How do I cope with having a pilot as a boyfriend? Thomas Zerbarini Comments...

My answer to How do I cope with having a pilot as a boyfriend?

Answer by Thomas Zerbarini:

Well said Lexa.

I can relate to the fact that an insecure partner can have detrimental affects on a relationship. I had partner that was extremely jealous and with low self-confidence. I would experience awful accusations and false suspicions all the time. It was extremely embarrassing and frustrating. I found myself avoiding phone calls with my partner around my crew or in public places to stave off the accusatory questions of "who is that girls voice?" and "what, are you going out with your flight attendant tonight?"

My partners behavior made me less and less interested in her over time and eventually apathy took over and the relationship was doomed.

As a pilot that frequently spends numerous overnights with the crew, and many times they are female, going out to dinner or exploring the area is normal and a friendly way to make your trip enjoyable. Sometimes, I would insist that the crew stay together and have meals together for security reasons in a hostile downtown area.

Likewise, when my partner would go on business trips they were almost always all men. I would expect her to have meals and spend free time with the gentlemen with which she was traveling.

I trusted my partner and had no reason not to trust her. It made me secure in myself and in my understand of the relationship.

My partner didn't and couldn't trust; it fed her lack of self confidence. She should have trusted me because there was no reason not to. Since she chose not to trust, it consumed her and drove a wedge between us. Toward the end, she was hunting for anything to confirm her false suspicions. She was hell bent to prove she was right all along and would not rest until she came up with her ah-ha moment.

So, if you don't have trust in your partner, don't have a relationship with him/her. Further, if your expectations are that your partner never have opposite sex friends or casual professional outings amongst co-workers, then don't engage in a relationship.

Of course some people are not trustworthy and will cheat or be unfaithful. It's just not worth the anxiety and worry to not trust anyone. Start with trust and build on it. If overtime their actions prove untrustworthy, then confront it, forgive it and/or end it and move on. Worry and distrust in a relationship is prime ingredient for failure.

Thomas Zerbarini

How do I cope with having a pilot as a boyfriend?

How do I cope with having a pilot as a boyfriend?

How do I cope with having a pilot as a boyfriend? by Lexa Michaelides Answer by Lexa Michaelides:

How do I cope with having a pilot as a boyfriend?

TL;DR of details: Sometimes boyfriend has stayovers and hangs out with the crew (which includes women) when he's in another country. Recently he hung out with two female flight attendants and they went longboarding and swimming in bikinis. Boyfriend didn't tell OP that it was just him and two women.

I was angry because he dint bother to tell me anything after i found out and confronted him he just blamed it all on me and told me to stop asking so much questions , he started blaming the whole problem on me and then hungup on me over the phone.

I am in a tough situation here, am i wrong for being angry because he did not tell me properly that he just ended up with two girls ?? He had a choice and like he already has a girlfriend and i find this abit inapropriate. Because i know he wont even like it if i went out with guys alone without telling him.

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This has nothing to do with your partner being a pilot and everything to do with insecurity and lack of communication on both of your parts.

If your partner wouldn't be happy with you going out with your guy friends, he's insecure and jealous. People are allowed to have friends. It's important to have friends. Sometimes friends are of the gender that we happen to be attracted to. That doesn't mean anything because they're friends not lovers or partners. If you're not happy about your partner hanging out with his friends, you're being jealous and insecure as well. What else do you expect him to do, only go out when the men outnumber the women? Sit in his hotel room alone, staring at a photograph of you and crying because he's not allowed to interact with other women now that he has a girlfriend?

Do you two have an agreement where you have to tell one another before hanging out with people of the opposite sex? No? Then he didn't have to tell you that he was hanging out with women, just like you don't have to tell him when you're hanging out with men. You're just hanging out with friends, there's nothing dangerous or scary about that. Either the fear is entirely in your own mind because of your own insecurity or your partner is not trustworthy and therefore not worth your time.

It's childish of you to expect him not to hang out alone with women. It's childish if he would be angry at you for hanging out alone with men. It was childish for you to "confront" him about something that isn't wrong and childish of him to blame the issue on you and hang up instead of discussing it.

He had a choice and like he already has a girlfriend and i find this abit inapropriate.

Please tell me what's inappropriate about having friends while you're in a relationship. Please explain to me why you think that someone has to choose between their partner and having friends of the same gender as their partner. If you trust your partner, neither of those are issues. If you don't trust your partner, then your partner is the issue, not the friendships they have with other people.

Be secure in your relationships or get new relationships.

How do I cope with having a pilot as a boyfriend?

Which one plays a critical role in determining children 's personality? Congenital cause or the way of parenting?

I believe that it is both congenital and parenting that play critical roles in determining personality.

I've discovered that good parenting significantly shapes the personality and behavior of children and can overcome many congenital behaviors.

Children learn how to behave, what is acceptable, what to say and do, adults and parents are significant contributors to child memory, perceptions and behaviors. What surprises me is that peer pressure, even at the toddler age appears to have more influence on what our children say and do and how they behave.

Also, we all perceive things differently and different experiences to draw upon. Even a group or family experiencing the same event will have similar but differing recollections of the same event. There inlays the core of why I believe our personalities are so different.

I find that this website is a good start on understanding and discovering the theories on personality development.

What Factors Affect Personality Development in Childhood?

Thomas Zerbarini

Which one plays a critical role in determining children 's personality? Congenital cause or the way of parenting?

How can an arts graduate become a pilot?

Anyone can become a pilot as a career or a hobby.

If a career is what you're after check out the military branches and/or the civilian route with a professional school. If you simply want to be a pilot for your own personal enjoyment/business check out the local small airports for flight schools and/or instructors.

If you want to become an airline pilot, check out one of my previous blog posts on the steps to take:

What are the steps of becoming an airline pilot and how much time will it take?

I had a number of blog post on this subject so look through the history for more information.

If you have anymore questions, don't hesitate to drop me a comment or message via this post.

Thomas Zerbarini

How can arts graduate become a pilot?

What are the most challenging airports for commercial aircraft?

There are several challenging airports around the world. The Discovery Channel did a nice job in a 1 hour show documenting the top 10 most dangerous airports.

Here is a youtube clip showing some impressive video:



Also, check out this other youtube video: 

 Bush pilots and Jungle pilots probably are the most exposed to strange places to land. Some are on hillsides, some are on river beds, some are in tiny patches of clearing in a dense jungle. Usually, the problem with a landing spot is taking off. It takes more energy and runway to take-off than to land. So, pilots in the Bush don't wan't to get stuck where they can't take off.

 Thomas Zerbarini

  What is the least straight runway that is used for commercial jet aircraft?

What can be said of a parent who does not admit fault or mistakes to their child?

The most obvious problem with an adult not admitting to their faults or mistakes teaches children to be dishonest with others. That it is okay to lie and to be deceitful. It also teaches a child that if you make a mistake, hide it and don't admit it. this invariably results in not learning from their mistakes and looking at the mistake as a failure and reflection on their self esteem.

So, it is important to own up to your mistakes and errors and communicate with our children that:

1. you made a mistake or error
2. apologize if appropriate
3. what you should have done
4. how to correct the mistake
5. finally, what you learned from the mistake and how you will avoid doing it again.

This teaches children honesty and integrity to oneself and others. It teaches a child how to identify their mistakes and how to learn from them. It teaches a child how to build strong relationships with others. It also, builds self esteem and self confidence because the child is less afraid to express themselves even when it involves a mistake or some possible negative issue.

I hope that helps. This is just my way and thinking and what I do with my children.

You have to remember that children are so impressionable and malleable and they learn so much from their parent(s) and other adults around them. They pick up whatever they are surrounded with positive and/or negative.

Thomas Zerbarini

 What can be said of a parent who does not admit fault or mistakes to their child?

Do commercial pilots sometimes forget or not notice if autothrottle is on/off when it should be in the opposite state?

Thinking about Asiana flight 214, and anecdotal evidence of near misses on approach (stall) when autothrottle was believed to be active but was actually off, is it common to misunderstand the state of autothrottle, and is it easy to miss?

Answer by Thomas Zerbarini:

As you can see from your question in reference to the Asiana accident; yes it is possible for pilots to miss something. Although quite rare and unlikely it can happen. With improper training, distractions, complacency or other contributing factors errors are possible. That is why we train and re-train so much. It's why we have multiple pilots, checklists, flows, scans and many other mechanisms to establish checks-and-balances for safety.

Aviation Week did a good article summarizing the NTSB findings which included the main probable cause and the many contributing factors that caused the accident.

NTSB Calls For Special Review Of Boeing 777 Speed Control

With these findings in mind, we can emphasis how important it is for pilots to be diligent and monitor the aircrafts performance and flight path at all times even when the auto-pilot is engaged. Now, professional pilots know this and it is engrained in us. Yet, complacency can be insidious which makes monitoring each other in the cockpit is so important.

Here is an image of a Boeing 777 Cockpit:

At the very top on the glare shield panel in the center is the Mode Control Panel MCP (auto-pilot panel). It looks like this:

On the MCP you'll notice on the left side the A/T (auto-throttle) switch light. This switch light is green when the auto-throttles are engaged. If you read the Aviation Week article I provided above you'll notice that the A/T system was engaged, so the green switch light would be green (on) and if the pilot did a quick scan would see that they were on. Due to the design of the system though, the A/T's were in FLCH "hold mode" and the low speed automatic response was inhibited. Thereby allowing the aircraft speed to deteriorate to a dangerously low speed. The fact that the pilot(s) did not recognize the dangerous low speed nor respond quickly enough is what the NTSB has highlighted as the primary blame for the accident.

Here is a great interactive (click on switches) website that describes the functions of the various controls on the MCP panel:

777 Mode Control Panel ( MCP )

Thomas Zerbarini

Do commercial pilots sometimes forget or not notice if autothrottle is on/off when it should be in the opposite state?