Blog Archives - AskThePilot.com

AskThePilot.com, authored by airline pilot Patrick Smith, represents one of the longest-running practitioner-written aviation commentary archives in digital media, with posts spanning from the site's origins as a Salon.com column in 2002 through active entries as recently as May 2026. The archive catalogs more than 80 distinct pieces covering the full spectrum of commercial aviation: accident analysis, regulatory debate, airline industry economics, cabin product evolution, and the operational texture of a working pilot's career. Unlike most aviation journalism produced by external observers, the archive's value to professional readers lies in its insider perspective — Smith writes from the flight deck, not the terminal, and the accumulated record reflects the concerns and observations of a line pilot across more than two decades of industry change.

Several threads running through the archive carry direct relevance to working pilots and operators. The site's treatment of high-profile incidents — including the UPS Flight 1354 Louisville crash, the January 2024 Haneda runway collision between Japan Airlines Flight 516 and a Japan Coast Guard Dash-8, and ongoing coverage of MH370 — consistently prioritizes technical accuracy and CRM analysis over sensationalism. Posts on turbulence, icing, non-precision approaches, and situational awareness ground these events in the operational realities pilots navigate daily. The piece titled "Old Dog, New Tricks," documenting Smith's transition from Boeing to Airbus, addresses type-rating differences — fly-by-wire sidestick versus conventional yoke, simulator training timelines, and cockpit philosophy — that remain germane to any pilot contemplating a fleet change or cross-manufacturer transition.

Regulatory and labor themes emerge with particular force across the archive's timeline. Entries on the pilot retirement age debate ("Dignified and Old"), regional airline working conditions ("The Regional Reckoning"), and historical salary comparisons ("Dollars and Sense") trace a profession that has undergone substantial structural disruption over the archive's two-decade span. The retirement age discussion is especially pointed: Smith's opposition to raising the mandatory retirement ceiling to 67 reflects concerns about physiological risk and cockpit fatigue that resonate with flight surgeons, chief pilots, and scheduling departments alike. These pieces, read sequentially, document the arc from post-9/11 contraction through COVID-era collapse and into the current environment of constrained pilot supply and elevated compensation at major carriers.

The archive also functions as a contemporaneous record of passenger-facing changes that shape the operational environment for flight crews. Coverage of premium cabin "door suite" trends, TSA policy shifts including the long-awaited elimination of the shoe removal requirement, biometric screening expansion, and the psychology of air rage incidents reflects the cabin-crew interface that occupies a significant portion of a line pilot's situational awareness beyond the flight deck door. Smith's sustained skepticism toward security theater and his nuanced treatment of in-flight disruption align with the perspective of operators who must balance passenger relations, crew authority, and legal compliance in real time. Taken as a whole, the AskThePilot.com archive constitutes a practitioner-sourced longitudinal record of commercial aviation that professional pilots, safety officers, and aviation educators would find substantively useful as both reference and context.