Salon

Ask the pilot: The gut-churning trials and tribulations of making the grade with an airline

When it was finally over, at the end of Day 3, my sense of relief was exceeded only by a renewed resentment for those who believe that flying planes is easy. If I had a dollar for every time some smart-aleck flier or pundit has remarked that pilots are nothing but "glorified bus drivers," or that modern aircraft "basically fly themselves," I wouldn't need to go through this every six months. <P>Recurrent training, it's called -- a mandatory, biannual rite of study and stress, culminating in a multihour simulator session during which a sadistic instructor dutifully inflicts all manner of potential catastrophe. Assuming it goes OK, you're signed off and sent back to the line. <p>...</p> <p><a href="http://feeds.salon.com/~a/salon/index?a=Y4GtNJ"><img src="http://feeds.salon.com/~a/salon/index?i=Y4GtNJ" border="0"></img></a></p><img src="http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/index/~4/383733099" height="1" width="1"/>

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