The headline reads: “Most people don’t need a four-year degree to do a good job. Herb Kelleher knew that, and built Southwest Airlines by hiring the right people, not people with the right college credentials.” As though a college degree is therefore un-necessary to work for an airline.
JD then goes into a bunch of nonsense that includes his idea that an airline pilot doesn’t need a college degree to “take off and land safely” since he, JD, has done it…… Yeah, well I completely disagree and admonish JD to print a full retraction. Here’s why: one or even a dozen take-off’s and landings in some small airplane with an instructor or safety pilot sitting beside JD does not begin to cover the multiple knowledge and skill sets needed to safely fly a small airplane with one engine or a larger one with multiple engines in the fog while it’s snowing, something all airline pilots must be able to do.
There are so much additional information and many, many skills needed for pilots to fly on instruments. Landing an aircraft containing say 100 souls is far more difficult than landing a small aircraft with only two or four seats with an instructor on board, which is what JD did and on which he formed his rather dangerous opinion. He also has opinions that a college degree is not necessary to be a salesman or a journalist. Statistics prove otherwise. Some companies will not even read the resume of an applicant to fly their aircraft,or sell their bulldozers who has less than a four year college degree. Journalists? If JD is correct why do colleges offer degrees in journalism? The answer is he’s dangerously wrong.
The danger of JD’s opinions is that someone will decide to fly an airplane without the skill-sets needed to take off and land safely. On a short trip in a twin engine aircraft, an aircraft in which JD never trained or flew the weather changed very, very quink and we were flying in snow which made the ground below and the horizon invisible. A pilot must see either the horizon or be trained to use the instruments to fly in those conditions because first of all, there’s no way for a non-instrument pilot to safely fly under those conditions as John F. Kennedy Jr. and his two passengers found out when he crashed into the water and the three were killed in the crash. They were all wearing seat belts. That didn’t help them stay alive in the crash. They were found still in their seats wearing the seat belts in 115 feet of water. The crash happened because the pilot who could take-off and land safely as JD clains is sufficient to fly safely was insufficient to prevent the crash. Three people died as they followed Mulland’s ideas about flying.
It’s difficult enough to take off when it’s raining even though the visibility is sufficient to do it because the aircraft can easily slide into a crash during the take-off during which the rather small aircraft tires lose their earth-bound traction. Less traction means steering by the wheels is less and less effective until it stops which happens at a very, very high speed. A sliding aircraft is out of control. An out of control aircraft is a very, very dangerous place to be especially is the wind is pushing the aircraft to the side which is the usual case during a take-off but if the pilot is able to take-off there’s still the landing under cross-wind conditions.
A few words about the wind. It changes according to altitude. The pilot must compensate for the changing wind while the aircraft is descending and continue to compensate during the landing roll and even to taxi the aircraft around the airport. That’s a load of different skills, skills that are made easier when someone has a college degree. How do we know that? By comparing the basic intelligence of people with and without college degrees. A college degree increases the probability that a job applicant will be able to master the different skills needed to safely fly complex aircraft loaded with trusting souls in all sorts of weather.
Flying an aircraft on instruments requires more than the ability to take-off and land and taxi the aircraft. Most people with private flying certificates cannot safely fly on instruments.
An instrument flight requires different maps, called charts than a flight in good visibility. JFK Jr. didn’t have them. Instrument landings require an approach plate, a small, two or more page document that shows for example the many different radio frequencies, the runway lengths, the runway compass direction, the paving of the different runways, the taxiways, the locations of buildings and obstacles on and near the airport, the radio frequencies for the various landing systems, the radio frequencies for the glide path and the minimum visibility for even flying the instrument approach. None of that is covered during a flight like JD probably did. None. Not one and all and more must be known to fly on instruments.
Flying an aircraft with more than one engine requires additional skills not available to a pilot who has only flown an aircraft with one engine. Add to that all of the different systems and sub-systems of larger and larger aircraft and it’s easy to understand why many aircraft require more than one pilot to fly. Is a college degree necessary to do that? Embry Riddle Aeronautical University thinks so. They graduate pilots with college degrees.
Purdue University has 10 colleges and schools, with a total of almost 200 majors. Within Purdue’s College of Technology, students can major in Aeronautical Engineering Technology, Air Traffic Control, Aviation Management, or Flight (also called Professional Flight Technology). The College of Technology at Purdue also offers a Masters of Science in Aviation & Aerospace Management. That’s a masters degree for pilots.
The John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Studies at the University of North Dakota has long been known as one of the best aviation schools in the country. UND Aerospace offers two aviation degree programs with a total of seven academic majors. Each has its own flight course requirements, which affect the cost of a degree program.
Location: Grand Forks, North Dakota
Degree Programs: Within the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, students can earn a degree in Airport Management, Aviation Management, Air Traffic Control, Aviation Technology Management, Commercial Aviation (fixed wing or helicopter), Flight Education or UAS Operations. UND also offers a Masters of Science in Aviation and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Sciences.
On it goes. Ohio State, Western Michigan University and San Jose State U also offer college for pilots.
It’s also known that JD himself has a college degree in Journalism, a career he argues doesn’t need one. Funny, that, eh?
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