inoffensivename

As an airline captain, your take is completely ridiculous. The autopilot takes care of the mechanical act of guiding the plane along the desired path, but it does nothing else. There are hundreds of other tasks we need to perform in order to effect a safe flight, and the autopilot does nothing to help us.

I bought my own airplane to do a lot of my ratings, then sold it for a decent profit, I think it was pretty much a wash. I also flew my wife and kids all around the country and had a wonderful time.

I offset the costs by doing flight instruction, which is a very common route. To get to the flight instructor stage by renting airplanes is probably in the order of a $50k investment, with a significant variance depending on the cost of living.

As a caveat to this, all my experience is in the US.

I was a software engineer at a FAANG, now an airline pilot. I feel a bigger sense of satisfaction with my job now, because at least at the end of the day I helped people get to where they needed to go.

The work is was doing in big tech was pretty far from anything that would help people in any tangible way.

The money isn't as good but the office view is way better.

I'm glad to see very poor coverage for transportation jobs on the AI benchmarks. May that continue until I'm done flying, at least AI probably won't ruin that for me any time soon.

There are dozens of us! Dozens!!

To quote April Ludgate: Gross. I love it.

Any altimeter setting in the vicinity is going to be close enough in this scenario. It's still a visual approach, you can remain well above terrain until you're inside the GS service volume. I think it's an OK way to get yourself out of a crappy situation.

Yes, safe, and also way safer than doing a visual approach without any backup at night. Like the other commenter said, the local altimeter setting is only required for knowing when you arrive at Decision Altitude, which is not applicable for this visual approach.

I'm not sure of ATC's rules, but my assumption is that they would NOT clear me for an ILS approach in this circumstance. But that's moot, I would not ask for it because it's not authorized anyway. It would be a visual approach, we'd just happen to fly the ILS course and use the GS for vertical guidance.

Airline captain here... A visual approach to an airport in mountainous terrain on a moonless night is very risky.

In our operation, departing to an airport with missing weather reports would not be permitted, so in a Part 121 scheduled service this flight may not have been able to dispatch legally.

Airliners have DME/DME triangulation which allows them to achieve area navigation (RNAV) without GPS. The interference would have precluded a GPS approach but may have left the GPWS ("Terrain! Terrain!") alerts unaffected.

In this case the ILS was not available, but only because the local altimeter setting was not available. In this case I could accept a visual approach, but use the ILS to provide lateral and vertical guidance towards the runway.

There are many things I have learned about flying from years at the airlines that I would have had to learn the hard way at a Part 135 or Part 91 operation. One of those things would have been when to say "no".

Take the airplane to a mountainous airport with missing weather reports at night with NOTAM'd GPS interference? No.

Do a visual approach on a moonless night with no GPS for terrain awareness? No. Fly the ILS even if it's NOTAM'd out.

In my early 40s here, FAANG for 20 years, definitely don't see myself working in tech for much longer.

I dunno which article you were reading, but the linked article says it was a bluetooth device named BOMB.

Our training is to treat even vague threats seriously.

> Someone naming their phone "Free Palestine, F Israel" is not a threat. Full stop.

The bluetooth device's name was BOMB. We're trained to treat even vague threats seriously.

The captain in this case is in a terrible situation. Do nothing, get pilloried for not taking action. Turn around, get pilloried for that.

I hope I'm never in this position because there are really no good options. All of you making comments have not been in this position, and were not there at the time with the information the captain had access to, and so are not in a position to judge the decision.

> Being on the plane doesn't remove your right to free speech

The First Amendment only prevents the government from penalizing your speech. It doesn't stop a private company (airline) kicking you off an airplane for something you said or did.

The PIC (Pilot In Command, aka Captain) is the final authority for the safe operation of the flight (14 CFR Part 91.3). If the Captain determines that a threat exists, they are empowered to do pretty much anything reasonable to deal with the threat. Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".

Whether you or somebody else who is clearly not an airline captain feel the original actions constituted a threat is pretty much irrelevant.

Signed, airline captain.

Pilot at a major airline here: 1.5 hours of interviews with two people (recruiter and another pilot). Technical and HR-style questions, a personality test, no other homework.

Blood test, background check including all prior training records that are reported to the FAA.

Not a lot of work for the candidate in the interview, but it's easy to fail one too many training events or accumulate a violation and become radioactive.

I love this article.

Nobody owes you a new release, or a signed binary, or a feature you care about.