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Here are AA’s current pay rates - https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/american...

Multiply the rate by 1,100 for a ballpark annual salary. This doesn’t include per diem or benefits, which can be quite good. Delta, for example, puts a 16 percent match, based on total salary, into the pilot’s retirement account with no contribution from them.

Can confirm.

An airliner at that altitude would be well outside of any city's airspace.

Interesting that they intercepted after only 15 minutes. Maybe the aircraft had crossed the border without making contact. In the US, airliners accidentally lose contact for close to this time period quite frequently. To reestablish, the controllers will sometimes have a fellow company ship relay a message with the correct frequency via ACARS, or the lost aircraft can listen on 121.5 until someone calls with the correct frequency. I suppose in Europe this would be considered a more critical issue due to the frequent border crossings.

Can confirm. I moved from downtown Detroit to Austin. Austin is great but the core of Detroit is also pretty cool (except for the weather). A lot of the popular restaurants/venues have sort of an 'underground' vibe, and typically aren't as crowded as one might experience elsewhere. New, interesting businesses and groups are constantly popping up downtown. I think of Detroit when I see "keep Austin weird" signs, because Austin isn't weird, it's just gentrification and rich white people. Weird is plentiful and welcome in Detroit. Also, the city remains diverse, which doesn't seem to be the case in Austin. But yeah, still lots of dangerous areas outside of downtown Detroit.

It'd be interesting if they took over one of the carriers they've contracted with (ATI or Atlas). The company is vehemently against organized labor, yet both companies have unionized pilot groups.

Will Amazon eventually buy one of these carriers? Or maybe start their own thing?

If you're going to do it, I'd try to join the industry ASAP. It's a good time to get in, though entry charter jobs can be pretty brutal.

I used to be quite into doing exactly what you've written here. Even wanted to compete in an NPC competition. Your guide is the exact same stuff that's written about ad nauseam everywhere. That's fine, because it works for achieving this type of "fitness". Just seems to me that this is a very narrow definition of that. I don't look great shirtless, but I'm becoming a decent trail runner and can do 25-ish pull-ups. My 70 year old dad can't run, but he walks 1500 miles per year. Are we not fit/healthy? This is a standard bodybuilding routine, and seems like a very 20-something, American college male, Instagram idea of fitness. No problem, it's a good, concise guide. There's just a lot more to fitness than bodybuilding.

Exploiting this aviation-related post to see if any aerospace folks will comment on my two-month old Ask - Ask HN: Why is the National Airspace System so dated? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12651244

In regard to the safety of regionals vs. the major airlines that the article's author is writing about: I can see why the statistics are separate. Even though, according to the FAA, we're all under the "same standard", in practice, this isn't the case. As long as the paperwork looks the same, though, we're "safe". Also, within the industry, some pilots tend to think of themselves as shouldering the responsibility of safety, however, I sometimes think we're safe despite the pilots. Engineers of aircraft, airspace, arrival/departure/approach procedures, airports, ATC systems, etc. are silently keeping you safe. That the FAA is able to manage all of these elements is quite impressive. Still, its massive bureaucracy can be quite Vogon-like.

Change fitness to "bro-fitness".

Here's a very similar article from 1990 - http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/10/world/cia-tie-reported-in-...

They sensationalize this as "worst", but I'm sure many pilots would choose jobs such as this over the mundane task of operating a large airliner if the pay and career prospects were equal.

How would a degree like this look in the job market compared to a traditional CS degree? This looks more vocational, which could actually prepare a student better for many software jobs.

I feel like there's something there - updating the training process, making it "cool". Flying yourself is viable if you can afford it, and not as expensive and some might think when the costs are shared. Plus, a modern plane, such as a Cirrus, feels kind of like a jet with the screens, autopilot, etc. New pilots love it. I've observed that if you can get a group of professional instructors together who know what they're doing, with nice planes to train in, flying becomes a lot more attractive to "normal" people. How traditional flight schools in the Bay Area are received is something I've been wondering about. Flying is a good fit for the engineer/programmer personality, but there's this gap where the industry can't seem to relate to the real world.

Edit: By the way, here's a cool startup that seems to be helping to close that gap: https://openairplane.com/. Just got a round of funding I believe.

Is flying popular among the tech professionals who can afford it? Where do they do their flight training? Typical flight schools seem sort of old school for a place like the Valley.

Automated, yes. Autonomous, no. The plane voices an alert, but the pilots still have to react to it.

Even the newest airliners of today still triangulate their positions off of radio beacons (VORs) as a backup to the GPS system and also contain an inertial system. GPS being the most accurate, it's normally the primary navigation system, however, I've flown across the country, beacon to beacon, with the GPS inoperative, which some airliners still do from time to time.

In the southwestern US, especially, GPS often becomes unusable due to military activity. It isn't uncommon for an airliner to experience a loss of GPS signal mid-flight when operating near military exercises. It's just the nature of our system.

It was a good article. I enjoyed the allusions to ships on a sea, and moment before landing described as an unanswered question. I'm wondering if this will be passed along much in the pilot community. The most popular 'pilot life' creation in recent memory seems to be this Lego parody - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNxz2hhSXuY.

Phillips County, Ark., home of Marvell Academy. Founded as a segregationist school in 1966 and still 100% white - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvell_Academy http://marvellacademy.org/

Regis University offers the only ABET accredited online CS degree, however, in my research, it seems like the actual delivery of that degree is somewhat lacking. If you already have another degree, Oregon State's post-bacc online CS degree seems to be the way to go. Still expensive though.

The Colgan pilot pulled back on the yoke due to the belief that the aircraft had accumulated, and was stalling due to, ice on the tail. A correct response in this case is actually to pull back, rather than lower the nose as in a typical stall.

I don't like all this talk of risk and death. While it's true that more accidents happen with small GA aircraft, it isn't really the dangerous activity non-fliers make it out to be. When accidents do occur, it's almost always due to some very poor decisions made on the part of the pilot - taking off over wight, bad weather/icing, shoddy maintenance, etc.

I started out with GA flying and later became a flight instructor, then moved on to flying small turboprops (into some very treacherous airports), and now fly jets with an airline. I've never known anyone personally who has been killed or injured in an aircraft accident. Even flying for an airline, I'm baffled by the sense of danger some passengers feel by going up in a large jet.

Here's a startup that's trying to reverse the decline of GA flying - OpenAirplane.com. They launched last year and have caught on pretty quickly. It's a universal rental checkout for GA pilots, such as the OP. Get checked out in, say, a Cessna 172 in Detroit, and you're set to rent a similar Cessna 172 in Florida. The requirement for a checkout at each operator from which one wants to rent can be a roadblock for would-be renters, and this solves the problem. The company has the backing of most major aviation insurance providers and even Cessna Aircraft Company.

Whatever her reasons, Missy Cummings frequently overstates the role of automation as it's currently used in commercial aviation in her public comments.

They do. Autoland requires a CAT II/III ILS. WAAS is very accurate and will surely be used for this purpose in the future, but it isn't at the moment.

Maybe piloted is the wrong word. It's not AI. They're still directed and monitored by an operator.

Good article. In the US and some other places around the world, you'll find pilots who are equally capable of flying automated Airbus type aircraft as they are 1960's style cockpits using old fashioned radio navigational aids. I take pride in my skills and ability to operate an aircraft safely. Unfortunately, what I know seems to be becoming a lost art, and the state of the piloting profession internationally will likely speed the process of automating pilots out of the cockpit. It's sad, and I've become pretty keen on learning a new skill in preparation for the demise of my job.

I've spent time conducting basic flight training for international students (including Korean) and am now an airline pilot. Though I don't have much experience with international operations, what I saw as an instructor is freshly minted pilots going back to their home countries and immediately being put into the right seat of an airliner. Many of these students were very poor pilots, however, as long as they have the money, the flight training machine that exists in states like Florida will keep training them, and international airlines will continue to hire the product. It's a matter of national pride for many countries to be able to employ their own citizens as pilots. Many will cease learning as soon as they leave flight school due to the poor training environments that exist in some places.

Going from a small prop plane to an airliner is perfectly acceptable. It's been going on for a long time and can produce safe pilots, but those pilots need to understand basic stick and rudder flying and continue to hone their skills. Unfortunately, many get started using the automation and allow their flying skills to atrophy. This is true for long-time airline pilots as well.

In the US, by the time a pilot has reached the cockpit of something like a 777, they've gained quite a bit of experience flying smaller prop planes and regional jets, which require a little more work on the part of the pilot. The visual approach assigned to Asiana Flight 214 is a non-issue to US airlines. It's a routine, every day occurrence that doesn't cause one to become "very concerned", however, many countries choose to focus their pilot training more on managing automation than flying the aircraft, and I think that cultural difference played a big part in this crash.

Talk to a US airline pilot who has worked with a training department internationally. The stories you'll hear are pretty eye opening.

UAVs are still piloted. They're just controlled from the ground.

Autoland isn't a matter of simply pressing 'land'. The airport and aircraft have to be specially equipped, and the pilots properly certified. Very new, and older very large aircraft (Boeing/Airbus) are equipped with Autoland.

I feel you tanbo. I've been teaching myself and considering a career change through one of the bootcamps. Always makes me wonder how I'm going to suddenly become more employable than someone with years of experience. Haven't quite figured this one out.