Not to single your example out Rookie, but its similar to most in this thread where it puts the worst case of one against the best case of the other.rookiepilot wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2019 2:59 pm Hmmm. Reading this thread.
My brother drives heavy double trailers down the 401, day and night. Always jammed with traffic. Always idiots, construction zones, blizzard conditions at times.
I'm hearing comments this is supposed to be easy. From talking to him, I think not.
To me that seems more stressful than piloting a multi crew, multi engine turbine in cruise with a capable autopilot. My brother can't ever let his guard down for a second.
I've done both jobs for work. I currently fly airplanes for work. Which is "harder" depends on one's perspective and what the job of "driver" or "pilot" actually includes in any particular instance. It heavily depends on the circumstances one has to perform it in - most particular in both cases the weather. Lastly it depends on what sort of interactions and dependencies your job might have with other human beings. Usually I would say that the "harder" job would be the one that has the most physical labour involved, is to be conducted most often in the worst weather, and has the worst interactions with other human beings. After all, both jobs become more difficult if they also entail being load master, mechanic, scheduler, dispatcher, supervisor and customer service agent.
As per managing risk, I'm not sure that there's a measurable amount of weight that one could assume in responsibility in whether you screwing up might kill one other person, a busload or a plane load.
For skill involved, any job that requires doing anything that may be considered a series of physical movements is going to be easier with experience and practice. Possibly flying airplanes might require a higher knowledge set, but then everything does if you wish to perform it well. Crappy pilots know as little about their profession as crappy truck drivers.
At the end of the day, they are both blue collar jobs. And there's nothing wrong with that.