TO BE AN AIRLINE PILOT: IS IT DIFFICULT?

Well…
The short answer is: no. 

But…
How do you cope with the stress of real emergencies?

With the right training, anybody can learn to fly an airplane, let alone fly it on autopilot. But that is not what pilots are hired for.

There is something brutally honest in the decision-making process during an emergency while flying 600 miles an hour at 40.000 feet. Your decisions have you moving either towards safety or towards disaster. The outcome is black and white. Because you are not being scrutinized by a person, but by reality itself.

So instead of trying to boost your confidence, keeping a clear-eyed focus on the facts can save your life. And with that, the lives of your passengers and crew.

Seven years ago, during a tense simulator session as a rookie co-pilot, one captain left a lasting impression on me. He still serves as my perfect example of what makes a pilot stand out.

In the simulator, we were confronted with an engine on fire and we needed a rapid descent to a nearby airfield. On top of that, the mountainous terrain below was complicating our routing. The captain was steering the airplane and I was going through the checklists trying to contain the problem.

While the captain was in perfect control of the aircraft, he kept asking me open-ended questions. He tried not to force any conclusions on me, because he valued my input as if I was his equal. But I didn’t feel like that at all. Instead, I was immersed in the situation and thankful for having such an experienced colleague next to me.

And then a new warning bell sounded.
It presented another failure.
The captain became silent.
He was still focused on descending the airplane, but it seemed as if he was in a bubble avoiding any new input.

After several seconds that felt like minutes, he calmly spoke the following words: “I don’t have a clear view of the situation anymore. Please, grab the controls. Keep the nose at this angle and stay on the current heading because that will keep us clear from terrain”. 

I was blown away by the display of crucially important self-awareness. I followed his instructions.
The Captain, the pilot in command, the person who everyone looks to for answers, was overloaded and he wasn’t too proud to admit it. He had recognized that he needed a breather to fully assess the situation. It was him who needed to get his mind in front of the airplane again.

After a few glances over the instruments and checking the list of failures on the screens, he grabbed the control wheel and stated: “My controls again”. 

Wow.
It was all a simulation, but the gravity of the situation felt real. We were both absorbed by the fact that there was to be zero compromise on the safe outcome of the flight. Our team could not fail. And this captain exemplified what trait is needed in such stressful situations.

He showed that when you start losing clarity, your confidence fading, you can’t even entertain the thought of bluffing your way out. Reality calls your bluff every single time. The captain recognized his weaknesses, played his strengths, and thereby saved the day.

Being so nakedly exposed to the heat of the situation generates a profound kind of stress. Stress that can only be relieved by a ruthlessly effective analysis of the situation. Quickly. There and then. 
Your training and experience alone might not give you that quick fix. 

The ultimate challenge thus becomes; are you able to maintain a helicopter view of the situation in which you are fully immersed?

Can you deal with that unique stress of such emergencies?
If so, then becoming an airline pilot will just feel like training for any other skill. And when you know that you are equipped to face the toughest situations, you will gladly deal with the more mundane tasks of the job.
You might even learn to enjoy coping with: delays and aggravated passengers, jetlag, lost luggage, airplane food, and hours and hours of looking at instruments that always seem to be indicating green.

Until, one day, one of them starts flashing red.