Although they are not in the cockpit, air traffic controllers and dispatchers also play an important role in making sure flights are safe and on schedule, and participate in many of the decisions pilots must make.
Flight Attendants
Other jobs that involve helping people as a safety professional and require the ability to be pleasant even under trying circumstances include emergency medical technician, firefighter, and maritime crew.
Air Traffic Controllers
Other occupations that involve the direction and control of traffic in air transportation are airline-radio operator and airplane dispatcher.
INTERVIEW
W Rudy Vanderkrogt
Pilot
Rudy Vanderkrogt has been in commercial aviation since 1978, when he started as a bush pilot in northern Canada. He now is a pilot with Cathay Pacific Airways in Hong Kong.
How Rudy Vanderkrogt Got Started
As a child I always had a fascination with aircraft, airliners, in particular. This stayed with me until my high school days, when I decided to do something about it at the age of sixteen, the minimum age to hold a private pilot's license. During my teenage years I had all sorts of small jobs, shoveling snow, mowing lawns, a paper route. The money I earned I saved for my training.
The first idea I had was to look for training through the Air Cadets and the Air Force. However, I had a disability; I wore eyeglasses. During high school the school held an annual career day. There I was also told by the chief pilot of an international airline in Canada that I would not be able to qualify as an airline pilot because of my vision. In an effort to find something in the same field, I ended up in the control tower at my local airport and was told that I could enhance my chances if I held a private pilot's license (PPL). So, I went down to the local flying school and, for what was lot of money, did my training for my PPL. I did this during my summer holidays.
During my last year in high school I pooled the cost with other students and we rented a Cessna 172 so I could build up my hours. I needed enough hours to begin training for my commercial pilot's license (CPL). I did this at the same flying school. It also included a night flying rating and a float plane rating. By the time I was nineteen, I had the minimum requirements for getting a commercial flying job.
My first flying job in those days was in the Canadian bush. I went out on the road in Ontario, Canada, and began knocking on doors. I was lucky. At the third place I ran into a gentleman who was looking for a pilot to fly a C-180 on floats. I had done a C-180 rating a few days before just to help me out and it paid off.
This job turned out to be for an Indian Co-op; the reservation was located north of any developed towns, and they needed someone to get supplies and people into their community. I lived in a log cabin that was about twenty by twenty feet, no electricity, and water came from the lake fifteen feet from the front door. It wasn't what I ever planned on when I was young, but I did it gladly because it kept me in the air, and for a change I was being paid for it. It was a means to an end-build up your hours and gets a better job.
A great number of years went by from that first job. From company to company, each move brought me a better aircraft rating and more experience. I lived and worked in the Arctic, Manitoba, and British Columbia, and still could not get a job with an airline.
I had decided sometime before that if I did not get into an airline by the time I was twenty-seven, I would go overseas and try my luck there. So I went to Australia, flew a float plane for a pearling company, and then finally got a job on a turbine powered Fokker-27. Once I got this endorsement on the F-27, I was finally getting closer to what an airline wanted, and ten years after my first job I got a job on a Boeing 737 for a company that was based in Micronesia. This company paid for my training, but shortly afterward the job ended because of an industrial dispute. I fortunately found another job in the South Pacific, again on B737s. More experience and I was on my way to the Middle East, where an even larger airline offered me work on the B737, and soon afterward put me on the new B767-300. This now had me flying long haul international flights from London to Sydney, Australia, and a hundred places in between. To me it was all that I had ever wanted, and more. I spent three and a half years doing this and then my present company, Cathay Pacific, offered me employment flying the B747-400. This was the final move; a B747-400 is the top of the ladder for an airline pilot, and after thirteen years of chasing jobs around the world I finally got to the top.
What the Jobs Really Like
When you begin with most airlines, you follow a seniority sys-tem, and that means starting over again at the bottom of the list when you change jobs. So, the first job will usually be as a first officer or copilot. This job is in name only because, in reality, you have the same qualifications as the captain. But the airline needs only so many captains and you have to do your time in the right seat before you get promoted to the left-which is where the captain sits. He also gets more money and is responsible for the aircraft and crew. As a first officer, you generally fly the airplane half of the time, and do paperwork and radio communications the other half.
The best way I can describe the job is to say its' hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror. It is, how-ever, for most pilots the place to be. It beats any office job. It changes on every flight-the weather, passengers, unexpected delays, the list goes on and on. In most cases the pressure does build up and in some cases makes the job more difficult than most. Not only do you have to think about yourself, there can be as many as 400 passengers behind you.
An average day for me on the long haul flights starts late in the evening. After a day of trying to rest, I leave home at about 9:00 P.M. The trip to the airport takes one and a half hours. When I get to work, I spend about ninety minutes reading company memos and going through flight planning. This involves checking weather at our destination and at an airport that we will go to if, for some reason, we can't land at our destination. We then look at things such as fuel, takeoff times, and who will do the takeoff and landing.
