no its also because of the things they have to do that they
didnt think would come with being a pilot..
like i said, 70% of the time you wont be flying but doing other
stuff, some are really shitstuff..
and yeah weekends getting burnt along with ph doesnt seem like a
very nice job to do isn't it?
Well, Pablo has addressed on the issues of opportunities and
salary... Do you know anything about their working schedule of a
pilot...?
Hmm... I supposed you're right about that... However, you
mentioned that the pay of SIA and RSAF pilot would be around the
same... I thought the SIA has a much higher pay like above
4k...?
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being a pilot is not only just about flying the plane.
let's put it in context and we'll just discuss about the fighter
pilot aspect.
for every mission that you do, you definitely have to prepare
for it right? i.e the mission planning, mission briefing,
coordination and stuff. the most appropriate person to do it
would be the pilots involved and no one else right? and this has to
take place on the ground.
so let's say on average for a 1 hour mission, you have a 1 hour
briefing and a 1 hour debriefing. and let's cater time for
transits(getting to and back from the jet) maybe 30mins? and
if you have an average of 2 flights a day which is not uncommon
because operational squadrons do fly VERY regularly and there's not
that many pilots for you to just fly once a week otherwise that
would be really ideal. i don't think pilots would mind working less
for that same amount of money. you actually would get 2 hours
flight time and about 4 hours of time on the ground which is
actually true you do spend 70% of the time on the ground but not
necessarily doing shit work.
not to mention that you still have the next days mission
planning/ coordination. maybe you might have reports to finish up
and all. its all in a day's work.and flight preparation and debrief
is time consuming because it has to be thorough to cover all the
important aspects of the mission and the lessons learnt. if not,
then the pilots would literally be "flying round the island to
clock currency" to quote but the truth is that every mission has a
learning objective; whether it is to improve your BFM or your
bombing accuracy or whatever other missions you are supposed to do.
but of course there will be the rare occasion where you have
flights dedicated to just basics flying to consolidate the basic
flying fundamentals.
also for those bilateral exercises or those combined exercises
that take place, the people organising and planning the operational
aspect of it would definitely have to be the pilots and sometimes
other related agencies; and this again will take time away
from flying.
and about those other shit stuff like maybe organising events or
other stuff. it probably comes with every job. i'm very sure in
private sector their own DnD's for example would have to be
overseen by probably their junior staff as well? so i guess the
amount of shit you actually get is indirectly proportional to how
high up you are the ladder?
weekends/ph getting burnt is part and parcel of the job because
its defence of singapore you're talking about. there are no
holidays when it comes to this. but of course its not every weekend
that you get planned to work (if you do then probably the guy
planning it doesn't like you, or there's simply a shortage of
manpower which is not impossible). but the good thing is at least
most of the time your in country; compared to commercial flying
whereby there are totally no Pub Hols/ weekends in the
consideration for their planning of pilot rosters, you spend more
time away and definitely more weekends burnt.
so if you weigh the pros n cons of being in the airforce and
commercial flying versus what one expects from the job. it wouldn't
be difficult to make a choice as to which job is more suitable for
each individual's aspirations.
hopefully this dispels some of the myths and half-truths about
worklife of a pilot that's going around in here which is based on
alot of assumptions and inferences.
