flights (4 hours each)
  • 1 x day of emergency procedures training
  • 1 x Route Check (QF32 was my 2010 route check)
  • Aviation Medical Certificate

2.4.4 Age

Do not despair if you are an older university graduate or if you have extensive industry experience and now wish to become a pilot .  Your study and efforts have not been in vain, but be patient.

Airlines first employ you to fill the role of a pilot, however your university degree and experience gives you additional skills that will potentially differentiate you from the younger inexperienced pilot recruits.

Airlines require pilots in senior technical and management positions to have additional skills, so should be keen to employ graduates from Business, Engineering and Test Pilot schools.

2.5  Physical Constraints

All pilots must possess a current medical certificate to be able to fly.

2013 IPC World Cup Thredbo  (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

2013 IPC World Cup Thredbo (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

The medical requirements vary with the pilot’s age and type of licence. You will need very good hearing, correctable eyesight and above average spatial and hand-eye coordination.

If in doubt, visit an aviation certified medical examiner before you commit to any training to determine your medical ability to fly.

You must know the many personal, physical and educational requirements to join the military if this is your preferred pathway.  The military recruit relatively  few pilots so it is not surprising that they employ only the most healthy and physically capable candidates.

THE LANCET – 1918:  The successful aviator has always the attributes of a sportsman. As a schoolboy he takes part in all forms of athletics and usually played for the school in one game at least. After leaving school he still keeps it up, and probably goes in for other kinds of sport-hunting, shooting, fishing, rowing, golfing, motoring etc. 

You must remain physically fit for your entire career.   If you partake in risky activities such as road cycling, rock climbing or toboggan racing then ensure that you have a backup career available in the event that you become injured and unable to retain a medical aviation certificate.

THE LANCET – 1918:  We found that the best type of pilot was seldom drawn from a sedentary occupation, that those who had lived a sheltered life were not so good as those who had roughed it. …. 

2.6  Gender (Sex)

There are no constraints separating men from women to take up an aviation career and there is no discrimination against female aviators in progressive countries and companies.

Globally only about 3% of pilots are women – that’s about 4,000 out of 130,000 pilots worldwide:

  • British Airways employs 3,500 pilots, but only 200 are female
  • Less than 100 of the 2,500 Qantas pilots are female

Less women than men apply for careers in aviation, perhaps because:

  • 85% of applicants had dreamed of being a pilot since their earliest childhood years.  Perhaps less women than men commit to flying in these early and formative years whilst at home and school,
  • The lack of female role models in aviation,
  • The aviation industry’s lack of support for women who plan to raise children,
  • Gender bias that preferences male pilots.


Regardless of gender, all applicants must possess a passion for aviation, an aptitude for flight and the dedication to commit to a life of learning and development.

3.  Training Options

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Your decision of how to train to fly will be influenced by the status of the industry, the jobs available and your resources to learn to fly.

You will need an Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) to captain a commercial airliner.  You will need to pass about 14 exams and acquire 1,500 hours flying experience.   Here are some of the many pathways that you can take to achieve these goals.

 3.1  Initial Career Assessment

I recommend a few hours of flying instruction or private flying (with a friend) as part of your initial research before you commit to a career in aviation. The theory of maths, science, Bernoulli’s theorem, and the fun and thrills of  of high speed flight are different to the physical realities of oil soaked engines, pre-flighting engines on cold winter mornings, and the first time when all senses overload during practice emergencies.

3.2  Private Flying

(Coutesy Santiago de Larminat)

(Coutesy Santiago de Larminat)

Private flying lessons give you the flexibility to select  the types of skills that you need for your desired career.

Private flying is an excellent method to gain broad skills in diverse areas though often these operations are conducted with unknown  governance, culture, training and standards.

If learning to fly privately, then you should get a twin engine endorsement as soon as possible during your training. Your navigation exercises can then be flown in twin instead of single engine aircraft.  You will therefore acquire multiple engine experience as quickly as possible.  This plan saves money for your overall training and increases your chances of employment.

If you wish to join the military, then limit the amount of private flying first, as the military generally want to take you before you have acquired “other” skills.

3.3  Cadet Program

Cadet Programs are an excellent way to learn to fly for minimal costs, though you might have to repay training costs if you leave before a bonding period expires.

Cadet Programs may have a pre-requisite of  no flying experience, or up to 240 hours (Multi-crew Pilot Licence) or 1,500 hours (FAA)  flying hours experience.

Cadet Programs offer advantages for pilots who are looking for a life and career  in the airlines.   The airlines provide the structured working environments, atmosphere and culture where the pilots learn from osmosis the principles of human factors, responsibility, leadership, safety, teamwork and personal development.  However airline cadets often miss out on flying in diverse environments and experiencing the “challenging events” that give confidence, case harden the skills and bullet proofs the character.

To view these thoughts from another perspective, Friedrich Nietzsche‘s famous quotation:

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”

infers that pilots who develop their skills from diverse and challenging flying backgrounds will probably become more resilient than those who experience a stress-free and risk free passage.    (Malcolm Gladwell’s book “David and Goliath” extends these thoughts.)

Cadet programs can  very expensive.  Lufthansa for example trains its pilot cadets over a period of 29 to 33 months at its Airline Training Centre in Phoenix, Arizona.  The course costs 70,000 Euros US$ 140,000) that is paid back in installments after commencing employment.

Click here to see a list of Pilot Cadet Programs

Cadet programs offer no resilience for your careers in case you become unfit to fly.   Your training program is only focussed towards flying and your pilot’s licence will be of no help later if you lose the ability to fly due to physical or mental problems.

3.4  Technical College Diploma

Technical colleges provide short regimented aviation courses.  Students graduate with a “Diploma in Aviation” and the basic Commercial Pilot’s Licence (CPL).  If you want to be a professional pilot, then expect to outlay additional costs after this course to get twin engine and other experience.

3.5 University Degree

Edward Leung after Hong Kong - Sydney flight Feb 2014

Edward Leung after Hong Kong – Sydney flight Feb 2014. Edward has moved to Australia to complete the Aviation course at The University of New South Wales (photo Edward Leung)

I recommend that pilots gain tertiary skills.  You will have the most resilient career if you combine your flying with a university course in another field.

Acquiring knowledge will help you get a job.  Universities impart knowledge. Knowledge begets confidence.  Knowledge is power.   Knowledge will help you adapt.  Knowledge will help you survive.  Ideally your university course will complement flying.

Universities teach students how to think effectively and be better leaders.  Clear thinkers make better decisions.  Making better decisions builds self-confidence.  Self confidence helps us to make the tough and courageous decisions.

University courses in Science, Aerospace and Engineering provide the most skills to bracket any aviation career.    Many of my pilot friends have degrees in law, psychology, engineering, computing and science.  These courses also bullet-proof your options in case you wish to pursue careers in other industries.

“Aviation Studies” courses normally include physical flying lessons.   These course also include a broad range of aviation subjects (safety, leadership, law,  crew resource management, performance, aerodynamics …. ) that cover the breadth of knowledge that is needed to gain entry to any airline sector.

You will probably graduate from these Aviation Studies courses with a Bachelor’s degree and the subjects completed for an ATPL pilot’s licence.   These qualifications are ideal if you want to join an airline.   These narrower and focussed qualifications have less application though in other industries.

Although the order in which you train is not important, I think that it’s best to undertake university and college courses;

  • straight after school (it’s easier to study when young and used to studying than to study when you are older and have not studied for many years),
  • during a downturn in the industry (when there is less employment), and
  • when working regular flying rosters (studying in your hotel room!)

THE LANCET – 1918:  The [successful] fighting scout is usually the enthusiastic youngster, keen on flying, full of what one might call the “joy of life,” possessing an average intelligence, but knowing little or nothing of the details of his machine or engine; he has little or no imagination, no sense of responsibility, keen sense of humour, able to think and act quickly, and endowed to a high degree with the aforementioned quality, “hands.” He very seldom takes his work seriously, but looks upon “strafing the lines” as a great game.

THE LANCET – 1918:  ….  The authors, however, desire to express their definite conviction that the less the fighting scout pilot knows about his machine from a mechanical point of view the better.

 3.6  Life After Training

Life is not fair.  You will fail often, especially when faced with Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns” and Neil Armstrong’s “unexpected events”.

You must plan to be resilient if you become unable to fly.

Always plan to augment your skill sets after joining an airline.

Give yourself the skills to continue in another profession.  You will be “bullet proof and not gun shy” only when you develop your confidence to face the vicissitudes of life and to continue when the unthinkable happens:

  • never give up,
  • face down your fears,
  • step up when the times are toughest,
  • do the hard things and
  • be all that you can be.
  • It’s at this point that you will have the confidence to take more risks and to advance your career:

4.  Employment Options

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Your focus after gaining your initial licences is to improve your employment prospects.   Use your time constructively:

  • Improve your knowledge.
  • Grab every opportunity to fly.
  • Use spare time to study and gain more advanced licences.
  • I suggest that it is not in your best interests to spend time in other aviation trades  (cabin attendant, ground ops or customer service) at the expense of gaining flying experience.

4.1  Military

“Uncle Sam will pay to teach you, if you’re willing to bleed a little!”

Alex_F18_(640x480)

My son Alexander after a flight to heaven and back in an F-18 fighter.

 

Do NOT join the Military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) to learn to fly for no charge, for this most remarkable flying comes at a great lifestyle cost.

4.1.1  The Military is a lifestyle

The military job is a way of life:  discipline, military history, physical and mental stress, constant study, constant development then deployments when and to where the military decides.   You will be a military officer first, and a pilot second.

You must be confident to undertake a military flying career

4.1.2  Personal Qualities in the Military

You must exhibit (or have the potential to develop) the following personal skills to undertake a career as an officer pilot in the military:

  • Physical fitness.   Flying fighters requires peak physical fitness.  You will sweat, puff, pant, strain your neck and be fatigued at the end of a 30 minute combat manoeuvres flight.
  • Confidence and the ability to handle failure.  You cannot expects others to have confidence in you if you do not believe in yourself.
  • Initiative
  • Leadership.   You will be asked to give examples where you exhibited leadership in challenging situations.   You will be tested for Leadership, situation awareness and problem solving skills.
  • Teamwork

Military life is hard!    Be prepared to change your thinking, expectations and actions to suit the military doctrine.  These values and beliefs were best described by Admiral William H. McRaven:

  • (Photo:  Richard de Crespigny)Start every day with a task completed (even if it is just making your bed!)
  • Find a mentor to help you through life
  • Respect everyone
  • Understand and take risks
  • Step up when others falter
  • Face down aggression and bullies
  • Support others
  • Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often, so
  • Never, Ever give up
Jim Lovell  (Photo:  Michael Watson)

Commander Jim Lovell (ex US Navy) (Photo: Michael Watson)

Chuck Yeager on Twitter:   (Chuck was the first pilot to exceed the speed of sound (Mach 1))

Reader asks Chuck:   “Isn’t flying expensive to learn for a profession?”

Chuck Yeager answers:   “Uncle Sam will pay to teach you, if you’re willing to bleed a little!”

4.1.3  Academic Skills and the Military

Your military flying training only starts when you acquire the foundation skills.

You must have skills in  the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects to be eligible for a career as a military pilot.   The military uses only the most advanced and leading edge technologies.  So you must understand how high technology is designed and constructed so that you can operate it to its full potential.   Arts skills are valued lower than STEM skills.

If your STEM skills are lacking, then act to improve them.   Read and practice maths and physics. When you apply sufficient effort, your skills will improve and you will start to enjoy these subjects as a result.

4.1.4  Military Return of Service

A military career is a long career.

The RAAF invested about 1.5 million dollars in the 1970s for my RAAF Academy and pilot training courses, so I had to spend at least eleven years in the force.

Today the costs exceed five million dollars and the bonding period has increased to about 14 years!

THE LANCET – 1918:  ….  Flying Overseas:  There is certainly a cumulative strain on the pilot, greater than any other form of aviation. Duties overseas consist of: (1) artillery observation; (2) offensive and defensive patrols; (3) trench strafing; (4) night bombing; (5) day bombing ; (6) long reconnaissance and photography.  

THE LANCET – 1918:  ….  One of the greatest strains on the pilot’s nerves is when he sees one of his friends go down in flames, or, after arriving at the mess, he learns that so-and-so is missing. When this occurs with monotonous regularity it is very hard for the pilot to maintain his mental equilibrium. There is no branch of the service where losses are more keenly felt.

Embedded image permalink

4.1.5  Civil aviation for ex military aviators

Military pilots make excellent commercial aviation pilots:

  • The remarkable Sully Sullenberger

    The remarkable Sully Sullenberger (ex USAF)

    The flying skills and experience attained in the armed forces exceed the minimum standards of commercial airlines.  When recruiting new pilots, airlines usually double the hours of military flying experience when equating them to civil pilot flying experience.  The military pilot’s deep knowledge about the theory of flight, airframes, aerodynamics, performance and propulsion form an excellent foundation for any civil aviation career.  You should have sufficient experience for employment in any commercial airline if you leave after completing your “return years of service” (to repay the military for their costs to train you).

  • Andy Green and  his Bloodhound Super Sonic Car

    Wing Commander Andy Green (RAF) and his Bloodhound Super Sonic Car

    Military pilots aspire to perfection knowing that it is an illusion and that they will never achieve it.  The airspeeds, altitudes and approaches that they fly might be close to the target, but close is never good enough and they know that they must always improve their skills and expand their limits.

  • Military pilots understand leadership, teamwork, comradeship and trust.  Military courses are designed for teams, not individuals.  Obstacle courses are designed to defeat individuals – you will only survive if you help others and in turn others help you.   The best military leaders exhibit the highest standards in these areas, replacing attitudes of narcissism and conceit with humility and vulnerability.
  • Failure is never an option for the best military aviators.     This attitude is exemplified by navy pilots who must return from a mission with little fuel and perhaps a damaged aircraft to land on a dark very short and unlit deck on an aircraft carrier  that is pitching on rough seas in stormy weather.    These skills do not go unnoticed.  Jim Hansen recounts that six of the seven Apollo commanders that landed on the moon were former navy aviators.

4.1.6  Military bonds are forever

John Bartels (ex Royal Australian Navy)

John Bartels (Now: Captain A380.  Ex: Royal Australian Navy)

You don’t cross a finish line alone in the military,  you always cross it with someone else

The bonds that you make with your course colleagues will never be broken. You will never forget your shared experiences.

Your colleagues become your extended family.  You remember their families, their girlfriends, their strengths, their weaknesses, how you helped them and how they assisted you in return.

You don’t cross a finish line alone in the military,  you always cross it with someone else.  You train together, you survive together.   I remember the weekly physical test at the RAAF Academy.  We failed the test if we were unable to run a few kilometers within a specific time.   I was a good long distance runner.  My friend Gerry Carter was a great short distance runner.  So Gerry and I used to pair up and run the test together, he pulling me along through the middle sections and I spurring him on to the end.  The instructors saw our alliance and feigned not liking it.  Standing at the finish line they yelled out, “faster de Crespigny!  Don’t slow for Carter“;  but I never did speed up.  Gerry and I raced as a team, we finished as a team.

Friendships and respect forged in the military last forever.  For example, today I met Professor Joe Lynch during my flight from Dubai to London (19th April 2015) .  Joe was one of the 44 other cadets that joined the RAAF Academy with me in 1975.   I went my way after graduation and Joe went his way to fly Chinook helicopters.   I had only seen Joe a handful of times since we graduated pilots’ course in 1979, but it didn’t matter.  It was as though I had seen Joe just yesterday.   The memories and emotions came back when  I hugged Joe.   Nothing else needed to be said.

4.2  International Airlines

(Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

(Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

QF1, Sydney Dubai, October 2013.  (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

QF1, Sydney Dubai, October 2013. (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

The best international airlines only recruit well trained and experienced pilots.

The airlines do not teach you to fly, they simply show you their standard operating procedures and convert you to their aircraft.

The aircraft, pay and conditions are superior, but you will be employed to ultimately be a captain and the highest flying and leadership standards are expected. You will need about 1,500 / 3,000  military/civil hours respectively.

The international airlines generally employ pilots with jet experience from the military, turboprop and jet airlines.

Flaring from 40,000 feet overhead the Iran Oil Fields 2014.

Flaring from 40,000 feet overhead the Iran Oil Fields 2014.

4.3  Regional, Domestic and Low Cost (budget) Airlines

(Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

Bombardier Dash 8 at Tamworth Airport (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

The regional, domestic and low cost (budget) airlines live in the middle of the pilot “food chain”.   These airlines operate with razor thin margins.

The low cost and budget airlines generally operate over short routes of less than three hours to hopefully fly more sectors than the value added airlines.  All costs are trimmed to provide the legal minimum requirements.

The value added domestic airlines face significant competition.  They might fly longer routes than the low cost airlines, but the increased choices of airlines and the competition puts an upper cap on air fares.

Domestic airlines are very different to long haul international airlines.  The average sector length of the short haul airlines is between 2.5 to 3 hours, compared to 7-8 hours for the long haul operators.   You will fly more sectors, have better hands-on flying skill,  return to your home each night and be less affected by jet lag than your long haul brethren.

The low cost airlines generally have only a few aircraft types.   The pay is less, with more limiting career promotions and less exotic international travel than those offered by the long haul airlines.

You might be able to join these airlines with the minimum of 240 flying hours (Multicrew Pilot Licence) or 1,500 hours (FAA).

Be very careful joining an low cost airline with less than 300 hours of flying experience.  Safety is reduced when airlines put inexperienced of under-confident pilots into the First Officer’s seat.  You will be flying with only one other pilot. You must  learn the skills of your trade much faster and with fewer safety nets than apprentice pilots in the international airlines.

Its not just your passengers that are put at risk, it’s your career if the unthinkable happens and your performance is questioned.

Be prepared to pay for your training costs if you leave the low cost airline before your bonding period is repaid.

The need for regional flying is growing.   For the regional airlines in Australia from 1985 – 2008:   (RAAA conference  Sep11)

  • The number of regional airports has reduced down from 268 to 138
  • The number of airlines has reduced from 53 down to 27
  • BUT the number of passengers has increased from 1 million up to 6 million

4.4  Air Freight Companies

The passenger aircraft industry offers a more reliable future for pilots than the air freight industry.

190 specialist air freight companies boomed over the last twenty years at times when jet fuel was cheap and the rapid road and sea freight alternatives were underdeveloped, slow and provided poor customer service.

Times have now changed.  The air freight industry that once boomed is now holding steady or even in a gentle decline whilst the ground freight companies provide cost effective and acceptable competition. Only 0.5% (43m of 8.8b tonnes) of sea and air freight was carried in the air in 2012.    50% of this air freight is carried in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft.   The remaining 50% is carried by 1,645 dedicated air freighters, two thirds of which are converted passenger aircraft.    The belly based cargo market has declined 30% over the past four years due to effective competition from alternative carriers.    (RAeS AeroSpace, Oct 2014 p10)

Looking out twenty years to 2034, the market for air freighter pilots is uncertain, particularly whilst jet fuel prices remain high and surface based competitors become more efficient.  Even the internet delivers many goods electronically that were once packaged and air freighted. Nevertheless aircraft manufacturers remain optimistic and forecast the freight industry will continue to grow at 3.2% per annum. They forecast the number of dedicated freighter aircraft will increase by 2,670 (870 new and 1,800 converted passenger aircraft).    (RAeS AeroSpace, Oct 2014 p10)

I forecast that short range air freight will be managed via:

  • increasing excess capacity of cargo holds of passenger aircraft,
  • a steady or even declining number of dedicated air freighters, and
  • increasing efficient road, rail and sea freight alternatives.

I forecast that long range air freight will be managed via:

  •  increasing excess capacity of cargo holds of international passenger aircraft,
  • a steady number of dedicated air freighters.   I also forecast that in 30 years we will see autonomous air freighters (with remotely pilot override) that will transit the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, and
  • increasing efficient sea freight alternatives.

4.5  Tourist Industry / Outback / Crop Dusters

(Helicopter tours on the Big Island -

Blue Hawaiian Helicopters tours on the Big Island. Kona (the island’s second airport) and this heliports are deposited on top of and covering many black lava flows. (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

4.5.1 Tourist Industry

I suggest that for other than retired pilots, that the tourist industry be planned as a brief “means to an end” to acquire flying hours on your journey to a jet airline.

Flying in the tourist  industry is one of the best ways to build up your hours prior to joining an airline though the repetitive nature of the flying limits your full potential.  1,000 hours flying the same 1 hour sector produces less learning experiences than 300 flights with random routes and destinations.

4.5.2 Outback Flying

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”  (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Ryan Bullock asks:  “I currently have an option to fly in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia for a year and also for a cadet-ship with a regional airline.   Which should I pick”.

Ryan, I would accept the offer to fly in the NT then take the cadet-ship with the regional.  The exciting outback experience will provide a great foundation for any commercial airline position.   I also think that early in a pilot’s career, that time is best spent laying a broad range of core skills and experience than to just acquire seniority in an airline.

I recommend all pilots early their career take up opportunities to fly in the sparsely populated areas the world (Australia, Alaska, Canada, New Guinea, South America ….).

Imagine this (brief) sojourn similar to a medical internship – the pay and working conditions might be poor, but you will gain immeasurable experience, confidence and resilience whilst also having fun learning the basic practicalities of flight, navigation and performance, all without the distractions that come with congested skies and over-controlling management.

Outback pilots quickly acquire the maturity and many of the basis hands-on flight skills necessary to start a flying career.   You will gain responsible and be able to  appreciate and manage the diverse threats and stresses such as navigation, weather, cold/hot temperatures, poor aircraft performance, aircraft mechanics, poor airfields and sometimes troublesome passengers.

Many of our most valuable life-lessons are learned from challenging experiences, and those who have seen more will be more armor-plated to anticipate and manage future risks.   You will probably inadvertently scare yourself a few times and learn to appreciate the benefit of not skimping on your fuel orders and weight and balance limitations.

You will also probably come to appreciate the technical complexities and risks of low flying.  More importantly thought, you will start to appreciate your skills and limitations and become aware of when it is prudent to stand with the birds on the ground rather than to launch into the unknown and into potentially dangerous weather conditions.

4.5.3 Crop Dusting

(iStockphoto)

(iStockphoto)

I only recommend Crop Dusting and other low level high performance flying jobs for the case hardened, mature and experienced pilots. Except for military and helicopter flight, it’s almost always safer to he higher than lower in the air.


Crop Dusting pilots work in an almost exclusive environment of severe risks and stresses:  limiting performance, time, dust, visibility, wires, fatigue. Save the Crop Dusting career until you have thousands of hours experience and the maturity to know your aircraft’s and your body’s limitations and the confidence to say “NO, I’m not flying today!”. Your friends and family will thank you for these decisions!

5  Employment Tests & Interviews

Back to: Aviation Pathways

The interview is not about you,  what you know or your qualifications.  It’s about the company, how you will fit into its teams and culture, influence others and  finally deliver results.

It’s not about you – it’s about them!

Airlines hire future junior pilots with the intention that they will become captains.   Airlines worry about hiring the wrong person because this is one of the most costly mistakes that they can make.   It’s expensive in terms of money, time, market momentum, credibility and emotional energy.  They also worry about the risk to their business and reputation if they entrust their brand to someone who fails to deliver or damages relationships through incompetence or unethical behavior.

You must convince the interviewer that you understand the company and why you are a necessary part of their future.

Tony Hughes writes:

It’s not about you – it’s about them! That’s strange, you’re thinking, they’ve asked me in for an interview and they’re asking questions about me – of course it’s about me! They want to compare me with others. No, they want to know what you can do for them compared with what others can do for them. There is a very important distinction – what can you do for them? Not, tell us everything about you.

Painting by Jaak de Koninck http://www.jaakdekoninck.be/

Painting by Jaak de Koninck
http://www.jaakdekoninck.be/

5.1  Preparing for your Interviews

5.1.1  Housekeeping

  • Ensure your Curriculum Vitae is tailored for the specific job and up to date.  Keep the summary short – no longer than two pages.   A LinkedIn page does not replace a resume.  Focus on your characteristics and capabilities more than your aspirations.  For example  Leadership (responsibility, authority, confidence, courage, vision, organisation, communication).  Confirm your referees are able to support your applications.
  • Clean-up / shutdown your social media.  Shutdown inappropriate social media channels.  Remove any embarrassing photos or text.  Be prepared to log on and show your social media pages to your employer

5.1.2  Research

You must prepare and do massive research before your interview:

  • Company structure
  • Aircraft types, route structures
  • Company history, share price over past 10 years
  • SWOT analysis
  • Knowledge about the industry/sector – 3 major current issues
  • What are one/two favorite things about the company – why do you want this job?

5.1.3  Reading

Fledgling pilots should read:

  • QF32.  I designed QF32 to be a motivator for and assistance to anyone seeking an aviation career.

Future jet pilots should read:

  • “Handling the Big Jets” by D.P. Davies.  Although written in the 1970’s this book contains timeless gems for heavy commercial jet operations.

5.1.4  Tests

You will probably be required to complete psychometric and aptitude testing.

Psychometric tests assess specific personality types, values and beliefs as a measure of motivation and suitability for a specific job.

Aptitude tests measure the ability to perform specific tasks in varying situations and stress.  These tests may include:

  • Motor control – basic hand/foot/visual motor coordination and tracking skills.
  • Maths, physics, English and comprehension
  • Memory –  short and long term memory
  • Multi-tasking – perform multiple tasks accurately and under pressure
  • Spatial Perception and Orientation

5.2  Interviews

You will be interviewed by a panel of specialists.   Have examples of your situations and experiences that show your ability to:

  • solve problems
  • show commitment, initiative, leadership
  • work with difficult people
  • manage upwards when  required

Demeanor

  • Be confident, engaging and engaged.
  • Be happy to enter a conversations but don’t talk or waffle on about yourself too much.  Remember, it’s not about you!   Show them subconsciously that you understand their problems, what they need and how you can deliver.
  • You don’t need to fill in quiet space
  • Be prepared for the impossible or tricky questions.  Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know but I’ll find out”

You have to want to work for them as much as they want you.  So consider asking questions about the:

  • culture
  • communications, all voices heard/valued
  • personal development,
  • teams versus the individual,
  • promotion
  • philanthropy


Third party companies provide courses to help you improve your interview and test results:

6. Career  Development

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Summary

  • Aviation has irrevocably changed with the arrival of low value add airlines in our flat globalized world.
  • Your rate of promotion in an airline depends upon the health of the aviation industry, your company and your skill sets.
  • Pilots are more personally responsible now for their personal and career development than at any time in the past.
A380 Diversion Fuels from London Heathrow  (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

A380 Diversion Fuels from London Heathrow (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

A pilot’s life is a never ending journey of  learning and discovery.   The skills that helped you get your airline job won’t keep you there in this fast morphing world.   Your skills have to develop to keep in pace with the industry.  You are responsible (not the company) to ensure that your skill sets develop and diversifies to remain relevant.

You are the master of your destiny.   There are no fairy godmothers who will mentor you and guide you through your career.   However, great things happen when preparation meets opportunity.

6.1  Health – Aviation Industry

The aviation industry has doubled in size every fifteen years since the 1970s.   This growth rate is forecast to continue through to at least about 1940.  (It is forecast to triple from 2011 to 2050)     (Aviation Industry)

The aviation industry also exhibits growth cycles having a 10 to 15 year period.    Try to identify where the industry is currently in relation to the cyclic changes.

Knowing these trends will help you when deciding whether to seek employment (on the upside swing) or complete full time education or military service (on the down side).

6.2  Health – Companies

(Photo Airbus)

(Photo Airbus)

Choose your employer carefully.  Your promotion will be limited by the depth and growth of your employer. Promotion will be rapid in an expanding company.

Airlines are financially more challenged now than ever before.   The world’s airlines were expected to return a $3 billion profit in 2012 on $631 billion in revenues. That’s a razor-thin 0.5 per cent margin.” (IATA Jul12)

One analyst put it succinctly:

“the yields are asymptoting to zero!”

This low margin means that the airlines now have little profit remaining after paying dividends to stakeholders to allocate for mentoring pilots and their careers.

Three examples will suffice:

  • I joined Qantas as a Second Officer in 1986.  I then spent 18 months as a Second Officer before taking up the First Officer Promotions course.   Today , that same transition (S/O to F/O) is taking up to fourteen years.    Transition from F/O to Captain is taking another 5 years.
  • Promotion will be rapid in Lion Air.   Lion Air commenced operations in Indonesia in early 2000 and now has a combined fleet of over 700 aircraft.   Lion Air ordered 234 new aircraft in 2013!    There should be a rapid transition from F/O to Captain.
  • Promotion will be rapid in the Middle Eastern airlines for experienced First Officers and Captains.   These airlines require pilots who have in excess of 3,000 hours of jet experience.

6.3  Pilot Skill Sets

THE LANCET – 1918: The skilful pilot appears to anticipate” bumps.”  He is invariably a graceful flyer, never unconsciously throws an undue strain on the machine, just as a good riding man will never make a horse’s mouth bleed.

Sydney Runway 34 with simulated 125 metre minimum visibility required for takeoff  (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Sydney Runway 34 with simulated 125 metre minimum visibility required for takeoff (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Do what you love and love what you do.

  •  Get used to the concept that your (pilot’s) life will be one of continual practice, learning, development and acquisition of new skills.
  • Your employer will expect you to turn up with the right attitude, present to your passengers and “make their day”..  You can’t fake these skills – they are driven by your passions, values and beliefs.  So  understand what you love, then love what you do.  When these actions come from the heart, then they will be honest, contagious, effortless and people will follow you.
  • Be skilled up in advance of your next promotion opportunity.   Pass your ATPL subject exams at the earliest opportunity.
  • Knowledge, training and experience gives you confidence and courage to face the risks, make the best decisions and hopefully in the worst case survive the events that you had never trained for nor expected.  Your career will stagnate when your skills stagnate.  You must never stop learning for you will never know everything about aviation.  
Sydney Runway 34  (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Sydney Runway 34 (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

 Airline initial and recurrent training is now conducted in simulators.   This Airbus video shows how pilots now use many simulation tools on their path to a front seat in the big jets.

Find a senior pilot who will mentor you throughout your career.

Here is your checklist to remain resilient as a pilot in aviation:

  • Be ruthlessly and unendingly curious.  Become addicted to and embrace change and learning.  Resist the status quo.   Become immune to the feeling of underconfidence when you are pushed outside your comfort zone.
  • Maintain your passion for and literacy in the fields of science and technology:  what you use, how it works, and why it’s necessary.
  • Embrace future trends, always looking for opportunities to evolve.
  • Read and study and cross reference books, magazines, web sites and trade press.
  • Learn from every crash and near miss.
  • Socialise with the other pilots when away from home base – don’t retreat to your room to play computer games.
  • Join the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators and other aviation organisations.  (View this video that details why you should join the RAeS)
  • Develop your computer skills.   Learn to code in any computer language as these skills will give you the confidence to be in command and critical of the automated systems that you will have to work with, that will at some time fail.
  • Don’t use paper.  Build then continually update your personal Knowledge Management (KM) system which is your repository and cross-reference for your aviation knowledge.  (100% of my aviation knowledge is stored in a structured PC based knowledge management tool that is hyper-linked, indexed and constantly updated.)  Click here for more information about KM systems.
  • Be confident flying your aircraft,  Be unafraid of your aircraft.  Wear it like a glove.
  • Maintain your hands-on flying skills!  Don’t fall into the trap of believing that hands-on flying skills are not needed in new highly automated aircraft, for your job is to guarantee the safety of your passengers whether your aircraft is stalled, inverted, spinning or on fire (QF32 p 102).  (Proof:  Of the 4269 fatalities from commercial jets between 2003-2012, 39% (1648)  were due to Loss of Control In-flight and 18% (765) during landing! (Boeing Summary August 2013))

6.4 When to Leave

It’s your life, you have limited days left.  None can be repeated.  Take charge of your days.  Don’t waste them!

Damaged lift on QF32's wing tips  (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Damaged lift on QF32’s wing tips (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

It’s difficult to know when it’s the right time to leave one employer for another.   Imagine the situation where you have a great job, friends and lifestyle with your current employer.  The next job offers better conditions, but there are associated risks when you change jobs and it’s very hard to balance up all the factors and decide if and when it’s best to pull up your roots and commit to a new employer.

Here are my thoughts to consider when deciding if it’s time to leave your employer:

  • Leave when you are no longer challenged.  Leave when you are no longer learning, broadening your experiences or developing professionally.
  • Leave if you do not share the values, ethics, cultures and beliefs of the company.
  • Leave it the company does not appreciate your input.

The ultimate test is:  What would you do if you found out today that you had an incurable disease and that you had only a few years left left to live?  Would you stay with your friends in your current mediocre job or move to another job?   Let the answer to this question be your ultimate guide.

It’s your life, you have limited days left.  None can be repeated.  Take charge of your days.  Don’t waste them!

7.   Alternate Career

Security is a swear word!

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Are you are prepared for the unexpected?   Every pilot should have a plan for an alternate (secondary) career in the event that their primary career is halted due to ill health, airline retrenchments or a bad experience.

Four examples suffice:

  1. In 1976, my 18 year old friend found that his aviation medical was permanently cancelled after he was knocked unconscious for the second time whilst playing football.  He was subsequently forced to leave the RAAF Academy!
  2. I started my computer company shortly after joining my Airline as I calculated that I had a 50% chance of being retrenched in event of an industry down-turn.
  3. Hundreds of pilots’ careers came to a quick end as a result of the 1989 Australian pilots’ dispute.
  4. Many of my friends have had their aviation medical license permanently revoked (and their aviation careers terminated) due to declining health.

Pilots can purchase “Loss of Licence” insurance in the event that they cannot renew their Aviation Medical Certificate.   However I consider the cost of this prohibitive for the return.

Rather than taking Loss of Licence insurance, I recommend that when you have found your first job in an airline that you study to acquire a backup career in another profession (building, law, finance, computing …).   Ideally choose an alternate career that complements aviation (ie computing, electronics, engineering ..).

You should have an alternate career in reserve in case you decide that aviation is not for you.   You need a backup career so that you do not feel like a prisoner locked in a career that no longer inspires you.   Perhaps:

  • you are tired of the stress that accompanies the continual study, simulator checks and route checks
  • your body does not handle the time zone changes
  • your wife does not like you being away from home and the kids
  • your income is not worth the early starts and late finishes
  • you become tired of flying

7.1  Security is an illusion

“Security is a swear word!”   I purposely wrote these words in my book QF32 (page 33) because you will never find security in an aerospace career.   Indeed it’s an illusion and counter-productive for those who think that they have it.

Insecurity is the fuel to build resilience.   It’s okay to feel insecure.   It’s positive, healthy and motivating to be aware that you are never safe from risk, and that others would be willing to take your place if given the opportunity.

People respond well to insecurity.  Our minds are biased to fear failure more than we value success.   We fear missing goals and losing opportunities.

Insecurity will keep you on your toes.  It will energise you to seek new opportunities and espouse the best work ethic and to succeed.  Listen to you insecurities and let them power your progress.

So never take anything for granted.  Never stop enhancing and diversifying your skill sets.   The sooner you accept to live with insecurity, the sooner you will take control over your career and your destiny.

7.2 Alternative Careers in Aerospace

Heath Calhoun (Courtesy Richard de Crespigny)

Heath Calhoun at the 2013 IPC World Cup, Thredbo (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Many potential pilots will be disappointed to discover that they are unable to pursue a flying career.  The strict medical, physical and psychological requirements will prevent many aspiring pilots from achieving their dreams.

If you find yourself in this category then do not give up – do not surrender for there are many exciting and rewarding alternative careers in aerospace that are waiting for you – if you jump to the challenge!

never give up – never surrender!

Canberra Grammar Code Cadets  (www.codecadets.com)

Canberra Grammar Code Cadets (www.codecadets.com)

I recommend that you attend university and complete an engineering degree if you want to embark on a non flying aerospace career.    I recommend a commerce, finance, or law degree if you do not want to complete an engineering degree.

Engineers gain the practical knowledge, skills and experience that engenders courage and the confidence to tackle any aerospace profession. Indeed, engineers appear to dominate in the highest echelons of aviation in leadership, management and specialist areas. An engineering degree will also ensure employment in almost every STEM based industry.

I think the Mechatronics Engineering degree provides the ideal foundation for any aerospace career.

Exciting opportunities exist for university graduates in the following aeronautical industries.  Pick the career that motivates you the most:

  • Andy Green and  his Bloodhound Super Sonic Car

    Wing Commander Andy Green and his Bloodhound  (Mach 1.3) Super Sonic Car

    Leadership & Management  (Tom Enders, CEO Airbus is an engineer.   Richard Carcaillet, Head of Strategic Marketing at Airbus is an Aeronautical Engineer.  Simon Ford, head of Alternative Investments at ANZ is an Aeronautical Engineer, Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas is a mathematician)

  • Finance (leasing, venture finance, insurance)  (Most of the infrastructure financiers at (Banque Nationale de Paris)  hold engineering degrees)
  • Safety (safety, risk, certification)
  • Administration (flight planning, scheduling, crisis management)
  • Manufacture (aircraft, simulators, support equipment, UAVs)
  • Training (simulator instructor, ground theory instructor, safety, CRM, decision making, teamwork, psychology
  • Electronics (simulators, aircraft systems, communications)
  • Airservices Aviation Rescue and Fire Fighting fire vehicles welcome home VH-OQA Nancy-Bird Walton at Sydney Airport.  (Courtesy AirServices)

    Airservices Aviation Rescue and Fire Fighting fire vehicles welcome home VH-OQA Nancy-Bird Walton at Sydney Airport. (Courtesy AirServices)

    Engineer (airframe, avionics, power-plant, design, performance)

  • Computing (automation, robotics, brain in a computer)
  • Services (fire, rescue, Air Traffic Control, airports, ground support)
  • Military (army, navy, air force, marines)
  • Space (rocketry, commercial travel, exploration)
  • Research and Development (STEM, renewable power, fusion, power storage, aerodynamics, DARPA, NASA ..)

This list provides a remarkably exciting view into the next generation of career opportunities that will be available for engineering or STEM graduates.

I envy the opportunities that are available for you to choose from and I hope that you jump to the challenge!

8.  Aviation Industry

Back to: Aviation Pathways

2050 - 70% of the world's population living in megapoles connected by VLA (A380, B747) and internally serviced by smaller A320-A350 and 727-787 aircraft.

2050 – 70% of the world’s population living in megapoles connected by VLA (A380, B747) acft

Demographics

By 2050, six billion of the world’s 9 billion will be living in regional hubs (megalopolies or megalopoles) separated by about eight hours flying time.  (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014)

The World’s aviation industry has been reliably doubling every 15 years (since 1972).  This growth is expected to continue over the next twenty years. The number of passenger kilometers travelled will triple between 2010 and 2050.

To meet this expected demand, the number of aircraft (in service) will double (from 20k to 42k) and 1,500 aircraft must be built every year through till 2050. (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014)

Forecast Air Travel Growth 2013 to 2033  (Courtesy Airbus)

Forecast Air Travel Growth 2013 to 2033 (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

Pilot Employment

The overall  number of aircraft will double over the period from 2010 to 2050. 533,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed to fly the new aircraft over the next 20 years (2014-2033)   (Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014):

  • Asia Pacific – 216,000
  • Europe – 94,000
  • North America – 88,000
  • Latin America – 45,000
  • Middle East – 55,000
  • Africa – 17,000
  • Russia and CIS – 18,000

8.1.1  Asia

Expect many jet pilot jobs to surface in Asia over the next two decades.   Asian opportunities will help you accrue significant jet command hours in a minimum time as part of your journey to the larger international carriers.

  •  Pilot demand in the Asia Pacific region now comprises 41 percent of the world’s needs  (Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014)
  • 216,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed over the next 20 years   (Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014)
  • Asia is now the largest (and fastest growing) air transport market in the world with 948m passengers, followed by North America (808m) and Europe (780·6m) (IATA 2013).
  • Asia is the machine driving most of the aviation growth as an estimated 2 billion Asian (and Indian and South American) people increase in prosperity and become eligible to take low cost flights
  • 30% of the industry is now based in Asia Pacific (Tony Webber, 2011)
  • 45% of aircraft traffic will be in Asia Pacific region in 2050. (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014)
  • 45 new airports are being built in Asia over the next 5 years. (IATA Jun 2011)
  • 40% of the worlds cargo market is in Asia  (IATA Jun 2011)
  • The worlds largest order of 234 aircraft was recently made in March 2013 by Lion Air of Indonesia, a company that formed only thirteen years ago and currently has 18,000 workers.
  • Understand the benefits and opportunities offered by the ASEAN Open Skies Agreement to open up the Asian markets in 2014 for unparalleled access.
  • Japan’s Low Cost aviation market has potential growth of at least 400% over the next few years as Bullet Train Passengers change to faster-cheaper low cost airlines (i.e. Jet Star Japan)  (Deutsche Bank – 2013)
  • Hong Kong airport’s two runways were 96% fully utilised in 2013 and will be saturated by 2016.   The airport currently services 370,000 flights over the past 12 months (an average of 65 flights per hour, close to its  upper cap of 68 per hour).  (Norman Lo Shung (Director-General, Civil Aviation Department, Hong Kong, 2013))
  • I recommend that you view Hans Rosling’s excellent presentation that expertly explains the origins of the emerging affluent China and Asia economies.  Draw you own conclusions for opportunities in air travel.
Air Traffic growth by region (Courtesy Airbus)

Air Traffic growth by region (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

Regional

  • Airbus forecasts Asia-Pacific to be biggest regional market by 2032.  (AGMF Sep 2013)

Long Haul

  • 93%/99% of long haul traffic is/will be flown between 42/90 Aviation Mega Airports in 2013/2032 respectively   (AGMF Sep 2013)
Aircraft Demand by Region (Courtesy Airbus)

Aircraft Demand by Region. Aircraft aircraft orders (split by size) shows that aviation growth is centered in Asia Pacific & the Middle East (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

Airbus Backlog 2013

Asia’s sphere of influence! Aircraft orders shows that aviation growth is tilted towards Asia Pacific & the Middle East (Courtesy Airbus Global Market Forecast 2013-2032)

8.1.2 Middle East

The Middle Eastern airlines are defining aviation’s future for the next 50 years.

The Gulf has established itself as a key aviation hub from the perspective of linking continents by air. 55,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed over the next 20 years (2013-2032) (Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014)

The Middle Eastern carriers (Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and Flydubai) placed  a staggering US$162 billion order for aircraft at the Paris Airshow in November 2013.  Emirates placed a US$99 billion order (list prices), the  largest aircraft order in history for 200 aircraft comprising: 35 Boeing 777-8Xs, 115 Boeing 777-9Xs and 50 Airbus A380 aircraft.  

Emirates has so many aircraft on order that they will need 19 new pilots to train EVERY DAY for the next decade to meet demand.

8.1.3  Europe

Overhead London Heathrow at 6 am. (Photo RDC)

Overhead London Heathrow at 6 am Sep 2014. (Photo RDC)

94,000 new commercial airline pilots will be needed in Europe and the CIS over the next 20 years (2013-2032)(Boeing Pilot and Technical Market Outlook for 2014)

European aviation is also doubling about every 15 years.  European air traffic controllers are expecting demand to double between 2013 & 2025-30.

In an already congested airspace, controllers are transitioning to four dimensional control (latitude, longitude, altitude, time) .   (Richard Deakin, CEO, NAS, presenting the RAeS Brabazon lecture, Nov 2013)

9.  Aircraft

  1. Aircraft production
  2. Boeing predictions
  3. Airbus forecasts
  4. Pilot-Less Aircraft

Back to: Aviation Pathways

9.1. Aircraft Production

Emirates crossing @ 1,800 kilometres per hour 4,000 feet above  (RDC)

Emirates A380 crossing @ 1,800 kilometres per hour 4,000 feet above (RDC)

The demand for and production  of new aircraft is at an all time high:

  • This is the busiest year in 15 for maiden flights:  Airbus A350 (June 2013), Boeing 787-9  (Sep 2013) and the Bombardier CSeries (Sep 2013)
  • The worlds fleet of 20,000 commercial aircraft will more than double to 42,000 aircraft by 2050  (Alain Garcia, Former Airbus CTO, 2014)
  • The newest Airbus A380, Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 aircraft will probably be flying until 2060

9.1.1.   Boeing predictions – next 20 years (Jun13)

Alexander  with Randy Neville (Boeing's 787 Chief Pilot in the 787 Flight Simularor in Seattle Jan 2012 (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

Alexander with Randy Neville (Boeing’s 787 Chief Pilot in the 787 Flight Simularor in Seattle Jan 2012 (Photo Richard de Crespigny)
Congratulations to Randy who piloted the 787-9 on its first flight today over Seattle. (18 Sep 2013).

  • Airlines will need 35,280 new jets worth $4.8 trillion as the world’s fleet doubles over the next 20 yrs (this is a 3.8% increase from Boeing’s prior 20-year outlook)
  • Anticipates a surge in Asia-Pacific travel that will keep production rates at jet factories rising
  • Airlines will need 24,670 single-aisle jets worth $2.29 trillion at list prices, up from 23,240 forecast last year
  • Trend is for less or flat demand compared with previous forecasts for larger or smaller acft

9.1.2.  Airbus forecasts

(Graph: RDC)

(Graph: RDC)

The Airbus Forecast of 2014 includes:

China will displace North America as the world’s largest domestic market before 2024.  Airbus is considering building a short range A330 fine tuned for Chinese domestic routes.

31,400 new aircraft required  (US$4.6 trillion) up until 2033 (next 20 yrs).   The world’s in-service fleet will double:

  • 20,000 single isle (up 9% from previous forecast)
  • 7,800 twin isle
  • 1,500 very large aircraft

The Airbus Forecast of 2013 includes:

  • 29,226 new aircraft  up until 2032 (next 20 yrs):
  • 10,409 to replace older aircraft
  • 18,817 for growth
  • 20,000 new helicopters up until 2033 (Tom Enders, 13 Dec 2013)

9.2.  Pilot-less Aircraft

Commercial aircraft pilots are an endangered species.

9.2.1  Pilot-less aircraft – the threat to pilots

As aircraft auto-flight systems progressively become more reliable and efficient, there will be a point in time where travellers start to trust their lives to pilot-less aircraft.  At that point commercial airline pilots will become an endangered species.

Commercial pilots will ultimately become extinct when the commercial aviation industry moves to fully embrace pilot-less aircraft.

9.2.2  Building resilient pilot-less aircraft

We will only be able to build resilient pilot-less aircraft when we can replicate human consciousness, awareness and prediction in a machine.

We will only be able to build resilient pilot-less aircraft when we can replicate human consciousness, awareness and prediction in a machine.

I do not expect the first sentient machine to be built until about 2025.  It will take another ten to fifteen years to take this design to the production floor.  Until then, it is the pilots who have the only chance to save people during Black Swan events.

The current generation of serial processing computers (Servers, PCs, Apple Macs ..) provide no path to or solution for the creation of sentient machines.  These current machines are neither fault tolerant nor resilient.  Here are two cases of  severe consequences that resulted from simple computer failures in current high technology machines:

  • The almost total closure of UK airspace on the 12th December 2014 due to a failure of an air traffic control computer server.
  • The failure that led to the crew of an A380 conducting an emergency descent from 40,000 feet  over the Indian ocean on the 1oth December 2014.  Two air conditioning “packs” each contain two air generation systems that supply compressed air to pressurise the A380’s cabin to a cabin altitude no higher than 8,000 feet above sea level.   I think that a failure in the electrical system or the aircraft’s monitoring systems lead to an incorrect signal being generated that commanded both air conditioning packs to shut down!    (A similar failure has caused the same result on a Boeing 747.)

The human brain is at least 20,000 times more power efficient than the TrueNorth chip “brain”.

Machines must mimic the parallel processing capabilities of the human mind to be able to host human thought, awareness and behaviour.  These machines do not currently exist.

IBM’s TrueNorth processor chip provides an infantile  start for our quest to build neuromorphic and cognitive systems.  The TrueNorth processor requires 70 miliwatts of power to run 5.4b transistors, providing 4,000 (parallel) cores that each host 256 Neurons and 65,000 synapses.

The human brain is at least 20,000 times more power efficient than an equivalent TrueNorth “brain”.    Human brains need 20 watts of energy to power twenty (plus) trillion neurons and 100 trillion synapses.    We need to assemble 100 racks of 4,096 TrueNorth chip arrays to match the number of synapses in the human brain.   These racks would require 400 kilowatts of power, 66% of the output from the electrical generators on board an Airbus A380, enough to power 800 average homes, enough to power 20,000 human brains!

9.2.3  Marketing pilot-less aircraft

"Crossing the Chasm" - the Bible of innovation by Geoffrey Moore

“Crossing the Chasm” – the Bible of innovation by Geoffrey Moore

It’s easy to suggest that we will be flying in pilot-less aircraft.   The aircraft will eventually be built.   Innovative airlines will buy them.   Adventurous passengers will fly them, adventurers similar to those who will rocket into space on board Virgin Galactic.  But how quickly will the pilot-less market transition to include the John Doe on “main street”.

Are you ready to board a pilot-less aircraft?

Technical ideas are free.  It’s the execution that’s priceless.

Many excellent technologies that deserve to persist, die in adolescence due to poor strategy and marketing.   Course “Technical Marketing Strategy 101″ starts with learning how to “cross the technological chasm”.

(Image tjm.org)

The “Law of Diffusion of Innovation” explains how high technology products are accepted into society.   High tech developers who ignore this law, do so at their peril.

The Law of Diffusion is expressed in a bell curve.  This bell curve shows the stages in the lifespan of a technical product.  It starts with the initial take-up by tech adventurers, risk takers and “product disciples”.  It finishes when the last product expires in the few hands of the last technology laggards.

A “chasm” blocks and confronts the product as it tries to grow and expand into new markets.

High risk innovators and early adopters are the first to support new products.  These confident people are the risk takers in leading edge industries. They wanted to be the first to explore and benefit from new technologies.

The Early Majority or “main street” users are the next group of users to accept a product as it gains acceptance.   These “main street” people exhibit a slower, more rational, methodical and risk averse approach towards accepting a new product.

These Early Adopter and Early Majority markets are like oil and vinegar – they don’t mix.   A chasm in values and beliefs separates them.   They espouse different levels of confidence and courage.  They take different risks.  So both markets must be approached differently.   Your product will stall and probably fail if you don’t distinguish between them and adjust your marketing strategy to progressively target each sequential group.

The chasm is a “killing zone” in the life span of a product.  This kill zone separates those products that are initially accepted only by the few passionate (read high risk) innovators and early adopters, from those products that continue to be accepted by the majority of the populations that are sceptical, unemotional, analytical, price-conscious and sometimes lazy.

Products fail to gain widespread acceptance when the manufacturers ignore the the technological chasm.

  • The Segway fly-by-wire scooter failed to be accepted by the early majority market because the Segways were never granted safe operating areas to share with existing roads and footpaths.  The result is that the Segway market remains bogged in the small innovator and early adopter markets.
  • Apple’s iPhone provides a case study of a product that was expertly designed and marketed to cross the chasm.

9.2.4   The future for pilot-less aircraft

Pilot-less aircraft will be introduced into our society just like any other high technology offering.

How well consumers accept pilot-less aircraft will be determined by the ability of the aircraft manufacturers and airlines to build and retain the travelling public’s trust in high technology.

Manufacturers that respect the Law of Diffusion will set in place many strategic processes to sequentially win the minds of the many markets.

The acceptance of new pilot-less aircraft will follow the bell curve of success over time:

  • Innovators and early adopters will be the first to experiment and trial pilot-less aircraft.
  • The “main street” users will avoid these aircraft until emotional, financial and safety case studies prove the technology to be established and safe.
  • Twenty five percent of the travelling population have a fear of flying.   It will be a massive challenge to get these people to board a pilot-less aircraft.
  • Laggards will only board pilot-less aircraft when no alternatives exist.

A safety case cannot logically be used to force the aircraft industry to be the first industry to be fully autonomous.   On average, 500 people die in commercial aviation world-wide every year. Contrast this number with the 1,500,000 people who die on the roads.     If non-tolerance for the loss of life becomes the motivator for change, then expect the car industry to be the first industry to go driver-less.

9.2.5   Pilot-less aircraft – Summary

Relax aspiring pilots!  There will be a sustained need for your skills well up until 2060.

The forecast aircraft deliveries for Boeing and Airbus aircraft shown above are all for piloted aircraft.  You will be flying these aircraft that will have a commercial life expectancy of at least 50 years.

The pilot and his piloted aircraft, like every other technology, will ultimately become extinct.  Extinction however will not occur during this century.  In the interval, more piloted aircraft will be developed (future new plastic Boeing 737,  Boeing 777X,  future new plastic A320)  that will continue to delay the extinction date by a further 50 years.  (For those who wonder, the Earth has sufficient gas reserves (that can be converted to any hydrocarbon based fuel) to last for 250 years.)

Like all technologies, the airline industry will ultimately accept pilot-less aircraft.  However this trend will be predictable and take an extraordinary long time. Do not expect to see pilot-less aircraft in commercial passenger operations until the first innovators and early adopters test the market probably some time after 2035.

The chasm will block the first attempts to take the pilot-less aircraft into the main street markets.   Companies that ignore the  challenges of the chasm will fail.  The first automated vehicles will be cars on shared roads and then low risk-consequence cargo aircraft on oceanic routes.

Boeing, Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers are currently researching pilot-less aircraft.     They have united to research the “Advanced Cockpit for Reduction Of streSS and workload” project (ACROSS).   ACROSS will form foundation for future proprietary and confidential research.  Expect to read more information about these topics only when the product patents and futures are in place.

Israeli UAV at the Paris Air Show - Jun 2013  (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

Additional reading – pilot-less aircraft:

10.  Life Plan

Ideas are free, execution is priceless.  So get out there.  Never give up!  Failure is not an option!  Be strong! Shine!  FLY!

Back to: Aviation Pathways

Though I am not qualified to advise others about how to plan their lives, I list some of my thoughts below in case they might help others.   My observations have been gleaned from discussions  with pilots throughout their lives, noting the types of plans that succeeded, and those that did not succeed.

We all want to be happy, yet not all of us are.  True happiness inspires us to get out of bed every morning, to make meaningful connections with other people and to enjoy the opportunity that each day brings.

Happiness cannot be bought or given – it has to be earned.   You have to commit to and invest in happiness before you can expect any rewards.  The top four keys to happiness are:

  • good health,
  • dignity
  • meaningful work/purpose, and
  • love.

When you acquire these keys, you will find the comfort that comes from leading a full and rewarding life.  You will be a giver to the world you have inherited, not a taker, and you will understand how to contribute to improving our world.  You will also have the confidence to ride through life’s vicissitudes of successes and failures.

Note: These keys assume that we satisfy our basic:

  • physiological needs for food, sleep, warmth, and sex, and
  • security needs for a home, job and physical protection.

10.1   Good Health

Our four brains (RDC)

Our four brains (RDC)

Pilots start their careers with good health.   You must strive to remain healthy not just for your career’s benefit, but also for your happiness and personal well-being.  Keep fit, establish a healthy diet, and socialise.

THE LANCET – 1918:   When they have finished flying for the day their favourite amusements are theatres, music (chiefly rag-time), cards, and dancing, and it appears necessary for the  well-being of the average pilot that he should indulge in a  really riotous evening at least once or twice a month. 

A pilot’s life is one of continual study, learning and development.  It is a life of annual licence recertification tests and transitions to operate many different and increasingly complex aircraft types.  Your ability to successfully negotiate these challenges depends upon your brain’s ability to be “plastic” – its ability to learn, adapt, form and cross-link new memories and practices.

Study and exercise protects our mind, memory and movement.

Keep your brain healthy.  Balanced servings of nutrition, sleep, exercise, reading, thinking, study and Deliberate Practice make up the ingredients for a healthy brain.

  • Deep (non-dreaming) sleep is essential for learning.  Brain neurons (that resolve recent experiences and learning) are created during the early stages of sleep.
  • Dreaming sleep is important for memory retention.  This is the period when recent memories are rationalised (retained or overwritten) and cross-linked (think hyperlinked) and made accessible broadly.
  • Exercise promotes the generation of new grey matter – neurons that increase memory capacity.
  • Coral de Crespigny in honing her favorite coordination skills  (Photo RDC)

    Coral honing her favorite coordination skills

    Keep thinking.   Exercise and mindful study stimulate the Oligodendrocytes in our brain to coat axons with fatty white coloured Myelin (white matter).  Myelin insulates and protects these “hyperlinking” axons and thus protects our memories and physical coordination from atrophy, short circuits and eventual collapse.

  • Keep practicing.  Deliberate Practice  is essential for improving mental and physical performance.   Deliberate Practice converts slow and mindful procedures into dedicated fast, subconscious and instinctive circuits in the prefrontal cortex.
  • Physical and mindful exercise is also thought to influence the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

10.2   Dignity

Every person needs dignity and respect.  You must however act respectfully to be respected.

Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King & Mahatma Gandhi  understood the “WHY” that underpinned their core values and beliefs, maintained their dignity, put others first, and as a result, peacefully changed the world.    Wouldn’t we all like to be this fearless.

To respect the person you see in the mirror:
  • Honesty is the simplest path to self-respect.
  • Recognise your individuality and potential.  Ask yourself “have I lived wisely?” – if not, then why not?.
  • Work hard and don’t be afraid to fail.   Indeed welcome failure for the lessons and wisdom that it provides.  Accept the hard realities of life, even unfairness.  When life is not going your way, avoid focusing inwards and harnessing anger and regret.   Instead, keep your morale and ambitions high, look ahead, work hard and continually challenge yourself.    Perceive what others see as obstacles as motivators that power and direct your persistence.
  • Be kind to, and find good in yourself and others.  Take yourself out of the center for you do not matter!   It’s what you can do for others (particularly friends, partners and the disadvantaged)  that counts, not what others can do for you!

10.3  Meaningful Work/Purpose

London morning December 2014 (Photo RDC)

Be the master of your destiny

Meaningful work/purpose consists of:

  • being a master of your own fate rather than at the mercy of others,
  • doing every day what you love and excel at,
  • keeping a positive attitude to perceive problems as challenges to overcome,
  • getting encouragement and support to develop your skills,
  • being respected for your action and opinions, and
  • giving back and serving to help others.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” (Confucius)

Be the master of your destiny.  You only live once so ensure that you retain control otherwise live the life you want.   A survey by PARADE magazine and Yahoo! Finance in 2012 identified that about 60% of the Americans surveyed fully regretted their career choices.  Their senses of purpose, dignity, happiness and well-being suffered and they suffered stress because they were living out someone else’s dreams and aspirations, not their own.  Don’t let this happy to you!

Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It’s the best part of the day (George Allen)

For parents of future aviators, the most important thing you can do is to encourage you children to discover their own passions, then to enable your children to pursue their passions.    Don’t spoon feed your children, rather help them clarify their thoughts, help them develop their plans, then be a catalyst to help them help themselves.  (See also Motivating our Youngest Generation)

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”  (Les Brown)

For the aviators reading this, your task is to get your aviation licences, flying experience and with these requisites gain access to a satisfying aviation job.  Your mission throughout is to maintain your motivation to excel. Aviation breeds passion, excitement, engagement and growth:

A380 at Sydney International Terminal (Photo: Richard de Crespigny)

“Equilibrium is the precursor to death!”

Work hard.    Identify a few special areas to focus your skills on that you can someday look back on with a different sense of pride.  Then you will to feel great both now and later.

“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”  (Farrah Gray)

Work with your “heroes” instead of starting out alone:

  • Find a person who will be your mentor.  You have insufficient time and resources in aviation to learn everything from your own mistakes.
  • Join a team.  You will gain knowledge and experience more quickly as an “apprentice” in a successful team than when you work alone.  Indeed joining  a passionate and successful company and doing what you really want to do in your life might be even more rewarding than continuing with a Master or Ph.D degree.

You must act respectably if you want to be respected:

  • Act like a CEO, because that’s what you are in your aircraft – not a back office employee.
  • Be present.  Meet, greet and talk to your passengers – don’t hide behind the flight deck door.  Empathise with the crew and passengers, ensuring that their interests are at the center of all your thoughts and actions (the WHY).
  • Be happy, fun and positive!  You control the attitude that you project.   Indeed, the Captain sets the atmosphere for the passengers and crew on every flight!   Make your attitude an award winning and world famous attitude that welcomes others and “makes their day”.
  • Be honest.  Tell passengers the truth (full and open disclosure) and be prepared to give a personal guarantee.
  • Always expect and plan for the unexpected – that’s what your passengers expect!  Never admit to being bored in an aircraft because others will think that you are not thinking about and preparing for the unexpected.    Would you like hearing brain surgeons telling you that they get bored during their surgeries?
  • Be confident but modest (even vulnerable) for you never know it all.   Indeed the minute that you think you know everything  is the second before you do something really stupid.   There is a health benefit from being confident.  Highly extroverted people have more active inflammation-immune systems and thus recover faster from injury than introverted people.
  • And when it becomes your turn, give time to help others just as others have helped you.

Never procrastinate.   “Do it now!”   “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now”

Be safe.  If you are not committed to safety then we don’t want you in the pilot’s seat.  It’s the pilots’ responsibility to ensure that every passenger has the opportunity to meet their loved ones at their destination.   When you begin flying, one bad decision to continue flying into bad weather could cost you your career and/or your life.  However when you command the big jets, your responsibility widens to include the lives of up to a six hundred souls. And for every fatality there is about seventy other friends and loved ones who become entangled in the tragedy.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come – Abraham Lincoln

Please read my later blogs:

10.4  Love

The essence of life is to love and to be loved.  Love is the catalyst to our emotional well-being.

Follow your passion Sam Harris, work hard, reach for the stars and come fly with me! (Photo Richard de Crespigny)

For junior aviators, I recommend that you wait until your aviation career is kick-started before you  do get “hitched”.

Don’t be afraid to take risks early on in your career.   Expect and embrace failures in your early years.  For knowledge, experience and growth often comes from adversity and it’s better to take risks and advance your aviation career as quickly and selfishly as possible before family commitments steers your career choices.

The pilot’s life opens up exciting opportunities to travel and to meet many remarkable people.   But your career path requires great sacrifices (financial, mental and physical) before the good positions become available.   You might need to position to remote areas or to Asia and the Middle East to gain flying experience (hours). It is a special person who can happily settle into the life of the pilot’s spouse. So as a fledgling pilot, take your time, socialise outside aviation and find the best person who you love, is confident and independent.

Your priorities should/will change when you become married.  Your responsibilities will widen to include your spouse, marriage and career.

The most important things cannot be seen with the eyes but with the heart  (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince)

Where your career was priority one in your early years, your career now shifts down into second place as your family responsibilities increase.   By this stage you will probably have spent the previous 15 years working hard to develop your skills, experience and to ascend the aviation ladder.  Half of your rewards for these efforts are lost if you end up divorced.

Work just as hard at your marriage to ensure that you don’t end up like this Chinese couple.  Your partner must grow and develop independently as you grow and develop.  He/she must be happy to support any children at home alone whilst you travel abroad.

Fulfillment comes from making a difference and knowing that it will carry on.  It starts with a sense of belonging and responsibility to give and self-sacrifice for others.  It starts with being part and contributing to your extended families: having loving relationships, rearing great kids and changing others lives for the better.

I'm coming home!(Painting by Coplu)

Coming home!(Painting by Coplu)

My wonderful wife Coral has clear priorities.  When our children were about ten years old.  A friend asked Coral what her priorities were in life.   Coral’s answer surprised him:

My wonderful bride

  1. my husband,
  2. my children, then
  3. myself.

Coral reasoned that if she looked after me, that two parents would do a better job of raising our children that one parent.   She also understood that she would be left at home with “just her husband” as company when the children grew up and left home.

THE LANCET – 1918:  The majority of successful pilots are un-married, and our own observations tend to show that marriage is a definite handicap owing to the increased sense of responsibility.    If a man marries after he has flown several hundred hours, and flying has become automatic, marriage may not apparently affect him for some time. In some cases it may even make him steadier and more careful, but sooner or later it will in most cases have a definitely , deteriorating effect.
THE LANCET – 1918:  The unmarried man (faced with the possibility of crashing whilst doing his first solo) in most cases dismisses the thought or takes the risk in the same way as a horse-rider puts his mount at a fence in strange country. The married man has the knowledge of what death may mean to his wife and family, and, moreover, has the opportunity in many cases of discussing it with his wife and manufacturing in his own home a condition of nervousness which eventually becomes so great that he confesses to his instructor that he has completely lost his nerve.

11. Money

Back to: Aviation Pathways

I have saved this subject for last, because it is the subject that least motivates me.

Embedded image permalink

My career aspirations have never been motivated by money.

I have observed that those who are obsessed with money never achieve a healthy perspective of “how much is enough”.  They continually grasp for more, compare their wealth to others, and so are ultimately never content.

I have worked hard throughout my entire career,  thrown security to the wind and taken every opportunity that was within my grasp. I have found that the skills that I have acquired along my journey have value and are appreciated in many industries. From passion, commitment and perseverance comes skill, and from skill comes rewards. This is my career and I would not trade it for any desk job!

12.  Where from Here?

Back to: Aviation Pathways

JD-art-crespigny-20121203200726628969-620x34912.1  School Students

As a school student, you will have to acquire many skills to be qualified for an aviation career. Focus your efforts to excel at school.

Put emphasis on mathematics and science subjects (physics first, then chemistry).

Participate in team sports to keep fit and develop leadership and teamwork skills. Join cadet programs if possible.

The military cadet programmes provide a great way to learn about the military, but are probably only worth the effort if that is where your interests lie.

Don’t be afraid of technology.  Disassemble printers, computers and hard disks before discarding them to discover how they function. Any experience with engines (motor cycles, cars, workshops, books, aero clubs) is also recommended.  You should be confident manipulating and working with machinery.  Never be afraid to play with or fix engines.

Be medically examined by a Designated Aviation Medical Examiner (DAME) to confirm that you are fit (medical and eyes) enough to hold an aviation medical certificate.

Virgin Galactic's 3rd Supersonic flight - 10 Jan 2014 (Image:  Virgin Galactic)

Virgin Galactic’s 3rd Supersonic flight – 10 Jan 2014 (Image: Virgin Galactic)

Create a file that contains information about the airlines that you wish to join and/or the military.   Visit their web sites.

Document what aircraft they fly.  Research their employment requirements for air crew.

If your heart is set on flying light aircraft, then take an introductory flight at a flying school at a nearby airfield.  This is normally free of charge.

Get a part time job over the weekends to raise money to continue flying if you want to build up more flying experience. Take every opportunity to fly in one of the front seats.   These flights will increase your motivation at this early stage.

12.2 Before your Interview

  • Prepare for your interview
  • Read every aviation book that you can find.    Read my book.  Digest the stories and build up your knowledge of the industry for aviation is a knowledge intensive high tech industry that will never stagnate.
  • Ask your friends and family to give you aviation books for birthdays and special events.

13. Summary

Back to: Aviation Pathways

(Photo: Lee Gatland)

(Photo: Lee Gatland)

Emily Redmond, thank you for your question (at the top of this article).    I hope that I have helped to answer some of your queries.

Be strong! Shine!  FLY!

Never give up on your dreams, for the rewards are commensurate with the risks and opportunities you take as your career progresses.    Fulfilling careers await for those who are brave enough to find them and and who rise to the challenges. Security is both a swear word and an illusion.

Where and what you end up flying depends upon your strong sense of self, what opportunities you constantly seize along your passionate journey to learn and develop, and understanding that change is constant.

Aviation is not an easy career choice.  You’ll have to learn and research for every day of your career, face the mental challenge of continual re-certification and physical challenges of working extreme hours and perhaps sometimes in extremely risky locations.

Both switches miust be pushed to activate the fuel jettison.  (Photo R de Crespigny)

Both switches miust be pushed to activate the fuel jettison. (Photo R de Crespigny)

A pilot’s work is never a job.  Pilot’s work is a life.  You will never succeed in aviation unless you develop the passion and hunger to research and plan your career and do whatever it takes to achieve your plan.   It’s your plan, so own and execute it..

Great rewards await the intrepid amongst us who take the risk and jump to the challenges of flight.  Maybe you will be one of them.   Maybe you will experience the delights of this Boeing 737 pilot.

Anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will and desire to do it and put the time in (Roger Clemens)

There is a piloting job waiting for every person who has the health, intelligence, drive, and commitment to forge their way into this leading edge, high tech, high risk career.

The graphs in Section Seven suggest that the aviation industry will continue to double every 15 years . Discuss the topics I have listed here with other pilots and your mentor.

Ask opinions from retired pilots who have successfully navigated a lifetime of aviation’s challenges.   These old and wise pilots are the true heroes, with memories laced with nuggets of wisdom gleaned from occasional  errors in judgement and experiences surviving  fate’s unexpected and unthinkable events.    These mentors deserve your highest respect, for they are the world’s best risk experts who worked day-in, day-out, flying along the edges of chaos in the most leading edge, high tech and risky industry, all the time protecting their passengers from harm.

If I have had good foresight and luck in my career, it is only because I have been standing on the shoulders of these past aviation giants. If you could be so fortunate …..

Celebrating the wonders of flight. View from the desk, 36,000 feet overhead Broome, Australia, 5th March 2015  (RDC)

Celebrating the wonders of flight. View from  my desk, 36,000 feet overhead Broome, Australia, 5th March 2015 (RDC)

I have been very fortunate during my life to have received much from family and friends.  It is my turn now, my privilege and duty to give back to the younger.     My final mentoring support comes from the last paragraph in Jim Collins great book on Level 5 Leadership, entitled “Good to Great”:

2014 Sochi Paralympic Games skier (slalom & giant slalom)  Jess Gallager

Jess Gallagher – 2014 Sochi Paralympic Games skier (slalom & giant slalom)

“When all these pieces [of advice] come together, not only does your work move towards greatness, but so does your life.  For in the end it’s impossible to have a great life without having a meaningful life.  And it’s very hard to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.  Perhaps then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution.   Indeed you might also gain that deepest of all satisfactions knowing that your short time here on earth has been well spent and that it mattered”.

Many people in their deathbeds reflect back over their past and ask just three questions:

  • Did I live wisely?,
  • Did I love unconditionally?, and
  • Did I matter (serve greatly and make a difference)?

As a fledgling pilot you can look forward to an aviation career that offers you the ability to seize the joy and excitement in every day of your life and to answer “YES!” to all three questions.

If you need a role model, then look no further than Dave Goldberg, who ticked all these boxes.  Will someone write this about you when you are gone?   If not, then WHY not, and HOW will you change?

Coral - the Wind Beneath My Wings ....

Coral – the Wind Beneath My Wings ….

Coral and I send our very best wishes to you as you embark on your safe, happy and fulfilling career.    I promise you fun and rewards and that you will matter!

Ideas are free, execution is priceless.  So get out there.   It won’t be easy.  Never give up!   When you get knocked down, you will get back up again.   Failure is not an option.  Be strong.  Shine.  FLY!

14.  For More Information

Back to: Aviation Pathways

At QF32.Aero:

Other Reading:

Other Pilot’s Experiences:

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