Multiply the rate by 1,100 for a ballpark annual salary. This doesn’t include per diem or benefits, which can be quite good. Delta, for example, puts a 16 percent match, based on total salary, into the pilot’s retirement account with no contribution from them.
Interesting that they intercepted after only 15 minutes. Maybe the aircraft had crossed the border without making contact. In the US, airliners accidentally lose contact for close to this time period quite frequently. To reestablish, the controllers will sometimes have a fellow company ship relay a message with the correct frequency via ACARS, or the lost aircraft can listen on 121.5 until someone calls with the correct frequency. I suppose in Europe this would be considered a more critical issue due to the frequent border crossings.
I know, there are still different communication requirements for different airspaces.
When you file your travel plans you'll have to check in with different ATCs at different points, you are also likely to be contacted by ATCs depending on the flight plan, conditions and various other factors during the flight.
If you do not check in on schedule e.g. when there is a handover of ATCs or you do not respond to ATCs that trying to make contact with you, there will be a flag and an alert will be likely sent.
If this goes on for minutes then they'll assume something was wrong and follow their procedure to make contact and investigate which might involve scrambling jets to make visual contact.
It's not like pilots can be too busy to respond to ATCs yes they might delay a response if they are in a middle of a sentence with a member of the air crew but that's a 5 seconds delay.
Even a 1 minute delay would be flagged and you'll likely to be asked why you haven't responded or made contact on time.
Can confirm. I moved from downtown Detroit to Austin. Austin is great but the core of Detroit is also pretty cool (except for the weather). A lot of the popular restaurants/venues have sort of an 'underground' vibe, and typically aren't as crowded as one might experience elsewhere. New, interesting businesses and groups are constantly popping up downtown. I think of Detroit when I see "keep Austin weird" signs, because Austin isn't weird, it's just gentrification and rich white people. Weird is plentiful and welcome in Detroit. Also, the city remains diverse, which doesn't seem to be the case in Austin. But yeah, still lots of dangerous areas outside of downtown Detroit.
From the article, it seems clear they want to start their own thing. "Amazon’s goal is to eventually haul and deliver packages for itself as well as other retailers and consumers—making it a direct competitor with UPS and FedEx, according to people familiar with the matter. "
The question is will they pay their drivers and sorting facility workers as much as UPS and FedEx. A UPS driver makes $25-$30 which isn't a bad gig, and FedEx pays around the same. Even a part time sorting job is a pretty good job for a college student.
It'd be interesting if they took over one of the carriers they've contracted with (ATI or Atlas). The company is vehemently against organized labor, yet both companies have unionized pilot groups.
Exploiting this aviation-related post to see if any aerospace folks will comment on my two-month old Ask - Ask HN: Why is the National Airspace System so dated? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12651244
In regard to the safety of regionals vs. the major airlines that the article's author is writing about: I can see why the statistics are separate. Even though, according to the FAA, we're all under the "same standard", in practice, this isn't the case. As long as the paperwork looks the same, though, we're "safe". Also, within the industry, some pilots tend to think of themselves as shouldering the responsibility of safety, however, I sometimes think we're safe despite the pilots. Engineers of aircraft, airspace, arrival/departure/approach procedures, airports, ATC systems, etc. are silently keeping you safe. That the FAA is able to manage all of these elements is quite impressive. Still, its massive bureaucracy can be quite Vogon-like.
I think a lot of software engineers would be blown away at how strict software standards are for avionic systems. Like 100% modified condition/decision coverage for all software tests, strict. No pointer math and no dynamic memory allocation, strict.
Being a party to lackluster software development on a regular basis, I somewhat pine for projects this strict.
As part of my daily routine, feigning surprise at the fact that, given a tree of decisions, I'm only permitted to code for the ones that make money, simply to find that "Quality Testing" reveals the 500 other permutations will inevitably result in thrown exceptions with hideous, glaring error messages.
This sort of thing is exactly what some of the software development processes are all about.
When I was in a CMMI training class 10 or more years ago, the instructor we had said basically that much. By instantiating a process, it takes the mental weight of knowing (or checking) if everything is correct.
No one builds cars that way - why should we build anything that way. The processes should catch the inevitable human errors.
I used to be quite into doing exactly what you've written here. Even wanted to compete in an NPC competition. Your guide is the exact same stuff that's written about ad nauseam everywhere. That's fine, because it works for achieving this type of "fitness". Just seems to me that this is a very narrow definition of that. I don't look great shirtless, but I'm becoming a decent trail runner and can do 25-ish pull-ups. My 70 year old dad can't run, but he walks 1500 miles per year. Are we not fit/healthy? This is a standard bodybuilding routine, and seems like a very 20-something, American college male, Instagram idea of fitness. No problem, it's a good, concise guide. There's just a lot more to fitness than bodybuilding.
They sensationalize this as "worst", but I'm sure many pilots would choose jobs such as this over the mundane task of operating a large airliner if the pay and career prospects were equal.
Multiply the rate by 1,100 for a ballpark annual salary. This doesn’t include per diem or benefits, which can be quite good. Delta, for example, puts a 16 percent match, based on total salary, into the pilot’s retirement account with no contribution from them.