By JEB BURNSIDE.
There are three basic types of people you meet in the typical FBO’s pilot lounge.
If you’ve read many of my columns for General Aviation News, it will not surprise you to learn I like hanging around FBOs and pilot lounges.
My enjoyment of this pastime stems from working as a lineboy at my local airport one summer and from, well, hanging around FBOs.
Each facility is different, of course, but there are certain similarities and “features” we’ve all come to expect at an FBO.
A coffee pot is one, as is a seating area populated with magazines and other reading material, plus an area devoted to vending machines and food.
Standard fare often includes candy bars and peanut butter-filled cheese-flavored crackers, plus some way to dispense soft drinks. If you’re living right, the crackers have a sell-by date younger than your airplane, and the soda machine isn’t out of your favorite flavor.
There’s also some kind of flight-planning room, perhaps with a large VFR planning chart covering one wall.
If the FBO has been around for a while and primarily caters to flight training and the lighter end of general aviation, the chart will have a long string nailed into it at the airport’s location, often running to a pulley in the ceiling and terminated by a lead fishing weight hanging down to the floor from the pulley. That’s used to give pilots a rough magnetic course and distance to their next destination. (Pro tip: Don’t just let go of the string when you’re finished with it; gently ease it back to its resting state.)
But the sanctum sanctorum at any FBO is the pilot’s lounge. Ideally, it’s a separate room down the hall, near the water fountain and the bathrooms. It has a television tuned to the Weather Channel, a couple of worn recliners and a couch. There’s a sign on the door saying something like “Pilots Only.”
This room is the heart and soul of the FBO. It’s the real reason the FBO exists, which is not to pump fuel, as many believe.
It’s where all who enter are more or less equal, at least at first. It also is where you get to meet interesting people. From flight instructors, student pilots, corporate crews and transients, there’s always someone new and different in the lounge. Everyone has a tale to tell and a lesson to share.
Based on decades of in-depth study and detailed observation, I’ve concluded there are three basic types of pilots who populate the pilot’s lounge.
The Student
It’s usually easy to tell the student pilot from others in the lounge. For one, his or her entry is tentative, as if the student is acutely aware the certificate in their pocket isn’t what everyone else has. They’re not even sure they’re supposed to be in this hallowed room, but no one is telling them to leave.
The student can be hard to identify at first. Close inspection, however, reveals a nearly new, unscuffed flight bag with fresh charts, a plotter and an E6-B flight computer, and a high-end headset, also nearly new.
The student typically finds a quiet seat in the corner and pulls out a FAR/AIM copy, an airplane flight manual/pilot’s operating handbook, or a chart, and begins to study. Occasionally he or she will look up and glance around the room, to see if anyone is eyeing them suspiciously and about to ask them to leave. No one does, since they have every right to be there, too.
We’ve all been this person at one time or another.
Ace of The Base
Another type of person found in the typical pilot’s lounge is the Ace of The Base. He — they invariably are male — is easy to spot: He carries a flight bag, but his is larger than the student’s. If possible, it’s probably newer but much heavier, stuffed with all kinds of gear and gadgets; none of the bag’s contents is new, but all of it is relatively unused.
Rather than tentative, his entry into the lounge is busy, officious. He’s wearing a high-end pair of sunglasses — even inside — and some kind of military-style jacket, festooned with decorations identifying him as a pilot. The decorations usually consist of patches celebrating aircraft types he’ll never fly, like an F-117 stealth fighter or an Airbus A380.
He has a couple of expensive writing instruments stuck into the jacket sleeve’s pencil holder and maybe a small airplane-shaped pin or two adorning the collar. (He also wears this jacket when at parties and bar-hopping, and always goes home alone.)
The Ace probably has a VFR-only private ticket, with around 100 hours in his logbook, having passed his checkride the second time maybe five years earlier. He’d like to get his instrument rating, but he’s also prone to airsickness, which remains a closely held secret.
He has no plans to fly today, and is just hanging out before he has to show up for his fast-food job.
Don’t be this guy.
Just Another Pilot
This guy or gal might be carrying a kneeboard or an iPad, but isn’t really interested in it. He or she nods at the students when they walk in, perhaps with a slight, knowing smile.
This pilot is stretched out on one of the recliners, with one eye closed and the other kinda/sorta watching the television. She’d like to get a quick nap before the next leg, but really is just thankful to be in something that isn’t moving at a bunch of knots. A vending-machine water bottle is in one hand while a cellphone occupies the other.
He or she might be wearing something approaching a uniform, perhaps a shirt featuring epaulets but lacking stripes. Comfortable shoes and loose-fitting pants are the norm, with a cheap pair of sunglasses perched on the head.
When he looks around the room, the crow’s feet around the eyes evidence more than a few late afternoons spent flying westbound.
Be this person.
Or there is just the happy to be there away from his blue collar job, weekend warrior with 300 to 1000 hours of pure pleasure flying, sitting over at the coffee table with his maps and charts showing his young granddaughter how to plot a course, ready go for another day of flying to somewhere for breakfast or a burger….he wears a baseball cap that has something to do with his aging but reliable plane such as a parts supplier logo or a hat his AME gave him in appreciation for all the annual inspections that he has done for him and he has a serene, this is what happiness feels like look on his face that infects the entire room.
I think you missed the most important type of pilot one might find in the pilots lounge. Let’s call him The Mentor.
The Mentor will usually be found in an old recliner in the corner wearing a leather flight jacket that will be older than all the other pilots on the field and maybe older than the field too. Not being prone to brag, silver hair and character lines will be the only thing that gives away their experience. They will be interested in your stories and exploits but once you get them talking you may find they have time in everything from goony birds to the Concorde. Many will train the next generation of pilots for free or steep discount discount “to have something to fill the time”.
Ray,
Your the sort of pilot I want to meet and hang out with at FBOs, hopefully glean some knowledge from that life of experience you have.
I was dismayed to read (in a GA cheap-paper publication) a diatribe against a livable minimal wage by the owner/publisher/diatriber. I was dismayed. GA has to decide: be accessible to more people so as to train more pilots or continue to be accessible only to the 1%. Having low-level employees who you’re paying only $7.25 an hour makes GA look … like any other corporation digging in its heels regarding treating workers like humans.
The phrase “living wage” has no meaning. It is a slogan unions came up with to pretend min wage jobs are real jobs and are suitable as career jobs that can support a family. They are not. Once and for all…let’s put to bed that silly idea. In an economy where people find themselves stuck in a min wage job instead of a good, decent paying job it is part the lame policies that failed to solve the subprime crash (and we know who was behind giving houses to the poor who could never afford them) and people not preparing themselves and positioning themselves for the real job market where the good paying jobs exist.
There will NEVER be a solution where a min wage job equals a real job where a family person can exact a wage high enough to support a family. The attempt to coerce min wage jobs using government force to higher wage levels will and are resulting in nothing more than a speedier path to automation and the eliminate of those jobs entirely.
While we are at it, let’s get rid of the idea that a minimum wage can be legislated. The minimum wage is dictated by economics and it is always $0 per hour. Ask any unemployed individual.
Have never seen a student or an Ace type. The two types we see in our FBO are the Bizjet pilots and the charter guys….and of course their passengers standing around confused and looking smug about their ability to fly in a private jet or charter. We also see FBO personell milling around ignoring everyone.
To Ray, I envy you for having that beautiful 210hp Swift an a/c that I dearly love; still kicking myself that I didn’t buy 528H in 1967 for $5500 when I had the opportunity. Keep flying for as long as u can as I quit but really miss it..
Hey Jeb!
You forgot me in pilot culture.
I am the ACE of the Base!
Age 75, 27,000 hrs, 9 type ratings, not counting 5 Navy single seat fighters!
Soloed in 1957, Crop duster at age 19 in a a 450 Stearman. Navy right out of college, 123 Combat Missions, 5 Carriers. A flight Instructor since 1962 and fly acro in my 210hp Swift 2 days a month.
Do Flight Reviews for hobby Pilots free even if it takes 3 hours. Have joined the Sport Pilot group instructing Avid Flyer and Kit Fox 30% less $ because I do not need the money, just some to keep the wife of 52 years happy. (Also was a Navy single seat RAG instructor 2 tours).
Retired from the Navy and Continental Airlines as Captain both times.
Flew the very first B777s to Hong Kong 18hrs nonstop.
Forced retirement @ 60, flew all over the world almost 9 more years in Gulfstream II, III, and IV.
Now I just love my Swift and help anyone who wants to fly the best I can, even if they must lesson to hours of how it used to be.
Good Luck, fly safe>
Ray
Ray,
You truly are the ‘Ace of the Base’. Thanks for your service and contributions to aviation!
A light take on pilot culture not to be taken too seriously…. but for some reason now I’m feeling a little self conscious about my flight bag with a Blue Angels patch on it…..
As fun as stereotyping pilots might be, perhaps consider imagining people complexly. After all, no pilot or anyone else simply fits into three categories and everyone contains multitudes.
There’s only ONE type that “hangs-out” at there FBO’s lounge: the Socialist!
Boy, is this going to get responses???