Our public perception problem

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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20,771
Location
west Texas
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Display name:
Dave Taylor
Wife is reading a book, thought i should see this.
See paperbacks the source of the hatred lol?
(caution, language is not for *******)
 

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Sounds like a work of fiction
 
Which one of you hurt the author? What did you do?
 
I can't think of any customer service interaction where I mentioned casually that I was a pilot, then proceeded to drop 17 F-Yous on them.

Even I knew how to say that in Hindi, which I do not, I don't think I'd get up to 17. Twelve max I think. :D
 
Maybe it's just me, but I have met far, far nastier and more condescending people in the boating community than aviation.
... And it probably doesn't help that based on my observations the boating community spends at least 78% of their time day drinking -- and/or already drunk.
 
“Giant steel Elephant” has to be the absolutely worst description of an airplane I’ve ever heard. They have pilots down pretty good though. Lol

most of you have probably already seen this, but for those that haven’t it seems appropriate….

 
I thought was a bit of a dick because I'm on the spectrum. It's a self diagnosis, and a little self deprecating...but more than a few believe it so maybe I am.
Turns out it's cuz I fly planes for a hobby.
 
Racerx said:
I thought was a bit of a dick because I'm on the spectrum. It's a self diagnosis, and a little self deprecating...but more than a few believe it so maybe I am.
Turns out it's cuz I fly planes for a hobby.
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Guardians of the Galaxy believes in you.
upload_2023-1-5_16-42-1.jpeg
 
Hey I'm an old guy (84) but I learned my lesson early. I grew up in Burbank CA. The gals there were "Valley Girls". Overlooking Burbank, and Lockheed Air Terminal (now KBUR) was Stough Park a prime necking place. I was 16, a solo student, a PILOT ! I had a sweet young thing up at Stough Park when I mentioned I was a pilot and turned on my airband receiver so we could listen to the airplanes at LAT . She turned to me and said something like "Take me home and don't bother calling me again."

My wife is also from Burbank and I don't think she new I flew until after we were married.
 
It's a silly description. IME, the people most likely to say "I'm a ______," expecting you to treat them better are teachers.

Pilots? Pffft.
 
teachers?

not politicians?
 
I think you guys are close, but not quite on the mark. Some people need to be the center of the universe and expect to be treated as such. But when an airplane flies overhead, it doesn't matter how cute the other person is, the pilot is going to look up at the plane.

Before I flew, I remember being out to dinner with a co-worker and his CFI. The CFI spent the entire time bragging about the hot blonde that he had a date with that evening. At the end of the meal, he gets a call that he can pickup a flight that evening for a King Air charter. He calls the girl and cancels so he can make the flight. I don't understand this, and I ask what he was thinking. He looks at me like I'm a complete idiot, says "it's a King Air!" and walks away.
 
Unfortunately it's pretty logical that pilots as a group would tend to be self-centered or sound privileged beyond the peons around them.

The reason is that they are privileged. A pilot's license serves to protect pilots from competition by restricting who can be a pilot. That should be very evident by the ongoing 'pilot shortage'. This protection from competition artificially inflates pilot's salaries and their egos right along with it. It's the same with doctors and lawyers and plumbers and more or less everyone else who is government licensed.

Let me state an example in a less threatening way: You go to a hair dresser and show them a picture of what you want your hair to look like. They work on it for 20 minutes and you look at it and say "That's not like the picture at all. I'm not sure you're doing a good job". The hair dresser indignantly replies, "Well I'm licensed by the state of New York so obviously I do know what I'm doing".

An inflated salary might seem great for existing pilots but the same phenomenon is also ruining the medical industry. It's why you can no longer get doctors to investigate your medical issues. They all work on volume now because of the ongoing doctor shortage.

Now I know some people will obstinately declare, "There are rude people in all professions! It's not just pilots". There's some truth to that of course. But it's not a coincidence that the majority of people perceive various professions as having a preponderance of rude people. While there are plenty of individual exceptions, the trend holds. Power corrupts and licenses to hold a job do create self-centered attitudes.
 
E.W. said:
Unfortunately it's pretty logical that pilots as a group would tend to be self-centered or sound privileged beyond the peons around them.

The reason is that they are privileged. A pilot's license serves to protect pilots from competition by restricting who can be a pilot. ...
Click to expand...

and right there you went off the rails...
 
Bob Noel said:
and right there you went off the rails...
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Referring to the posting that Bob is referring to….Interesting mathematical observation….level of hostility or obtuseness or absurdity is inversely proportional to number of postings.
 
It may be a perspective you're not accustomed to thinking about, but it's not wrong. I didn't say that was the only effect of licenses but economically it's a critical one that people are conditioned to ignore. I don't see any way it can be logically denied.
All you gave was an off-topic condemnation with no foundation.

Bob Noel said:
and right there you went off the rails...
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Hmmm, so what's the solution EW? Is it people who identify as pilots are allowed to fly passengers?
 
E.W. said:
It may be a perspective you're not accustomed to thinking about, but it's not wrong. I didn't say that was the only effect of licenses but economically it's a critical one that people are conditioned to ignore. I don't see any way it can be logically denied.
All you gave was an off-topic condemnation with no foundation.
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Isn't your argument that "This protection from competition artificially inflates pilot's salaries" dependent on pilots flying for compensation? That leaves out a pretty large segment of the pilot population who don't/have never had it inflate their salaries.
 
A comment with no personal attack. Thank you.
Yes, non-commercial pilots who do not fly for compensation do not apply to the inflated-salary part of my argument. But likewise, the characters in the book are not referring to non-commercial GA pilots. By and large when someone behind the counter at K-mart talks about pilots, they mean commercial carrier pilots.

SoonerAviator said:
Isn't your argument that "This protection from competition artificially inflates pilot's salaries" dependent on pilots flying for compensation? That leaves out a pretty large segment of the pilot population who don't/have never had it inflate their salaries.
Click to expand...
 
@E.W. , does the same thing apply to everyone with a college degree? Because it's still just a piece of paper that is used as a pass for higher salaries and better jobs.
 
E.W. said:
The reason is that they are privileged. A pilot's license serves to protect pilots from competition by restricting who can be a pilot. That should be very evident by the ongoing 'pilot shortage'. This protection from competition artificially inflates pilot's salaries and their egos right along with it. It's the same with doctors and lawyers and plumbers and more or less everyone else who is government licensed.
Click to expand...

Pilots are privileged, yes, but not because they have a government issued certificate. I'm not talking about exercising the "privileges" of a particular pilot certificate. But you can't become a pilot without the desire to do it, the money (or credit) to pay for training, the intelligence to master the required skills, the dedication to stick to it, and the self confidence to be in comfortable control of an aircraft. Any one of those factors automatically excludes a significant percentage of the population.

E.W. said:
Now I know some people will obstinately declare, "There are rude people in all professions! It's not just pilots". There's some truth to that of course. But it's not a coincidence that the majority of people perceive various professions as having a preponderance of rude people. While there are plenty of individual exceptions, the trend holds.
Click to expand...

There are certainly pilots who are arrogant pricks, but I don't think they're more common than in other walks of life. However, along with doctors, lawyers, etc., they have less common ground for conversation with the average person so they may be seen as stand-offish or snooty. It's difficult to talk to somebody who is simply on a different wavelength; I just don't have a whole lot to say to a guy whose life revolves around Budweiser, football,and TV. He may see my disinterest in sports and TV and my desire to talk about airplanes as showing off, where to me it's just what I'm interested in.
 
Dana said:
I just don't have a whole lot to say to a guy whose life revolves around Budweiser, football, and TV. He may see my disinterest in sports and TV and my desire to talk about airplanes as showing off, where to me it's just what I'm interested in.
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:yeahthat:
 
Comparing plumbers to pilots to lawyers as systems to restrict access to employment is conflating completely different systems. The closest comparisons I see to pilot's licenses are CDL's and professional engineering licenses. In those cases, the basic purpose is to make sure there is a basic level of training, experience and knowledge to complete a task without killing people, more or less. Even those are a little different, as the last time I checked it was a bit tricky to get an actual engineering degree without attending a brick and mortar college, similar to a law degree, and that may have started out as a method to limit entry into the field. But that hasn't been all that effective, because even though I do have many lawyer friends, I don't think anyone would say that we have a lawyer shortage.

Plumbers, carpenters and electricians go back further, and that's the trades and guilds. Probably most people on here know those better than I do, but the basic premise there was to promote, not restrict, skills of a particular trade, and to have a standard way to teach and promote those skills. The opposite of being restrictive. Hundreds of years ago, they were smart enough to realize that education and sharing of skills was a way to improve their wages and along the way make the world better.

The concept of privilege is tossed around a lot these days, but it's been my experience that most of the time it's earned, or not, along with success.

As to pilots, all joking aside, one of the kindest guys I ever knew was a professional pilot. To someone that would say "pilots are XXXX" in a serious tone, I'd ask if they would be comfortable making the same statement about someone based on their color of their skin or their ethnic background. It's not quite the same, but categorizing people, putting a label on them, and judging them is one of the weaker things that we do as a species. Ok, soapbox down...and yep, I did pick on lawyers above. Sometimes I'm a bit hypocritical.
 
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