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driving as the greenest, rawest copilot on an airliner is capable of flying.
Did you know that it takes as long or longer for a pilot to qualify for command of an aircraft as it does for a doctor to qualify for practice? Eight years is the average time a copilot must serve before he is allowed to wear the coveted four stripes of a captain. And his training never stops. His flying ability and his capability for command are tested twice a year by special check flights and by comprehensive examination. He may have flown for 25,000 hours, but he still has to go through recurrent training every twelve months, and that training includes the testing of his ability to handle emergencies.
He cannot fly a specific route unless he has qualified over that route-- to make sure he is familiar with the airports navigation aids, approach patterns, and other route characteristics.
Sometimes it strikes us that those who are afraid to fly are guilty of being illogical. Most of us think nothing of stepping into our car, supremely confidant of our ability to drive. Yet the average motorist can encounter more emergency situations in one day of driving than an airline pilot might encounter in months of flying. And this average motorist cannot even approach the airline pilot in his ability to cope with any emergency--not in his physical reactions, in his technical skills nor in his split-second judgment.
As I said earlier, safety is the art of reducing risk to the least possible chance of occurrence. Flight crew aviation is a major reason why commercial aviation IS safe.