What an airline pilot says about Trump [View all]

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From a good friend's Facebook page. He flew for Southwest Airlines and is a native Texan.

When I was working as an airline pilot, often we’d get a little person visiting the cockpit (or, if you must, the politically correct “flight deck”) between flights. They were almost always the most bedazzled by the seemingly endless array of dials and gauges and switches and controls and meters and such. I remember one small fry who stared for a good three minutes and then waved his arms at all the stuff, and solemnly asked, “Do you actually know what each of these does?”

I thought about it for a few seconds, and realized that, yes, I did. Know what every single switch did, and what each gauge said, and what information was being conveyed by each of the hundreds of warning lights, bells and buzzers. I said, “Well, yes I do.” The little guy looked at me with something akin to awe and said, “You must be really, really smart.” I told him, no, but that I had worked very hard to learn my lessons in school.

After he was herded out by his apologetic Mom, I looked around my workplace, amazed again at this wondrous device that I was entrusted to operate. Thought about the thousands of hours spent studying and practicing and pondering and learning and devotion to my craft that it took to get here and sit in this chair, and assume the awesome responsibility of keeping all those people in the back-- including my new little friend-- safe.

One thing is certain. I didn’t just walk in after a lifetime of intellectual laziness, never having had any inclination to even try to understand the essential principals of how an airplane worked and flew, never having the dedication and discipline to begin to understand the big picture, much less the minutia, but instead just sitting my incompetent butt in the chair and shouting, “It’s gonna be so great. You won’t believe how great and how safe it will be! I will be the best pilot ever, this I can tell you! I’m the only guy who can fly this plane. Trust me. That I can tell you!”

And what would have been truly astonishing? If they took a vote among the passengers in the back, and they voted to make me the Captain!

https://www.facebook.com/bo.barber1?fref=ts