Ok so the heading of this blog post will really only be understood by South Africans, but I couldn't resist.
My husband is home soon from a really, really, REALLY ruddy long 'tour' on some exotic island in the Pacific. When I say long, I mean 310 out of 365 days away from home long. He went, because well, it was a pretty decent job, in a pretty decent company, on a pretty decent aircraft that he...you guessed it, had the opportunity to build some good hours on.
I worked in aviation and I am married to a pilot, and I really have to say that I have come to believe that if there is one absolutely unobtainable thing in this world - it is the perfect number of flight hours on the right aircraft at the right time. There seems to forever be a requirement to chase another number, get more flight hours on a turbo prop, get more command hours, the hours need to be on a heavier aircraft, you need jet time. Hours, hours, hours - the more you get of them, it seems the more you need. Only to get the jobs you need to increase your hours or to get onto the aircraft you want - you need to have a certain amount of hours in the first place. It reminds me a little of our presidents attempt at reading numbers...a real struggle, with success generally only ever coming from a huge smattering of good luck!
I have the privilege of knowing a couple of guys sitting on 15 000+ hours on a variety of aircraft and I can pretty much guarantee they have at least once in their lifetime looked at a job posting for their dream job and gone 'Well dammit, I'm just 20 hours short to apply for this'
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