<LOL> Well, yes, in many eyes, the cargo pilot is not as "up there" as the passenger pilots I suppose, but there are different levels of cargo flying. Let's see if I can explain this... .
1) As you noted, the full, or larger sized exclusive cargo companies do have good reputations and are extremely busy. This would include FedEx, DHL, Purolator, Atlas, Polar, Air Contractors, etc., etc. These guys offer advancement and the potential to fly aircraft and to places you may not get a chance with when working for the passenger outfits.
2) While more glamorous (I suppose), cargo pilots don't have to deal with unruly passengers or worse (terrorist threats) nearly to the same degree airline pilots do.
3) Flying a cargo plane is a more relaxed position, mainly because you don't have passenger demands to worry about (last time I checked, 4000 Kg of flowers have never once complained about bumpy air
).
4) Cargo, again while less glamorous, is extremely important. Many objects transported on cargo planes include much needed medical supplies, as well as other highly important products that people need urgently. True, a lot of it is simply "toys" (TV's, radios, and whatnot), but often there are things like batteries that run pacemakers, scientific packages that are extremely time sensitive (ice cores from Greenland for example, in the study of the global climate change), vehicle parts without which many, many people would be laid off work from, food stuffs to keep the world fed, emergency relief supplies going to areas of natural disasters, and so on.
There are more examples, but that would require me to actually think, and that could hurt
. What draws me to cargo mostly is that the scheduling is far more versatile and varied than simply flying for a passenger airline. Even in FSX, if I want to keep it reasonably "real", if I were flying for a passenger outfit, I'd be on the Vancouver to Anchorage run for a couple of weeks, or Toronto-Miami run for another couple, and so on. You tend to do the same route and the same time, for a specified period of time, AND you aren't allowed (in North America) to (assuming you are a Canadian company) pick up a charter in Canada, and go to several U.S. cities on that same charter. You can go to one place in the States, drop your people off, then pick them up again and come back to Canada. It's the same going the other way for American carriers (this may be different in Europe, but I don't know). However, if you are operating a cargo outfit, you can pretty much go where the cargo needs to go. So, I could load up my 707-320F in Toronto, go to Philadelphia and offload/onload cargo, then go to Miami to drop off and pick up some more cargo, then to Prestwick (Scotland), Liege, Bangkok, etc., all on a single run. That sounds a lot more interesting than driving back and forth between Montreal and Atlanta for 2 weeks straight
. There really is lots to say about being a cargo pilot, and some (many) do it by choice for those very reasons. It's a great way to see a lot of the world, AND not have to deal with the main terminal traffic at the other end! Not bad, eh?
Thanks very much indeed for your quick response. I do know it's early yet and I'm certainly not asking for "when", only "if" and it's great to hear that one will be made down the road. Thank you!
Glenn
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Freighter 707? (Read 7185 times)
