Everyone in the office has become a psychologist over this pilot chap.

[Pat Vegas]

[Berni]

kneejerk speculation by the clueless* over actual facts.



*Like Monty's

[PSRB]

Just one of the questions I want answered!!

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

mental health issues prevalent amongst pilots, what with the terrible pay and conditions and all...'

Quite remarkably brazen, they are.

[Berni]

Are you feeling better, chum? Have you shrugged off your bout of unmanly weakness?

Also, kudos on 'fora'. :cloud9: Good to see someone upholding the standards.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Chest still rattling like an old, well, rattle, I suppose.

I had to go to an industry do at the Grosvener earlier in the week, which was enlivened only by a drunken scotch telling me a 20 minute story in an utterly incomprehensible fashion, until, in true Rowley Birkin style, the punchline arrived, 'mumble mumble mumble TWO JUNKIES IN THE BACK OF A TRANSIT VAN!'

How I chuckled.

[PSRB]

[Pat Vegas]

The bloke had an eye patch :hehe:

[Berni]

I'm happy to hear you're a bit less broken. :-)

[Berni]

wear eyepatches. An eyepatch speaks of derring-do, mystery and adventure, whereas a glass eye just makes everyone wonder which way you're looking.

[Pat Vegas]

http://i.imgur.com/UFknAg0.jpg

[Billy Goat Sverige]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/ff/Gabrielle_-_Always.jpg

[Berni]

[Pat Vegas]

have gone for the sunglasses look.

[Pat Vegas]

[Berni]

About four feet tall he is. Does a woefully bad Jack Sparrow impression and gets paid to have his picture taken with tourists. I've never been able to work out if he's actually employed by anyone or if he's just an opportunist. Either way, he's woefully historically inaccurate.

[Brentwood]

A captain earns 100k GBP a year and only works 17 days a month. Not bad pay for sitting in a chair all day and socialising with air stewardesses in hotel bars

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Pilot's conditions have been declining for years, sadly.

[Pat Vegas]

the weird part is when you see one just going to the shop or something.

Those guys are smart. One was calling me over by my name and pretending to know me.

Took me a while to realise he was reading my name off my starbucks cup.

[Berni]

It's a ridicules expensive place. I'm going there in a couple of weeks and am very glad I'll be on expenses. :-)

[Berni]

Surely it's just supply and demand? There are clearly too many pilots about.

[Brentwood]

A pint will set you back 7 or 8 quid or so

[Billy Goat Sverige]

here and i was set for spring/summer what with the clocks changing, and then i woke up to snow this morning :-(

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

What on earth did you expect? :hehe:

[Brentwood]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByKD_3sIIAA4zNu.png

[Berni]

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/media/images/galleries/music/badhair/originals/philoakey.jpg

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

the subsequent change in recruitment methods. So many new pilots were required that the old self-regulating filtering system was dropped, and the job became a possibility for any daft c**t with 100k to sepnd on an approved cadet course.

I knew that standards in the far east had dropped pretty badly, but talking to some skippers over the past couple of days it has become apparent that the standard of bloke in the LHS at most LCCs is terrifyingly poor.

[Billy Goat Sverige]

winter. They'd even been out with the trucks sweeping up all the grit they put down. You know winter is over when they start with that :nod:

[Brentwood]

and were totally unprepared for it. I drove my car up the really steep hill I live on and was sliding about all over the place. I'm sure I hit a lamppost at some point

A week earlier I was sitting outside a bar in a tshirt

The funny thing is that the Northern Norwegians are all mocking the soft Oslo folk in the same way as Oslovians usually laugh at the Brits for being unable to cope

[Berni]

snow, etc, etc?

[Brentwood]

It costs an absolute fortune though. There's no way the UK should have to be anywhere near as prepared to cope with the couple of days a year snow we get

[Billy Goat Sverige]

spring. It's the same here. They've started putting out all the seating areas outside the bars and cafes :hehe:

[Brentwood]

[Berni]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

One is that allowing any fool into the industry means that the place is awash with the children of the middle classes who 'harbour a dream to fly' and other such rot, and who are prepared to work hard, and, worse than that, for less than rock star wages. This is entirely contrary to the customary pilot view, of course, but everyone is being dragged down to the same level.

The second problem is that we have a whole generation of peelohs now who simply aren't very good, and many of the earlier entrants are now skippers...

A dear old friend of mine who has been a skipper at Easy for some 10 years told me last night that he is often actually nervous before he goes to work now, because he is going to be monitoring some f**kwit in the LHS who could do pretty much anything.

[Berni]

crock so hard for so long that people have started to believe it?

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

process. Now any freak can get in :-(

[Berni]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

John Gillespie Magee, Jnr.

[Berni]