- Pilots may spend long periods of time away from home. To keep their loved ones close, they’ll often keep photos of their family or spouses in the inside lining of their hat.
- As a food poisoning prevention measure, pilots are forbidden from eating shellfish while on duty. Pilots aren’t allowed to share – food, that is. As a safety precaution, pilots order and eat different crew meals while on flight.
- The captain is allowed to arrest people, write fines and even take the will of a dying passenger.
- Although music is recommended while flying, the pilots do not count. They are in permanent relation with ground controllers who synchronize the movement of aircrafts.
- Just like the bus drivers, when two planes meet in the sky, pilots may flash the landing lights or wing inspection lights to say hello.
- Everyone who will to be a pilot generally invest more than $70,000 in their education. To be hired by Air Canada, for example, the pilot must have minimum 4,000 hours of experience.
- Once their flight simulator training is complete, pilots move directly to piloting fully-loaded passenger airplanes. They are, however, accompagnied by line indoctrination pilots for their first few flights. After a second test by a supervisor pilot, they’re fully cleared to fly on their own.
- Pilots are sent back into the simulator at least every eight months to renew their license; every six months for those who command the Boeing 777.
- Pilots can fly only one type of aircraft at a time. Before acquiring a license to command a different model, they must go through 8 to 12 weeks of training. The process includes “ground school”, pre-simulator mockup flights and simulator training.
- ”Where are you off to?” is the question you’d hear all the time if you stopped at the flight planning center at any time of the day. As you’d expect, pilots ask each other where they are flying to!
Author: Savina Danailova